[65] δεινὰ περιμένει: Pl., Rp. 365 A; cf. fr. 314 (Ficinus).
[66] fr. 208 (Rhaps.) ὄργιά τ’ ἐκτελέσουσι (ἄνθρωποι), λύσιν προγόνων ἀθεμίστων μαιόμενοι· σὺ (sc. Dionysos) δὲ τοῖσιν (dat. commodi), ἔχων κράτος, οὗς κ’ ἐθέλησθα λύσεις ἔκ τε πόνων χαλεπῶν καὶ ἀπείρονος οἴστρου (of continual rebirth). That this belief in the efficacy of prayers for the “poor souls of the departed” belonged to the earlier stratum of Orphism follows from Pl., Rp. 364 BC, E, 365 A, where he speaks of λύσεις τε καὶ καθαρμοί of the Orphics which promised to deliver living and dead from the ἀδικήματα αὐτοῦ ἢ προγόνων. (It has been wrongly attempted to fasten the same belief on Plato himself, in the Phaedo.)—For Gnostic and early Christian ideas of the same kind see Anrich, D. Ant. Mysterienwesen, 87, 4; 120 n. But even in the Rigveda (7, 35, 4) we may find the thought that the “pious works of the pious” can help others to salvation (Oldenberg, Rel. d. [359] Veda, 289). Religious pietism seems to produce the same effects everywhere.
[67] πολλοὶ μὲν ναρθηκοφόροι κτλ. was an Orphic verse. Lob. 809, 813.
[68] fr. 154.
[69] ὁ κεκαθαρμένος τε καὶ τετελεσμένος ἐκεῖσε (εἰς Ἅιδου) ἀφικόμενος μετὰ θεῶν οἰκήσει, fr. 228 (Pl.).
[70] συμπόσιον τῶν ὁσίων in Hades, μέθη αἰώνιος their reward: Pl., Rp. 336 CD (cf. Dieterich, Nekyia, 80 n.). Plato there mentions Mousaios and his son (Eumolpos) as authorities for these promises and contrasts with them, by a οἱ δέ, others who made different promises; perhaps referring to other Orphic poems (cf. fr. 227). But Mousaios, himself always closely connected in Plato with Orpheus (Rp. 364 E, Prot. 316 D, Ap. 41 A, Ion, 536 B), here simply means “Orphic poetry”. A literature of essentially Orphic character went under his name. So Plu., Comp. Cim. et Luc. 1 seems right in substituting simply τὸν Ὀρφέα for the Μουσαῖος named in Pl.
[71] Pl., Lg. 870 DE; then in more detail for a special case but derived from same source: νόμῳ . . . τῷ νῦν δή (i.e. in 870 DE) λεχθέντι 872 DE, 873 A.—The idea of such a religio-juridical talio was popular also in Greece: see below (chap. xi, [n. 44]). Frequently for instance in curses of vengeance the wish is that the doer may suffer exactly the same thing as that which he has done to his victim. Exx. from Soph. (best is Tr. 1039 f.) given by G. Wolff in S., Aias, 839; cf. A., Cho. 309 ff., Ag. 1430.—As a Neoplatonic idea: Plot. 3, 2, 13; Porph. and Iamb. ap. Aen. Gaz., Theophr., p. 18 B.
[72] We may, however, suppose that the ideas of the Orphics corresponded with the statements of Empedokles, Plato, etc., about the series of births.
[73] σῶμα—σῆμα is Orphic: Pl., Crat. 400 C.
[74] Complete escape from the world of birth and death is distinctly anticipated for the pious Orphic in fr. 226, κύκλον τε λῆξαι κτλ. The other and positive side completing this negative promise is not clearly supplied for us by any fragment. (We never even hear distinctly of the return of the individual soul to the one Soul of the World; though certain Orphic myths—probably of late origin—seem to suggest such a doctrine of Emanation and final Remanation.)