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On the Question of Orphic Authorship

or,

On the Importance of a "Historical Orpheus"

From time to time, it is discovered that an ancient text is not as old as previously believed, or that its historically attributed author is not its actual author. It is not necessary to point at other traditions; Orphism is a religion built around texts attributed to Orpheus, almost all of which are now lost, and the surviving few of which have been dated to Roman times^[1]. Orpheus, the mythical Thracian Bard and Argonaut, if ever he lived at all, could not have lived long enough to write the texts that survive today in His name. Although the religion must necessarily then be pseudepigraphic, it remains a revealed religion: the things that make Orphism a unique religion were handed down by the Gods, to (or through) Orpheus, and by way of Him, to all of us.

Taken together, these things seem to be contradictory: If the religion was revealed, it was revealed to Orpheus. Otherwise, if Orpheus isn’t one historical author_,_ and anyone could write a text that passes under the name of Orpheus, what even makes these things a revelation at all, and not just popular philosophy^[2]? This essay will reconcile this contradiction by arguing that the actual authors of these texts are less important. The fact that these texts do survive attributed to Orpheus, even though other attributions were known, implies a sort of spiritual acceptance of the teachings that is equivalent to revelation, whether or not one believes in an actual particular (or series) of revelation event(s).

To begin, we must look at some of the people named as the “actual authors” of Orphic poems. Herodotus tells us that a man named Onomacritus was kicked out of Athens due to his interpolation of his own forged oracles into copies of Musaeus:

They had come up to Sardis with Onomacritus, an Athenian diviner who had set in order the oracles of Musaeus. They had reconciled their previous hostility with him; Onomacritus had been banished from Athens by Pisistratus' son Hipparchus, when he was caught by Lasus of Hermione in the act of interpolating into the writings of Musaeus an oracle showing that the islands off Lemnos would disappear into the sea.^[3]

Musaeus is often seen as a pupil or son of Orpheus. This, with Herodotus’ tendency to keep reverent silence^[4], could mean that his account of Onomacritus might also be read as an accusation of Orphic forgery^[5]. Indeed, we find Onomacritus named by other sources, such as Clement of Alexandria, who also gives a few more names and even titles of works:

And the Oracles ascribed to Musaeus are said to be the production of Onomacritus, and the Crateres of Orpheus the production of Zopyrus of Heraclea, and The Descent to Hades that of Prodicus of Samos. Ion of Chios relates in the Triagmi, that Pythagoras ascribed certain works [of his own] to Orpheus. Epigenes, in his book respecting The Poetry attributed to Orpheus, says that The Descent to Hades and the Sacred Discourse were the production of Cecrops the Pythagorean; and the Peplus and the Physics of Brontinus.^[6]

Clement, as an early Christian thinker, was not met with the same issue that we are. As someone from the outside with no interest, he feels these texts are better identified by the men who lived to write them. To him, they are not divinely inspired at all. For us, this view will not suffice.

Clement also names multiple Pythagoreans, including Pythagoras himself, among those who wrote Orphic works. Herodotus shared this belief that Orphic rites originated with the Pythagoreans^[7]. Plutarch also mentions that he was mocked as if he held “Orphic or Pythagorean” opinions:

some at Sossius Senecio's table suspected that I was tainted with Orpheus's or Pythagoras's opinions, and refused to eat an egg (as some do the heart and brain) imagining it to be the principle of generation. And Alexander the Epicurean ridiculingly repeated,

To feed on beans and parents' heads
Is equal sin;

as if the Pythagoreans covertly meant eggs by the word κύαμοι (beans), deriving it from κύω or κυέω (to conceive), and thought it as unlawful to feed on eggs as on the animals that lay them.^[8]

Pythagoreans, then, are permanently linked to Orphism. However, while Orphism and Pythagoreanism share certain things in common, such as a belief in metempsychosis and a vegetarian diet, they also have things that make them distinct. In the Plutarch quote above, he mentions that the Pythagorean taunt is the ridicule about beans, as if Pythagoreans meant to say ‘eating an egg is as bad as eating the animal that laid it’. Plutarch draws this conclusion for us, though, and it is not immediately obvious otherwise why that taunt would apply to his not eating an egg.

The amount of overlap with Pythagoreanism and Pythagorean authors should have, on the surface, made it interchangeable with Orphism. Yet, Orphism remains distinct. Even though the texts listed by Clement do not survive, many Orphic fragments do survive, and a few other whole texts. The fact that these survive in the name of Orpheus shows that the spiritual truths being revealed were their most important trait.

