Note 381 — Chapter IV · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE ORPHICI

Μουνογένεια. See Orphic Hymn on p. 142, infra. Persephone has also Zeus for her father in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, l. 396. The epithet cannot imply that she was his only daughter, as he had other daughters among the Homeric gods, such as Athena and Aphrodite, but rather that she was “unique,” or one of a kind. The mistaking of the word Μονογενής for μονογέννητος by Christian and Jewish writers has led to much confusion; and Renan (L’Église Chrétienne, Paris, 1879, p. 200, n. 2) notes that George the Syncellus calls Bar Coziba, the Jewish Messiah, Μονογενής. See the story of the begettal of Persephone which Maury, op. cit. III. pp. 321, 322, quotes from Clement of Alexandria and Arnobius. Both authors derive from it the name of Brimo given to Demeter in the Mysteries. Cf. Chap. VIII, infra.