Taylor - Eleusianian and Bacchic Mysteries.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

86 Eleminian andor else an exercise in proper mathematicaldiscipline from early youth. For thus Empedoclesasserts, that it is necessaryto bepurified from sordid concerns, by drawingfrom five fountains, with a vessel of indissoluble brass : but Plato, that purificationis to be derived from the five mathematicaldisciplines, namely from arithmetic, geometry, stereometry, music, and astronomy ;butthe philosophical instruction in theorems,logical, political, and physical, is similar toinitiation. But he (that is, Plato) denominates sTCoircsia [or the revealing], a contemplation of things which are apprehended intuitively, absolute truths, and ideas.But heconsiders the binding of the head, and coronation, as analogous to the authority which anyone receives from his instructors, of leadingothers to the same contemplation. And thefifth gradation is, the most perfect felicityarising from hence, and, according to Plato,an assimilation to divinity, as far as is possible to mankind." But though eiroTrceia,or the rendition of the arcane ideas, principally characterized the Greater Mysteries, yet