Orphism
Orphism
- Fritz Graf
Extract
Orphism, a set of beliefs and religious practices thought to derive from Orphic literature. The concept is modern; it develops ancient and Florentine Neoplatonist ideas (see neoplatonism) about the crucial role *Orpheus had as a theologian of all mystery cult (see mysteries) in Greece. Reacting to F. Creuzer (1771–1858) who, though he denied that Orpheus was a historical figure, still thought that Orphic literature contained the essential knowledge of Eleusinian and Dionysiac mysteries (see eleusis; dionysus), C. A. Lobeck (Aglaophamus, 1829) had distinguished Eleusis, Bacchic (i.e. Dionysiac), and Samothracian mysteries (see cabiri; samothrace) from the Orphica; this opened the way to assimilate Orphic literature to Pythagoreanism and to see Orphism as a religious movement on its own, beginning in the late archaic age and combining ideas from Dionysian mysteries and Pythagorean philosophy. Formulated by E. Rohde (Psyche, 1894) and refined, among others, by M.Subjects
- Greek Myth and Religion