Orphism (religion)

Orphism (more rarely Orphicism; Ancient Greek: Ὀρφικά, romanized: Orphiká) is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices[1] originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world,[2] associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned. Orphics revered Dionysus (who once descended into the Underworld and returned) and Persephone (who annually descended into the Underworld for a season and then returned). Orphism has been described as a reform of the earlier Dionysian religion, involving a re-interpretation or re-reading of the myth of Dionysus and a re-ordering of Hesiod's Theogony, based in part on pre-Socratic philosophy.[3]

Orphic mosaics were found in many late-Roman villas

The central focus of Orphism is the suffering and death of the god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, which forms the basis of Orphism's central myth. According to this myth, the infant Dionysus is killed, torn apart, and consumed by the Titans. In retribution, Zeus strikes the Titans with a thunderbolt, turning them to ash. From these ashes, humanity is born. In Orphic belief, this myth describes humanity as having a dual nature: body (Ancient Greek: σῶμα, romanized: sôma), inherited from the Titans, and a divine spark or soul (Ancient Greek: ψυχή, romanized: psukhḗ), inherited from Dionysus.[4] In order to achieve salvation from the Titanic, material existence, one had to be initiated into the Dionysian mysteries and undergo teletē, a ritual purification and reliving of the suffering and death of the god.[5] Orphics believed that they would, after death, spend eternity alongside Orpheus and other heroes. The uninitiated (Ancient Greek: ἀμύητος, romanized: amúētos), they believed, would be reincarnated indefinitely.[6]

In order to maintain their purity following initiation and ritual, Orphics attempted to live an ascetic life free of spiritual contamination, most notably by adhering to a strict vegetarian diet that also excluded broad beans.

Origins

Orphism is named after the legendary poet-hero Orpheus, who was said to have originated the Mysteries of Dionysus.[7] However, Orpheus was more closely associated with Apollo than to Dionysus in the earliest sources and iconography. According to some versions of his mythos, he was the son of Apollo, and during his last days, he shunned the worship of other gods and devoted himself to Apollo alone.[8]

Poetry containing distinctly Orphic beliefs has been traced back to the 6th century BC[9] or at least 5th century BC, and graffiti of the 5th century BC apparently refers to "Orphics".[10] The Derveni papyrus allows Orphic mythology to be dated to the end of the 5th century BC,[11] and it is probably even older.[12] Orphic views and practices are attested as by Herodotus, Euripides, and Plato. Plato refers to "Orpheus-initiators" (Ὀρφεοτελεσταί), and associated rites, although how far "Orphic" literature in general related to these rites is not certain.[13]

Relationship to Pythagoreanism

Orphic views and practices have parallels to elements of Pythagoreanism, and various traditions hold that the Pythagoreans or Pythagoras himself authored early Orphic works; alternately, later philosophers believed that Pythagoras was an initiate of Orphism. The extent to which one movement may have influenced the other remains controversial.[14] Some scholars maintain that Orphism and Pythagoreanism began as separate traditions which later became confused and conflated due to a few similarities. Others argue that the two traditions share a common origin and can even be considered a single entity, termed "Orphico-Pythagoreanism."[15]

The belief that Pythagoreanism was a subset or direct descendant of Orphic religion existed by late antiquity, when Neoplatonist philosophers took the Orphic origin of Pythagorean teachings at face value. Proclus wrote:

all that Orpheus transmitted through secret discourses connected to the mysteries, Pythagoras learnt thoroughly when he completed the initiation at Libethra in Thrace, and Aglaophamus, the initiator, revealed to him the wisdom about the gods that Orpheus acquired from his mother Calliope.[16]

In the fifteenth century, the Neoplatonic Greek scholar Constantine Lascaris (who found the poem Argonautica Orphica) considered a Pythagorean Orpheus.[17] Bertrand Russell (1947) noted:

The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as, later, in the Christian sacrament. The intoxication that they sought was that of "enthusiasm," of union with the god. They believed themselves, in this way, to acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphism as Orpheus was a reformer of the religion of Dionysus. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.[18]

