PAGAN REGENERATION

A STUDY OF MYSTERY INITIATIONS IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD

BY HAROLD R. WILLOUGHBY

[b. 1890 d. 1962]

Chicago., Ill., The University of Chicago Press

[1929, copyright not renewed]

CHAPTER IV

ORPHIC REFORM

HISTORICALLY the cult most nearly related to that of Dionysus was the philosophico-religious
system bearing the name of Orpheus. It is not possible to pronounce with certainty
whether such a man as Orpheus ever really existed or not. He may have been a
purely mythical figure. If he was a real man he was a religious leader of mark
and deserving of admiration: a prophet, reformer, and martyr. Whether mythical
or real, Orpheus was the antitype of the flushed and maddening wine-god Dionysus.
He was a sober and gentle musician who charmed savage men and beasts with his
music, an exact theologian, the prophet of reform in religion, who was martyred
for his efforts.

The difference between Dionysus and Orpheus was the difference between the
two religious systems which bore their names. The cult of Dionysus was more
simple, primitive, elemental, spontaneous, and emotional. That of Orpheus was
more elaborate, developed, controlled, and intellectualistic. Still, when all
is said, the two systems had much in common. Both centered in the same god,
Dionysus. Both aimed at the same goal, immortality through divinity. Both sought
to attain that goal by prescribed rites and ceremonies. Both made a strictly
individualistic appeal and were highly developed along the lines of personal
experience. But Orphism fostered an ascetic rule of life that was the exact
opposite of Dionysian license, and developed an elaborate theology of a highly
speculative character. In brief, Orphism represented a reformed Dionysianism,
and the practices it could not or did not reform it sought to explain and justify
by its mythology.

I

Our sources of information concerning the Orphic movement are unusually authoritative
and accessible. They include chiefly a reputable group of classical writers
together with a singular collection of Orphic tablets found in south Italy and
Crete. The list of classical witnesses to the Orphic cult is headed by the name
of Pindar. In his “Dirges,” or choral lyrics intended to be chanted at funerals,
he offered consolation to mourners by telling them of the Orplic promise of
immortality. He further detailed the Orphic doctrine of reincarnation which
he represented as a scheme of preliminary purgation by means of triple earthly
lives, preceding the final bliss. Again he described with pleasing detail the
delights of the Elysian land where the final beatification was to be realized,
and in the second Olympian Ode he told of the future of the wicked as well as
of the pure. Another important classical witness to Orphism was Plato. Though
affecting to despise the system, he was actually much influenced by it. In Cratylus,
for example, he made use of the characteristic Orphic idea of the body as a
prison house of the soul (soma-sema). In the Republic he described the missionary
methods of the Orphics in terms that were not complimentary, yet revealed the
vigor of the movement. He told of zealous propagandists who besieged the doors
of the rich and persuaded them by a parade of Orphic scriptures that they could
provide deliverance and purgation from sin, both for the living and the dead,
by means of initiation. Plato also made reference to the idea of the transmigration
of souls and to the Orphie rule of life. The dramatist Euripides included an
all-important Orphic confessional in his Cretans, and in his admirable Hippolytus
he drew a character sketch of a typical and consistent Orphic. Even the comedian
Aristophanes bore favorable testimony to the influence of the Orphic mysteries.
He had the glorified Aeschylus, the “grand old man” of Attic tragedy, commend
Orpheus for teaching mystic rites to mortal men. This torch of reverence, however,
did not prevent Aristophanes from giving a lively parody of Orphanic initiation
in telling of old Strepsiades’ visit to Socrates’ “thinking shop.” These four
names, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato, and Pindar, include the bulk of classical
testimonia to the Orphic mysteries.

