Free Drink by Iain Gately

the path of those wishing to become Jews, including circumcision for men and strict dietary taboos. Christianity had no such barriers to entry. The matter had been debated and settled by the apostles: Anyone could become a Christian, and every convert was expected to spread the good news.
    The early rituals of the new faith were also far simpler than those of Judaism. The single most important rite of the Christians was the ceremony of the Eucharist, at which they gathered to share bread and wine, in accordance with the instructions of their founder. This ceremony placed the consumption of wine at the heart of the new religion and made it a duty to drink. Christianity added a new dimension to the relationship between humanity and alcohol. Not only could it relieve thirst, inspire joy, and ruin livers, but it might also, in the form of wine, represent the transubstantiated blood of the son of God. This potential was made apparent by Christ to his disciples at the last supper he spent with them, to celebrate the Jewish feast of Passover. After filling his cup with wine, he shared it with them and explained the significance of this act: “And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many.” (Mark 14:23-25)
    The Eucharist was not the only link between Christianity and wine. Jesus had used the care of a vineyard as the theme for one of his most famous parables, and the grapevine as a metaphor for the relationship between himself and his converts. Moreover, the first miracle he had performed had been the transformation of six jars of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana. Indeed, so pervasive was wine in the teachings of the new religion that the apostle Paul had felt it necessary to make clear that its role was principally symbolic and that the Eucharist should not be taken as an invitation to gluttony or drunkenness, “For he that eateth or drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself [for] not discerning the Lord’s body.”
    By AD 139, Christians were common enough for the emperor Marcus Aurelius to commission Pliny the Younger, nephew of the historian killed at Pompeii, to investigate the sect. Were they terrorists? Did they kill people and eat their bodies and drink their blood? Pliny ordered the torture of two Christian deaconesses and found them to be simple, respectable, and poor, as were the cousins of Jesus, who owned and worked a small farm. This inquisition prompted a response. Christians were growing in confidence as well as numbers. Justin Martyr (AD 100-165), an uncircumcised Syrian convert, addressed a letter to Marcus Aurelius in which he advised him that his traditions, gods, and institutions were all absolutely worthless and that he, his friends, and family were condemned to go to hell after death, where they would suffer forever in the company of their most distinguished ancestors, and their slaves. The letter, styled as an apologia, ended with a warning to the most powerful man in the world: Christianity was now everywhere. “We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses, towns, marketplaces, the very camp, tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum— we have left nothing to you but the temples of your gods.”
    The proliferation of which Tertullian boasted had been accompanied by an increase in the sophistication of the Christian canon. The fathers of the church had been forced to devise official doctrines, including appropriate provisions toward alcohol, in order to guide their plethora of converts. The New Testament was silent on the secular use of wine, beyond St. Paul’s advice to St. Timothy to “drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.” Should all Christians therefore use wine to settle their stomachs? The matter was addressed by St. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215),