Note 173 — Chapter XIV · PART II POPULAR BELIEF

The Orphic hymns in the form in which we have them all belong as it seems to one period, and that can hardly have been earlier than the third century A.D. They are all composed for practical use in the cult, and that presupposes the existence of Orphic communities (see Schöll, Commun. et coll. quib. Graec. [Sat. Saupp.], p. 14 ff.; Dieterich, de H. Orph.).—It must be admitted that they were not purely and exclusively Orphic communities for which the poems were written. These hymns, called “Orphic” a potiori, make use in parts of older Orphic poetry (cf. H. 62, 2 f., with [Dem.] 25, 11).