Orphic God(s): Theogonies an Hymns as Vehicles of Monotheism

PEETERSLeuven – Walpole, MA

2010

Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion 12

MONOTHEISM BETWEEN PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS IN LATE ANTIQUITY

EDITED BY

STEPHEN MITCHELL AND PETER VAN NUFFELEN

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CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1S. MITCHELL and P. VAN NUFFELEN

1. ‘Pagan Monotheism’? Towards a Historical Typology . . . 15 M.V. CERUTTI

2. One God and Divine Unity. Late Antique Theologies between Exclusivism and Inclusiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 G. SFAMENI GASPARRO

3. Eadem spectamus astra. Astral Immortality as Common Ground between Pagan and Christian monotheism . . . 57 B. SELTER

4. Orphic God(s): Theogonies and Hymns as Vehicles of Monotheism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 M. HERRERO DE JÁUREGUI

5. Pagan Conceptions of Monotheism in the Fourth Century: The Example of Libanius and Themistius . . . . . . . 101 I. SANDWELL

6. From Philosophic Monotheism to Imperial Henotheism: Esoteric and Popular Religion in Late Antique Platonism . 127 N. SINIOSSOGLOU

7. Monotheism, Henotheism, and Polytheism in Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 C. ADDEY

8. Refuting and Reclaiming Monotheism: Monotheism in the Debate between “Pagans” and Christians in 380-430 . . . 167 M. KAHLOS

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VI CONTENTS

9. Augustine’s Varro and Pagan Monotheism . . . . . . . 181 G. CLARK

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

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1 Frede and Athanassiadi 1999:8. 2 I use this word in a flexible sense, i. e. a monist conception of divinity. A single god may be conceived in many different ways, as this paper will show. Cf. e. g. note 12 infra.

ORPHIC GOD(S): THEOGONIES AND HYMNS AS VEHICLES OF MONOTHEISM

Miguel HERRERO DE JÁUREGUI

INTRODUCTION

There are two possible ways of developing the idea of a single god within a polytheistic frame of reference. The first is hierarchisation, which makes all gods subordinated to a central one, until they end up being mere accidental expressions of his divinity; the second is syncretism, which identifies different gods until they conflate and become one and the same god, invoked under different names.1 In ancient Greece there are two literary genres, theogony and hymn, which are particularly suitable to expressing monotheism2 in each of these two ways while keeping within the traditional polytheistic framework of Greek poetry. Theogonies tell the origin of the gods and they tend to have a central deity either at the beginning or at the end of the process, so that the whole divine family descends from or culminates in that god. Hymns, on the other hand, are invocations to the gods, in which juxtaposition of different epithets and names for the invocation of one divinity lends itself to conflation of different gods into one. Epithets typical of theogonies like pater or basileus suggest a hierarchy, whereas the epithet polyonymos, which often appears in hymns, perfectly mirrors a syncretistic approach. For the sake of clarity, I will treat both genres separately at the beginning of this paper. But they often appear in combination, and presuppose each other: already Hesiod’s Theogony includes a hymn to Zeus, and Greek hymns, from the Homeric ones onwards, presuppose theo-gonic traditions.

The different possibilities of these two literary genres were exploited above all by Orphism between the fifth century B.C. and fifth century

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78 M. HERRERO DE JÁUREGUI

3 Point of reference for the traditional view on Orphism is Guthrie 1952. For the sceptic position, see Linforth 1941 and Dodds 1951. Parker 1995 offers a balanced state of the question. For texts and bibliography, see Bernabé 2004. Orphic frag-ments are cited by his edition with the abbreviation OF. 4 On correspondences between Orphism and Presocratic philosophy, cf. Finkelberg 1986; Bernabé 2002. Orphism may also have been subject to the same foreign influences as early Greek philosophy, whether Persian or Egyptian: cf. Burkert 2004.

A.D., and the purpose of this chapter is to set out the main charac-teristics of this process with reference to the most important texts. One cannot use, however, the controversial term “Orphism” without a preliminary statement about the existence and forms of Orphic literary and ritual traditions, which have been fiercely debated for the last century and a half. Believers in Orphism postulate a unified reli-gious movement which produced communities of Orphics, whose followers took Orphic poems as authoritative texts containing a fairly uniform set of doctrines; “Orpheo-sceptics” deny the existence of anything but the fashion of attributing poems and rites of very dis-parate contents to the mythical singer Orpheus. In the last decades startling discoveries have reinvigorated the Orphic question; moreover, it must be clear that there is a wide range of possibilities between the two extreme positions.3

Cornerstones of the Orphic controversy are the doctrinal unity of Orphic poems and their relation to rites also attributed to Orpheus. Though at the end the second question will be mentioned, this paper mainly addresses the first one. I will not claim that Orphic poets formed any schools of thought nor that they shared any Weltan-schauung. On the contrary, the poems I shall examine show up many different philosophical ideas. But many Orphic poets, much though their beliefs and interests may have differed, profited from the internal mechanisms of the genres attributed to Orpheus (theological hexa-metrical poetry, i.e. theogonies and hymns) to proclaim the unity of the divine. These mechanisms were already created in Classical times by early Orphic poets, whose speculation runs parallel to the monism of Milesian philosophers and other thinkers like Xenophanes or Par-menides.4 Contrary to other pre-Socratics, Orphic theologians pre-ferred to stick to traditional poetic forms and use them to express their monist views: since they sometimes used the epithet mounos for a god, I think it legitimate to employ the term “monotheism” to label this theological approach, devoid of the exclusivist connotations


THEOGONIES AND HYMNS AS VEHICLES OF MONOTHEISM 79

of the Jewish-Christian God. But Greek poetry was intrinsically full of gods, and Orpheus always stayed a formally “polytheistic” singer, no matter how singular the god that he sang about.5 So poetic strate-gies were developed to make these genres express monotheism, respecting their restrictions. These strategies lasted far beyond their creators and in the following centuries thinkers who wanted to talk of one God while sticking to an old and prestigious tradition, often used the name of Orpheus and the possibilities offered by his poetry.

A final warning: I shall examine only some of the Orphic poems, leaving many others unmentioned. I shall concentrate on the poets who used Orphism to express monotheism, but it should be clear that this trend, though important and consistent throughout time, is not the only dimension of Orphism. Many other Orphic poems do not show a hint of monistic preoccupation, since there was nothing inevitable in Orphic poetry that should lead to it. Even in poems with monistic inclinations, like the collection of Orphic Hymns we shall study, polytheism is alive not only as a literary element, but as a true belief.6 It just offered some possibilities to those who wanted to develop them. Teleology should be avoided. Orphism is a vehicle of monotheism, not for it.

