The Orphic Cult: Salvation in Purity
The
Cult of Orpheus was a more sedate, more tranquil offshoot of the
Cult of Dionysus. The
cult spread throughout the
Greek World and Southern
Italy. Its tenet was that "by eating the raw flesh of the suffering and
dying god (Zagreus –
Dionysus), the initiate might strengthen the
divine element in him; by following the
Orphic rules of
purity, wearing
white garments, abstaining from all meat (except that of the
god in the
mystery), avoiding the breaking of taboos against
sex,
violence, and
pollution. . . .he might avoid going to the place of punishment after
death" (Noss 50). In
Orphic thought, the
divine soul is stuck in a body that is partially
evil; "full liberation of the
divine soul could be achieved through a cycle of incarnations and the gaining of transcendental knowledge" (Brown).
Orpheus is often shown as a
fisher who had the power to pull souls from a
sea of ignorance into truth (Brown). As with
Dionysus,
Orpheus braved the
underworld in a search for his wife, who had died when, fleeing
rape, she was bitten on the heal by a
snake. Unlike
Dionysus, he did not succeed in his search – his wife stayed in the
underworld – but, again, he acts as a bridge between
life and
death. Such imagery corresponds to those of the
Church.
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