Orphics

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Orpheus surrounded by animals. Third century Roman mosaic ( Palermo , Regional Archaeological Museum )

The Orphics ( Greek  Ὀρφικοί Orphikoí ) were a religious movement of antiquity that began in the 6th / 5th centuries. Century BC BC or earlier in Greece, in the Greek settled southern Italy and on the northern Black Sea coast . They invoked the mythical singer and poet Orpheus , in whom they saw the author of their teachings and the author of authoritative Orphic texts. Their endeavors were the preparation for the expected continued life of the soul after the death of the body. The Orphic was not a single religious community with a self-contained teaching, but a large number of autonomous groups.

Origin and early period

The Orphic probably came from Thrace , which was considered the homeland of Orpheus and was considered a land of barbarians by the Greeks . It spread in Greece - with a focus on northern Greece and Crete -, in the areas of southern Italy colonized by Greek settlers and on the Greek-populated Black Sea coast. Orphic thought is only clearly attested in the 5th century BC. BC, but the beginnings can be much earlier.

The explanatory approaches for the origin and early development discussed in research are speculative. In particular, the relationship between Orphics and related phenomena within Greek religion such as Pythagoreanism , the Eleusinian mysteries , various manifestations of the Dionysus cult and the religious philosophy of the pre-Socratic Empedocles is unclear . In the 5th century BC BC Herodotus reported on the prohibition of burial in woolen clothing, a burial rule that is called Bakchic (Dionysian) and Orphic. Empedocles, who also lived in the fifth century, seems to have considered himself an Orphic; According to a research hypothesis, his poetry was based not only on Orphic ideas in terms of content, but also based formally on an Orphic model. The Orphics shared some goals and beliefs with the Pythagoreans, a religious community that Pythagoras founded in the 6th century BC. In southern Italy. The writer and poet Ion of Chios (5th century BC) claims that Pythagoras passed poems that he himself wrote as works of Orpheus. According to later reports, Pythagoreans living in Italy were among the authors of Orphic literature. Mutual influencing of Orphics and Pythagoreans is probably to be assumed. Corresponding hypotheses have been discussed in research for a long time, but the unfavorable source situation does not allow any reliable statements about them, because clear evidence is lacking. In any case, the available reports show that the early Orphics were a protest and reform movement, which elitistically distinguished itself from the popular religion and was therefore viewed with skepticism by those around them. In contrast to the Pythagoreans, the Orphics have no political objectives.

Orpheus, the alleged originator of Orphic, was already mentioned in the 6th century BC. Counted among the Argonauts , i.e. dated a generation before the Trojan War . It is unknown whether there was a real historical model for this mythical figure and whether the Orpheus saga has a historical core. In research, opinions differ on this.

Orphic writings

The rich book production of Orphik, which dates back to the 5th century BC. Is attested until late antiquity . Characteristic of the Orphics is, on the one hand, their high esteem for their books and, on the other hand, the fact that they apparently did not permanently fix their teaching texts in a certain version as binding, but instead repeatedly formulated and interpreted them anew. It is mainly about mythical descriptions of the creation of the world ( cosmogony ) and hymns .

The Orphic poetry , the writings of the Orphic in verse, as its author was usually Orpheus itself is largely lost. A number of poems are complete, another part of Orphic poetry has only survived in fragments or is known from the contents, only the titles of some works have survived. The Suda , a Byzantine encyclopedia, names a number of titles. This list probably comes from a lost treatise on Orphic poetry written by the grammarian Epigenes in the epoch of Hellenism . The meter of Orphic poetry is always the hexameter .

A collection of Orphic hymns has been preserved in full . There are 87 poems, the length of which varies between six and thirty verses. In it, Orpheus, as the fictional author, glorifies the deities worshiped by the Orphics. Presumably these seals were created in the 2nd century for a cult community in Asia Minor , perhaps with the utilization of older material.

The following poems have only survived fragmentarily or are known from summaries of contents:

  • the old Orphic "Theogony", a poem that deals with the origin of the cosmos, the gods and the people. The Peripatetic Eudemos of Rhodes , who lived in the 4th century BC. Lived, is said to have written a content rendering. The late antiquity Neoplatonic philosopher Damascius referred to him and sketched several variants of the myth.
  • The "Holy Speeches (hieroí lógoi) in 24 Rhapsodies". They also depict the mythical prehistory of the cosmos. 176 fragments have been preserved. The dating approaches for the form of the text, from which the surviving fragments come, vary between the late 2nd century BC. BC and the 2nd century AD. The lost original version may have originated in the early Orphic period.
  • A hymn to Zeus , which the Neo-Platonist Porphyrios quotes, and one to Dionysus , to which the late antique scholar Macrobius repeatedly refers in his "Saturnalia", are known only from quotations . In the 2nd century, the writer Pausanias reported on hymn chants that Orpheus wrote and that the Lycomids, members of an Athenian priestly family, sang during their ritual activities. Pausanias believed that the hymns of Orpheus were only surpassed in beauty by those of Homer.
  • the " Orphic Argonautika " ( Orphéōs Argōnautiká "The Argonauts Ride of Orpheus"), a late antique poem of 1376 hexameters. In this version of the Argonauts legend , Orpheus tells of the Argonaut procession. He himself plays a key role in the group of heroes who undertake an adventurous voyage on the ship Argo in order to capture the Golden Fleece . Orpheus is already of old age, but without him the project could not succeed. The Argonauts set out from their Greek homeland and first travel to Colchis on the east coast of the Black Sea, where they appropriate the fleece. On the return journey you will cross the Tanaïs ( Don ) River to the far north of the Eurasian mainland. There they reach the Ocean , the river that flows around the inhabited world in a ring. Then they turn to the west and circumnavigate first northern and then western Europe; the way home leads through the Strait of Gibraltar .
Pieces of the Derveni papyrus

The Derveni papyrus , a scroll found in 1962 in grave site A of the Derveni tombs near Thessaloniki , contains fragments of a commentary on an otherwise unknown version of the Orphic creation myth, from which the commentator quotes individual verses which he interprets allegorically. In this version, Zeus plays the main role as the creator. The commentator emphatically distances himself from what he sees as a lack of superficial, literal understanding of the text. The papyrus was made in the 4th century BC. The comment is from the late 5th or early 4th century BC. And the commented poem is likely to be much older.

