no fruit or benefit has emerged. With what hope shall we discourse today? O, how many nights you have kept watch in vain! How many days you have gathered in vain! If, indeed, it is in vain. For he who has made progress in good works, but then reverts to his old habit, not only loses the reward for his labors, A but is also deemed worthy of a heavier condemnation; because, having tasted of the good word of God and been deemed worthy of the knowledge of mysteries, he has betrayed everything, ensnared by a brief pleasure. For the least of all is worthy of pardon and mercy; but "the mighty," he says, "shall be mightily tormented." One evening and one assault of the enemy dissolved and destroyed all that labor. What, then, is my alacrity now for speaking? Wherefore I would even have kept silent—believe me—had I not feared the example of Jeremiah, who, not wishing to speak to a rebellious people, suffered those things which he himself recounts: that the word became as fire in his inmost parts, and he was dissolved on all sides, and could not bear it. B Lascivious women, forgetful of the fear of God, having despised the eternal fire, on that very day when, because of the remembrance of the resurrection, it was fitting for them to sit in their homes and occupy their minds with that day in which the heavens shall be opened, and the Judge shall appear to us from the heavens, and the trumpets of God, and the resurrection of the dead, and the just judgment, and the recompense to each according to his works; when they ought to have been meditating upon these things, cleansing their hearts from evil thoughts, blotting out their prior sins with tears, and preparing themselves for the meeting with Christ on that great day of His appearing, having cast off the yoke of the service of Christ, having cast from their heads the veils of modesty, having despised God, having despised His angels, having put to shame every masculine gaze, shaking their hair, dragging their garments, and at the same time sporting with their feet, with lascivious eye, with unbridled laughter, C excited as if by a certain frenzy to dance, calling down upon themselves the every wantonness of the young men, establishing choirs before the city’s shrines of the martyrs, they have made the holy places a workshop for their own indecency. They have defiled the air with their harlot-like songs, and they have defiled the ground with their feet, beaten by their unclean tread; setting themselves up as a spectacle for the crowd of young men on every side, utterly shameless and thoroughly foolish, omitting no measure of insanity. How shall I keep silent? How, as is proper, shall I lament? Wine has brought upon us the ruin of these souls. D
A Wine, which is God’s gift given to the sober for the relief of infirmity, has now become an instrument of wantonness for the intemperate.
2. Drunkenness, that voluntary demon, leaping upon souls for the sake of pleasure—this drunkenness, the mother of wickedness and the enemy of virtue, makes the brave man a coward and the chaste man licentious; it knows no justice and destroys prudence. For just as water is the enemy of fire, so B the immoderation of wine extinguishes reason. Wherefore I was reluctant to say anything against drunkenness, not because it is a small evil or one to be despised, but because it appeared that our discourse would be of no benefit. For if the drunkard is out of his mind and enveloped in darkness, he who rebukes him speaks in vain to one who does not hear. Whom, then, shall we address? Since he who requires admonition does not listen to what is said, while the temperate and sober man has no need of the assistance of the word, being pure and immune from this vice. What plan, then, shall I adopt in the present state of affairs, if the discourse is useless and silence is not safe? Shall we neglect the cure? But negligence is dangerous. Shall I speak against the drunkards? But we will be sounding into dead ears. Perhaps, therefore, just as in C pestilential diseases those who treat bodies, while they fortify those who are still healthy with prophylactic remedies, do not attempt to lay hands upon those who are already overcome by the disease; so too, for you, this discourse is of use only in part: offering a guard and an antidote to those who are healthy and whole, but neither release nor cure to those who are already overcome by the passion.
