VII.-APPENDIX B, CONTAINING CLASSIFIED AND TRANSLATED LISTS 1. Hebrew Words translated Wine and Strong Drink 2. Hebrew Words translated Vineyard, Vine, etc. 1. Greek Words translated Wine, Strong Drink and Vinegar 2. Greek Words translated Vine, Vineyard, Fruit of the 4. Other New Testament Greek Words explained in the VIII.-APPENDIX C: THE APPLICATION OF 'YAYIN' AND 'OINOS' TO THE UNFERMENTED JUICE of the Grape GENERAL PREFACES. I. CHRISTIANS everywhere unite in accepting the saying of St Paul that all God-inspired Scripture is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). But the profit derived from Divine Truth will necessarily vary according to the degree of teachableness and soundness of judgment brought to its perusal. The Bible is not accountable for the multifarious errors and abuses it has been employed to support; yet it is occasion for lamentation that on not a few great questions, both of Science and Morals, the Living Oracles have been strangely misapprehended and misapplied. Not the illiterate and vicious alone, but successive generations of scholars and divines, have enunciated mischievous fallacies professedly extracted from the Scriptures. In Physical Science, the fixity and recent creation of the earth; in Political Philosophy, the right of arbitrary government and Negro slavery; in Social Economy, the excellence of Polygamy; in Ecclesiastical ethics, the duty of persecuting heretics, and the obligation of unlimited submission to the clergy: these and other baneful dogmas have been zealously propounded, not as speculative theories, but as the practical teachings of the Divine Word. That such conclusions are now commonly discarded is not due to any change in the Record, but to a marked improvement in the manner of reading it; and to a perception that there can be no real contradiction between one portion of Holy Scripture and another, or between the Revelation of God in Nature and in His Written Will. Not less obviously true is it, that social customs and personal habits of diet and indulgence, continued from childhood upwards, may induce a state of mind inconsistent with the unbiased interpretation of Holy Writ. For example, let a man be accustomed to regard intoxicating liquor as a necessity, or even a valuable auxiliary, of life, and as an innocent vehicle of enjoyment and social entertainment; let him remain ignorant of all that can be said and has been proved to the contrary; let him consider the intemperance arising from strong drink to be one of the inevitable forms of natural depravity, and therefore to be classed in its origin as well as its results with other sins of the flesh; let him persuade himself that the ordinary means of Christian evangelization are sufficient to eradicate this prolific vice with its dismal progeny of social curses: let all this be done, and it will no longer appear surprising that many of the allusions contained in both the Old and New Testaments are construed in favor of the use of such drink, and that other passages, clearly opposite in their tendency, should be ignored or explained away. This may be done in perfect good faith, and without any consciousness of the process by which the one-sided exegesis is wrought out. Accordingly, when the Temperance Reformation began, some of the earliest arguments brought against it were borrowed (as was supposed) from the armory of Scripture texts; and down to the present time many who hold aloof from that cause, defend their estrangement by a similar b appeal to Scripture precedent and approval. Some even go the length of charging abstainers with a conduct at variance not only with the privileges, but with the duties of the Christian dispensation, and accuse them of seeking to impose a code of asceticism contrary to the genial and liberal spirit of the Gospel. In controverting what have been represented as the views of Temperance writers upon the wines named in Scripture, some critics have ignorantly attributed to them the most absurd positions-such as that all those wines were unfermented and uninebriating-while they themselves have neglected to distinguish between the various terms translated 'wine,' and have confounded the use of intoxicating liquor by men of old, and the permission of such use, with the express sanction and blessing of God. To some friends of the Temperance movement a work of this character may appear superfluous. Certain of them may be disposed to deny that the question is one for Bible arbitration or reference at all; while others may be prepared to concede that Scripture permits and approves the use of strong drink, though also permitting and approving of abstinence from it. It is in vain, however, to expect that the Bible will cease to be quoted as an authority on the subject of Temperance; nor is it desirable that its store of facts should be overlooked, or its testimony left unexamined and disregarded. Those who contend that 'liberty to abstain' is all that is needed as an argumentative basis for abstinence, will find themselves undeceived when they attempt to urge the practice upon others as a duty; for how can that be a duty, it will be asked, the opposite of which is sanctioned by both the letter and the spirit of the Divine Word? Besides, even the argument from Christian expediency, to which such friends attach a high (if not exclusive) importance, cannot be understood without an appeal to passages of Scripture whose true meaning and legitimate bearing have been warmly contested. In reply to the inquiry, which may not be discourteously proposed, whether the authors of this Commentary can claim to be exempt from a bias in favor of abstinence which may have inspired and controlled their exposition?-they can but say that they have been fully sensible of their liability to such an influence, and have therefore endeavored to counteract its operation by carefully weighing all adverse arguments, and by placing before the reader the materials by which he may form for himself an independent judgment as to the correctness of the inferences drawn. They have honestly sought, with trust in Divine aid, to discover the truth contained in the passages successively discussed; and, in consigning the fruit of their labors to the press, they pray that the blessing of Heaven may attend it so far as it is adapted to promote the faithful, intelligent study of Scripture, and a more perfect sympathy with the spirit of the Psalmist, "Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart." THE AUTHORS. II. I have given to the book entitled The Temperance Bible Commen tary as close an examination as my poor health will allow. The result has been a high opinion of its value. The preliminary dissertation is able, clear, comprehensive; above all, exhibiting that sound common sense which, in the interpretation of the Scriptures, would avoid the perversions of pedantry on the one hand, and all forced attempts to make out a rigid conformity to modern science on the other. This is very happily illustrated by the remark that "the Bible is not a book of science, dictated in technical and scholastic language, but a book of life, written in the language of daily life, of national history, of popular apologue." There has been committed on this topic (as is well shown in the 'Introduction') the same error of interpretation that so long perverted and confused the Slavery question. It was the error of applying ancient words, and ancient ideas expressed by them, to modern things, modern relations, and modern practices, which, though covered by the same general language, had undergone a change so great, as to amount to almost a radical difference. What a wide distance, for example, between the Abrahamic relation of chieftain and follower, or the domestic service of the simple Jewish agricultural life, to which the commercial ideas of sale and traffic were almost wholly unknown, and the vile, mercenary, man-degrading slavery of a Brazilian cotton and sugar plantation! The anti-temperance writers err in the same way when they apply the artless language of Scripture (as used of the comparatively harmless substances they often represent) to the vile and noxious compounds which, in modern times, pass under similar names. The ordinary wine of Palestine, even if it did contain a little alcohol, unknown to any science of the day—a question which is hardly worth discussing—what a vast difference between this and the fiery potations now manufactured for our hotels, our drinking saloons, and alas! too often, it must be said, for our holy, Christian communion tables. And yet these modern compounds are also called 'wine,' and those who use them would shelter themselves under the old appellations which, in the days of Noah and David, were given to such widely different things. Anti-temperance critics are fond of charging the zealous temperance advocate with perversions of Scripture and strained interpretations. This is doubtless true in some cases, but the fault is far more apt to be on the other side. The whole scope and spirit of a precept is often overlooked by the |