passion displayed at the Persian" feasts of wine;" citing the "law," which made it no discourtesy for any one to decline the wine-cup; a law whose very existence reveals the rule of conscience prompting abstinence among Persian princes (i. 7, 8, 10; vii. 7). This higher law of abstinence, ruling among the young men who were the hope of Israel in this dark day, is set forth in colors of radiant light by both Jeremiah and Daniel. Jeremiah, as the highest type of virtue yet lingering in Israel, calls out the Rechabites, and in the most public manner tests their constancy by offering them wine (xxxv. 2–14); and he records as a marked fact in his future "lament" over the fall of Jerusalem, that during its calamities, "her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk" (iv. 7). Daniel, during the same age, in the distant land of captivity, and a descendant of kings that had been unfaithful, is a resolute leader of a little band who courteously yet firmly refused to drink the wine of the Babylonian king (i. 5–16). The allusion in Psalm civ., written in this age, a statement often perverted because the contrast is overlooked, is, from the fact that it is purely incidental, an index to the impression of men of this age as to the pernicious influence of wine-drinking. The Psalmist representing the Creator as giving fertility to the soil so that man can "bring forth food" out of it,

Greek Study of the Law of Wines. 105

and citing "wine, oil, and bread," as the three chief products, makes this contrast between the first and last (v. 15): "Wine to make glad the heart of man and bread to strengthen his heart." The word samah, rendered "merry" usually, is sometimes, especially in Solomon's writings, used in an ambiguous or double sense, as Prov. xv. 13; xvii. 5, 22; but in the writers of the later age it is used chiefly in a bad sense, as Esther v. 9, 14. The gift of wine in this representation of the Psalmist of the captivity is to be explained by the convictions of the men of that age, such as Daniel and Jeremiah. In their view, wine, as the Psalmist states, produces unhealthful exhilaration, while bread gives healthful "strength," the Psalmist's statement being in harmony with essential truth, as well as with the conviction of his age.

Meanwhile, in this age, tirosh, unfermented wine, and mesak, diluted wine, again appear as antidotes against the use of intoxicating wines. Zechariah puts the healthful tirosh, “new wine," which maidens at the Messiah's coming will partake, into direct contrast with the yayin, or intoxicating "wine," which "noisy" brawlers will drink (ix. 15, 17). Haggai mentions it among the simple natural products of the land of Israel in the latter day (i. 11). Jeremiah, as the compiler of the Kings, and Ezra of the Chronicles,

mention tirosh as an article to which there is a return after reformation under Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kings xviii. 32; 2 Chron. xxxi. 5; xxxii. 28); and Nehemiah cites it in almost every allusion to the products of the field, as if the return from their captivity brought a return among the Israelites to the use of simple unfermented wine (Nehemiah v. 11; x. 37, 39; xiii. 5, 12).

THE LAWS OF WINE OBSERVED BY THE GREEKS.

Aristotle, the crown-prince in the galaxy of Greek thinkers, defined philosophy as "the science of sciences and the art of arts." There could be no real philosophy of wine-drinking until science had exhausted its skill in comparing the facts as to the effects of wines; nor until art had culminated in its efforts to counteract the insidious and deadly poison in fermented wines. Among the Greeks, centuries before the age of the philosophers, poets had pictured winedrinking as one of the vices of men; and historians had recorded their effects on society. Homer, writing of the Greeks who lived eleven centuries before Christ, alludes to wines of various colors and characters. The gods drank "nectar," but "drink no ruddy wine." The nature of the Greek" nektar" as distinct from "oinos" seems to be like that of the Hebrew "tirosh" as distinct from "yayin." That it was made like wine from

Greek Poets on Wines.

107

the juice of the grape, Homer indicates by describing it, as "red like wine" (Iliad xix. 38; Odyssey, v. 93). That nektar was, like " tirosh," derived from the strained, sugary ingredient of the fresh pressed grape, is indicated by its special sweetness, and more by Homer's designation (Odyssey ix. 359)," nektaros aporrox," or extract of the burst grape; "aporrox" being a compound of the Greek preposition "apo," from, and the word "rox," used by the Greek translators to designate "tirosh" in Isa. lxv. 8. That it was specially healthful, preservative of the bodily tissues as opposed to fermented wines, which the Greeks had learned were destructive of health, is indicated by the general statement that the drinking of nektar gave immortality to both gods and men; while, also, we have the special statement of Homer that Thebis bathed the corpse of Patroclus in nektar to preserve it from decay (Iliad xix. 38). Hector, the Trojan champion, remonstrates with his mother for offering him wine, lest it should "rob him of both strength and courage." The Greek heroes drank "diluted wine" only; from the "same urn" of "diluted wine," drinking themselves and pouring out libations to the gods." (See Iliad i. 598 ; ii. 128; iii. 391; iv. 3,207; vi. 266; xix. 38, etc.) In the poem of his old age, the Odyssey, Homer pictures the sage as obtaining from Maron, a priest of

Apollo, a "sweet (edus) wine," which needed when drunk, to have twenty parts of water added; which wine given to the Cyclops, Polyphemus, had a soporific rather than an intoxicating effect; as the milk of Jael put Sisera to sleep. The reasonings of Trojans and of Greeks, of Hecuba, Hector and of sage Ulysses, wrought by the poet into his sketches, show that at this early day the common reason and conscience of observing men was quick and imperative as to the use of wine by men who sought to be all for which they were made; while reverence for the Divine Being led the earliest Greeks to a resort in the religious employ of wine which is controlling to this day among Christian Greeks. It had led to the invention of an unintoxicating product of the grape; as among the Asiatic patriarchs.

In the period between the early epic poets and the later philosophers, the historians and dramatic poets add much to show the history of Greek opinion as to wines. Herodotus (vi. 84) says that among the Spartans, trained to abstinence, it was believed that the "madness of Cleomenes," which led to their reverses, was, due to the fact that their leader, through seduction of the Scythians, formed the habit of drinking "undiluted wine."

The testimony of Herodotus confirms the fact, important in subsequent history, that the meli, or