The Hymns of Orpheus · 3 of 91

Introduction: The Orphic Theology

SECT. II. LET us now proceed to his theology; exchanging the obscurity of conjecture for the light of clear evidence; and the intricate labyrinths of fable for the delightful though solitary paths of truth.

And here I must acquaint the reader, that I shall every where deduce my information from the writings of the latter Platonists; as the only sources of genuine knowledge, on this sublime and obsolete enquiry e. The vulgar systems of mythology are here entirely useless; and he who should attempt to elucidate the theology, or hymns of Orpheus, by any modern hypothesis, would be as ridiculously employed, as he who should expect to find the origin of a copious stream, by pursuing it to its last and most intricate involutions. In conformity with modern prejudices, the author of the Letters on Mythology, endeavours to prove, that the Orphic hymns deify the various parts of nature, not considered as animated by different intelligences but as various modifications of inert and lifeless matter. This hypothesis is no doubt readily embraced by the present philosophers, a great part of whom, deny the existence of any thing incorporeal; and the better sort, who acknowledge one supreme immaterial Being, exclude the agency of subordinate intelligences in the government of the world; though this doctrine is perfectly philosophical, and at the same time consistent with revelation. The belief indeed of the man, who looks no higher than sense, must be necessarily terminated by appearances. Such a one introduces a dreadful chasm in the universe; and diffuses the deity through the world like an extended substance; divided with every particle of matter, and changed into the infinite varieties of sensible forms. But with the ancient philosopher, the deity is an immense and perpetually exuberant fountain; whose streams originally filled and continually replenish the world with life. Hence the universe contains in its ample bosom all general natures; divinities visible and invisible; the illustrious race of dæmons; the noble army of exalted souls; and men rendered happy by wisdom and virtue. According to this theology, the power of universal soul does not alone diffuse itself to the sea, and become bounded by its circumfluent waters, while the wide expanse of air and æther, is destitute of life and soul; but the celestial spaces are filled with souls, supplying life to the stars, and directing their revolutions in everlasting order. So that the celestial orbs in imitation of intellect, which seeks after nothing external, are wifely agitated in perpetual circuit round the central sun. While some things participate of being alone, others of life, and others are endued with sentient powers; some possess the still higher faculty of reason; and lastly others, are all life and intelligence.

But let us rise a little higher, and contemplate the arguments by which the Platonists, establish the Orphic doctrine of the existence and agency of subordinate intelligences. Thus then they reason f, Of all beings it is necessary that some should move only, that others should be entirely moved; and that the beings situated between these two, should participate of the extremes, and both move and be moved. Among the first in dignity and order are those natures which move only; the second, those which move themselves; the third, those which move and are moved; and the fourth, those which are moved only. Now the second class of these, or the self-motive natures, since their perfection consists in transition and mutation of life, must depend upon a more ancient cause, which subsists perpetually the same; and whose life is not conversant with the circulations of time, but is constituted in the stable essence of eternity. But it is necessary that the third class, which both move and are moved, should depend on a self-motive nature. For a self-motive being, is the cause of motion to those, which are moved by another, in the same manner as that which is immovable, inserts in all beings the power of moving. And again, that which is moved only, must depend on those natures, which are indeed moved by another, but which are themselves endued with a motive-power. For it is necessary that the chain of beings should be complete; every where connected by proper mediums, and deduced in an orderly and perpetual series, from the principle to the extremes. All bodies therefore belong to those natures which are moved only, and are naturally passive; since they are destitute of all inherent energy, on account of their sluggish nature, which participates of division, magnitude, and weight.

But of incorporeals some are divisible about bodies; while others are entirely free from such an affection about the lowest order of beings. Hence such things, as are divided about the dead weight of bodies, whether they are material qualities or forms, belong to the orders of nature’s moving, and at the same time moved. For such as these because incorporeal, participate of a motive faculty; but because they are also divided about bodies, they are on this account exempt from incorporeal perfection; are filled with material inactivity, and require the energy of a self-motive nature. Where then shall we find this self-motive essence? For such things as are extended with magnitude, oppressed by material weight, and inseparably reside in bodies, must necessarily either move only, or be moved by others. But it is requisite, as we have before observed, that prior to this order, the self-motive essence should subsist. And hence we conclude that there is another certain nature exempt from the passivity and imperfection of bodies, existing not only in the heavens, but in the ever-changing elements, from which the motion of bodies is primrily derived. And this nature is no other than soul, from which animals derive their life and motive power; and which even affords an image of self-motion to the unstable order of bodies.