Study of early Orphic and Pythagorean sources, however, is more ambiguous concerning their relationship, and authors writing closer to Pythagoras' own lifetime never mentioned his supposed initiation into Orphism, and in general regarded Orpheus himself as a mythological figure.[15] Despite this, even these authors of the 5th and 4th centuries BC noted a strong similarity between the two doctrines. In fact, some claimed that rather than being an initiate of Orphism, Pythagoras was actually the original author of the first Orphic texts. Specifically, Ion of Chios claimed that Pythagoras authored poetry which he attributed to the mythical Orpheus, and Epigenes, in his On Works Attributed to Orpheus, attributed the authorship of several influential Orphic poems to notable early Pythagoreans, including Cercops.[15] According to Cicero, Aristotle also claimed that Orpheus never existed, and that the Pythagoreans ascribed some Orphic poems to Cercon (see Cercops).[19]

Belief in metempsychosis was common to both currents, although it also seems to contain differences. Where the Orphics taught about a cycle of grievous embodiments that could be escaped through their rites, Pythagoras seemed to teach about an eternal, neutral metempsychosis against which personal actions would be irrelevant.[20]

The Neoplatonists regarded the theology of Orpheus, carried forward through Pythagoreanism, as the core of the original Greek religious tradition. However, earlier sources demonstrate that it began as a fringe movement, with its mythology and ritual considered unorthodox and incorporating alien elements similar to the Egyptian religion of the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Modern historians tend to support the latter view.[15]

Theogonies
Jacob Bryant's Orphic Egg (1774) with Ananke

The Orphic theogonies are genealogical works similar to the Theogony of Hesiod, but the details are different. The theogonies are symbolically similar to Near Eastern models. The main story has it that Zagreus, Dionysus' previous incarnation, is the son of Zeus and Persephone. Zeus names the child as his successor, which angers his wife Hera. She instigates the Titans to murder the child. Zagreus is then tricked with a mirror and children's toys by the Titans, who shred him to pieces and consume him. Athena saves the heart and tells Zeus of the crime, who in turn hurls a thunderbolt on the Titans. The resulting soot, from which sinful mankind is born, contains the bodies of the Titans and Zagreus. The soul of man (the Dionysus part) is therefore divine, but the body (the Titan part) holds the soul in bondage. Thus, it was declared that the soul returns to a host ten times, bound to the wheel of rebirth. Following the punishment, the dismembered limbs of Zagreus were cautiously collected by Apollo who buried them in his sacred land Delphi. In later centuries, these versions underwent a development where Apollo's act of burying became responsible for the reincarnation of Dionysus, thus giving Apollo the title Dionysiodotes (bestower of Dionysus).[21] Apollo plays an important part in the dismemberment myth because he represents the reverting of Encosmic Soul back towards unification.[22][23]

There are two Orphic stories of the rebirth of Dionysus: in one it is the heart of Dionysus that is implanted into the thigh of Zeus; in the other Zeus has impregnated the mortal woman Semele, resulting in Dionysus's literal rebirth. Many of these details differ from accounts in the classical authors. Damascius says that Apollo "gathers him (Dionysus) together and brings him back up". Firmicus Maternus, a Christian author, gives a different account with the book On the Error of Profane Religions. He says that Jupiter (Zeus) originally was a (mortal) king of Crete—a concept of Euhemerus—and Dionysos was his son. Dionysos was murdered, and then cannibalized. Only his heart was salvaged by Athena. A statue of gypsum (the same substance the Titans used to disguise themselves) was then made to look like Dionysos, and the heart placed within.[24]

The Orphic theogonies include:

  • The "Protogonos Theogony", lost, composed c. 500 BC, which is known through the commentary in the Derveni papyrus and references in classical authors (Empedocles and Pindar).
  • The "Eudemian Theogony", lost, composed in the 5th century BC. It is the product of a syncretic Bacchic-Kouretic cult.
  • The "Rhapsodic Theogony", lost, composed in the Hellenistic age, incorporating earlier works. It is known through summaries in later neo-Platonist authors.

