On Drunkenness (101-105)

And he says in another passage that, "When I have gone out of the city I will stretch forth my hands unto the Lord, and the voices shall cease." [*] Think not here that he who is speaking is a man, a contexture, or composition, or combination of soul and body, or whatever else you may choose to call this concrete animal; but rather the purest and most unalloyed mind, which, while contained in the city of the body and of mortal life is cramped and confined, and like a man who is bound in prison confesses plainly that he is unable to relish the free air. But as soon as it has escaped from this city, then being released, as to its thoughts and imaginations, as prisoners are loosened as to [*] [*]

Are not the outcries of pleasure very loud with which she is accustomed to deliver such commands as please her? And is not the voice of appetite unwearied when she pours forth her bitter threats against those who do not serve her? And so again all the other passions have a voice of loud and varied sound.

But even, if each one of the passions were to exert the ten thousand mouths and voices, and all the power of making an uproar spoken of by poets, it would not be able to perplex the ears of the perfect man, after he has already passed from them, and determined no longer to dwell in the same city with them.

But the sacred Scriptures agree with the man who can speak from experience, when he says that in the camp of the body all the sounds of war were heard, the tranquillity dear to peace having been driven to a distance. For he does not say that it is not such a shout of war, but that it is not such a shout as some persons think the cry of men who have conquered or who have been conquered to be, but rather such an one as would proceed from men heavy and overwhelmed with wine.

For the expression, "It is not the voice of men beginning to exert themselves in battle," is equivalent to the words, "of men who have got the better in war," for exertion in battle is the cause of victory. Thus he represents the wise Abraham, after the destruction of the nine kings, that is, of the four passions and the five powers of the outward senses, which were all set in motion in a manner contrary to nature, preluding with a hymn of gratitude, and saying, "I will stretch forth my hand to the most high God, who made heaven and earth; that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of any thing that is thine." [*]