Burial Phoebizing; true cleansing Christ Spirit baptism

So that even if someone of them should go upon a tomb, and throw himself upon the signs of the dead, having cast off a garment, he strips the head, and shearing it as the hair having been polluted—from which things that it was fitting to stand off and to refuse the imitation, the divine law educated us. For he said again: ‘You will not Phoebize, you will not set a baldness upon a dead one, in the midst of your eyes.’ For the select of Greeks mythologize Apollo a god, whom they also name Phoebus, that is, clean and undefiled. And they say he is the same as the sun. They used to say then to Phoebize, and again to be Phoebized, according to the Greek custom, the cleansing and being cleansed, according at least to what seems to them, and the laws beside themselves. The divine oracle therefore bars us from such shameful and most unbeautiful practices. For it is not at all fitting to count the death of bodies a pollution of soul, nor indeed to think that the sight upon a dead one impresses filth upon the hearts of those seeing, nor again upon this is it fitting to strip the hair. For the matter is altogether stale and full of the ground-crawling glory. Well then the law says the ‘You will not Phoebize;’ for such a cleansing will not benefit a soul, yet rather does injustice, both taking away the knowledge of the most beneficial path, and carrying away from the hunt of the advantageous. For let us look thus: Laws beside us of those ruling upon earth are, awarding and refusing the things to be done and not to those everywhere; yet no one would be able to flee the justices upon the transgressions, unless needing to be let go from the king’s mildness granting it to him. In the equal manner then, the one having disregarded the divine laws would not become clean, unless having become rich with the matter by a divine nod. For if we have transgressed laws of fire or water, and the account of the sin looks unto those, let the water wash off the writing, let the fire melt down the filth, and letting go upon authority the charges to whomever they should choose; yet if true is the one saying toward God: ‘Against you alone I have sinned, and I have done the evil before you,’ for one is the lawgiver and judge, instead of which having let go the lord of both punishing and letting go, they slide down into old-wives’ thoughts, distributing to fire and water the being able to free them from the charges. Away with the bad counsel, O human, approach the God alone according to nature, and you will hear him saying at once: ‘I am the one wiping out your lawlessnesses for my sake, and I will not remember.’ This is true cleansing; this is the spiritual brightness; for we have been wiped, having gained by the faith into Christ the forgiveness of the sin, yet having been made holy by the bath of regeneration, and having enriched ourselves with the divine grace, that of the divine Spirit, which also in the manner of fire consumes as some refuse the pollution that has settled into our understandings. For the God-breathed Scripture says thus justly that we have been baptized in Holy Spirit and fire.

Palladius: In a portion of idolatry then will we somehow reckon also the wandering upon this?