upon the unity of God, but the different circumstances in which he found himself placed did not permit him to divulge this dogma; he reserved this for making it the basis of his mysteries, and continued, in the meantime, to personify in his poetry the attributes of the Divinity. His institutions, drawn from the same source, founded upon the same truths, received the imprint of his character and that of the people to whom he had destined them. As those of Moses were severe and, if one must admit, harsh in form, enemies of the sciences and arts, so those of Orpheus were brilliant, fitted to seduce the minds, favourable to all the developments of the imagination. It was beneath the allurements of pleasure, of joy, and of fêtes, that he concealed the utility of his lessons and the depth of his doctrine. Nothing was more full of pomp than the celebration of its mysteries. Whatever majesty, force, and grace, poetry, music, and painting had, was used to excite the enthusiasm of the initiate.[1] He found no pretext advantageous enough, no form beautiful enough, no charm powerful enough to interest the hearts and attract them toward the sublime truths which he proclaimed. These truths, whose force the early Christians have recognized,[2] went much further than those of which Moses had been the interpreter; they seemed to anticipate the times. Not only did he teach of the unity of God,[3] and give the most sublime ideas of this unfathomable Being[4]; not only did he explain the birth of the Universe and the origin of things[5]; but he represented this unique God under the emblem of a mysterious Trinity endowed
- ↑ Strabo, l. x; Meurs., Eleus., c. 21 et seq.; Paus., Ath., c. 28; Fulgent., Myth., l. i.; Philostr., In Apollon., l. ii.; Athen., l. xi.; Procl., In Tim. Comment., l. v.
- ↑ Euseb., Præp. Evang., l. xiii., c. 12.
- ↑ The unity of God is taught in an Orphic hymn of which Justin, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril, and Theodore have preserved fragments. (Orphei Hymn. Edente Eschenbach., p. 242.)
- ↑ Clem. Alex., Admon. ad Gent., p. 48; ibid., Strom., l. v., p. 607.
- ↑ Apoll., Arg., l. i., v. 496; Clem. Alex., Strom., l. iv., p. 475.
