In Orphic cosmogony, Phanes (, genitive ) or Protogonos () is the primeval deity who is born from the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. He is referred to under various names, including Erikepaios () and Metis ("thought").
Mythology
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. 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.
Chronos (Time) is said to have created the silver egg of the universe, out of which burst the first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysus. Phanes was a male god, in an original Orphic hymn he is named as "Lord Priapos" although others consider him androgynous. Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant "to bring light" or "to shine"; a first-born deity, he emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe. Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes' daughter or older wife, she is the female counterpart of Phanes, and she is considered by Aristophanes as the first deity. According to Aristophanes, in a play where Phanes is called ‘Eros’, Phanes was born from an egg created by the first deity Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures.
In Orphic literature, Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the World-Egg of Chronos (Time) and Ananke (Necessity or Fate) or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx called him Protogenus. As she created nighttime, Phanes created daytime, and also invented 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 scepter from his father Ouranos; and finally the scepter held by Cronus was seized by Zeus, who holds it at present. Some Orphic myths suggest that Zeus intends to pass the scepter to Dionysus.
According to Damascius, Phanes was the first god "expressible and acceptable to human ears" ("").
Another Orphic hymn states:
You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes, I call you Lord Priapos, I call you sparkling with bright eyes.
The Derveni Papyrus refers to Phanes:
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".
Dionysus or Zagreus of the Orphic tradition is intimately connected to Protogonos. In Orphic Hymn 30, he is given a list of epithets that also allude to Protogonos: