A crop that makes its own decisions

Fraternal History
Written by Brete Murphy
Autumn scene from the Tacuina sanitatis, 14th-century manuscript illustration by an unknown master.

Autumn scene from Tacuina sanitatis, 14th century, by an unknown master.


Crush a grape and leave it alone, and fermentation can begin without anyone’s permission. Naturally occurring yeasts turn the juice’s sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide. Nobody has to add alcohol. It isn’t hidden in the fruit waiting to be extracted. The yeast makes it from the sugar. The fruit supplies sugar, the microbes supply the appetite, and what comes out the other end can cheer a table or ruin a morning.

That is worth saying plainly before any symbolism arrives, because a cup of wine is the end of a long string of chores. Vines are pruned in the cold months and tied and thinned through the growing season. The harvest has to come when the sugar and acid are right, not when it is convenient. Then the grapes are crushed and pressed, the juice ferments for days or weeks, and the young wine gets moved off its sediment and stored. Every step has a way to go wrong. When oxygen is available, acetic acid bacteria can turn the wine’s ethanol into acetic acid, giving it the sourness of vinegar.

People have been managing this for a very long time. Chemical analysis of residues in large clay jars from two early farming villages in Georgia, south of Tbilisi, found tartaric acid, which occurs in quantity in the Eurasian grape, in jars dated to roughly 6000–5800 BC. The researchers who published the work judged that the very large jars probably served as combined fermenting, aging, and serving vessels. Later, in a [cave at Areni in Armenia](Silk Road in the News #5: Areni Cave Wine Production – Silk Road Gourmet

Silk Road in the News #5: Areni Cave Wine Production – Silk Road Gourmet

excavators found a pressing vat, fermentation jars, a cup, and a drinking bowl dating to about 6,000 years ago. Those are the bones of a working operation: press, vat, cup.

A word on what this article means by wine, because the series has been careful with its categories. Wine is fermented fruit juice, typically a modest fraction of alcohol by volume. Distilled spirits are something else, a separate technology applied to a fermented liquid, and a later one. The wine of scripture and of the cornerstone ceremony is the first thing, not the second.

Grain, the subject of the last article, can be stored and kept for years under suitable conditions. Fresh grape juice is much more perishable. Fermentation turns a harvest that spoils quickly into a drink that keeps longer, and keeping longer is a kind of provision. It is also the moment the product becomes pleasant, potent, and risky all at once.

What the cup was for

Scripture, read passage by passage, does not give one verdict on wine. It gives several, and they don’t line up neatly.

Begin with blessing. Psalm 104 lists what the earth yields at God’s direction: plants for people, bread that sustains, oil that makes the face shine, and wine that gladdens the heart. All three materials of this series appear in one breath, and wine’s job in that sentence is gladness. In the book of Judges, Jotham’s fable has the vine refuse a kingship by asking whether it should give up its wine, which cheers gods and people. Ecclesiastes tells the reader to eat bread with enjoyment and drink wine with a merry heart. In Deuteronomy, a household that cannot carry its tithe to the sanctuary may turn it into money and spend it there on what it wants, wine included, and rejoice in the presence of God. Wine, in these passages, is a sanctioned pleasure and is not treated as a concession.

It also has a place at the altar. In Numbers 15, grain offerings come with oil, and a measure of wine goes with them as a drink offering. Those three do appear together there, as an offering set. That is a different thing from the three appearing as a symbolic triad, and nothing in the passage says it is one.

All of this is documented text. What it meant to later readers is a separate matter, and the series has a rule about keeping those apart.

The same vine, the other verdict

Open the same books to a different page and the tone changes. Noah plants a vineyard in Genesis 9 and is shortly found drunk and uncovered in his tent, with consequences for his family. Proverbs 20 calls wine a mocker. Proverbs 23 asks who has woe, who has sorrow, who has wounds without cause, and answers with those who linger over wine, in a passage that describes the morning after with disconcerting accuracy. Isaiah pronounces woe on those who rise early to chase strong drink and stay late until wine inflames them. Priests are told in Leviticus 10 not to drink wine or strong drink when they enter the tent of meeting. The Letter to the Ephesians tells its readers not to get drunk on wine, setting the filling of the Spirit against it.

Not every tradition reads these the same way, and the texts themselves distinguish. The Nazirite vow in Numbers 6 requires abstaining from grape products for a period of consecration, which implies the product is not forbidden to everyone else. The Rechabites of Jeremiah 35 abstain because an ancestor told them to, and they are praised for their loyalty, not for their chemistry.

