Drunkenness as voluntary death and the mechanics of the drinking party

A man who ought to be a terror to his enemies becomes a laughingstock for the children in the marketplace. He has been struck down without iron; he has been killed without enemies. A soldier in the very flower of his age has become a casualty of wine, ready to suffer whatever his enemies wish. Drunkenness is the ruin of reason, the corruption of strength, an untimely old age, a short-lived death. What else are drunkards but the idols of the nations? They have eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear (Psalm 115:5-7). Their hands are paralyzed; their feet have been made dead. Who plotted this? Who is responsible for these evils? Who mixed for us this drug of madness? You, sir, have made the drinking party contrary to all order. You send the young men out led by the hand, like wounded men from war. You have killed the prime of their youth with wine. You invite them to dinner as a friend, and you send them out as corpses, having quenched their life with wine. When they are thought to be sated with wine, that is when they begin to drink. They drink the way cattle do, as if from a makeshift spring that sends out as many spouts as there are guests reclining. As the drinking goes on, a young man comes in among them, broad-shouldered, not yet drunk, carrying a large bowl of chilled wine. He pushes their wine-pourer aside, stands in the middle, and through crooked pipes distributes equal drunkenness to the drinking companions. This is a new measure of excess: that they may commit outrage together in equal shares, so that no one outdrinks another. They divide the channels, and each one takes the one turned toward himself, and they drink without drawing breath like oxen from a cistern, each straining to pull down with his throat as much as the cooler above releases through the silver conduits. Look down at your wretched stomach. Take note of the size of the vessel that receives it: it has the hollow of a single cup. Do not stare at the wine jug, waiting to empty it; look at your own stomach, because it was filled long ago. Therefore: Woe to those who rise early in the morning and chase after strong drink, who linger late into the evening and spend the whole day in drunkenness (Isaiah 5:11), so that they give themselves no time to look at the works of the Lord or consider the works of His hands (Isaiah 5:12). For the wine will burn them, because the heat from the wine, entering the flesh, becomes kindling for the enemy's flaming arrows. Wine drowns reason and the mind, but it stirs up the passions and pleasures like a swarm of bees. What chariot of colts, having thrown off its driver, is carried along so wildly? What pilotless ship, borne by the waves wherever chance takes it, is not safer than a drunkard? From such evils, men and women together formed common choruses, handed their souls over to a winey demon, and wounded one another with the barbs of the passions. Laughter from both sides, shameful songs, prostitute's postures, inciting to lust. Tell me, do you laugh and take pleasure in unrestrained pleasure, when you ought to weep and groan over what has already happened? You sing a prostitute's songs, having thrown out the psalms and hymns you were taught. You move your feet and leap about madly and dance dances that should not be danced, when you ought to bend your knees in worship. Whom should I lament? The unmarried girls, or the women held under the yoke of marriage? The former came home no longer possessing their virginity; the latter did not bring their chastity back to their husbands.