על השיכרות ח׳On Drunkenness 8
א׳
1[27] The fourth and greatest charge was that of drunkenness—and drunkenness not of the milder but of the most intense sort. For the phrase here used, “fired with wine,” is as much as to say that the poison which causes folly, indiscipline, smoulders within the man, then bursts into fire and flame impossible to quench, and consumes the soul through its whole being with the conflagration.
ב׳
2[28] Naturally, therefore, will punishment follow, purging every base tendency out of the mind. For it says, “thou shalt remove the evil one,” not out of a city or a country or a nation but “out of yourselves” (Deut. 21:21). For it is in ourselves that the vicious and culpable thoughts exist and have their lair, thoughts which we must cut away and destroy when their state is incurable.
ג׳
3[29] We see then this man as disobedient, as strife-loving, as providing in the form of persuasive arguments “contributions” and “club-money” for the subversion of morality, and finally inflamed with strong drink and making drunken assaults on virtue and directing his monstrous orgies against her. Surely it were just that such a one as he should find his accusers in those in whom others find their allies, namely in his father and mother, and be visited with complete destruction, to admonish and bring to their senses those who can be saved.
ד׳
4[30] Now “father and mother” is a phrase which can bear different meanings. For instance we should rightly say and without further question that the Architect who made this universe was at the same time the father of what was thus born, whilst its mother was the knowledge possessed by its Maker. With His knowledge God had union, not as men have it, and begat created being. And knowledge, having received the divine seed, when her travail was consummated bore the only beloved son who is apprehended by the senses, the world which we see.
ה׳
5[31] Thus in the pages of one of the inspired company, wisdom is represented as speaking of herself after this manner: “God obtained me first of all his works and founded me before the ages” (Prov. 8:22). True, for it was necessary that all that came to the birth of creation should be younger than the mother and nurse of the All.
