Pseudo-Orpheus

Pseudo-Orpheus is the name given to a poetic text that presents the legendary Greek figure Orpheus giving a poetic speech to his son, Musaeus, identified as the biblical Moses, passing on to him hidden wisdom he learned in Egypt. Over time, a number of Christian and Jewish authors reworked Greek traditions about Orpheus and used them to support their monotheistic views and to assert the religious supremacy of Moses and monotheism over Greek polytheistic views. The rhetorical device of using legendary non-monotheistic figures to endorse Judaism is likewise found in the Sibylline Oracles.

Preserved versions The following are the primary forms of Pseudo-Orpheus that have survived to the present. Clement provides "numerous short quotations" from Pseudo-Orpheus, with one (abbreviated C2) matching the edition of Eusebius, and the rest (collectively known as C1) mostly–but not exclusively–in agreement with the version of the poem known as J (see below). Eusebius claims to have taken the poem from the writings of Aristobulus of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in the 2nd century BC. This version is known as the Mosaic recension because of its focus on Moses. 300 AD) who is so called because his original name is not known, although he was for a time confused with the 2nd-century writer Justin Martyr. This version contains 21 lines and is referred to as J.

Another recension, known as T, or the "Theosophical" recension, contains all the lines found in the other versions of the poem, and mostly agrees with E.