GOOD HEALTH by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1878

GOOD HEALTH.

By Editor

Two Kinds Of Wine.

THE statement has frequently been made by those who claim that Christ made intoxicating wine that "the endeavor to prove that the wine was not properly wine" savors of "unworthy puerility," and is "as audacious as it is baseless." We have produced a host of scholars and divines—men who rank as high as those who utter the above statement—who have presented the most unanswerable arguments, statistics, and authorities to prove the existence of the two kinds of wine. Dr. Patton's new book on "The Law of Fermentation and the Wines of the Ancients," is full of them. We copy the following extract from the Herald of Health for May, giving the views and statements of a Jewish rabbi upon this question, familiar with the subject, and fully competent to give testimony. The writer says:—

"In a recent conversation with the eminent Hebrew savant and Jewish rabbi, Dr. S. M. Isaacs, of this city, he stated some most interesting facts as to the customs of the Israelites, both ancient and modern, which corroborate fully the conclusions of Dr. Patton. The learned rabbi made one remarkable general assertion which will challenge some scrutiny. He said that, of the seventy thousand descendants of Abraham in this city, he does not know one confirmed drunkard, and that they seldom, any of them, drink to intoxication. In the Holy Land, they do not commonly use fermented wines. The best wines are preserved sweet and unfermented. In reference to their customs at their religious festivals, he repeatedly and emphatically said, 'The Jews do not, in their feasts for sacred purposes, including the marriage feast, ever use any kind of fermented drink.' In their oblations and libations, both private and public, they employ the fruit of the vine—that is, fresh grapes—unfermented grape-juice, and raisins, as the symbol of benediction. Fermentation is to them always a symbol of corruption, as in nature and science it is itself decay, rottenness."

"No higher authority can be given than Rabbi Isaacs as to the practices of the Jewish people. This testimony settles conclusively the question so often mooted, 'What was the "best wine" made by Jesus Christ for the marriage feast at Cana?' And not less decisively does it show what was that 'fruit of the vine' used by him at the institution of the Lord's Supper. This sacred Christian feast was confessedly a substitute for (and immediately followed) the Jewish feast of the Passover, from which all fermented things are carefully excluded. The pretense that the drunkard's drink was in any form provided or encouraged by Him who 'came to save that which was lost,' must be utterly abandoned before one can hope to banish drunkenness entirely, even from the pulpit, the pew, or the communion-table. Let judgment begin first at the house of God."