The Host with the Most?

[steepholm]

A few posts ago I was maundering on about the rain falling on just and unjust alike, and whether that saying would have had the same connotations in the relatively arid climate where it was coined as it now carries in my own soggier corner of the world. I suppose my next question is rather similar, though more doctrinally central: just how common was it to drink wine in first-century Palestine?

Clearly they had several skinfuls at the Cana wedding, and at the Last Supper too, but those were special occasions. Was it an everyday drink for your ordinary Joe? Or a luxury good? It makes a big difference to the significance of the Eucharist. If wine is the drinking equivalent of bread - the most staple of staples - then that gives it one kind of significance. But if it's seen as something special, that gives it another.

Even if wine flowed freely and cheaply in Jesus's particular time and place, that certainly hasn't always been the case in the cultures to which Christianity has been introduced. It must have been another story in beer-drinking countries such as Egypt and Germany, for example. The same goes for England, where wine was seen as a posh drink until very recent times. Telling an Anglo-Saxon peasant to drink wine in memory of Christ must have conveyed a very different message from telling a first-century Roman to do the same.

Christopher Marlowe is said to have joked that the Eucharist "would have bin much better being administred in a Tobacco pipe" - and after all, why not? One for the alternative historians, perhaps.

Comments

[kalypso]

As usual, my first instinct is to turn to Cruden's Complete Concordance to the Old & New Testament & Apocrypha: this is Cruden's page on wine, which includes a lengthy introduction before the also lengthy list of verses which mention wine (before we get on to wine-bibbers, wine-bottles, wine-cellars, wine-presses etc). If it's too small to read, I can send close-ups. But my conclusion from a quick glance is that wine would appear to be a staple in the Old Testament - the detail about it being forbidden to priests in the tabernacle suggests to me that the drinking of wine is common practice.

[steepholm]

Thanks for that - very interesting. How useful to have a Cruden of one's own!

[kalypso]

It was a present from my Godmother in 1973, and has been an invaluable resource ever since!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I think the concept of wine as a rarer good in at least the English and Welsh sections of these islands stems from the climate change of my very own 17th century. Up to then wine was being produced a good way north and rough wine at least would have been an everyday beverage for all but the very poorest, even if quality stuff was a gentry import. And this also overlooks fruit wines in their various forms.

You forget that Germany is and has been for centuries a major wine producing culture.

Interestingly, the Scottish tradition at the Eucharist is to serve a fortified wine such as port, although I don't know how old the tradition is- Scotland would never have been able to produce wine of its own.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of Germany in the days when Christianity was first introduced there. However, that's a good point about the fruit wines: I wonder how well that sorted with the rather specifically vinicultural imagery in the Bible?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

There is a non commercial vineyard in Lincoln, and a barely commercial one in Durham; but were they ever common in the northern half of England?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

They certainly were more common, although the Midland counties were about as far north as the better wines ever went- the Roman city of Wroxeter in Shopshire had a reputation for its wine and it's being produced locally again today.

The 17th century saw climate change and a mini ice age which saw a lot of English production off until the climate change of our own times- my home county of Kent now produces fizz which takes awards away from the Champagne region much to the chagrin of our French neighbours! :o)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thanks, particularly for the information about Wroxeter, which I didn't know.

(We lived in Rochester for three years, and certainly enjoyed the local wines then).

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Small world! I'm Rochester born and bred and live in Gillingham at present!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Indeed! :-)

Anti-whine poem to memorize by heart

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/hilaire-belloc/heroic-poem-in-praise-of-wine/ Personally, I believe (as one should in this case; believe, I mean) it was served as both médicine and means of mystical communion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine Can't help loving having a symbol intus, either way and you can see its effects on Mollberg Speak that can only be described as savoury http://www.romantic-germany.info/Romantic-Rhine.4110.0.html http://www.germany.travel/en/towns-cities-culture/towns-cities/wuerzburg.html even when my mouth is very full!

Re: Anti-whine poem to memorize by heart

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

As you may remember, the vineyards of the Mosel made quite an impression on me last autumn.