3. In what do you differ from the brute beasts, O man? Is it not by the gift of reason, which, having received from your Creator, you became the prince and lord of all creation? Whoever, therefore, deprives himself of sense and knowledge through drunkenness is compared to senseless beasts and has become like them. D Moreover, I would even say that those who are drunk are more irrational than the cattle themselves; for all quadrupeds and wild beasts have definite and constant impulses regarding the mating instinct, whereas those whose minds drunkenness occupies, and whose bodies are filled with heat contrary to nature, are at every time and every hour incited to impure and base embraces, and to pleasures. Nor does it produce this irrational state in them alone,
A but the overturning of the senses renders the drunken man worse than any brute beast. For what herd is as unobservant and as disobedient as the drunkard? Do they not fail to recognize their own closest kin, and often run to strangers as if they were their familiar friends? Do they not often leap across shadows as if they were gutters or ravines? Their ears are filled with sounds and noises, B as if by a surging sea; the earth seems to rise up to meet them, and the mountains appear to revolve in a circle. These people sometimes laugh incessantly, and at other times feel pain and weep inconsolably. And now they are bold and dauntless, and now fearful and timid. For them, sleep is heavy, difficult to shake off, and stifling, and in very truth near to death; and their wakefulness is more senseless than sleep. For their life is a dream, since those who possess no clothes, nor even food for the morrow, reign and command armies in their drunkenness, and build cities and distribute wealth. Wine, seething with such fantasies and such great deceit, fills their hearts. Others are drawn into the opposite passions. They are despondent, and gloomy, and sorrowful, and tearful, and terrified, and easily startled. The same wine, in different physical conditions, produces different passions in the souls. For in those in whom it has caused a diffusion of blood, so that it blooms forth to the surface, it renders them cheerful, pleasant, and radiant. But in those whose physical state it has oppressed with its weight, constricting and pressing down the blood, it leads them into the opposite disposition. And what need is there to recount the crowd of other passions? – the peevishness of character; the quickness to anger; the fault-finding; the sudden volatility of the soul; the clamor, the tumult, the readiness for every kind of deceit, the inability to withhold or restrain anger?
4. Moreover, incontinence in the enjoyment of pleasures springs quite directly from wine as if from a fountain, and along with the unmixed wine there creeps in the stain of licentiousness, C which demonstrates that all the madness of beasts in respect to the females is less than the shamelessness and lasciviousness of drunkards. For irrational beasts know the bounds of nature, but the drunken seek the female in the male, and the male in the female. Nor is it easy for the speech even to go through all the evils that arise from drunkenness. For the harms from pestilence come upon men over a period of time, D as the air gradually imparts its own corruption to the bodies; but the detriments brought by wine rush in immediately and at once. For after they have so ruined the soul, as to have it marked by every stain, they further destroy even the very constitution of the body; not only by
stains of all kinds, but they also corrupt the very habit of the body. For they do not pine away and dissolve merely on account of the immoderate pleasures by which they are stimulated as if by a frenzy toward lechery, but also because of the mass and swelling itself; they carry about a body filled with too much moisture, flaccid, and bereft of vital vigor. A Their eyes are livid, the surface of their skin is quite pale, their breath is impeded and labored, their tongue is loose, their shouting is indistinct, their feet stagger like those of children, and the discharge of their waste products flows out spontaneously as if from inanimate things. Wretched because of their luxury, they are yet more wretched than those tossed in a storm at sea, whom waves, following one upon another and submerging them, do not allow to emerge from the waters. In this same way, the souls of these men also are submerged, soaked in wine. Therefore, just as ships tossed by a storm, when they are overloaded beyond what is right, must be lightened by ejecting their cargo; so too these men must necessarily discharge the things that weigh them down. For with difficulty are they freed from their burden by vomiting and purging; they are B so much the more wretched than those who navigate unhappily, in that these former ones blame the winds, the sea, and external obstacles, while the latter bring upon themselves, of their own volition, the storm of drunkenness. He who is possessed by a demon is worthy of compassion; but the drunkard, suffering the same things, is not even worthy of our pity, since he struggles with a self-chosen demon. Moreover, they invent certain drugs of drunkenness, applying their labor and industry to this: not that they might suffer no harm from wine, but so that their drunkenness might be constant and continuous. For truly, even as regards the time for drinking, the day is short for them, and the night is likewise brief, even in winter. Finally, there is no end to this evil. For wine itself drives one on to more. For indeed it does not relieve C necessity, but it induces an inevitable necessity for another drink, burning those who are drunk, and ever inciting them to a desire for more. But while they plan to provide for themselves an insatiable thirst for drinking, the opposite of what they intended happens. For by the constant use of delights, they render their senses languid and dull. For just as excessive brightness dims the sight, and just as those who are struck by a huge sound and crash are so stunned by the immoderate blow that they hear nothing at all: so also these men, through an excessive passion for pleasure, unthinkingly and incautiously lose the pleasure itself. For the wine, even if it is pure, is insipid to them and like water; and when fresh wine is taken, D it seems lukewarm; even if it is most recent, even if it is snow itself, yet it cannot extinguish the flame kindled within them from the immoderate wine. To whom woe? To whom tumult? To whom judgments? To whom troubles and
