BOOK III. XXI. 14-21
will be approaching holy rites, and holy rites of great antiquity. 15Only thus do the Mysteries become helpful, only thus do we arrive at the impression that all these things were established by men of old time for the purpose of education and for the amendment of our life. But you are publishing the Mysteries abroad and vulgarizing them, out of time, out of place, without sacrifices, without purification; you do not have the dress which the hierophant ought to wear, you do not have the proper head of hair, nor head-band, nor voice, nor age; you have not kept yourself pure as he has, but you have picked up only the words which he utters, and recite them. Have the words a sacred force all by themselves?
One ought to approach these matters in a different fashion; the affair is momentous, it is full of mystery, not a chance gift, nor given to all comers. Nay, it may be that not even wisdom is all that is needed for the care of the young; one ought also to have a certain readiness and special fitness for this task, by Zeus, and a particular physique, and above all the counsel of God advising him to occupy this office, as God counselled Socrates to take the office of examining and confuting men, Diogenes the office of rebuking men in a kingly manner, and Zeno that of instructing men and laying down doctrines. 20But you are opening up a doctor's office although you possess no equipment other than drugs, but when or how these drugs are applied you neither know nor have ever taken the trouble to learn. "See," you say, "that man has these eye-salves, and so have I." Have you, then, at all the faculty of using them aright? Do you know at all when and how and for
