Prosfc23

313 ca.

EUSEBIO DI CESAREA, Praeparatio Evangelica, III, 11

Traduzione tratta da: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_00_intro.htm


[...]

'But since there was in the seeds cast into the earth a

certain power, which the sun in passing round to the

lower hemisphere drags down at the time of the

winter solstice, Koré is the seminal power, and Pluto

the sun passing under the earth, and traversing the

unseen world at the time of the winter solstice; and he

is said to carry off Koré, who, while hidden beneath

the earth, is lamented by her mother Demeter.

'The power which produces hard-shelled fruits, and

the fruits of plants in general, is named Dionysus. But

observe the images of these also. For Koré bears

symbols of the production of the plants which grow

above the earth in the crops: and Dionysus has horns

in common with Koré, and is of female form,

indicating the union of male and female forces in the

generation of the hard-shelled fruits.

'But Pluto, the ravisher of Koré, has a helmet as a

symbol of the unseen pole, and his shortened sceptre

as an emblem of his kingdom of the nether world; and

his dog (kìon) indicates the generation (kùesin) of

the fruits in its threefold division - the sowing of the

seed, its reception by the earth, its growing up. For he

is called a dog (kìov), not because souls are his food

(kìras borìn, Cerberus), but because of the earth's

fertility (kueìn), for which Pluto provides when he

carries off Koré.