appendix
This passage contradicts the general argument, which is that in medicine statements about foods must not be made ἁπλῶς. Cheese is not bad food; it is only bad in certain conditions, and in certain ways, and at certain times. In these circumstances cheese has a δύναμις which does not belong to cheese in itself, but is latent until certain conditions call it forth. The error, says the writer, is not made in the case of wine. Everybody knows that in itself wine is not bad; it is drinking to excess, or at wrong times, which is mischievous.
appendix
Now the reading of A (in fact any MS. reading) makes the writer say that wine itself is to blame (αὐτὸς αἴτιος)—an obvious contradiction of the general argument. My colleague the Rev. H. J. Chaytor most ingeniously suggests that αὐτός refers not to wine but to the man. He would therefore translate this δύναμις of wine and the man himself are to blame. But not only is it more natural for αὐτός to refer to wine, but the writer’s whole point is that in and by itself no food is αἴτιος. A food is a cause only in certain conditions, or, rather, certain conditions call forth certain δυνάμεις.
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I think, therefore, that the right reading is ὅτι τοιαύτη δύναμις οἵνου καὶ οὐκ αὐτὸς αἵτιος. Such and such a δύναμις of wine (i. e. a δύναμις caused by excess of wine acting upon the human φύσιις) is to blame and not mere wine by itself. ὅτι τοιαύτη might easily turn into ὅτι αὕτη, and the omission of οὐ by scribes is not uncommon.
appendix
There is an attractive vigour about the reading ἰδόντες for οἱ εἰδότες, and it may be correct. Anybody can see at a glance that in the case of wine it is excess, etc., and not merely wine itself which is to blame.
