Works (CSEL) 5

A divine oracle resounded to the fathers, that, when they went forth to war, they should sound the trumpet, by whose sound the Lord might be reminded of his people, that he might bestow on them the aid they sought, recognizing the more the incitements of his own mercy; and in the days of their gladness, at their new moons, they should sing together with the sound of the trumpets. Hence David also says: 'Sing on the trumpet at the beginning of the month, on the appointed day of your solemnity.' The day of our solemnity will therefore come to us, and already it draws near. Let us sound the trumpet as those going forth into battle; let us sound the trumpet to proclaim the day of the solemnity. At once both the contest threatens us and victory is promised. Our victory is the cross of Christ; our trophy is the Passover of the Lord Jesus.

But he first fought, that he might conquer, not that he himself needed the contest, but that he might first prescribe for us the form of warfare and afterwards give the grace of triumphing. Our contest is fasting. In short, the Savior fasted, and so the tempter approached him. And first he aimed the dart of gluttony, saying: 'If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.' He held out food as the bait of a snare, that thus he might ensnare the bodily appetite; the Lord preferred fasting, that he might loose the snares of the tempter, that he might dissolve the chains. In short, thus you have it written: 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.' By that snare Adam had been strangled; by this absolution of the diabolical questioning every man has been set free.

Great is the power of fasting; in short, so glorious a warfare is it, that to fast delighted even Christ, so mighty, that it raised men up to heaven. And, to use human rather than divine examples: from the fasting mouth of Elijah a word was sent forth that closed heaven against the sacrilegious people of the Jews. For indeed, when an altar had been set up to the idol by King Ahab, at the prophet's word for three years and six months the dew of rain did not fall upon the earth. A worthy penalty, which fittingly restrained their intemperance, that heaven should be closed to the impious who had polluted earthly things.

Worthy too it was, that for the condemnation of the sacrilegious king the prophet should be sent to the widow in Sarepta of Sidon, who, because she preferred devotion to food, deserved to be the only one not to feel the affliction of the public drought. And so the jar of meal did not fail, when the streams of the torrent failed. Why should I weave together the rest of his deeds? Fasting, he raised the widow's son from the dead; fasting, he brought down the rains by his mouth; fasting, he drew down fire from heaven; fasting, he was caught up by a chariot to heaven, and by a forty-day fast acquired the divine presence. Then indeed he merited the more, when he fasted the more. With fasting mouth he stayed the streams of the Jordan, and crossed the channel of the overflowing river, suddenly dried, with dusty footstep.

Deservedly did the divine sentence judge him worthy of heaven, so that he should be caught up together with his very body, since he lived a heavenly life in the body and displayed the practice of a supernal conversation on earth. For what is fasting but the substance and image of the heavenly? Fasting is the refreshment of the soul, the food of the mind; fasting is the life of angels; fasting is the death of fault, the destruction of transgressions, the remedy of salvation, the root of grace, the foundation of chastity. By this step one comes to God more quickly; by this step Elijah ascended before he did by the chariot; this inheritance of sobriety the abstemious man, departing to heaven, left to his disciple; in this virtue and spirit of Elijah came John. In short, in the desert he too gave himself to fasting;

his food, moreover, was locusts and wild honey. And therefore he who by continence had transcended the capacity of human life was reckoned not a man but an angel. Of him we read: 'Even more than a prophet.' This is he of whom it is written: 'Behold, I send my angel before your face, who shall prepare your way before you.' Who by human strength could have mounted the fiery horses, the fiery chariots, could have steered the airy chariots, save one who by the virtue of incorruptible fasting had changed the nature of the human body? But of Elijah's deeds we have already set forth very much in the frequent discourse of various books, and I think it must be guarded against that we should not run over the same ground again, especially since in his own work he is himself praised.

Let us therefore imitate him and seek that food by whose virtue we may be able to advance day and night to the knowledge of things above. For not all food is material, nor all nourishment bodily: there is a food of the mind, as we said, on which souls feast, of which the Lord says: 'My food is to do the will of my Father, who is in heaven.' This is the food of angels, that they serve the divine command. They have no care of tables, no use of banquets, no laid-out feasts, no drinking of wine or strong drink, no distension of the body, no offense of the belly. And so, lest anyone think fasting earthly or novel, the first use of the world began from fasting, when the clear light shone forth.

The second day was a fast, when the firmament of heaven was made. On the third day the earth brought forth its fodder, nature offered its obedience: yet fasting, the heavenly discipline, was kept. On the fourth day the luminaries of the sun and moon were made: and still fasting. On the fifth the waters brought forth the creeping things of living souls and the flying creatures above the earth according to the firmament of heaven, and God saw that they were good. And God blessed them, saying: 'Increase and multiply and fill the waters that are in the sea, and let the flying creatures multiply upon the earth': and still fasting. In short, 'he blessed them' is written 'and said: increase'; he did not say: eat and feed.

On the sixth day the beasts were created, and with the beasts arose the power of eating and the use of foods. Where food began, there came the end of the making of the world; there it began to know no further increase; there the divine works concerning it began to keep holiday. By which indication it was declared that through foods the world should be diminished, through which it ceased to be increased. No one knew transgression, no one feared punishment, no one had known death. The Lord planted a paradise for the grace of the blessed, set man there to till it and to keep it; and, that we may know fasting is not novel, there first he established a law concerning fasting; for he knew that through food guilt would enter. The first punishment was for the transgression of fasting, when the command of God said:

'Of the tree which is of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; but in the day in which you eat of it you shall die the death.' But up to that point no one had known how to transgress, since she who first transgressed the enjoined abstinence had not yet arisen. The law is from the Lord God, the transgression of the law from the devil: guilt through food, hiding after food; the knowledge of weakness in food, the strength of firmness in fasting. In short, as long as they abstained from what was forbidden, they did not know that they were naked; after they ate of the forbidden tree, they recognized that they were stripped bare. Rightly, then, the woman, when she acknowledged the author of her fault, being questioned: 'The serpent persuaded me, and I ate.' The serpent urges the gullet; the Lord decrees to fast. In short, he himself says:

'Fast and pray, lest you enter into temptation.' And so the gullet expelled man as he reigned from paradise; abstinence recalled him as he wandered to paradise. And God said: 'Behold, Adam has become as one of us.' God speaks mocking, of course, not approving; that is: 'Did you think you would be like us? Because you wished to be what you were not, you ceased to be what you were. And so, while you aspire to be above yourself, you have begun to be below yourself.' In short, he first clothed him with a tunic of skins, and then said: 'Behold, Adam,' as if to say: 'Behold your garment, behold your fitting raiment, this clothing befits you. They who affect divine things are reckoned worthy of such adornment.'