Quite as revealing as these literary refernces, however, are the so-called
Orphic tablets from tombs in southern Italy and Crete. They are eight in number
and are all of very thin gold. According to a consensus of scholarly opinion,
they contain the mutilated fragments of a ritual hymn composed for members of
the Orphic sect is early as the fifth century B.C. In their present form they
may be dated roughly from the fourth century B.C. to the second century of our
era. Their purpose is self-evident. Buried with the dead they were intended
to give instructions concerning conduct in the next world, formularies and confessionals
to be repeated, and directions as to postmortem ceremonial observances. Their
ritualistic character and the tone of conviction that pervades them give them
peculiar value as sources of information concerning Orphic experience and practice.
These remarkable tablets, though they are few in number, constitute our most
valuable source materials for the Orphic cult.

For an expansive expression of Orphic theology, however, one must turn to
the corpus of so-called Orphic literature. We know that as early as the time
of the Pisistratidae there were in existence at Athens various poems attributed
to Orpheus. They were quoted by Plato and later writers, but their genuineness
was challenged by Aristotle and Herodotus. Under the hands of the Orphics a
vast literature grew up around this nucleus, but for our purpose the hymns only
are of special importance. They are of late compilation and uncertain date,
although Professor Dieterich would locate their original composition between
200 B.C. and the beginning of the Christian era. In their present form they
represent the developed state of Orphic theology, their general tone being that
of mystical monotheism. Of the eighty and more extant hymns, all but nine carry
in their headings specifications concerning the particullar perfume to be burned
while they were being stung. Most of them also conclude with an invocation to
the deity addressed to bless the mystics in the fulfilment of their rites:

The sacred rites benevolent attend
And grant a blameless life, a blessed end.
Propitious to thy mystics’ works incline
Rejoicing come, for holy rites are thine.

So runs the slightly varied refrain at the conclusion of almost every hymn.
These formulas make it practically certain that this collection of hymns was
made for liturgical use in Orphic brotherhoods.

In comparison with these major sources of information, classical writers,
Orphic tablets, and Orphic hymns, other sources are distinctly of less significance.
For the sake of completeness, however, there should be mentioned the “Apulian”
vase paintings which depict the blessed dead in the society of the gods. These
paintings are particularly significant in that they show the influence of Orphic
ideas in Magna Graecia, south Italy especially, during the Hellenic era. Similarly,
Greek sepulchral art and grave inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Roman periods
are important. There are also casual references to Orphism in later pagan writers,
Strabo, Pausanias, and Plutarch, which prove the vigorous persistence of Orphic
ideas and practices through the early imperial period. Later Christian notices
of Orphism are distinctly secondary to these pagan sources and are chiefly valuable
in showing the later persistence of Orphism in its active competition with Christianity.

II

One of these Christian sources, however, deserves specific citation because
it preserves in convenient mythological form a bit of fundamental Orphic theology.
The passage in question is found in the “Exhortation to the Greeks” by Clement
of Alexandria, and it includes a detailed narration of the myth of Dionysus
Zagreus. Undoubtedly Clement’s rendering of the legend was based upon a lost
Orphic poem or poems–at least in the passage itself Clement made two quotations
from Orphic literature. According to his version of the myth, Persephone bore
to Zeus a son “who had the form of a bull.” To quote “a certain mythological
poet”:

The bull begets a snake, the snake a bull.

This divine son was Dionysus Zagreus, or “the hunter.” He was the favorite
of his father, and Zeus destined him to become the ruler of the universe. Even
while he was a child, the father of gods and men entrusted him with thunderbolts
and allowed him to sit on his throne. But the malignant Titans, stung by jealousy
and urged on by the vengeful Hera, sought the young child’s life. Though he
was carefully guarded by the warlike Curetes, the Titans succeeded in luring
him away with childish toys, which were carefully enumerated in a quotation
from “Orpheus of Thrace, the poet of the initiation.” Having gained possession
of the divine child, the Titans savagely tore him to pieces, and cooked and
ate the pieces. Athena, however, preserved the heart of Zagreus and carried
it away to Zeus who, in his anger, blasted the savage Titans with his thunderbolts.
Clement omitted one item of the myth which formed an interesting connection
with the Theban legend of Dionysus. Zeus, having received the heart of Zagreus
from Athena, swallowed it. So when Semele bore Dionysus to Zeus the new god
was but Zagreus reborn.