This viewpoint is not unique to this essay, however. Plato, in Phaedrus, tells us about divine madness:

And I must say that this saying is not true, which teaches that when a lover is at hand the non-lover should be more favored, because the lover is insane, and the other sane. For if it were a simple fact that insanity is an evil, the saying would be true; but in reality the greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent as a gift of the gods.^[9]

He mentions a few priesthoods that perform oracles as a function before continuing to refine his concept of divine madness. Later in the text, Socrates summarizes:

And we made four divisions of the divine madness, ascribing them to four gods, saying that prophecy was inspired by Apollo, the mystic madness by Dionysus, the poetic by the Muses, and the madness of love, inspired by Aphrodite and Eros, we said was the best. We described the passion of love in some sort of figurative manner, expressing some truth, perhaps, and perhaps being led away in another direction, and after composing a somewhat plausible discourse, we chanted a sportive and mythic hymn in meet and pious strain to the honor of your lord and mine, Phaedrus, Love, the guardian of beautiful boys.^[10]

Plato’s four categories of divine madness are Prophetic, Mystic, Poetic, and Erotic. Another name we could give this phenomenon is ‘divine inspiration’, and Plato says specifically that these categories of madness are inspired by Apollo, Dionysus, the Muses, and Aphrodite/Eros respectively.

Clement made efforts to reconcile elements of earlier philosophy with Christian thought. He even framed Plato as someone who, by the grace of God, was able to come to a sort of ‘proto-Christianity’ against all odds. However, as is often argued here^[11], Plato, and thus philosophy, are not easily separable from Orphism. The Neoplatonist Olympiodorus said “Plato, indeed, borrows from Orpheus everywhere”^[12], and books have been written on that subject alone^[13]. So, for Clement to allow divine inspiration for Plato but not for Orpheus, knowing what we know today, does not seem logical.

Furthermore, since divine inspiration has been allowed for Plato and must be allowed for Orpheus, it must also be allowed for those whose works survive in Orpheus’ name. In doing so, we arrive at the heart of the issue and the very point this essay aims to make: the actual, historical authorship of Orphic texts is not as important as the fact that the texts were accepted as authored by Orpheus. Also, the very fact that they were accepted this way is evidence of a communal recognition of them as divinely inspired.

Perhaps anyone could write any text and arbitrarily attribute it to Orpheus, but that text would never receive the acceptance of even something like the Orphic Argonautica without showing some level of understanding. In other words, the attribution to Orpheus alone is not what makes a text Orphic, and such a text (i.e. one that is only Orphic in name) may not have been accepted as Orphic at all, just as Onomacritus’ forgeries were clearly recognized as separate from the oracles of Musaeus. (More on this another time.)

The attribution to Orpheus is not only meant to recognize divine inspiration in general, but specifically a combination of all four of Plato’s categories. Throughout antiquity, Orpheus is variously called a prophet, a mystagogue, a poet, and a lover. He is also portrayed variously as a worshipper of Apollo and Dionysus, a son of Apollo and/or a Muse, and in one telling, He is punished by Aphrodite for an inherited crime^[14]. If that Aphrodite link is too thin for you, consider that Orpheus places Eros “whom the younger men call Phanes”^[15] as the first being of generation.

Thus, in conclusion, the actual authorship of pseudepigraphic religious texts such as Orphica is not necessarily important to those who practice the religion. To those who practice the religion, even in cases where a “true author” is known, the communal acceptance of attribution to the mythical savior figure of Orpheus is enough to allow the work to speak for itself.

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Works Cited

Chrysanthou, Anthi. Defining Orphism: The Beliefs, the Teletae and the Writings. De Gruyter, 2020.

Clement of Alexandria. Stromata. Translated by William Wilson. https://logoslibrary.org/clement/stromata/121.html. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025

Herodotus. “Histories.” Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025

Hyginus. “Astronomica.” The Myths of Hyginus, translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies, no. 34. 1960. https://topostext.org/work/207#2.7.4. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025

Orpheus. “Argonautica.” Translated by Jason Colavito, The Orphic Argonautica, http://www.jasoncolavito.com/the-orphic-argonautica1.html. Accessed 2 Sept. 2025.

Plato. “Phaedrus.” Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0174:text=Phaedrus. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025

Plutarch. “Quaestiones Convivales.” Plutarch's Morals, Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0312. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025.

Uždavinys, Algis. Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism. Matheson Trust, 2011.

Westerink, L. G. The Greek Commentaries on Plato's Phaedo, Vol. 1. Netherlands, North-Holland Publishing Company, 1976.

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Footnotes