Orphism
/ˈɔːrfɪzəm/noun
An ancient Greek mystery religion built on poems attributed to Orpheus, teaching reincarnation and a purified afterlife; also a strand of early abstract painting.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the way of Orpheus”
The story of the word
Initiates were buried with thin gold leaves inscribed with what to say to the guardians of the underworld, including the claim to be a child of Earth and starry Heaven. The doctrines are odd for Greek religion: rebirth, vegetarianism, an inherited stain to be purged, all of it credited to a singer who went to the dead and came back. Guillaume Apollinaire then reused the name in 1912 for Robert Delaunay's colour abstraction, on the grounds that the painting aspired to the condition of music.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
In a sentence
Orphism gave Plato the idea of the body as a tomb, and he says so almost outright.