Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

""38 Eleusinian andthagoras himself confirms the above sentiments, when he beautifully observes, according to Clemens in the same book, thatwhatever we see when awake is death ; andwhen asleep, a dream." flavo^c saw,But that the mysteries occultly signified this sublime truth, that the soul bybeing merged in matter resides among thedead both here and hereafter, though it follows by a necessary sequence from the preceding observations, yet it is indisputably confirmed, by the testimony of the great andtruly divine Plotinus, in Ennead I.,When the soul," says he,book viii."has descended intogeneration (from its first divine condition)she partakes of evil, and is carried a greatway into a state the opposite of herfirstpurity and integrity, to ~beentirelymerged in which, isnothing more than tofall into dark mire." And again, soon after :The soul therefore dies as much as it is possible for the soul to die :and the death to heris, while baptized or immersed in the present