Двата пътя: към орфическата география на отвъдното
The Two Paths: on the Orphic Geography of the World Beyond

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents an extensive analysis of the primary sources of the mythological metaphor about the two paths, known from the Early Christian literature. It is emphasised that its deep rules lie in ancient Greek literature and culture. The idea was known in the Old Testament and New Testament literature, its presence being most intensive in apocryphal works: especially in the Qumran texts, as well as in the writings by the Apostolic fathers. The author makes a detailed survey of Early Christian monuments on the two paths before the soul and the respective instructions, and defends the theory that the metaphor of the two paths can be traced back to a stable Orphic-Pythagorean tradition that had been preserved and perpetuated in the Early Christian literature. That tradition can be reconstructed by means of the texts on the Orphic gold tablets and the mythologem connected with them about the arc/bridge of Alexander the Great in the Romance of Alexander and appeared also in the Vitae of St. Macarius the Roman, as well as through the tradition of the novels describing paradigmatic travel to the end of the world and their medieval variants that were closely connected with the Romance of Alexander. In conclusion, the author emphasises that the similarities between the indicated texts could be explained not only with direct links and mechanical borrowing, but also with common mythical and literary sources, sustainable throughout the antiquity also in the broad cultural area of the Eastern Mediterranean, which interpret similar aeschatological notions that are very close to the ones suggested in the texts on the Orphic tablets.

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