Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)Lang, Andrew
Religion
Myth, Ritual And Religion, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Lang, Andrew
Myth; Mythology; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
On the other hand, Müller argued that the myth was really archaic,
although it had passed through the hands of Onomacritus. On the strength
of the boast of the Delphian priests that they possessed the grave
in which the fragments of the god were buried, Müller believed that
Onomacritus received the story from Delphi.***
* Proclus in Crat., p. 115.
** Aglaoph., p. 616. "Onomacritum architectum istius
mythi."
*** Müller's Proleg., English transl., p. 319.
Müller writes, "The way in which these Orphics went to work with
ancient myths can be most distinctly seen in the mythus of the _tearing
asunder of Bacchus_, which, at all events, passed _through_ the hands of
Onomacritus, an organiser of Dionysian orgies, according to Pausanias,
an author of Orphean poems also, and therefore, in all probability, an
Orphic".
The words of Pausanias are (viii. 37, 3), "Onomacritus, taking from
Homer the name of the Titans, established Dionysiac orgies, and
represented the Titans as the authors of the sorrows of the god".
Now it is perhaps impossible to decide with certainty whether, as Lobeck
held, Onomacritus "adapted" the myth, and the Delphians received it into
their religion, with rites purposely meant to resemble those of Osiris
in Egypt, or whether Müller more correctly maintains that Onomacritus,
on the other hand, brought an old temple mystery and "sacred chapter"
into the light of literature. But it may very plausibly be maintained
that a myth so wild, and so analogous in its most brutal details to the
myths of many widely scattered races, is more probably ancient than a
fresh invention of a poet of the sixth century. It is much more likely
that Greece, whether at Delphi or elsewhere, possessed a legend common
to races in distant continents, than that Onomacritus either invented
the tale or borrowed it from Egypt and settled it at Delphi. O. Müller
could not appeal to the crowd of tales of divine dismemberment in savage
and civilised lands, because with some he was unacquainted, and others
(like the sacrifice of Purusha, the cutting up of Omorca, the rending of
Ymir) do not seem to have occurred to his memory. Though the majority of
these legends of divine dismemberment are connected with the making of
the world, yet in essentials they do resemble the tale of Dionysus and
the Titans. Thus the balance of probability is in favour of the
theory that the myth is really old, and was borrowed, not invented, by
Onoma-critus.* That very shifty person may have made his own alterations
in the narrative, but it cannot be rash to say with O. Müller, "If it
has been supposed that he was the inventor of the entire fable, which
Pausa-nias by no means asserts, I must confess that I cannot bring
myself to think so. According to the notions of the ancients, it must
have been an unholy, an accursed man who could, from a mere caprice of
his own, represent the ever-young Dionysus, the god of joy, as having
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