A trica? to whom are there bruises without cause? whose eyes are livid? Is it not of those that tarry long at the wine, and search out where the carousings are? Woe! It is a voice of lamentation. The drunkards are indeed worthy of lamentation, because drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God. B Yet tumult arises because of the disturbance that comes upon the reason from wine. And thence comes the trouble, that bitter digestions from the pleasure of wine creep hither and thither. For the feet of these are bound, their hands are bound by the fluxes stirred up for them by drunkenness. Indeed, even before these misfortunes, at the very time of drinking, they suffer the same as those who are phrenetic. For after the brain membranes are filled with the soot which wine, by evaporating, sends upward, the head is seized with intolerable pains, and as it is unable to remain straight upon the shoulders, it nods hither and thither over the vertebrae and is tossed about. By "tricas" (trifles) he means immoderate and contentious talk in the symposiums. And bruises are caused in vain for the drunkards who are unable to stand upright due to drunkenness. For they collapse into all sorts of shapes of falling, so that it is inevitable for them to have bruises on their body in vain.
B 5. But why do I say these things to those smitten with wine? For they are heavy in the head from a hangover, they doze, they yawn, they have a mist before their eyes, they are nauseous. For this reason they do not hear the teachers who cry out to them from everywhere: Do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess; and again: Wine is a wanton thing, and drunkenness is a thing of violence. C But because they disregard these, they immediately receive the fruit of drunkenness. For the mass of the body swells, the eyes are watery, the mouth is dry and parched. For just as ravines, while torrents are flowing into them, seem to be full, but when the flood has passed, they are left dry and parched; so too with the drunkards, the mouth, while the wine is stagnant, is in a way full and moist, but as soon as a little has flowed away, it is found to be dry and devoid of humor. Indeed, as it is always being corrupted and overwhelmed by immoderate wine, it even loses its vital moisture. For what human constitution is so strong as to resist the evils of drunkenness? By what means could it be possible that a body, always becoming hot and always being soaked with wine, should not become washed-out, faded, and fluid? Hence come the tremors and the weaknesses; for since their spirit is cut off by the immoderate wine and the strength of the nerves is loosened, a trembling comes D upon the whole mass of the body. Why do you wish to bring upon yourself the curse of Cain, trembling and wandering?
A For the body, lacking its natural support, is necessarily made to wobble and tremble throughout the whole of life. You have ended up as mire instead of a human; so completely have you been mixed with wine and rotted away with it, smelling of wine from your daily debauchery, and this wine is itself corrupted, just like the foulest of vessels. B Isaiah laments these men: "Woe to those who rise early, and pursue strong drink, who wait until the evening; for wine will burn them up. For they drink wine with the harp and the lyre, but they do not regard the works of the Lord, and they do not consider the works of his hands" (Isa. V, 11, 12). It is customary for the Hebrews to call "strong drink" anything capable of causing drunkenness. Therefore, those who, at the beginning of the day, scout out where drinking parties are happening, and scour wine-shops and taverns, and recruit one another to drink, and spend all the care of their soul on the concern for such things, these are the ones lamented by the prophet, as they leave no time for themselves to consider the miracles of God. Their eyes have no leisure to look up to heaven and learn its beauty, and to weigh the entire ordering of created things so as to understand the Creator from their good order; but straightaway, as the day begins, they adorn their dining rooms with various tapestries and floral curtains, and they display such zeal and diligence in the preparation of the cups, arranging wine-coolers, bowls, and phials, as if they were in some procession or public festival, so that the variety of the vessels might conceal their satiety, and the alternation and change of the cups might keep them drinking for a long time. Furthermore, there are present certain masters of the banquet, and princes of the wine-stewards, and chief wine-stewards: indeed, an order within disorder and an arrangement in an unseemly matter is devised, so that, just as more authority accrues to the magistrates of the world from their attendants, so also, by surrounding drunkenness as if it were some queen with a retinue of servants, they might, with extreme diligence, cover up its disgrace and turpitude. C Besides, garlands, flowers, ointments, perfumed incense, and countless other external amusements occupy the ruined for long periods. Then, as the banquet proceeds further, there arise D disputes about who can drink more, rivalries, and contests, as they vie to outdo one another in drunkenness. And the one who presides over these contests is the devil, and the prize of victory is sin... those who are defeated get drunk; those who win get drunk, just as in...
