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The priests feel such repugnance for things that
are of a superfluous nature that they not only eschew
most legumes, as well as mutton and pork,1 which
leave a large residuum, but they also use no salt2 with
their food during their periods of holy living. For
this they have various other reasons, but in particular
the fact that salt, by sharpening the appetite, makes
them more inclined to drinking and eating. To
consider salt impure, because, as Aristagoras has said,
when it is crystallizing many minute creatures are
caught in it and die there, is certainly silly.
It is said also that they water the Apis from a
well of his own, and keep him away from the Nile
altogether, not that they think the water unclean
because of the crocodile, as some believe ; for there
is nothing which the Egyptians hold in such honour
as the Nile. But the drinking of the Nile water is
[p. 17]
reputed to be fattening and to cause obesity.3 They
do not want Apis to be in this condition, nor themselves either ; but rather they desire that their bodies,
the encasement of their souls, shall be well adjusted
and light, and shall not oppress and straiten the divine
element by the predominance and preponderance of
the mortal.
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 5.
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