HIERARCHISATION: ORPHIC THEOGONIES

The Derveni Papyrus, usually dated to the early fourth century B.C.,7 has proved once and for all that the monistic tendencies of Orphism are not a late product of Platonic and Stoic ideas. The author of this prose treatise defends a cosmology close to Anaxagorean ideas by allegorizing an Orphic theogony which can be dated back to the fifth

5 Even when Alexandrian Jews forge Orphic poems telling about Orpheus’ con-version, they have to begin it by an explicit renunciation of his previous polytheism (OF 377–378). Christians (Theophilus, Autol. 3.2; Ps.-Justin, Mon. 2.4; Lactantius, Inst. 1.7.6 (OF 368, 369, 370)) say that he sang 365 gods. 6 Cf. Morand 1997:170, criticizing Harrison 1903:625, according to whom in the Orphic Hymns only an impersonal potency (daimon) is celebrated. 7 The long-expected official edition of the papyrus (though newer and more complete ones may appear soon) has been produced by Kouremenos et al 2006. Betegh 2004 is the best and most up-to-date study of the Orphic theogony and of the commentary.



century B.C. That poem seems to keep the same genealogical pattern as Hesiod, but it deviates from him in one significant way. The myth of divine succession not only culminates in Zeus, as in Hesiod, but also has him giving birth in a second creation to the whole cosmos and to all the gods. The relevant lines of the Orphic poem are preserved in the following fragments. They show how the usual theogonic pattern of succession suddenly takes a different turn towards monotheism:8

OF 8: He swallowed the phallus [of Ouranos]9, who sprang from the aither firstOF 10: Ouranos son of the Night, who first of all ruled.From him in turn Kronos, and then wise Zeus.OF 11: Holding wisdom and royal honour over the blessed gods.OF 12: the phallus of the first-born king (prwtogónou basiléwv aîdoíou), onto which allthe immortals grew, blessed gods and goddessesand rivers and lovely springs and everything elsethat had been born then; and he himself became the only one (moÕnov).

OF 13: Now he is king of all, and will always be.

OF 14: Zeus was born first, Zeus last, god of the bright boltZeus is the head, Zeus the middle, from Zeus are all things made.Zeus is the breath of all,10 Zeus is the Fate fulfilling everythingZeus is the king, Zeus the ruler of all, god of the bright bolt

8 OF 12-16. These lines are reconstructed from the prose commentary which quotes them. Bernabé 2007 shows some of the poetic devices which the Orphic poets uses to make Zeus the centre of the poem: among others, he deals with “those who were born of Zeus the almighty king” (OF 4), instead of “those who were born of Earth and starry Heaven,” as sung by Hesiod (Theog. 105); and the brief hymn to Zeus (OF 14) is itself the center of the poem, as Zeus is the center of all things. 9 The Greek lends itself to two different interpretations (cf. n. 11). I translate according to the one I think more probable. The other one would be “he swallowed the venerable (god), who sprang from aither” and in OF 12 “the venerable king Protogonos.” 10 This line (Heùv pnoi® pántwn Heùv pántwn ∂pleto mo⁄ra) is the only dubious one of the reconstructed poem. A. Bernabé, following other scholars, inserts it (OF 14) because it is found in a later Stoicizing version (OF 31), on the grounds that the Derveni commentator says (col. 18.3) that Orpheus called the Moira pneuma, which suggests a line which identifies them through Zeus. West 1983:90 n. 36, and Betegh 2004:126 think, however, that the line is a Stoic addition and that it was not present in the Derveni theogony.



OF 16: and he contrived (mßsato) Earth and broad Heavenand he contrived the great might of broad flowing Ocean,and he laid down in it the muscles of silver-eddying Achelousfrom whom all seas come…

According to “Orpheus”, Zeus swallows the aidoion which had gener-ated everything. Along with the aidoion everything is subsumed in him, and therefore Zeus becomes the only one. He then contrives again all things and all gods and recreates everything. The likeliest interpreta-tion of aidoion is that it is a substantive designating Uranus’ phallus. But the possibility that it is the epithet “venerable” of a god, Protogonos, cannot be ruled out.11 In any case, it is a life-giving element, which the commentator likens to the sun because of its engendering power. By swallowing it Zeus inherits all its generative force. The Orphic poet is using a typically theogonic image, that of swallowing (cf. Hesiod, Theog. 886-900), to express his monotheistic views. The word “mono-theism” is therefore very suitable in this context, though it does not have a Judeo-Christian exclusivist overtone: mounos is simply the soli-tary state Zeus reaches by the fact that he swallows everything.12 He is also defined, in an expression which will have enormous success, as “first and last.” Zeus, the last in the chain of succession, is made by the Orphic poet also the Creator of all things and all gods. The way this creation takes place, Zeus’ pregnancy, is another traditional image. Yet this time he does not merely give birth to a god like Athena through the head or Dionysus through the thigh.13 The Greek word mesato has

11 The debate on the aidoion is a classic in Orphic studies. Later Orphic theo-gonies present Zeus swallowing a god, Phanes-Protogonos, a primeval god born from an egg. Brisson 2003; West 1983:85 and Kouremenos et al. 2006:26-28, think this would also be the case in the Derveni theogony. Phallophagy is defended by Burkert 2004: 90-92; Betegh 2004:111-122; Bernabé 2002; Janko in BMCR 2005.01.27. Further references in OF 14. They claim that later theogonies would have transformed that episode of phallophagy into the less crude and more tradi-tional swallowing of Phanes. A Hurrian parallel of the eating of the phallus, the allusion of Diog. Laert. Pr.5 to Zeus’ fellatio, Uranus’ metronymic Euphronides (instead of a patronymic), and the fact that the commentator talks about a phallus instead of allegorizing directly Protogonos as the sun make the latter option more convincing. 12 Burkert 2008. 13 Hesiod, Theog. 924, Apollodorus 3.4.2-3, 3.5.3. Orphic theogonies do not make explicit how Zeus (or Phanes) bear their offsprings. The idea of a supreme god “male and female” (cf. n. 29) probably comes out of this capacity of male gods like Phanes or Zeus to bear children.



the same double meaning of physical and mental generation as the English “to contrive.” Thus, his giving birth is also an orderly dispo-sition of the cosmos according to his will.