The Cretan provenance of the Zagreus legend was expressly stated by Diodorus.
In his account of the various forms assumed by Dionysus, he said: “They allege
that the god (Zagreus) was born of Zeus and Persephone in Crete, and Orpheus
in the mysteries represents him as torn to pieces by the Titans.” The relationship
of this legend to the Cretan rite of eating raw flesh already described in connection
with the Dionysus cult is obvious. It was an aetiological myth through and through.
The worshippers of Dionysus were familiar with the ritual fact that a sacrificial
animal, which in a sense embodied the god, was torn to pieces and eaten. They
sought the sanction of antiquity and divinity for their ritual and posited the
dismemberment of their god by the ancient Titans. Shocked at the thought of
the brutal murder of a god, they had the bad Titans blasted by Zeus for their
wickedness. Thus from the ritual fact of a feast of raw flesh, there grew up
the myth of Dionysus Zagreus, the god on whom the Orphic cult was focused.

The importance of this myth lies in the fact that in Orphic thought it was
connected with a peculiar theory concerning the origin and nature of man, and
so ultimately with the thought of man’s eternal destiny. From the ashes of the
blasted Titans, the Orphic said, man was created. But these Titans had already
consumed the god Dionysus, and their ashes contained the vitality of a divine
being. Hence man by his very constitution was believed to be a compound of two
natures, one Dionysian and immortal, the other Titanic and mortal. His soul
was divine, but while in the body it was confined in a charnel house. Plato
made full use of this Orphic conception, and in his Gorgias he quoted “a certain
philosopher,” who said, “We are dead and the body is a tomb.” Pindar earlier
stressed the divine origin and nature of the human soul in contradistinction
to the mortality of the human body. “While the body of all men is subject to
over-mastering death, an image of life remains alive, for it alone comes from
the gods,” he affirmed. This sharp dualism of soul and body appears again and
again in the Orphic tablets, though it is not always clear that the myth of
the origin of man from the ashes of the Titans was in mind. On the Petelian
tablet (south Italy, third century B.C.) the soul is represented as asserting
its divine nature thus:

I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven.

Similarly, on three Cretan tablets the soul answers the challenge “Whence
are you?” with a reiterated declaration of its dual origin, “I am son of Earth
and of Starry Heaven.” On the Compagno tablets found near Sybaris the soul makes
a like affirmation to the “Pure Queen of Them Below . . . .,” “I avow me that
I am of your blessed race.” The dualism thus fixed between body and soul was
fundamental in Orphic theology. Though the body was an evil thing, the soul
was divine and immortal.

In its first analysis, therefore, the Orphic process of salvation was a process
of purification from bodily taint. The problem, however, was not such a simple
one as these words would indicate. It was not merely from the evils of a single
existence that the Orphic sought deliverance, but from the evils of a long series
of bodily existences. The Orphic first, and the Pythagorean later, believed
in the transmigration of souls from body to body. On leaving the corpse at death,
the soul was normally doomed to inhabit the bodies of other men or of animals
even, passing on through a chain of physical existences until finally purified.
An Orphic fragment preserved by Proclus reads: “Therefore the soul of man changing
in the cycles of time enters into various creatures; now it enters a horse,
again it becomes a sheep . . . . or as one of the tribe of chill serpents creeps
on the sacred ground.” Reincarnation, like dualism, was an important item in
Orphic theology.

What the Orphic did with the idea of transmigration was to moralize it into
a cycle of purgations intended to free the soul from bodily taint and leave
it in the end a pure heavenly essence. According to Pindar, the soul had to
undergo three such periods of purification in as many different incarnations
before the process would be complete. Only those who “thrice had been courageous
in keeping their souls pure from all deeds of wrong” could pass by the highway
of Zeus into the tower of Cronus where the ocean breezes blow around the Islands
of the Blest.” In Plato the series of three incarnations was magnified to three
periods of a thousand years each, during which the process of purgation might
be completed. At the close of each thousand-year period, the souls drew lots,
thus choosing the manner of their next incarnation. One of the most striking
scenes depicted in any of Plato’s writings was the eschatological vision of
Er, son of Armenius, recounted in the tenth book of the Republic. At the place
of judgment, Er saw mortal souls allotted to a new cycle of life choosing their
several destinies.

