ON THE CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE OR SUPPLIANTS

 I. (1) Having mentioned the Essenes, who in all respects selected for their admiration and for their especial adoption the practical course of life, a

 II. (10) But since these men infect not only their fellow countrymen, but also all that come near them with folly, let them remain uncovered, being mu

 III. (21) Now this class of persons may be met with in many places, for it was fitting that both Greece and the country of the barbarians should parta

 IV. (34) And these expounders of the law, having first of all laid down temperance as a sort of foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceed to build

 V. (40) I wish also to speak of their common assemblies, and their very cheerful meetings at convivial parties, setting them in opposition and contras

 VI. (48) And perhaps some people may be inclined to approve of the arrangement of such entertainments which at present prevails everywhere, from an ad

 VII. (57) Now of the banquets among the Greeks the two most celebrated and most remarkable are those at which Socrates also was present, the one in th

 VIII. (64) But since the entertainments of the greatest celebrity are full of such trifling and folly, bearing conviction in themselves, if any one sh

 IX. (69) And the order in which they sit down to meat is a divided one, the men sitting on the right hand and the women apart from them on the left a

 X. (75) These, then, are the first circumstances of the feast but after the guests have sat down to the table in the order which I have been describi

 XI. (83) And after the feast they celebrate the sacred festival during the whole night and this nocturnal festival is celebrated in the following man

VIII. (64) But since the entertainments of the greatest celebrity are full of such trifling and folly, bearing conviction in themselves, if any one should think fit not to regard vague opinion and the character which has been commonly handed down concerning them as feasts which have gone off with the most eminent success, I will oppose to them the entertainments of those persons who have devoted their whole life and themselves to the knowledge and contemplation of the affairs of nature in accordance with the most sacred admonitions and precepts of the prophet Moses. (65) In the first place, these men assemble at the end of seven weeks, venerating not only the simple week of seven days, but also its multiplied power, for they know it to be pure and always virgin; and it is a prelude and a kind of forefeast of the greatest feast, which is assigned to the number fifty, the most holy and natural of numbers, being compounded of the power of the right-angled triangle, which is the principle of the origination and condition of the whole. (66) Therefore when they come together clothed in white garments, and joyful with the most exceeding gravity, when some one of the ephemereutae (for that is the appellation which they are accustomed to give to those who are employed in such ministrations), before they sit down to meat standing in order in a row, and raising their eyes and their hands to heaven, the one because they have learnt to fix their attention on what is worthy looking at, and the other because they are free from the reproach of all impure gain, being never polluted under any pretence whatever by any description of criminality which can arise from any means taken to procure advantage, they pray to God that the entertainment may be acceptable, and welcome, and pleasing; (67) and after having offered up these prayers the elders sit down to meat, still observing the order in which they were previously arranged, for they do not look on those as elders who are advanced in years and very ancient, but in some cases they esteem those as very young men, if they have attached themselves to this sect only lately, but those whom they call elders are those who from their earliest infancy have grown up and arrived at maturity in the speculative portion of philosophy, which is the most beautiful and most divine part of it. (68) And the women also share in this feast, the greater part of whom, though old, are virgins in respect of their purity (not indeed through necessity, as some of the priestesses among the Greeks are, who have been compelled to preserve their chastity more than they would have done of their own accord), but out of an admiration for and love of wisdom, with which they are desirous to pass their lives, on account of which they are indifferent to the pleasures of the body, desiring not a mortal but an immortal offspring, which the soul that is attached to God is alone able to produce by itself and from itself, the Father having sown in it rays of light appreciable only by the intellect, by means of which it will be able to perceive the doctrines of wisdom.