Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

Bacchic Mysteries.181It only now remains that we consider thelast part of this fabulous narration, or arcanediscourse, it is said, that after the goddessCeres, on arriving at Eleusis, had discoveredher daughter, she instructed the Eleusiniansin the planting of corn: or, according toClaudian, the search of Ceres for her daughter, through the goddess, instructing in theart of tiUage as she went, proved the occasionof a universal benefit to mankind. Now thesecret meaning of this will be obvious, byconsidering that the descent of the superiorintellect into the realms of generated existence becomes, indeed, the greatest benefitand ornament which a material nature iscapable of receiving for without this parti:cipation of intellect in the lowest departmentof corporeal life, nothing but the irrationalsoul* and a brutal life would subsist in itsdark and fluctuating abode, the body] As theart of tillage, therefore, and particularly thegrowing of corn, becomes the greatest possi-*It is linked to the phenomenal or sensible world, its emotivepart (m^tixov) being formed of what is relative and Ph<nornenal."