1. Septuagint, Ecclesiasticus (Siracides), 31.25-31.31 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)
| 31.25. Do not aim to be valiant over wine,for wine has destroyed many. 31.26. Fire and water prove the temper of steel,so wine tests hearts in the strife of the proud. 31.27. Wine is like life to men,if you drink it in moderation. What is life to a man who is without wine?It has been created to make men glad. 31.28. Wine drunk in season and temperately is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul. 31.29. Wine drunk to excess is bitterness of soul,with provocation and stumbling. 31.31. Do not reprove your neighbor at a banquet of wine,and do not despise him in his merrymaking;speak no word of reproach to him,and do not afflict him by making demands of him. |
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2. Philo of Alexandria, On Drunkenness, 101-129, 13, 130-133, 14, 146-147, 15, 150, 16-100 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 100. for Moses," says the scripture, "having taken his own tent, fixed it outside the camp," and that too not near it, but a long way off, and at a great distance from the camp. And by these statements he tells us, figuratively, that the wise man is but a sojourner, and a person who leaves war and goes over to peace, and who passes from the mortal and disturbed camp to the undisturbed and peaceful and divine life of rational and happy souls. XXVI. |
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3. Josephus Flavius, Against Apion, 2.195-2.197 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 2.195. When we offer sacrifices to him we do it not in order to surfeit ourselves, or to be drunken; for such excesses are against the will of God, and would be an occasion of injuries and of luxury: but by keeping ourselves sober, orderly, and ready for our other occupations, and being more temperate than others. 2.196. And for our duty at the sacrifices themselves, we ought in the first place to pray for the common welfare of all, and after that our own; for we are made for fellowship one with another; and he who prefers the common good before what is peculiar to himself, is above all acceptable to God. 2.197. And let our prayers and supplications be made humbly to God, not [so much] that he would give us what is good (for he hath already given that of his own accord, and hath proposed the same publicly to all), as that we may duly receive it, and when we have received it, may preserve it. |
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4. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 10.119 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 10.119. Nor, again, will the wise man marry and rear a family: so Epicurus says in the Problems and in the De Natura. Occasionally he may marry owing to special circumstances in his life. Some too will turn aside from their purpose. Nor will he drivel, when drunken: so Epicurus says in the Symposium. Nor will he take part in politics, as is stated in the first book On Life; nor will he make himself a tyrant; nor will he turn Cynic (so the second book On Life tells us); nor will he be a mendicant. But even when he has lost his sight, he will not withdraw himself from life: this is stated in the same book. The wise man will also feel grief, according to Diogenes in the fifth book of his Epilecta. |
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