Orphic Egg

In Orphic theogonies, the Orphic Egg is a cosmic egg from which hatched the primordial hermaphroditic deity Phanes/Protogonus (variously equated also with Zeus, Pan, Metis, Eros, Erikepaios and Bromius), who in turn created the other gods.[25] The egg is often depicted with the serpent-like creature, Ananke, wound about it. Phanes is the golden winged primordial being who was hatched from the shining cosmic egg that was the source of the universe. Called Protogonos (First-Born) and Eros (Love)—being the seed of gods and men—Phanes means "to bring light" or "to shine" and is related to the Greek "to shine forth" as well as the Latin "Lucifer". An ancient Orphic hymn addresses him thus:

Ineffable, hidden, brilliant scion, whose motion is whirring, you scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and through this world you brought pure light.[26]

The Hymns

Afterlife
Gold orphic tablet and case found in Petelia, southern Italy (British Museum)[27]

Surviving written fragments show a number of beliefs about the afterlife similar to those in the "Orphic" mythology about Dionysus' death and resurrection. Bone tablets found in Olbia (5th century BC) carry short and enigmatic inscriptions like: "Life. Death. Life. Truth. Dio(nysus). Orphics." The function of these bone tablets is unknown.[28]

Gold-leaf tablets found in graves from Thurii, Hipponium, Thessaly and Crete (4th century BC and after) give instructions to the dead. Although these thin tablets are often highly fragmentary, collectively they present a shared scenario of the passage into the afterlife. When the deceased arrives in the underworld, he is expected to confront obstacles. He must take care not to drink of Lethe ("Forgetfulness"), but of the pool of Mnemosyne ("Memory"). He is provided with formulaic expressions with which to present himself to the guardians of the afterlife. As said in the Petelia tablet:

I am a son of Earth and starry sky. I am parched with thirst and am dying; but quickly grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink.[29]

Other gold leaves offer instructions for addressing the rulers of the underworld:

Now you have died and now you have come into being, O thrice happy one, on this same day. Tell Persephone that the Bacchic One himself released you.[30]