“He saw the soul which had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan
out of enmity to the race of woman . . . . He beheld also the soul of Thamyras
choosing the life of a nightingale. Birds on the other hand, like the swan and
other musicians, wanting to be men . . . . After making choice and drinking
of the waters of Lethe, these souls shoot away like stars, to birth.”

Empedocles announced three transmigration periods of ten thousand years each
ere the soul could be considered eligible for heavenly bliss.

The technical Orphic expression for the transmigration of souls and their
reappearance in human bodies was “rebirth” (palingenesia). These physical rebirths,
however, were what the Orphic least desired, and to escape this weary round
of reincarnation was the goal of all his endeavor. According to Proclus, the
salvation offered by this system was the freeing of the spirit from the wheel
of physical rebirths. In his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, he said, “This is
what those who are initiated by Orpheus to Dionysus and Kore pray that they
may attain:

‘To cease from the wheel and breathe again from ill.'”

Undoubtedly this was an Orphic formula for the salvation process. By Simplicius
it was attributed to Orpheus himself. Appropriately, therefore, the purified
Orphic soul was represented on the Campagno tablets as having escaped from the
cycle of necessity and attained to the seats of the hallowed. Its joyful affirmation
to the “Pure Queen of Them Below” was:

I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel;
I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.

Thus, while the view of human existence fostered by Orphism was essentially
pessimistic in its dualism and its theory of successive reincarnations, it did
hold out the possibility of escape to weary mortals. It posited one great spiritual
rebirth at the time of death which should put an end once for all to the series
of physical rebirths that were so much dreaded. The question remains, How was
this great deliverance from the cycle of physical existences to be accomplished?

III

The Orphic answer to this problem was, in the first instance, by participation
in certain prescribed rites of initiation. Orphism came to the seekers for salvation
in the Greek world not merely as a philosophy of life but as a religious cult
with divinely authenticated rites which must be fulfilled, else there, could
be no guaranty of deliverance. To those only who had “by happy fortune culled
the fruit of the rite that releases from toil,” was there assurance of salvation,
the rite in this instance being initiation into the Orphic mysteries. The mendicants
who, according to Plato, harassed the rich, exhibiting scriptures by Orpheus,
sought to persuade people that they might obtain purification in life and release
from suffering after death by the observance of their ritual. Initiation into
an Orphic cult was the first step toward deliverance.

In general the prescribed Orphic ritual was a modification of the rude Bacchic
rites we have already examined. The persistent representation of Orpheus in
antiquity was that of a reformer of Dionysiac rites. Diodorus affirmed that
“Orpheus being a man highly gifted by nature and highly trained above all others,
made many modifications in the orgiastic rites; hence they call Orphic those
rites that took their rise from Dionysus.” From the standpoint of ritualistic
observance, therefore, there was much in common between Dionysian and Orphic
practices. On the very threshold to the Orphic cult stood the omophagy, or feast
of raw flesh, which was so prominent a Dionysian rite. In the remaining fragment
of Euripides’ Cretans an initiate tells of certain ritual acts which he performed
in the process of becoming a “Bacchus” and the one he stresses particularly
is the eating of raw flesh.

For the Orphic this “red and bleeding feast” had two important meanings.
It was, first of all, a communion service. Already he had within himself the
spark of divinity which came from the ashes of the Titans. This divine life
within him, however, was weak, very weak. It needed nourishment. In the sacrificial
bull his god Zagreus was ritualistically incarnate; hence, in eating the raw
flesh of the torn bull, be partook of a divine substance that nourished and
strengthened the immortal life within himself. Just as the life of Zagreus entered
the devotee physically when he partook of the flesh of the bull, so the man’s
soul entered more fully into the spiritual life of Zagreus by this very physical
process. In a mystical sense God and man became one by the communion.

