Philo's allegorical treatise reading Moses's laws on wine and drunkenness as a map of the soul's education, folly, and vice.
On Drunkenness is part of Philo of Alexandria's allegorical commentary on the Pentateuch, continuing an earlier (now lost) treatise on what other philosophers said about drunkenness. Here Philo turns to what he calls "the all-great and wise lawgiver," Moses, examining biblical passages that mention wine and the vine in order to extract their symbolic meaning for the moral life of the soul.
Philo argues that unmixed wine, in Moses's usage, is never simply a beverage but a symbol standing for several distinct conditions of the soul: babbling and raving, utter insensibility, insatiable desire, and unrestrained gladness. He traces these conditions to a common root, "lack of education" (understood not as ignorance of facts but estrangement from virtue), and builds an extended case using the biblical figure of the disobedient, contentious, and drunken son, whom the Law commands to be removed from the community. Along the way Philo digresses through related episodes - Noah's drunkenness, Lot's daughters, the sober tent of Moses pitched outside the camp, Abraham's victory over the kings, the golden calf and idolatry, the census of soldiers at the well, and finally an extended allegory of Pharaoh's chief baker, chief cupbearer, and chief cook as figures for gluttony, drink, and delicacy-seeking as the three appetites that enslave a soul devoted to pleasure.
The treatise matters as a prime example of Philo's method: taking concrete Mosaic legislation and narrative and reading it as continuous ethical and psychological allegory, addressed to educated Greek-speaking Jews and pagans alike. It shows how deeply Stoic and Platonic categories of passion, education, and virtue could be grafted onto biblical exegesis, and it is a key witness for how first-century Alexandrian Judaism synthesized Greek philosophy with scriptural authority - a background important for understanding later Christian allegorical interpretation, including strands in Paul, Hebrews, and the Alexandrian Fathers.
“Moses holds that unmixed wine is a symbol not of one thing but of several: of babbling and raving, of utter insensibility, of insatiable and ill-content”
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“The charges, then, are four in number: disobedience, contentiousness, contribution to feasts, and drunkenness.”
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“he says, "Moses pitched his own tent outside the camp," and not nearby, but very far off, "far from the camp" (Exodus 33:7).”
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“For polytheism produces atheism in the souls of the foolish, and those who deify mortal things dishonor the honor due to God.”
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“There are three who serve as household stewards and attendants of the licentious and unrestrained soul: the chief baker, the chief cupbearer, and the chief cook”
— On Drunkenness · read this chapter →
It is an allegorical treatise interpreting Moses's laws and narratives about wine and the vine as symbols for states of the soul, particularly folly, disobedience, and vice. Philo builds his argument around the biblical law of the disobedient and drunken son, unpacking four charges - disobedience, contentiousness, feast-contribution, and drunkenness - as an escalating chain rooted in lack of education.
No. Philo notes that Moses permits some people to drink wine and forbids others, and even restricts the same people at different times, showing that the law's real target is symbolic states of the soul rather than the substance itself.
He treats them allegorically as the three appetites - for solid food, wine, and delicacies - that enslave a soul devoted to bodily pleasure, contrasting private individuals who need little with rulers who multiply servants to feed excess.
Philo reads Exodus 33:7, where Moses pitches his tent far from the camp, as an allegory of the wise man emigrating from the 'war' of bodily passions to a life of peace and contemplation.
Philo argues that a mind blinded to the true cause of the universe mistakes visible bodies - sun, moon, and crafted images - for gods, so that polytheism and image-worship are consequences of the same folly and lack of education that produce drunkenness.
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