JESUS IN THE WINEPRESS

CHRIST in the WINEPRESS (or  the mystical winepress) is a motif in  Christian iconography showing Christ standing in a winepress, where Jesus Himself becomes the grapes in the press. It derives from the interpretation by St. Augustine where he exhorted his congregation to imitate Christ, ‘the first grape’, by stepping ‘into the winepress’ and being ‘ready for the pressing’. Other early theologians and doctors of the Church, such as St. Gregory the Great, followed suit. This visual image is found in Christian art between about 1100 and the 18th century, as well as in religious literature.

The Jesuit Robert Southwell saw the Passion in the winepress image in his poem "Christ's Bloody Sweat”,

                                                 Fat soil, full spring, sweet olive, grape of bliss,

That yields, that streams, that pours, that dost distil,
Untilled, undrawn, unstamped, untouched of press,
Dear fruit, clear brooks, fair oil, sweet wine at will!
Thus Christ unforced prevents in shedding blood

                                                    The whips, the thorns, the nails, the spear, and rood.       

Isaiah, 63, where verse 3, taken as spoken by Christ, says "I have trodden the winepress alone", and wine-stained clothes are mentioned. This passage was closely echoed in Apocalypse 19, where verse 15 reads: "He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty", and the clothes are also soaked, this time with blood. 

Another passage was Apocalypse 14:19–20:  And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."

The idea of Christ as both the treader and the trodden wine is found in St Gregory the Great:"He has trodden the winepress alone in which He was Himself pressed, for with His own strength He patiently overcame suffering.

The "mystic winepress" was common in hymns and sermons of the late medieval period, but rarer in the visual arts. Most examples are from north of the Alps, and representations in stained glass seem to have been popular. In England, where little wine was made, they were probably very rare.

 Interestingly to note, the famous text by Julia Ward Howe of the first verse of The Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861):

   Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

    He is trampling out the vintage where the grapesof                                        wrath  are stored;

    He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

    His truth is marching on.

This is also reflected in the title of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath(1939) -one of my all time favorite movies).  .

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While we relate to Christ as the Vine (and we the branches), the image of the Mystical Winepress, is today virtually forgotten.  The only contemporary images I could find was Ethiopian 1978 by Alemayehu Bizuneh, in his “Hunger Canvas" and some paintings on glass by Romanians.

IMAGES:Top:   German   C. 1490 

Left;   Austrian   C.1400 

Rt.    Netherlandish  16^th C.

Left:  Preraphaelite  John Roddam Stanhope  1860

Rt.    A. Bizuneh- Ethiopia        1978

Bottom two:  Romanian on glass