24°
Prince of the Tabernacle
Nothing of this recital is historical; but the whole is an allegory
or sacred fable, containing a meaning known only to those who were initiated
into the Mysteries. All the incidents were astronomical, with a meaning
still deeper lying behind that explanation, and so hidden by a double veil.
The Mysteries, in which these incidents were represented and explained,
were like those of Eleusis in their object, of which Pausanias, who was
initiated, says that the Greeks, from the remotest antiquity, regarded
them as the best calculated of all things to lead men to piety.
