Protogonus (Phanes) 
 
Creator god. Protogonus (Protogonos) was the first god to be born from the Cosmic Egg (World Egg), which Chaos and Aether had reproduced, according to the Orphic Creation Myths. Protogonus named mean "First Born", and it was he who had created the universe.

Protogonus have three different names. Protogonus was popularly known by another name as Phanes, the golden-winged god of light and love. His other names were Ericapaeus (Power) and Metis (Thought). These three different names represent the three different aspects of Protogonus' powers.

Protogonus was the first supreme ruler of the universe.

Most scholars identified Phanes/Protogonus with Eros, the Greek primeval god of love. Like in Hesiod's account about the Creation, Eros sprung out of Chaos at the same time as Gaea and Tartarus, so Eros was a primeval god, unlike later myths, where he was known to the Hellenistic as the mischievous son of Aphrodite (Venus), whom the Roman called Cupid. As Eros, he was often called Bromios (Thunderer), which is the same epithet as Dionysus.

There is some confusion of whether Nyx (Night) was his mother, wife or daughter. The source that I have with me is that Nyx was his daughter, whom he had sex with, to beget Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaea).

As Phanes, he was seen a sun god or the god of light. Phanes has four eyes, and heads of various animals. Phanes was depict as a sexless god or a god with both sexes (androgynous being, ie a Demiurge) with golden wings. Phanes was also invisible but he radiated pure light.

Protogonus or Phanes had also been identified with the god Zagreus or Dionysus, or he is Dionysus. When Zeus became powerful, he had swallowed Protogonus and all things that Protogonus had created. Zeus then recreated a new world. Then Zeus copulated with his own daughter, Persephone, and Protogonus was reborn as Zagreus or Dionysus. But the Titans had killed Zagreus, but Zeus saved the heart. Zeus swallowed Zagreus' heart and then mated with a mortal woman named Semele, and she gave birth to Dionysus, the reincarnation of Protogonus/Zagreus