References
  1. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture by Marilyn B. Skinner, 2005, page 135, "[…] of life, there was no coherent religious movement properly termed 'Orphism' (Dodds 1957: 147–9; West 1983: 2–3). Even if there were, […]"
  2. Three Faces of God by David L. Miller, 2005, Back Matter: "[…] assumed that this was a Christian trinitarian influence on late Hellenistic Orphism, but it may be that the Old Neoplatonists were closer […]"
  3. A. Henrichs, “‘Hieroi Logoi’ and ‘Hierai Bibloi’: The (Un) Written Margins of the Sacred in Ancient Greece,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101 (2003): 213-216.
  4. Sandys, John, Pindar. The Odes of Pindar including the Principal Fragments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1937.
  5. Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Rituales órficos (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2006);
  6. Proclus, Commentary on the Republic of Plato, II, 338, 17 Kern 224.
  7. Apollodorus (Pseudo Apollodorus), Library and Epitome, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria."
  8. Alberto Bernabé, Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Raquel Martín Hernández, Redefining Dionysos
  9. Backgrounds of Early Christianity by Everett Ferguson, 2003, page 162, "Orphism began in the sixth century BCE"
  10. W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks & Their Gods (Beacon, 1954), p. 322; Kirk, Raven, & Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983, 2nd edition), pp. 21, 30–31, 33; Parker, "Early Orphism", pp. 485, 497
  11. "The Derveni Papyrus: An Interdisciplinary Research Project". Harvard University, Center for Hellenic Studies. 2 November 2020.
  12. Kirk, Raven, & Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983, 2nd edition), pp. 30–31
  13. Parker, "Early Orphism", pp. 484, 487.
  14. Parker, "Early Orphism", p. 501.
  15. Betegh, G. (2014). Pythagoreans, Orphism and Greek Religion, in Huffman C. (ed.) A History of Pythagoreanism, Cambridge, p.274-95.
  16. Proclus, Tim. 3.168.8
  17. Russo, Attilio (2004). "Costantino Lascaris tra fama e oblio nel Cinquecento messinese", in Archivio Storico Messinese, pp. 53-54.
  18. Bertrand Russell (1947). History of Western Philosophy. George Allen and Unwin. p. 37.
  19. Aristotle; Ross, W. D. (William David), 1877; Smith, J. A. (John Alexander), 1863-1939 (1908). The works of Aristotle. p. 80.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  20. Leonid Zhmud (2012). Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans. OUP Oxford. p. 232-233. ISBN 9780199289318.
  21. Alberto Bernabé, Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal, Raquel Martín Hernández. (2013), Redefining Dionysos
  22. Proclus in commentary on Cratylus states that Apollo signifies the cause of unity and that which reassembles many into one
  23. Dwayne A. Meisner, Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods (2018)
  24. Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 6.4
  25. West, M. L. (1983) The Orphic Poems. Oxford:Oxford University Press. p. 205
  26. The Orphic Hymns 5,To Protogonos
  27. British Museum Collection
  28. Sider, David; Obbink, Dirk (2013-10-30). Doctrine and Doxography. p. 160. ISBN 9783110331370.
  29. Numerous tablets contain this essential formula with minor variations; for the Greek texts and translations, see Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (Routledge, 2007), pp. 4–5 (Hipponion, 400 BC), 6–7 (Petelia, 4th century BC), pp. 16–17 (Entella, possibly 3rd century BC), pp. 20–25 (five tablets from Eleutherna, Crete, 2nd or 1st century BC), pp. 26–27 (Mylopotamos, 2nd century BC), pp. 28–29 (Rethymnon, 2nd or 1st century BC), pp. 34–35 (Pharsalos, Thessaly, 350–300 BC), and pp. 40–41 (Thessaly, mid-4th century BC) online.
  30. Tablet from Pelinna, late 4th century BC, in Graf and Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife, pp. 36–37.