“Orpheus” enlists the metaphors of swallowing and sexual genera-tion to represent the idea of creation. Plato in the Timaeus called his Demiurge poietes kai pater, mixing the generative image with a much more flexible metaphor, that of the deus faber, which allows a clearer distinction between the creator and his creation. Plato could explain in his lengthy prose what he meant by these words.14 But Orphic theogonies confine themselves to traditional poetic patterns and can only push to extremes the meaning of such sexual images. Another instance of expressing monistic ideas through polytheistic images is the Orphic version of Zeus’ mating: instead of dwelling on his tradi-tional polygamy, Orphic theogonies present Zeus procreating by incest with his mother Rhea, who is equated with his sister Demeter. From that rape, Rhea-Demeter gives birth to a daughter, Kore, with whom Zeus also mates to engender Dionysus.15 Incestuous mating is a very clear way of expressing the idea of a single generative principle, since everything descends from the same seed, i. e. that of Zeus.

Such theogonical images scandalised many critics in Antiquity, from pagan philosophers to Christians. Critics of Greek traditional religion would refuse allegorical readings that saved myths by giving them a hidden, elevated meaning, and considered obscenity incom-patible with the image of the divine.16 Still, even from the ranks of Christian apologists there were some exceptions to this critical atti-tude. Some thinkers did not accept allegory, and yet they would rec-ognise the monotheistic tendencies of polytheistic Orphic theogonies. The clearest case is the Christian apologist Lactantius, writing in the

14 Plato, Ti. 28c. Lloyd 1966:208 explains why the artisan was not a popular figure in Archaic Greece and therefore the metaphor does not appear in early theo-gonies until the prose account of Pherecydes of Syros. 15 Zeus’ mating with his mother was alluded to in the Derveni theogony (OF 18). His incest with his daughter Persephone and the birth of Dionysus (Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.16-18) may also have been mentioned, though the end of the poem has not been preserved. 16 Isocrates, Bus. 10.28; Diogenes Laertius, 1.5; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 2.19.1-2; Athenagoras, Leg. 17-20; Tatian, Or. 8.6, 10.1; Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.12-22; Origen, Cels. 4.48; Arnobius, Nat. 5.19-26; Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 4.15, 31.16.



early fourth century A.D., who, contrary to other apologists, had an open-minded approach to some pagan poetry.

Lactantius praises Orpheus because, unlike Hesiod, the Thracian singer posited a personal, uncreated god as creator and thus had some intuition of the Christian revelation. Far from criticising the generative images connected with the god Protogonos, Lactantius explains them as the furthest that Greek poetic imagery could go to express a single creator God. He says that to be born from Aither is the closest possible thing to being unborn, and that Protogonos’ bisexuality was meant to express the fact that he is the only creative power, since Orpheus, in his pagan “limited” mind, understood all generation to be sexual.17 Lactantius focuses on Protogonos-Phanes because he is referring to the Rhapsodic Theogony, the main Orphic theogony in Imperial times, a kind of compilation of previous Orphic poems, where this god was the supreme generative deity before Zeus.18 Although the Rhapsodies differ in many points from the Derveni Theogony, such as the identity of the generative god, both poems share the concepts of creation by and priority of one single god, expressed through theogonical images such as sexual generation, swallowing or birth from aither. Lactantius is undoubtedly projecting his Christian ideas on his reading of Orpheus,19 but in this case his interpretatio Christiana just exploits a salient feature of Orphic theo-gonies.

This continuity of monotheistic tendencies in early and late Orphic poetry can be perceived even more clearly when focusing on the four lines of the Derveni theogony that celebrate Zeus after he has subsumed everything in himself (OF 14). This brief hymn to Zeus inserted in the theogony, in which he is called “first, middle and last,” was very popular in Antiquity: Plato quoted this expression

17 Lactantius, Inst. 1.5.4: Orpheus… deum verum et magnum prwtógonon appellat… Cuius originem atque naturam quia concipere animo non poterat, ex aere inmenso natum esse dixit: aliud enim amplius quod diceret non habebat; 4.8.4: Nisi forte exis-timabimus Deum, sicut Orpheus putavit, et marem esse et feminam, quod aliter generare non quiverit, nisi haberet vim sexus utriusque, quasi ad ipse secum coierit aut sine coitu non potuit procreare. 18 On the Rhapsodies cf. West 1983: 227-58 and Bernabé 2004 on OF 90-359. The god Protogonos — Phanes seems to have features of solar Oriental deities, and he may also be a development from the generative phallus of Uranus in the Derveni theogony. Cf. Bernabé Forthcoming. 19 This caution is noted by Parker 1995:492.



with approval and many others did so after him.20 The lack of cano-nicity in Orphic poetry made possible the existence of expanded ver-sions of this hymn (soon detached from the theogony), with the two first lines unchanged to provide a seal of Orphic authenticity. The most famous one is a Stoicizing version quoted fully in the pseudo-Aristotelian work De mundo, and partly by Apuleius, Plutarch and Achilles Tatius. In this version four lines are added which call Zeus “foundation of the Earth and of starry Heaven,” “male and nymph,” “breath of all things, thrust of tireless fire,” “root of the sea, sun and moon.”21 The Zeus of the theogony, the solitary creator, has turned into the immanent God of the Stoics.

This theological evolution would yet move a large step in the direction of immanence: the Rhapsodies also inserted a hymn to Zeus in the middle of the theogonic narration and amalgamated the Stoicizing hymn with an overtly pantheistic poem of Hellenistic times where the different elements of the cosmos are presented as anatomical parts of Zeus’ royal body, “in which everything whirls:” his head is the sky, his eyes are the sun and the moon, the earth and the mountains his stomach, the sea his belt, etc.22 In fact, these expansions of the Hymn to Zeus made use of the old Orphic image of Zeus contriving the whole cosmos in his belly to develop an extremely immanent and pantheistic view of the one God. It was far from the conception held by the Orphic poet of the Derveni theogony, who just cared about Zeus being the single cosmological principle.

