The Instructor 2.7.56

a bread-eater. It is suitable for a self-controlled man to rise before most and to slip away from the banquet quietly. “For at the hour of rising,” it says, “do not be last, and run off to your house.” And the twelve, calling together the multitude of the disciples, said: “It is not right that we should leave the word of God to serve tables.” If they guarded against this, much more did they flee gluttony. These same apostles, writing “to the brothers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia,” said: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things: to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and blood, and what is strangled, and sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” We must guard against drunken misbehavior as against hemlock; for both drag down to death. “One must also restrain excessive laughter and tears.” For often those flushed with wine, after laughing very loudly, are then led, I know not how, by some drunken persuasion into tears; for both effeminacy and insolence are out of tune with reason.