Wine

When the wine has been drunk, the bottle is discarded.

When a teaching comes into the world, it comes in a bottle, that being the individuality of the teacher, the time and place where he appears, and the type of people that he draws to himself. A school begins, in which the teaching is delivered.

One day, the teacher is gone, for such people live no longer than the rest of us. The last of the wine having been poured out, his students thereafter venerate the empty bottle, minutely studying the label, breathing the last of the fumes, worshipping the dead husk of his teaching.

Those who would discard the bottle and seek the source of the living wine that he brought are driven away as heretics.

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Image credit: Thor Edvardsen, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0