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Phanes the Agender · Lambda: the LGBT in Antiquity Podcast

• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast, your home for all things LGBT in the ancient world.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dominica Raven, episode twenty, Fanes the Agender.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: First there were only chaos, time, and inevitability.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: They bound together and begot the beautiful and noble Eros, who is called later Fanes, the two-form progenitor of all things, human and divine.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: They bellow like a bull and fly on great wings, they scattered the mist at the dawn of all things.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: God who brought many seeds and is the bringer of pure light, deity of complex needs, join us in this complex rite.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the Orphic cosmology, the beginning of all things contained only wet and dry matter, the elemental stuff of chaos, which existed alone for an unimaginable amount of time.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, all of this mixed together into a common mud of creation.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Out of this mixture, wet, dry, and inevitable time, ether came into being.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond this, Phanes has two gendered natures manifested on their body as well.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is both male and female genitals in this figure.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: In this early period of the universe, there weren't any specific distinctions between bodily forms.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nature, time, and necessity had not yet divided out what these creatures were meant to look like.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you'll find creatures who have a lion's head, a dragon's body, and a serpent's tail, precisely because a lion, a dragon, and a serpent hadn't been differentiated yet.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Put another way, there isn't a clean delineation between types of bodies and physical traits that would come to define the universe that we commonly understand.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: When Zeus takes over the universe, it's not simply that he's in charge of everything now, it's that he has been the destined orderer of all things.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus was meant to provide celestial order to what had been Messi prior to that point.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So in this early universe we find these chimeric beings of strange and monstrous bodies that don't look anything like what we would find today because Zeus hadn't ordered it yet.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Phanes is also called thesis, the exact same word we use today, which means in Greek to put something forth.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes put forth everything in the universe.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is also true of gender.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: In this primeval universe, nature had not divided gender into any meaningful categories, at least none that would make sense to a later viewer.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is best manifested in the figure of Phanes, who is shown with male and female genitals and represents supreme creative power.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes was able to create as if from nothing, both by manifesting things throughout the universe, and giving birth after impregnating themselves.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've discussed a few times in the show how self-impregnation basically never works when most gods do it.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hera once tried to self-impregnate, and the result was the only disabled god on all of Olympus, the master craftsman Hephaestus, whose legendary work was magnificent but whose legs never worked.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Most other examples are matter of appearances without actually being self-impregnation.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Aphrodite was born by being tossed in the waves and literally coming out of the sea foam, washing ashore on the island of Cyprus.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute her feet touched that sacred island, Aphrodite gave birth to Eros, the Latin Cupid.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, Aphrodite was not actually created by the sea foam, nor did she self-impregnate.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Aphrodite was actually created when Kronos, the cruel and crooked titan, attacked and castrated his own father Uranus and his mutilated genitals were cast into the ocean.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what was washed in the sea foam to create Aphrodite, as well as what impregnated Aphrodite at the same time.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you see, the ability to self-impregnate and have it be real is extremely uncommon, and it never works.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: At least when later gods like the Olympians attempt it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about Phanies in the early universe, and stuff just doesn't follow the same rules as they would in a later date.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes created a lot of abstract beings all by themselves.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: These include the sun, the moon, and the earth.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The way the Orphic fragments are worded, it could be interpreted that Phanes is actually breaking off pieces of themselves when they create in this way.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It appears as though Phanes reflects all things that are, or ever were, or could be, and that the act of creation is actually the act of differentiating these things from Phanes themselves.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: For this purpose, we have masculine and feminine reflected in Phanes so that masculine things and feminine things could be created off of Phanes.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Phanes represents an agender identity so well.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes cannot be identified with any meaningful gender construct and is best interpreted as not male, not female, not androgynous, but existing completely outside of gender.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you've noticed two things.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: First, Phanese body, nature, and gender make no meaningful sense to any later viewer, and second, there is a hyperabundance of groupings of three in the early cosmos.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: To illustrate this, Phanes is called Protagonos, meaning primeval, life-giving progenitor, edicapios, meaning power, and metis, meaning intellect.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here we see a three-way division of Phanes with religious titles.