The divine Scripture should be understood in an intellectual^[1] and spiritual sense, because the knowledge of sense perception, literally understood,^[2] is not the truth.

If you sit at the dinner table of a prince, understand with prudence what is set before you. Christ is anticipated here as the prince. His table and food are the words of his doctrine and his eternal goods which he has prepared for those who love him. Each Christian sits at his dinner table. The one who understands with prudence what Jesus has taught with his works and words extends his hand, which means that with his works he begins to show that he is an imitator of Christ, made humble, a peaceful lover of all and patient in tribulations. The one who does not do this but instead gazes with eagerness at the pleasures of the world must give up any desire for eternal goods which at any rate he will never own. The pleasures of the world are characteristic of a false life, and those who love them will never enjoy eternal possessions.

What is the table of a powerful man except that one from which is taken the body and blood of him who has laid down his life for us? And what is to sit at it except to approach humbly? And what is to consider and understand the things that are set before you except to reflect worthily upon so great a grace?

You are approaching the table of a potentate. You, the faithful, know what table you are approaching. . . . What regal table are you approaching? One who sets himself before you, not a table spread by the skill of cooks. Christ sets his table before you, namely, himself. Approach this table, and take your fill. Be poor, and you will have your fill.

It is certainly a great table where the lord of the table is himself the banquet. Nobody feeds his guests on himself, yet that is what the Lord Christ did, being himself the host, himself the food and drink. So the martyrs recognized what they ate and drank, so that they could give back the same kind of thing.

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;^[1] and when I am weak, then I am strong?^[2] On this clean table of the powerful one, that is, in his heart, in his mind is offered a loaf to the Lord. At the table of this powerful apostle, if you sit to eat, understand intelligently what is set before you, that is, perceive spiritually what is said by him.

Holy writ warns us to partake of the feast prudently when we have been invited to dine at the table of a rich man. I might say that a rich man’s table of Scripture has been laid before us. We enter a meadow filled with flowers; here the rose blushes; there the lilies glisten white; everywhere flowers abound in all varieties.

There is no limit to the gluttony that these people practice. Truly, in ever inventing a multitude of new sweets and ever seeking recipes of every description, they are shipwrecked on pastries and honey cakes and desserts.

To me, a man of this sort seems nothing more than one great mouth. . . . As for us, who seek a heavenly food, we must restrain the belly and keep it under the control of heaven.

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. Just as we are careful to keep material which is easily inflammable as far away as possible from fire, so we must refrain insofar as we can from contracting friendships in circles of which envious persons are members. By so doing, we place ourselves beyond the range of their shafts. We can be caught in the toils of envy only by establishing intimacy with it.

Correction and chastisement, as their very name implies, are blows inflicted upon the soul, restraining sin, warding off death, leading those enslaved by vice back to self-control. Thus, Plato, recognizing that correction has the greatest influence and is the most effective purification, echoes the Word when he claims that one who is notably lacking in purification becomes undisciplined and degenerate because he was left uncorrected, while one who is to be truly happy should be the most purified and virtuous.^[1]

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 commandments. For, after they experience God’s correction and discipline, then the commandments of God which had always been known to them and always neglected are most readily received as though by ears freshly cleansed.

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?

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. Sacred Scripture speaks thus about the son and the servant: Strike him with the rod, it says, and you will save him from the nether world.

As the ancient saying goes, soul^[1] is the mother of the mind,^[2] because it is the soul which leads the mind to enlightenment by means of practical virtues.

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 through the mouth of wisdom: Give me your heart, son. Give me, she says. Give her what? Your heart, son. It was ill when it was with you, when you kept it to yourself. You were being pulled this way and that by toys and trifles and wanton, destructive loves. Take your heart away from all that. Where are you to drag it to, where are you to put it? Give me your heart, she says. Let it be mine, and it won’t be lost to you.

Solomon compared the love of [such a] woman with the deep pit. She calls a halt only when she sees that her lover has been stripped of all his possessions. Even more so, she does not stop then but decks herself out more elaborately and insults him in his humiliation, and draws ridicule upon him, and causes him so much misfortune that words are inadequate to describe it.

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. With good reason, then, the Educator, in his concern for our salvation, sternly forbids us, Do not drink wine to drunkenness.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? For whom is there distress and darkness? For whom eternal doom? Is it not for the transgressors? For those who deny the faith? And what is the proof of their denial? Is it not that they have denied their own confession? And when and what did they confess? Belief in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, when they renounced the devil and his angels and uttered those saving words. What fit title, then, has been discovered for them, for [these former] children of light to use? Are they not addressed as transgressors, as having violated the covenant of their salvation?

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. But let them not drink wine, lest by drinking they forget wisdom and are not able to judge aright.^[1] Wherefore, [the bishops]^[2] and the presbyters and the deacons are those of authority in the church next to God Almighty and his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We say this, not that they are not to drink at all, otherwise it would be to the reproach of what God has made for cheerfulness, but that they not be disordered with wine. For the Scripture does not say, Do not drink wine; but what says it? Drink not wine to drunkenness.

Understand this, brethren, that every drunkard who has made drinking a habit will have leprosy within, in his soul, because the soul of the drunkard is known to be such as the flesh of the leper is seen to be. Therefore one who wishes to free himself of the sin of drunkenness, where not only his soul is killed but even his body is weakened, should drink merely as much as suffices. If he is unwilling to observe this rule, he will be hateful to God and an object of reproach to people.

People who want to be like this try miserably to excuse themselves. They say, My friend will be unpleasant if I do not give him as much as he wants to drink when I invite him to a banquet. [But I say to you,] Do not have a friend who is willing to make you displeasing to God, for he is both his own enemy and yours. If you make yourself and someone else intoxicated, you will have a man as your friend but God as an enemy.

A person sleeps in the midst of the sea who in the temptations of this world neglects to look out for the motions of vices that rush in on him like impending heaps of waves. And the steersman, as it were, lets the rudder go when the mind loses earnestness in guiding the ship of the body. For, indeed, to let the rudder go in the sea is to abandon intentness of forethought among the storms of this life. For, if the steersman carefully holds the rudder fast, he now directs the ship against the billows right and cleaves the assaults of the winds. So, when the mind vigilantly guides the soul, it now surmounts some things and treads them down, now warily turns aside from others, so that it may by hard exertion overcome present dangers and by foresight gather strength against future struggle.

The soul that sleeps with no worries is beaten and feels no pain. Since it does not foresee impending evils, so neither is it aware of those which it has perpetrated. It is drawn without feeling because it is led by the allurements of vices, and yet it is not roused to keep guard over itself. But at the same time it wishes to awake in order to again find wine, because, although weighed down by the sleep of its inactivity in keeping guard over itself, it still strives to be awake to the cares of the world, that it may always be drunk with pleasures. And, while it is asleep to that which it ought to have been wisely awake, it desires to be awake to something else, to which it might laudably have been asleep.