A large number of writings in the tone of the Orphic religion were ascribed to Orpheus.
In the Orphic cosmogony the origin of all goes back to Chronos, the personification of time, who produces Aether and Chaos.
It also included a collection of Orphic hymns, liturgic songs, practical treatises, and poems on various subjects.
The Orphic poems also played an important part in the controversies between Christian and pagan writers in the 3rd and 4th centuries after Christ; pagan writers quoted them to show the real meaning of the multitude of gods, while Christians retorted by reference to the obscene and disgraceful fictions by which the former degraded their gods.
From his power of assuming whatever shape he pleased Proteus came to be regarded, especially by the Orphic mystics, as a symbol of the original matter from which the world was created.