ORPHEUS, IF HE EXISTED

(“If he existed” is the curious caveat used by Bertrand Russell in his fairly substantial reference to Orpheus in The History of Western Philosophy.)

Son of the god Apollo and the Muse Calliope, Orpheus is the embodiment of poetry in Greek mythology, but he is much more than a mere mythological figure. In many ways, he could be compared to Pythagoras, bordering, as a person, on the real, as well as the mythical world. Several Orphic poems were attributed to him, and he has been credited as the founder of the world-historically famous mystical religion of Orphism.

Bertrand Russell treats Orpheus with a surprising and commendable seriousness.---

“Orpheus is a dim, but interesting figure. Some hold that he was an actual man, others that he was a god or an imaginary hero. Traditionally, he came from Thrace, like Bacchus, but it seems more probable that he, or the movement associated with his name, came from Crete. It is certain that Orphic doctrines contain much that seems to have its first source in Egypt, and it was chiefly through Crete that Egypt influenced Greece. He is said to have been a reformer who was torn to pieces by frenzied Maenads actuated by Bacchic orthodoxy. His addiction to music is not so prominent in the older forms of the legend as it became later; primarily, he was a priest and a philosopher.

To hear from Russell that Orpheus was a philosopher gives us a complete vindication and even necessitates his inclusion in this section, as if he were a real person. Because Orpheus’ chief importance lies in his being the founder of Orphism, we shall now pass to our next entry on Orphism, using the first sentence of Bertrand Russell’s next paragraph as our link.---

Whatever may have been the teaching of Orpheus (if he existed), the teaching of the Orphics is well known.

(I just could not resist using Russell’s “if he existed” title phrase prominently in its original context!)