On Drunkenness (131-135)

unless indeed as often as servants, and sons, and subjects, are about to approach masters, and parents, and sovereigns, they take care to be sober in order not to offend in either word or deed, lest if they in any respect act as if contemptuous of their rank, they should be punished, or to speak in the most moderate manner, should at least suffer ridicule; and yet any one when about to become the minister of the Ruler and father of the universe, is not then to show himself superior to meat, and drink, and sleep, and all the vulgar necessities of nature, but is to turn aside to luxury and effeminacy, and imitate the life of the intemperate, and having his eyes weighed down with wine, and his head shaking, and bending his neck to one side, and belching from intemperance, and being weak and tottering in his whole body, is in that condition to approach the sacred purifications, and altars, and sacrifices. No: such a man may not without impiety even behold the sacred flame at a distance.

But, if indeed one is to understand these things as said not of the tabernacle or altar of sacrifice which are visible, and which are made of inanimate and perishable materials, but of those objects of speculation which are invisible and [*]

For since the Creator has in every instance made one thing a model and another a copy of that model, he has made the archetypal pattern of virtue for the seal, and then he has on this stamped an impression from it very closely resembling the stamp. Therefore, the archetypal seal is the incorporeal idea being a thing as to its intrinsic nature an object of the outward senses, but yet not actually coming within the sphere of their operations. Just as if there is a piece of wood floating in the deepest part of the Atlantic sea, a person may say that the nature of wood is to be burned, but that that particular piece never will be burnt because of the way in which it is saturated with salt water.

Let us then look upon the tabernacle and the altar as ideas, the one being the idea of incorporeal virtue, and the other as the emblem of an image of it, which is perceptible by the outward senses. Now it is easy to see the altar and the things which are on it, for they have all their preparations out of doors, and are consumed by unquenchable fire, so as to shine not by day alone, but also by night;

but the tabernacle and all things that are therein are invisible, not only because these are placed in the innermost recesses and in the most holy shrines, but also because God has affixed according to the injunctions of the law, the inevitable punishment of death, not only to any one who touches them, but to any one who through the superfluous curiosity of his eyes beholds them. The only exception is, if any one is perfect and faultless, unpolluted by any error whether it be great or small, having a nature entirely even and full, and in all respects most perfect;