'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.