But the feast of raw flesh was also a memorial service to the Orphics. With
the legend of the divine child Zagreus in mind, they looked upon their own ritual
as a re-enactment of the ancient tragedy in which their god was done to death
by the Titans. Just as they tore to pieces the flesh of the sacrificial bull
and ate it, so the Titans of old had dismembered the child Zagreus. According
to Nonnus, it was customary for Orphic initiates to daub themselves with white
clay or gypsum as the Titans did in order to conceal their identity. One of
the technical expressions for the ritual act of bedaubing with clay was apomattein
(literally, “to smear off”). Harpocration has the following note on this word:

“Others use it in a more special sense, as for example when they speak of
putting a coat of clay or pitch on those who are being initiated. In this ceremony
they were mimetically enacting the myth told by some persons, in which the Titans,
when they mutilated Dionysus, wore a coating of gypsum in order not to be identified.”

In this comment the mimetic character of the Orphic ritual is definately
asserted.

The real inwardness of this act of daubing with gypsum, however, lay in another
direction. It was an act of purification–strange as it may seem. The terms
perimattein and apomattein (“to besmear” and “to smear off”) were used interchangeably
to mean “to purify.” In the Orphic rite of initiation, just as in the Sabazian
rite at which Aeschines assisted, the candidates for initiation were “purified
and wiped clean with mud and pitch.” They were not purified from mud and pitch
but rather with mud and pitch. Since it was not a physical cleansing that was
sought but rather a spiritual cleansing, clay and pitch served the purpose quite
as well as water. Yet Plutarch, with all his sympathy for Orphism, protested
vigorously against purifications in this manner, calling them “unclean purifications,
filthy cleansings and bemirings.” Orphic initiation, then, in addition to the
rite of communion, featured a strange ceremonial of cleansing intended to rid
the candidate of the stains inherent in his physical nature.

For the Orphic, however, mere initiation with its prescribed rites, its mysticizing
of crude Dionysian ritual, its communion service, and its purifications, was
not sufficient as a guaranty of salvation. Initiation, while it was the beginning
of a process that eventuated in complete salvation, was but the beginning. The
salvation process itself continued as an arduous self-discipline and it lasted
a lifetime. The initial sacraments of communion and purgation were supplemented
by the austerities of the “Orphic life”–an expression that became proverbial.
So the “Bacchus of the Mailed Priests” in Euripides’ Cretans ends his confession
thus:

Robed in pure white I have borne me clean
From man’s vile birth and coffined clay,
And exiled from my lips alway
Touch of all meat where life has been.

In general the disciplinary prescriptions of Orphism were almost identical
with those of Pythagoreanism. Herodotus characterized the Orphic way of life
as at once Egyptian and Pythagorean. Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Pythagoras,
has given a convenient and comprehensive statement of the main items in the
Pythagorean ascesis. His list of prescriptions is as follows:

“Purification is by means of cleansings, and baths and aspersions. A man
must also keep himself from funerals and marriages and every kind of physical
pollution, and abstain from all food that is dead or has been killed, and from
mullet, and from the fish melanurus, and from eggs, and from animals that lay
eggs, and from beans, and from the other things that are forbidden for those
who accomplish the holy rites of initiation.”

The Orphic, like the Pythagorean, lived a life of ceremonial cleanliness
and holiness. By washing and aspersions, at once symbolic and sacramental in
character, he sought to purge away the taint of his bodily nature, the “ancient
woe” inherited from the Titans. He kept himself rigorously from all defilement
of physical contacts with human or animal bodies, from human births especially,
and from dead bodies; for in a corpse the evil Titanic matter was left without
any vital Dionysian element. Both in life and in death certain clothing regulations
were strictly observed. In life the Orphic wore garments of pure white. In death
the initiated were never buried in woolen wrappings.

