WHAT IS "WINE?"

West Coast Times, Issue 2787, 8 March 1878, Page 2

WHAT IS "WINE?"

Some time ago the Bishop of Lincoln prohibited a clergyman at Stamford and, another in the north of Licolnshire from using unfermented wine at the Holy Communion. The opinion of Dr A. J. Stephens, Q.C., having been asked on the question, he has considered the matter elaborately, and says that everything turns on the expression " wine" in the Book of Common Prayer, which occurs without qualification, as in the case of the other element, 10 times in the Communion office and twice in the Catechism. By St. Luke xxn, 18th, it appears that the wine for the Communion must be the fruit of the vine: Therefore no fluid derived from other fruit is a compliance with the formularies ; but there is no evidence whether the wine used at the institution was " unfennenttd " or " fermented." Constantius Tischendorff, in his " Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles," says that iv early times Communion might be had by presiing clusters from the vine into the cup.

If the scriptural meaning be doubtful, so may that of the Prayer-book. Littleton's Dictionary (Cambridge, 1693), says that any wine may be " wine yet in the grape, vinum pendens." Dr Smith, in his "Dictionary of the Bible," favours this view. Dr Stephens continues :—": — " Subject to the foregoing observations, I will now proceed to answer tbe questions that have been submitted to me for my opinion : 1, Whether unfermentcd fluid can scientifically be called 4 wine' is a question that has never been raised or decided under tli Acts of Uniformity, 1546, 156-">, 1559, or 1662. 2. There is no law or c.innon wnich in express terms requires li o Holy Communion to be administered mi tbe fermented juice of the grape, un'c - tlu« ■ xuresriou 'wine' be restricted im in i -a S3 , 3. Whether the Bishop of Lincoln has the power to prohibit the administration of the Holy Communion with unfermented wine depends upon the construction of the expression 'wine.' 4 If the Bishop of Lincoln's construction uf the expression ' wine ' should be suffiuenr, the rector would be guilty of a hi each of the laws ecclesiastical and would be liable to a monition, and probably for the payment of the costs of the l^hop. 5. Generally, I cannot pre diet what construction the ecclesiastical counts may attach to the expression 'wine' ; but 1 do not think that the question is so free from doubt that the act of the rector in administering the Holy Communion in unfermented wine can be legitimately stigmatized as ' scandalous and illegal.' "