Phanes
Phanes was the primordial god (protogenos) of creation in the Orphic cosmogony. He was the generator of life--the driving force behind reproduction in the early cosmos. Phanes was hatched from the world-egg, a primordial mix of elements split into its constituent parts by Khronos (Chronos) (Time) and Ananke (Inevitability).
Phanes was the first king of the universe who handed the royal sceptre over to his daughter Nyx (Night), who in turn handed it down to her son Ouranos (Uranus) (Heaven). It was then seized by the Titan Kronos (Cronus), and afterwards by Zeus, the ultimate ruler of the cosmos. Some say Zeus devoured Phanes in order to absorb his power and redistribute it among a new generation of gods--the Olympians he would sire.
The Orphics equated Phanes with the elder Eros (Desire) of Hesiod's Theogony. Phanes also incorporated aspects of other primordial beings described by various ancient writers such as Thesis, Physis and Ophion. Phanes also echoes the figures of Metis (i.e. Thesis, Creation), the goddess devoured by Zeus, and Tethys, nurse of all.
Phanes was described as a beautiful, golden-winged, hermaphroditic deity wrapped in the coils of a serpent. His name means "bring to light" or "make appear" from the Greek verbs phanaô and phainô.
Food for thought for the ones reading this section:
Eosphorus which literally translates as light-bringer (Phanes translates as "bring to light") and is translated in Latin as Lucifer.
Also, Phanes is described as beautiful, the first among first etc (does the bible start to ring over there?).
And as Lucifer “lost” the war against the heavens and has been ostracized out of it, so does the "old" religion make way for the new one (aka, for the Titans and later on Christianity and the sorts).
You may say: hold on, Eosphorus and Phanes are two different entities, right?
True but… who does stop someone to muddle things together? If you look up history, the new religions and the manifestos of the ruling classes, they were always based on the "stitching together" of the old, adding something (new) extra and voilà… the "only truth" has been created!
Search for example, how many stories are there (in ancient Greek mythology and the global mythology as well) about a deity being born from a virgin, being sacrificed and afterwards, being revived; and you get the picture.
Sources
GREEK
The Orphic Hymns - Greek Hymns C3rd B.C. - C2nd A.D.
Orphica, Fragments - Greek Hymns C3rd B.C. - C2nd A.D.
Nonnus, Dionysiaca - Greek Epic C5th A.D.
ROMAN
Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st B.C. - C1st A.D.
"Theoi"
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