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11. Again he inculcated the wise rule that in our sacrifices or dedications we should not go beyond the just mean, in the following way. On one occasion several people had flocked to the Temple, not long after the expulsion of the Cilician, and he took the occasion to ask the priest the following questions: "Are then," he said, "the gods just?"
"Why, of course, most just," answered the priest.
"Well, and are they wise?"
"And what," said the other, "can be wiser than the godhead?"
"But do they know the affairs of men, or are they without experience of them?"
"Why," said the other, "this is just the point in which the gods excel mankind, for the latter, because of their frailty, do not understand their own concerns, whereas the gods have the privilege of understanding the affairs both of men and of themselves."
"All your answers," said Apollonius, "are excellent, O Priest, and very true. Since then, they know everything, it appears to me that a person who comes to the house of God and has a good conscience, should put up the following prayer:
'O ye gods, grant unto me that which I deserve.'
For," he went on, "the holy, O Priest, surely deserve to receive blessings, and the wicked the contrary. Therefore the gods, as they are beneficent, if they find anyone who is healthy and whole and unscarred by vice, will send him on his way, surely, after crowning him, not with golden crowns, but with all sorts of blessings; but if they find a man branded with sin and utterly corrupt, they will hand him over and leave him to justice, after inflicting their wrath upon him all the more, because he dared to invade their Temple without being pure."
And at the same moment he looked towards Asclepius, and said: "O Asclepius, the philosophy you teach is secret and congenial to yourself, in that you suffer not the wicked to come hither, not even if they pour into your lap all the wealth of India and Sardes. For it is not out of reverence for the divinity that they sacrifice these victims and suspend these offerings, but in order to purchase a verdict, which you will not concede to them in your perfect justice."
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