(52) How then? Did not the righteous in ancient times partake of what God made with thanksgiving? Some begat children and lived chastely in the married state. To Elijah the ravens brought bread and meat for food. And Samuel the prophet brought as food for Saul the remnant of the thigh, of which he had already eaten. But whereas they say that they are superior to them in behaviour and conduct, they cannot even be compared with them in their deeds. "He who does not eat," then, "let him not despise him who eats; and he who eats let him not judge him who does not eat; for God has accepted him." Moreover, the Lord says of himself: "John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking and they say, Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and a sinner." Or do they also scorn the apostles? Peter and Philip had children, and Philip gave his daughters in marriage.

(7) Then said: "More thoughtful Mary was of making The marriage feast complete and honourable, Than of her mouth which now for you responds; And for their drink the ancient Roman women With water were content; and Daniel Disparaged food, and understanding won. The primal age was beautiful as gold; Acorns it made with hunger savorous, And nectar every rivulet with thirst. Honey and locusts were the aliments That fed the Baptist in the wilderness; Whence he is glorious, and so magnified As by the Evangel is revealed to you."

(89) And there now was no earthly Meat or Drink; and the Soul of Christ understood now very well what Inn [or House] it was in, that it was in God, and that it could of Stones make Bread, seeing there was none there; but it must eat no earthly Bread, but heavenly [Bread] out of the holy Ternary, in its heavenly Body; and the earthly Body must be hungry, that the Soul might be rightly tempted. For the earthly Body was hungry, as the Text in the Gospel says very right.

(211) 131 To say: The abomination of N. is hunger; he does not eat it; 131 the abomination of N. is thirst; he does not drink it. 131 It is N. who gives food to those who exist. 131 His nurse is 'i.t; 131 it is she who makes his life (through nourishment?); it is she who gave birth to N. 132 N. was conceived in the night; N. was born in the night. 132 He belongs, to the Followers of R`, who are before the morning star. 132 N. was conceived in Nun; he was born in Nun. 132 He has come; he has brought to you (some) bread of that which he found there.

(87) And do not rely upon the Hypocrisy of the Antichrist, he is a Liar, and Covetous, and a Dissembler; he minds only his Idol the Belly, and is a Thief in the Sight of God; he devours the Bread that belongs to the Needy; he is the Devil's Hell-hound; learn to know him.

(28) Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in the flesh. I found all of them intoxicated; I found none of them thirsty. And My soul became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then they will repent."

(97) Woe to you who devour the finest of the wheat, And drink wine in large bowls, And tread under foot the lowly with your might.

A certain noble, who lived under the Christian dispensation when wine was allowed, sent his servant to a monastery to fetch some wine. The servant went and bought the wine, and was returning with it, when he passed the house of a very austere and testy devotee. This devotee called out to him, "What have you got there?" The servant said, "Wine, belonging to such a noble." The devotee said, "What! does a follower of God indulge in wine? Followers of God should have naught to do with pleasure and drinking; for wine is a very Satan, and steals men's wits. Your wits are not too bright already, so you have no need to render them still duller by drink." In illustration of this, he told the story of one Ziayi Dalaq, a very tall man, who had a dwarfish brother. This brother one day received him very ungraciously, only half rising from his seat in answer to his salutation, and Ziayi Dalaq said to him, "You seem to think yourself so tall that it is necessary to clip off somewhat of your height." Finally the devotee broke the wine-jar with a stone, and the servant went and told his master. The noble was very wrathful at the presumption of the devotee in taking upon himself to prohibit wine, as condemned by the law of nature, when it had not been prohibited by the Gospel, and he took a thick stick and went to the devotee's house to chastise him. The devotee heard of his approach and hid himself under some wool, which belonged to the ropemakers of the village, He said to himself, "To tell an angry man of his faults one needs to have a face as hard as a mirror, which reflects his ugliness without fear or favor." Just so the Prince of Tirmid was once playing chess with a courtier, and being checkmated, got into a rage and threw the chessboard at his courtier's head. So before playing the next game the courtier protected his head by wrappings of felt. Then the neighbors of the devotee, hearing the noise, came out and interceded for him with the noble, telling him that the devotee was half-witted, and could not be held responsible for his actions; and moreover, that as he was a favorite of God, it was useless to attempt to slay him before his time, for the Prophet and other saints had been miraculously preserved in circumstances fatal to ordinary persons. The noble refused to be pacified; but the neighbors redoubled their entreaties, urging that he had so much pleasure in his sovereignty that he could well dispense with the pleasure of wine. The noble strenuously denied this, saying that no other pleasure of sovereignty, or what not, could compensate him for the loss of wine, which made him sway from side to side like the jessamine. The prophets themselves had rejected all other pleasures for that of spiritual intoxication, and he who has once embraced a living mistress will never put up with a dead one. The moral is, that spiritual pleasures, typified by wine, are not to be bartered away for earthly pleasures. The Prophet said, "The world is carrion, and they who seek it are dogs;" and the Koran says, "The present life is no other than a pastime and a sport; but the future mansion is life indeed."

(9) "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him." Now the apostle, in contradistinction to gnostic perfection, calls the common faith the foundation, and sometimes milk, writing on this wise: "Brethren, I could not speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal, to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, not with meat: for ye were not able. Neither yet are ye now able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? " Which things are the choice of those men who are sinners. But those who abstain from these things give their thoughts to divine things, and partake of gnostic food.