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: This division into threes was so significant that some later Christian commenters actually interpreted Phanes as the Judeo-Christian god themselves.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes is a three-part divinity who created all that is, permeates everything in the universe, and long ago walked among us.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But more to the point, these words reflect differential nature of Phanes' gender linguistically.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ericapios is a masculine noun, Metis is a feminine noun, and Protagonos is a neutral noun acceptable for male or female.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the Orphic theology, there are sets of triads everywhere.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: A few days ago we introduced Phanes on the channel's blue sky account with an image of the second century marble relief from Moderna, Italy.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The image contained Phanes in the cosmic egg surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are symbols of three everywhere in this image.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: For example, Phanes has three symbols of divine kingship.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: In one hand, Phanes holds a thunderbolt, the sign of divine communication, a scepter called the Kerakayan, which is held by the cosmic ruler, and a fiery crown on the head.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Faines' body is generally human-looking but contains three other forms bull's horns on the head, a pair of great wings on the back, and a serpent wrapped around their body several times with its head resting on Fani's own head.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Fani's chest has three creatures poking out of it, a ram's head, a lion's head, and a bull.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this image visually represents the significance of groupings of three in the Orphic cosmologies.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now the general consensus of scholars ancient and modern is that when we shift from bodily forms to sexual characteristics, we shift from a three-part triad into a two-part dad, because of course male and female are binaries, and sex and gender are both binaries as well.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is entirely possible that this could be implied in the apparent two-part system in the early universe.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Theorphic theology goes that there were two elements, wet and dry, and that from the moist and the dry, Phanes was born.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now in ancient medical and physical science, moist is femininity and dry is masculinity.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually three elements present in that story.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: The moist and the dry engage for a long period of time, and it is within that inevitability of time that they brought forth Phanes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is the third element acting in the early universe.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: The birth of Phamies is the wet and the dry coming together through inevitable time.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, inevitability, anake, and time, chronos, are kept abstract embodiments of this exact point.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But these are ideas which once in a while are given human form, but generally kept in the abstract.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you'll remember from our discussion of Zeus, memory is an abstract concept, and while sometimes represented as a woman, they're usually kept as an abstract concept.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's going on with time and inevitability.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are abstract concepts in the early universe, not necessarily embodied individuals.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's take that concept of how what appears to be a two-part system is actually a three-part system and project it into the gendered sphere.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes is a deity manifesting and divided into three parts, except with the way their gender is represented.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly there's this dual nature, male and female.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we saw with Dionysus the Androgynous, there's no real reason to believe that sex and gender were necessarily binary in all concepts.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Dionysus was the one who oversaw the male, the female, the feminine male, and the masculine female, as well as the truly androgynous synthesis of all possibilities.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But since everything to do with phanies is in three groups, it begs the question: what is the third element?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So just like with the moist and the dry, we have what appears to be a dual system, but it's not actually so simple.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: In the ancient world, masculinity and femininity were the key options.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember from our discussions of binary gender, everyone assumed that the masculine body was the universal default and that femininity represented a birth defect or deviation from the assumed natural state.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It reflected a series of events which occurred in the womb, in the stars, or in a prior life, so that the body failed to develop as a proper man should.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: This idea of masculinity and femininity is critical, but it's not universal.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we do find figures who act outside the binary, they're called androgynous.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the third potential option, widely accepted in the ancient world.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have the andro, the male, and the gyne, female, united in a single androgeneus figure.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: In societal terms, androgynous beings were neither male nor female.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: An androgynous figure acts outside of binary expectations.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a very real chance that ancient and modern commenters alike are misinterpreting two physical gendered characteristics with a three physical gendered natures in Fannies, male, female, and androgynous, all at the same time.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, what first appears as a dual system actually reflects a three-way system of thinking in keeping with the triads in Orpheanism.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: A clue that we're on the right track comes from the fact that Fanny's body directly created the sun, the earth, and the moon, all of them created out of the same figure.