A Dissertation on the Life and Theology of Orpheus: Section III

SECT. III.

BUT it is now time to speak of the following Hymns, of which, as we have before observed, Onomacritus is the reputed author. And first, with regard to the dialect of these Hymns, Gesner well observes it ought to be no objection to their antiquity. For though, according to x Iamblichus, the Thracian Orpheus, who is more ancient than those noble poets Homer and Hesiod, used the Doric dialect; yet the Athenian Onomacritus, who, agreeable to the general opinion of antiquity, is the author of all the works now extant, ascribed to Orpheus y, might

a, whose words are translated as follows by the author of the Letters on Mythology b. "The Thracian Orpheus (says Pausanias) was represented on mount Helicon, with ΤΕΛΕΤΗ (initiation or religion) by his side, and the wild beasts of the woods, some in marble, some in bronze, standing round him. His hymns are known by those who have studied the poets to be both short and few in number. The Lycomedes, an Athenian

c. And Scaliger well observes, in his notes co these hymns, that they ought rather to be called initiations, because they contain only invocations of the Gods,

d, relating the powers of the planets on things inferior, expressly mentions these hymns, or rather initiations, and many of the compound epithets with which they abound e. From all which it is evident that the following Hymns were written by the Athenian Onomacritus, and are the same with those so much celebrated by antiquity. Indeed it is not probable they Should be the invention of any writer more

f being a Pythagorean, follows the Pythagoric principles, and these are the Orphic traditions; for what Orpheus delivered mystically in secret discourses, these Pythagoras learned

g. And again Proclus h: it is Pythagorical to follow the Orphic genealogies; for from the Orphic tradition downward by Pythagoras, the science concerning the Gods was derived to the Greeks." And elsewhere i, "All the theology of the Greeks is the progeny of the sacred initiations (μυσαγωγιαι) of Orpheus. For Pythagoras first learned the orgies of the Gods from Aglaophemus; but Plato was the second who received a

Photius, in his Bibliotheca, has preserved to us part of a valuable work, written by Nicomachus the Pythagorean, entitled Theological Arithmetic; in which he ascribes particular epithets, and the names of various divinities to numbers, as far as to ten. There is likewise a curious work of the same title, by an anonymous writer, which is extant only in manuscript. From these two, and from occasional passages respecting numbers according to Pythagoras, found in the Platonic writers, Meursius

k; viz. of æther, heaven, the deep, the earth, &c. And Proteus is invoked as possessing the keys of the deep l. Again, Vesta, in the Orphic hymns, is the same with the mother of the Gods; and the mother of the Gods is celebrated as "always governing rivers and every sea m; which perfectly agrees with the appellations given both to Love and Proteus. Again, among the various epithets ascribed to the duad, or number two, are, Phanes, Nature, Justice, Rhea,

n; which he likewise affirms of Death in the same words. And thus much for the duad. The triad, or number three, they denominated Juno, Latona, Thetis, Hecate or Diana, Pluto, Tritogenia or Minerva, &c. Now Latona and Thetis, are each of them called in these initiations, κυανόπεπλ# ( ) or dark-veiled; and Minerva and the Moon, who is the same with Diana, θῆλωσ ϗαμπ ἂρσην, female and male. The tetrad

a, has the following remarkable passage, translated, most likely from some manuscript work of Proclus, as I conjecture from its conclusion; for, unfortunately, he does not acquaint us with the author. "Those

b. In water, the former power Ocean, and the latter Thetis. In air, that thundering Jove, and this Juno. In fire, that Phanes, and this Aurora. In the soul of the lunar sphere, they call the nostic power Licnitan Bacchus, the other Thalia. In the sphere of Mercury, that Bacchus Silenus, this Euterpe. In the orb of Venus, that Lysius Bacchus, this

) Κρονυ, son of Saturn. And Amphietus is celebrated as moving in concert with the circling hours, Ἐυάζων κινῶν τε χορῦσ ἐνὶ κυκλάσιν ὥραις which corresponds with Saturn, who is called in these Hymns , or the Sun c. And lastly, Dionysius who is called

d: but as

Footnotes

85:x De Vita Pythag. c. 34. p. 169. Kuft.

85:y Philoponus observes, in his Commentary on Aristotle's books of the Soul, that Aristotle calls 87:a In Boeoticis p. 770

87:b Page 167.

88:c It is remarkable that Sextus Empiricus more than once mentions Onomacritus in the Orphics. Οιομάκρίλ# ( ) ἒν τοῖσ Ορφικοῖσ.

89:d Page 267.

89:e Vide Fabric. Bib. p. 124.

90:f In Timæum p. 291.

91:g Συμφωνία Ορφέωσ, Πυθαγορυ, καὶ πλατονοσ.

91:h In Tim. p. 289.

91:i In Theol. Plat. p 13.

94:k

πάντων κληΐδα ἒχοντας,
Αιθέρ# ( ),ερανισ, κ.λ.

94:l πόντυ κληΐδασ ἒχοντα.

94:m Σοὶ ποτκμοὶ κροσοται ἀεὶ κ πᾶσα ϑάλασσα.

96:n In the hymn to Love Μῦν# ( ) γὰρ τύτων πάνων οἲηκα κρατύνεις. And in that to Death οἴ πάντων ϑητῶν οἴηκα κρατύνωεις.

100:a Lib. iv. p, 128.

101:b The reader may observe that this two-fold power is divided into male and female; the reason of which distribution we have already assigned from Proclus.

104:c I have omitted a comparison between the eighth sphere and Pericionius from necessity, because there is no hymn among the following to that 105:d This is evident from the following epistle of Lucas Holstenius to P. Lambecius, preserved by Fabricius in that excellent work, his Bibliotheca Græca, tom, i. p. 117 . Habeo et Orphei exemplar

A Dissertation on the Life and Theology of Orpheus: Section III

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