Not only were rules concerning cleanliness and clothing strictly adhered
to, but certain food regulations were also carefully followed. Having once partaken
of the sacrament of raw flesh, the Orphic fasted forever thereafter from animal
food. This was the most familiar of all the prohibitions observed by the Orphics,
and Plato defined the Orphic manner of living in terms of this observance. “Orphic
lives, as they are caIled,” he said, “were led by those of our race who adhered
to the use of all inanimate things, but abstained from every thing wherein is
life.” This abstinence from animal food was a main item in the discipline of
the tragic Orphic Hippolytus, whose asceticism was the object of Theseus’ bitter
invective in Euripides’ drama. In his rage the old king cried out against his
own son:

Now vaunt, ay now!–set out your paltry wares
Of lifeless food: ….
…. I warn all men to shun
Such hypocrits as you.

These words, from the mouth of a sadly mistaken father, should not be taken
as proof of priggishness on the part of the Orphics, but at least they serve
to emphasize the rigor of the Orphic discipline in the matter of abstinence
from animal foods. By fasting and purifications, the disciple of Orpheus sought
to purge away the evil which he had inherited with his physical nature. Only
after a whole lifetime of such purgation could he affirm, in the terminology
of the Compagno and Caecilia Secundina tablets,

Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below.

The question naturally suggests itself, whether or not the Orphic ideal made
any moral demands on these who were initiated. Since personal purity, even though
it was of a ceremonial and ritualistic character, stood at the very center of
Orphism, the way was open for the development of morality. The very will to
observe its rigid prescriptions was itself a moral attitude. Moreover, there
is valuable testimony among ancient writers to show that Orphism did have an
elevating effect on the moral life. Pindar, for example, based his Orphic eschatology
on moral conditions and assumed that knowledge of the lore of Orphism would
help men lead good lives. Aristophanes, who did not hesitate to poke fun at
Orphism, paid a serious tribute to in The Frogs when the tragedian Aeschylus
said of the poet Orpheus: “He made known to us mystic rites, and to abstain
from slaughter.” Certainly this last statement had reference to something more
than mere abstinence from animal food. At the very least it meant that Orpbic
ritual laid stress on the necessity of purification from blood, and at most
it meant that Orphism came with a gospel of abstention from murder and of peace
on earth. Horace doubtless had much the same thought in mind when he declared
that Orpheus not only tamed fierce animals but savage men as well. The author
of the speech against Aristogeiton also spoke reverentially of Orpheus “who
instituted for us the most holy mysteries and declared that Justice is seated
on the throne of God watching all the actions of mankind.”

At one point especially the moral influence of Orphism was clear and indubitable:
that was in its protest against suicide. Since the body was the soul’s place
of penance a man had no right to take his own life. If he did he was a fugitive
prisoner trying to escape before God had released him. Here Plato found Orphic
thought peculiarly congenial to his own. In the Phaedo he represented Socrates
as saying, shortly before his death, “There is a doctrine whispered in secret
that a man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this
is a great mystery which I do not quite understand. Yet I too believe that the
gods are our guardians and that we are a possession of theirs.” In view of all
this array of literary evidence, certain moral obligations must be added to
the ritualistic requirements which characterized the Orphic life.

But participation in rites of initiation and a life of ascetic observance,
even, were not sufficient to guarantee full and final salvation for the Orphic.
There were certain postmortem rules of conduct to be observed as well. The Orphic
tablets bring this out most clearly. They chart the geography of the next world
for the initiate, acquaint him with the divine beings who have the determination
of future weal or woe, prescribe certain ritual acts to be observed, and instruct
him in formularies and confessions to be repeated under certain circumstances.

The Petelia tablet told of a nameless well-spring situated at the left of
the House of Hades. This the soul must avoid. Since it was contrasted specifically
with the Well of Memory in the following verses, the forbidden spring was probably
Lethe, or Forgetfulness. Because the Orphic had spent a lifetime in purification
he had no need of forgetfulness. The well-spring of which he must drink was
the one flowing from the Lake of Memory. This was the Orphic counterpart of
the “well of water springing up unto everlasting life.” The Petelia tablet also
served to inform the soul what formula to use in asking for a drink from the
Well of Memory. It was an avowal of divine origin: “I am a child of Earth and
Starry Heaven.” According to the tablet, this declaration would be sufficient
to gain the boon desired from the guardians of the Lake of Memory.

