Chapter Four 



Wine and Beer in the Daily Life and 

 Religion of the Ancient Orientals 



In Egypt, as well as in Babylonia and Assyria, we find 

 only one view regarding intoxicants. This view is of a favo- 

 rable character, as far as the national conscience of these 

 peoples is concerned. It was impossible during the early 

 stages of the national development of these peoples that any 

 considerable group should rise up in protest against the ex- 

 cessive use of beer or wine. Intoxication was not yet con- 

 sidered as constituting a moral offence against the drinker's 

 own self and against society at large. It was, on the whole, 

 rather considered in the light of a harmless pleasure in which 

 one might indulge. The moral sense was still too undevelo- 

 ped to put a different construction on excessive drinking. 

 In Pap. Anast. IV, 3, 7 it is stated that the mouth of a per- 



fectly happy man is filled with wine, beer, etc., ^ ^ I 



D 



I ft I , ,. The same text refers to the hilarity that it caused 



by wine, (1 



^ lllllllll o ' 

 U _a TXT I /WW\A W=^ /N , 



Mi\ 



\ I I. 



Q 



But there were always individuals who took a different view- 

 point, and as ages passed, the moral sense of wider groups 

 of people reached a stage where it found intoxication un- 

 becoming to the dignity of a man. So at the time of Athe- 

 naeus the Egyptians were described by him as temperate in 

 banquets of every kind and that they used only so much 

 wine as was necessary to gladden the heart. The statement 



Lutz, Viticulture and Brewing. 7 