'Behold to what your fault has brought you; behold, now in this tunic of skins, as one of us, you have opened your eyes. Look carefully around: you behold yourself naked, whom you thought clothed.' The gullet, then, makes men naked; fastings cover even those who are stripped. Whence the Lord says: 'I covered my soul in fasting.' A good covering, which clothes even the soul, lest it be caught by the tempter, lest it be stripped by the tempter. A good veil which covers fault: abstinence covers, grace covers; for 'blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.' Grace covers, while it remits and abolishes every error; abstinence covers, while it overshadows vice and hides it with sorrowing affection and attenuates it by repenting. For indeed fasting and almsgiving free from sin.

Adam was covered with the veil of virtues before he transgressed. But, as one stripped by transgression, he saw that he was naked, because he had lost the garment that he had. 'For in the days of your fasts,' it says, 'your morning light shall rise for you, and your healing shall rise speedily, and righteousness shall go before you, and the majesty of the Lord shall surround you.' A good garment is light. For it is written: 'Surrounded with light as with a garment.' A good garment, when the Lord surrounds and covers those who fast. Noah was stripped naked when he was made drunk: the piety of his sons covered him. But he was stripped through ignorance, not through intemperance; for as yet wine was unknown. At the beginning of the human race drunkenness was unknown.

He himself first planted a vineyard: he gave it its nature, but knew not its potency. And so the wine did not spare even its own author. What wonder if, when the Lord himself had praised his creatures, this man too marveled? And so, when the grace of the gift he had found delighted him, the too-vehement creature tested the old man's unaccustomed limbs; the ninth draught troubled him. 'They slumbered,' it says, 'who mounted the horses.' He mounted the pleasures of the body: and the righteous man fell asleep. But his drunkenness urges sobriety upon us. For Noah was made drunk only once; but when he came to know the evil of drunkenness, he tempered his invention into a remedy, he did not pour it out into vice. Whence the Apostle says: 'Use a little wine for your frequent infirmities.'

Before wine was discovered, there remained for all an unshaken liberty; no one knew to exact the services of slavery from a partner of his own nature. There would be no slavery today, had drunkenness not existed. The envy of fraternal preference had indeed crept in, yet the reverence of paternal piety still remained. Piety was wounded, while drunkenness is laughed at. And so wines harm not only those alone whom they tempt, but even more those before whose eyes the drunken limbs of the inebriated are bared. Hence irreverent laughter is born, hence lust is inflamed, so that with far greater intoxication wines disturb those whose eyes and mind they have made drunk, than those whose limbs they have laid low.

We read too that the daughters made their father Lot drunk on that mountain to which, fearing the Sodomite fires, they had fled and were dwelling in a cave. Age, sex, solitude—a place fitter for the lairs of wild beasts than for human dwellings—all concur and conspire to drunkenness. And so drunkenness was the origin of incest, the worse offspring of a most wicked progenitress. But Abraham did not serve wine at his banquet: he sacrificed a calf, and offered butter and milk also to the angelic guests—he recognized the Lord of heaven, the Author of the world—; for he could not offer wine. But rightly was the material of sin lacking there, where there was the remission of sins. In short, John proclaimed him as neither eating bread nor drinking wine;

for he who proclaims Christ ought to keep himself a stranger to every incentive of vices. Drunkenness therefore conquered both holy Noah and even Lot, Abraham's nephew; of whom the one, while he fasted, survived the flood, the other the conflagration. We have learned too that Moses tempered the bitterness of the waters for the thirsting people, not wines. For him whom the rock spewed forth water, abundance of wine too could not have been lacking. In short, God said: 'You shall strike the rock, and water shall come out, and the people shall drink'; he did not say: 'wine shall come out among the people'; for it was perilous to serve wine, which even the stronger could scarcely bear. In short, Moses gave a law concerning fasting; concerning wine he gave none.

As he himself fasted, neither the great voices, nor the lightnings and stormy clouds, nor the smoking Sinai terrified him. Nor indeed would he have entered into the cloud and heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire without peril to his safety, had he not been fortified with the arms of fasting. For he fasted forty days on the mountain, when he received the law from the Lord our God. And while in the higher parts of the mountain the law was being given to the fasting Moses, in the lower parts the sacrilegious transgression of the feasting people was kindled by riot. Moved by which spectacle, Moses broke the tablets, judging it unworthy that the law should be given to a drunken people. And so the tablets of the law, which abstinence received, drunkenness caused to be shattered. But why should I speak of other things?

Did not abstinence from wine make fruitful the barrenness of Samson's mother and cause her, barren, to bear? Since according to the Lord's command she drank no wine. Did not the Lord hear Hannah as she did not eat, and did not fasting loose her infertility? Of which two who were born, the one most strong, the other most observant, showed themselves worthy to be seen as long cherished in the bosom of fasting and as it were poured forth from the womb of abstinence. And so this same Samson, who was begotten by his mother's sobriety, was avenged upon the drunkenness of the foreign peoples who insulted him.

The prophet Elisha, who had learned frugality from his master, when he fed the sons of the prophets, loaded the tables with the little clusters of a wild vine and filled the office of hospitable kindness with useless woodland fruits. When, offended by their bitterness, they could not eat, by a sprinkling of light meal he tempered all that bitterness, by the gift of prophetic abstinence emptying out the powers of the poison. There is a certain nature of a created thing, which they call asbestos, not easily consumed by any fire, which, placed on hearths, catches fire, and, the moment it is taken up out of the flame, shines clean as though by an infusion of water. Such were the bodies of the Hebrew youths, which, transformed from fasting into the nature of asbestos, borrowed the vapor of the fire not to their own loss, but to their grace.

In short, when the fires of the furnace raged, so that the flame was poured around to more than forty cubits, consuming very many of the Chaldeans whom it found, who supplied fuel to the fires with naphtha, pitch and tow and brushwood, when those youths entered in with fasting, the burning of the flames being scattered, in the midst of the furnace they began at once to grow moist with the breath of a refreshing dew, so that not a hair of their head was burned, because fasting had nourished even that hair. Daniel, a man of desires, by a three-week fast taught even lions to fast. Cast into the den, his limbs hardened into the rigidity of adamant by the solidity of abstinence, he lay open to no wound.

