Clement of Alexandria, on Exod 32:6

“And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play.”

“Of old, the Word educated through Moses and after that through the prophets; even Moses was in fact a prophet. For the law was the education of children difficult to control. "Having eaten their fill," Scripture says, "they got up to play," using a Greek word which means not food but cattle fodder, because of their irrational gorging.And since they were continually filling themselves without obeying reason and playing without listening to reason, the law and fear followed them to restrain them from sin and to encourage them to reform themselves.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.