On Sobriety (30-33)

Therefore, the first man, being become sober, and knowing what his younger son had done to him, imprecates very terrible curses on him; for, in truth, when the mind recovers its sobriety, it does in consequence immediately perceive all that innovating wickedness has previously done to it, which, while it was intoxicated, it was unable to comprehend.

We must now then consider whom the wise man here curses; for this is one of the matters especially deserving of investigation, since he curses not the son who appears to have done the wrong, but his son, and his own grandson, of whom he has not mentioned any apparent sin at present, either small or great;

for he who from superfluous curiosity wished to see his father naked, and who laughed at what he saw, and who divulged what ought properly to have been concealed in silence, was Ham, the son of Noah; but he who bears the blame for the offences committed by the other, and who reaped the fruit of them in curses is Canaan; for [*]

And yet, as I said before, what sin had he committed? But they, who are accustomed to explain the formal, and literal, and obvious interpretations of the laws have perhaps considered this by themselves; but we, being guided by right reason, as it suggests itself to us, will interpret it according to the explanation which is ready to hand, having just made this necessary preface.