Lost writings include the "oracles" (chrēsmoí) , the "consecrations" (teletaí) , the "mixing jugs" (kratḗres) , the "mantle" (péplos) , the "net" (díktyon) , the "physics" ( physiká , about cosmology ) and the "astronomy" (astrologiká) .

to teach

The Orphics' interest was primarily directed towards the origin of the cosmos, the world of gods and humanity, and the fate of the soul after death. Their mythical and poetic way of thinking and expressing the result that their teachings were not fixed and dogmatized in a clear, binding form, but retained a fluctuating character and could be interpreted in different ways.

cosmology

The Orphic cosmogony (theory of the origin of the world) makes the night the beginning of all things in its oldest known version, recorded by Eudemos of Rhodes. According to the old Orphic poetry, the process of creation extends over six generations, as can be seen from a quote from Plato, according to which Orpheus allows “the order of song” to end with the sixth gender.

A group of other versions offers different variants of a different transmission of the myth. One of them is the version reproduced by Damascius from the "Holy Speeches in 24 Rhapsodies", hence one speaks of the "rhapsodic cosmogony" of the Orphics. In this branch of tradition, time ( Chronos ) appears as the principle that forms the origin of everything. Chronos initially brings out two principles, aither and chaos . The second phase of cosmic history begins with the formation of the silvery shimmering ice that Chronos creates in Aither. The winged god of light Phanes is born from the world egg . Phanes is a main deity of the Orphics, outside of Orphic circles he does not seem to have been worshiped. It is equated with Eros in late antiquity, perhaps even in the early Orphic . His mate is Nyx , the night; he entrusts his scepter to her. Nyx gives birth to the god Uranos , who is next to rule the world. This is the third phase. Uranus is overthrown by his son Kronos ; this change of power initiates the fourth phase. Zeus succeeds Kronos , whose reign forms the fifth phase. Zeus devours Phanes, with which he appropriates all his strength and power. With his mother he fathered the daughter Persephone , with Persephone the son Dionysus . Zeus later leaves the rule to the still childish Dionysus, with which the sixth phase begins. Hera , the jealous wife of Zeus, incites the titans against Dionysus . The titans lure Dionysus into a trap, kill and dismember him. Then they cook his corpse and begin to consume it, thereby absorbing something of its being. However, Zeus surprises the murderers and burns them to ashes with his lightning bolt. From the ashes, in which the titanic is mixed with the Dionysian, smoke rises and soot is formed; from this Zeus creates the human race. A variant of the myth thus explains the ambivalence of human nature, which shows two opposing tendencies: on the one hand, a destructive, titanic trait that incites rebellion against the divine order, but on the other hand, a Dionysian element that leads to the divine. Apollon collects the pieces from Dionysus' corpse, Athena brings his intact heart to Zeus, who now brings the murdered man back to life.

Another version is Damascius with reference to two authors named Hieronymos and Hellanikos. According to her, there were initially two principles, water as the principle of dispersion and the earth as the principle of assembly. A dragon emerged from them as a third principle, which at the same time bears the names of the non-aging Chronos (time) and Heracles . This being has wings on its shoulders and is three-headed; next to a bull and a lion head it has a divine one in the middle. His companion is Ananke , the global necessity. Chronos is the father of Aither and Chaos. Later Chronos created the world egg from Aither, Chaos and Erebos (the darkness). According to another variant of this version of the myth, which the Christian apologist Athenagoras of Athens narrates, water was the only original principle; from it the earth element formed as mud. According to Athenagoras' account, the world egg split into two parts; Heaven emerged from the upper, the earth from the lower.

Soul teaching

Already in the Homeric epics the view can be found that in human and animal existence there is an invigorating principle, the presence of which is a prerequisite for life and which survives the death of the body. According to the ideas handed down by Homer, this entity, the "soul" (Greek psychḗ ), separates itself from the body at death and goes into the underworld as its shadowy image . The poet assumes that the afterlife of the soul is unpleasant; he makes her lament her fate.

The Orphics shared the traditional belief that there is a soul that animates the body and does not die with it but leaves the corpse. They combined this concept with the idea of transmigration of souls , which says that the soul enters different bodies one after the other and thus goes through a plurality of lives. By granting the soul an independent existence even before the body was formed, the Orphics gave up the assumption that the soul was naturally bound to a particular body. This gave the soul a previously unknown autonomy. Her connection with a body no longer appeared as a requirement of her nature, but as a mere episode in her existence. It was now not only considered immortal, but its existence was placed on a basis completely independent of the ephemeral world of the body. In this way, a natural, divine or god-like quality and corresponding original freedom was ascribed to it.

With these assumptions about the nature of the soul contrasts its earthly existence, its connection with the perishable body, into which it enters from outside according to the Orphic teaching. As a result, she comes into contact with suffering and mortality and has to experience it accordingly. From the Orphic point of view, such a mode of existence does not correspond to the natural destiny of the soul, but is only a temporary state willed by the gods. Therefore, as Plato testifies, the Orphics called the body the prison of the soul imprisoned in it.

