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| Chapter II.—On Drinking.
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Chapter II.—On Drinking.
“Use a little wine,” says the apostle to
Timothy, who drank water, “for thy stomach’s sake;”1356
most
properly applying its aid as a strengthening tonic suitable to a sickly
body enfeebled with watery humours; and specifying “a little,”
lest the remedy should, on account of its quantity, unobserved, create
the necessity of other treatment.
The natural, temperate, and necessary beverage,
therefore, for the thirsty is water.1357
| 1357 [This remarkable chapter seems to begin with the
author’s recollections of Pindar (ἄριστον
μὲν ϋδωρ),
but to lay down very justly the Scriptural ideas of temperance and
abstinence.] | This was the simple drink of sobriety, which,
flowing from the smitten rock, was supplied by the Lord to the ancient
Hebrews.1358
It was most requisite that in their wanderings they
should be temperate.1359
| 1359 [Clement
reckons only two classes as living faithfully with respect to drink,
the abstinent and the totally abstinent.] |
Afterwards the sacred vine produced the prophetic
cluster. This was a sign to them, when trained from wandering to their
rest; representing the great cluster the Word, bruised for us. For the
blood of the grape—that is, the Word—desired to be mixed
with water, as His blood is mingled with salvation.
And the blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is
the blood of His flesh, by which we are redeemed from corruption; and
the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of
Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit
being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh.1360
| 1360 [This seems Clement’s
exposition of St. John (vi. 63), and a clear statement as to the
Eucharist, which he pronounces spiritual food.] |
Accordingly, as wine is blended with water,1361
| 1361 [A plain reference to the use of
the mixed cup in the Lord’s supper.] | so is the Spirit
with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith;
while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality.
And the mixture of both—of the water and
of the Word—is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace;
and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and
soul. For the divine mixture, man, the Father’s will
has mystically compounded by the
Spirit and the Word. For, in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul,
which is inspired by it; and the flesh, by reason of which the Word
became flesh, to the Word.
I therefore admire those who have adopted an
austere life, and who are fond of water, the medicine of temperance,
and flee as far as possible from wine, shunning it as they would the
danger of fire.1362
| 1362 [If the
temperate do well, he thinks, the abstinent do beter; but
nobody is temperate who does not often and habitually abstain.] |
It is proper, therefore, that boys and girls should keep as much as
possible away from this medicine. For it is not right to pour into the
burning season of life the hottest of all liquids—wine—adding,
as it were, fire to fire.1363
| 1363
[A very important principle; for, if wine be “the milk of
age,” the use of it in youth deprives age of any benefit from
its sober use]. | For hence wild impulses and burning lusts
and fiery habits are kindled; and young men inflamed from within become
prone to the indulgence of vicious propensities; so that signs of injury
appear in their body, the members of lust coming to maturity sooner than
they ought. The breasts and organs of generation, inflamed with wine,
expand and swell in a shameful way, already exhibiting beforehand the
image of fornication; and the body compels the wound of the soul to
inflame, and shameless pulsations follow abundance, inciting the man
of correct behaviour to transgression; and hence the voluptuousness of
youth overpasses the bounds of modesty. And we must, as far as possible,
try to quench the impulses of youth by removing the Bacchic fuel of the
threatened danger; and by pouring the antidote to the inflammation,
so keep down the burning soul, and keep in the swelling members, and
allay the agitation of lust when it is already in commotion. And in the
case of grown-up people, let those with whom it agrees sometimes partake
of dinner, tasting bread only, and let them abstain wholly from drink;
in order that their superfluous moisture may be absorbed and drunk up by
the eating of dry food. For constant spitting and wiping off perspiration,
and hastening to evacuations, is the sign of excess, from the immoderate
use of liquids supplied in excessive quantity to the body. And if thirst
come on, let the appetite be satisfied with a little water. For it is
not proper that water should be supplied in too great profusion; in order
that the food may not be drowned, but ground down in order to digestion;
and this takes place when the victuals are collected into a mass, and
only a small portion is evacuated.
