among them adyta, and by the Hebrews by the veil. Only the consecrated—that is, those devoted to God, circumcised in the desires of the passions for the sake of love to that which is alone divine—were allowed access to them. For Plato also thought it not lawful for "the impure to touch the pure."
Thence the prophecies and oracles are spoken in enigmas, and the mysteries are not exhibited incontinently to all and sundry, but only after certain purifications and previous instructions.
"For the Muse was not then
Greedy of gain or mercenary;
Nor were Terpsichore's sweet,
Honey-toned, silvery soft-voiced
Strains made merchandise of."
Now those instructed among the Egyptians learned first of all that style of the Egyptian letters which is called Epistolographic; and second, the Hieratic, which the sacred scribes practise; and finally, and last of all, the Hieroglyphic, of which one kind which is by the first elements is literal (Kyriologic), and the other Symbolic. Of the Symbolic, one kind speaks literally by imitation, and another writes as it were figuratively; and another is quite allegorical, using certain enigmas.
Wishing to express Sun in writing, they make a circle; and Moon, a figure like the Moon, like its proper shape. But in using the figurative style, by transposing and transferring, by changing and by transforming in many ways as suits them, they draw characters. In relating the praises of the kings in theological myths, they write in anaglyphs.[1] Let the following stand as a specimen of the third species—the Enigmatic. For the rest of the stars, on account of their oblique course, they have figured like the bodies of serpents; but the sun like that of a beetle, because it makes a round figure of ox-dung, and rolls it before its face. And they say that this creature lives six months under ground, and the other division of the year above ground, and emits its seed into the ball, and brings forth; and that there is not a female beetle. All then, in a word, who
- ↑ Bas relief.