So had fasting bound him fast, that in his body there could be no place for the beasts' bites. The lions held their mouths shut, which the sanctity of prophetic abstinence pressed together, so that the beasts could not open them, bound as it were by certain chains of his merit. Fasting therefore extinguished the power of fire; fasting stopped the mouths of lions; fasting solidified the streams of the sea; fasting loosed the rock into fountains of waters; by the power of fasting, against its own nature changed, both the wave grew hard and the rock overflowed. And why should I use ancient examples, when fasting abounds even in the gifts of present graces? Who has worsened his house by fasting? Who has diminished his resources? To whom is luxury not suspect, to whom is abstinence not venerable?

Whose bed has frugality ever coveted? Whose chastity has drunkenness never wounded? Fasting is the schoolmaster of self-control, the discipline of chastity, the humility of the mind, the chastening of the flesh, the form of sobriety, the rule of virtue, the purification of the soul, the outlay of mercy, the schooling of gentleness, the allurement of charity, the grace that crowns old age, the safeguard of youth. Fasting is the relief of infirmity, the nourishment of salvation. No one ever fell into indigestion by fasting; no one through self-restraint ever felt a stroke of apoplexy — nay rather, all have checked and driven it off. It is a good provision for the road, a good for the whole of life, a good upon the sea: it stills shipwrecks, it preserves our food. They say that fasting is hard: let them answer — who ever perished from fasting?

Many at the banquet, very many while they vomit, have poured out their life along with the feast. What animal, in the end, ever lamented that fasting was the cause of its death? In food a snare is not avoided; in food the hook lies hidden: food draws one down into the pit, food leads into the nets, food binds even the birds with birdlime, food brings the flying creatures down to death. What perils are there that are not for the belly's sake? Dumb animals know no crime, and yet in this one thing alone they are punished as though for a crime. Fasting is the sobriety of the mind. By it the senses are vigorous; in it judgments are weighed, in the banquet only the cups. Fasting guards discipline; want follows upon luxury. Luxury is the mother of famine, according to the prophetic saying. Fasting loves quiet, luxury loves disquiet: fasting sows leisure, excess sows toils.

Someday the cook's whip and the scourger's blade will strike. Let the caterer rest — he who, before dawn breaks, pounds on other men's doors, and as though some war were imminent rouses the sleepers. You see him in a turmoil, you notice him panting. You ask what is the cause of his agitation. 'My master is giving a feast,' he says; he is searching where better wine may be sold, where a tenderer sow's womb may be had, where a softer liver, where a plumper pheasant, where a fresher fish. He runs about through every quarter, and when he has found it, he hastens at top speed, disturbs his drowsy master, bids up the prices. If the price of a fish has stirred him, he insists that no better are anywhere to be found — indeed, that they are lacking. 'Yesterday,' he says, 'there was a tempest, today a squall; I could scarcely catch this one as it lurked hidden.' Many crowd together in the meat-market.

'If you pay this much, another will give more — and what will you set before your guests?' 'This wine comes from such-and-such a vintage; these oysters were gathered from that famous bed.' Such is the bidding made over every item; a kind of auction-spear is brandished between the caterer and the herdsman. Distraught, the master knocks down his patrimony to the bidder, and still begs for those through whom the rights to his own goods may be whittled away. They run to the kitchen; a huge din arises, an uproar arises. The whole household is thrown into commotion, they all curse, because no rest is granted them. At last, at long last, grant the cook some rest, hold back the cupbearer's right hand: the depth of winter is stiff with frost. One man exercises his hands in cold water, for another the marble floors are washed. They cleanse the pavements soaked with wine and strewn with fish-bones. How many are wounded as they walk over them!

At the banquet itself there is the shouting of the feasters, the groaning of those being thrashed. If perhaps something has displeased your friends, they laugh: you fume with indignation. Let the house at last fall silent from the many disturbances of those scurrying this way and that, from the noise of slaughtered animals; let it be free from smoke and from the reek of half-burnt meats. You would think it not a kitchen but a butcher's shambles, that a battle was being waged, not a dinner prepared: so does everything swim with blood. Service is rendered to that evil mistress, gluttony, who is always craving and is never satisfied. For what is more insatiable than the belly? Today it takes in, tomorrow it demands again. When it has been filled, there is talk of self-restraint; when it has digested, virtues are bidden farewell, and it seeks luxury. Amid the cups, philosophy is proclaimed; among philosophers, wines are praised.

'Sleeplessness,' it says, 'and bile and torment are for the insatiable man.' He eats, and a little after he repents of it. His intemperance did not for long delight that rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day, at whose gate that beggar Lazarus lay full of sores, longing to be filled with what fell from the rich man's table. A little while after, when he had died, being placed in hell he began to beg that the poor man might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, which was burning in the flame. Where now are those abundances? Where now those drunken bouts? He thirsts who used to be made drunk; he abounds who used to beg. At the very banquet, while they drink, they thirst, and when they have been made drunk, they drink yet more.

As though over an open whirlpool, the wine is now not so much drunk as poured in: the cup is not sipped but drained dry. 'Thorns,' Scripture says, 'spring up in the hand of the drunkard,' because he wounds himself with his own hands, he casts ulcers upon his own breast. With these thorns he tears the garment of faith which he received, and he will not be able to keep his treasure; for every drunkard and fornicator shall come to want, and shall clothe himself in the torn garments of folly. And therefore the mighty are forbidden to drink wine, lest, having drunk, they forget wisdom. In short, those mighty men drank wine to drunkenness who longed to surrender themselves to Holofernes, the commander of the army of the king of the Assyrians; but the woman Judith did not drink, fasting all the days of her widowhood except on the solemnities of the festal days.

Armed with these weapons she went forth, and encircled the whole army of the Assyrians. Sober, by the vigor of her counsel she carried off the head of Holofernes, she preserved her chastity, she won back the victory. For she, girded with fasting, kept guard in the enemy's camp, while he lay buried in wine, so that he could not feel the stroke of the wound. And so the fasting of a single woman laid low the countless armies of drunken men.

Esther too, made more beautiful by fasting — for the Lord was increasing the grace of her sober mind — delivered her whole race, that is, the entire people of the Jews, from the bitterness of persecution, so that she made the king subject to her, not inflamed with the ardor of lust, but converted by heavenly compassion, with the result that both the punishment was turned back upon the wicked man, and honor was restored to the sacred altars. And so she who fasted three days continuously and washed her body with water pleased more, and obtained vengeance. But Haman, while he boasted in the royal banquet, amid the very wine paid the penalty of his drunkenness. Fasting therefore is the sacrifice of reconciliation, the increase of virtue, which by the augmentation of grace made even women stronger.

