The Orphics, unlike the priests of Olympian cults, founded what we may call ‘churches’, i.e. religious communities to which anybody, without distinction of race or sex, could be admitted by initiation, and from their influence arose the conception of philosophy as a way of life.
——Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Chapter I
六世紀的希臘社會，同時生成兩股彼此牴觸的力量。一邊是以狄奧尼索斯崇拜為核心、經過奧爾菲克〔1〕教義整飾後的救贖式宗教，提倡禁慾、淨化與靈魂循環。另一邊是伊奧尼亞〔2〕學派的自然探究，主張用可討論的理論解釋世界。
