St. Brigid of Kildare carried by Angles, painting by John Duncan, 1918.
Usually, on St. Patrick's Day, we put up a depiction of St. Patrick.
But Patrick, the Anglo-Roman patron saint of Ireland, is certainly not the only Irish Saint. As we now count ethnicity, St. Patrick, wasn't even Irish, although what that meant in his day isn't quite the same as what it means in our own, although it isn't wholly unrelated either.
St. Patrick was what we would call today Welsh, but born as he was to a religions patrician family (his father Calpurnius was a Deacon and his grandfather Potitus was a Priest*) were really basically Roman in culture, as their names would indicate. As is well know, Patrick (Patricius) was captured by an Irish raising party as a youth and spent six years in Ireland as a slave before escaping. Following that he entered into the Priesthood and returned to Ireland as the evangelizer of the Irish, being able to speak their language as well as Latin and likely Welsh and perhaps other languages. He's regarded as a Church Father, a Doctor of the Church, today.**
But he isn't the only saint by any means that Ireland produced in ancient or recent times. St. Brigid is another early one. She was a highly active Nun who founded many churches in Ireland just shortly after St. Patrick (Padraig in Irish) converted the Irish.
This day has become, in modern times, sort of a freakish celebration of the Irish drinking culture which has been co-opted by the American one and the hyped up by high alcohol beers, something the Irish have not really consumed much (Irish beers, like Guinness, a stout, are low alcohol). I note this, however, as the Irish really are fond of low alcohol heavy bodied beers and they do have a cheerful, and sometimes unfortunate, association with alcohol. St. Brigid is oddly associated with an early example of this as the claimed author of this peom:
I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.
I should like excellent meats of belief and pure piety.
I should like the men of Heaven at my house.
I should like barrels of peace at their disposal.
I should like for them cellars of mercy.
I should like cheerfulness to be their drinking.
I should like Jesus to be there among them.
I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I should like the people of Heaven, the poor, to be gathered around from all parts.
Did she author it?
Well, St. Brigid died in 525 at the age of 74 years. 525 is a few years back and that makes it difficult to tell if she wrote this or not. Who knows. But it does illustrate a sort of traditional Catholic view of drinking, particularly with the line "I should like cheerfulness to be their drinking."
I was sort of struck by this because the other day I drove five hours to meet with a witness and in the process listed to a podcast featuring a fellow who is a lay Catholic who brings up his faith in breweries, or brewpubs, as he travels around the country. By his account, he's had some pretty remarkable encounters doing that including some that demonstrate the freakish nature of synchronicity. He himself would be the first to admit, and did, that this isn't for everyone and that not all persons should go to the pub and have a drink or two. But he and his host also discussed the convivial religious and philosophic conversations that Belloc, Chesterton and Tolkien enjoyed in their weekly meetings at a pub and who wouldn't have wanted to join that Stammtisch, if only as a silent listener?
Well, at least one person wouldn't have, as he called in utterly horrified and lectured the fellow and his hosts as he "knew what goes on in those places".
Hmmm. . . I think he probably didn't.
Which brings us to the odd Reformation relationship that Americans, and pretty much just Americans and some Canadians, have with alcohol.
Most European nations have a long and at least semi benign relationship with alcohol, although that comment has to be taken in context. I.e., while you can cite to examples of European farmhands in the Middle Ages drinking over a liter of beer a day, that figure probably doesn't mean much if you are likely to die of some hideous disease or by the sword relatively young. Nonetheless for much of European history an appreciable number of calories in the European diet came in by wine in Southern Europe and by beer in Northern Europe and the British Isles.
Contrary to what would some would really like to believe, there was no early Christian prohibition on drinking alcohol at all. There was on being a drunk. But both the Old and New Testament had favorable references to alcohol. Jesus' first public miracle was turning water into wine at the wedding feast and suggestions that he really turned water into grape juice are, I'm sorry if I offend, flat out absurd. St. Paul counseled Timothy that he should stop just drinking water and drink a little wine as Timothy was sick so often. Catholics and the Orthodox have traditionally regarded alcohol of the wine and beer variety as gifts from God, but like other gifts of a pleasurable type, such as food or sex, etc., gifts that had to be taken in context and in moderation. Chesterton sort of defined the general concept as follows:
Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never
drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the
grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy
without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never
drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to
death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is
irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.