Fasting knows no usurer; it knows nothing of the principal of interest; the table of those who fast does not reek of usury; the hundredth-part interest owed to a father does not strangle the son of a self-controlled man; mortgaged rights do not harass the widow of a sober man who has died; and the hall stripped bare by debt does not shut out the heir of one who fasts. To the very banquets, too, fasting gives grace. Sweeter become the dishes after hunger, which by their constancy become wearisome and by daily continuance grow cheap. Fasting is the seasoning of food. The keener the appetite, the more delightful the food. Thirst commends the cup. He does not know how to seek out the charms of wine who passes whatever he has drained straight on to satiety, and does not lift his nostril for discernment. By use even precious things degenerate.

But of those things whose possession is difficult, the enjoyment is welcome. The sun itself is more welcome after the night, the light itself more splendid after the darkness, and sleep sweeter after vigils, health itself more delightful after the trials of sickness. From the very Maker of the world we have learned that grace is often heaped up by contrasts. Hunger therefore is the patron even of the banquet, and the table is made more welcome by fastings. The mystical table, too, is gained by fasting — that table of which David says: 'Thou hast prepared a table before me against them that trouble me.' It is acquired at the price of hunger, and that cup that makes drunk is sought through thirst by the sobriety of the heavenly sacraments. For the Lord has said:

'You who thirst, go to the water, and whoever of you has no money, go and buy and drink and eat.' And elsewhere he says: 'Behold, those who serve me shall eat, but you shall hunger; behold, those who serve me shall drink, but you shall thirst.' Who are 'you,' if not those who drank beforehand? Of whom he had said above: 'You have prepared a table for demons, and you have filled the cup of fortune.' If, therefore, holy fastings lead us to that venerable table, if by this hunger we purchase those things which are eternal, why do we hesitate about those things which are in human use — namely, that fasting may make even these more pleasant to us? Yet not every hunger makes an acceptable fast, but the hunger which is undertaken in the fear of God. Consider:

Throughout Lent there is fasting on all days except the Sabbath and the Lord's Day. This fast the Lord's Pasch concludes. Now comes the day of resurrection: the elect are baptized, they come to the altar, they receive the sacrament. Thirsting, they draw it in with all their veins. Rightly do they say, each one refreshed with spiritual food and spiritual drink: 'Thou hast prepared a table before me, and how excellent is thy cup that makes me drunk!' Yet not hunger alone is sought, but the full discipline of fasting. In short, to others it is said: 'On the days of your fasts you find your own wills, and you goad on all who are subject to you. Do you fast for quarrels and strife, and strike with your fists? Why is such a fast to me, that your voice should be heard in clamor?'

'This is not the fast that I have chosen, nor the day for a man to humble his soul; nor that you should bend your neck like a hoop, and strew ashes and sackcloth beneath you — not even thus shall you call your fast acceptable. Such a fast I have not chosen, says the Lord.' We have heard what fast is condemned; now let us hear what is approved. 'But loose every bond of your injustice, dissolve the obligations of violent bargains, let the broken go free unto release, and break apart every unjust written agreement. Break your bread for the hungry, and bring the needy who have no shelter into your house. If you see a naked man, cover him, and you shall not despise the members of your own household and seed.'

You see what is the appearance and form of fasting, what disposition of mind: that you be free for prayer, that you meditate on the law of God day and night. The very figure of the body is full of gravity. No flush of drunkenness suffused upon the cheeks, to offend the gaze of beholders; rather the face shines revered with a chaste pallor. The speech is graver, the eye more modest, the gait steadier and more measured; for very often by a more agitated walk the movement of the mind is betrayed. The countenance is more intent, and is, as it were, the arbiter of one's own thought and the silent interpreter of the heart, so that it neither cloaks itself with sadness nor dissolves into unrestrained laughter. For do not think this to be a superfluous part of our admonition, since Wisdom says in the Gospel:

'But when you fast, do not become, like the hypocrites, of a sad countenance.' He said 'hypocrites' for this reason, that by pretense they put on another's persona, just as on the stage those who sing tragedies stir up their own emotions in keeping with the words of those whose characters they bear, so as to be angry, or to mourn, or to exult; for these men affect to appear to be fasting, desiring to be approved by men rather than by God — which is what the Jews used to do. And therefore it is said to us: 'But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.' What is 'anoint your head'? But the dissolute also say:

'Let us fill ourselves with wine and ointments.' For with ointment they anoint themselves who seek the charm of bodily fragrance; but those ointments are wont to stir the allurement of lust. Other is the ointment of sobriety, of which the Church says to the Bridegroom: 'Thy name is ointment poured out'; other is the oil by which the limbs of the soul and certain of its members grow rich. Whence David also says: 'Thou hast made fat my head with oil'; this is the oil of gladness, with which Jesus Christ was anointed by God the Father, that he might be eminent above all his fellows. He bids this anoint our head, that with the oil of gladness all feigned sadness may be overlaid, lest you appear to be selling your fast to men. Lest you appear to be saddened over the salvation of your soul;

for no one sad is crowned, no one mournful triumphs. Anoint, therefore, your head, where the senses of the wise man are; for the eyes of the wise man are in his head. You are called to the mysteries and you do not know; you will learn — when you come. But remember that saying: 'Like ointment upon the head, which runs down upon the beard.' Then you will know what it is to anoint your head, in what manner you have pleased God, so that he might disclose to you his sacraments and give you spiritual grace. There is also another, a mystical head. What is it? Listen: 'The head of the woman is the man, but the head of the man is Christ.' Pour upon Christ, pour the ointment even upon his head; his head is God.

That woman, bearing the type of the Church, who poured ointment upon his head, confessed his divinity; and she who poured it upon his feet confessed his passion. Both are praised: and do you act so that you may be praised, so that you may receive the remission of sins. Wash your face, cleanse your sinful soul, wash your conscience. For the face is very often the index of the conscience and a kind of silent speech of the mind, when we are either stung with compunction by sin or made glad by integrity. Do not destroy this face; wash it, and rinse away all the filth of your conscience. He destroys his own face who carries one thing in his heart and displays another outwardly. Let us not cover ourselves as with a kind of curtain: let what is within shine forth without, and let what is without be at work within.

Let no one shut up guilt within his fast; let him bear his innocence purely; for fasting is the slayer of guilt. Let no one prefer sweet things to more bitter ones. Pleasure seems sweet, fasting bitter. Let that sweet be removed by this bitter. Bitter things are wont to profit even our bodies more. For just as when worms are bred in the inmost vitals of children from undigested food, and cannot be killed unless a more bitter draught is poured in, or some harsher force of medicines takes effect, by whose odor they may die — so the power of fasting, having entered the depth of the soul, slays the lurking guilt. What did Esau make for himself by selling his brother? Was not the food sweet for an hour, bitter afterwards? What did Jacob make of his brother by giving him his lordship?

