junior or mundane gods.—Now, of these, the mundane intellect, which, according to the ancient theology, is Bacchus, is principally celebrated by the poet, and this because the soul is particularly distributed into generation Dionysiacally, as is evident from the preceding extracts from Olympiodorus; and is still more abundantly confirmed by the following curious passage from the same author, in his comment on the Phædo of Plato. "The soul," says he, "descends Corically, or after the manner of Proserpine, into generation, but is distributed into generation Dionysiacally; and she is bound in body Prometheically, and Titanically: she frees herself therefore from its bonds by exercising the strength of Hercules; but she is collected into one through the assistance of Apollo and the Saviour Minerva, by philosophizing in a manner truly cathartic." Οτι κορικως μεν εις γενεσιν κατεισιν ἡ ψυχη. Διονυσιακως δε μεριζεται υπο της γενεσεως. Προμηθειως δε και τιτανικως εγκαταδειται τω σωματι. Λυει μεν ουν εαυτην ηρακλειως ισχυσασα. Συναιρει δε δι' απολλωνος και της σωτηρας αθηνας, καθαρτικως τω οντι φιλοσοφουσα. The poet, however, intimates the other causes of the soul’s existence, when he says,
Igneus est ollis vigor, et cælestis origo
Seminibus,
which evidently alludes to the sowing of souls into generation, mentioned in the Timæus. And from hence the reader will easily perceive the extreme ridiculousness of Dr. Warburton’s system, that the grand secret of the mysteries consisted in exposing the errors of Polytheism, and in teaching the doctrine of the unity, or the existence of one deity alone. For he might as well have said, that the great secret consisted in teaching a man how, by writing notes on the works of a poet, he might become a bishop! But it is by no means wonderful that men who have not the smallest conception of the true nature of the gods; who have persuaded themselves that they were only dead men deified; and who measure the understandings of the ancients by their own, should be led to fabricate a system so improbable and absurd.
But that this tradition was accompanied with a vision of the causes from which the soul descended, is evident from the express testimony, in the first place, of Apuleius, who thus describes his initiation into the mysteries. "Accessi confinium mortis; et calcato Proserpinæ limine, per omnia vectus elementa remeavi.