And, besides, it suits divine studies not to be
heavy with wine. “For unmixed wine is far from compelling a man
to be wise, much less temperate,” according to the comic poet.
But towards evening, about supper-time, wine may be used, when we are
no longer engaged in more serious readings. Then also the air becomes
colder than it is during the day; so that the failing natural warmth
requires to be nourished by the introduction of heat. But even then it
must only be a little wine that is to be used; for we must not go on
to intemperate potations. Those who are already advanced in life may
partake more cheerfully of the draught, to warm by the harmless medicine
of the vine the chill of age, which the decay of time has produced. For
old men’s passions are not, for the most part, stirred to such
agitation as to drive them to the shipwreck of drunkenness. For being
moored by reason and time, as by anchors, they stand with greater ease
the storm of passions which rushes down from intemperance. They also may
be permitted to indulge in pleasantry at feasts. But to them also let the
limit of their potations be the point up to which they keep their reason
unwavering, their memory active, and their body unmoved and unshaken by
wine. People in such a state are called by those who are skilful in these
matters, acrothorakes.1364
| 1364
The exact derivation of acrothorakes is matter of doubt. But we
have the authority of Aristotle and Erotian for believing that is was
applied to those who were slightly drunk. Some regard the clause here as
an interpolation. | It is well, therefore, to leave off betimes,
for fear of tripping.
One Artorius, in his book On Long Life (for
so I remember), thinks that drink should be taken only till the food
be moistened, that we may attain to a longer life. It is fitting, then,
that some apply wine by way of physic, for the sake of health alone, and
others for purposes of relaxation and enjoyment. For first wine makes
the man who has drunk it more benignant than before, more agreeable
to his boon companions, kinder to his domestics, and more pleasant to
his friends. But when intoxicated, he becomes violent instead. For wine
being warm, and having sweet juices when duly mixed, dissolves the foul
excrementitious matters by its warmth, and mixes the acrid and base
humours with the agreeable scents.
It has therefore been well said, “A joy of
the soul and heart was wine created from the beginning, when drunk in
moderate sufficiency.”1365
And it is best to mix the wine with as
much water as possible, and not to have recourse to it as to water,
and so get enervated to drunkenness, and not pour it in as water from
love of wine. For both are works of God; and so the mixture of both,
of water and of wine, conduces together to health, because life consists
of what is necessary and of what is useful. With water, then, which is
the necessary of life, and to be used in abundance, there is also to be
mixed the useful.
By an immoderate quantity of wine the tongue
is impeded; the lips are
relaxed; the eyes roll wildly, the sight, as it were, swimming
through the quantity of moisture; and compelled to deceive, they
think that everything is revolving round them, and cannot count
distant objects as single. “And, in truth, methinks I see two
suns,”1366
| 1366 Pentheus
in Euripides, Bacch., 918. | said the Theban old man
in his cups. For the sight, being disturbed by the heat of the wine,
frequently fancies the substance of one object to be manifold. And there
is no difference between moving the eye or the object seen. For both
have the same effect on the sight, which, on account of the fluctuation,
cannot accurately obtain a perception of the object. And the feet are
carried from beneath the man as by a flood, and hiccuping and vomiting
and maudlin nonsense follow; “for every intoxicated man,”
according to the tragedy,1367
| 1367
Attributed to Sophocles. | —
“Is conquered by anger, and empty of sense,
And likes to pour forth much silly speech;
And is wont to hear unwillingly,
What evil words he with his will hath said.”
And before tragedy, Wisdom
cried, “Much wine drunk abounds in irritation and all manner
of mistakes.”1368
Wherefore most people say that you ought
to relax over your cups, and postpone serious business till morning. I
however think that then especially ought reason to be introduced to mix in
the feast, to act the part of director (pædagogue) to wine-drinking,
lest conviviality imperceptibly degenerate to drunkenness. For as no
sensible man ever thinks it requisite to shut his eyes before going to
sleep, so neither can any one rightly wish reason to be absent from the
festive board, or can well study to lull it asleep till business is
begun. But the Word can never quit those who belong to Him, not even
if we are asleep; for He ought to be invited even to our sleep.1369
For perfect wisdom, which is knowledge
of things divine and human, which comprehends all that relates to the
oversight of the flock of men, becomes, in reference to life, art; and
so, while we live, is constantly, with us, always accomplishing its own
proper work, the product of which is a good life.
