like the Upper Rhine, a natural wine region. Herodotus mentions (II. 133) that Mycerinus, the builder of the third pyramid, whom Sir Gardner Wilkinson regards as having reigned from B. C. 2,043 to 2,001, nearly a century before Abraham's visit, gave himself up to luxury in the latter part of his reign; and Herodotus uses the expression "he drank and enjoyed himself, never ceasing day and night;" the implication being, though the word wine is not used, that he drank intoxicating wine. The most important and harmonizing statement of Herodotus as to wine used by the priests, is the following (II. 37). Having said that "they are, of all men, the most excessively attentive to the worship of the gods,” in a minute description of their dress, food, etc., he says: "Wine from the grape is given them." This mention confirms the view already taken of the king's wine in Joseph's day; it illustrates the Greek use of oinos as including must, or fresh grape-juice; and it aids in harmonizing other statements as to wines in Egypt supposed to be conflicting.

Plutarch (Osiris and Isis,, sect. 6) says: "As to wine, they who wait upon the gods in Heliopolis carry none at all into the temple. . . . . Other priests use indeed a little wine, but they have wineless purifications (aoinous hagneias).

Even the kings themselves, being of the order of

Wine Forbidden to Priests and Kings. 55

priests, have their wine given to them according to a certain measure prescribed in the sacred books, as Hecatæus states. They began to drink [wine] from the time of Psammiticus; previous to which they drank no wine at all; and if they made use of it in their libations to the gods, it was not because they looked upon it as in its own nature acceptable, but as the blood of those enemies who formerly fought against them. .. These things are related by Eu doxus in the second book of the Phainomena, as he had them from the priests themselves." As Hecatæus, from whose history Herodotus quoted, though his work is now lost, lived B. c. 550, and as Eudoxus, whose studies of astronomy in Egypt are also lost, lived B. c. 360, while Psammiticus, the king referred to, reigned from B. c. 664 to 610, Plutarch had certainly reason to rely upon their statements. At any rate, any apparent discrepancy does not at all affect the truth here revealed, or the moral impression it must make on any sincere mind. There certainly was a deep conviction on the minds of Egyptian kings, as well as priests, that intoxicating wines were injurious to the physical and moral nature of men accountable to God as civil and religious leaders; and that intoxicating wines, man's invention and curse, were not accepted by the Divine Being as one of His gifts.

It may be added, in general, that Pliny and many later writers allude to various kinds of Egyptian wines. Athenæus (Deipn. I. 25) mentions especially "sweet, light, and boiled" Egyp tian wines; and states, that the Egyptians, like the Greeks, in worshiping the sun, the deification of pure light, "make their libations of honey (grape-syrup), as they never bring wines to the altars of the gods." Philo the Jew and Clement the Christian indicate the religious spirit of the Egyptians, in describing the abstinence of the specially devout of their respective religions. Porphyry, about the same age, quotes from a lost work of Chæremon, librarian at a sacred college in Egypt under the Cæsars, this historic record: "Some do not drink wine at all, and others drink very little of it, on account of its being injurious to the nerves, oppressive to the head, an impediment to invention, and an incentive to lust."

In modern explorations, Champollion notes, as at Beni-Hassan, the ancient representations of the preparations of wines, including "boiled wine;" noting two kinds of presses, especially "that of forcing by mere strength of the arms the strained juice through a cloth. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in explaining his own copy of a drawing of this mode of pressing and straining grape-juice by the hand, says: "This Roman

Strained Grape-Juice in Egypt.

57

torcular or twist press was used in all parts of the country." These representations, which every traveler in Egypt may observe, indicate that the record of Moses as to the butler's pressing the grape-juice into Pharaoh's cup, was a reality. Its design, to furnish a fresh, unintoxicating beverage, is verified by Egyptian, and still more by contemporary and associated Brahminic records.

In the "Hieratic Papyri," or records of Egyp tian priests, found on paper made from the stem of the water-lily (Anasti, No. IV., Let. xi.), is this record of the address of an Egyptian priest to a pupil who had become addicted to the use of the beer of Lower and the wine of Upper Egypt: "Thou knowest that wine is an abomination. Thou hast taken an oath as to strong drink, that thou wouldst not take such into thee. Hast thou forgotten thine oath?" This certainly indicates that aspiring, cultured young men were bound to abstinence from wine in the land where Joseph and Moses learned ancient science.

The laws of the Brahmins of India, embodied in the twelve chapters of the Institutes of Menu, indicate that modern reform is behind the ancients, who, in the earliest ages, had embodied in law the duty of abstaining from intoxicating liqThe opening chapter declares that “immemorial custom is transcendent law" (I. 108); intimating that the embodied precepts of the

uors.

code following are not arbitrary enactments, but the suggestions of human experience, always recognized as binding. The two succeeding chapters treat of the "education," or the youth of the "twice-born," or divinely-endowed caste, the Brahmins, and of " marriage," or their manhood; in which precepts as to abstinence from alcoholic drinks are prominent. Among persons to be shunned in society is "a drinker of intoxicating spirits" (III. 159). Repeated lists of articles of food which may be presented as oblations to the Deity, and which the Brahmin may receive and eat, such as milk, clarified butter and honey, are given; but no "spirituous liquor" is admitted. In the precepts for the "military class," or second caste, among whom kings are ranked, abstemiousness rather than entire abstinence is enjoined. Among the "tenfold set of vices produced by love of pleasure," lechery, "intoxication" and dancing" are associated; and it is declared that "a king addicted to vices" like these, "must lose both his wealth and his virtue. . . . .. and even his life" (VII. 46, 47) In the selection of “the four most pernicious of the set," that of "drinking" is placed first (VII. 50). In the two final chapters, containing laws of religion as distinct from morality, and entitled "Penance and Expiation," and "Transmigration and Final Beatitude," the principles of these Brahminic laws are

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