Athanasius of Alexandria

In his own words on Sirach

• Sirach 7:17

  Sin possesses the very bread of his death, to which it invites those who love pleasures and the fools, saying, "Touch with pleasure the secret bread and the sweet stolen waters." He who merely touches it "does not know that the children of the earth perish because of it." When one thinks about tasting pleasure, the result that comes from this nourishment will not be sweet for him in the end, as again the Wisdom of God affirms: "Bread of deceit is pleasant to a person, but afterwards his mouth shall be full of sand," and, "Honey drips from the lips of a prostitute, which for a certain time is sweet to your palate. Afterwards you will find it more bitter than wormwood, sharper than a two-edged sword." Thus, eating it and enjoying it a little, afterwards he is devoured by worms, while he renders his soul far away, because the fool does not know that "they that are far from God perish."

  FESTAL LETTERS 7:5.17

• Sirach 15:9

  Therefore, although wicked people press forward to keep the feast and praise God as though they were at a feast and intrude into the church of the saints, yet God confutes them, saying to the sinner, "Why do you speak of my decrees?" And the gentle Spirit rebukes them, saying, "Praise is not attractive in the mouth of sinners," neither does sin have anything in common with the praise of God; for the sinner has a mouth speaking perverse things, as the proverb says, "The mouth of the wicked answers evil." For how is it possible for us to praise God with an impure mouth, since things that are contrary to each other cannot coexist? "For what communion has righteousness with iniquity, or what fellowship is there between light and darkness?" So exclaims Paul, a minister of the gospel. Thus it is that sinners, and all those who have alienated themselves from the catholic church, heretics and schismatics, since they are excluded from glorifying God with the saints, cannot properly even continue as observers of the feast.

  FESTAL LETTERS 7:4.13-14