According to the Orphics, the soul cannot simply return to its homeland on the other side after the death of the body in which it has inhabited , but rather it has to reconnect with a body. This leads to the cycle of successive life and death, the transmigration of souls. This is caused by offenses that have to be atoned for, which leads to the soul being forced to remain in the cycle. What the offenses consist of is not clear from the sparse information in the sources. In any case, according to the Orphic worldview, this state does not have to last forever. Rather, the soul can finally leave the physical world when it goes on a certain path of redemption. The goal is a lasting blissful existence in their home, the hereafter. This corresponds to their actual, original nature, which is divine or god-like. The Orphics believed that the soul can be redeemed and thus represented a fundamentally optimistic worldview that differs fundamentally from the traditional, principally pessimistic view of the Greeks, as reflected in Homeric poetry.

According to the Orphic doctrine, humanity owes the necessary instruction about how to free oneself from the misery of earthly existence to Orpheus. According to legend, he went down into the underworld to find his deceased wife Eurydice in the realm of the dead and to lead her back into the world of the living. In fact, he received permission from the gods there to take them with him, but the common ascent failed, and Eurydice had to return. After all, Orpheus had entered the realm of the dead as a living person and had returned from there. As a result, from the Orphic point of view, he became an authority who can provide information about the world of the dead and who has religious knowledge that enables the soul to be redeemed. In the Orphic, he was given the role of founder of religion.

Way of life

Community building

The extent of the institutionalization of orphic - one also speaks of "orphism" - as a religion is controversial in research. The "minimalist" interpretation of the sources ( Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , Ivan M. Linforth , Martin L. West and others) states that there never was an Orphic religion as a common belief in a community with cult and corresponding rites. Therefore one could not speak of "Orphics" in the sense of a following of a certain religion, but this term should only be used to designate the authors of Orphic writings. A more recent variant of the minimalist approach says that Orphic is nothing but “the fashion to invoke Orpheus”. The opposite position is found in more recent finds. It says that Orphic is definitely characterized by a certain worldview and that communities of Orphics were organized who, with reference to Orpheus, devoted themselves to ritual practices that should help them to a better existence after death. Today it is plausible to assume that although there was no uniform religion, there were local associations of people who shared a core set of religious convictions.

Some evidence suggests that the Orphic was able to gain a foothold especially in the upper class and that the proportion of women was high.

behaviour rules

The Pythagoreans were known for their special, strictly observed way of life, the characteristics of which included dietary rules and ethical principles. Plato testifies that there were also Orphic rules of life; he mentions a past in which these rules were generally followed. As with the Pythagoreans - at least their inner circle - also with the Orphics belonged to the norms an ethically motivated vegetarianism , which was connected with the doctrine of the migration of souls and the higher assessment of the value of animal life caused by it. Food obtained from the dead animal body was frowned upon, as was animal sacrifice, which is common in Greek folk religion. Bloody sacrifices and meat consumption led to the loss of ritual purity. The extent to which the Orphics followed certain ethical norms beyond the general prohibition of bloodshed and regarded this as a necessary prerequisite for the desired salvation is largely unknown. Their dietary restrictions were based not only on the prohibition of killing, but also on their cosmogony; the ban on eating eggs handed down by Plutarch was related to the mythical world egg concept. However, the egg taboo , which was first attested to at a late point in time, may not yet apply in the early days. A general alcohol ban did not exist, at least in the early days.

It is unclear to what extent membership in an Orphic community was viewed as a prerequisite for treading an Orphic path of salvation. In any case, ritual cleansing was considered an essential condition for the salvation of the soul. The wandering Orphics, who offered purification to anyone for a fee, were probably a sign of decline of the Orphic movement.

Archaeological evidence

Gold leaves from Hipponion in Calabria with instructions for a deceased

Modern research associates a custom at burial with orphics. Labeled gold leaves or bone plates were given to the dead in the grave. This custom is from 5./4. Century BC Archaeologically attested to until the 3rd century AD; most of the texts date from the 4th century BC. The gold leaves are thin foils that have been referred to in research literature since 1915 as lamellae orphicae . The inscriptions are Greek texts with information, slogans and, in some cases, detailed instructions, which should provide orientation for the soul of the deceased in its after-death existence and help to divine grace. The general denial of an Orphic background (Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff et al.) Has proven to be wrong, but an undifferentiated allocation of the finds to the Orphic current has also met with contradictions. According to the current state of research, the hypothesis that these are Orphic texts is considered relatively plausible. It is unclear whether the ideas originally came from the Orphic and to what extent the influences of various religious currents were mixed. Some finds show that some of the leaflets belong in the context of a Dionysus mystery cult . Apparently the deceased had belonged to a cult community of worshipers of the god Bakchos (Dionysus).

In some of the texts the deceased appears as a speaker. He turns to the gods and expresses his wish to remain in the realm of the immortals in the future. In other texts the deceased is the one addressed. He receives instructions for his path or is praised as happy (Beatitudes, makarismós ), because his death as a human enabled him to be reborn as a divine being. Statements and references such as “Life - Death - Life” or “Now you have died and are now, threefold blessed, on this day” represent death as a passage to new life. Statements such as “You will be God instead of a mortal” or the words addressed to the immortal gods, “Yes, I too boast that I am of your blessed sex” testify to the optimism and self-confidence of the texture lifters, who considered the purified soul to be godlike.

