fore the flood drank
wine, and that too even to be drunk[2].

As for Procopius of Gaza[3], one of the most ancient interpreters of
Scripture, he thinks it no less true, that the vine was known in the
world before Noah's time, but he does not allow that the use of wine was
known before that patriarch, whom he believes to be the inventor of it.

[Footnote 1: Disq. Biblic. Journ. des Scavans.]

[Footnote 2: Jo. Chr. Becman. Annal. Hist.]

[Footnote 3: Torner de Ebriet. lib. i. c. 3.]

CHAP. IX.

THAT THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS GOT DRUNK.

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 Manichaeans 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 t