13 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
nature. All along the line the evidences are those of a deity of the cup; among ruder tribes the drink is a ruder and more primitive ferment—of grain or honey or roots, while among the more civilized it is the juice of the grape. From this the character of his mysteries might be guessed, but other evidence is at hand. For in art and poetry his companions are the satyrs, half man, half horse, “ idle, disreputable, and vicious,’’ who “ sport and play and harry women,’ and Mznads, wild women, who, being entheot (‘‘ god-possessed’”’), work strange deeds, rage and rave and play with serpents, whose worship was the ecstatic dance leading to physical exhaustion, and their festivals disorder and excess. Hence it is that with probable justice the more boisterous elements of the later Eleusinia, such as the tilt of ribald jests at the bridge, are traced to the influence of Dionysus, who stands always for intoxication, orgy, and religious frenzy. Yet it should in justice be noted that these are not in themselves the objects, but rather the means by which his worshipers become possessed (“inspired ” would be the theological term) by the god. There is the same end here as is connoted by the word ““ Hestasy ” (q.v.).
Orpheus, also of Thracian origin, never attained to godship, he always remained human. Diodorus (iii. 65) brings him into connection with Dionysus in a twofold manner: explicitly as the grandson of Charops, to whom, in return for a favor, Dionysus taught his rites; and implicitly in that Oiagros, son of Charops and father of Orpheus, handed those rites on to his son, who (and this is important) ‘made many changesinthem.” ‘The usual conception of Orpheus stops with his fame as a musician. This has importance, indeed, even for the mysteries; but it is as a religious reformer that Orpheus has most interest in this connection. This fact is brought out in the story of his death, which relates that he honored Helios above Dionysus, and the latter sent his Bassarids (Thracian bacchanals) against him, and they tore him in pieces and scattered the remnants (Eratosthenes, Katasterismot, xxiv.). The Muses gathered these together and buried them, but the head, entombed at Lesbos, continued to sing and to utter oracles. The historic kernel here is doubtless the martyrdom of Orpheus at the hands of Dionysiac mystics because as a reformer of the mysteries he did Dionysus too little honor. It is also deducible from the story and is supported by other data that Orpheus was a prophet and religious teacher; Pausanias (IX., xxx. 12) says that he was credited with discovering rites of the gods, purifications for unholy acts, remedies for sicknesses, and means of turning away the divine wrath (cf. Aristophanes, “ Frogs,” 1032; Augustine, ‘‘ City of God,” xvii. 14, in NPNF, 1 ser., ii. 368). The significant facts in all this are (1) that the wild orgiastic rites of Dionysus, celebrated especially in wooded gorges on the mountains by choruses of ecstatic women, were revised by Orpheus; (2) that this revision took the forms-of (a) a sobering down of the orgiastic—the muse of Orpheus is never pictured as stirring and exciting,
2. Significance of Orpheus.
Tribal and Cultic Mysteries
but as entrancing and quieting,* and (b) of engrafting upon the rites a loftier spiritual meaning. Three particulars in Orphism are noteworthy: (1) it introduced more thoroughly into Greek religion the principle of asceticism (in the shape of abstinence, opposing thereby incidentally the drunken cups of Dionysus) than was otherwise done—the idea was that of good works, a holy life; (2) it either borrowed from Egypt (or India?) or independently evolved the conception of the samsara or cycle of births, reincarnation, and release therefrom by abstinence, plus purification in the mysteries and the holy life; (8) it either (more probably) adopted the Egyptian idea of identification of the soul after death with a deity, or itself independently created it. But the foundation-thought in this was the attainment of purity. So Euripides makes Theseus, the hater of the self-righteous and of mystics, taunt the Orphic adept: ‘‘ Boast, now! Thou so holy that no flesh where life hath been feeds thee who hast Orpheus for thy king” (Hippolytus, 952-953). Similarly in the confession of the mystic quoted from Euripides by Porphyry (De abstinentia, iv. 19; cf. the passage in Harrison, ut sup., p. 479) the adept is “ set free and named by name a Bacchus of the mailed priests, robed in pure white, clean from man’s birth and coffined clay (i.e., from the pollutions both of birth and death), while from his lips is ever banished touch of meat where life hath been.” It is quite certain that Orphism involved also the habit of self-examination, probably after the pattern of the Pythagoreans: ‘‘ What that is wrong have I done? What good deed is mine? And what that I should have I not accomplished? ”’ (Diogenes Laertius, ‘‘ Life of Pythagoras,” xix.). In spite of Orphic attempts to eliminate the extravagant from the rites, the testimonies are too many and too explicit to hide the fact that in the background of the system lurked rites that were disgusting and repellent. Among these were the sacrificial eating of raw, even of living, flesh of bull or goat (cf. Com- PARATIVE Retiaion, VI., 1, d. § 1), and with great probability a rite that recalled the earlier eating of the flesh of a child (cf. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1890, p. 343; and for the orgiastic ritual and indications of this feast of raw flesh cf. Plutarch, De oraculorum defectu, xiv.; Clement of Alexandria, ‘“‘ Exhortation,” ii., intA NF, ii. 175-176; Arnobius, “‘ Against the Heathen,” v. 19-23, in ANF, vi. 497-498; Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum, vi.). How far these survived in the historic period is doubtful. That they were mimicked if not actually carried outis beyond question. And that in more retired regions the mysteries concealed not merely crudities (Plato, Republic, 364 B; Heraclitus, Fragment 130) but savageries is true. Still, even in the recrudescence of primitive rites in the Greco-Roman world that took place, having their starting-point in Asia Minor, 200 s.c.-200 a.D.,
3. Orphic Teachings.
4. Summary.
* The inscription found at the Iobaccheion at Athens gives as a direction for the performance: ‘‘ No one is to make a noise, or clap his hands, or sing, but each is to do his part in all quietness and order’”’ (text and translation conveniently given in Harrison, ut sup., pp. 474-475).
-Tribal and Cultic Mysteries Trigland