Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries. 179abodes of her mother Ceres :that is, to theoutgoing and return of the soul, alternatelyfalling into generation, and ascending thenceinto the intelligible world, and becoming perfectlyrestored to her divine and intellectual nature. For the Cista contained themost arcane symbols of the Mysteries, intowhich it was unlawful for the profane tolook : and whatever were its contents,* welearn from the hymnof Callimachus toCeres, that they were formed from gold,which, from its incorruptibility,dent symbolof an immaterial nature. Andas to the Calathus, or basket, this,is an evias we aretold by Claudian, was filled with spoliis agres-which aretibus, the spoils or fruits of the field,manifest symbols of a life corporeal andearthly.So that the candidate, by confessing that he had taken from the Cista, andplaced what he had taken into the Calathus,*A golden serpent, an egg, and the phallus. The epopt looking upon these, was rapt with awe as contemplating in the symbols the deeper mysteries of all life, or being of a grosser temper,took a lascivious impression. Thus as a seer, he beheld with theeyes of sense or sentiment and the real;apocalypse was thereforethat made to himself of his own moral life and character. A. W.