On Isis and Osiris

...by the cleansing and removal of waste. 5 But the flax grows from the immortal earth, and yields an edible fruit, and provides a simple and clean garment, and 6 one that is not burdensome to the wearer, and is suitable for every season; and it is least likely to produce lice, as they say; concerning which there is another discourse.

5. The priests so loathe the nature of waste, that not only 1 do they avoid most pulses and the meat of sheep and swine, which produce much waste, but they also remove salt from their food during purifications; having many other reasons, and because they make them more prone to drink and food by 2 sharpening the appetite. For, (as Aristagoras said)...

The following section contains scholarly commentary in Latin and Greek.

6 tō skeponti mē barunousan not burdensome to the one covering [himself]] Perhaps ton skeponta mē barunousan not burdening the one covering [himself], as on page 353 A. If tō skeponti is retained, it should rather be written bareian ousan being heavy than barunousan. Markland.

1 paraiteisthai tōn ospriōn ta polla to avoid most of the pulses] Indeed, Porphyry in book 4, On Abstinence (page 152, Cambridge edition), asserts in explicit words that the Egyptian priests were accustomed to abstain from all animals and all vegetables and pulses: “And this time, when they were about to perform any of the sacred rites, they abstained from all living things, and from all vegetables and pulses.” Beans, however, were especially an abomination to the Egyptian priests: “The Egyptians do not sow beans in the country, and those that grow they neither eat raw nor boiled. And the priests do not even endure looking at them, thinking it is not a clean pulse.” (Herodotus, book 2, chapter 37).

2 epithēgontas sharpening] Formerly it was absurdly read...