arraign me. So then, if I find one of the Initiated betraying and
parodying the Mysteries of the two Goddesses, and if I protest and
denounce him, the transgression will be mine? There is something wrong
there; why, at the Games, if an actor who has to present Athene or
Poseidon or Zeus plays his part badly, derogating from the divine
dignity, the stewards have him whipt; well, the gods are not angry
with them for having the officers whip the man who wears their mask
and their attire; I imagine they approve of the punishment. To play a
slave or a messenger badly is a trifling offense, but to represent
Zeus or Heracles to the spectators in an unworthy manner--that is a
crime and a sacrilege.

I can indeed conceive nothing more extraordinary than that so many of
them should get themselves absolutely perfect in your words, and then
live precisely as if the sole object of reading and studying them had
been to reverse them in practise. All their professions of despising
wealth and appearances, of admiring nothing but what is noble, of
superiority to passion, of being proof against splendor, and
associating with its owners only on equal terms--how fair and wise and
laudable they all are! But they take pay for imparting them, they are
abashed in presence of the rich, their lips water at sight of coin;
they are dogs for temper, hares for cowardice, apes for imitativeness,
asses for lust, cats for thievery, cocks for jealousy. They are a
perfect laughingstock with their strivings after vile ends, their
jostling of each other at rich men's doors, their attendance at
crowded dinners, and their vulgar obsequiousness at table. They swill
more than they should and would like to swill more than they do, they
spoil the wine with unwelcome and untimely disquisitions, and they can
not carry their liquor. The ordinary people who are present naturally
flout them, and are revolted by the philosophy which breeds such
brutes.

What is so monstrous is that every man of them says he has no needs,
proclaims aloud that wisdom is the only wealth, and directly afterward
comes begging and makes a fuss if he is refused; it would hardly be
stranger to see one in kingly attire, with tall tiara, crown, and all the
attributes of royalty, asking his inferiors for a little something more.
When they want to get something, we hear a great deal, to be sure, about
community of goods--how wealth is a thing indifferent--and what is gold
and silver?--neither m