Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

into the sublunaryview the fable in thisBacchic Mysteries. 183world. But when wewe must be car eftil not to confoundpart of its meaning,the natureof a partial intellect like ours with the one universal and divine. As everything subsistingabout the gods is divine,therefore intellectin the highest degree, and next to this soul,and hence wanderings and abductions, lamentations and tears, can here only signifythe participations and providential operations of these in inferior natures ;and thisin such a manner as not to derogate fromthe dignity, or impair the perfection,divine principle thus imparted.that the preceding expositionof theI only add,will enableus to perceive the meaning and beauty ofthe following representation of the rape ofProserpina, from the Heliacan tables of HieronymusAleander.* Here, first of all, webehold Ceres in a car drawn by two dragons, and afterwards, Diana and Minerva,with an inverted calathus at their feet, andpointing out to Cerespina, who isher daughter Proserhurried away by*KIRCHER : Obcliscus PampliUiuSj page 227.Pluto in his