The only references to dreams or dreaming in the apostolic writings are Ac 2" ' your old men shall dream dreams' (quoted from Jl 2^), and Jude^ ' these also (the false teachers of v.^) in their dream- ings defile the flesh': the reference is understood by Bigg (Second Fet. andJude[ICC, 1901]), follow- ing von Soden and Spitta, to be to the attempt of the false teachers to support their doctrines by revelations.
The earliest theories present the dream-world as real but remote — a region where the second self wanders in company with other second selves. The next stage is that of symbolic pictures unfolded to the inner organs of perception by some super- natural being. The general depression of vital activities during sleep may produce complete un- consciousness, especially during the early part of the night, but portions of the brain may be in activity in dreaming, with the accompanying partial consciousness. It was asserted by the Car- tesians and Leibniz, and as stoutly denied by Locke, that the soul is always thinking ; but many modem writers consider that dreaming takes place only during the process of waking. It is gener- ally admitted that, whilst for the most part the material of our dreams is drawn from our waking
3U
DRESS
DRUi^KEN:N"ESS
experiences, the stimuli, external or internal, act- ing upon the sense organs during sleep produce the exaggerated and fantastic impressions in the mind which are woven into the fabric of our dreams. On the other hand, F. W. H. },lyeYs {H unmn Fer- sonality) regards dreams, with certain other mental states, as being ' uprushes ' from the subliminal self, and sleep with all its phenomena as the re- freshing of the soul b_y the influences of the world of spirit. This view, if correct, would afford scope for the revelation of God's will as narrated in the biblical accounts, if not in exceptional experiences of the present time. At anj- rate, there is nothing in modern psychology to preclude the possibility of Divine manifestations in dreams. Many recent writers enjoin the cultivation of restfulness and repose of the soul in order that sleep may be bene- ticial and may not be disturbed by unpleasant dreams. George Macdonald sings in his Evening Hymn :
' Nor let me wander all in vain
Through dreams that mock and flee ; Buc even in visions of the brain Go wandering toward Tliee.'
LrrBBATtTRE. — Art. ' Dreams ' in HDB, ' Dream ' in DCO, and 'Dreams and Sleep* in ERE; J. Sully, Illusions (ISS, 1SS2) ; F. W. H. Myers, Huirum Personality, new ed., 1907 ; G. T. Ladd, Doctrineof Sacred Scripture, 1SS3, ii. 429— to6; S. Freud, Die Traiimdeutung, 1900 (Eng. tr.. The Interpretation of Dreatns, 1918). A full bibliography will be found in Baldwin's Diet, of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. ill. pt. ii. [1905] p.
1034. J. G. James.
DRESS.— See Clothes.
DRUNKENNESS.— It may be taken for granted that the wine of the Bible was fermented, and therefore, when taken in excess, intoxicating. Unfermented wine is a modern concept. The ancients had not that knowledge of antiseptic pre- cautions which would iiaye enabled them to pre- .serve the juice of the grape in an unfermented state. It was the inebriating property of wine that constituted the sting of the calumny with which the sanctimonious tried to injure our Lord — 'loov dvdpuiroi olvoTr&T-qs (Mt 11'^, Lk 7*^). There would have been no scandal in His habitually partaking of a beverage which was never harmful. Christ bade men take heed lest their hearts should be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness (KpanrdXy Kai (J-iBrj, Lk 21^), but He evidently regarded it as possible to draAV the line between the use and the abuse of wine. He was not a Nazirite, Rechabite, or Essene. A Palestinian movement against -wine and strong drink might conceivably have been begun by the Baptist (Lk P'), but not by Christ. His religion was not in its essence a system of ascetic negations ; it was much more than one of the ' creeds which deny and restrain.' In His time and country, drunken- ness, however pernicious in individual cases, could not be regarded as one of the deadly national sins.
'Orientals are not inclined to intemperance. The warm climate very quickly makes it a cause of discomfort and disease ' (Mackie, Bible Manners and Customs, 1898, p. 46). .Moreover, ' the wines of Palestine may be assumed on the whole not to have exceeded the strength of an ordinary claret' (A. R. S. Kennedy, EBi iv. 5319).
It was Gentile rather than Jewish wine-drinking habits that Apostolic Christianity had to combat, and Bacchus ( Dionysus) was notoriously one of the most powerful of the gods of Greece and Rome. The apostles did not tight against the social customs of pag<an nations with a new legalism. It was not the Christian but the Judaizer or the Gnostic who repeated the parrot-cry, ' Handle not, taste not, toucn not.' Christianity goes to work in a wholly different manner. It relies on the power of great positive truths. It creates a passion
for high things which deadens the taste for low things. Its distinction is that it makes every man a legislator to himself. The inordinate use of wine and strong drink becomes morally impossible for a Christian, not because there is an external law which forbids it, but because his own enlightened conscience condemns it. St. Paul does not say to the Roman Christians, 'Let us walk lawfully, not in revelling and drunkenness,' but ' Let us walk becomingly ' {ev^xvi^'^''^^? Ro 13'^). This mean* that there is a beautiful new crxijA'a, or ideal of conduct, of which every man becomes enamoured when he accepts the Christ in whom it is embodied. Thereafter he feels, with a shuddering repulsion, how ill it would become him to walk in ' revelling and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness.' He abjures the thought of being at once spiritual and sensual. Having put on the Lord Jesus Christ, he cannot continue to make provision for the flesh, to fulhl its lusts.