Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water:
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Athanasius the Apostolic
AD 373
Someone who looks at what is done divinely by the Word and denies the body, or looks at what is proper to the body and denies the Word’s presence in the flesh or from what is human, entertains low thoughts concerning the Word … as a Jewish vintner, mixing water with the wine, shall account the cross an offense, or as a Gentile, will deem the preaching folly. - "Four Discourses Against the Arians 3.26"
Water. There is no sincerity in commerce. (Calmet)
Teachers give false interpretations of the law. (St. Jerome)
Iniquity abounded before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and Romans. (Worthington)
And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, able to corrupt the word of truth and mix the wine, which makes glad the heart of man, with water. [We do not] mix, that is, our doctrine with what is common and cheap, and debased, and stale, and tasteless, in order to turn the adulteration to our profit and accommodate ourselves to those who meet us, and curry favor with everyone. [We do not] become ventriloquists and chatterers, who serve their own pleasures by words uttered from the earth, and sink into the earth, and, to gain the special good will of the multitude, injure in the highest degree, no, ruin ourselves, and shed the innocent blood of simpler souls, which will be required at our hands. - "In Defense of His Flight, Oration 2.46"