20 Plato, Leg. 4.715e. Since Plato attributes this line to a palaios logos, while Neoplatonists attributed it to Orpheus (rightly as the Derveni Papyrus has shown), Jews and Christians attributed it to Moses (Ps.-Iustin, Cohort. 25.4; Eusebius of Caesarea, Praep. ev. 11.13.5; Theodoretus, Affect. 6.26; OF 378.35-37). The dependence of the Greeks (Plato, and also Orpheus) on Moses was a usual strategy to “save” Greek truths as rooted in revelation: cf. Ridings 1995. 21 OF 31.3-6. It is debatable whether the expression “breath of all things” is a Stoic innovation or it was already in the Derveni poem (n. 10). The Derveni papyrus (both the poem and the commentator) have provided a clear precedent of Stoic cosmological ideas. Brisson 2009 points out some other parallels and proposes Stoic authorship, but rather than changing the dating of the papyrus, it seems easier to see it as a proto-Stoic document. Cf. Betegh 2007. 22 OF 243. Cf. West 1983:239-41, with some parallels in n. 25 of this extreme pantheism. In Herrero 2007:172, I demonstrate that Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.128.3 quotes this Orphic pantheistic hymn in a version previous to its insertion in the Rhapsodies.



Yet he provided the theogonical images which would seem suitable to later poets to express different forms of monotheism.

There existed from Hellenistic times onwards not only expanded versions of the Hymn to Zeus, but also other imitations and continu-ations of Orphic theogonies focused on a supreme deity, which where pressed into the service of very different theological agendas. Neopythagoreans ascribed to Orpheus a Hymn to Number which began by saying: “Listen, glorious Number, father of the blessed, father of men (…) the first of all is the divine number” (OF 698-702). From the monad come the triad, the decade and other complex entities in lines with the scheme of a theogony. Nothing could be further away from Stoicizing pantheism than this purely numerical deity. Yet Orpheus is also here the theologian to which this hymn is attributed. His poetry was thought apt for expressing any monistic theological conception, even when the supreme god was not any more Zeus, but just a more abstract entity as the Number.

DEPERSONALISATION OF THE SUPREME GOD: JEWISH ORPHICA

The most extreme case of this adaptability is the famous Testament of Orpheus, a poem forged by Jewish authors in Hellenistic Alexandria on the model of earlier Orphic poems. “Orpheus” abhors here pagan poly-theism and proclaims the unique God. Following their Jewish prede-cessors, Christian apologists repeatedly quoted this poem to prove the conversion of the most prestigious prophet of pagan religion to the God of the Bible.23 If such forgery had any power of conviction, it is due to the fact that Jews were only doing what Stoics or Pythagoreans had done before them, i.e. composing Orphic poems of their own which kept some formal similarities to earlier Orphic poetry and profit-ting from the ideological affinities between Orphic monism and their own monotheism. The first line, “I will sing to those who understand: close your doors, you profane,” is a well-known seal of Orphic theo-gonies, from the Derveni poem to the Rhapsodies.24 Yet all theogonic

23 Riedweg 1993 is the best study and commentary of the two versions of this poem. Holladay 1996 diverges from him in some points. Cf. the text, its sources and full bibliography in OF 377 and 378. 24 OF 1, where all the citations of this Orphic sphragis are given.



episodes, which would have left some polytheistic undertones, have disappeared from the Testament, which dwells hymnically on the cele bration of the One God. After advising Musaeus (the typical addressee of Orphic poems) to forget all previous polytheism, the converted Orpheus says (OF 377.7-13):

But looking to the divine word, apply yourself to it,keeping the intelligent seat of your heart; and walk well in the straight path, and to the immortal king of the universealone direct your gaze. About this there is an ancient discourse.He is one, self-proceeding; and from Him alone all things proceed,and in them he himself moves around; no mortal beholds him, but he beholds all.He gave evil to mortals out of good thingsand chilling war and tear-bringing sufferings.There is no other out of the great king.

Twelve more verses continue in the same tone, and the poem ends up advising Musaeus to keep the secret. It does not differ too much from pagan Hellenistic hymns to the supreme divinity. Its similarities to the conception of God in the aforementioned work De mundo have been recognised, and the deliverance of good and evil alike to mortals falls within the oldest Greek tradition, starting with the Iliad (24.483f). But expressions like “there is no other besides the great king” betray the Jewish hand behind its composition, for that “exclu-sive monotheism” which proclaims the “inexistence” of other gods is alien even to the most radical Greek monists.25

It is interesting to note, however, that some Jews thought the Testament to be too pagan and not Jewish enough, and composed a second, longer version in which the Biblical elements are given greater emphasis. The longer version mentions about Moses and Abraham to avoid any confusion about which God is being praised. The lines on good and evil are re-elaborated in order to exonerate God from the responsibility of evil: “After good things does not give evil to mortals, but discord and hate accompany them, and war and illness and tear-bringing sufferings” (OF 378.13-15). The second poet, per-haps Aristobulus (2nd c. B.C.), may have found the original version

25 Cf. Riedweg 1993:89-95 for the comparison of the Testament with the treatise De mundo.



too similar to its pagan Orphic models.26 Perhaps his decision to emphasise Biblical elements was influenced by the desire to distin-guish the Testament from other Jewish-pagan syncretistic poems which were also attributed to Orpheus. We have one witness of the existence of such ambiguous poems: Clement of Alexandria quotes as an equivalent to the Testament, that is, as a proof of Orphic intuition of the Biblical God, the following hymn to the Mightiest God:27

Ruler of aither, of Hades, of the sea and the earth,who shakes with bolts the strong home of Olympus;whom the daemons (daímonev) dread, and whom the throng of gods fears;28

even the unsoftening Fates obey youimmortal, mother-father (mjtropátwr), you shake everything in your heart,you move the winds, you cover all with clouds, you cut the broad aither with storms; in the starsis your order, following your inalterable commands,around your fiery throne stand the much-labouringmessengers (ãggeloi), who care that everything is fulfilled for mortals;your spring flourishes anew with purple flowers,your winter comes among chilly cloudsBacchic thunder (bakxeut®v brómiov) reigns in your autumnsdeathless, immortal, speakable only for immortals,come, oh the greatest of all gods, with powerful necessity,fearsome, unconquerable, great, deathless, crowned by aither.

Contrary to the Testament, OF 691 does not seem to be a forgery but a syncretistic product, characteristic of Hellenistic Alexandria,

26 OF 378, lines 13-15 (theodicy), 22-26 (Abraham), 35-37 (Moses as author of the palaios logos of Zeus first, middle and last). Cf. Riedweg 1993:93-101 on Aristobulus as possible author. 27 OF 691 (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.125). West 1983:35 n. 107 and 108 and Bernabé 2004: ad loc. link it with one verse quoted by Clement shortly before (OF 690: Strom. 5.14.116.1), which says “son of the great Zeus, father of Zeus who holds the aegis,” and suggest that the addressee of the hymn could be Cronos, since after Zeus’ recreation of the world his father becomes also his son. On the probable provenance of this hymn from Gnostic circles, cf. Herrero 2007:174-8. 28 I have translated daímonev as daemons since the presence of angels suggests the parallel existence of evil beings who would dread the mighty God. Of course the tradi-tional fear of the gods before Zeus (Il. 1.580) is also present in the second half of the verse. The word daimones expresses the fusion of two different religious conceptions.



where pagan roots (baccheutes) are influenced by Persian and Jewish images (daimones and angeloi). The Orphic roots are much less per-ceivable than in previous poems, though the style is similar to the Orphic Hymns (commented below) and the epithet metropator links it to the Orphic theogonies.29 Yet it shows again that Orpheus’ name was granted great authority as the singer of any supreme God, what-ever his features were.

