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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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128 Pages
Page 106
But always must we conduct ourselves as in the Lord's presence, lest He say to us, as the apostle in indignation said to the Corinthians, "When ye come together, this is not to eat the Lord's supper." [1384]
To me, the star called by the mathematicians Acephalus (headless), which is numbered before the wandering star, his head resting on his breast, seems to be a type of the gluttonous, the voluptuous, and those that are prone to drunkenness. For in such [1385] the faculty of reasoning is not situated in the head, but among the intestinal appetites, enslaved to lust and anger. For just as Elpenor broke his neck through intoxication, [1386] so the brain, dizzied by drunkenness, falls down from above, with a great fall to the liver and the heart, that is, to voluptuousness and anger: as the sons of the poets say Hephaestus was hurled by Zeus from heaven to earth. [1387] "The trouble of sleeplessness, and bile, and cholic, are with an insatiable man," it is said. [1388]
Wherefore also Noah's intoxication was recorded in writing, that, with the clear and written description of his transgression before us, we might guard with all our might against drunkenness. For which cause they who covered the shame [1389] of his drunkenness are blessed by the Lord. The Scripture accordingly, giving a most comprehensive compend, has expressed all in one word: "To an instructed man sufficiency is wine, and he will rest in his bed." [1390]
[1384] 1 Cor. xi. 20. [Clement has already hinted his opinion, that this referred to a shameful custom of the Corinthians to let an agape precede the Eucharist; an abuse growing out of our Lord's eating of the Passover before he instituted the Eucharist.]
[1385] toutois, an emendation for touto.
[1386] Odyss., xi. 65.
[1387] Iliad, i. 591.
[1388] Ecclus. xxxi. 20.
[1389] Shem and Japheth.
[1390] see Ecclus. xxxi. 19, where, however, we have a different reading.
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