Chapter XIV.
Those who prepare banquets for drunkenness are reproached: and the power of wine is shown to be greater than that of poison.
Who mixed such a cup of madness? Who poured so much poison into minds? A man risks drowning in the mud of his own body; and he himself is guilty of voluntary madness, of spontaneous corruption; and yet you are not excused, who call them friends and send them away as enemies. How much better would it have been if you had poured your wine into the earth? But even the earth becomes drunk, and it makes even the wild animals more savage, if they catch a whiff of wine. Finally, during the time of the grape harvest, if they enter the vineyard, they are accustomed to becoming inflamed with drunkenness. What delights you in losses without grace? You ask for pleasure, you compel to death: you invite to a feast, you wish to carry to a grave: you promise food, you inflict tortures: you offer wine, you pour out poison. For indeed, whatever harms, is poison. It takes away the senses, burns the organs, disturbs sleep, vexes the head.
Even the power of wine is greater than that of poison. In fact, poison is excluded by wine, not wine by poison. Justly God, through Moses, compared wine not only to poison, but also to the poison of serpents, saying: The fury of serpents is their wine, and the incurable wrath of asps (Deut. XXXII, 33). And he added beautifully, incurable; for many are cured of the poison of other serpents, but no one is cured of drunkenness. Certainly the flesh is wounded by poison, but the mind is without harm: drunkenness leads to the death of the body, and also adds guilt to the mind. Beware, however, of the poison and deceit of wine, declared by name. For it was said above concerning foreigners, who did not know God. For the wine of their vineyard is the wine of Sodom, and their vine is the vine of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter (Ibid., 32).