There was a certain old man who lived a life of such strict self-denial that he never drank wine. And when I arrived at his cell we sat down to eat. Dates were brought and he ate, and he took water and drank. And I said unto him laughingly, “So you are angry with absinthe, Father? Since you have eaten dates and have drank water, why do you not drink wine?”
And he answered and said unto me, “If you take a handful of dust and throw it on a man, will it hurt him?” And I said unto him, “No.” And he said unto me, “If you take a handful of water and throw it over a man, will he feel pain?” And I said unto him, “No.” And he said unto me, “And again, if you take a handful of chopped straw and throw it over a man, will it cause him pain?” And I said unto him, “No.”
Then he said unto me, “But if you bring them all together and mix them, and knead them well, and dry them, you may throw the mass on the skull of a man and you will not break it.” And I said unto him, “Yes, father, that is true.” And he said unto me, “The monks do not abstain from certain things without good reason, and you must not listen to the men who are in the world who say, ‘Why do they not eat this and why do they not drink that?’ Is there not sin in them? Such people know not. Now we abstain from certain things not because the things themselves are bad, but because the passions are mighty, and when they have waxed strong they kill us.
from S. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, (Seattle: St. Nectarios Press, 1984), pp. 151-152
macgijfknw
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I doubt that a desert monk of the period 250-450 AD would have been queried about absinthe, which is first attested in the 18th century. Unless the monks were REALLY ahead of their time!