The fact that a syncretistic poem could be quoted by Clement along with the Testament as a proof of Orphic monotheism also shows that the distinction between a Jewish apologetic forgery and Jewish-Christian influence on pagan monistic theology can be easier to draw in theory than in practice. There are two Orphic fragments quoted by Christian apologists in which the original intention is very hard to define. The first one is found in the apologetic work trans-mitted under the name of Justin Martyr, popularly known as Cohortatio ad Graecos. Some lines after a full quotation of the Testament, the author quotes approvingly the following verses “from the Orphic Oaths:”30 “I swear it upon you, heaven, wise work of the great God. / I swear it upon you, father’s voice, which he first sang / when he fixed the whole cosmos with his will.”

Another fragment from the Orphic Oaths quoted by the neo-Pythagorean Theon of Smyrna confirms that there was an Orphic poem of this name.31 But whether these verses quoted in the Cohortatio stem from that poem (or a similar one of pagan breed), or are, on the contrary, a Jewish imitation remains open to discussion. They present four elements of clear Jewish colour: a) Heaven is a divine work; b) God is father, great and wise; c) God fixed the cosmos; and d) he did so through his voice. The first three could derive from the Greek theogonic tradition and be attributions of Zeus. But the fourth ele-ment introduces into Orphic poetry an extremely new image, creation

29 Clement (Strom. 5.14.125) comments this epithet as an intuition of creation ex nihilo, which is similar to what Lactantius said about Phanes (cf. n. 17). The god male and female, already present in Zeus’ pregnancy in the Derveni theogony, is also mentioned in OF 31, 149, 243. 30 OF 620. Riedweg 1994 shows that the Cohortatio is probably identical with Marcellus of Ancyra’s Ad Graecos de vera religione (fourth century). 31 Theon of Smyrna, Exp. Rer. Math. 104.20 (OF 619). The name ÊOrkoi (Oaths) does not necessarily mean that the poem was used in ritual contexts, since it could profit from the ritual rhetoric (cf. n. 46). Yet there is other evidence of the performance of similar oaths in rites (OF 614-618, 621-623)



by the (poetic) word, which has no precedents in Greek theogonies, but corresponds to the Biblical tales of creation. The author of the Cohortatio seems to have been precisely attracted by this element, since he comments at length the second verse (aûd®n örkíhw se patróv, t®n fqégzato pr¬ton). The word aude strikes him as strange when designating the creative divine word, instead of the traditional Biblical logos, and he explains its use on poetical grounds (the use of hexameters).32 His solution is somewhat naïve, but he points out a problem which has intrigued modern scholars. Though most of them have considered this fragment a forgery, in my opinion the un-Biblical word aude gives slightly more weight to the option of Jewish (or Egyptian) influence in a pagan Orphic poem which keeps traditional Greek terminology.33 But it is nevertheless a matter of mere proba-bility.

The same happens with these two lines quoted by Didymus the Blind to show an Orphic intuition of the Holy Spirit:34 “For under the great favour of the inmortal god (âqanátoio qeoÕ), / everything is fulfilled by men under the wise impulse of the Spirit (pneúmatov örm±i).” There are many Orphic fragments, from the Derveni theo-gony onwards, where the divine pneuma plays a very important role, so a pagan origin cannot be ruled out.35 Yet nowhere else is this frag-ment quoted and it obviously benefits the apologetic intention of

32 Ps.-Justin, Cohort. 16.1. These verses were taken over from the Cohortatio by later authors (Cyril of Alexandria, C. Iul. 1.46; John Malalas, Chron. 2.4; Georgius Cedrenus, Hist. 1.37 (PG 121, 64D); Suda s. v.¨Erm±v (II 414.7 Adler); Chron. Pasch. 47d (PG 92, 172). Malalas transmits two errors: he attributes the lines to Hermes (quoted by Cyril after Orpheus) and changes aûdß into fwnß, which sounded less awkward to Christian ears. 33 West 1983:35 (leaving open the possibility that it is Hermetic: but cf. previous note); Brisson 1991:2923 and Riedweg 1993:334 consider it a forgery. Zeegers-Vander Vorst 1972:215 rightly thinks that it is a pagan poem influenced by Jewish ideas. Cf. Herrero 2007:180: similar cases are OF 414 and 690, and swearing would not be too orthodox from a strict Jewish perspective. Creation by the word is an ubiquitous Biblical image (Gen 1, 3, Ps 32), but it is also an Egyptian notion (Merkelbach 1967). Yet I know no parallel for the metaphor of the creative poetic word of God. 34 Didymus, Trin. 2.27 (OF 853). 35 Cf. n. 10 supra on the possible presence of pnoie in the Derveni poem. Pneuma (understood as “spirit” or more literally as “wind”) is also an important theogonic element in OF 31, 115, 117, 360. Cf. other references to the importance of winds in early Orphic theology in Gagné 2007.



Didymus. It could be, therefore, a Christian forgery. But in any case it would follow closely its Orphic precedents. New Orphic poems, including Jewish and Christian ones, always departed from previous ones which they changed with much caution. All the prestige of Orphic poetry was based on tradition, and traditional terminology, formulae and images had to be respected.

All these Jewish-Christian or Jewish-influenced Orphica have one feature in common which differenciates them from other Orphic poems. They celebrate an impersonal theos who, unlike Zeus, is almost completely deprived of mythological episodes which would give him too distinctive a personality. The only features that are emphasised are those which proclaim his superiority. This supreme theos with no name and no past history could then be easily equated with the God of the Bible. Such strategy of depersonalisation turns Jewish Orphica away from the theogonical model and approximates to the other literary genre cultivated by Orphism, namely the hymn.