The Qur’an deals with wine in at least three registers: the earthly intoxicant, which 2:219 says carries greater sin than benefit and 5:90–91 prohibits; the fruits of palm and vine as provision—commonly cited is 16:67, though translations of that verse differ—and the rivers of wine promised in Paradise in 47:15, presented in a different setting from the earthly prohibition. A reader who treats all these passages as interchangeable has stopped reading.

What you can fairly say is narrower than a slogan. Across several traditions, wine is treated as significant enough to bless, restrict, offer, or forbid. Nobody argues about the weight of something that doesn’t matter.

Wine on the stone

In the public ceremony of laying a cornerstone, wine is one of three materials applied to the stone by the officiating officers. This is documented in published ceremonies, and the series has already treated the ceremony as public. What matters here is a detail that is easy to skip: the wine is poured out. Nobody drinks it as part of that action. It goes onto the stone.

The glosses on it vary. Webb’s Monitor, an American Masonic manual, gives the formula asking for a supply of the corn of nourishment, the wine of refreshment, and the oil of joy. A version reproduced on Sacred Texts calls the wine an emblem of “joy and gladness.” A Grand Lodge of Canada report from 1877 records the Acting Grand Master saying that he strewed corn as an emblem of plenty, poured wine as an emblem of cheerfulness, and anointed with oil. A recent [Oklahoma public description](Cornerstone Ceremony - The Grand Lodge of Oklahoma

Cornerstone Ceremony - The Grand Lodge of Oklahoma Murray State College Cornerstone Ceremony The Masonic Cornerstone Ceremony is a time-honored and public tradition conducted by the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, marking the formal laying of a building’s foundation stone. Rooted in the practices of stonema

lists wine as representing refreshment and health. The Grand Lodge of Kentucky’s published ceremony, for its part, has the Grand Master pour the oil as an emblem of peace and closes with the benediction naming corn of nourishment and wine of refreshment.

So the wording drifts from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and century to century. That is useful information for a reader, because it shows these explanations are not a single fixed code. Different texts and officiating bodies attach slightly different meanings to the materials. None of this tells us anything about private ritual, which this series does not discuss.

Now step across the line into interpretation. Read this way, the pouring-out is worth a second look. A cup that is poured onto a stone and not emptied by the participants is a cup handled at arm’s length. One possible emphasis is that the ceremony shows wine as something given, a good treated as belonging to the whole undertaking instead of the pourer’s thirst. That is a reading, not a finding, and the sources above do not say it. The stone, to its credit, shows no ill effects.

Measure is a skill, and not everyone gets to practice it

Self-command is usually described as refusal, and sometimes it is. But the harder and more interesting version is the capacity to enjoy a good thing without becoming its subordinate. A host who offers a drink without pressing it on anyone is exercising it. So is a guest who declines another glass because he wants to keep a clear head and remember the evening. Neither looks grim.

Shared drinking makes this visible in a way private appetites don’t. At a table, you can see who attends to others before himself, who notices whether a quiet guest wants something, who turns an ordinary evening into his own performance. Hospitality is partly a duty of care for people whose judgment may be on the edge of loosening. That is a reflection and not a documented claim, but anyone who has hosted a party will recognize it.

Now the limit on the argument, which this article owes the reader. “Moderation” is a glib word when applied to people for whom alcohol is a genuine hazard. Alcohol is a drug with real risks, and for some people the right measure is none. Abstention is a legitimate expression of self-command, not a failure of it, and the traditions that forbid wine or restrict it are not confused about human nature. Nothing here suggests that fellowship, gladness, or depth requires a drink. The cup is one way a table has expressed hospitality, and many tables manage without it.

What the symbol gains by including risk is honesty. An emblem of pure abundance would be a greeting card. Wine is a better teacher because it can’t be admired without noticing the cost, and because the same cup holds both.

The rim

Consider the cup itself. A cup is a measure. It has a rim, which gives the liquid a boundary instead of letting it spread into a puddle. Every vessel in this story—the Georgian jar, the Areni vat, the vessel carried in procession—is a decision about how much, and for whom. The grape supplies the sugar and the yeast supplies the appetite. The vessel and the hand holding it supply the form.

Which raises a question the article cannot settle for the reader: what are the rims in a life, and who put them there? Some are inherited rules, some are habits, some are the people at the table. A pleasure with no form tends to collapse into appetite, and a form with no pleasure tends to harden. The cup suggests that a life may be arranged less by refusing what delights us than by deciding how much of it we hold.