(41) Then says Reason, I can see nothing but Bread and Wine, and Christ also gave his Disciples but Bread and Wine. I answer, As the Baptism outwardly is outward Water, and the inward is the Water of the eternal Life, and the Holy Trinity baptises, as may be seen in Jordan, that three Persons appeared; the Son of God, in the Water; the Father, in the Voice of the Words; and the Holy Ghost over the Water; moving upon the Head of Christ; and so all three Persons in the Deity baptised this Man Christ; thus it is also in the Supper.

(120) Their food is abomination, and grows from the fierceness of all qualities: Lamentation and woe, and that for ever without end; there is no time there; another king sitteth on their throne, which keepeth or holdeth a judgment for ever; they are only his footstool.

(11) But those who receive him to themselves with ignorance, the pleasures which are defiled prevail over them. It is those people who used to say; "God created members for our use, for us to grow in defilement, in order that we might enjoy ourselves." And they cause God to participate with them in deeds of this sort; and they are not steadfast upon the earth. Nor will they reach heaven, but [...] place will [...] four ... ... (3 lines unrecoverable) ... unquenchable ... ... (3 lines unrecoverable) ... word [...] upon the Jordan river, when he came to John at the time he was baptized. The Holy Spirit came down upon him as a dove [...] accept for ourselves that he was born of a virgin and he took flesh; he [...] having received power. Were we also begotten from a virginal state or conceived by the word? Rather, we have been born again by the word. Let us therefore strengthen ourselves as virgins in the [...].

(90) Though the Devil and this World rage and rave against this, yet it is nevertheless the Ground of Truth, highly known in the Wonders of God, and not from the Fables or Suppositions, such as the proud seeming holy or hypocritical World now ground their Babble upon, about the Cup of Jesus Christ, for the advancing of their Pomp and Haughtiness, their own Honour and supposed Wisdom, for their Pleasure, and the filling of their Bellies, like the proud Bride in Babylon, who rides upon the evil Beast, which devours the Miserable; therefore thus saith the Spirit against Babel in the Confusion, / have spewed thee out; in the Time of the Wrath, thou shalt drink of the Cup of thy Pride, and thy Source [or Torment] shall rise up in Eternity. Of the Voice of God in the Garden of Eden, and the Conference between God and those two, about Sin.

(1) Oh thou god of nutriment, oh great one who presidest over the mansions on high; [to whom bread cometh from Annu] ye who give bread to Ptah [from Annu], give me bread and beer: let me be made pure by the sacrificial joint, together with the white bread

(19) Then by the practice of temperance men seek health: and by cramming themselves, and wallowing in potations at feasts, they attract diseases.

(64) Jesus said, "A man had received visitors. And when he had prepared the dinner, he sent his servant to invite guests. He went to the first one and said to him, "My master invites you.' He said, 'I have claims against some merchants. They are coming to me this evening. I must go and give them my orders. I ask to be excused from the dinner.' He went to another and said, 'My master has invited you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a house and am required for the day. I shall not have any spare time.' He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'My friend is going to get married, and I am to prepare the banquet. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused from the dinner.' He went to another and said to him, 'My master invites you.' He said to him, 'I have just bought a farm, and I am on my way to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. I ask to be excused.' The servant returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to the dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his servant, 'Go outside to the streets and bring back those whom you happen to meet, so that they may dine.' Businessmen and merchants will not enter the Places of My Father."

(85) And no doubt of such people it is reasonable when, "the Spirit says expressly that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error and the teaching inspired by daemons, through hypocritical sophists who are seated in conscience and forbid marriage, and demand abstinence from foods which God created to be eaten with thanksgiving by believers who know the truth. Everything created by God is good, and none is to be rejected but accepted with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer." It necessarily follows, then, that it is wrong to forbid marriage and indeed eating meat or drinking wine. For it is written: "It is good to eat no meat and to drink no wine" if it causes offence to do so, and that it is "good to remain as I am." But both he who eats with thanksgiving and he who does not eat, who also offers thanksgiving and has a continent enjoyment, should live in accordance with reason.

(2) But how? Not as these heretics do, the which be well likened to madmen having this custom, that ever when they have drunken of a fair cup, cast it to the wall and break it. Thus should not we do if we will well do. For we should not so feed us of the fruit, that we should despise the tree; nor so drink, that we should break the cup when we have drunken. The tree and the cup I call this visible miracle, and all seemly bodily observances, that is according and not letting the work of the spirit. The fruit and the drink I call the ghostly bemeaning of these visible miracles, and of these seemly bodily observances: as is lifting up of our eyes and our hands unto heaven. If they be done by stirring of the spirit, then be they well done; and else be they hypocrisy, and then be they false. If they be true and contain in them ghostly fruit, why should they then be despised? For men will kiss the cup for wine is therein.

(26) And he brought near to him, and he did eat, and he brought him wine and he drank.

(3) "Praying at the same time for you, that God would open to us a door to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am bound; that I may make it known as I ought to speak." For there were certainly, among the Hebrews, some things delivered unwritten. "For when ye ought to be teachers for the time," it is said, as if they had grown old in the Old Testament, "ye have again need that one teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that par-taketh of milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe, being instructed with the first lessons. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised so as to distinguish between good and evil. Wherefore, leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection."