The eastern coast of the Aegean is an ancient home of the vine. And the Greeks of the Asian towns, on those bright shores and under their genial sky, were a light-hearted, sociable race. They sought the wine-cup not for animal indulgence, but as a zest to good-fellowship and to give a freer flow to social joys. This was the influence that ruled their feasts, that loosened their tongues and inspired their gaiety. Hence their wit was prone to become ribaldry (ver. 4); and their songs were the opposite of the "spiritual songs" that gladden the feasts of the Church (ver. 19). The quick imagination and the social instincts of the Ionian Greeks, the aptness for speech and song native to the land of Homer and Sappho, were gifts not to be repressed but sanctified. The lyre is to be tuned to other strains; and poetry must draw its inspiration from a higher source. Dionysus and his reeling Fauns give place to the pure Spirit of Jesus and the Father. "The Aonian mount" must now pay tribute to "Sion hill"; and the fountain of Castalia yields its honours to
"Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of God."
Our nature craves excitement,--some stimulus that shall set the pulses dancing and thrill the jaded frame, and lift the spirit above the taskwork of life and the dreary and hard conditions which make up the daily lot of multitudes. It is this craving that gives to strong drink its cruel fascination. Alcohol is a mighty magician. The tired labouring man, the household drudge shut up in city courts refreshed by no pleasant sight or cheering voice, by its aid can leave fretted nerves and aching limbs and dull care behind, and taste, if it be only for a feverish moment, of the joy of bounding life. Can such cravings be hindered from seeking their relief? The removal of temptation will accomplish little, unless higher tastes are formed and springs of purer pleasure opened to the masses for whom our civilization makes life so drab and colourless. "One finds traces of the primitive greatness of our nature even in its most deplorable errors. Just as impurity proceeds at the bottom from an abuse of the craving for love, so drunkenness betrays a certain demand for ardour and enthusiasm, which in itself is natural and even noble.... Man loves to _feel_ himself alive; he would fain live twice his life at once; and he would rather draw excitement from horrible things than have no excitement at all" (Monod).
For the drunkards of Ephesus the apostle finds a cure in the joys of the Holy Ghost. The mightiest and most moving spring of feeling is in the spirit of man kindred to God. There is a deep excitement and refreshment, a "joy that human thought transcends," in the love of God shed abroad in the heart and the communion of true saints, which makes sensuous delights cheap and poor. Toil and care are forgotten, sickness and trouble seem as nothing; we can glory in tribulation and laugh in the face of death, when the strong wine of God's consolations is poured into the soul.
"Be filled with the Spirit," says the apostle--or more strictly, "filled _in_ the Spirit"; since the Holy Spirit of God is the element of the believer's life, surrounding while it penetrates his nature: it is the atmosphere that he breathes, the ocean in which he is immersed. As a flood fills up the river-banks, as the drunkard is filled with the wine that he drains without limit, so the apostle would have his readers yield themselves to the tide of the Spirit's coming and steep their nature in His influence. The Greek imperative, moreover, is present, and "describes this influence as ever going forth from the Spirit" (Beet). This is to be a continual replenishment. Paul has prayed that we may "be filled unto all the fulness of God" (iii. 19), and has bidden us grow "to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (iv. 13) in whom we "are made full" (Col. ii. 9): in the replenishment of the Spirit the fulness of God in Christ is sensibly imparted. God's fulness is the hidden and eternal spring of all that can fill our nature; Christ's fulness is its revelation and renewed communication to the race; the Holy Spirit's fulness is its abiding energy within the soul and within the Church. Thus possessed, the Church is truly the body of Christ (iv. 4), and the habitation of God (ii. 21, 22).