But the miserable wretches who expel temperance from
conviviality, think excess in drinking to be the happiest life; and their
life is nothing but revel, debauchery, baths, excess, urinals, idleness,
drink. You may see some of them, half-drunk, staggering, with crowns round
their necks like wine jars, vomiting drink on one another in the name of
good fellowship; and others, full of the effects of their debauch, dirty,
pale in the face, livid, and still above yesterday’s bout pouring
another bout to last till next morning. It is well, my friends, it is
well to make our acquaintance with this picture at the greatest possible
distance from it, and to frame ourselves to what is better, dreading
lest we also become a like spectacle and laughing-stock to others.
It has been appropriately said, “As the
furnace proverb the steel blade in the process of dipping, so wine
proveth the heart of the haughty.”1370
A debauch is
the immoderate use of wine, intoxication the disorder that
results from such use; crapulousness (κραιπάλη)
is the discomfort and nausea that follow a debauch;
so called from the head shaking (κάρα
πάλλειν).
Such a life as this (if life it must be called,
which is spent in idleness, in agitation about voluptuous indulgences,
and in the hallucinations of debauchery) the divine Wisdom looks on
with contempt, and commands her children, “Be not a wine-bibber,
nor spend your money in the purchase of flesh; for every drunkard
and fornicator shall come to beggary, and every sluggard shall
be clothed in tatters and rags.”1371
For every one that is
not awake to wisdom, but is steeped in wine, is a sluggard. “And
the drunkard,” he says, “shall be clothed in rags, and be
ashamed of his drunkenness in the presence of onlookers.”1372
For the wounds of the sinner are the rents of the garment of the flesh,
the holes made by lusts, through which the shame of the soul within is
seen—namely sin, by reason of which it will not be easy to save
the garment, that has been torn away all round, that has rotted away in
many lusts, and has been rent asunder from salvation.
So he adds these most monitory words. “Who
has woes, who has clamour, who has contentions, who has disgusting
babblings, who has unavailing remorse?”1373
You see, in all his
raggedness, the lover of wine, who despises the Word Himself, and has
abandoned and given himself to drunkenness. You see what threatening
Scripture has pronounced against him. And to its threatening it adds
again: “Whose are red eyes? Those, is it not, who tarry long
at their wine, and hunt out the places where drinking goes on?”
Here he shows the lover of drink to be already dead to the Word, by the
mention of the bloodshot eyes,—a mark which appears on corpses,
announcing to him death in the Lord. For forgetfulness of the things
which tend to true life turns the scale towards destruction. With reason
therefore, the Instructor, in His solicitude for our salvation, forbids
us, “Drink not wine to drunkenness.” Wherefore? you will
ask. Because, says He, “thy mouth will then speak perverse things,
and thou liest down as in the heart of the
sea, and as the steersman of a ship in
the midst of huge billows.” Hence, too, poetry comes to our help,
and says:—
“Let wine which has strength equal to fire come to men.
Then will it agitate them, as the north or south wind agitates the Libyan waves.”
And further:—
“Wine wandering in speech shows all secrets.
Soul-deceiving wine is the ruin of those who drink it.”
And so on.
You see the danger of shipwreck. The heart is drowned
in much drink. The excess of drunkenness is compared to the danger of
the sea, in which when the body has once been sunken like a ship, it
descends to the depths of turpitude, overwhelmed in the mighty billows
of wine; and the helmsman, the human mind, is tossed about on the surge
of drunkenness, which swells aloft; and buried in the trough of the sea,
is blinded by the darkness of the tempest, having drifted away from the
haven of truth, till, dashing on the rocks beneath the sea, it perishes,
driven by itself into voluptuous indulgences.
