I shall not make this festal assembly a silent one, nor again one of many speeches. For, although it is God whom I honor in my speech, by bringing it to a speedy close I shall do what is pleasing to the assembled company.

But in order that you may be a participant worthy of God in the festival, do not set your hearts on the pleasures of the table, passing from fasting to drunkenness. Offer to God a garlanded goblet of sober mixture.

Our God is wisdom and reason. A bearer that confuses reflection, that disturbs the reasoning faculty, is quite alien to true reason.

There is a recreation that is befitting to God, and there is one that befits evil spirits. Exult ye in the Lord in fear. When you feast, he says, be mindful of God, for it is then that most men slip into sin. When the body is well nourished and grows fleshy, it deflects the soul's judgment. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup of unmixed wine filled with a mixture, and he pours from this vessel into that, but the dregs of it have not been drained. Drink thou of that cup, and thou hast become worthy of the banquet of the bridegroom. The cup is beneficial, full of wine, and once sought, is worthy to raise us to Mind.

And indeed the passage is quite clear, though many things fall a little short of comprehension. A drinking cup is full of a mixture in unmixed wine. And he poured from this vessel into that. If it was of unmixed wine, how is it full of a mixture, and if it is one, how did he pour it from this to that?

The words seem to be altogether nonsensical; not so, however, if really understood. God has no interest in divinely inspired diction. The divine spirit disdains literary pettiness. Dost thou desire to behold the harmony of this discord? Concerning what sort of cup is he speaking? It is the word which we have from God, freely offered by God to men in the Old Testament and the New, for by this drink is our soul watered. Inasmuch as it is a word, each of the two is unmixed, for even although a double word it is mixed together, for what has been compounded out of the two is one, a perfection of Gnosis. The Old Testament contained the promise, and the New revealed the apostle, and the phrase, 'he poured from this into that' shadows the succession of the teachers of the law, that of Moses and that of the Lord, and the cup is one, for one Spirit has breathed both on the prophet and the apostle, and like good painters, He sketched out, in days of old, and thereafter exactly portrayed, the parts of the Gnosis, 'but the dregs of it have not been drained'.

Note 1: The quotations are from Psalm 2.11 and 75.9.

It is a holy night that brings light to those that are accursed, a light greater than that wherewith any sun has illumined the day. Lo, it is not holy that even the fairest thing upon the earth should be compared to the Creator; but that light which illumines souls and lits up the perceptible sun is no piece of creation. It exists through the harmony of its present blessedness, that will bless us in the future.

If you persevere in this way of thinking you will maintain the soul in a more enviable state for the present, if not for your whole life. At this moment each one of you goes about the city as an announcing messenger. Now believe ye that the words of scripture refer to you, that being on earth ye have a citizenship in heaven.[1] Beware of missing your deserts, for hard to wash out is the stain that comes after cleansing.

The people of Leontopolis adopted a resolution whose mildness was out of keeping with their own nature. They let each other alone, and indicted their neighbors for illegal action. Until the other day brothers were invoking the arm of the law against brothers, sons against father, and father against the family.

Perhaps the thing now taken in hand is not really the act of men finally resorting to the ancestral course of mutual extermination; but while every private individual has his hand against his neighbor, the city is arrayed collectively against those who are unlucky enough to live near it. It would be unendurable to them if the pattern of their constitution were not publicly that of an informer, and if it did not slip into the position of a false accuser.

That we are in no way guilty, the very accusations furnish clear proofs, when we have the good fortune to get the ear of a judge. But we have learned only to till the soil, not to address law courts. Why then do these men think it fit to overstep the limits that have been assigned to them from time immemorial, and come against us, who are more aflame than they? Why do they always sell the surplus to us, who are more parched than they and wronged by our situation?

Since there has been no profit this year, they insist that our misfortunes should take its place. This is the object of the writs recently issued, and their decrees have no other aim than this. And they also make a second admission, which it is only just that we should state first of all, and we alone; for it explains their most unjust attempt. For having themselves long ago laid a foundation for their false accusations, to support their shameless claims to make use of the water that does not belong to them, they have not approached this most august court.

Note 1: The quote is Philippians 3.20.