[p. 356]the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability
to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out
that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion,
they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves,
namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing
abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome
to men in diseases. Of sea substances, the surmullet, the blacktail,
the mullet, and the eel; for these are the fishes most to be guarded
against. And of fleshes, those of the goat, the stag, the sow, and
the dog: for these are the kinds of flesh which are aptest to disorder
the bowels. Of fowls, the cock, the turtle, and the bustard, and such
others as are reckoned to be particularly strong. And of potherbs,
mint, garlic, and onions; for what is acrid does not agree with a
weak person. And they forbid to have a black robe, because black is
expressive of death; and to sleep on a goat's skin, or to wear it,
and to put one foot upon another, or one hand upon another; for all
these things are held to be hindrances to the cure. All these they
enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge,
and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should
recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die,
they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were
to blame, seeing they had administered nothing either to eat or drink
as medicines, nor had overheated him with baths, so as to prove the
cause of what had happened. But I am of opinion that (if this were
true) none of the Libyans, who live in the interior, would be free
from this disease, since they all sleep on goats' skins, and live
upon goats' flesh; neither have they couch, robe, nor shoe that is
not made of goat's skin, for they have no other herds but goats and
oxen. But if these things, when administered in food, aggravate the
disease, and if it be cured by abstinence from them, godhead is not
the cause at all; nor will purifications be of any avail, but it is
the food which is beneficial and prejudicial, and the influence of
the divinity vanishes.
Thus, they who try to cure these maladies in this way, appear to me
neither to reckon them sacred nor divine. For when they are removed
by such purifications, and this method of cure, what is to prevent
them
