על השיכרות כ״זOn Drunkenness 27
א׳
1[104] When the subject of that experience says that he feels that in the camp of the body all the sounds are sounds of war, and that the quietness which is so dear to peace has been driven far away, the holy word does not dissent. For it does not say that the sound is not the sound of war but that it is not such a sound as some think it to be, such as would be made by the victorious or the defeated, but such as would proceed from those who are overpressed and weighed down by wine.
ב׳
2[105] For in the phrase “it is not the sound of those who raise the song through might” the last words mean “those who have been victorious in war.” For might is what causes victory.
ג׳
3Thus wise Abraham, when he had routed the nine kings, the four passions that is and the five sense-faculties, which were rising in unnatural rebellion, is represented as raising the hymn of thanksgiving in these words, “I will stretch forth my hand to the most high God who made heaven and earth, if I will take from a rope to a shoe’s latchet of all that is thine” (Gen. 14:22, 23).
ד׳
4[106] He points in these last words, I think, to the whole of creation, heaven, earth, water, the air we breathe, to animals and plants alike. To each of them he who has braced the activities of his own soul to stretch Godwards, and who hopes for help from Him alone, would rightly say, “I will take nothing from aught of thy creatures, not the light of day from the sun, nor the light of night from the moon and the other stars, nor rain from the air or the clouds, nor drink and food from water and earth, nor sight from the eyes, nor hearing from the ears, nor smell from the nostrils, nor taste from the juices of the palate, nor speech from the tongue, nor giving and receiving from the hands, nor moving forwards and backwards from the feet, nor respiration from the lungs, nor digestion from the liver, nor from the other inward parts the functions proper to each, nor their yearly fruits from the trees and seedlings, but I will take them all from the only wise Being who has extended His beneficent power every whither, and through them renders me help.”
