man-virgin

Updated: May 31, 2025

Believing that the procreative and productive powers of nature might be conceived to exist in the same individual, they made the older of their deities hermaphrodite, and used the term ἀῤῥενοθέλυς, or man-virgin, to denote the union of the two sexes in the same divine person. Thus, in one of the Orphic Hymns, we find this line: "Ζεὺς ἄρσην γένετο, Ζεὺς ἄμβροτος ἔπλετο νύμφη."

Albert G. Mackey - The Symbolism of Freemasonry