1 When you take your seat at the feast with a ruler, give thought with care to what is before you;
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 What therefore is "the table of the powerful one," except the mind of that one who says, "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me"; and "when I am weak, then I am strong"? On this "clean table of the powerful one," that is, in his heart, in his mind is offered "a loaf" to the Lord.
Jerome · AD 420 Divine Scripture commands that, when we have been invited to a rich man's banquet, we should with understanding put forth our hand to the dishes. And so for us too the banquet of Scriptures has been set out as a rich man's feast. We have come into a meadow; it has very many flowers: here the rose is red, there the lilies gleam white, there are flowers of every kind.
Bede · AD 735 When you sit down to eat with a ruler, etc. All things are said through allegory: When you sit down to read with a teacher, to be refreshed by the bread of the word, diligently understand what is written, and maintain the discernment of sacred reading in your speech, if, however, you are such a one and so learned that you have in your power your soul, and not as an unlearned on…
2 And put a knife to your throat, if you have a strong desire for food.
3 Have no desire for his delicate food, for it is the bread of deceit.
Clement of Alexandria · AD 215 There is no limit to epicurism among men. For it has driven them to sweetmeats, and honey-cakes, and sugar-plums; inventing a multitude of desserts, hunting after all manner of dishes. A man like this seems to me to be all jaw, and nothing else. "Desire not," says the Scripture, "rich men's dainties;" for they belong to a false and base life.
Bede · AD 735 Do not desire his delicacies, etc. Which is to say openly, do not desire to listen to the words of him who is accustomed to deceive his listeners with the sweetness of false doctrines.
4 Take no care to get wealth; let there be an end to your desire for money.
Bede · AD 735 Do not labor to be rich. He signifies the riches of knowledge, which we are forbidden to seek beyond the measure of our capacity.
5 Are your eyes lifted up to it? it is gone: for wealth takes to itself wings, like an eagle in flight up to heaven.
Bede · AD 735 Do not lift your eyes to riches, etc. Do not lift your mind to search the secrets of divinity, which you cannot penetrate. For these are open only to the heavenly citizens.
6 Do not take the food of him who has an evil eye, or have any desire for his delicate meat:
Basil of Caesarea · AD 379 Wise, therefore, was he who forbids us even to dine in company with an envious man, and in mentioning this companionship at table, he implies a reference to all other social contacts as well.
Bede · AD 735 Do not eat with an envious man, etc. Do not speak of Scriptures with a heretic, because he envies human salvation, preferring to deceive rather than correct; for just as a soothsayer and dream interpreter considers things he does not know, so a heretic presumes to interpret in the Scriptures as he pleases, things he does not understand.
7 For as the thoughts of his heart are, so is he: Take food and drink, he says to you; but his heart is not with you.
Bede · AD 735 Eat and drink, he will say to you, etc. He says, Learn securely and do what I teach, while he himself does not have certain faith in what he teaches, knowing he has invented from his heart what he would teach.
8 The food which you have taken will come up again, and your pleasing words will be wasted.
Bede · AD 735 The food you have eaten you will vomit, etc. The perverse thoughts you had learned from heretics, you must either abandon by correction through repentance, or after death be compelled to suffer punishment for them, and lose the words of confession, by which, while they preached, you thought you should humbly favor them.
9 Say nothing in the hearing of a foolish man, for he will put no value on the wisdom of your words.
Bede · AD 735 Do not speak in the ears of fools, etc. This is similar to that of the Gospel, Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, etc. (Matthew 7:6). Just as he previously admonished not to listen to the doctrines of heretics, so now he urges not to insert the secrets of truth into impure men, seduced by the love of vain glory.
10 Do not let the landmark of the widow be moved, and do not go into the fields of those who have no father;
Bede · AD 735 Do not touch the boundaries of the little ones, etc. He calls the Lord the near one of the little ones and orphans because, while in the flesh, he deigned to be a companion in faith more to the poor than the rich. Otherwise, the same Lord is of all, rich to all who call upon him.
11 For their saviour is strong, and he will take up their cause against you.
Commodian · AD 250 Receive into thy ears the teaching of the great Solomon: God hates the poor man to be a pleader on high. [Prov. 23:11] Therefore submit thyself, and give honour to Him that is powerful; for the soft speech-thou knowest the proverb-melts. [Prov. 15:1] One is conquered by service, even although there be an ancient anger.
12 Give your heart to teaching, and your ears to the words of knowledge.
13 Do not keep back training from the child: for even if you give him blows with the rod, it will not be death to him.
Basil of Caesarea · AD 379 As small children who are negligent in learning become more attentive and obedient after being punished by their teacher or tutor, and as they do not listen before the lash, but, after feeling the pain of a beating, hear and respond as though their ears were just recently opened, improving also in memory, so likewise with those who neglect divine doctrine and spurn the commandm…
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 If the evil will is always to be left to its own freedom, why are careless shepherds rebuked, and why is it said to them, "The wandering sheep you have not called back, that which was lost you have not sought"?
Caesarius of Arles · AD 542 When someone presumes to commit a sin against God, he ought to suffer a monastic penance. This should be done in a kind and devout spirit, so that through rebuke he may be corrected in this life in such a way that he may not perish in the future. For every sin which is not corrected in this world will be punished in the future life.