Was not the contempt of food bitter for a time, but salutary for the rest? Our very bodies are frequently bloated by sweet things, and the liver is distended by honey; yet the same is tempered by the bitterness of food. Therefore not a trifling but a praised problem is this: 'Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.' Others have: 'and out of the sad came forth sweetness' — the Greek codices especially. But the strong man too is laborious; for sweetness comes forth out of sadness or labor. Do not, then, boast when you fast. Do not glory, lest your fast profit you nothing; for the things that are done for ostentation will not extend their fruit into the future, but consume the reward of the present. Elijah was in the desert, lest anyone should see him fasting except the ravens alone, when they fed him.

Elisha was in the desert, where no food could be found except bitter herbs. John was in the desert, where he found only locusts or wild honey. To those who fasted, feasts were brought by the pious ministry of angels. Daniel dined among fasting lions. He dined on another's dinner; the wild beasts did not touch their own. To those who fast, feasts come flying; to those who feast, their feet totter: to those who fast manna descends from heaven, to those who banquet the guilt of transgression ascends. But what is this? While I discourse upon fasting, I hear the din of banquets. Unless I am mistaken, a dinner has wafted its odor into my sermon. The sound of the texts therefore invites them; the examples of intemperance do not deter them.

For indeed, the people, who could not bear to wait for the man who was fasting and bearing what belongs to the law, sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. We see that sacrilege was joined to drunkenness. For just as self-control is the mother of faith, so drunkenness is the mother of faithlessness. Into what crime does it not hurl a man? Men sit in the doorways of taverns who have no tunic nor the means for the following day's keep. They pass judgment on emperors and powers — nay, they seem to themselves to reign and to command armies. By drunkenness men become rich who in truth are destitute. They give away gold, they distribute moneys to the populace, they build cities, who have not the means to pay the tavern-keeper for their drink, unless they pay the price with their own bodies.

For the wine boils within them, they know not what they say. They are rich while they are drunk; soon, when the wine has been digested, they perceive themselves to be beggars. In a single day they drink away the labors of many days. From drunkenness men rise up to arms; weapons take the place of the cups. For wine, blood is poured out — and wines have poured out that very blood. How strong men seem to themselves in wine, how wise, how eloquent! How handsome, too, and comely, when they cannot stand! Of necessity the mind reels, the tongue stammers, a bloodless pallor suffuses the face, so that the stench of drunkenness is an object of horror. Barbarians rush upon the sword, the rabble upon brawls. If any one of them has been struck with a fist, you may see his face wounded, pouring out the tears of wine, chanting his pitiable epilogues.

Drunkenness has this one thing, that it softens and loosens the hearts of the drunken; for just as fire tests hard iron, so by the burning of wine the heart even of proud men melts. In wine all seem equal to themselves, none inferior. The poor man yields not to the rich, inasmuch as he does not know himself to be poor; the weak yields not to the strong, since all his strength is in drinking; the beggar yields not to the wealthy, nor the lowborn to the honored, since the drinkers have for their king the one who has surpassed all men in drinking. And rightly is it written: 'Wine in drunkenness is the equal life of men.' But would that you also heard what follows: 'Drink it in moderation, that you may be sober!' You have no grounds to accuse the wine. It was created for gladness, not for drunkenness from the beginning.

It is the exultation of soul and heart, if you drink in moderation; but a more immoderate draught provokes to wrath and works many ruins. But perhaps they may say that these are the drinking-bouts of common and most worthless men. Let us come, then, to the banquets of these powerful and mighty men.

I will not here bring forward perfumed young men or those crowned with roses, such as they say that man was who, drenched in ointments, wreathed with flowers, propped up by harlots, drunk with the wine drunk before dawn and attended in broad daylight by the light of tapers, entered the lecture-hall of a philosopher who was disputing; and on hearing him, they say, he gradually took off his garlands, wiped away the ointments, bade farewell to the harlots, and afterwards turned out so great a philosopher that he was a model of sobriety who had before been the laughingstock of drunkenness. For I do not envy them one man reformed, that I may teach that their kind of luxury has not been feigned by me. Certainly, even if he came to his senses from wine, yet he was always intoxicated with sacrilege.

Away, therefore, with these slippery young men; we come to the banquets of warriors. One must dine amid arms. Here are warlike attendants, who serve girt with gold and with their loins propped by Babylonian belts; their necks glitter with golden collars, they cover their girdle with golden studs, they enclose their knives in golden sheaths — with which they may fight over the dividing of the feast. Boys stand by, sleek-haired, from a barbarian race, chosen for these uses, ranged in succession through their differing ages. You may behold the ranks of diverse peoples; you would think it an army drawn up in battle-line. The silver vessels set out — you would judge it a triumphal procession. The horn in the midst, full of wine — you are not making war but feasting — is the instrument of the trumpet, to kindle the reclining guests to the contest.

First, with the smaller cups, as with light-armed skirmishers, the battle is preluded. But this is not the appearance of sobriety, but the discipline of drinking. For just as the actors of tragedies first gradually raise their voice, until they open the passage of the moistened voice, that afterwards they may be able to resound with great shouts, so these men too at the outset exercise themselves with preliminary cups, to whet their thirst, lest perchance they quench it, and afterwards, being sated, be unable to drink. Therefore, when the affair has begun to grow hot, they call for the larger cups, the martial fervor blazes up, the thirst boils up against the food, and where it seems to be diminished, it is renewed with stronger drink. The cups contend with the courses, and amid the morsels they are often sent round again.

Then, as the drinking advances further and more contentiously, there are diverse and great contests over who shall excel in drinking. It is a grave mark of disgrace if anyone excuses himself, if anyone perhaps thinks the wine should be tempered. And this goes on until they come to the second tables. But when the feasts have been completed, you would think it now time to rise: then they begin their drinking anew; when they have finished, then they say they are just beginning, then the bowls are brought, then the greatest mixing-vessels, as it were the instruments of war. And lest you should think this immoderate, a measure is set, the contest is held under a judge, decision is rendered under a law. Their athletic-prize is frenzy, their wage debility, the reward of victory is guilt. Long does the dubious outcome of the war hang doubtful; for that frenzy is a battle-frenzy.