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: The sun, of course, is reflected as a male presence, the earth is the female presence, and the moon is the androgynous mix of the two, the male light of the sun and the female earthy nature, mix in the moon.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: In this way, Fanny's gender appears to be three-way all along.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, onto the matter of Fanny's self-impregnation.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important things Fanies did was create a child, Nyx or Knight.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Homer once called Knight the great subduer of gods and mortals.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: All heroes yield to sacred night.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody in the universe obeys the laws of night and the laws against violence at night because Nyx is the second cosmic king.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fanes literally gives their daughter the scepter of the universe, and in time she was ruler of all.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But for our purposes, what's most important is that Nyx had exactly one parent, Phanes.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Being a deity outside of the meaningful concepts of gender allows Fanes to self-impregnate and have it work.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Nyx is among the most powerful deities in all of the universe.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even Zeus obeys the rules of night.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, Nyx hands the scepter of the universe to her own child, Uranus, the sky god, who was assaulted and usurped by his child Kronos.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Many years later, Zeus defeated the Titan Kronos, and the giants and all the other titans who dared to attack him.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then Zeus comes before Nyx.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus asks her how he might gain the ability to recreate the universe, especially since so much of what had been created was in ruins after the Great Titanic War, and much of it existed long before Zeus had even been properly formed.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So Nyx explains that if Zeus becomes one with Phanes, Zeus will gain their abilities of celestial creation.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Zeus does consume Phanes who mixes with Zeus until all that is in the universe is part of Zeus himself.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus becomes the universe.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So Zeus's role in the celestial order is directly tied to that first celestial ruler.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus redesigned the universe in a way that makes rational sense.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond this, everything that is has a piece of Zeus in it, and Zeus has a piece of everything.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus then marries Hera, and the generation of Olympian gods we're all familiar with, like Ares and Hephaestus, comes into being.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But here's where things get really interesting.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Dionysus and Athena are directly tied to Phanes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes sometimes goes by the name of Metis, which means wisdom.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember from our discussion of Athena, Metis is the one Zeus consumed in order to avert the prophecy that they would bear a child who could destroy Zeus.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus becomes apparently the sole parent of Athena, but just like with Aphrodite, there's actually a second figure, Metis, involved.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: But these stories are interconnected.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus consumed Phanes and Metis might actually be saying the same thing.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Athena, whose gender is non-binary, is an aspect of Phanes.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the Orphic context, Athena is even called male and female at the same time, implying that this androgynous interpretation of their birth may be correct.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now onto Dionysus, the original Dionysus was named Zagreus, and Zeus placed Zagreus on the cosmic throne, saying that this is the chosen successor and the next king of the universe.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: When Zagreus was torn apart by a bunch of monstrous cannibalistic titans, Zeus destroyed the Titans, then consumed Zagreus' heart.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now in the body of Zeus, Zagreus joins with Phanes and is reborn as the Dionysus we know.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Phanes, in many Orphic contexts, is given the name of Dionysus, and sometimes even called Bromios or Boisterous One.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Also, in Orphic context, Dionysus is given the name of Protagonos.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Orphic hymn to Dionysus calls them the progenitor of all the gods and their child.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as you see, it's not a proxy, but very literal.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes is a key part of the births of Athena and Dionysus.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what's really great about all of this is that once these two are created, neither one of their genders makes any heteronormative sense either.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Athena can express the competitive nature of a man and bring it to bear in male pursuits like combat and athleticism, or female pursuits like weaving and the arts.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Athena can navigate both spheres without ever really being part of either.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Similarly, Dionysus is androgynous, neither male nor female, who has no trouble stepping across lines and melting boundaries.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what we would expect when we have two figures whose births are totally atypical, coming from Zeus, not a union of two people, with the miraculous element of Phanes mixed in.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's important here is that Athena and Bacchus play critical roles as the right hands of Zeus throughout the universe.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Athena is often shown literally at Zeus's right hand, carrying out Zeus's plans and making sure all events play out as Zeus desires.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Athena even gets to carry Zeus' famous battle cape, the Aegis.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Dionysus is perhaps even the co-emperor of the universe.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when these two gods are called upon to carry out Zeus's divine will, they often relay that this is not their decision.