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Orphic Hymn to Zeus

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Zeus is first, lightning-flashing Zeus is last; Zeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, and by Zeus everything is accomplished;⁠ Zeus is the foundation both of earth and of sparkling heaven; Zeus is male, Zeus is the bride immortal; Zeus is the breath of everything, Zeus is the rage of unresting fire; Zeus is the root of the sea, Zeus is the sun and the moon; Zeus is king, Zeus is the lightning-flashing leader of all; for having covered everyone, he who does baneful things once again brings [them] to delightful light out of his sacred heart.

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Compare Orphic Hymn to Zeus and Revelation 21:6

Classical · New Testament

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Summary

The Orphic Hymn to Zeus names Zeus as the beginning and middle through whom all things are completed. Revelation echoes this Greek way of describing a god as the source and end of all things when God calls himself the beginning and the end.

Passages

Orphic Hymn to Zeus

Classical
Zeus is first, lightning-flashing Zeus is last; Zeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, and by Zeus everything is accomplished; Zeus is the foundation both of earth and of sparkling heaven;
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Orphic Hymn to Zeus

Revelation 21:6

New Testament
5 And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.” 6 He also said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

... The divine title ‘the Beginning and the End [and the Middle] of all things’ is drawn from Hellenistic religious and philosophical tradition and has a cosmological rather than a temporal significance, as the detailed study by W. C. van Unnik (Het godspredikaat) makes clear. The Derveni papyrus, found carbonized in Macedonia and dating from circa 350 B.C., contains lines from an Orphic poem that is probably much earlier (column 13, line 12): Zeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, all things are fulfilled by Zeus. This is virtually identical to the saying found in Pseudo-Aristotle On the Cosmos 7 (Diels-Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 1:8, lines 19-20; O. Kern, ed., Orphicorum Fragmenta [Berlin: Weidmann, 1922] 91, fragment 21a). This saying is alluded to in Plato Laws 4.715e ...
David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22, WBC 52C (Dallas: Word, 1998), 299.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Orphic Hymn to Zeus and Revelation 21:6

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