The anti-booze activists of the church tend to waffle a bit when you bring up the wedding at Cana. It’s a metaphor for something else, they might say, or they come up with biblical quotes to justify their stance, most of which come from that Saint Paul chap, as far as I can figure out. Look, I’m sure Saint Paul was a decent fellow and good to his mother, but he was not a barrel of fun. Old Miseryguts — as I’m sure his former friends called him after his conversion — was against practically everything that makes this vale of tears at all palatable. You will look in vain for a joke of any sort in either of the Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Thessalonians don’t get off much lighter.
Nicholas Pashley, Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It’s Necessary, 2001.