Re: Anti-whine poem to memorize by heart

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

The most of Mosel shall always dwell in thine veins, yes;) Often too sweetish for my tastes but maybe I drank the wrong ones when Young&moist.

[sovay]

I suppose my next question is rather similar, though more doctrinally central: just how common was it to drink wine in first-century Palestine?

The concept of kosher wine goes back to Biblical times, so my answer would be "very." Plus first-century Judaea is a Roman province and the Romans were serious about their viticulture, so it's not like only the local culture would have been receptive to the significance. I think of it as a drinking staple of most of the ancient world, obviously remembering the existence of beer. There are ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern vineyards, though, and red wine plays an important role in Egyptian ritual life. It's one of the standard provisions for the afterlife. The Phoenicians are incredibly influential in furthering the spread of wine not just as a traded commodity, but as a technology. [edit] tl;dr I think your ordinary Josephus might have considered the really good stuff a luxury good, but in terms of the ability to come home with a couple of asses' worth of plonk, there would have been lots to choose from.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think your ordinary Josephus might have considered the really good stuff a luxury good, but in terms of the ability to come home with a couple of asses' worth of plonk, there would have been lots to choose from.

That sounds unnervingly like today. The remark of the host at Cana suggests there may have been wine snobs back then too: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

[joyeuce]

I have a vague memory from back in my theology-student days, of being told that wine was common in first-century Palestine, and discussing the difference this made to one's conception of the Eucharist. Probably as part of my final-year liturgy module.

I wonder whether the relative rarity of wine contributed to the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic tradition that only the priest received the Eucharist in both kinds. However, this has been illegal in the Church of England since the Sacrament Act of 1547, except in cases of grave emergency. (That was a contribution from my husband the church historian.)

My Nonconformist-mixed-with-Anglican background means that I have received the blood of Christ in the form of Communion wine (vile), non-alcoholic Communion wine (worse, and I once had to drink a full chalice of it), grape juice, Ribena (because the Communion steward was embarrassed to buy grape juice - ?), sherry, and Lindisfarne mead.

Here endeth the spill of random chunks of information!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

All random chunks gratefully received! I find it bizarre that one could be embarrassed about buying grape juice (but not Ribena).

Perhaps it's as well that Jesus didn't institute the eat-y part of the process in Marmite soldiers. That would have sorted the sheep from the goats!

[joyeuce]

It is bizarre. My parents, who gave me this explanation (presumably when I was old enough to notice that the Methodist Service Book stated "The juice of the grape shall be used"), couldn't tell me any more, and I believe the lady in question is now dead, so it will remain forever a mystery.

I wonder whether it would have been possible for yeast extract to have been invented by the first century?

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of a funny story one of the people at the Episcopalian church I used to go to told me. She is from the South, and was a member of some other church, can't remember what. She and the pastor's daughter sneaked a bottle of the communion wine once when she was a teenager, and got drunk in the attic. They found out later that it was not alcoholic, and their drunken giggles had just been ordinary teenage giggling, amped up by suggestion.

[joyeuce]

I'm amazed they could get it down - it's disgustingly sweet. But I suppose teenage palates are not necessarily refined!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Two of the problems encountered by the Christian Greenland Norse were the need to hunt and export walrus &c to trade for items they couldn't make themselves, including communion wine; and the increasing isolation from the Christian community in Europe, with a lack of ships bringing them, among other things, bishops and wine.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the Bishop-Walrus exchange rate was?

Of course, on Lewis they were cannier and combined the two.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Well yes :-)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Or maybe they could have played a variant of chess, with walruses instead of elephants?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That seems a very Carrollian fancy!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

They must have cursed Leif Eriksson's tall tales about Vinland!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Mm, possibly!

(Later finds at L'Anse aux Meadowes have included butternuts and wood, indicating that the Norse did get as far down as grape-supporting areas; and they could have brought home enough grapes for a pressing; but only once or twice).