Source notes

Image source: Unknown master, Tacuina sanitatis (14th century), book scan, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain, file “29-autunno,Taccuino Sanitatis, Casanatense 4182..jpg.”

Archaeology and winemaking

  • McGovern et al., “Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus,” PNAS, 2017. Full text via PubMed Central. Source for Georgian residues, tartaric acid, dating to approximately 6000–5800 BC, and the proposed use of the large jars for fermentation, aging, and serving.
  • [“Oldest Wine,” via the Southern University electronic library](Oldest signs of winemaking was found in Georgia - Sokhumi State University eLibrary | elibrary.sou.edu.ge

Oldest signs of winemaking was found in Georgia - Sokhumi State University eLibrary | elibrary.sou.edu.ge By elibrary.sou.edu.ge

Oldest signs of winemaking was found in Georgia - ebooks, digital books, library, elibrary, portal, publishers, authors, tbilisi, sokhumi, abkhazeti, univercity, PDF, ePUB, DJVU, DocX

Additional summary of the Georgian dating and chemical evidence.

  • [Areni cave wine, via Silk Road Gourmet](Silk Road in the News #5: Areni Cave Wine Production – Silk Road Gourmet

Silk Road in the News #5: Areni Cave Wine Production – Silk Road Gourmet

Summary of the pressing vat, fermentation jars, cup, and drinking bowl.

  • Jancis Robinson, “Breakthrough discovery in Georgia.” Additional discussion of comparative dates for Hajji Firuz and Areni. A direct article link was not supplied in the original draft.

Fermentation mechanics

Cornerstone ceremony wording

Cornerstone Ceremony - The Grand Lodge of Oklahoma Murray State College Cornerstone Ceremony The Masonic Cornerstone Ceremony is a time-honored and public tradition conducted by the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, marking the formal laying of a building’s foundation stone. Rooted in the practices of stonema

Public description associating wine with refreshment and health.

  • Grand Lodge of Kentucky, “Cornerstone Laying” PDF, 2009. Source for oil as peace and the closing benediction naming corn of nourishment and wine of refreshment. A direct PDF link was not supplied in the original draft.

Scripture

Passages are paraphrased rather than quoted. Interpretive observations in the article are the author’s, not claims that every religious tradition reads these passages in the same way.

Blessing, pleasure, and offerings

  • Psalm 104:14–15: wine, oil, and bread among the earth’s provisions.
  • Judges 9:13: the vine’s answer in Jotham’s fable.
  • Ecclesiastes 9:7: bread with enjoyment and wine with a merry heart.
  • Deuteronomy 14:24–26: spending the converted tithe at the sanctuary and rejoicing.
  • Numbers 15:1–10: grain, oil, and wine in the prescribed offerings.

Warnings, restrictions, and abstention

  • Genesis 9:20–27: Noah’s vineyard, drunkenness, and its aftermath.
  • Proverbs 20:1: wine as a mocker.
  • Proverbs 23:29–35: the consequences of lingering over wine.
  • Isaiah 5:11: a warning against pursuing strong drink and wine.
  • Leviticus 10:9: restrictions on priests entering the tent of meeting.
  • Ephesians 5:18: the warning against drunkenness.
  • Numbers 6: the Nazirite’s abstention from grape products.
  • Jeremiah 35: the Rechabites’ abstention and obedience to their ancestor’s instruction.

Qur’anic passages

  • Qur’an 2:219: intoxicants described as carrying greater sin than benefit.
  • Qur’an 5:90–91: the prohibition of intoxicants and an account of their harms.
  • Qur’an 16:67: the fruits of palm and vine; translations differ in their rendering of the products named.
  • Qur’an 47:15: rivers of wine in the description of Paradise.
 

Continue the Corn, Wine and Oil Series

This is the third article in the Corn, Wine and Oil series. Continue with oil, joy, peace, and care, or revisit the companion essay on corn and nourishment.

Previous article: ← Corn in Masonic Ritual: Grain and Nourishment

Next article: Oil in Masonic Ritual: Joy, Peace and Care →

Series introduction and complete reading list: Corn, Wine and Oil

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Brete Murphy

A Freemason, a local historian, well versed in symbolism, comparative religious studies, esoterica, and a member of several societies. I am currently the Historian of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge 586 in Astoria , New York.

https://www.bretemurphy.com/
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