With reason, therefore, the apostle
enjoins, “Be not drunk with wine, in which there is much
excess;” by the term excess (ἀσωτία)
intimating the inconsistence of drunkenness with salvation (τὸ
ἄσωστον). For if He made
water wine at the marriage, He did not give permission to get drunk. He
gave life to the watery element of the meaning of the law, filling with
His blood the doer of it who is of Adam, that is, the whole world;
supplying piety with drink from the vine of truth, the mixture of
the old law and of the new word, in order to the fulfilment of the
predestined time. The Scripture, accordingly, has named wine the symbol
of the sacred blood;1374
| 1374 [A
passage not to be overlooked. Greek, μυστικὸν
σύμβολον.] |
but reproving the base tippling with the dregs of wine, it says:
“Intemperate is wine, and insolent is drunkenness.”1375
It is
agreeable, therefore, to right reason, to drink on account of the cold
of winter, till the numbness is dispelled from those who are subject to
feel it; and on other occasions as a medicine for the intestines. For,
as we are to use food to satisfy hunger, so also are we to use drink to
satisfy thirst, taking the most careful precautions against a slip:
“for the introduction of wine is perilous.” And thus
shall our soul be pure, and dry, and luminous; and the soul itself is
wisest and best when dry. And thus, too, is it fit for contemplation,
and is not humid with the exhalations, that rise from wine, forming a
mass like a cloud. We must not therefore trouble ourselves to procure
Chian wine if it is absent, or Ariousian when it is not at hand. For
thirst is a sensation of want, and craves means suitable for supplying
the want, and not sumptuous liquor. Importations of wines from beyond
seas are for an appetite enfeebled by excess, where the soul even before
drunkenness is insane in its desires. For there are the fragrant Thasian
wine, and the pleasant-breathing Lesbian, and a sweet Cretan wine,
and sweet Syracusan wine, and Mendusian, an Egyptian wine, and the
insular Naxian, the “highly perfumed and flavoured,”1376
| 1376 ἀνθοσμίας.
Some suppose the word to be derived from the name of a town: “The
Anthosmian.” | another wine of the land of Italy. These
are many names. For the temperate drinker, one wine suffices, the
product of the cultivation of the one God. For why should not the wine
of their own country satisfy men’s desires, unless they were
to import water also, like the foolish Persian kings? The Choaspes,
a river of India so called, was that from which the best water for
drinking—the Choaspian—was got. As wine, when taken, makes
people lovers of it, so does water too. The Holy Spirit, uttering
His voice by Amos, pronounces the rich to be wretched on account of
their luxury:1377
“Those that drink strained wine, and recline on
an ivory couch,” he says; and what else similar he adds by way
of reproach.
Especial regard is to be paid to decency1378
(as the myth represents Athene, whoever she was,
out of regard to it, giving up the pleasure of the flute because of the
unseemliness of the sight): so that we are to drink without contortions
of the face, not greedily grasping the cup, nor before drinking making
the eyes roll with unseemly motion; nor from intemperance are we to
drain the cup at a draught; nor besprinkle the chin, nor splash the
garments while gulping down all the liquor at once,—our face all
but filling the bowl, and drowned in it. For the gurgling occasioned by
the drink rushing with violence, and by its being drawn in with a great
deal of breath, as if it were being poured into an earthenware vessel,
while the throat makes a noise through the rapidity of ingurgitation,
is a shameful and unseemly spectacle of intemperance. In addition to
this, eagerness in drinking is a practice injurious to the partaker. Do
not haste to mischief, my friend. Your drink is not being taken from
you. It is given you, and waits you. Be not eager to burst, by draining
it down with gaping throat. Your thirst is satiated, even if you drink
slower, observing decorum, by taking the beverage in small portions,
in an orderly way. For that which intemperance greedily seizes, is not
taken away by taking time.
“Be not mighty,” he says, “at
wine; for wine has overcome many.”1379
The Scythians, the Celts,
the Iberians, and the Thracians, all of them warlike
races, are greatly addicted to
intoxication, and think that it is an honourable, happy pursuit to
engage in. But we, the people of peace, feasting for lawful enjoyment,
not to wantonness, drink sober cups of friendship, that our friendships
may be shown in a way truly appropriate to the name.
