But blest air through the clouds send Anticyra
That I may make this bug into a drone."
For well Menander remarks:[1]
"Had you, Phidias, any real ill,
You needs must seek for it a real cure;
Now 'tis not so. And for the unreal ill
I've found an unreal cure. Believe that it
Will do thee good. Let women in a ring
Wipe thee, and from three fountains water bring.
Add salt and lentils; sprinkle then thyself.
Each one is pure, who's conscious of no sin."
For instance, the tragedy says:
Menelaus. "What disease, Orestes, is destroying thee?"
Orestes. "Conscience. For horrid deeds I know I've done."[2]
For in reality there is no other purity but abstinence from sins. Excellently then Epicharmus says:
"If a pure mind thou hast,
In thy whole body thou art pure."
Now also we say that it is requisite to purify the soul from corrupt and bad doctrines by right reason; and so thereafter to the recollection of the principal heads of doctrine. Since also before the communication of the mysteries they think it right to apply certain purifications to those who are to be initiated; so it is requisite for men to abandon impious opinion, and thus turn to the true tradition.
CHAPTER V.
THE HOLY SOUL A MOKE EXCELLENT TEMPLE THAN ANY EDIFICE BUILT BY MAN.
For is it not the case that rightly and truly we do not circumscribe in any place that which cannot be circumscribed; nor do we shut up in temples made with hands that which contains all things? What work of builders, and stonecutters, and mechanical art can be holy? Superior to these are not they who think that the air, and the enclosing space,
