Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 1

1. This passage remains a puzzle after examination by several authorities on Greek. It is not an accurate quotation from Plato, and nothing in the context gives a clue to what JA intended by the first word, which makes neither sense nor grammar as it stands. If we may read the first word as the noun ἐπιστῆμαι , then the passage may be translated: “Sciences (or studies), the things that cleanse the soul.”