The hands of the cupbearers pouring out the wines give way, and the labors of the cooks who serve the hot dishes give way; those who measure out fair measures give way. As they overflow, they balance them with careful scrutiny, lest they spill anything: the drinkers do not give way. Those alone are the contests without excuse. In war, if anyone sees himself the weaker, he turns his arms about and earns pardon: here, if anyone turns his cup about, he is pressed to drink. In the wrestling-ring, if anyone raises his hand, he is indeed without share of the palm, but free from injury: in banquets, even if he draws his hand back from the wine, it is poured into his mouth. All are made drunk; conquerors and conquered all lie drunken, very many sunk in stupor. Nor is it permitted to carry them off to the grave before he who gives the feast has seen himself avenged on all, that he may requite the expense.

But he who does not feel the losses thinks it the glory of his table, if from it all go out wounded and injured, as though from the arena. A spectacle grievous to the eyes of Christians and of pitiable appearance. You may behold young men, terrible in their onset against the foe, carried out of the banquet, and then carried back to the banquet, filled up that they may drain themselves, and drained that they may drink. If anyone is more modest, so that he blushes to rise when he can no longer hold his immoderate draughts, he pants more violently, he groans, he sweats, betraying by signs what he is ashamed to confess. There each one recounts his own battles; there they proclaim their brave deeds, they tell of their trophies, soaked in wine and unstrung by sleep — they know not in their mind what their tongue utters.

Each one snores and drinks, sleeps and fights, and if at any time they have struggled up, those warrior-men cannot stand, they totter as they go out. The little slaves laugh at the disgraces of their masters; with their own hands they carry the warrior-soldier and set him upon a horse. And so this way and that they float like ships without a helmsman, and like men struck by a wound they sink down to the ground, unless they are caught by the little slaves. Others are carried back upon shields; a procession of mockery is made. Those whom in the morning you had gazed at, conspicuous in their arms, menacing of countenance — the same in the evening you may behold mocked even by little boys with impunity, wounded without a sword, slain without a battle, routed without an enemy, trembling without old age, withering in the very flower of their youth.

Who has mixed such a cup of frenzy? Who has poured so much poison into their minds? Man is in peril of being mere clay from his body, and is himself guilty before himself of voluntary madness, of self-chosen corruption. Yet you too are not excused, who invite men as friends and send them away as enemies. How much better had you poured your wines upon the ground! But even the earth grows drunk, and renders even the very wild beasts wilder, if the smell of wine has reached them. In short, at the time of vintage, if they have entered a vineyard, they are wont to be kindled with drunkenness. Why do these losses without grace delight you? You ask men to merriment, you force them to death; you invite to dinner, you mean to carry out to the grave; you promise foods, you inflict torments; you offer wines, you pour in poisons. For everything whatsoever that harms is poison.

It takes away the senses, burns up the vitals, disturbs sleep, racks the head. Indeed the force of wine is greater even than that of poison. In short, poison is driven out by wine, not wine by poison. Rightly did God through Moses compare wine not only to poison, but even to the poison of dragons, saying: 'Their wine is the fury of dragons, and the incurable wrath of asps.' And beautifully he added 'incurable'; for many are cured of the remaining poison of serpents, no one of drunkenness. Certainly by poison the flesh is wounded, the mind is unharmed: but drunkenness adds to the death of the body also the crime of the mind. Note, too, that the poison of faithlessness is declared by the name of wine. For he says above, concerning the aliens who knew not God: 'For their wine is of the vineyard of Sodom, and their vine of the vine of Gomorrah:

their grapes are grapes of gall, clusters of bitterness are in them.' Do you suppose that I, as though sodden with wine, have intemperately mingled this discourse with my preaching of fasting? And still, on account of these most mighty men, how much have I passed over, how much less have I said than the Lord has spoken! You have heard what he said through Moses; hear what is written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah. For the Lord inveighs against men of this sort, and says: 'Woe to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink, who are drunk in the evening; for the wine shall consume them. With the harp and the psaltery and timbrels they drink wine, but they do not regard the works of God, nor consider the works of his hands.' 'For whom is woe?' he says, 'for whom are judgments, for whom uproars?' Diverse things for individuals, all things for the drunken.

For woe to those who are drunk in the evening! What then for those who are sodden both before evening and frequently into the daylight? They therefore have a woe owed to themselves. They engage in contentions, they join in quarrels, they leap forth to bloodshed, they come to lawsuits or are summoned to them. They have therefore lawsuits too, as guilty men. Sometimes a graver uproar arises, because by wine the mind of the drunkard is perverted: and he remembers neither king nor magistrate, as it is written, and makes everything be said by talents. And they do not remember, when they have drunk, friendship nor brotherly bond. But after the uproar they take up swords, and when they have been sunk in wine and have risen up again, they themselves do not remember the things they have done. They have therefore also a fitting wage for their uproar.

I had indeed passed over the harp, the psalteries, the timbrels, which we know are frequently brought into banquets of this sort, that by wine and song lusts may be excited. Many, too, after the Persian fashion, bid women worthy of the company of drunkards be brought in, and from these they receive their bowls and lie down at their feet as they sit. And this rite they hold as part of a hallowed observance — the service of drunkenness. Therefore the barbarians too have wine: the Romans gladly indulge them in this, so that they themselves may be dissolved in drink and, enervated by drunkenness, be conquered. Nor does wine alone cause drunkenness, but strong drink also. In short, the Hebrews call every drink that intoxicates by the name of sicera.

Not undeservedly, therefore, woe to those who in the morning seek the draught of drunkenness, who ought to render praises to God, to anticipate the dawn and to meet with prayer the Sun of righteousness, who visits his own and rises for us, if we rise to Christ, not to wine and strong drink. Hymns are sung by the pious — and do you hold a harp? Psalms are chanted — and do you take up the psaltery or the timbrel? Deservedly woe, because you forsake salvation, you choose death. Scarcely is it dawn, and already there is running about through the taverns. Wine is sought, the rugs are shaken out. They hasten to spread the couch, they set out the silver flagons, the gilded cups. 'Woe,' he says, 'to those who seek these things!' 'A golden cup is Babylon in the hand of the Lord, making all the earth drunk. Of her wine all the nations have drunk, therefore they are shaken.'

