Clemens Alexandrin. Admonit. ad Gent. p. 11, 12, Sylb. The story
was treated both by Callimachus and by Euphoriôn, Etymolog. Magn.
v. Ζαγρεὺς, Schol. Lycophr. 208. In the old epic poem Alkmæônis
or Epigoni, Zagreus is a surname of Hadês. See Fragm. 4, p. 7,
ed. Düntzer. Respecting the Orphic Theogony generally, Brandis
(Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechisch-Römisch. Philosophie,
c. xvii., xviii.), K. O. Müller (Prolegg. Mythol. pp. 379-396),
and Zoega (Abhandlungen, v. pp. 211-263) may be consulted with
much advantage. Brandis regards this Theogony as _considerably
older_ than the first Ionic philosophy, which is a higher
antiquity than appears probable: some of the ideas which it
contains, such, for example, as that of the Orphic egg, indicate
a departure from the string of purely personal generations
which both Homer and Hesiod exclusively recount, and a resort
to something like physical analogies. On the whole, we cannot
reasonably claim for it more than half a century above the age of
Onomakritus. The Theogony of Pherekydês of Syros seems to have
borne some analogy to the Orphic. See Diogen. Laërt. i. 119,
Sturz. Fragment. Pherekyd. § 5-6, Brandis, Handbuch, _ut sup._ c.
xxii. Pherekydês partially deviated from the mythical track or
personal successions set forth by Hesiod. ἐπεὶ οἵ γε ~μεμιγμένοι~
αὐτῶν καὶ ~τῷ μὴ μυθικῶς~ ἅπαντα λέγειν, οἷον Φερεκύδης καὶ
ἑτεροί τινες, etc. (Aristot. Metaphys. N. p. 301, ed. Brandis).
Porphyrias, de Antro Nymphar. c. 31, καὶ τοῦ Συρίου Φερεκύδου
μυχοὺς καὶ βόθρους καὶ ἄντρα καὶ θύρας καὶ πύλας λέγοντος, καὶ
διὰ τούτων αἰνιττομένου τὰς τῶν ψυχῶν γενέσεις καὶ ἀπογενέσεις,
etc. Eudêmus the Peripatetic, pupil of Aristotle, had drawn up
an account of the Orphic Theogony as well as of the doctrines of
Pherekydês, Akusilaus and others, which was still in the hands of
the Platonists of the fourth century, though it is now lost. The
extracts which we find seem all to countenance the belief that
the Hesiodic Theogony formed the basis upon which they worked.
See about Akusilaus, Plato, Sympos. p. 178. Clem. Alex. Strom. p.
629.
Such is the tissue of violent fancies comprehended under the title of
the Orphic Theogony, and read as such, it appears, by Plato, Isokratês
and Aristotle. It will be seen that it is based upon the Hesiodic
Theogony, but according to the general expansive tendency of Grecian
legend, much new matter is added: Zeus has in Homer one predecessor, in
Hesiod two, and in Orpheus four.
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