Of themselves they will give you to drink,
From the holy Well-spring,
And thereafter among the other Heroes,
You shall have lordship.

The Eleuthernae tablets represented much the same situation in the lively
form of a dialogue between the soul and the well itself.

On the Compagno tablets, certain additional declarations were placed in the
mouth of the initiate. Here the soul came as a suppliant to the holy Persephone
herself, and the prescribed words were addressed to her as the “Pure Queen of
Them Below.” As in the other tablets, there was the assertion of divine origin.
“I avow me that I am of your blessed race.” In addition, however, there was
the further declaration of purity attained by the observance of Orphic practices.

Out of the pure I come . . . . .
I have flown out of the sorrowful weary wheel,
I have passed with eager feet to the circle desired.

These, affirmations on the part of the soul were an “open sesame” to immortal
bliss for they brought the final assurance, “Happy and Blessed One, you shall
be God instead of mortal.” In this climactic fashion the postmortem ritual as
recorded on the Orphic tablets was completed.

On the basis of Dionysian practice and experience, therefore, Orphism built
up an elaborate theological construction with refined and extended ritualistic
observances. Faced by the problem of the dual constitution of man, his soul
Dionysian, divine and immortal, and his body Titanic, evil and mortal, Orphism
found the solution of the antimony in two very different directions. On the
one hand there was the prospect of a natural process of purification through
a series of physical rebirths in animal or human form. This was a gloomy prospect,
however–a remedy that was worse than the disease. On the other hand there was
a way of salvation provided by the Orphic cult itself, an extended process of
self-discipline ending in a spiritual regeneration that would break, once for
all, the chain of successive physical births. It was a long and arduous process
beginning with a rite of initiation which marked the formal entrance upon a
new way of living. There were prayers to be repeated and sacrifices to be fulfilled.
There were sacraments of communion and purification. Following the initiatory
rites was the rigid discipline of a life-long asceticism that included purgations,
fastings, and freedom from bodily contamination, as well as certain elementary
moral requirements. All this, even, was not deemed sufficient. It had to be
supplemented by a postmortem ritual. The Orphic imagination pictured the future,
charted the next world, and prescribed the formulas and confessions to be repeated
under given circumstances. Thus the final goal of ultimate assimilation to deity
was to be attained. Thus the initiated, having lived a life of Orphic purity,
finally became “God from man.”

Admittedly Orphic practice did not offer a new birth experience as a single
catastrophic event to be realized in one’s lifetime, unless initiation itself
is considered that event in a proleptic way. But Orphism did furnish the possibility
for a long regenerative process, beginning at initiation and ending after the
death of the physical body–a development that eventuated in happy immortality.
As an extended process, therefore, rather than as a single event, Orphism fostered
the experience of regeneration.

IV

It is certainly pertinent to inquire whether or not the Orphic type of religious
experience had real significance in the Graeco-Roman world at the beginning
of the Christian era. Of the influence of Orphism in the Greek world during
classical times, we have found ample testimony by writers of the highest repute.
It is more difficult to trace the influence of Orphism as a distinct religious
movement during the Hellenistic and later periods. Still the discovery of the
important private Orpheum in the recently excavated Villa Item at Pompeii, leads
one to anticipate similar finds elsewhere that may illustrate the distinctive
functioning of the Orphic cult in first-century life. If when Pompeii was overwhelmed
by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. an Orphic brotherhood was operating under
private patronage in this charming villa, similar groups were certainly to be
found elsewhere in the Roman world maintaining their peculiar cult practices.
Aside from such independent functioning, however, Orphism continued to influence
the world through systems other than its own. Like Pythagoreanism in this as
in much else, it merged readily with other movements. Its ideas were adopted
by popular philosophies and its practices were taken over by popular religions.
Orphism became very influential at ancient Eleusis particularly, and with the
influx of foreign gods and goddesses into the Greek world it captivated them
also. In these secondary forms the Orphic view of life and the Orphic way of
living continued to influence thought and action even where Orphic brotherhoods
as such had ceased to exist.