And suddenly Babylon has fallen and is crushed. The golden cup therefore has been crushed, because Babylon, which is the golden cup, has been crushed. But although she boasts in her gold and her costliness, she too is within the power of the Lord. In short, by the divine indignation she is crushed. By what reasoning is she a golden cup? Because he who is deserted by truth seeks an allurement, so that at least a costly appearance may be able to entice some to drink. Set before your eyes the pomp of this world: you see a beautiful allurement, but an empty grace. Let not the golden and silver vessels lead you astray; we too have a treasure in earthen vessels. The apostolic vessel is of clay, but in it is the treasure of Christ. Woe to those who pursue strong drink in the morning! This is a golden vessel, it is a cup:

In that cup is the poison of death, the poison of lust, the poison of drunkenness. Whoever drinks of it is shaken and falls. He is shaken not only in body but also in a troubled heart; for to be shaken belongs to sin. Thus Cain, going out from the presence of God, dwelt in the land of Nod, which by interpretation signifies 'a shaking.' Therefore he who is made drunk by the golden cup is moved by sin. Why do you set yourself under the curse of that fratricide Cain, so that you tremble and are shaken? But the persecutors of the Lord too, as they passed by, wagged their heads; for an evil spirit drove them on, the spirit that is wont to set in motion the bodies it has filled. And when the trembling caused by that spirit is gone, it ceases; but drunkenness gives a perpetual trembling. The bodies of the inebriated sweat out wine:

If you but lightly touch them, you press out wine. Drunkenness is the kindling of lust, drunkenness the goad of madness, drunkenness the poison of folly. It changes the senses and the very forms of men. Through it men become neighing horses, since, inflamed both by the natural heat of a warm body and, beyond nature, by the heat of wine, they cannot restrain themselves and are roused to bestial lusts, so that they observe no appointed time at which it is fitting to indulge in intercourse. They lose their voice, they change their color, their eyes blaze, they pant with open mouth. They snort through their nostrils, they burn into frenzy, they lose their reason.

Hence comes dangerous frenzy, hence the grievous torment of the stone, hence deadly indigestion, hence frequent vomiting of those who pour forth their half-digested feasting together with the blood of their inward organs. I lie, unless the Lord himself spoke these same things through Jeremiah, saying: 'Drink and be drunken and vomit; and you shall fall and not rise again.' Hence too come empty phantoms, uncertain sights, an unsteady gait. Often they leap over shadows as though they were pits. To them the earth wavers, it seems suddenly to rise up and to tilt, as if it were spinning. In their fear they fall on their face and grasp the ground with their hands, or they imagine themselves shut in by mountains rushing together. There is a murmur in their ears like the roar of a heaving sea and shores resounding with the wave. If they catch sight of dogs, they take them for lions and flee.

Some dissolve into wild laughter, some lament with inconsolable grief, some perceive irrational terrors. Awake, they dream; asleep, they quarrel. Life to them is a dream, and their sleep is heavy. By no voices can they be roused: however hard you think they must be prodded by a blow, unless they come to their senses they cannot stay awake. Whence Jeremiah rightly thinks that such a man is to be bewailed as a superfluous creature. For what is a drunken man but a superfluous creature? And so he speaks thus: 'As with the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, O vine, for the city of Jazer is laid waste,' and further on: 'There was wine in your winepresses: in the morning they did not tread it, and at midday they did not produce it.'

Jazer in Greek means 'superfluous making'—for moderation belongs to nature, while whatever is beyond measure is reckoned superfluous—and such is drunkenness, which is bewailed with prophetic weeping. Whence the Apostle says: 'Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.' There is therefore a drunkenness of fault, and there is one of grace. And perhaps the one belongs to nature, the other to grace; for since we have been made to the image and likeness of God, we ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But what shall I say of the toasts of drinkers? What shall I recall of those pledges which they think it impious to break? 'Let us drink,' they say. 'I wish health to the emperors, so that whoever does not drink may become guilty of disloyalty;

for he who would not drink to the emperor's health seems not to love him.' O service of pious devotion! 'Let us drink for the health of the army, for the valor of the officers, for the welfare of our children.' And they judge that these vows reach God—just like those who carry cups to the tombs of the martyrs and drink there until evening, and do not believe they can otherwise be heard. O folly of men, who suppose drunkenness to be a sacrifice, who imagine that drunkenness pleases those who learned to endure suffering by fasting! How many do we know who came to torture from an intemperate banquet! For while in their drunkenness they contend about empire and promise themselves kingdoms, and pledge honors to others, those wretches were led to punishment, not knowing what they were saying.

Hence many good judges have thought that what was said in drunkenness ought not to be held against a man as a crime. Many too use wine as a rack, and those from whom tortures cannot draw a word of betrayal they tempt by making them drink, so that they may betray the condition of the fatherland, the safety of the citizens, the plans of their own defense; for valor for the most part overcomes pain, but drink shuts out fidelity. I have known many who, though mangled by the cords, denied their own name: who among the cups concealed what he longed to keep hidden? Why should I unfold a kind not of cup but of flood that I have heard of, by which wine is poured into men's mouths as though through pipes or channels? Should I reckon these men, or rather wineskins? Yet even the wineskins themselves, unless the pouring be moderate, often burst.

Wine flows down even through a horn, running into men's throats, and if anyone draws breath, the outrage is held a crime committed, the line broken: he is reckoned to have given ground. Water flowing down from Lebanon dissolves the rocky crags; how do they suppose that the onrush of these floods does in no way harm the soft inward parts of the wine-soaked? They say too that elephants draw up a great deal of water with their trunk, yet content themselves with a moderate draught to quench their thirst; but if perchance they have been cheated of their price by some tavern-keeper, in indignation they fill the hollow of their trunk, not to drink it down but to pour it out, and in sudden floods to drench the shop of him by whom they thought to be avenged. Lakes are suddenly drained for the drink and at once poured forth; everything floats:

Is it not a marvel that such monstrous bodies of beasts retain nothing superfluous? But why should we speak of men, when even women—who ought to keep a yet more anxious guard of sobriety over their chastity—drink even to drunkenness? Then, rising up, women who ought not even to be heard or seen by strangers within the secret places of the home, go out into public with head unveiled and with shameless face! The Apostle bids women keep silence even in the church, and commands them to ask their own husbands at home.

They lead shameless dances in the open squares, even before men, in the sight of intemperate youths, tossing their hair, dragging their tunics, with garments torn, with bared arms, clapping their hands, dancing with their feet, ringing out with their voices, provoking in themselves the lusts of young men by their stage-player's gestures, with wanton eye and disgraceful mockery. A ring of youths looks on, and a pitiable theater is made. Amid the writhings of the dancers and the lapses of the onlookers, heaven is defiled by an impure gaze, the earth is polluted by a base dance, beaten by their most obscene capering. How shall I speak with patience, pass over in reverence, or fittingly bewail it? Wine has brought upon us the ruin of so many souls.

