THE NEW WINE...

The WINE cellar!......Saint Bernard of ClairvauxShare
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The king led me into the wine-cellar, he set love in order in me.’ The words of the proposed text seem to mean that after the bride had achieved her desire of sweet and intimate conversation with her beloved, she returned, at his departure, to the maidens so refreshed and animated in speech and appearance that she looked drunken. And when they, surprised at this novelty, asked for the reason, she answered that it is not surprising if one who entered the wine-cellar should be tipsy with wine. So much for the literal meaning.

But she also does not deny that she is drunk in the spirit, but with love, not wine -except that love is wine. 'The king led me into the wine-cellar.' When the bridegroom is present and the bride addresses him, then 'bridegroom' is said, or 'beloved' or 'whom my soul loves'; but when she speaks about him to the maidens she calls him 'the king'. Why? Because it is appropriate for the bride who loves and is loved to use familiarly, as she pleases, the titles of love, and it is necessary that the maidens, who need discipline, be constrained by the awesome title of majesty.`


‘The king led me into the wine-cellar’, I omit mentioning what that wine-cellar is, because I remember having described it. But if the term is referred to the Church— since the disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit, were thought by the people to be drunk with wine—then Peter, the friend of the bridegroom, standing in their midst said on behalf of the bride: 'These men are not drunk as you suppose.' Take note that he denies not that they are drunk, but drunk in the manner supposed by the people. For they were drunk, but with the Holy Spirit, not with wine. And as if they would witness to the people that they had really been led into the wine-cellar, again Peter says on behalf of all: 'But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: "and in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams".'

Does it not seem to you that the wine-cellar was that house in which the disciples were assembled, when 'suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting,' and fulfilled Joel's prophecy? And as each of them went out intoxicated by the abundance of that house and drunk from a torrent of a pleasure so great, could he not truly say: 'the king led me into the wine-cellar'?


Saint Bernard of Clairvaux 1153AD