If then the self-motive essence is more ancient than that which is moved by another, but soul is primarily self-motive, hence soul must be more ancient than body; and all corporeal motion must be the progeny of soul, and of her inherent energy. It is necessary, therefore, that the heavens, with all their boundless contents, and their various natural motions (for a circular motion, is natural to such bodies), should be endued with governing souls, essentially more ancient than their revolving bodies. According to the Platonic philosophers, therefore, these souls which orderly distinguish the universe and its contained parts, from their inherent cause of motion, give life and motion to every inanimate body. But it is necessary that every motive essence, should either move all things rationally, or irrationally; that is, either according to the uniform and unerring laws of reason, or according to the brutal impulse of an irrational nature. But the constant order observed in the periods of the celestial bodies, the convenience of positions, and the admirable laws by which their revolutions are directed, plainly evince that their motions are governed by a rational nature. If therefore, an intellectual and rational soul governs the universe, and if every thing eternally moved is under the directing influence of such a soul; may we not enquire whether it possesses this intellectual, perfect, and beneficent power, by participation, or essentially? for if essentially, it is necessary that every soul should be intellectual, since every soul is naturally self-motive. But if by participation, there must be another nature more ancient than soul, which operates entirely from energy; and whose essence is intelligence, on account of that uniform conception of universals, which it essentially contains. Because it is also necessary that the soul, essentially rational, should receive intellect by participation, and that intellectual energy should be of two kinds; one primarily subsisting in the divine intellect; but the other subsisting secondarily in its offspring soul. You may add too, the presence of intellectual illumination in body, which is received in as great perfection as its unstable and obscure nature will admit. For how is it possible that the celestial orbs should be for ever circularly moved in one definite order, preserving the same form, and the same immutable power, unless they participated of an intellectual nature. For soul is indeed the constant supplier of motion; but the cause of perpetual station, of indentity and uniform life, reducing unstable motion to a circular revolution, and to a condition eternally the same, must be more ancient than soul.

Body, indeed, and whatever is the object of sense, belongs; to the order of things moved by another. But soul is self-motive, embracing in itself, in a connected manner, all corporeal motions. And prior to this is immovable intellect. And here it is requisite to observe, that this immaterial nature must not be conceived as similar to any thing inert, destitute of life, and endued with no spirit, but as the principal cause of all motion, and the fountain of all life; as well of that whose streams perpetually return into itself, as of that which subsists in others, and has, on this account only, a secondary and imperfect existence.

All things, therefore, depend upon unity, through the medium of intellect and soul. And intellect is of an uniform essence; but soul of a mental form νοειδήσ, and the body of the world vivific, or vital ζωτικὸς. The first cause of all is indeed prior to intellect, but intellect is the first recipient of a divine nature; and soul is divine, so far as it requires an intellectual medium. But the body which participates a soul of this kind is divine, in as great a degree as the nature of body will admit. For the illustration of intellectual light, pervades from the principle of things, to the extremes; and is not totally obscured, even when it enters the involutions of matter, and is profoundly merged in its dark and flowing receptacle.

Hence we may with reason conclude, that not only the universe, but each of its eternal parts is animated. and endued with intellect, and is in its capacity similar to the universe. For each of these parts, is a universe if compared with the multitude it contains, and to which it is allied. There is, therefore, according to the Orphic and Platonic theology, one soul of the universe; and after this others, which from participating this general soul, dispose the entire parts of the universe into order; and one intellect which is participated by souls, and one supreme God, who comprehends the world in his infinite nature, and a multitude of other divinities, who distribute intellectual essences, together with their dependent souls, and all the parts of the world, and who are the perpetual sources of its order, union, and consent. For it is not reasonable to suppose that every production of nature, should have the power of generating its similar, but that the universe and primary essences should not more abundantly possess an ability of such like procreation; since sterility can only belong to the most abject, and not to the most excellent natures.

In consequence of this reasoning, Orpheus filled all things with Gods, subordinate to the demiurgus of the whole Δημιυργῷ, every one of which performs the office destined to his divinity, by his superiour leader. Hence according to his theology there are two worlds, the intelligible and the sensible. Hence too his three demiurgic principles: Jovial, Dionysiacal, and Adonical, Δΐι#, ( ) Διονυσιακὴ, Αδωναϊκὴ, from whence many orders and differences of Gods proceed, intelligible e, intellectual, super-mundane, mundane, celestial, authors of generation. And among these some in the order of guardian, demiurgic, elevating and comprehending Gods; perfecters of works, vivific, immutable, absolute, judicial, purgative, &c. and besides these to each particular divinity, he added a particular multitude of angels, dæmons, and heroes; for according to Proclus, relating the opinion of Orpheus, and the theologists: f “About every God there is a kindred multitude of angels, heroes, and dæmons. For every God presides over the form of that multitude which receives the divinity.” He likewise considered a difference of sex in these deifies, calling some male, and others female; the reason of which distinction g Proclus, with his usual elegance and subtilty, thus explains.