For indeed, if wine and women make men depart from God—since either drunkenness or lust are enticements to transgression—if singly and separately they do this, what would they do united? Whence not without reason a certain wise man before us said: 'A drunken woman is great wrath.' But what wonder if the souls of women are deceived by wine, when all those tribes of the fathers, though they drank water from the rock, ate manna, conquered the mightiest nations, and there was none feeble among them—yet when they began to crave flesh and were turned back in their desires toward Egypt, out of so many thousands of men scarcely two were counted worthy to come into the land of promise? And so what good sobriety is, and what evil intemperance, may be gathered from this:

When they murmured, seeking the dainties of Egypt, they were dying from serpents; when they were passing through the path of the Red Sea, they were drinking water. Do we then not stand in awe of the example? Do we not flee dainties, lest they defraud us of attaining the goods to come? And why should I use the opinions of others? Let us hear what they themselves, the well-fed and luxurious, hope for. For the prophet Isaiah brings them in, saying: 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die,' and deservedly he cries out: 'Howl, you ships of Carthage, for they have perished and shall be no more.' This was spoken concerning the vision of Tyre, which we have known to be a luxurious city.

Therefore it is the ninth vision, not the seventh or eighth, because Tyre keeps neither the law nor the grace of the Gospel; for under the lawful Sabbath it was forbidden to kindle the fires of lust, and in the sequence of the Gospel the eighth day of resurrection shines forth. Yet the same day is both first and eighth, because the Lord's day recurs upon itself. Luxury therefore has neither faith nor observance of discipline; luxury is the seed-plot and origin of vices. And do not think I have spoken against the Apostle, because he says that avarice is the root of all vices, since luxury is itself the mother of avarice. For when a man has exhausted his own resources by living luxuriously, he afterward seeks the gains of greed. You have heard what was read today.

'The merchants of the Phoenicians,' he says, 'crossing the sea; in much water the seed of the merchants is like a harvest that is gathered.' These cities are neighbors—Tyre of Phoenicia, Sidon—neighbors in place and so also in vices, merchants seeking petty gains from their trafficking by the perilous crossing of the sea. Anxious is the life of these men, restless their dealings, and forever in a kind of whirlwind, more mobile than the very winds by which they are rolled and often tossed this way and that. To be sure, you complain of frequent shipwrecks: who compels you to sail? As if it were not through greed of wealth that you make even the lands unsafe and rouse so many to brigandage! God did not make the sea for sailing, but for the beauty of the element.

He poured out the broad waters of the deep, surely, that he might enclose the lands with the strait, lest you should wander too far afield, a vagrant and an exile. But the sea is tossed by tempest: you ought therefore to fear it, not to usurp it. The innocent element has committed no fault; human rashness is itself its own peril. In short, he who does not sail does not know how to fear shipwreck. The Lord said: 'Have dominion over the fishes of the sea'; he did not say: 'Sail out upon the waves.' Indeed even the prophet Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to preach repentance, because he wished to sail in order to flee from the face of God, was troubled by a tempest, chosen by lot, cast into the sea, and received by the whale. The prophet David too says, while recalling God's grace toward man:

'You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, moreover the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven and the fishes of the sea, which traverse the paths of the sea.' To the fishes, not to men, he gave to traverse the path of the sea. For food the sea was given to you, not for peril; use it for nourishment, not for trade. Why do you breed peril for yourself out of pleasure? Why do you probe the depths of an element set apart? Why do you disturb the higher secrets of the world? Why, finally, do you, an impatient sailor, strive again and again to furrow and plow the waves? Why do you repeatedly tempt the harmless seas, provoking the storms? O insatiable greed of merchants! Both the sea yields to you, and the deep cannot endure your restlessness.

In short, the sea, plowed so often by the merchants coming and going, said: 'Be ashamed, O Sidon.' This is, as it were, the voice of the wearied element, saying: 'Be ashamed, O Sidon'—that is, 'You, a trafficker, accuse my waves, when you are yourself more restless than the waves. Be ashamed at least for shame's sake, since you are not moved by danger. The winds are more modest than your cupidities. They have their seasons of rest; never do your zeal for gain take holiday. And when the tempest is at leisure, never are your ships at leisure. The wave hunts beneath the oarsman, when it is quiet from the blast. I have not travailed,' it says, 'nor borne nor reared up young men. Why do they who I know not, whom I do not recognize, disquiet me?' Go to Carthage, howl, you who inhabit the isles! Above he said:

'Howl, you ships of Carthage!' For the Tyrians founded Carthage, and therefore the Carthaginians follow the luxury of their founders, with the discolored succession of wickedness passed down into them, worse heirs of the worst vices. And well did he call the luxurious 'ships.' As those are tossed by the wind, so these by food and wine. They inhabit the isles with bodies filled with drink, they resound round about with shipwrecks, they are battered by the waves of drunkenness, and rest neither by day nor by night. The seed therefore of these merchants is in the water; in the water is the fruit of the harvest. For in the water they sow their labors, that they may reap perils; in the water their crop sprouts for them, in the water the harvest abounds, the fruit itself is in the water, never safe and solid. Whence rightly he says:

'He who sowed on land did not enter into trafficking—nay rather, he who sowed in heaven. But there is also a good land, in which whoever shall have sown, heavenly fruits will spring up for him.' 'Howl,' he says—again he says—'you ships of Carthage, because your fortress has perished. And it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre shall be left,' and further on: 'And after seventy years Tyre shall be as the song of a harlot.' See with what words the prophet makes use, and does not shrink from the baseness of such words. We at times shrink from them, not because our tongue is more chaste than theirs, but because our authority is less. For there is greater force of things in the expression of such words, that those who do not blush at their faults may blush at least at the names of their faults. 'Tyre shall be,' he says, 'as the song of a harlot.'

See, lest when anyone sees those dances led and shameful words sung, he say: 'Behold, Tyre has become as the song of a harlot. The oracle of the prophetic announcement is fulfilled.' And he added: 'Take a harp, go about, O city, a harlot forgotten; play well upon the harp, sing much, that there may be remembrance of you. And after seventy years it shall come to pass that Tyre shall be as the song of a harlot, and God shall visit Tyre.' Whence we can take also in a good sense the song of that harlot Rahab, who received the spies of Joshua with a faithful mind. For the Lord too says: 'We have sung to you, and you did not dance,' and David says:

'Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth'—this is the song of the harlot, which she, formerly a harlot in Adam and Eve, as 'earth' sang, a harlot among the people of the nations. This harlot made many harlots good, of whom it was said by the Lord Jesus to that chosen and elder people of God: 'The publicans and harlots go before you into the kingdom of God.' Therefore, since we have so merciful a Lord, who pardons even grievous error, let us turn from our vices, let us not depart from the law, let us carry out the Lord's command like diligent servants with eager zeal. What have we to do with impurities and shamelessnesses, what with the works of the devil? You have heard today, as the lesson was read through, what the legion said: 'What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of God?'