A special case is a find published in 1978 from Olbia on the north coast of the Black Sea . This is not a grave, but tablets (bone plates) that apparently served a cultic purpose. In the text, the term "orphic" expressly refers to orphics, from which the existence of an orphic community in Olbia can be inferred. This find is the oldest archaeological evidence of orphic activity; the platelets date from the 5th century BC Chr.

reception

Assessments by ancient poets and philosophers

The oldest surviving representations of the behavior of the Orphics by outsiders reveal contempt. There are two passages in Euripides and Plato , which are at the same time the earliest evidence for the existence of Orphic literature. In Euripides' tragedy The wreathed Hippolytus , written in 428 BC. Was performed, Theseus accuses his son Hippolytus of being a hypocrite who imagines something on his vegetarianism, plays the initiate and chosen of the gods and in the service of Orpheus honors the "smoke of many writings". In the 4th century BC BC Plato described the hustle and bustle of charlatans who had quantities of books on hand, which they ascribed to Orpheus and the mythical poet Musaios. Their sacrificial rites and ordinations were set out in it. For a fee, they offered their services to the rich and they even managed to convince entire cities. They boasted of their special relationship with the gods and their magical abilities and claimed that through the ritual acts they propagated one could obtain atonement for crimes committed. This frees oneself from the threatening evils of the hereafter. Even those who have already died can be spared the punishment for their misdeeds in this way. But if you don't take this opportunity, terrible things are in store for you after death. From Plato's drastic description of such machinations, however, it cannot be concluded that he rejected the entire Orphic. Rather, he processed Orphic ideas for his purposes and used them in a modified form to illustrate or support his philosophical statements.

Apparently the poet Aristophanes in his 414 BC Chr. Performed comedy Die Vögel , in which he lets the bird choir recite a myth of the origins of the world, alluding to the Orphic cosmogony. With his verses he parodied already familiar mythical ideas, which he apparently assumed to be known to a broad audience. Aristophanes probably mixed the Hesiodic with the Orphic cosmogony.

In the 4th century BC The Athenian historian Androtion put forward the argument that the "Orphic" writings could not be authentic, because Orpheus, as a Thracian barbarian, was not literate. Even Aristotle held the Orpheus writings attributed spurious; he even thought, as Cicero testifies, that the mythical poet and singer never lived, that he was an invented figure. Aristotle rejected the Orphic theory of the soul.

The historian Diodorus (1st century BC) shares a tradition that Orpheus was in Egypt and there acquired his religious knowledge; then he transplanted the Egyptian tradition to Greece.

During the Roman Empire , the Middle Platonist Plutarch advocated a philosophical-theological interpretation of the Orphic texts that differed far from their literal meaning. The tendency towards such an interpretation increased later in Neoplatonism , where Orpheus was primarily regarded as a theologian. The neo-Platonists of late antiquity knew and valued the “holy speeches in 24 rhapsodies”. Iamblichus stated in his work "About the Pythagorean Life" that Pythagoras had obtained his theological knowledge from the Orphics. Syrianos wrote a treatise "On the Theology of Orpheus" and a statement of the agreement of Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato on the oracles in ten books. Syrianos' famous pupil Proklos dealt with his teacher's statements about orphics and wrote notes about it. Ultimately, he traced all the theological knowledge of the Greeks back to Orpheus and practiced Orphic purification rites himself. Damascios, the last head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy in Athens, described the "Holy Speeches" as the version of the Orphic creation story that was common in his time. He tried to harmonize the Orphic and the Neoplatonic cosmology.

Ritual Practices in the Roman Empire

Traces of ritual practices that were more or less clearly linked to the Orphic tradition exist for the Roman Empire. This includes references in narrative sources, above all the report by Pausanias about hymnic chants allegedly written by Orpheus by the Athenian priests of the Lycomids dynasty, which are sung during their ritual acts. The Lycomids were responsible for the Gaia sanctuary in Phlya . There are also epigraphic and papyrological sources. Epigraphic material comes from Asia Minor, papyrological material from Egypt; only one possibly relevant inscription has been found in Greece. The evaluation is difficult because it is often unclear whether the information only testifies to the continued existence of Orphic ideas in educated circles or whether they indicate an actual Orphic or Orphic-influenced cult practice. The authenticity of the poems ascribed to Orpheus was disputed; apparently the Lycomids believed that only the hymns they sang were authentic. In Rome, the Orphic cult was always felt to be foreign. A revival of interest in Orphic religiosity in the Roman Empire from the 2nd century on is clearly recognizable.

Judaism

From the Hellenistic period onwards, the Orpheus myth was picked up by Hellenized Jewish circles and integrated into the Jewish religious worldview. Orpheus appears as a pious monotheistic sage. However, there is no evidence for the existence of an Orphic movement within Judaism.

The Jewish writer Artapanos (3rd / 2nd century BC) living in Alexandria identified the mythical poet Musaios, whom the Orphics regarded as an authority, with Moses and represented Orpheus as his pupil. An unknown Jewish author of the Hellenistic period, who is referred to in research as "Pseudo-Orpheus" and was probably also active in Alexandria, wrote a poem in hexameters, which is known under the - inauthentic - title "Testament of Orpheus" ( diathḗkai "Testamente"). Formally he imitated an Orphic “holy speech”; The extent to which he also adopted Orphic ideas cannot be clearly seen. Orpheus, to whom he puts the text in his mouth, professes monotheism in these verses ; he regrets the error of his earlier polytheism and instructs Musaios, who appears here as his son and student, about cosmology. The poem received a lot of attention; Jewish and Christian authors generally regarded it as an authentic work of Orpheus. As early as the 2nd century BC It was used by the Jewish philosopher Aristobulus , who wanted to prove that Orpheus, like Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato, had taken over essential teachings from Moses.

