Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

"Bacchic Mysteries. 101easily perceive the extreme ridiculousness ofDr. Warburton s system, that the grand secretof the Mysteries consisted in exposing theerrors of Polytheism, and in teaching thedoctrine of the unity, or the existence of onedeity alone.For he might as well have said,that the great secret consisted in teaching aman how, by writing notes on the works ofa poet, he might become a bishop ! But itis byno means wonderful that men whohave not the smallest conception of the truenature of the gods; who have persuadedthemselves that they were only dead mendeified; and who measure the understandings of the ancients by their own, should beled to fabricate a system so improbable andabsurd.But that this instruction was accompaniedwith a vision of the source from which thesoul proceeded, isevident from the expresstestimony, in the first place, of Apuleius,who thus describes his initiation into theMysteries. Accessi confinium mortis; etcalcato Proserpina limine, per omnia vectuselementa remeavi. Nocte media vidi solem