Drunkenness

Drunkenness Denunciations of this vice are contained both in the Old and New Testakment. St. Paul expressly includes drunkards among those who shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. This vice became peculiarly shameless at Rome about the time of the Christian aera. The surrounding nations, too, were drunkards.. Drunken shabits were to afford a presumption against a person accused before the Church courts. Still, the vice flourished among the Christians. Jerome warns the priests never to smell of wine. Revellings and drunkenness were deemed allowable in commemorating the martyrs. The first distinct Church enactment against drunkenness appears in the canons of the Council of Tours. The West, however, seems to have been the chief home of gluttony and drunkenness. A canon of the Council of Autun, A.D. 670, enacted that no gluttonous or drunken priest should touch the sacrament or say the mass under pain of losing his dignity. The Council of Berkhamstead enacted that if a priest be so drunk that he cannot fulfil his office he should be deposed by the bishop. In regard to drunkenness in the Church in Britain, Boniface says: "It is also said in your parishes drunkenness is a too common evil, so that not only do the bishops not forbid it, but themselves, drinking too much, become intoxicated, and compel others to do so, offering them larger beakers." In the Carlovingian period civil penalties or disabilities began to be inflicted for drunkenness. SEE TEMPERANCE.