And therefore the desire of truth, especially in what
relates to the Gods, is a sort of grasping after divinity, it
using learning and enquiry for a kind of resumption of
things sacred, a work doubtless of more religion than any
ritual purgation or charge of temples whatever, and especially most acceptable to the Goddess you serve, since she
is more eminently wise and speculative, and since knowledge and science (as her very name1 seems to import)
appertain more peculiarly to her than any other thing.
For the name of Isis is Greek, and so is that of her adversary Typhon, who, being puffed up2 through ignorance
and mistake, pulls in pieces and destroys that holy doctrine, which she on the contrary collects, compiles, and
delivers down to such as are regularly advanced unto the
deified state; which, by constancy of sober diet, and abstaining from sundry meats and the use of women, both
restrains the intemperate and voluptuous part, and habituates them to austere and hard services in the temples, the
end of which is the knowledge of the original, supreme,
and mental being, which the Goddess would have them
enquire for, as near to herself and as dwelling with her.
Besides, the very name of her temple most apparently
promises the knowledge and acquaintance of true being
(τὸ ὄν), for they call it Iseion (῎Ισειον), as who should say, We
shall know true being, if with reason and sanctimony we
approach the sacred temples of this Goddess.
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