Drunkenness as voluntary demon and its effects
Basil is lamenting the drunkenness that undid his Lenten exhortations, and now he begins to describe drunkenness itself as a voluntary demon that destroys reason and makes people worse than animals.
Drunkenness is a self-chosen demon, intruding into souls through pleasure. Drunkenness is the mother of vice, the opposition of virtue. It shows the brave man as a coward and the self-controlled man as wanton. It does not know righteousness, and it destroys prudence. For just as water is hostile to fire, so an excess of wine extinguishes reason. This is why I hesitated to say anything against drunkenness—not because it is a small evil or one worth overlooking, but because the word offers no benefit. For if the drunkard is deranged and darkened, the one who rebukes someone who cannot hear talks nonsense in vain. To whom, then, should we speak? The one who needs the exhortation does not hear what is said, while the self-controlled and sober person does not need the word's help, being clean of the passion. What then shall I do with those present, if the word is useless and silence is without resource? Should we abandon the care? But neglect is dangerous. Should I speak something against the drunkards? But we sound into dead ears. Perhaps, then, just as in contagious diseases the healers of bodies secure the healthy with preventive remedies but do not treat those already overcome by the disease, so for you the word has its usefulness by half: it points out protection to those without the passion, but not deliverance and healing to those already overcome by it.
How do you differ from the irrational animals, O man? Is it not by the gift of reason, which you received from your Creator and by which you became ruler and lord of all creation? The one, then, who strips himself of prudence through drunkenness has been compared to the senseless beasts and has become like them (Psalm 49:12). Indeed, I would say that those in drunkenness are even more irrational than the grazing animals. For all four-footed creatures and wild beasts have fixed seasons for their impulses toward mating, but those whose souls are held fast by drunkenness, having filled their bodies with unnatural heat, are driven at every season and every hour toward unclean and shameful couplings and pleasures. And this is not the only thing that produces irrationality in them: the perversion of their senses also shows the drunkard to be worse than any beast. For what grazing animal completely fails to see and fails to hear as the drunkard does? Do they not recognize their dearest ones, yet often run up to strangers as if they were acquaintances? Do they not often leap over shadows as if they were ditches or ravines? Their ears are filled with echoes and noises as if a sea were swelling, while the earth seems to rise up steeply and the mountains to run around in a circle. Sometimes they laugh without stopping, and sometimes they suffer and weep without consolation. Now they are bold and fearless, now terrified and cowardly. Their sleep is heavy, hard to shake off, and suffocating—truly a neighbor of death—and their waking hours are more insensible than their sleep. For their life is a dream: though they have no cloak and nothing to eat for tomorrow, in their drunkenness they reign, command armies, build cities, and distribute riches. Wine, boiling over with such fantasies and so much deception, fills their hearts.
