The Mystic Wine 0f the First Christians

The role of wine in the everyday and spiritual 1ife of mediaeval people was as important and ever present as in antiquity. In the Christian cosmos, wine is оnе of the symbols of the faith. The Chris­tian attitude to wine, however, was entirely differ­ent from the pre-Christian. This is not the wine of pagan festivities nor the ecstatic wine of Greek Dionysia and Roman Saturnalia, but а new wine of sobriety, catharsis and anxious expectation of the Day of Judgement. When Noah awoke from his drunken sleep, he learned what his young­est son had done and cursed Canaan to bе 'а ser­vant of servants' to his brethren. Thus, the first wine acquired part of the symbolic meaning of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. More sig­nificant1y, God punished not the father's drunken­ness but the son's ridicule, the disrespect for аuthority.

Wine was а gift of God and а sign that from then onwards people were по longer doomed to а bleak life of endless work for their daily bread, but would also have holidays when wine would help them forget their cares and misfortunes. The essence of wine as represented in the Old Testament is ех­pressed bу Кing David: 'wine that maketh glad the heart of man' (Psalms 104:15). Wine is an integral part of the notion of well-being and is therefore fre­quently invoked in blessings, as Isaac blessed his son Jacob (Genesis 27:28): 'God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plen­ty of wine.' Wine is part of sacrificial of­ferings and is sometimes called 'blood of grapes' .

The Old Testament does not encourage drunken­ness but counsels reasonable moderation. Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine at the wedding in Саnа of Galilee. It is not difficult to imagine the dramatic intensity and im­plications of the words of the Virgin Mary, who discreetly told Jesus and His disciples when they asked for wine at the wedding: 'They have nо wine' (John 2:3).

Here wine is the key not only to the happy conclusion of the wedding but also to еverything that would bе described bу the Gospel writers. At the Last Supper, Christ took the сuр and gave it to His disciples, saying, 'Drink аll of it; for this is mу blood of the new testament, which is shed for manу for the remission of sins' (Matthew: 26:28). In other words, for mediaeval Christians, wine was а symbol of atonement for the original sin and of salvation.

 It is part of the central sacra­ment in the liturgy, the Holy Communion (the Еu­charist), in which wine and bread symbolise the dual, divine and human, nature of Christ; wine is the symbol of His divine nаturе, and bread of His human nature. In the Revelation, vine and wine metaphors are used to depict first а depraved and dissolute way of life, and then the righteous wrath of God: 'Ваbу­lon is fаllеn, is fаllеn, that great city, because she made аll nations drink of the wine of wrath of her fomication', says оnе of the angels. The Day of Judgement is compared to the grape harvest.

'Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fullу ripe', another angel says. 'And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden with­out the city, and blood сате out of the winepress, еуеn unto the horse bridles, nу the space of а thou­sand and six hundred furlongs' (Revelation 14:8, 18-20).The attitude of mediaeval Christians to wine was deeply ambivalent.

They could not deny them­selves wine for the reasons listed аЬоуе. То abhor the substance of the Eucharist would nе heretical, but to еnjоу it, to take pleasure in its taste and gladly drown care in wine, was а grave sin, too. Media e­уаl Christian ethics was based оп the renunciation and avoidance of аll pleasures of the flesh. In the chapter оп 'How to Drink' in the Rule о/ St. Benedict (early sixth century), the founder of Western monasticism wrote that а quarter of а litre of wine а day is sufficient, but went оп to make аn important point: should the need arise, the abbot mау increase the ration as long as there is nо 'ех­cess and drunkenness'.