We also find that _Kisæa_, was, at Epidaurus, one of the names of Minerva. Notwithstanding the apparent dissimilarity between the wild god of wine and the goddess of calm wisdom, it was still taught in the mysteries that they had an affinity in more than one lower form, and, of course, an _identity_ in their highest. 'The temple of Bacchus,' says Galtruchius, 'was next to _Minerva's_, to express how useful Wine is to revive the Spirits, and enable our Fancy to Invent.'[3] In the older worship, Minerva was one with Venus, Diana, Proserpine--the generating female principle of love and of beauty being of course predominant. 'In this _unity_ or identity of barbarian divinities,' says Creuzer (_Symbolik_, IV. _Theil_), ('to speak like the Greeks') 'we must, however, seek for the source of that _variety_ which made the Greeks so rich in gods; and what had in Hellas been separated into so many, remained by the 'barbarians' single and undivided. Therefore the older a Greek local worship might be, so much the more did it in this resemble the barbarian. * * So we have truly learned in Argos, Laconia, Dodona, and Sicily, * * that Proserpine was one and the same with Venus and Diana, and the identity with Minerva may also be proved.' For the proof I refer the reader to his work. With Venus, however, Bacchus had amours, begetting Priapus. Certain it is that the Ivy _Kissos_ appears in both male and female names.
But as the Ivy formed the cup--_kissubion_--into which life entered, and from which it was drained as wine; so, too, from its wood was made the sacred _chest_ (_kisté_) in which, in the Dyonisiac mysteries, the same secret was preserved under the form of a serpent, while in the Eleusinian it hid the dread pomegranate which Persephone had tasted. For they were all one and the same, this wine and serpent and pomegranate--the type of life and of knowledge--of human birth, and human intellect--of the world's generation and of eternal wisdom. The fruit of which Adam ate, the bread and wine of the holy supper of the mysteries of all lands in all ages, the pomegranate, whose seeds, once eaten, kept the soul in another life beyond death, all have _one_ meaning--and this meaning was that of infinite revival, endless begetting, the renewal of nature--and with this the _knowledge_ of the great mystery which sets the soul free. '_Eritis sicut Deus._'