They Are Religious Excessively Beyond All Other Men, And With Regard
To This They Have Customs As Follows:
- They drink from cups of bronze
and rinse them out every day, and not some only do this but all:
They
wear garments of linen always newly washed, and this they make a
special point of practice: they circumcise themselves for the sake of
cleanliness, preferring to be clean rather than comely. The priests
shave themselves all over their body every other day, so that no lice
or any other foul thing may come to be upon them when they minister to
the gods; and the priests wear garments of linen only and sandals of
papyrus, and any other garment they may not take nor other sandals;
these wash themselves in cold water twice in a day and twice again in
the night; and other religious services they perform (one may almost
say) of infinite number. They enjoy also good things not a few, for
they do not consume or spend anything of their own substance, but
there is sacred bread baked for them and they have each great quantity
of flesh of oxen and geese coming in to them each day, and also wine
of grapes is given to them; but it is not permitted to them to taste
of fish: beans moreover the Egyptians do not at all sow in their land,
and those which they grow they neither eat raw nor boil for food; nay
the priests do not endure even to look upon them, thinking this to be
an unclean kind of pulse:
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