SYNCRETISM: ORPHIC HYMNS

The hymnic poems we have discussed, which derived from theo-gonical episodes or were inserted in theogonies, have already lead us to the second of the two approaches to monotheism which was men-tioned at the beginning, namely, syncretism. Just as the boundary between theogony and hymn is not easy to draw, the distinction between hierarchy and syncretism can be blurred. The images of swallowing and contriving, which express hierarchy, end up leading to syncretism: Zeus not only is the creator and king of all gods. He is all gods.

Yet Orphic hymns were dedicated not only to Zeus or to the mightiest God, but also to many other gods of the Greek pantheon. To judge from the extant evidence, the typical style of Orphic hymns was not a lengthy myth-telling as in the Homeric Hymns, but invoca-tions consisting in strings of epithets which describe the attributes of the god in question and address him by all the names he might want to be called, in accordance with the principle of polyonymia. That a god could have many names and deserve different epithets was a common principle of Greek religion from at least the time of Homer. Polyonymy could be used to emphasise either the particularity of



different gods or their unity: invocation by means of specific epithets can contribute to underline the individuality of a particular god, but it may also be used to equate separate gods by transferring epithets from one divinity to another or, taken to a logical extreme, by juxta-posing proper names of different gods as if they all were titles of the same divinity. The clearest example is also the most ancient: the only line quoted in the Derveni Papyrus from some “Orphic Hymns,” which are different from the main theogony, says: Djmßtjr ¨Réa G± Mßtjr te kaì ¨Estía Djio⁄. It equates through juxtaposition and coordination different goddesses: Rhea, Demeter, Earth and Hestia. The epiclesis Deo covers all these goddesses under one single title and makes them one and the same.36

Again the Orphic evidence from Late Antiquity shows a surprising continuity in style with that of the Classical period. The line of that hymn in the Derveni papyrus resembles the form and content of many verses in the famous collection of Orphic Hymns which was used by a group of initiates in Asia Minor around the second century A.D.37 They reflect an ambiguous equilibrium between fusion of the different gods and preservation of their individuality. The collection begins with a general invocation to all the gods, whose names are separated by coordinating particles which avoid equating them on the basis of juxtaposition. After the initial invocation, each hymn is addressed to a particular god: some of them are specifically Orphic, like Phanes-Protogonos, others belong to the general Greek pan-theon, like Poseidon, and a few are local deities of Asia Minor, like Hipta. Some hymns, like the one to the latter goddess (OH 49), define individual gods through distinctive epithets. But in others, different deities are invoked under the same names and epithets, and are thus easily conflated. I am not only referring to general epithets like makar, megas, or the ubiquitous polyonyme, but to far more specific titles which are transferred from one god to another, like Titan, Eubuleus, or “Father of time.” These and other epithets have been

36 P. Derveni col. 22.7 (OF 398), with a generally accepted emendation to make it more metrical. The poetic name Deo is also used to fuse Demeter with Rhea-Cybele in Clement’s denunciation of Greek mysteries (Protr. 2.12-22) which is based in Orphic sources (Herrero 2007:135). 37 On the collection as a whole and on particular hymns, cf. the commented edition of Ricciardelli 2000 and the thorough study of Morand 2001.



well studied by some scholars patient enough to extricate the rules that govern their collocation in the hymns. Far from being hazardous or superficial, these epithets play a sophisticated game of assimilation between separate gods, like Hecate-Artemis-Persephone, Kronos-Zeus, etc.38 Both principles, individualisation and assimilation, are combined throughout the whole collection, even within the same hymn. Let us take just one example, Hymn 52 to Dionysus Trietericus:

I pray to you, oh blessed, many-named, maddened, Bacchus,bull-horned, Lenaius, born from fire, Nysius, Liberator,born from the thigh, Licnites, initiator of the devotees of mysteries,nocturnal, Eubuleus, who wears the girdle, who shakes the thyrsos,unspeakable mystery, of threefold nature, secret offspring of Zeus,First-Born, Ericepaius, father and son of the gods,eater of raw meat, sceptre-bearer, mad among the choirs, band-leader,who revels in Bacchic extasis in the saintly beneficial three-yearly festivalssoil-breaker, shining like fire, Epaphios, son of two mothers,wanderer in mountains, horned, clad in fawnskin, biannually cele-brated,Paian of gold spear, under the bosom, ornated with grapes,Bassarus, ivy-lover, of many girls, with beautiful hair,come to the initiates, oh blessed, always abundant in your grace.

Dionysus is invoked with many of his traditional epithets which make clear that he is not an impersonal deity. Apart from his typical features of the god of extasis and wine, he is given titles which allude to his personal mythology as son of Semele (mjrotrefßv) and to his death as the Zagreus of the Orphic theogonies (trifuév). But he is also addressed with names of other gods: he is called Paian, the tra-ditional epithet for Apollo (34), which also appears in the collection in hymns to Helios (8), Heracles (12), Pan (11) and Asclepios (67); he is also given solar epithets like xrusegxßv (of gold spear) or purifeggév (shining like fire); and in the striking sixth line (Prwtógon', ¨Jrikepa⁄e, qe¬n páter ©dè kaì uïé) he is addressed as “first-born” and erikepaios, cult-titles which appear in the Orphic Hymn 6 dedicated to Protogonos-Phanes: by identifying Dionysus with that primeval god, he can be both “father and son of the gods.”

38 Cf. Rudhardt 1991 on Hecate, Artemis and Persephone; Morand 2001: 170-8, on Hipta and Eubuleus; Govers-Hopman 2001:35-49 on other games of epi-thets.



There is a remarkable difference with the type of hymns we saw in the previous section on Jewish or Jewish-influenced Orphica. In these Orphic Hymns syncretism may also point towards the unity of the divine, but the accumulation of cultic epithets and proper names does not allow the appearance of an impersonal theos. This is a quite different direction from the aforementioned poems to the Mightiest God, which were perhaps product of a more speculative trend, less close to cult than these hymns.

This syncretistic trend is best exemplified in the Orphic Hymns, but it can be seen as a constant feature of Orphic poetry. The iden-tification between Helios, Phanes and Dionysus suggested in Orphic Hymn 52 was in fact present in Orphic poems from at least Hellenistic times, as is shown by a line transmitted by Diodorus when talking about the equivalence between Helios and Osiris (“for that reason they call him Phanes and Dionysus”).39 That line is either part or precedent of a Hymn to the Sun quoted at length by Macrobius in the fifth century A.D., in the course of his demonstration that Dionysus is the same as Apollo. This is a step forward from the faith-ful attachment to polytheistic form which the collection of Orphic Hymns kept in spite of all its implicit identifications. Now the iden-tity between different deities is boldly announced. The Hymn to the Sun proclaims expressly the principle of divine unity under solar syn-cretism, in these lines:40

OF 539: Listen, shining circle of far-reaching whirlalways whiling your course in the heavenly orbits,splendid Zeus, Dionysus, father of the sea, father of the earth,Sun father of all, all-radiant, gold-shining.