Greek
Μέθη, ὁ αὐθαίρετος δαίμων, ἐξ ἡδονῆς ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἐμβαλλόμενος, μέθη, κακίας μήτηρ, ἀρετῆς ἐναντίωσις, τὸν ἀνδρεῖον δειλὸν ἀποδείκνυσι, τὸν σώφρονα ἀσελγῆ· δικαιοσύνην οὐκ οἶδε, φρόνησιν ἀναιρεῖ. Ὥσπερ γὰρ ὕδωρ πολέμιόν ἐστι πυρὶ, οὕ τως ἀμετρία οἴνου λογισμὸν κατασβέννυσι. Διό περ ὤκνουν τι λέγειν κατὰ μέθης, οὐχ ὡς περὶ μικροῦ τινος κακοῦ ἢ παροφθῆναι ἀξίου, ἀλλ' ὡς οὐδὲν ὄφελος παρεχομένου τοῦ λόγου. Εἰ γὰρ ὁ μεθύων παραφρονεῖ καὶ ἐσκότωται, εἰκῆ ῥαψῳδεῖ ὁ ἐπιπλήττων τῷ μὴ ἀκούοντι. Τίσιν οὖν διαλεχθῶμεν; εἴπερ ὁ μὲν χρῄζων τῆς παραινέσεως οὐκ ἀκούει τῶν λεγο μένων· ὁ δὲ σωφρονῶν καὶ νήφων οὐ δεῖται τῆς ἐκ τοῦ λόγου βοηθείας, καθαρεύων τοῦ πάθους. Τί οὖν χρήσομαι τοῖς παροῦσιν, εἰ καὶ ὁ λόγος ἄχρη στος, καὶ ἡ σιωπὴ ἄπορος; Παρίδωμεν τὴν ἐπιμέ λειαν; Ἀλλ' ἐπικίνδυνος ἡ ἀμέλεια. Ἀλλὰ φθέγξομαί τι κατὰ τῶν μεθυόντων; Ἀλλ' εἰς νεκρὰς ἀκοὰς ἐνηχοῦμεν. Μήποτε οὖν, ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν λοιμικῶν νοση μάτων οἱ τῶν σωμάτων θεραπευταὶ τοὺς μὲν ὑγιαίνοντας τοῖς προφυλακτικοῖς βοηθήμασιν ἀσφαλίζον ται, τοῖς δὲ κεκρατημένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ πάθους οὐκ ἐγχειροῦσιν· οὕτω καὶ ὑμῖν ἐξ ἡμισείας ἔχει ὁ λόγος τὸ χρήσιμον· φυλακὴν ὑποδεικνὺς τοῖς ἀπα θέσιν, οὐκ ἀπαλλαγὴν καὶ ἴασιν τοῖς ὑπὸ τοῦ πάθους κεκρατημένοις. Τίνι διενήνοχας τῶν ἀλόγων, ὦ ἄνθρωπε; Οὐ τῇ δωρεᾷ τοῦ λόγου, ἣν λαβὼν παρὰ τοῦ κτίσαντός σε, ἄρχων καὶ κύριος ἐγένου πάσης τῆς κτίσεως; Ὁ τοίνυν ἀφελόμενος ἑαυτοῦ τὴν φρόνησιν διὰ τῆς μέ θης, Παρασυνεβλήθη τοῖς κτήνεσι τοῖς ἀνοήτοις, καὶ ὡμοιώθη αὐτοῖς. Μᾶλλον δὲ καὶ τῶν βοσκημά των φαίην ἂν ἔγωγε ἀλογωτέρους εἶναι τοὺς ἐν τῇ μέθῃ· εἴπερ τὰ μὲν τετράποδα πάντα καὶ τὰ θηρία τεταγμένας ἔχει τὰς πρὸς τὴν μίξιν ὁρμὰς, οἱ δὲ ὑπὸ τῆς μέθης τὴν ψυχὴν κατεχόμενοι, καὶ τὸ σῶμα τῆς παρὰ φύσιν θερμότητος ἀναπλήσαντες, πάντα καιρὸν καὶ πᾶσαν ὥραν πρὸς τὰς ἀκαθάρτους καὶ ἀσχήμονας συμπλοκὰς καὶ ἡδονὰς συνελαύνον ται. Καὶ οὐ τοῦτο μόνον τὴν ἀλογίαν αὐτοῖς ἐμποιεῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ τῶν αἰσθήσεων παρατροπὴ χείρονα παν τὸς κτήνους ἀποδείκνυσι τὸν μεθύοντα. Ποῖον γὰρ βόσκημα οὕτω παραβλέπει καὶ οὕτω παρακούει ὡς ὁ μεθύων; Οὐκ ἀγνοοῦσι μὲν τοὺς οἰκειοτάτους, προστρέχουσι δὲ πολλάκις τοῖς ἀλλοτρίοις ὡς τοῖς συνήθεσιν; Οὐ τὰς σκιὰς διαπηδῶσι πολλάκις ὡς ὀχετοὺς ἢ φάραγγας; Ἤχων δὲ αὐτοῖς καὶ ψόφων, οἱονεὶ θαλάσσης κυμαινούσης, τὰ ὦτα πεπλήρωται· ἡ δὲ γῆ πρὸς τὸ ὄρθιον διανίστασθαι δοκεῖ, καὶ τὰ ὄρη περιτρέχειν ἐν κύκλῳ. Οὗτοι ποτὲ μὲν γελῶσιν ἄπαυστα, ποτὲ δὲ ὀδυνῶνται καὶ κλαίουσιν ἀπαρηγόρητα. Καὶ νῦν μὲν θρασεῖς εἰσι καὶ ἀπτόητοι, νῦν δὲ κατάφοβοι καὶ δειλοί. Τούτοις ὕπνοι μὲν βαρεῖς καὶ δυσανάφοροι καὶ πνιγώδεις, καὶ τῷ ὄντι θανάτου γείτονες, αἱ δὲ γρηγορήσεις τῶν ὕπνων ἀναισθητότεραι. Ἐνύπνιον γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐστιν ὁ βίος, οἵ γε, ἱμάτιον οὐκ ἔχοντες, οὐδὲ τί φάγωσιν εἰς τὴν αὔριον, βασιλεύουσι καὶ στρατοπέδων ἄρχου σιν ἐν τῇ μέθῃ, καὶ πόλεις οἰκοδομοῦσι, καὶ χρή ματα διανέμουσι. Τοιούτων φαντασιῶν καὶ ἀπάτης τοσαύτης περιζέων ὁ οἶνος τὰς καρδίας αὐτῶν πλη ροῖ.