Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away: and he that cleaves to harlots will become impudent.
All Commentaries on Wisdom of Sirach 19:2 Go To Wisdom of Sirach 19
Salvian the Presbyter
AD 429
Everything was destroyed from two dominant common defects: avarice and drunkenness. For, unrestrained in their greed for drink, it came to the point where the city authorities could not even get up from the table"not even when the enemy had already penetrated into the city. I think that God intentionally wanted to show them the reason of their ruin: that at the moment when they were experiencing ruin, they continued to conduct themselves in the very thing that ultimately led to their ruin. I have seen with my own eyes deplorable scenes in that city. It mattered not whether they were boys or old men. It was the same scurrilous partying and levity. All kids of evil were going on at the same time: luxury, drinking, depravity. Everyone was doing the same thing: they amused themselves, got drunk and used prostitutes. Both old and young let themselves go during the banquets. Individuals who were already too weak to live were nonetheless daunting in their wine drinking; those nearly incapable of walking were still sturdy in their drinking; those otherwise uncertain in their steps were agile and lively in their dancing.
What is there left to say? Well, they were so filthy in all the evils of which I have spoken that the saying of the sacred text came true that says, "Wine and women make men fall away from God." And, in fact, while they were drinking, amusing themselves, having sex and going crazy, they did begin to deny Christ. And although this happened, we are still astonished that they lost their material assets, even though they had begun to unravel morally for quite some time! Therefore, let no one think that city perished only on the day in which it was destroyed! Where such things happen, the people were destroyed long before they were overwhelmed by their enemies.
