On the Mysteries (De Mysteriis)

...to be [disturbed], which, if they are restrained more violently and suddenly from the start, at last break out more sharply, like a compressed flame or suppressed laughter. They must therefore be corrected more gently. Heraclitus calls sacrifices medicines, because they purge the soul of diseases contracted in this realm of generation. Porphyry suspected that not only daemons, but even the gods are touched by some passion, since they are moved by invocations. The will of the good in God, and in the gods who are goodnesses, is more excellent, and therefore freer than our choice-driven life concerning the good. Thus the gods are not moved to bestow good upon men because they are invoked, but of their own accord they provoke us toward the good, and as we are turned toward them through invoking, they encounter us voluntarily, and they reveal and bestow something. Indeed, men think that they are free to ask. Let it be so, then; the gods are freer to give. The gods, on account of their free will for the good and their perpetual and perfect action, do good to all as soon as they are turned toward them through invocation. The soul, arriving at the contemplation of divine things in its supplications, transforms its previous life, which was subject to passions, into a life free of passion, while it enters into the action and life of the gods. How, therefore, do our supplications touch the gods with passions, when they even render souls—previously passive—[impassible?]