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The site certainly has re-written some of the history- a bit like Ness of Brodgar and Links of Noltland turning Neolithic history, quite literally, on its head in recent times!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

We've been to the Ness ?six times, and the Links once; but never while digging was taking place :-(

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I've lost count of how many times we've been on the Ness- we've been going since well before they started digging.

We were lucky to be on the Links this June when they'd literally just uncovered a finely preserved Neolithic well on the beach.

Funnily enough, I posted a few pics of the Ness dig just yesterday!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

May I friend you?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

By all means.

I'll add you back as my blog is f-locked but that should let you in!

[rinue.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that wine was served at basically every meal, as was bread, so saying "think of me every time you eat and drink these" meant "think of me every day, maybe every meal, because I am always present." My mom has therefore suggested we should change the present day eucharist from wine to coffee.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I have often wondered if there is a heresy that holds that Jesus did only mean that we should remember him when eating and drinking.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm a Quaker and we take the view that the gathering together of people is what was meant- we don't perform a communion- no bread and certainly no wine (no alcohol in Meeting Houses) other than getting together. :o)

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Imagine a Northern Eucharist! Whisky and oatcake?

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I could live with that!

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

In addition to all the above, wine is a normal part of Jewish ritual. You certainly drink it every Friday as part of the Sabbath meal and have a blessing over "the fruit of the vine" and as part of every other celebration. Why wouldn't you have some every day?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That does make sense - and was what I'd always assumed until I (foolishly) stopped to ask myself if I actually knew.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I know the Bible pretty well and I don't think anyone ever drinks anything except wine, milk and water. The NT is full of viniculture imagery. "I am the true vine" "old wine in new wineskins" etc. No-one during my theological training ever suggested that wine was ever anything but an everyday beverage.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That seems pretty unanimous. So wine is to drink pretty much what bread is to food - at least for Jesus and his immediate circle - and it seems reasonable to assume that (as well as the specific requirements of the Passover supper) he had that in mind when telling his disciples to remember him when eating/drinking them. But I'd really like to know how that choice has played on people's religious sensibilities in cultures where wine was a rarer, more elite or more expensive drink. The intersection of climate and theology (as in the other post) is quite intriguing to me.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think C.S. Lewis records a conversation in his journal that discusses an aspect of that very issue. They were talking about how far you could look at a text in isolation, and someone remarked that you had to know the language, after all, and that implied context -- did "breakfast" mean ham and eggs at eight, or a piece of bread and a handful of olives at dawn? Was wine the drink of the people, or only of aristocrats? Something along those lines.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I find very often that CSL has been there first...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

As someone notes above the Roman church decided at some stage to withhold the cup from the laity. I suppose this had something to do with cost and availability. The English church returned the cup to the people- as (I assume other Protestant groups did as well) but only celebrated the eucharist on special occasions- which meant they weren't getting through great quantities of wine.

In my day most churches got their wines from ecclesiastical suppliers. It was nasty, sugary stuff; you wouldn't want to drink it socially. I did however have a colleague with a drink problem who used to "cream" small amounts off the top of all the bottles in the hope that nobody would notice.

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

That makes me wonder if it"s the same disgustingly sweet Kosher stuff we have to,drink on Friday nights. :-) Sweet as in slightly alcoholic grape juice rather than sweet as in port or sherry, which are another matter. No, you wouldn't drink it socially. No way!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking sweet wine keeps better. You can put half a bottle back in the cupboard and be confident that it won't go off.

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

We keep ours in the fridge. But yes, a good thought there, because it has to last a while when nobody want to drink any more than necessary. ;-)

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it is very symbolic - in ceremony, you drink wine and eat bread, which is probably how Christianity got it in the first place. It's the most basic of food, symbolically. When you've had it, you tuck into the full meal.

Climate and theology, yes! :-) Agreed, an interesting idea. As I have heard, in England in later times, anyway, most people would drink ale, then beer when it became the drink of choice(you had to make ale daily, while beer kept better, according to a history of drinking in England I have read). Wine would indeed have been posh, I imagine.