Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

48 Eleusinian andlast piece of information was, according toPlato in the Phtedo, the ultimate design ofthe Mysteries and the former is necessarily;inferred from the present discourse. Hencethe reason whyit was obvious to none butthe Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers,who derived their theology from Orpheushimself,* the original founder of these sacredinstitutions;and why we meet with no information in this particular in any writerprior to Plotinus as he was the first; who,having penetrated the profound interior wisdom of antiquity, delivered it to posteritywithout the concealments of mystic symbolsand fabulous narratives//VIEGIL NOT A PLATONIST.Hence too, I think, we may infer, withthe greatest probability, that this reconditemeaning of the Mysteries was not known/HERODOTUS, ii.51, 8L*"What Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories Pythagoraslearned when he was initiated into the Orphic Mysteries ;andPlato next received a knowledge ofthem from the Orphic andPythagorean writings."f