Note 17 — Chapter X · THE ORPHICS

Tatian, Gr. 41 (p. 42 Schw.), seems to speak only of redaction (συντετάχθαι) of the εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀναφερόμενα among already existing Orphic poems as the work of Onomakritos (in the same way Onomakr. is only the διαθέτης—the arranger not the author—of the χρησμοί of “Mousaios”, Hdt. vii, 6). Traces of an external linking-together of the individual poems of Orpheus in a “redaction” are not wanting (cf. the linking-together of the poems of the Epic Cycle or of the corpus Hesiodeum): first of all coming in all probability the greater κρατήρ (as in the enumeration of Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P.); see Lob. 376, 417, 469.—Clem. Al., Str. i, p. 397 P. (and Eus., PE. 10, 11, p. 495 D) is only derived from Tatian, though Onomakr. is here definitely called the author of the εἰς Ὀρφέα φερόμενα ποιήματα. Onomakr. seems also to have been simply regarded as the author of the Ὀρφικά in the doxographical excerpt ap. S.E. P. iii, 30 = M. 9, 361, p. 287 Mutschm.; cf. Gal., H. Philos. (Dox., p. 610, 15): Ὀνομάκριτος ἐν τοῖς Ὀρφικοῖς.—On the other hand, in the—admittedly incomplete—enumeration of Orphic poems in Clem. Al., Str. i, 21, p. 397 P., not one is attributed to Onomakr., and in Suid. Ὀρφεὺς he is only given the χρησμοί (no confusion with the χρησμοί of Mousaios is to be suspected here) and the τελεταί. Paus. (8, 37, 5) mentions (without naming them) ἔπη of Onomakr. (cf. Ritschl, Opusc. i, 241). Some at least of the poetry going under the name of Orpheus must have been ascribed to Onomakr. by Arist. (fr. 10 [7 Teubn.]).