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Neither one of these younger Phanies are actually carrying out their own plans, but rather purveyors of Zeus's grand designs throughout the universe.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: When we think about agender people, we tend to think about people who exist outside of meaningful constructs of masculinity, femininity, and non-binary.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: We think about people who are not able to be categorized in any conventional understanding of sex and gender.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, this can manifest in a myriad of different ways for different individuals, but in Fanies we have someone who represents a break from all conventional constructs of gender.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fanies cannot be categorized as masculine or feminine or androgynous because they manifest all three simultaneously.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fainys gender rejects the abstract concept of gender itself by manifesting every single possibility.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: This gives Fanies an unimaginable amount of power representing the latent ability of creation and progeneration across the universe.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Gender is not a meaningful concept, not for Fanies, and not in the first million years of our universe.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: October is LGBT History Month, and this is an LGBT history podcast.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, throughout the month of October, we're planning a series of episodes that are a break from the usual formula to talk about LGBT history and antiquity.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you tune in for some of our specials.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Next Monday is a planned retrospective on these mythical discussions we've been having these last few weeks, and next Thursday is an International Lesbian Day special where we're going to ask what exactly is Sapphic Love?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you join us for LGBT History Month.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To Protogonos.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Orphocargonautica is a strange little mini epic which was written at some point in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: During the Renaissance, many thought it was the oldest epic ever written, so there was a lot of excitement.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: The text was actually instrumental in creating a field of comparative linguistics where we use the vocabulary and subtle grammatical variation over time to allow scholars to better understand relative chronology.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: This allowed them to eventually put the Orphic Argonautica in late antiquity, which later scholarship has confirmed.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Orphic hymns were very difficult to interpret as well, particularly because they may have been written during the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Both the hymns and the Argonautica were meant to be written by Orpheus, the son of the muse Calliope, who lived in the Mycenaean Bronze Age.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: The events of Jason and the Argonauts are told from his perspective in the Orphic Argonautica, and the Orphic hymns contain what he had learned about the gods in his studies.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: These informations were meant to be passed on orally for time out of mind before being written down in their appropriate time periods.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic teachings continue to hold a key component of Hellenistic mystical polytheism from about the 6th century BC all the way down to the present day.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: We will be using both of these texts all throughout today's presentation.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Orphic cosmology is drawn from Orphic Fragment 54 from Damaschius, as well as the Orphic Argonautica.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: John Malalas was a Byzantine scholar and historian who lived in Antioch during the 6th century A.D.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: His work is a chronicle of history from the mythical history of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as more recent events in time such as the campaigns of Justinian.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: The section comparing Phanes to the Christian god is found in his chronography, section 4.74.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic fragment number 54 contains the asertation that earth and water were the first constituent elements of chaos.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: The wet and dry dichotomy is reflective of the gender binary as well.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: This fragment is actually a commentary essay about a completely lost fragment where the author speculates what is the third element and postulates the possibilities what it could be, including time and Fanies themselves.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic hymn number 6, verse 1 to Faines uses the word defeus or two-natured when describing sex, but hymn number 52.5 refers to Dionysus as tryphis or three-natured.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: In mystic context, these words almost always mean sexual or gendered natures.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic fragment number 94 describes Phanies dividing off a portion of themselves into the earth.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic fragment number 96 describes Phanies dividing a portion of themselves into the sun, and Orphic Fragment No.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: 91 sees Phanies dividing a portion of themselves into the moon.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes gives the staff of the universe and the cosmic kingship to Nyx in Orphic Fragment No.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: 101.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Zeus comes before Nyx in her mystic cave in Orphic Fragments No.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: 164 and 165, and Zeus consumes Phanes in order to gain their power in Orphic Fragment No.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: 167.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic hymn number 32, verse 10 to Athena calls them male and female at the same time.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Phanes is called Bromios in Orphic Fragment No.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: 170.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Orphic hymn number 52, verse 6 to Dionysus states that Dionysus has a threefold nature and that Dionysus is the progenitor of gods and their child, implying both Phanes, the firstborn deity, and Dionysus, the child of Zeus, are the same entity.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's all for this week, folks.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week for our discussion on sapphic love and our retrospective on the queer Olympians.