Orphism (orphica; τὰ ὀρφικά)

Orphism (orphica; τὰ ὀρφικά) could be defined as:

1) Orphic religion; Greek religious movement that could be traced back to the 6^th century BC, characterised by doctrines, e.g., about the immortality of the soul; about the habitat-prison and the original sin of the Titans who killed Dionysos; about the purifying cycle of reincarnation in the broad sense of the notion;

2) Specific texts and rituals associated with the figure of Orpheus and attributed to him as a theologian and founder of the mysteries (Bernabé, Cristóbal 2008; Parker 1995: 483–510).

Greek written Orphism was perceived ever since the Antiquity as a kind of alternative literature – oracular poetry that was different in principle from the poetry inherent to Homer and Hesiod (see the comediograph Alexis in Athen., 4. 164 b–c; Kock CAF II. 345 fr. 135), which was disseminated as written texts (Kern 1922: fr. 220–227). In Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus, Theseus mocks his son, saying: “Go on, then, by all means, spout out all you want about your vegetarian diet like a quack. By all means, let Orpheus be your master! Enjoy, no, revere, if you so wish, all his idle musings, all of his many books.” Plato in Republic (Resp., 2.364 c = 1922: fr. 3) narrates about begging priests and soothsayers (ἀγύρται δὲ καὶ μάντεις), who “appeal to books professing to be written by Musaeus and Orpheus….” Pausanias in his Description of Greece (1, 37, 4) refers to τὰ ὀρφικά as texts: “Whoever has been initiated at Eleusis or has read what are called Orphica knows what I mean.” Diogenes Laërtius mentions Orphica (τὰ ὀρφικά) in the biography of the philosopher Antisthenes (Diogene Laertio, VI 1, 4; Pausan. I. 37, 4 = 219 Kern). He narrates that “when he was being initiated into the Orphic mysteries, the priest said that those admitted into these rites would be partakers of many good things in Hades. ‘Why then,’ said he, ‘don’t you die?’”

With the exception of the papyrus from Derveni (Laks, Most 1997; Janko 2001: 1–32; Janko 2008: 37–51), Plato is the earliest source citing the Orphica directly and unequivocally, being apparently directly familiar with some Orphic poems, fragments of which can be identified in his dialogues (Hütwohl 2016).

According to the definition given by Ivan Linforth (1941), Orphism was a religion of sacred acts (τελεταῖς) and mysteries with magic rituals, the poems of Orpheus, etc., which narrate about their sacred myths, as well as the ideas inherent to those poems and rites.

Radcliffe G. Edmonds III (Edmonds III 2013: 8), who agrees with Ivan Linforth’s concept, assumes that Orphica (τὰ ὀρφικά) could be considered to be a text, myth or ritual if they are clearly designated as such or are clearly connected with the name of Orpheus, being grouped together with them in the ancient testimonies. They are characterised with extraordinary purity or sanctity, special divine connection or exceptional antiquity, being marked – on the other hand – by extraordinary strangeness, perversity or alien nature.

O. Kern (1922) and W. K. C. Guthrie (1952) identify Orphica and Orphism with the believers and their specific doctrines.

There is an enormous discussion in the defining of the category Orphica (τὰ ὀρφικά) – a name given to things around Orpheus or related to him, i.e., certain religious beliefs and rituals associated with the literature attributed to Orpheus. The discussion emerged among the ancient authors, passed into the debates of the Christian apologists and was inherited by the Italian Renaissance Orphics or Orphisti.

The contemporary term Orphick can be traced back to the mid-17^th century when Sir Thomas Stanley (1625–1678) used it in his The History of Philosophy in five volumes, published in London in 1656 (Stanley 1656: vii. 4).

The German term Orphic was introduced around the 1830s (Heinecke 1833: 44: “Geist athenischer Orphik”; Dieterich 1849: 48 “bacchantischen Orphik”), as a loan from English. 

The term Orphismus/Orphism was also imposed in academic circulation predominantly through specialised literature in German around the end of the 1850s by the German Orientalist Christian Carl Josias von Bunsen (1791–1860), who was Ambassador of Prussia in London, where he apparently borrowed the term “Orphism,” which had appeared ca. 1800 in the specialised literature as a peculiar translation of the Latin term Orphica (Bunsen 1857: 372: “priesterlichen thrazischen Orphismus in der Mysterien”; Bunsen 1858: 288). Its earliest mentioning, noticed by Jan N. Bremmer (2014: 55–80 with literature), is in the work of George Stanley Faber Horae Mosaicae: or, A Dissertation on the Credibility and Theology of the Pentateuch (1818²: 203, 1801: 32, 142), in which the name is coined on the model of terms like Pythagoreanism and Platonism (on similar words and their borrowings in different languages, see Roché 2007: 45–58; Bremmer, 2014: 55–80 with literature).

Orphism could be defined through its main components, as follows:

– literature of theologian and eschatological nature and mythological content, correlated with Orpheus and Musaeus;

– a type of religious teaching about the origin of the world (cosmogony), of the deities (theogony) and of humans (anthropogony);

– mysterial cult built on dogmatic religious ideas dominated by the notion of the transition of the initiated individuals Beyond, their being after physical death and their possible Salvation;

– religious faith professed in closed mysterial societies by means of specific initiation and purification rites, and a concrete way of life organised by numerous prohibitions and prescriptions (Богданов 1991, 27–28).

At the end of the 20^th century, Orphism was defined as a reformist movement in Greek religion (similar to Protestantism in Christianity), which tried through rituals to attain purification and salvation, revealed in the texts attributed to Orpheus.