pours out more unmixed wine, he carries off the victory over the others. Truly, A *Glory is in their shame.* For they compete against each other, yet avenge themselves. What word can reach the baseness of what is happening? Everything is full of unreason, everything of confusion: the defeated are drunk, the victors are drunk, the servants are laughing. The hand has failed, the mouth does not receive, the belly is bursting, and yet the evil does not cease. The wretched body, paralyzed in its natural strength, collapses from every side, not bearing the violence of intemperance.
7. B A miserable spectacle to Christian eyes: a man in the full vigor of his age, strong in body, distinguished among the ranks of soldiers, being carried home by others, unable to stand upright or to walk on his own feet. A man who ought to be terrible to the enemy provides an occasion for laughter to the children in the marketplace; he has been laid low without iron, he has been slain without enemies. A soldier, bearing the very flower of his age, has become the victim of wine, ready to suffer at the hands of enemies whatever they may wish. Drunkenness is the ruin of the faculties, a plague upon strength, an untimely old age, a short-lived death. For what else are those who are drunk but the idols of the nations? *They have eyes, and do not see; C they have ears, and do not hear*; their hands are paralyzed, their feet are deadened. Who has devised these things? Who is the cause of these evils? Who has mixed this potion of madness for us? O man, you have turned the banquet into a battle line.
A You cast out the young men being led by the hand as if they were wounded from a battle; you have deadened the prime of youth with wine; and while you invite one as a friend to the banquet, you cast him out a corpse, having extinguished his life with wine. But when they are thought to be sated with wine, then they begin to drink, and they drink in the manner of beasts, as if from a fountain flowing of its own accord, supplying springs equal in number to those reclining. For as the drinking proceeds, a young man enters to them, noble of shoulder, not yet drunk, carrying a large bowl of chilled wine; he, having pushed aside their cupbearer, stands in the middle, and through crooked pipes distributes drunkenness equally among the drinkers. This is a novel measure for a thing that has no measure, so that they may all indulge in debauchery in equal proportion, and no one may be able to outdo another in drinking. For having parted the water pipes, and each one having received the one turned toward himself, they drink breathlessly like oxen from a reservoir, eager to draw into their throats as much as the cooling vessel above allows to flow down through the silver conduits. B Look to your own wretched belly: learn the size of the receiver, which is encompassed by the hollow of a single cotyla. Do not look at the ladle, intending to drain it, but at your own belly, which has long been filled. Therefore, *Woe to those who rise early and pursue strong drink, who wait for the evening*, and spend the day in drunkenness, so that they give themselves no time to behold the works of the Lord, nor to consider the works of his hands. For wine will burn them up, because the heat of the wine, approaching the flesh, becomes a spark for the fiery darts of the enemy. For wine submerges reason and the mind; but it rouses vicious passions and lusts like a swarm of bees. For what chariot, dragged by colts, is carried so recklessly, with the charioteer thrown off? Or what ship, without a helmsman, tossed here and there by the waves, is not safer than a drunkard? C Having established common choruses, and having surrendered their souls to a wine-demon, they wound one another with the stings of their passions. Laughter on both sides, obscene songs, harlot-like gestures provoking to lust. Do you laugh, tell me, and do you rejoice with an unchaste joy, when you ought to be weeping over the past and groaning? You utter the songs of a harlot, having cast aside the psalms and hymns which you were taught. You move your feet, and you leap about insanely, and you dance dances you ought not to, when you ought to be bending your knees in worship. D
