Orphic Hymns

The Orphic Hymns are a collection of eighty-seven ancient Greek hymns addressed to various deities, which were attributed in antiquity to the mythical poet Orpheus. They were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey), most likely around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD, and were used in the rites of a religious community which existed in the region. The Hymns are among the few extant works of Orphic literature (the tradition of texts attributed to Orpheus in antiquity), and recent scholars have observed parallels between the collection and other Orphic works.

The collection is preceded by a proem (or prologue), in which Orpheus addresses the legendary poet Musaeus, and calls upon around seventy deities to be present. The individual hymns in the collection, all of which are brief, typically call for the attention of the deity they address, before describing them and highlighting aspects of their divinity, and then appealing to them with a request. The descriptions of deities consist primarily of strings of epithets (titles or adjectives applied to gods), which make up a substantial portion of the hymns' content, and are designed to summon the powers of the god. The deity featured most prominently in the collection is Dionysus, who is the recipient of eight hymns, and is mentioned throughout the collection under various names. Most of the deities featured in the Hymns are derived from mainstream Greek mythology, and a number are assimilated with one another.

The Orphic Hymns seem to have belonged to a cult community from Asia Minor which used the collection in ritual, and probably held Dionysus as their central god. The rite in which the Orphic Hymns featured was the teletḗ (τελετή, a term which usually refers to a rite of initiation into mysteries), and this ceremony appears to have taken place at night-time. Most hymns specify an offering to be made to the deity, which was probably burned during the performance of the hymn. Scholars have noted the apparent lack of Orphic doctrines in the Hymns, though certain themes and references have been interpreted as pointing to the presence of Orphic thought in the collection.

No external references to the Orphic Hymns survive from antiquity, and they are first mentioned by the Byzantine writer John Diaconus Galenus (who has been dated to the 12th century AD). From perhaps as early as the 5th century AD, the Orphic Hymns were preserved in a codex which also included works such as the Orphic Argonautica and the Homeric Hymns. The first codex containing the Orphic Hymns to reach Western Europe arrived in Italy in the first half of the 15th century, and in 1500 the first printed edition of the Hymns was published in Florence. During the Renaissance, a number of scholars believed that the collection was a genuine work of Orpheus, while in the late 18th century a more sceptical wave of scholarship argued for a dating in late antiquity. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of inscriptions were discovered in Asia Minor, leading to the ritual function of the collection being established among classicists and historians of religion.

It is widely accepted in modern scholarship that the Orphic Hymns were composed in Asia Minor (located in modern-day Turkey). The most significant piece of evidence linking the collection to this region is the inclusion of deities – such as Mise, Hipta, and Melinoë – who are attested only in western Asia Minor, and whose presence in inscriptions from the area indicate they were the subject of worship there. The prominence given in the collection to deities associated with the sea, as well as the concern displayed towards the sea and its perils, indicate that the Hymns were probably composed somewhere near the coast of Asia Minor.

In 1911, Otto Kern postulated that the Hymns originated from the city of Pergamon (near the western coast of Asia Minor), on the basis of a number of inscriptions, dedicated to deities addressed in the Hymns, which had been discovered in the sanctuary of Demeter in the city. Evaluating Kern's hypothesis in her 2001 study of the Hymns, Anne-France Morand concludes that, although an origin in Pergamon cannot be ruled out, the city cannot be definitively identified as the collection's place of provenance, given that the epigraphic evidence connected with the Hymns originates from throughout western Asia Minor. There is near-universal agreement in modern scholarship that the Orphic Hymns were composed for use by a religious community, which existed in the region and used the collection in ritual. Kern argued that this group existed in Pergamon at the sanctuary of Demeter, a view which Morand dismisses, as the site of the cult's activity was more likely private (and sanctuaries were generally public).

Estimates for the date of the Orphic Hymns' composition have varied widely, though most have fallen between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD. Among recent scholars, the collection has typically been dated to around the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD. Studies of the collection's vocabulary suggest a date around the 3rd to 5th centuries AD, and attempts to date the Hymns based upon the perceived influence of certain forms of philosophical thought have been largely inconclusive. No references to the Orphic Hymns survive from antiquity, though modern scholars have largely avoided arguing for a date on this basis.

Gabriella Ricciardelli, who supports a date in the 2nd or 3rd century AD, points to the prominence of the worship of Dionysus (who occupies a central role in the collection) in Asia Minor around this time. Morand places the Hymns between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD, though this dating has been criticised for placing undue weight upon the similarity of the collection's vocabulary with that of the 5th-century AD poet Nonnus. In Radcliffe Edmonds's estimation, the collection contains passages taken from earlier works, and may have been a "synthesis of earlier and contemporary works, organized by an Orphicist of the time". Daniel Malamis, who argues that a date in the 1st century AD (or even the 1st century BC) should not be ruled out, suggests that the work may have been composed as an analogue to the Orphic Rhapsodies, a theogony attributed to Orpheus, typically dated to between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD.