Orphic Zagreus[edit]
According to the followers of Orphism,[7] Zeus had lain with Persephone—who, by the tradition ascribed to Orpheus, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter[8]—in the form of a serpent. The result of their union was Zagreus.
Zeus had intended Zagreus to be his heir, but a jealous Hera persuaded the Titans to kill the child. Like the infant Zeus in Cretan myth, the child Zagreus was entrusted to the Titans who distracted him with toys. While he gazed into a mirror they tried to seize him and he fled, changing into various animal forms in his attempt to escape. Finally he took the form of a bull, and in that form they caught him, tore him to pieces, and devoured him.
Zeus, discovering the crime, hurled a thunderbolt at the Titans, turning them to ashes, but Persephone (or in some accounts Athena,Rhea, or Hermes) managed to recover Zagreus' heart. From the ashes of the Titans, mixed with the divine flesh they had eaten, came humankind; this explains the mix of good and evil in humans, the story goes, for humans possess both a trace of divinity as well as the Titans' maliciousness.[9]
Zeus implanted the still-beating heart into the mortal woman Semele, from whom the child was eventually born again, despite Hera's intervention. Some accounts say that he was reassembled and resurrected by Demeter; others, that Zeus fed his heart to Semele in a drink, making her pregnant with Dionysus.
In Orphic tradition, Persephone was the mother of Zagreus (Dionysus) by Zeus; in the Iliad, Persephone's consort Hades, king of the underworld, is called Zeus Katachthonios, "Underground Zeus". In Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Zeus granted that Hades could abduct Persephone,[10] suggesting that their roles are sometimes interchangeable. Both Zeus and Poseidon were occasionally consorts of Demeter. "Underworld Zeus" is linked with Demeter by Hesiod.[11] It is this that has generated some suggestions that Zagreus may be a son of Persephone with her husband Hades. The name Zagreus is also an old epithet of Hades.
Mythology[edit]
See also: Orphic poems and rites
The Orphic theogonies are genealogical works similar to the Theogony of Hesiod, but the details are different. They are possibly influenced by Near Eastern models. The main story is this: Dionysus (in his incarnation as Zagreus) is the son of Zeus andPersephone; Zeus gives his inheritance of the throne to the child, as Zeus is to leave due to Hera's anger over a child being born by another mother; Titans are enraged over the proclamation of attendance and under Hera's instigation decide to murder the child, Dionysus is then tricked with a mirror and children's toys by the Titans who murder and consume him. Athena saves the heart and tells Zeus of the crime who in turn hurls a thunderbolt on the Titans. The resulting soot, from which sinful mankind is born, contain the bodies of the Titans and Dionysus. The soul of man (Dionysus factor) is therefore divine, but the body (Titan factor) holds the soul in bondage. Thus it was declared that the soul returns to a host ten times, bound to the wheel of rebirth.
There are two Orphic stories of the rebirth of Dionysus, in one of which it is the heart of Dionysus that is implanted into the thigh ofZeus; the other where he has impregnated the mortal woman Semele resulting in Dionysus's literal rebirth. Many of these details differ from accounts in the classical authors. Firmicus Maternus, a Christian author, gives a different account with the book "On the Error of Profane Religions". He says that Jupiter (Zeus) originally was a (mortal) king of Crete, and Dionysos was his son. Dionysos was murdered, and cannibalized. Only his heart was salvaged by Athena. A statue of gypsum (the same substance the Titans used to disguise themselves) was then made to look like Dionysos and the heart is placed within.[9]
- The "Protogonos Theogony", lost, composed c. 500 BC which is known through the commentary in the Derveni papyrus and references in classical authors (Empedocles and Pindar).
- The "Eudemian Theogony", lost, composed in the 5th century BC. It is the product of a syncretic Bacchic-Kouretic cult.
- The "Rhapsodic Theogony", lost, composed in the Hellenistic age, incorporating earlier works. It is known through summaries in later neo-Platonist authors.
- Orphic Hymns. 87 hexametric poems of a shorter length composed in the late Hellenistic or early Roman Imperial age.