Christianity

An influence on emerging Christianity by Orphics in the 1st century has not been considered plausible since the groundbreaking study of this question published by André Boulanger in 1925. There is only one passage in the New Testament that possibly echoes an Orphic formula: "I am (...) the first and the last" ( Revelation of John 22:13). From the 2nd century onwards, individual ideas of Orphic origin appear in Christian literature.

The assessment of Orpheus and Orphic among the ancient Christian writers turned out to be ambivalent. The polytheistic Orphic mythology was sharply rejected and Orpheus also expressly portrayed as a deceiver. On the other hand, some church fathers believed that individual aspects of the Orpheus myth and passages in Orphic literature could be used for Christian apologetics . Above all, this included the Jewish legend of Orpheus' conversion to monotheism, which Christian authors believed. Especially Clement of Alexandria used the legend; he quoted Pseudo-Orpheus and referred to the alleged conversion of the famous Greek sage.

Towards the end of the 4th century, when the Roman Empire was already Christianized, "Orpheus" was just like Homer one of the authors whose works were school reading.

In the Middle Ages, the figure of Orpheus was noticed in the Latin-speaking world of scholars, but Orphic literature was lost in the West.

Early modern age

In the 15th century manuscripts of the Orphic hymns reached the West, and in 1500 the first edition of the hymns and the Orphic Argonautica was printed in Florence. In 1561 Joseph Justus Scaliger made a Latin translation of the hymns.

In Renaissance humanism , Orpheus, who was considered a historical figure, was counted among the wise teachers of humanity and founders of religion in the sense of the Neoplatonic tradition, along with Plato, Pythagoras and others. He was considered a prominent representative of the “time-honored theology” (prisca theologia) . In doing so, the humanists took up a core idea of ​​the Orphic tradition. In this sense, Marsilio Ficino , for whom Orpheus was a divinely inspired poet, expressed himself in particular . He not only interpreted the Orphic hymns, whose authenticity he had no doubt, but also used to sing them. The philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola stated in his famous speech De hominis dignitate that a divine secret was hidden in the Orphic hymns, a doctrine that Orpheus presented in a veiled form, as was the custom of the "venerable theologians"; he - Pico - had succeeded in discovering the veiled philosophical meaning.

In the 18th century there were reports of Asian shamanism , which was now associated with Orpheus and the Orphic impulse in Greek cultural history. Johann Gottfried Herder considered Orpheus, whom he greatly admired, to be a shaman and ascribed to him a decisive role in the formation of Greek civilization. In the Encyclopédie Louis de Jaucourt described the Orphic way of life in 1765 in the article dedicated to it very positively. He characterized them as virtuous and religious and described Orpheus, who founded Orphic, as the first wise man and as a reformer who had civilized the savages. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the opinion, already expressed by ancient authors, was widespread that Orpheus was the founder of the Eleusinian mysteries.

Modern

In the French romantic literature , especially poetry, ideas and aspirations made themselves felt that have been referred to in research literature as "orphism" (orphisme) . This includes a metaphysical interpretation of the world that is understood as a riddle and a mystery, the unraveling of which is incumbent on the poet. Orpheus appears as a prototype of the spiritually oriented, inspired poet, who is also a seer and teller of truth.

In modern research there have been strong fluctuations in the assessment of the orphic. With regard to its relevance in the context of Greek cultural history and its comprehensibility as a definable and describable phenomenon, opinions diverged widely over the course of the history of research. Friedrich Creuzer thought Orpheus was a historical figure. In his study in 1812, he assigned the symbolism and mythology of the ancient peoples Orpheus and Orphic an important role in the formation of the early Greek culture. On the other hand, Christian August Lobeck turned , who made a critical review of the source material in his Aglaophamus published in 1829 . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a strong research direction ( Erwin Rohde , Albrecht Dieterich , Otto Kern ) classified orphic as an independent form of religion with clear contours and emphasized its contrast to the Greek folk religion. Rohde made a sharp distinction between an authentic Greek religion without the promise of salvation and the religion of salvation of the Orphics, which was of oriental origin and non-Greek in nature; it formed a foreign body in Greek culture.

The “minimalists” (skeptics) turned against an overestimation of the importance of orphic in Greek cultural history. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was the most prominent among them in the early 20th century. Other representatives of this direction were André-Jean Festugière , Ivan M. Linforth and Eric Robertson Dodds . Behind the debates of the scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries was the general, then controversial question of how “rational” the “classical” Greek culture was and how significant were oriental influences. The highly controversial, explosive question of whether or to what extent Christianity had “pagan” forerunners as a religion of salvation, to which some researchers - including Eduard Zeller , Ernst Maass and Robert Eisler - included the Orphic , also played an important role . Salomon Reinach and Vittorio Macchioro represented extreme and particularly influential variants of the parallelization of Orphics and Christianity , who assumed that Orphics would serve as a model for the Christian concept of salvation. Even Nietzsche saw in the Orphic a precursor of Christianity and evaluated them for that reason as Dekadenzphänomen in Greek religious history. The consideration of Orphic from this point of view led to a distorted perspective and to ideas of a unified church-like structure of the Orphic movement with communities, dogmas and common rites.

In more recent research, moderate variants of the “maximalist” view dominate, the representatives of which affirm the cultural-historical relevance and definability of orphic. Alberto Bernabé , who published the now authoritative edition of the Orphic Fragments from 2004–2007, is considered a “maximalist”. Radcliffe G. Edmonds III is a prominent spokesman for the skeptics. In view of the complexity of the interrelationships and influences, which are only partially transparent, it is stated that the orphic cannot be clearly distinguished from other, related currents.