Chesteron also counseled never to drink anything that was dreamt up after the Reformation although in so doing he may not really have been familiar with the history of whiskey. Most, maybe all, whiskey distilleries are post Reformation but there are references all the way back to Roman Britain of the Celts distilling drink, so it's been around a long while.
The point to that is, however, that in most of Europe the drinking cultures, and I use the plural advisedly, didn't sit around getting plowed. British and Irish beers were decidedly low alcohol and remain so, although there's now a great concern in the UK about the young British switching to German high alcohol beers. Ironically, that may be part of the dred law of unintended consequences as the British keep trying to clamp down on drinking while, at the same time, the young British are switching to American bing style drinking. Before we go on to that we should note that while German beers of some types are highly alcohol than the British, German drinking culture didn't emphasize sitting around getting plowed either.
Indeed, where people in Europe have traditionally really gotten slammed are in areas in which poverty was a real problem and, oddly, the weather. Scandinavia and Russia provide really outstanding examples. Long winters, low food variety, and poverty seems to have made those regions ones where, traditionally, boozing has been a big problem. It remains so in Russia.
And it has been in the United States from time to time, which we've dealt with in our prior posts on Prohibition. Prior to Prohibition the United States had a real alcohol problem. This is interesting in and of itself and it would require some exploration as to why.
One thing that is misunderstood in these regards is that Prohibition was due to a "Puritan" impulse. Not so. The Puritans brewed beer and had no problem with that. This is one of at least two areas mentioned in the list of things above that the Puritans were really big on, assuming they weren't big on all three, and both of them are areas in which people routinely claim that they were fun wreckers. The Puritans were fun wreckers, but being opponents of beer didn't enter into the equation on that. That came from elsewhere.
Well, anyhow, today is St. Patrick's Day and if you are so inclined, and if you are not don't worry about it, a feast truly in honor of the Patron Saint of Ireland could feature a little Guinness, in moderation.
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*Having mentioned that St. Patrick's father was a Deacon and his grandfather a Priest will immediately send some off into some sort of shock but it shouldn't.
First of all, there's no prohibition in either Rite of the Church (to include the Orthodox) from Deacon's being married. In the Latin Rite today once a Deacon is ordained he cannot marry, but a married man can be ordained a Deacon. If his spouse dies, he cannot remarry.
Now, today, a married man cannot usually be ordained a Priest in the Latin Rite. I say usually as this isn't universally true, however. A married man who holds orders in a Protestant church that is close in form and belief to the Catholic Church can in fact be ordained in the Catholic Church. It's not hugely clear to me, but the ordinate of the Catholic Church which takes in members of the conservative branch of the Anglican Communion might not only be able to take in their married Priests, but it might also be able to ordain future married Priests. Again, I'm not clear on that, but I know that was discussed at one point. The Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church does ordain married men to the Priesthood just as the Orthodox do. Indeed, while its not really supposed to happen, I guess, some Latin Rite Catholics do switch rites in order to seek Holy Orders in the Eastern Rite and it seems that they do achieve that.
At the time we're speaking of, the rule that prohibited married men in the Latin Rite, and that is in fact what St. Patrick was part of, didn't exist. So at that time married men could be ordained in the Latin Rite. The rule prohibiting that, and it is a rule, not a dogma, came later. For what its worth, at least St. Peter, the first Pope, was a married man although its not entirely clear if he was a widower at the time he became an Apostle or not.
**St. Patrick is a Church Father and Doctor of the Church.
It's easy to forgot how early St. Patrick really was in church history. He's not like one of the very early Fathers of the Church who were ordained by Apostles but he was born in the 4th Century and is a very early and hugely important figure in the early church. He's important not only to the Irish, but in general. Perhaps thats the reason why you can find Orthodox Churches named in his honor.
What this also points out, and its worth pointing out, is how Catholic, ie., universal, the early figures of the Church were. St. Patrick could speak and write in Latin, and he did write in Latin to be sure. But he probably spoke a version of Welsh at home and on his evangelizing mission he was speaking Irish Gaelic. Some of the early Church Fathers were Aramaic speakers. Some will commonly think of them operating all in Greek, but they didn't.
