על השיכרות כ״דOn Drunkenness 24
א׳
1[95] It is with good reason, then, that the dis-obedient and contentious man who “brings contributions,” that is contributes and adds sins to sins, great to small, new to old, voluntary to involuntary, and as though inflamed by wine drowns the whole of life in ceaseless and unending drunkenness, sodden with drinking deep of the unmixed cup of folly, is judged by the holy word to be worthy of stoning. Yes, for he has made away with the commands of right reason, his father and the observances enjoined by instruction, his mother, and though he had before him the example of true nobility in his brothers whom the parents honoured, he did not imitate their virtue, but contrariwise determined to be the aggressor in wickedness. And thus he made a god of the body, a god of the vanity most honoured among the Egyptians, whose symbol is the image of the golden bull. Round it the frenzied worshippers make their dances and raise and join in the song, but that song was not the sweet wine-song of merry revellers as in a feast or banquet, but a veritable dirge, their own funeral chant, a chant as of men maddened by wine, who have loosened and destroyed the tone and vigour which nerved their souls.
ב׳
2[96] For we are told that “when Joshua heard the voice of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses: ‘There is a voice of war in the camp, and he said ‘It is not the voice of men raising the shout through might, nor of those who raise it for being overcome, but it is the voice of men who raise the shout over the wine that I hear.’ And when he drew nigh to the camp, he saw the calf and the dances” (Exod. 32:17–19). Let us shew as well as we can what he shadows forth under this figure.