Editions and translations

  • Alberto Bernabé (Ed.): Poetae epici Graeci. Testimonia et fragmenta . Part 2: Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta . 3 volumes. Saur, Munich 2004–2007 (authoritative critical edition)
  • Alberto Bernabé, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (eds.): Instructions for the Netherworld. The Orphic Gold Tablets . Brill, Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-90-04-16371-3 (critical edition with English translation and commentary)
  • Angelo Tonelli: Eleusis e Orfismo: I Misteri e la tradizione iniziatica greca. Feltrinelli, 2015, ISBN 978-8807901645
  • Marie-Christine Fayant (Ed.): Hymnes orphiques. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2014, ISBN 978-2-251-00593-5 (critical edition with French translation)
  • Carl R. Holladay (Ed.): Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors . Volume 4: Orphica . Scholars Press, Atlanta (Georgia) 1996, ISBN 0-7885-0143-7 (critical edition with English translation and commentary)
  • Mirjam E. Kotwick, Richard Janko (ed.): The Derveni papyrus. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-041473-8 (Greek text with German translation, introduction and detailed commentary)
  • Theokritos Kouremenos et al. (Ed.): The Derveni Papyrus . Olschki, Firenze 2006, ISBN 88-222-5567-4 (critical edition with English translation and commentary)
  • Joseph O. Plassmann : Orpheus. Ancient Greek mysteries. 2nd Edition. Diederichs, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-424-00740-4 (translation of Orphic hymns)
  • Francis Vian (Ed.): Les Argonautiques orphiques . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1987, ISBN 2-251-00389-4 (critical edition with French translation)

literature

Overview representations

Investigations

  • Radcliffe G. Edmonds III (Ed.): The "Orphic" gold tablets and Greek religion. Further along the path . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-51831-4 .
  • Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: Redefining Ancient Orphism. A Study in Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, ISBN 978-1-107-03821-9 .
  • Fritz Graf , Sarah Iles Johnston: Ritual Texts for the Afterlife. Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets . Routledge, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-41550-7 .
  • Martin L. West: The Orphic Poems . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1983, ISBN 0-19-814854-2 .

