There is no one that has ever so little dipped into ecclesiastical history, but knows very well, that in the primitive church it was a custom to appoint solemn feasts on the festivals of martyrs. This appears by the harangue of Constantine, and from the works of St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Chrysostom. People generally got drunk at these feasts; and this excess was looked upon as a thing that might be permitted. This evidently appears by the pathetic complaints of St. Augustin and St. Cyprian: the former of these holy fathers expresses himself after this manner:—— “Drunken debauches pass as permitted amongst us, so that people turn them into solemn feasts, to honour the memory of the martyrs; and that not only on those days which are particularly consecrated to them, (which would be a deplorable abuse to those, who look at these things with other eyes than those of the flesh,) but on every day of the year[1].”
St. Cyprian, in a treatise attributed to him, says much the same thing. “Drunkenness, says he, is so common with us in Africa, that it scarce passes for a crime. And do we not see Christians forcing one another to get drunk, to celebrate the memory of the martyrs[2]!”
But it was not only at these repasts that the Christians got drunk, they did the same on several other occasions; and it was on this account that St. Augustin wrote to his dear Alipius in these terms: “However the corruption of manners, and the unhappiness of the times, have induced us to wish, I do not say that people should not get drunk in particular houses, but that they should not get drunk any where else[3].”
Cardinal du Perron tells us, “That the Manichæans said, that the Catholicks were people much given to wine, but that they never drank any[4].”
Against this charge St. Augustin no otherwise defends them, than by recrimination. He answers, “That it was true, but that they (the Manichæans) drank the juice of apples, which was more delicious than all the wines and liquors in the world. And so does Tertullian, which liquor pressed from apples, he says, was most strong and vinous.” His words are, Succum ex pomis vinosissimum[5].
Here one may observe also, that the use of cider was very primitive and antient, but as strong and delicious as it was, the Catholicks stuck close to the juice of the grape, as what was entirely orthodox and no wise conversant with the heretics of those days.
But to return to these feasts just now mentioned, it is certain, that it was not only customary for the Christians of Africa to get drunk. They had this custom in common with the Christians of Italy, where these kinds of repasts were forbidden by the Council of Laodicea, which was held in the fourth century. Paulinus, however, (and I do not wonder at it, being a poet,) has endeavoured to excuse the Christians, on pretence that they only got drunk out of a good intention, which, say the casuists, judges all human actions[6]. His words are,
—— “Ignoscenda tamen puto talia parvis
Gaudia quæ ducunt epulis, quia mentibus error.
Irrepit rudibus, nec tantæ conscia culpæ