Literature
  • Albinus, L. (2000). The house of Hades: Studies in ancient Greek eschatology. Aarhus [Denmark: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 9788772888330
  • Alderink, Larry J. Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism. University Park: American Philological Association, 1981. ISBN 9780891305026
  • Athanassakis, Apostolos N. Orphic Hymns: Text, Translation, and Notes. Missoula: Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1977. ISBN 9780891301196
  • Baird, William. History of New Testament Research, volume two: From Jonathan Edwards to Rudolf Bultmann". Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press. 2002, 393. ISBN 9780800626273
  • Bernabé, Albertus (ed.), Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta. Poetae Epici Graeci. Pars II. Fasc. 1. Bibliotheca Teubneriana, München/Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004. ISBN 3-598-71707-5
  • Bernabé, Alberto. “Some Thoughts about the ‘New’ Gold Tablet from Pherai.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 166 (2008): 53-58.
  • Bernabé, Alberto and Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal. 2008. Instructions for the Netherworld: the Orphic Gold Tablets. Boston: Brill. ISBN 9789047423744
  • Betegh, Gábor. 2006. The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation. Cambridge. ISBN 9780521801089
  • Bikerman, E. "The Orphic Blessing". Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 2 (1938–39): 368-74.
  • Bremmer, Jan. "Orphism, Pythagoras, and the Rise of the Immortal Soul". The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol. New York: Routledge, 2002. 11-26. ISBN 9780415141475
  • Bremmer, Jan. "Rationalization and Disenchantment in Ancient Greece: Max Weber among the Pythagoreans and Orphics?" From Myth to Reason: Studies in the Development of Greek Thought. Ed. Richard Buxton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 71-83.
  • Brisson, Luc. "Orphée et l'orphisme dans l'antiquité gréco-romaine". Aldershot: Variorum, 1995, env. 200 p. (pagination multiple), ISBN 0-86078-453-3.
  • Burkert, Walter. 2004. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge, MA. ISBN 9780674014893
  • Burkert, Walter. "Craft Versus Sect: The Problem of Orphics and Pythagoreans". Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: Volume Three - Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World. Ed. B. Meyer and E. P. Sanders. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
  • Comparetti, Domenico, and Cecil Smith. "The Petelia Gold Tablet". The Journal of Hellenic Studies 3 (1882): 111-18.
  • Dungan, David L. A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels. New York: Doubleday, 1999. Print. 54-55. ISBN 9780385471923
  • Edmonds, Radcliffe. Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the 'Orphic' Gold Tablets. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 9780521834346
  • Edmunds, Radcliffe. “Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks on Orphism and Original Sin.” Classical Antiquity 18.1 (1999): 35-73.
  • Finkelberg, Aryeh. "On the Unity of Orphic and Milesian Thought". The Harvard Theological Review 79 (1986): 321-35. ISSN 0017-8160
  • Graf, Fritz. Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens. Berlin, New York, 1974 ISBN 9783110044980.
  • Graf, Fritz. "Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology: New Texts and Old Questions". Masks of Dionysus. Ed. T. Carpenter and C. Faraone. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. 239-58, ISSN 0012-9356.
  • Graf, Fritz, and Sarah Iles Johnston. 2007. Ritual texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. Routledge: London, New York, ISBN 9780415415507.
  • Guthrie, W. K. C. 1935, revised 1952. Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement. London.
  • Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903.
  • Herrero de Jáuregui, Miguel. "Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity". Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010, ISBN 9783110216608.
  • Kern, Otto. Orphicorum fragmenta, Berolini apud Weidmannos, 1922.
  • Linforth, Ivan M. Arts of Orpheus. New York: Arno Press, 1973.
  • Martin, Luther H. Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction 1987, 102, ISBN 9780195043907.
  • Nilsson, Martin. "Early Orphism and Kindred Religious Movements". The Harvard Theological Review 28.3 (1935): 181–230.
  • Parker, Robert. "Early Orphism" The Greek World. Ed. Anton Powell. New York: Routledge, 1995. 483–510, ISBN 9780415060318.
  • Pugliese Carratelli, Giovanni. 2001. Le lamine doro orfiche. Milano, Libri Scheiwiller.
  • Robertson, Noel. “Orphic Mysteries and Dionysiac Ritual.” Greek Mysteries: the Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults. Ed. Michael B. Cosmopoulos. New York: Routledge, 2004. 218-40, ISBN 9780415248723.
  • Russo, Attilio (2004). "Costantino Lascaris tra fama e oblio nel Cinquecento messinese", Archivio Storico Messinese, Messina 2003-2004, LXXXIV-LXXXV, 5–87, especially 53–54.
  • Sournia Alain. Chap. "Sapesse orientale et philosophie occidentale : la période axiale" in Fondements d'une philosophie sauvage. Connaissances et savoirs, 2012, 300 p., ISBN 9782753901872.
  • Tierney, M. "The Origins of Orphism". The Irish Theological Quarterly 17 (1922): 112–27.
  • West, Martin L. "Graeco-Oriental Orphism in the 3rd cent. BC". Assimilation et résistence à la culture Gréco-romaine dans le monde ancient: Travaux du VIe Congrès International d’Etudes Classiques. Ed. D. M. Pippidi. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1976. 221–26.
  • West, Martin L. 1983. Orphic Poems. Oxford, ISBN 9780198148548.
  • Wroe, Ann. Orpheus: The Song of Life, The Overlook Press, New York: 2012, ISBN 9781590207789.
  • Zuntz, Günther. Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971, ISBN 9780198142867.

Further reading
  • Bremmer, Jan N. “Divinities in the Orphic Gold Leaves: Euklês, Eubouleus, Brimo, Kybele, Kore and Persephone”. In: Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 187 (2013): 35–48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23850747.
  • Fulińska, Agnieszka (2014). “Dionysos, Orpheus and Argead Macedonia: Overwiev and Perspectives”. In: Classica Cracoviensia 17 (December): 43-67. https://doi.org/10.12797/CC.17.2014.17.03.
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