Phanes
Template:Short description Template:About
In Orphic cosmogony Phanes Template:IPAc-en (Template:Langx, genitive {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) or Protogonos Template:IPAc-en (Template:Langx) is a primeval deity who was born from the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. He is referred by various names, including Erikepaios "Power" Template:IPAc-en (Template:Langx) and Metis "Thought".<ref name="Alvarez 2016"/>
MythologyEdit
In Orphic cosmogony, Phanes is often equated with Eros or Mithras and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg entwined with a serpent: the Orphic egg.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref> He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. The Orphic cosmogony is quite unlike the creation sagas offered by Homer and Hesiod. Scholars have suggested that Orphism is "un-Greek", even "Asiatic", in conception because of its inherent dualism.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Chronos is said to have created the silver egg of the universe out of which burst the first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysus.<ref name=Leeming-2010-p119>Template:Cite book</ref> Phanes was a male god; in an original Orphic Hymn he is named as "Lord Priapos",<ref>Athanassakis-1977-Hymn6: For this I call you Phanes and Lord Priapos and bright-eyed Antauges. [1]</ref> although others consider him androgynous.<ref name="Alvarez 2016">Template:Cite book</ref>
Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring light" or "to shine";<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> a first-born deity, he emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe.<ref name=":0" /> Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes' daughter<ref name=Leeming-2010-p119/> or older wife; she is the counterpart of Phanes and is considered by Aristophanes the first deity. According to Aristophanes,<ref name=Aristophanes-Birds/> in a play where Phanes is called "Eros", Phanes was born from an egg created by Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures.<ref name=Aristophanes-Birds>Template:Cite book The passage is quoted in the play as an attempt by "the birds" to demonstrate that flying creatures are well-known to be senior to all other living creatures – older, even, than many of the gods.</ref>
In Orphic literature, Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the world egg of Chronos and Ananke "Necessity, Fate" or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx called him Protogenos. As she created nighttime, Phanes created daytime and the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities. This new Orphic tradition states that Phanes passed the sceptre to Nyx; Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Ouranos; Cronus seized the sceptre from his father Ouranos; and finally, the sceptre held by Cronus was seized by Zeus, who holds it at present. Some Orphic myths suggest that Zeus intends to pass the sceptre to Dionysus.
According to the Athenian scholiast Damascius, Phanes was the first god "expressible and acceptable to human ears" ("{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}").<ref>cf. Bernabe frr. 75–80, Kern 54Template:Full citation needed</ref> Another Orphic Hymn states:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Template:ErrorTemplate:Main other{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries}}
{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}
The Derveni papyrus refers to Phanes:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Of the First-born king, the reverend one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries}}
{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}
In the Orphic Hymns, Phanes-Protogonus is identified with Dionysus, who is referred to under the names of Protogonus and Eubuleus several times in the collection.<ref>Otlewska-Jung, pp. 91–2.</ref>
See alsoEdit
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
- Otlewska-Jung, Marta, "Orpheus and Orphic Hymns in the Dionysiaca", in Nonnus of Panopolis in Context: Poetry and Cultural Milieu in Late Antiquity with a Section on Nonnus and the Modern World, pp. 77–96, edited by Konstantinos Spanoudakis, De Gruyter, 2014. Template:ISBN. Online version at De Gruyter.