Good Works Translation from Ancient Greek

This page translates Kern fragment 243 from the section Kern heads Bacchica. The witness is Hippolytus, writing against the Sethians and reporting that their teaching comes through old theologians: Musaeus, Linus, and Orpheus, who most fully set forth initiations and mysteries. Hippolytus links their doctrine of womb, serpent, and navel with the Bacchica of Orpheus, then connects it with rites at Phlya before the Eleusinian mysteries.

Translation

Kern Fr. 243 — The Bacchica at Phlya

Hippolytus says:

For them, the whole teaching of the doctrine comes from the old theologians: Musaeus, Linus, and Orpheus, who more than anyone set forth initiations and mysteries.

The account of their womb and serpent, and of the navel, which is virility, is expressly set out in this way in the Bacchica of Orpheus.

These things were completed and handed down to human beings before the initiation at Eleusis of Celeus, Triptolemus, Demeter, Kore, and Dionysus, at Phlya in Attica. Before the Eleusinian mysteries, there are at Phlya the rites of what is called the Great One.

There is a portico there. On the portico, down to the present day, the form of all these doctrines that have been mentioned is inscribed.

Many things are inscribed on that portico. Plutarch discusses them in the ten books addressed to Empedocles. Among most of them there is also an inscribed figure of an old man: gray-haired, winged, with his genitals extended, pursuing a woman who is fleeing and doglike.

On the old man is written:

flowing light.

On the woman is written:

perephikola.

According to the Sethian account, the "flowing light" seems to be the light, and the "phikola" the dark water. The space between them is the harmony of spirit set in the middle.

The name of the flowing light, they say, shows the stream of light from above, going below. So one could reasonably say that the Sethians perform among themselves something close to the Great rites of the Phlyasians.

Colophon

This Good Works translation was made from Otto Kern's Orphicorum fragmenta (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), fr. 243, in the section headed "Bacchica." Kern's numbering is retained.

The source witness translated here is Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, as printed by Kern. This is a hostile late-antique report and a witness to Orphic attribution, not a continuous Orphic poem.

Source Text

Kern Fr. 243 — Hippolytus

Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies:

ἔστι δὲ αὐτοῖς ἡ πᾶσα διδασκαλία τοῦ λόγου ἀπὸ τῶν παλαιῶν θεολόγων, Μουσαίου καὶ Λίνου καὶ τοῦ τὰς τελετὰς μάλιστα καὶ τὰ μυστήρια καταδείξαντος Ὀρφέως. ὁ γὰρ περὶ τῆς μήτρας αὐτῶν καὶ τοῦ ὄφεως λόγος καὶ ὁ ὀμφαλός, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἀνδρεία, διαρρήδην οὕτως ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς Βακχικοῖς τοῦ Ὀρφέως.

τετέλεσται δὲ ταῦτα καὶ παραδέδοται ἀνθρώποις πρὸ τῆς Κελεοῦ καὶ Τριπτολέμου καὶ Δήμητρος καὶ Κόρης καὶ Διονύσου ἐν Ἐλευσῖνι τελετῆς, ἐν Φλοιοῦντι τῆς Ἀττικῆς· πρὸ γὰρ τῶν Ἐλευσινίων μυστηρίων ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ Φλοιοῦντι τῆς λεγομένης Μεγάλης ὄργια. ἔστι δὲ παστάς, ἐν αὐτῇ, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς παστάδος ἐγγέγραπται μέχρι σήμερον ἡ τούτων πάντων τῶν εἰρημένων λόγων ἰδέα.

πολλὰ μὲν οὖν ἐστι τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς παστάδος ἐκείνης ἐγγεγραμμένα, περὶ ὧν Πλούταρχος ποιεῖται λόγους ἐν ταῖς πρὸς Ἐμπεδοκλέα δέκα βίβλοις· ἔστι δὲ τοῖς πλείοσι καὶ πρεσβύτης τις ἐγγεγραμμένος πολιὸς πτερωτὸς ἐντεταμένην ἔχων τὴν αἰσχύνην, γυναῖκα ἀποφεύγουσαν διώκων κυνοειδῆ. ἐπιγέγραπται δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦ πρεσβύτου· φάος ῥυέντης, ἐπὶ δὲ τῆς γυναικός· † περηφικόλα.

ἔοικε δὲ εἶναι κατὰ τὸν Σηθιανῶν λόγον ὁ φάος ῥυέντης τὸ φῶς, τὸ σκοτεινὸν ὕδωρ δὲ ἡ φικόλα, τὸ δὲ ἐν μέσῳ τούτων διάστημα ἁρμονία πνεύματος μεταξὺ τεταγμένου. τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τοῦ φάος ῥυέντος τὴν ῥύσιν ἄνωθεν τοῦ φωτός, ὡς λέγουσι, δηλοῖ κάτω. ὥστε εὐλόγως ἂν τις εἴποι τοὺς Σηθιανοὺς ἐγγύς που τελεῖν παρ' αὐτοῖς τὰ τῆς Μεγάλης Φλοιασίων ὄργια.