OF 540: (Time) softening the aither that had been motionlessshowed the gods Eros, lovely to behold

39 Diodorus of Sicily 1.11.2 (OF 60 I). That line is almost identical to OF 540.3m quoted below. The sun is present in the Derveni Papyrus (13.9, 14.3), but it is generally taken as an element introduced by the commentator, absent from the Orphic theogony. Only if the presence of Phanes were accepted, could the poem have identified him with Helios. 40 Macrobius, Sat. 1.23.21 (OF 539), 1.18.12 (OF 540), 1.18.17 (OF 542), 1.18.17 (OF 543). OF 541, quoted in Sat. 1.18.22, which describes the dress of the priests, with abundant solar symbology, comes probably from the same Hymn to the Sun (pace West 1983:28 n.77 and 206 n.96 who ascribes it to the Hierostolika).



whom they now call Phanes and Dionysusand Lord Eubuleus, eminent Antauges;and other men on earth use other names. He first came to light, and was named Dionysusbecause he whirls through infinite Olympus;but changed his name, from different societiesgot manifold titles in the course of time.

OF 542: Sun, whom they also call Dionysus.

OF 543: One Zeus, one Hades, one Helios, one Dionysusone God in all them41: why shall I tell you in two ways?

As a deity that occupied a central place in the universe but with little mythology attached to it, the Sun could easily be equated with many deities in hymns. Therefore, its popularity as supreme deity expanded considerably from the Hellenistic period until Late Antiquity, offering a sort of middle way between the impersonal theos of the philosophers and the all-too-human Zeus of the theogonies. The Sun was also easy to conflate with Oriental deities like Mithra, whose cult expanded quickly throughout the Roman Empire.42 But the Hymn to the Sun also hints at another possible direction syncretism could take.

The last line (efiv qeòv ên pántessi· tí soi díxa taÕt' âgoreúw) seems to culminate the long invocation which justifies the different names given to the Sun (Eros, Phanes, Dionysus) and a logical consequence of the previous line which proclaims: efiv Heúv, efiv Aÿdjv, efiv ¨Jliov, efiv Diónusov.43 Yet the last line is the only one not quoted by Macrobius, who would have no apparent reason to omit it since it helps proving his point. It comes only from one source we have already come across, the Christian author of the Cohortatio ad Graecos, who immediately after giving the full text of the Testament to show Orpheus’ conversion, goes on to quote the two last lines of this Hymn to the Sun. The first line stems of course

41 efiv qeòv ên pántessi. It could also be translated as “one God in everything.” But I think the hymn focuses on divine equivalences rather than on immanence. 42 On solar syncretism in Late Antiquity, see Fauth 1995 where he analyses the Orphic Hymn to Helios and relates it to Mithraic evidence. 43 This line is also quoted by Julian (Or. 11.136) as coming from an oracle of Apollon, with the variant of Serapis instead of Dionysus. It may have been a slogan of late Pagan syncretism.



from the original Orphic poem composed by a pagan devotee of the Sun, but we cannot be sure whether the second line was in the original Orphic poem or a Christian addition. I think the latter is the most probable solution.44 Be that as it may, that line carries to an extreme the mono theistic possibilities of the Hymns, as the Testament did with the theogonies. The Christians turn Orphic poems into impersonal cele brations of ho theos, where all residue of polytheism has disappeared. But to achieve that result they just had to push a little further the monist literary strategies developed by previous Orphic poetry. Extreme syncretism, which exploited polyonymia to the highest degree, would be turned by Christians into anonymity. The God of the Bible, of course, would fill that empty theos with his overwhelming personality.

TRACES OF LITERARY MONOTHEISM IN CULT

This quick overview gives a clear image of how Orphic monothe-ism works in the literary level. Orphic poetic techniques to express monistic notions within the context of polytheistic genres were exploited by thinkers with very different agendas throughout Antiquity: in the fourth century B.C. the Derveni poet adheres to a monism akin to Presocratic speculation. In Hellenistic times Stoics tend to sympathise with immanent, even pantheistic notions, while Pythagoreans and devotees of solar theology had completely differ-ent approaches to the single deity. Jewish and Christian apologetics used impersonal versions of Orphic poems to announce their God in a Greek world. In Late Antiquity, the intellectual struggle between a triumphant Christianity and the pagan “intellectual resistance” gave new impulse to a monistic reading of Orphic poems. Orpheus was the most ancient of Greek prophets, and for late pagans who sought to counter weigh Christianity with alterna-tive sources of revelation, Orphic poetry was divinely inspired. Orphic poems were thus quoted by Neoplatonists as sources of divine inspiration at the same level as Apolline and Chaldean Oracles

44 Ps.-Justin, Cohort. 15.2. Neither Riedweg 1993, nor Zeegers-Vander Vorst 1972:249, nor Bernabé 2004 seem to have any doubts that the line stems originally from the Hymn to the Sun.



and the Hermetic writings. Allegorical readings of theogonies proved to be very convenient to reconcile the latter with the monism underlying these philosophical systems.

Is Orphic monotheism then a purely artificial phenomenon, a mere traditional cover for monotheisms of alien roots, such as Christianity or Neoplatonism? In post-Classical Orphism this was no doubt often the case and Orpheus was just a façade to add an ornamental touch to a building built with other materials, just like Homeric passages could be used to defend some philosophical ideas which Homer would never have dreamt of. But such bookish artificiality need not have always been the case with Orphic poetry. Orphica have a further particularity which distinguishes them from other types of theological poetry and from theologically interpreted poetry. Orpheus was not only the patron of many religious poems, but also of a ritual tradition. From the Classical period to Late Antiquity there is a loose relation between poems and rites, which has been a matter of scholarly debate for decades. Rites and poems do not completely overlap, and not all Orphic poems are necessarily the legomena of Orphic rites, as some pan-Orphists would like. Nor are they completely independent fields, as “Orpheo-sceptics” would prefer. The intriguing case of the Derveni Papyrus, in which the commentator dedicates seven of the extant columns to the rites of the magoi and then nineteen to a commentary on an Orphic poem with no obvious ritual connection, remains paradigmatic of the complexity of the question.45

