על השיכרות כ״אOn Drunkenness 21
א׳
1Aye indeed, I would say to such a one, “How could you fail to win affection, if in your desire for human fellowship you observe the customs that hold among created men, and in your zeal and passion for piety observe also the ordinances of the Uncreated?
ב׳
2[85] And therefore Moses, God’s interpreter, will use the sacred works that furnished the tabernacle to shew us the twofold perfection. For it is not without a well-thought purpose for us that he covers the ark both inside and outside with gold (Exod. 25:10) and gives two robes to the high-priest (Exod. 28:4), and builds two altars, one without for the sacrificial ritual, the other within for burning incense (Exod. 27:1, 30:1). No, he wished by these symbols to represent the virtues of either kind.
ג׳
3[86] For the wise man must be adorned with the prudence that is more precious than all gold, both in the inward invisible things of the soul and in the outward which are seen of all men. Again, when he has retired from the press of human pursuits and worships the Existent only, he must put on the unadorned robe of truth which nothing mortal shall touch. For the stuff of which it is made is linen, not the produce of animals whose nature is to perish. But when he passes to the citizen’s life, he must put off that inner robe and don another, whose manifold richness is a marvel to the eye. For life is many-sided, and needs that the master who is to control the helm should be wise with a wisdom of manifold variety.
ד׳
4[87] Again, that master as he stands at the outer, the open and visible altar, the altar of common life, will seem to pay much regard to skin and flesh and blood and all the bodily parts lest he should offend the thousands who, though they assign to the things of the body a value secondary to the things of the soul, yet do hold them to be good. But when he stands at the inner altar, he will deal only with what is bloodless, fleshless, bodiless and is born of reason, which things are likened to the incense and the burnt spices. For as the incense fills the nostrils, so do these pervade the whole region of the soul with fragrance.
