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SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
NOVEMBER, 1895.]
On the
A "stone of drinking" took the place of the ark in the second temple at Jerusalem.58 Sabbath of Repentance, the Beni-Isrâ'il pours liquor on the ground to satisfy his ancestors. 59 On the first day of the Passover, the Beni-Isrâ'il drinks wine with prayer.60 At the Passover, the Jews began by blessing the day and the wine contained in a cup out of which the celebrant and others drank. At the close of the first part of the feast, the cup of wine again went round. A third cup, the cup of blessing, generally mixed with water, followed, and a fourth with the song Hallel, and sometimes a fifth with a great song.61
In most Greek and Roman sacrifices, wine was poured on the victim and on the altar. When with a nod the victim shewed its willingness to be sacrificed, the priest took a cup of wine, tasted it, made the worshippers taste, and poured the rest between the horns of the victim.62 Among the Greeks, the ashes of the dead were soaked in wine, and wine was offered to the spirits of the dead.63 At a Greek feast, the toast was to the gods, corresponding to the Roman formal drinking or propinatio to a god or to the Emperor. The Greeks also drank during the feast two loving cups, that is, a cup passed from guest to guest. Of these the first was to the Good Genius or Daimon, that is, Bacchus, the inventor of wine, or, in more mystic phrase, the shewer forth of himself as the wine spirit. As each drank, he called on the Good Genius to guard him from the ill effects of wine. The second loving cup was to Charm or Grace, a sacramental cup drunk with the object that the giver of mutual favour and affection might enter into the drinkers.66 After the feast three more religious cups were drunk to Olympian Zeus, the Power of the Air, generally mixed with water, to Heroes, and to the Saviour.67 Sometimes, a fourth cup was added to Health, and sometimes a fifth to Mercury, the sender of sleep and good dreams. At their other cups they named and saluted friends; at each cup pouring a little on the ground for the evil spirits. When the last cup was drunk they sang a hymn and left.70
The religious use of wine among Christians seems to be a blending of the Hebrew and Greek ideas and practices. The Cup of Blessing, also called the Cup of the Lord, Hebrew in origin, was imported into the Greek Church." At the Agapae or Love Feasts of the early Christian Church, one cup of wine was specially passed round as the cup of blessing.72 That the Christians adopted the sacramental Greek belief that into their love cups the spirits of daimons or guardians entered and so passed into the drinker is shewn by St. Paul's injunction to the Corinthians: "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of daimons: Ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of daimons."73 Similarly, in the matter of meats, the early idea that the guardian passes into the offering is accepted. All meats are lawful to a Christian, except meats offered to idols. This idea is Jewish as well as Greek. The Israelites75 were ordered to destroy the idolators, lest, if they sacrificed to gods, one should call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice.76 The horror of eating the sacrifice was that the idol passed into the eater or drinker. So the earlier belief in the spirit-scaring power of articles into which the guardian had passed was continued. Cyril of Jerusalem (A. D. 315-386) says: "In drinking the wine, touch with the moisture of the lips the eyes, the brow and other a charm organs of sense.77 Consecrated bread was laid on the breast of the dead as
50 Poona Gazetteer, Part I, p. 514.
68 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I. p. 107. Op. cit. Part I. p. 515.
1 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II. p. 139.
62 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 269, Vol. I. pp. 887, 888.
68 Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, p. 562; Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 213.
327
64 Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 743.
66 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 396.
68 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 896.
71 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II. p. 142,
73 First Corinthians, x. 21.
e Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 391.
75 Exodus, xxxiv. 15,
TT Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 413.
65 Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II, p. 395. 67 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 395, 396.
70 Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 397.
72 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 40.
74 First Corinthians, viii. 1-7; Acta, xv. 20-29.
76 Compare Potter's Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 275.