14 Give him blows with the rod, and keep his soul safe from the underworld.
15 My son, if your heart becomes wise, I, even I, will be glad in heart;
16 And my thoughts in me will be full of joy when your lips say right things.
17 Have no envy of sinners in your heart, but keep in the fear of the Lord all through the day;
Bede · AD 735 Do not let your heart envy sinners, etc. If throughout the whole day, that is, the whole time you dwell in the light of this world, you strive both to avoid the examples of sinners and to fear the Lord, you will have the hope of blessed reward at the last, that is, when you reach the end of this life, with him also attesting, who said: Be faithful unto death, and I will give yo…
18 For without doubt there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
19 Give ear, my son, and be wise, guiding your heart in the right way.
20 Do not be among those who give themselves to wine-drinking, or among those who make themselves full with meat:
Bede · AD 735 Do not be among winebibbers, etc. For to bring meats to be eaten, is in conversation of derogation, to repeatedly mention the vices of neighbors, about whose punishment it is immediately added:
21 For those who take delight in drink and feasting will come to be in need; and through love of sleep a man will be poorly clothed.
Bede · AD 735 And dressed in rags will be the sluggard. For his death will find him despicable and devoid of all good works, as his languor occupied him here in seeking the crimes of another's life through slander.
22 Give ear to your father whose child you are, and do not keep honour from your mother when she is old.
Evagrius Ponticus · AD 399 As the ancient saying goes, soul is the mother of the mind, because it is the soul which leads the mind to enlightenment by means of practical virtues.
23 Get for yourself that which is true, and do not let it go for money; get wisdom and teaching and good sense.
24 The father of the upright man will be glad, and he who has a wise child will have joy because of him.
25 Let your father and your mother be glad, let her who gave you birth have joy.
Bede · AD 735 Let your father and mother rejoice, etc. Let God the Father rejoice over your righteousness; let the Church, your mother, also rejoice; and let the priest who regenerated you through the grace of baptism, and who educated you from childhood, rejoice in your good works.
26 My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes take delight in my ways.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 If you don't give yourself, you will lose yourself. Charity herself speaks through wisdom and tells you something to save you from panicking at being told, "Give yourself." If anyone wanted to sell you a farm he would say to you, "Give me your gold," and if it was something else, "Give me your coppers," "Give me your silver." Now listen to what charity says to you, speaking thr…
27 For a loose woman is a deep hollow, and a strange woman is a narrow water-hole.
John Chrysostom · AD 407 He who gives to harlots is ridiculous and shameful, and will have many quarrels, and brief pleasure; or rather, not even brief, because, give what he will to the women his mistresses, they will not thank him for it; for, "The house of a stranger is a cask with holes." Besides, that sort of persons is impudent, and Solomon hath compared their love to the grave; and then only do…
28 Yes, she is waiting secretly like a beast for its food, and deceit by her is increased among men.
29 Who says, Oh! who says, Ah! who has violent arguments, who has grief, who has wounds without cause, whose eyes are dark?
Clement of Alexandria · AD 215 By the mention of redness of eyes—a sign of death—it is made clear that the wine-bibber is already dead to the Word and to reason. It declares his death to the Lord. If one forgets the motives that prompt him to seek the true life, he is dragged down to corruption.
Nilus of Sinai · AD 451 Since you are the presbyters and deacons of Christ, you ought always to be sober, both among yourselves and among others, so that you may be able to warn the unruly. Now the Scripture says, "The men in power are passionate.
Bede · AD 735 To whom wounds without cause? etc. Wounds without cause, because many, filled beyond measure with wine, have received wounds in their limbs out of fear, which they have endured for no cause; weakening of the eyes, because the immoderate drink of wine produces darkness to many physical sights and blindness of inner senses.
30 Those who are seated late over the wine: those who go looking for mixed wine.
Bede · AD 735 For those who tarry long over wine and go to seek mixed wine, etc. Symbol is a Greek name, and it means conference. There is a conference of words, as is usual in councils; there is also one of money or other things, as the present place teaches. Therefore, those who tarry long over wine indulge in speaking about the disgrace of another's life.
31 Keep your eyes from looking on the wine when it is red, when its colour is bright in the cup, when it goes smoothly down:
Bonaventure · AD 1257 The devil draws man to the concupiscence of the flesh, to the concupiscence of the eyes, and to the pride of life. The concupiscence of the eyes, which is the fuel of concupiscence and pride, makes men strong, because men endure many things in order to acquire temporal goods. In wine, which makes a man drunk and renders him bold, is signified the concupiscence of the eyes.
32 In the end, its bite is like that of a snake, its wound like the wound of a poison-snake.
33 Your eyes will see strange things, and you will say twisted things.
Bede · AD 735 Your eyes will see strange women, etc. It is a customary and almost natural vice to follow feminine lust after the poison of drunkenness spreads in the heart, accompanied by wickedness and foulness of words.
34 Yes, you will be like him who takes his rest on the sea, or on the top of a sail-support.
Gregory the Dialogist · AD 604 For he sleeps in the midst of the sea who, placed among the temptations of this world, neglects to look out for the motions of vices that rush in upon him like impending heaps of waves. And the steersman, as it were, lets go the rudder when the mind loses the earnestness of solicitude for guiding the ship of the body.
Bede · AD 735 And you will be like one sleeping in the midst of the sea, etc. He sleeps in the midst of the sea, who, placed in the temptations of this world, neglects to foresee the movements of impending vices, as if neglecting the impending heaps of waves, and like a sleeping helmsman loses the rudder, when the mind, to govern the ship of the body, loses its diligence.
35 They have overcome me, you will say, and I have no pain; they gave me blows without my feeling them: when will I be awake from my wine? I will go after it again.
Gregory the Dialogist · AD 604 Whence, also, the utterance of one that is stricken and yet sleeps is expressed by Solomon, who says, "They have beaten thee, and I was not pained; they have dragged me, and I felt it not.
Bede · AD 735 And you will say, They struck me, but I was not hurt, etc. The voice of one beaten and sleeping is expressed. The mind, indeed, sleeping from the care of diligence, is struck and does not hurt, because just as it does not foresee impending evils, so it also does not recognize what it has committed.