There is plenty of direct literary evidence as to the power of Orphic ideas
and practices, however institutionalized, during the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman
periods. One of the characteres of Theophrastus, for example, was a man who
every month repaired to the priests of the Orphic mysteries to partake of their
rites. Usually he was accompanied by his wife. But if she was too busy, his
children and their nurse went along with him. Perhaps the most notable example
of a prominent man who shared the Orphic hope in the first Christian century
was Plutarch. Both he and his wife were initiated into an Orphic thiasus. Though
he strongly criticized certain Orphic practices, and refused to be frightened
by the terrors of their Hell, and depreciated the morbid type of self-examination
fostered by their manner of life, yet he and his wife found the Orphic hope
a real consolation to themselves in the time of trouble. Strabo and Pausanias,
as well as Plutarch, made casual reference to Orphism as a feature of contemporary
religion, while Lucian, in his irresponsible manner, reflected Orphic ideas
here and there. The Latin poet Statius praised the widow of a certain Lucan
for not deifying him as Bacchus and consecrating to him “a deceitful thiasus”–a
testimony that the Orphic practice of deifying the dead was not infrequent in
the Graeco-Roman world.

Of more concrete significance is the archaeological evidence furnished by
sepulchral art and grave inscriptions. According to the Orphic scheme of things,
the soul entered upon the status of divinity after death. Among the monuments
there are a number–quite apart from royal or imperial memorials–which actually
represented the dead as gods. At Guthaeum, for example, a first-century (A.D.)
statue representing a youth was found near a sarcophagus. It was obviously intended
to be a portrait statue; but a panther stands by the side of the youth, a grape
cluster is in his hand, and a vine crown is on his head. Here is a clear memorial
of the process of apotheosizing a youth after death and of representing him
as the god Dionysus.

Among the grave inscriptions there are parallels to this sculptural representation
of a deceased youth as a god. A priest of Thasos dedicated an inscription to
his dead wife as “an incarnate goddess,” and a man by the name of Lucius consecrated
a monument to his child of four years with these words: “To my sweetest child
and personal God who hearkens to my prayers.” More clearly reminiscent of certain
characteristic Orphic ideas is a second-century (A.D.) inscription found in
a Sabine village. “The soul is immortal for it came from God. The body is the
garment of the soul. Honor the God in me.” This was good Orphic doctrine throughout.

Here and there also among grave inscriptions are to be heard the echoes of
Orphic ritual. On a tombstone in Cnidus was engraved this affirmation, “I have
not drunk of the water of Lethe that ends all things.” Immediately one is reminded
of the Petelia tablet with its description of a nameless well-spring at the
left of the House of Hades with a white cypress standing near–a well-spring
by all means to be avoided. There are other inscriptions which recall the cool
waters of Memory flowing from the well-spring on the right, from which the parched
soul may drink and find new life for itself. Two epitaphs of the third century
(A.D.) found at Rome contain prayers that are reminiscent of the Orphic tablets.
“May Aidoneus, the king of the dead, give you the cold water” is the petition
of one, while the second inscription repeats the same request in the first person,
“May he give the cold water to my thirsting soul.” Most peculiar of the Orphic
inscriptions is one from Abydos, dated roughly at the beginning of our era.
It stood originally on the grave of a Lycian Greek buried near the reputed tomb
of Osiris. The inscription expressed the conviction that since the tomb of the
god was near, the soul of the dead would escape Hades: “Hermes gathers me with
the sons of the gods, and I have not drunk the water of Forgetfulness.” Here
the Arcadian Hermes makes his appearance in the role of Psychopompos, as in
classical mythology and the Hermetic literature, and the inscription as a whole
memorializes the blending on Egyptian soil of Orphism, Hermetism, the Osiris
cult, and local tradition.

Altogether, therefore, the grave monuments of Graeco-Roman times strongly
reinforce the literary evidences that Orphic ideas were still very influential
in the life of paganism when Christianity first emerged. Hence, among the new-birth
experiences of paganism contemporary with early Christianity the extended Orphic
process of regeneration must not be ignored.