A furious man can't be justified; for the sway of his fury shall be his destruction.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 1:22 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Do not be misled. What I am about to tell you is that it is possible to become drunk even without wine. So that you understand that this is possible, listen to what the prophet says: "Woe to those who are drunk, but not with wine." How then can someone get drunk without wine? There are any number of different ways: anger, conceit and foolishness provoke drunkenness. In fact, any one of the destructive passions born inside of us can arouse in us a sort of drunkenness and satisfaction that obscures our reason. Drunkenness, in fact, is nothing other than the alienation of our natural sentiments, the diversion of our thoughts and the loss of consciousness. In what way, then, tell me, are those who lose their temper any different from those who get drunk through wine? They get so drunk with anger and demonstrate such intemperance to the point where they throw themselves against everyone, no matter who it is, and they have no control over their words, nor do they distinguish one person from another.
In fact, just as madmen and lunatics do not notice it when they are throwing themselves into the abyss, so it is with those who lose their temper and are struck with anger. That is why a wise man who wanted to demonstrate the devastation such drunkenness can bring says, "A man"s anger tips the scale to his ruin." Notice how succinctly he captures the enormity of this destructive passion. Now, conceit and foolishness are another form of drunkenness"and in fact even more disastrous than drunkenness. Whoever is in the grip of these passions loses, so to speak, the faculty of his senses and is not all that different from a madman. Tormented each and every day by these passions, he does not notice it until he is dragged into the very abyss of sin, taken over by evils that seem incurable. Let us therefore escape, I beg you, both the drunkenness that comes from wine and the clouding of our thoughts brought about in us through absurd passions. Let us instead listen to our common master of the universe, who says, "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery." Do you see how clear this expression is about the possibility of getting drunk in other ways besides drinking too much? If there were no other kind of drunkenness, why then, after having told us not to get drunk he added "with wine"? Do you see the exceeding wisdom and precision evident in his teaching through this additional phrase? After having affirmed that we should "not get drunk with wine," he adds, "for that is debauchery," almost seeming to indicate that this kind of excess is the root of all evils. "For that is debauchery," he says, that is, this is the reason we lose the wealth of virtue.