reception

  • Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui: Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity . De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-020633-3 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See Fritz Graf: Eleusis and the Orphic poetry of Athens in pre-Hellenistic times. Berlin 1974, pp. 1-8.
  2. ↑ Herodotus 2.81.
  3. ↑ Christoph Riedweg : Orphic with Empedocles. In: Antike und Abendland 41, 1995, pp. 34–59. See Gábor Betegh : The Derveni Papyrus , Cambridge 2004, p. 372.
  4. ↑ Geoffrey S. Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield (eds.): The pre-Socratic philosophers. Stuttgart 2001, p. 244f. and note 7.
  5. ↑ See Peter Kingsley: Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic. Oxford 1995, p. 115 and the literature cited there.
  6. ↑ On the question of delimiting the various currents and traditions, see Walter Burkert : Kleine Schriften III. Mystica, Orphica, Pythagorica , Göttingen 2006, pp. 43-45.
  7. ↑ Jean-Michel Roessli: Orpheus. Orphism and Orphics. In: Michael Erler, Andreas Graeser (Hrsg.): Philosophers of antiquity. Darmstadt 2000, pp. 10–35, here: 14f .; Radcliffe G. Edmonds III: Myths of the Underworld Journey , Cambridge 2004, pp. 43-46, 103f.
  8. ↑ On the history of research, in the course of which the notion of a fixed Orphic dogmatics proved to be inaccurate, see Radcliffe Edmonds: Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks On Orphism and Original Sin. In: Classical Antiquity. Vol. 18, 1999, pp. 35-73; Robert Parker: Early Orphism. In: Anton Powell (Ed.): The Greek World. London 1995, pp. 483-510, here: 485-487.
  9. ^ Jean Rudhardt : Opera inedita offers a thorough investigation . Essai sur la religion grecque & Recherches sur les Hymnes orphiques , Liège 2008, pp. 165–325 and Anne-France Morand: Études sur les Hymnes orphiques , Leiden 2001.
  10. ↑ Damascios, On First Principles 123–124, ed. by Leendert Gerrit Westerink : Damascius: Traité des Premiers Principes , Volume 3, Paris 1991, pp. 159-165.
  11. ↑ Pausanias 9.27.2; 9,30,4; 9.30.12.
  12. ↑ Analyze the commentary Alberto Bernabé: The Derveni Theogony: Many Questions and Some Answers. In: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. Vol. 103, 2007, pp. 99-133 and Gábor Betegh: The Derveni Papyrus , Cambridge 2004. For dating see Walter Burkert: Kleine Schriften III. Mystica, Orphica, Pythagorica , Göttingen 2006, p. 50f.
  13. ↑ Damascius, On First Principles 124, ed. by Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Damascius: Traité des Premiers Principes , Volume 3, Paris 1991, pp. 162f.
  14. ^ Plato, Philebos 66c.
  15. ↑ Damascius, On First Principles 123, ed. by Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Damascius: Traité des Premiers Principes , Volume 3, Paris 1991, pp. 159f.
  16. ↑ On the Orphic World Egg see Johannes Haussleiter: Ei. In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Volume 4, Stuttgart 1959, Sp. 731–745, here: 732–734.
  17. ↑ Damascius, On First Principles 123, ed. by Leendert Gerrit Westerink: Damascius: Traité des Premiers Principes , Volume 3, Paris 1991, pp. 160-162. See Jean Rudhardt: Le thème de l'eau primordiale dans la mythologie grecque , Bern 1971, pp. 12-18.
  18. ↑ See Gábor Betegh: The Derveni Papyrus. Cambridge 2004, pp. 144f .; Betegh considers this variant to be the older one.
  19. ↑ The Athenagoras passage is reproduced and translated by Geoffrey S. Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield (eds.): Die vorsokratischen Philosophen. Stuttgart 2001, p. 28f.
  20. ↑ The soul leaves the body and flies to Hades ( Iliad 1: 3f .; 9.409; 16.505; 16.856; 22.362; Odyssey 10.560; 11.65). Even when a pig is slaughtered, its soul escapes ( Odyssey 14,426).
  21. ↑ Ilias 16.857; 22,363; 23.71-79.
  22. ↑ See Giovanni Casadio: La metempsicosi tra Orfeo e Pitagora. In: Philippe Borgeaud (ed.): Orphisme et Orphée, en l'honneur de Jean Rudhardt. Geneva 1991, pp. 119-155; Leonid Zhmud : Orphism and Graffiti from Olbia. In: Hermes . Vol. 120, 1992, pp. 159-168, here: 168.
  23. ↑ The novelty and importance of this idea is emphasized by Jan N. Bremmer : The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. London 2002, pp. 22-24. However, in contrast to other researchers, Bremmer assumes a temporal priority of Pythagoreanism, under whose influence the Orphic originated.
  24. ^ Plato, Kratylos 400c. See Larry J. Alderink: Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism. Chico 1981, pp. 59-65.
  25. ^ Alberto Bernabé, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (eds.): Instructions for the Netherworld. Leiden 2008, pp. 169-178; Bartel Leendert van der Waerden : Die Pythagoreer , Zurich 1979, p. 117f.
  26. ^ William KC Guthrie : Orpheus and Greek Religion. Princeton (New Jersey) 1993, p. 29.
  27. ^ Stian Torjussen: Phanes and Dionysos in the Derveni Theogony. In: Symbolae Osloenses. Vol. 80, 2005, pp. 7-22, here: 8-11, 17.
  28. ^ Ugo Bianchi: L'orphisme a existé. In: Mélanges d'histoire des religions offerts à Henri-Charles Puech. Paris 1974, pp. 129-137.
  29. ↑ Jean-Michel Roessli: Orpheus. Orphism and Orphics. In: Michael Erler, Andreas Graeser (Hrsg.): Philosophers of antiquity. Darmstadt 2000, pp. 10–35, here: 12f .; Leonid Zhmud: Orphism and Graffiti from Olbia. In: Hermes. Vol. 120, 1992, pp. 159-168.
  30. ^ Fritz Graf: Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology: New Texts and Old Questions. In: Thomas H. Carpenter, Christopher A. Faraone (eds.): Masks of Dionysus. Ithaca (New York) 1993, pp. 239-258, here: 255f .; Jan N. Bremmer: The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. London 2002, p. 17f.
  31. ↑ Plato, Nomoi 782c-d.
  32. ↑ Jan N. Bremmer: The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife. London 2002, p. 17; Gábor Betegh: The Derveni Papyrus. Cambridge 2004, p. 72.
  33. ↑ Martin P. Nilsson says: What is handed down from orphicism in the 5th century and in the first half of the 4th, when it had sunk into a despised sect, certainly comes from an older time (Martin P. Nilsson: History of the Greek Religion. 3rd edition. Munich 1967, p. 680f .; see p. 684).
  34. ↑ Christoph Riedweg: Initiation - Death - Underworld offers an overview with a critical edition of leaf texts . In: Fritz Graf (ed.): Views of Greek rituals. Stuttgart 1998, pp. 359–398 (cf. the revised English version of Riedweg's essay in: Radcliffe G. Edmonds III (Ed.): The “Orphic” gold tablets and Greek religion. Cambridge 2011, pp. 219–256).
