[95] Why is it the customary rule that those who are practising holy living must abstain from legumes?[219]
Did they, like the followers of Pythagoras,[220] religiously abstain from beans for the reasons which are commonly offered,[221] and from vetch and chickpea, because their names (lathyros and erebinthos) suggest Lethê and Erebus?
Or is it because they make particular use of legumes for funeral feasts and invocations of the dead?
Or is it rather because one must keep the body clean and light for purposes of holy living and lustration? Now legumes are a flatulent food and produce surplus matter that requires much purgation.
Or is it because the windy and flatulent quality of the food stimulates desire?