INTRODUCTION.

age, possessed a divine genius. Having happily fathomed the depth of their great master's works, they luminously and copiously developed their recondite recondite: deep, hidden, or obscure meaning and benevolently communicated it in their writings for the general good.

From this "golden chain" of philosophers, as they have been justly called, my elucidations of the present mystic hymns are principally derived; for I know of no other genuine sources, provided it be admitted—and it must be by every intelligent reader—that the theology of Orpheus is the same as that of Pythagoras and Plato. Hence, I shall not take any notice of the theories of Bryant and Faber and other modern mythological writers; because these theories, however ingenious they may be, are so far from elucidating that they darken, confound, and pollute the Greek theology by mingling with it other systems, to which it is as perfectly foreign and hostile as wisdom is to folly, and intellect to craft.

That the philosophic reader, therefore, may be convinced of the truth of this observation, the following epitome of this theology, derived from the above-mentioned sources, is subjoined. In the first place, this theology celebrates the immense principle of things as—