Litchfield enquirer., 1871-04-27
For The Enquirer. o
 TEMPERANCE.

preylous question:, Without allowing me to reply to his last, in view of the fact that he has written too communications. and I but one. while he has also filled some four or five of your columns besides.s with pre-. vious articles, is decidedly refreshing. not to say refrigerating. If that is the way oi conducting arguments on Ltchfield Hill to give the debatants on one side two chances to speak to one on the other, ] have only to say that it is novel mode of procedure, and one not in vogue down here in cold Judea.'
 l It is curious notion, too, that people are weary of the subject in this elaborate form" Elaborate argument, that is, care full and accurate discrimination in the use of words is the very thing most needed in this question, and do not believe tbat the thinking, intelligent people of Connecti. cut, are so tired of critical investigation on the great subject of Temperance, as MT. Elliot imagines. His haste in calling for the "previous question" and the "private votes" of your readers. appears to me to betray 8 slight consciousness of the weak. ness of his own position. Having made this reply in the present article, I shall be quite content to leave the decision to those alone competent fully to judge on the point before us, i. G., the probable meaning of the Greek words, m,ethuetn" and methus- tein" in Bible usage, and especially as used in the account of the miracle at Cana, and of the Lords Supper in the church at Corinth. The kind and aoeight of testimo- ny on the part of scholars, is here of great consequence. To quote Donnegan against Siddell and Scott on Passow's basis; OF Prof. Stuart, never distinguished as an ac- curate philologist. against Dr. Robinson i; or Bloomfield against Dean Afford. next to Tischendorf the greatest critic on New Testament Greek of modern times, seems to me very much like quoting some second or third.rate photographer against Webs ter; or the opinion of some savant of thirty or fifty years ago against that of Dana or an Agassiz in the present advanced stage of science. I have read again Affords comments on the transaction at Cana, and fail to discover any such bitterness" as the greater magnifying power of your correspondents vision seems to detect I find there only the honest indignation of an acute and thorough scholar. against that sort of interpretation that denies or pre- verts the plain meaning of language; nor do believe that scholars will think Afford false to his conviction as to the real signi. fcation of methuskein" in that passage, because he did "not believe in total absti- nence." As to my own quotation from AL ford, I designed to give in one short sen- tence his general view of the question, and that l have given. He plainly regards the wine at that feast as fermented, and the verb twill drunk" (Gr. methusthosin) as meaning intoxication. and am confident that four ffths of those familiar with the Greek language will agree with him.
 Now. MT. Editor, I will ask your readers to look carefully at the following state ment. taken fairly and fully down from Dr.. E. Robinson's Greek and English Lexicon on the New Testament (new edition), with the leading texts referred to, and then let them judge between Mir. Elliott and my self on the point in debate-the real mean ing of these Greek verbs. Under metAusko Dr. R. gives these meanings only: '.To make drunk; to become drunk, to be drunken; like English. to get drunk; hence to carouse ;" and then refers to the feast at Cana, John 2:10. as an illustration of this very meaning. Will your readers mark that he gives no other incoming. Then he refers to Luke 12:45. ''eat and drink with the drunken" where "beating the men.servants" is pretty good evidence of something more than "satiety'' or abundance ;" also to Thess 5:7. "they that be drunken are drunken in the night Epb. 5:18; Rev. l7:2; "Drunk with the wine of her fornication." Can there be the slightest doubt as to the use of the word in these passages? But these are the prin tcipal tests, and these settle the meaning, as I insist. beyond all peradventure. My friend seems to think himself strong on the Septuagint. but in ter. 51:7, Babylon. the golden cup that hath made all the earth drunken;' Heb. 2l5, "Woe to him that puttest thy bottle to him and makesi him drunk" and Prov. Ar, "Drink the wine of violence. " the Septuagint uses the word nethmsko, and evidently in the lead. ing use. My neighbours argument. there fore, from that source. breaks down, nos will he presume to deny the meaning oi the word in the passages above given from the New Testament. a
 Now, if we take the cognate verb methuo, we find as the 0nly signiication given in Robinson the following: To be drunk, to get drunk; hence. to carouse. , And he refels to Mat. M:49; Acts 2: :16; Cor. Il :21; I Thess. 5:7; Rev. 17:6. Going again to the septuagint. Sam. 1:13; Job 1225. "Stagger like . drunken man ; Is 6721, we find the unquestionable sig. II 4.s.