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Question 10. Wherefore do men in divine service cover
their heads; but if they meet any honorable personages
[p. 210]
when they have their cloaks on their heads, they are uncovered?
Solution. The latter part of the question seems to augment the difficulty of the former. If now the story told of
Aeneas be true, that whilst Diomedes was passing by he
offered a sacrifice with his head covered, it is rational and
consequent that, while we cover our heads before our enemies, when we meet our friends and good men we should
be uncovered. This behavior before the Gods therefore is
not their peculiar right, but accidental, continuing to be
observed since that example of Aeneas.
If there is any thing further to be said, consider whether
we ought not to enquire only after the reason why men in
divine service are covered, the other being the consequence
of it. For they that are uncovered before men of greater
power do not thereby ascribe honor unto them, but rather
remove envy from them, that they might not seem to demand or to endure the same kind of reverence which the
Gods have, or to rejoice that they are served in the same
manner as they. But they worship the Gods in this manner, either showing their unworthiness in all humility by
the covering of the head, or rather fearing that some unlucky and ominous voice should come to them from abroad
whilst they are praying; therefore they pluck up their
cloaks about their ears. That they strictly observed these
things is manifest in this, that when they went to consult
the oracle, they made a great din all about by the tinkling
of brass kettles. Or is it as Castor saith, that the Roman
usages were conformable to the Pythagoric notion that the
daemon within us stands in need of the Gods without us,
and we make supplication to them with a covered head,
intimating the body's hiding and absconding of the soul?
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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