In what manner do you think the Lord drank when He
became man for our sakes? As shamelessly as we? Was it not with decorum
and propriety? Was it not deliberately? For rest assured, He Himself
also partook of wine; for He, too, was man. And He blessed the wine,
saying, “Take, drink: this is my blood”—the blood of
the vine.1380
| 1380 [The blood of
the vine is Christ’s blood. According to Clement, then, it remains
in the Eucharist unchanged.] | He figuratively calls the Word
“shed for many, for the remission of sins”—the holy
stream of gladness. And that he who drinks ought to observe moderation,
He clearly showed by what He taught at feasts. For He did not teach
affected by wine. And that it was wine which was the thing blessed, He
showed again, when He said to His disciples, “I will not drink
of the fruit of this vine, till I drink it with you in the kingdom
of my Father.”1381
But that it was wine which was drunk by the Lord,
He tells us again, when He spake concerning Himself, reproaching the
Jews for their hardness of heart: “For the Son of man,” He
says, “came, and they say, Behold a glutton and a wine-bibber, a
friend of publicans.”1382
Let this be held fast by us against those that
are called Encratites.
But women, making a profession, forsooth, of aiming
at the graceful, that their lips may not be rent apart by stretching
them on broad drinking cups, and so widening the mouth, drinking in an
unseemly way out of alabastra quite too narrow: in the mouth, throw back
their heads and bare their necks indecently, as I think; and distending
the throat in swallowing, gulp down the liquor as if to make bare all
they can to their boon companions; and drawing hiccups like men, or
rather like slaves, revel in luxurious riot. For nothing disgraceful is
proper for man, who is endowed with reason; much less for woman to whom
it brings modesty even to reflect of what nature she is.
“An intoxicated woman is great wrath,” it
is said, as if a drunken woman were the wrath of God. Why? “Because
she will not conceal her shame.”1383
For a woman is quickly
drawn down to licentiousness, if she only set her choice on pleasures.
And we have not prohibited drinking from alabastra; but we forbid studying
to drink from them alone, as arrogant; counselling women to use with
indifference what comes in the way, and cutting up by the roots the
dangerous appetites that are in them. Let the rush of air, then, which
regurgitates so as to produce hiccup, be emitted silently.
But by no manner of means are women to be allotted to
uncover and exhibit any part of their person, lest both fall,—the
men by being excited to look, they by drawing on themselves the eyes of
the men.
But always must we conduct ourselves as in the
Lord’s presence, lest He say to us, as the apostle in indignation
said to the Corinthians, “When ye come together, this is not
to eat the Lord’s supper.”1384
| 1384 1 Cor. xi. 20. [Clement has already hinted his
opinion, that this referred to a shameful custom of the Corinthians
to let an agape precede the Eucharist; an abuse growing out
of our Lord’s eating of the Passover before he instituted the
Eucharist.] |
To me, the star called by the mathematicians
Acephalus (headless), which is numbered before the wandering star, his
head resting on his breast, seems to be a type of the gluttonous, the
voluptuous, and those that are prone to drunkenness. For in such1385
| 1385 τουτοις,
an emendation for τούτῳ. |
the faculty of reasoning is not situated in the head, but among
the intestinal appetites, enslaved to lust and anger. For just as
Elpenor broke his neck through intoxication,1386
so the brain, dizzied
by drunkenness, falls down from above, with a great fall to the liver
and the heart, that is, to voluptuousness and anger: as the sons of the
poets say Hephæstus was hurled by Zeus from heaven to earth.1387
“The trouble of sleeplessness, and bile, and cholic, are with
an insatiable man,” it is said.1388
Wherefore also Noah’s intoxication was
recorded in writing, that, with the clear and written description
of his transgression before us, we might guard with all our might
against drunkenness. For which cause they who covered the shame1389
of his drunkenness are blessed by the Lord. The Scripture accordingly,
giving a most comprehensive compend, has expressed all in one word:
“To an instructed man sufficiency is wine, and he will rest
in his bed.”1390
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