[15] Thphr., Ch. 28 (16).
[16] αὐτοῦ (Ὀρφέως) μὲν εἶναι τὰ δόγματα, ταῦτα δέ φησιν (Aristot.) Ὀνομάκριτον ἐν ἔπεσι κατατεῖναι Arist. π. φιλοσοφίας fr. 10 [7] Rose, Arist. Pseudepig.
[17] Tatian, Gr. 41 (p. 42 Schw.), seems to speak only of redaction (συντετάχθαι) of the εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀναφερόμενα among already existing Orphic poems as the work of Onomakritos (in the same way Onomakr. is only the διαθέτης—the arranger not the author—of the χρησμοί of “Mousaios”, Hdt. vii, 6). Traces of an external linking-together of the individual poems of Orpheus in a “redaction” are not wanting (cf. the linking-together of the poems of the Epic Cycle or of the corpus Hesiodeum): first of all coming in all probability the greater κρατήρ (as in the enumeration of Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P.); see Lob. 376, 417, 469.—Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 397 P. (and Eus., PE. 10, 11, p. 495 D) is only derived from Tatian, though Onomakr. is here definitely called the author of the εἰς Ὀρφέα φερόμενα ποιήματα. Onomakr. seems also to have been simply regarded as the author of the Ὀρφικά in the doxographical excerpt ap. S.E. P. iii, 30 = M. 9, 361, p. 287 Mutschm.; cf. Gal., H. Philos. (Dox., p. 610, 15): Ὀνομάκριτος ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς.—On the other hand, in the—admittedly incomplete—enumeration of Orphic poems in Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P., not one is attributed to Onomakr., and in Suid. Ὀρφεὺς he is only given the χρησμοί (no confusion with the χρησμοί of Mousaios is to be suspected here) and the τελεταί. Paus. (8, 37, 5) mentions (without naming them) ἔπη of Onomakr. (cf. Ritschl, Opusc. i, 241). Some at least of the poetry going under the name of Orpheus must have been ascribed to Onomakr. by Arist. (fr. 10 [7 Teubn.]).
[18] Suid. Ὀρφεύς, 2721 A Gaisf.
[19] Onomakr. εἶναι τοὺς Τιτᾶνας τῷ Διονύσῳ τῶν παθημάτων ἐποίησεν αὐτουργούς, Paus. 8, 37, 5. Lob., p. 335, thinks this refers to the “Theogony”: but no authority attributes a single one of the several Orphic Theogonies to Onomakr. as its real author. We should rather be inclined to think of the τελεταί which is distinctly ascribed to Onomakr. and which at least dealt with the practical side of worship: cf. Pl., Rp. 364 E–365 A, λύσεις, καθαρμοί ἀδικημάτων κτλ. ἃς δὴ τελετὰς καλοῦσιν (but it was not that the mystical βίβλοι were called τελεταί as Gruppe, Gr. Culte u. Mythen, i, 640, mistakenly supposes: he is otherwise quite right in his protest against Abel’s treatment of the τελεταί). They must almost necessarily have dealt with the reproduction of the πάθη τοῦ Διονύσου (as providing the ἱερὸς λόγος to the δρώμενα), and, as the central idea of the orgiastic cult, must have included the most important circumstance of the Orphic τελεταί (see D.S. 5, 75, 4; Clem. Al., Protr. ii, 17, p. 15 P.).
[20] One of the poems (perhaps indeed the poem of the ῥαψῳδίαι, and in that case the ἱερὸς λόγος as well) made Orpheus distinctly appeal to a revelation made to him by Apollo: fr. 49 (see Lob. 469). [352]
[21] Besides the three Theogonies distinguished by Damascius there were (apart from other more doubtful traces) at least two other variations of the same theme: see fr. 85 (Alex. Aphrod.) and frr. 37; 38 (Clem. Rom.); cf. Gruppe, i, 640 f.—The series of divine rulers given by “Orpheus” acc. to Nigid. Fig. ap. Serv. Ecl. iv, 10 (fr. 248 Ab.), conflicts with all the other Theogonies but agrees in some particulars with Lact. i, 13 (fr. 243). Still, this remark need not necessarily have been taken from any Orphic “Theogony”.
[22] (Zeus) . . . πρωτογόνοιο χανὸν μένος Ἠρικαπαίου, τῶν πάντων δέμας εἶχεν ἑῇ ἐνὶ γαστέρι κοίλῃ, fr. 120 (from the Rhapsodiai). We are accustomed to read here χανών with Zoëga (Abh. 262 f.): but χανών does not mean “catching up or devouring” [Zo.]; at most it might mean, in bad late-Greek, just the opposite of this—“abandoning” (transitive). Lobeck’s explanation (p. 519 n.) is also unsatisfactory. The word may have been originally χαδών.
[23] The line occurred in various forms in the Theogonic poem; frr. 33 (Plato?); 46 [Arist.] de Mundo); 123 (Rhapsod).; see Lob. 520–32. It seems certain then (Gruppe’s doubts go too far: Rhaps. Theog. 704 ff.) that the line appeared in the oldest form of Orphic Theogony and was merely borrowed thence, like so much else that was ancient, by the Rhapsod. Theogony (i.e. the words, Ζεὺς κεφαλὴ κτλ. which would be the oldest form, as Gruppe rightly remarks: κεφαλὴ = τελευτή; cf. Pl., Ti. 69 B). Even the writer of the speech against Aristogeiton A ([Dem.] 25), an Orphic adherent, appears, as Lob. remarks, to allude to the words in § 8.
[24] Theokrasia must have belonged to Orphic theology from the outset: Lob. 614; though the most extreme examples of this may perhaps come from later poems: frr. 167; 169 (Macr.); 168 (D.S.); 201 (Rhaps.), etc., being probably derived from the “Little Krater” (fr. 160), in which Chrysippos seems to be imitated (Lob. 735 and fr. 164), and from the Διαθῆκαι, fr. 7 (J.M.) a forgery in Judaeo-Christian interests which nevertheless made use of many ancient pieces of Orphic literature (the ἱερὸς λόγος: Lob. 450 ff., 454).—Theokrasia is met with even in the orthodox poets of the fifth century, though they did not invent it; the “theologoi” of the sixth century Epimenides and Pherekydes were as familiar with it as were the Orphics; cf. Kern, de Theogon. 92.