C Whom shall I bewail? The maidens who are inexperienced in marriage, or those who are held fast beneath the yoke of matrimony? For the former have returned no longer possessing their virginity, and the latter have not restored their modesty to their husbands. For if some have perhaps escaped sin in the body, yet they have altogether received corruption into their souls. Let these things be said by me concerning the men as well. He looked wickedly, he was looked upon wickedly. *Whoever looks upon a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery.* (Matth. V, 28). If accidental encounters bring such danger to those observing passingly, what will be the result of meetings planned with purpose, so that they may see women behaving indecorously through drunkenness, and adjusting their postures toward lasciviousness, and singing soft songs, which even when only heard can inject every goad of pleasure into those who are wanton? What will they say, or what excuse will they offer, having gathered for themselves a swarm of a thousand evils from such spectacles? Was it not that they looked for this very reason, so that they might arouse their desires? Therefore, they are liable, according to the inevitable decree of the Lord, to the judgment of adultery. How will Pentecost receive you, you who were so contemptuous during Pascha? In Pentecost, the advent of the Holy Spirit was manifest and known to all; but you, in advance, have chosen yourself D as a dwelling-place for the adversary spirit, and have become a temple of idols, instead of becoming a temple of God through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. You have drawn upon yourselves the curse of the prophet, speaking from the person of God: *I will turn your feasts into mourning.* (Amos VIII, 10). How will you rule your servants, when you yourselves are enslaved to foolish and harmful desires like common slaves? How will you instruct your children, while living an uninstructed and disordered life? What then? Shall I leave you in these things? But I am afraid, lest perhaps one who is insubordinate might become even more impudent, and one who is already pricked at heart might be swallowed up by more abundant sorrow. For, he says, *Medela (a healing) will settle great sins.* (Eccl. X, 4). Let fasting cure drunkenness; let a psalm cure an obscene melody; let a tear become the remedy for laughter; instead of dancing, let the knee be bent; instead of the clapping of hands, let the breast be struck; instead of the finery of clothing, let humility be displayed. Above all, let almsgiving redeem you from sin. *For the ransom of a man’s life is his own wealth.* (Prov. XIII, 8). Make many of those who are afflicted your companions in prayer, if perhaps the plan of your wickedness might be forgiven you. *When the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play* (the play of them, however, was idolatry): then the Levites, arming themselves against their brothers, consecrated their hands into the priesthood. Therefore, also to you
who fear the Lord, as many as have now mourned over the indecency A of those who have been condemned, we give this command: If you see them repenting for the absurdity of their deeds, have compassion on them as on your own diseased members; but if they are obstinate and despise your sorrow for them, Go out from the midst of them, and be separated, and touch not the unclean thing: that so they, being affected with shame, may recognize their own depravity; and you may receive the reward of the zeal of Phinehas, through the righteous judgment of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
HOMILY XV. On Faith.
1. Indeed, to remember God continually is a pious thing, since the God-loving soul is never satisfied; but to pursue the things of God with speech is a bold undertaking; B since our mind is at a long distance from the worthiness of the things, and our speech, in turn, dimly expresses what has been understood. If, therefore, our intellect falls far short of the greatness of the things, and speech is inferior even to that very intellect, how is silence not necessary, lest the wonder of theology should seem to be endangered by the meagerness of the words? The desire to glorify God is implanted by nature in all who are possessed of reason; but all are equally unequal to speaking of the subject according to its dignity. C Although, however, we excel one another in the zeal for piety, yet no one is so blinded, and so deceives himself, as to think that he has arrived at the highest summit of comprehension; but rather, the more he seems to progress in cognition and knowledge, the more fully he will feel his own weakness. Such was Abraham, such was Moses: when it was permitted to them to see God, as far as it is lawful for man to see, then each one most of all showed himself humble: Abraham indeed calling himself earth and ashes, D and Moses saying that he was a man of feeble voice and slow tongue. For he saw that this was a weakness of the tongue, which could not serve to narrate the greatness of things understood. But because every ear is now opened to hear theology, and the Church is not satiated with such hearings, confirming that which was said by Ecclesiastes: The ear shall not be filled with hearing, it is necessary to say