  35. ↑ See Alberto Bernabé, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (ed.): Instructions for the Netherworld. Leiden 2008, pp. 179-205; Alberto Bernabé, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal: Are the "Orphic" gold leaves Orphic? In: Radcliffe G. Edmonds III (ed.): The "Orphic" gold tablets and Greek religion. Cambridge 2011, pp. 68-101; Hans Dieter Betz: I am the child of the earth and the starry sky. On the doctrine of man in the orphic gold plates. In: Fritz Graf (ed.): Views of Greek rituals. Stuttgart 1998, pp. 399-419, here: 404-409.
  36. ↑ Relevant texts have been compiled by Alberto Bernabé, Ana Isabel Jiménez San Cristóbal (ed.): Instructions for the Netherworld. Leiden 2008, pp. 169-178. See Marisa Tortorelli Ghidini (Ed.): Figli della terra e del cielo stellato. Napoli 2006, pp. 153-161.
  37. ↑ To read the text, see Leonid Zhmud: Orphism and Graffiti from Olbia. In: Hermes. Vol. 120, 1992, pp. 159-168, here: 159f.
  38. ↑ See also Roland Baumgarten: Holy Word and Holy Scripture among the Greeks. Hieroi Logoi and related phenomena (= ScriptOralia. Series A. Volume 26). Tübingen 1998, pp. 73-80.
  39. ↑ Euripides, Hippolytos 952-955.
  40. ↑ Plato, Politeia 364b-365a.
  41. ↑ On Plato's reception of the Orpheus myth and Orphic see Agostino Masaracchia: Orfeo e gli 'orfici' in Platone. In: Agostino Masaracchia (ed.): Orfeo e l'orfismo. Rom 1993, pp. 173-197; Alberto Bernabé: Platone e l'Orfismo. In: Giulia Sfameni Gasparro (ed.): Destino e salvezza. Cosenza 1998, pp. 37-97; Peter Kingsley: Ancient Philosophy, Mystery, and Magic. Oxford 1995, pp. 114-132. See Martin P. Nilsson: History of the Greek Religion. 3. Edition. Munich 1967, p. 684.
  42. ↑ The Aristophanes passage is reproduced, translated and commented on by Geoffrey S. Kirk, John E. Raven, Malcolm Schofield (eds.): Die vorsokratischen Philosophen. Stuttgart 2001, pp. 29-32.
  43. ↑ For details see Alessandro Pardini: L'Ornitogonia (Ar. Av. 693 sgg.) Tra serio e faceto: premessa letteraria al suo studio storico-religioso. In: Agostino Masaracchia (ed.): Orfeo e l'orfismo. Rome 1993, pp. 53-65.
  44. ↑ Jean-Michel Roessli: Orpheus. Orphism and Orphics. In: Michael Erler, Andreas Graeser (Hrsg.): Philosophers of antiquity. Darmstadt 2000, pp. 10–35, here: 15f .; Larry J. Alderink: Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism. Chico 1981, pp. 56-59.
  45. ↑ Diodorus 1.92.3; 1.96.1-6; 4.25.3.
  46. ↑ Alberto Bernabé examines the details: Plutarco e l'Orfismo. In: Italo Gallo (ed.): Plutarco e la religione. Napoli 1996, pp. 63-95.
  47. ↑ Iamblichos, De vita Pythagorica 145-147.
  48. ↑ Leendert G. Westerink, Joseph Combès (ed.): Damascius: Traité des premiers principes. Volume 3, Paris 1991, pp. 228-230; Luc Brisson: Orphée et l'Orphisme dans l'Antiquité gréco-romaine. Aldershot 1995, pp. V 43-103, here: V 48-53.
  49. ^ Proclus, Platonic Theology 1.5. See Henry D. Saffrey, Leendert G. Westerink (ed.): Proclus: Théologie platonicienne. Volume 1, Paris 1968, pp. 138f.
  50. ↑ Damascios, On the First Principles 123 (Westerink III 159f.).
  51. ↑ For details see Luc Brisson: Damascius et l'Orphisme. In: Philippe Borgeaud (ed.): Orphisme et Orphée, en l'honneur de Jean Rudhardt. Geneva 1991, pp. 157-209.
  52. ^ Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui: Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity. Berlin 2010, pp. 41–86.
  53. ↑ See also Christoph Riedweg: Jewish-Hellenistic imitation of an Orphic Hieros Logos. Tübingen 1993 (texts of two versions of the “Testament” with translation and commentary pp. 25–45; on dating pp. 2-4, 10f.). On the dating, see Carl R. Holladay (Ed.): Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Volume 4: Orphica. Atlanta (Georgia) 1996, pp. 59-65. See also Gerbern S. Oegema: Poetic writings , Gütersloh 2002 ( Jewish writings from Hellenistic-Roman times. Volume 6: Supplementa , Delivery 1, Fascicle 4), pp. 76–85 and Carl R. Holladay: Pseudo-Orpheus: Tracking a Tradition . In: Abraham J. Malherbe et al. (Ed.): The Early Church in Its Context. Leiden 1998, pp. 192-220.
  54. ^ André Boulanger: Orphée. Reports de l'orphisme et du christianisme. Paris 1925; Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui: Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity , Berlin 2010, pp. 7f., 367–371.
  55. ↑ Christoph Riedweg: Jewish-Hellenistic imitation of an Orphic hieros logos. Tübingen 1993, pp. 2, 12-16, 20; Jean-Michel Roessli: Convergence et divergence dans l'interprétation du mythe d'Orphée. De Clément d'Alexandrie à Eusèbe de Césarée. In: Revue de l'histoire des religions. Vol. 219, 2002, pp. 503-513.
  56. ^ Martin L. West: The Orphic Poems. Oxford 1983, p. 256.
  57. ^ John Warden: Orpheus and Ficino . In John Warden (ed.): Orpheus. The Metamorphoses of a Myth , Toronto 1982, pp. 85-110, here: 86-88, 94-98; Daniel P. Walker: Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists. In: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 16, 1953, pp. 100-120, here: 101-106.
  58. ^ Gloria Flaherty: Shamanism and the Eighteenth Century. Princeton (New Jersey) 1992, pp. 138-144.
  59. ↑ See Fritz Graf: Eleusis and the Orphic poetry of Athens in pre-Hellenistic times. Berlin 1974, pp. 2f., 22-39.
  60. ↑ Hermine B. Riffaterre: L'orphisme dans la poésie romantique. Paris 1970, pp. 10-26.
  61. ↑ Walter Burkert offers a brief overview of the history of research: Kleine Schriften III. Mystica, Orphica, Pythagorica. Göttingen 2006, p. 37f .; see. P. 47f. and Radcliffe Edmonds: Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth: A Few Disparaging Remarks On Orphism and Original Sin. In: Classical Antiquity. Vol. 18, 1999, pp. 35-73 and Larry J. Alderink: Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism. Chico 1981, pp. 7-23.
  62. ↑ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: The faith of the Hellenes. Volume 2, 3rd edition, Darmstadt 1959, pp. 190–202, p. 197: “The moderns talk so terribly about Orphics. Who did that in ancient times? "
  63. ^ Fritz Graf, Sarah Iles Johnston: Ritual Texts for the Afterlife. Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. London 2007, pp. 57-65; Miguel Herrero de Jáuregui: Orphism and Christianity in Late Antiquity. Berlin 2010, pp. 4-7, 15f.
  64. ↑ See Albert Henrichs : Mystika, Orphika, Dionysiaka. In: Anton Bierl , Wolfgang Braungart (Ed.): Violence and victims. Berlin 2010, pp. 87–114, here: 93, 99–101.
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