As far as the subject of this paper is concerned, the monotheistic trends which have appeared in Orphic poetry also leave some traces in Orphic cults, that is, on the level of practical religion. They are not, therefore, a purely literary game but sometimes reflect a true religious experience. It is true that the evidence for a link between of the aforementioned hymns with religious practice is scant. I do not think that much value should be given to statements like that of Macrobius, who says that the Hymn to the Sun was sung “in Bacchic rites.” The rites mentioned by Neoplatonists in the fifth century A.D. sound much like imaginative fabrication of a purportedly ancient tradition, and are most likely descriptions of Orphic rites which

45 Cf. Parker 1995; Betegh 2004:71-94 and 325-48 for the ritual connections of the Derveni Papyrus.



they had never seen, performed by “Orphics” that probably never existed.46

Yet there is some evidence for actual reciting of Orphic poems in ritual contexts: for example, Pausanias reports that the Lycomidai sang Orphic hymns in their sanctuary in Phlya while doing their dromena. These hymns probably did not differ too much from the collection of Orphic Hymns, which was expressly devised to be used while making offerings and pouring libations over the altar.47 Singing hymns is a cultic act in itself, and thus attests to a religious experience which goes beyond bookish speculation, not to speak of apologetic forgery. Besides, there are three pieces of direct evidence which prove the cultic context of some of the Orphic poems which have been studied in the precedent pages.

The first document is the Gurob Papyrus, dated in the early third century B.C. It seems to be a partly preserved hieros logos with Orphic verses, passwords and instructions for the performance of a Dionysiac telete. A partly preserved line seems to assimilate Demeter and Rhea in the same way as the theogonies and the hymn quoted in the Derveni papyrus do. Moreover, the utterance heis Dionysos seems to be a symbolon. As it is well known, this can simply mean that in that moment Dionysus is the most important god for the initiate.48 But its resemblance to expressions in the aforementioned Hymn to the Sun makes it probable that some Orphic henotheistic hymns reflect not only the intellectual speculation of a theologian fond of linking divine names, but also the true religious experience of the unity of the invoked gods.

The connection between poems and rites may also work in the other direction, that is, a poem may give rise to some dromena. An alabaster bowl dated to the 3rd-5th centuries A.D. has an inscription

46 Orpheo-scepticism has traditionally focused on these passages. Cf. Linforth 1941:271 (though on pp. 231, 241, and 284 he seems to imply that Macrobius refers to “living mysteries”). Turcan 1967 shows that a passage of Servius which describes in detail Orphic rites of initiation is a pure invention to provide ritual legitimacy for a neo-Pythagorean eschatological theory. Cf. n. 31 supra on the per-formance of Orphic oaths. 47 Pausanias, 9.27.2, 9.30.12. On the performance of the Orphic Hymns, cf. Morand 2001: 101-152, 231-298. 48 P. Gurob 1 (= OF 578), lines 6 and 23. Cf. Hordern 2000 and Morand 2001: 276-282. On the meaning of expressions like heis Dionysos, cf. Versnel 1998.



which combines two lines from the Hymn to the Sun with an invoca-tion to Zeus, creator of the cosmos (âglaè HeÕ, kósmou genn±tor), and a line from a cosmogonic fragment of Euripides. The publishers of the bowl propose a connection with a solar cult, as the references to circularity and the round form itself show.49 In this case it seems that literature influences cult rather than vice versa.

Finally, the clearest instances of the influence of Orphic poems on solar syncretistic cults relate to Mithraism. An inscription of the third century A.D. from Rome reads: “the priest and father to Zeus, Helios, Mithra, Phanes.”50 That is the epigraphic complement to a famous Roman carving dating to the second century A.D. which shows a solar god being born from an egg with the attributes of both Mithra and Phanes. It is preserved in Modena, and it has been lik-ened to another one from Borcovicum (Housesteads, England) which shows another egg-born Mithra51. These pieces of evidence show that the identification of Phanes and Mithra as solar deities was rela-tively widespread. Fusion with Zeus was a way of reinforcing the centrality of the only true and life-dispensing god, the Sun. The Sun is the same god in whose honour some of the most speculative Orphic hymns were composed. So perhaps Macrobius was not, after all, so far from the truth and such hymns may have been sung in real cults.52

49 Delbrück and Vollgraff 1934. The inscription says (OF 66 III): “Gods: because he whirls through infinite Olympus / shining Zeus, father of the cosmos / Listen, shining circle of far-reaching whirl / heaven and earth were one form.” Lines 1 and 3 are found in OF 539.1 and 540.7 (quoted above) and line 4 is Euripides, Melanipp. Frg. 5 Jouan-Van Looy. 50 OF 678 (Vermaseren 1956: n° 475). 51 Vermaseren 1956: n° 695. Cf. Guthrie 1952:254 and West 1983:253 about the relief from Borcovicum. 52 A portrait of Orphic solar cults would not be complete without mentioning three disparate pieces of evidence which reflect their roots in Classical times: the great leaf from Thurii (tablet C, 4th-3rd cent. B.C., cf. Betegh 2004:325-48), which mentions Helios (OF 492.3); an inscription from Olbia of similar style, location and date to famous Orphic bone-tablets (OF 537): Bíov-Bíov, ˆApóllwn-ˆApóllwn, ‰Jliov-‰Jliov, Kósmov-Kósmov, F¬v-F¬v; and Aeschylus’ Bassaridai, where Orpheus was portrayed adoring the Sun (Apollo) as supreme god (OF 536); cf. West 1983:13.



CONCLUSION

Orphism may lack a coherent system of thought, since there were no communities of Orphics concerned with building or preserving it. But in the Orphic tradition there are some tendencies which lasted a thousand years and served as sources of inspiration, interpretation and manipulation for many different religious thinkers, and also for some practitioners. The polyonymia of a personal god whose theo-gonic episodes were the mark of his superiority to other gods or his identity with them, or the anonymity of an impersonal theos, could be opposite results from the same poetic resources. The same ten-dencies, and even the same texts, could express a genuine religious speculation and experience, or be used as sheer propaganda. There is only one common element to Stoics, Pythagoreans, Christians, Neo-platonists, and composers and singers of hymns for different cults (be it the Sun, Mithra, or any other supreme God). They all thought Orphica to be a very suitable vehicle for conveying monotheism while upholding the legitimacy of traditional genres.


Orphic God(s): Theogonies an Hymns as Vehicles of Monotheism

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