“The division of male and female comprehends in itself, all the plenitudes of divine orders. Since the cause of stable power and identity, and the leader Χὸρηγος of being, and that which invests all things with the first principle of conversion, is comprehended in the masculine order. But that which generates from itself, all various progressions and partitions, measures of life and prolific powers, is contained in the female division. And on this account Timæus also, converting himself to all the Gods, by this division of generated natures, embraces their universal orders. But a division of this kind, is particularly accommodated and proper to the present Theory, because the universe is full of this two-fold kind of Gods. For that we may begin with the extremes, heaven corresponds with earth, in the order and proportion of male to female. Since the motion of the heavens imparts particular properties and powers, to particular things. But on the other hand earth receiving the celestial defluxions, becomes pregnant, and produces plants and animals of every kind. And of the Gods existing in the heavens, some are distinguished by the male division, and others by the female and the authors of generation, since they are themselves destitute of birth, are some of this order and others of that, for the demiurgic choir is abundant in the universe. There are also many canals as it as it were of life, some of which exhibit the male and others the female form. But why should I insist on this particular? since from the absolute unities, whether endued with a masculine, or a feminine form, various orders of beings flow into the universe.” Thus far Proclus.

But that Orpheus was a monarchist, as well as a polytheist, is not only evident from the preceding arguments, originally derived from his Theology, but from the following verses quoted by Proclus h.

Hence with the universe great Jove contains

The æther bright, and heav’ns exalted plains

Th’ extended restless sea, and earth renown’d

Ocean immense, and Tartarus profound; p. 30

Fountains and rivers, and the boundless main,

With all that nature’s ample realms contain,

And Gods and Goddesses of each degree

All that is past, and all that e’er shall be,

Occultly, and in fair connection i, lies

In Jove’s wide womb, the ruler of the skies.

And in the same place, Proclus has preserved to us another copy of Orphic verses, which are also found in the writer (de Mundo); previous to which he observes, that the demiurgus, or artificer of the world, being full of ideas, comprehended by these all things within himself, as that theologer (Orpheus) declares. With these verses we have connected others, agreeable to the order of Stephens, Eschenbach, and Gesner, as follows.

Jove is the first and last thund’ring king,

Middle and head, from Jove all beings spring; p. 31

In Jove the male and female forms combine,

For Jove’s a man, and yet a maid divine;

Jove the strong basis of the earth contains,

And the deep splendour of the starry plains;

Jove is the breath of all; Jove’s wondrous frame

Lives in the rage of ever restless flame;

Jove is the sea’s strong root, the solar light,

And Jove’s the moon, fair regent of the night;

Jove is a king by no restraint confin’d,

And all things flow from Jove’s prolific mind;

One is the pow’r divine in all things known,

And one the ruler absolute alone.

For in Jove’s royal body all things lie,

Fire, night and day, earth, water and the sky;

The first begetters pleasing love and mind;

These in his mighty body, Jove confin’d:

See, how his beauteous head and aspect bright

Illumine heav’n, and scatter boundless light!

Round which his pendant golden tresses shine

Form’d from the starry beams, with light divine;

On either side two radiant horns behold,

Shap’d like a bull’s and bright with glittering gold;

And East and West in opposition lie,

The lucid paths of all the Gods on high; p. 32

His eyes, the sun, and moon with borrow’d ray;

Royal, ætherial; and his ear refin’d

Hears ev’ry voice, and sounds of ev’ry kind.

Thus are his head and mind immortal, bright,

His body’s boundless, stable, full of light;

Strong are his members, with a force endu’d

Pow’rful to tame, but ne’er to be subdu’d;

Th’ extended region of surrounding air

Forms his broad shoulders, back, and bosom fair;

And thro’ the world the ruler of the skies Upborne on natal, rapid pinions flies;

His sacred belly earth with fertile plains,

And mountains swelling to the clouds, contains;

His middle zone’s the spreading sea profound,

Whose roaring waves the solid globe surround;

The distant realms of Tartarus obscure

Within earth’s roots, his holy feet secure; p. 33

For these earth’s utmost bounds to Jove belong,

And form his basis permanent and strong.

Thus all things Jove within his breast conceal’d,

And into beauteous light from thence reveal’d.