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cribes to a divine nature." For beginning, not from our passions, but, on the contrary, from things allied to the Gods, we make use of words adapted to them. "Nor do we frame conceptions of a divine nature, contrary to its real mode of subsistence." But conformably to the nature which it possesses, and to the truth concerning it, which those obtained who first established the laws of sacred religion, we persevere in our conceptions of divinity. For if any thing else in religious legal institutions is adapted to the Gods, this must certainly be immutability. And it is necessary that ancient prayers,[1] like sacred asyla, should be preserved invariably the same, neither taking any thing from them, nor adding any thing to them which is elsewhere derived. For this is nearly the cause at present that both names and prayers have lost their efficacy, because they are continually changed through the innovation and illegality of the Greeks. For the Greeks are naturally studious of novelty, and are carried about
- ↑ Prayers of this kind are such as those of which Proclus speaks in Tim. p. 65, when he says, "The cathartic prayer is that which is offered for the purpose of averting diseases originating from pestilence, and other contagious distempers, such as we have written in our temples."Καθαρτικαι δε (ευχαι), επι αποτροοπαις λοιμικων νοσημοτων, ἢ παντοιων μολυσμων· οἰας δε και εν τοις ἱεροις εχομεν αναγεγραμμενας.
