mountainman

LXX version of Psalms 69:21 -

"They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst."

Here are the derived New Testament copy/pastings of the Greek LXX .....

Matthew 27:34

There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall;
but after tasting it, he refused to drink it.

Matthew 27:47-50

When some of those standing there heard this, they said,
"He's calling Elijah."

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar,
put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said,
"Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him."

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

Mark 15:23

Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.

Mark 15:35-37

When some of those standing near heard this, they said,
"Listen, he's calling Elijah."

One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick,
and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone.
Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said.

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

John 19:28-30

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture
would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."
A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it,
put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips.
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished."
With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

'Sour wine' was the standard fare of the common Roman Soldier

The following author points out that 'Sour wine' was the standard fare of the common Roman Soldier, and that the translation of 'vinegar' for 'sour wine' gives a false impression in English.

The Roman Military Diet
Author(s): R. W. Davies
Source: Britannia, Vol. 2 (1971), pp. 122-142
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/525803

P.124

"Several sources speak of the iron rations a soldier carried
when on active service; these would, of course, form the basic
part of a soldier's diet in peace- time. This seems to be illustrated
by Hadrian, whose policy of keeping the troops fully-trained but
engaged on no actual warfare is well known: [18]

'Hadrian himself also used to live a soldier's life among the other ranks,
and, following the example of Scipio Aemilianus, Metellus, and Trajan,
cheerfully ate in the open such camp food as bacon, cheese, and sour wine.'

Iron rations on active service are mentioned in connection with generals
of the second century CE[19]

'Avidius Cassius forbade the soldiers when on expedition to carry anything
except bacon, hard tack, and sour wine.'

'Pescennius Niger gave orders that no one was to drink [vintage] wine on expedition,
but that they should all be content with sour wine. He also forebade pastry-cooks
to follow the expedition, and ordered the soldiers to be content with hard tack.'

It is claimed that Severus improved the quality of the military diet.[20]
The bacon- fat (laridum) or lard was used as a substitute for oil, which
could not easily be transported at times. The hard tack (bucellatum) is part
of the corn ration which could be cooked in this form.[21] Acetum (oos&) was
low quality wine, at times mixed with water to form a drink called posca in
contrast to the vintage wine (vinum); even today the Italians, among others,
continue to add water to their cheaper wines to drink with meals. [22]

[18] SHA, Hadrianus x, 2; cf. Severus Alexander li, 5 and lxi, 2;
Herodian n xi 2 (Severus); Iv xii 2 (Caracalla). This ciba castrensia
was carried by the troops on manoeuvres; CIL viii I8042 Bb = ILS 2487.

[19] SHA, Avidius v, 3; Pescennius x, 3-4.

[20] E. Birley, 'Septimius Severus and the Roman Army', Epigr. Stud. 8, I969, 63-82,
especially 63-4, citing Herodian im, viii 5, and the writer's thesis. Cf. vi, viii 8,
where Maximinus is credited with a further increase.

[21] Cf. Ammianus xvII, viii 2. Even so, it was at times issued as grain; Suetonius, Galba 7.

[22] I have adopted the translation 'sour wine' rather than 'vinegar', which gives
a false impression in English. This is the drink of the ordinary soldier,
as proffered to Christ on the Cross.

Consequently, one might argue that the action of a common soldier, in giving a dying comrade a last drink of army issued 'sour wine' might be taken as an act of compassion, just like a "last cigarette". What do you think? How are we to read this last-wine transaction? Surely it must be important because it appears to be the last thing that happened to the historical jesus on his first visit to planet Earth.

XKV8R

i like the argument. it certainly fits better than those who would argue that they were offering him a pain killer (beyond simple wine) or worse, a vinegar solution meant to mock him further. the argument of a 'last drink before i go' or 'one for the road' is more likely (esp. in john).

the additional question must be asked: if historical, did he refuse it (matt) or accept it (john)?

Toto

It is an interesting interpretation that makes sense of the crucifixion. But what would that do to the interpretation of Ps. 69:21? The vinegar or sour wine in that verse is balanced with gall, or poison. A reference to a drinkable wine would make little sense in that context.

Note that the "last cigarette" is a last moment of what is supposed to be pleasure or relaxation before being swiftly and (relatively) painlessly killed. Jesus was being tortured to death - would the wine have just prolonged his agony by keeping him alive longer? Or prolonged his humiliation?

The blue letter bible has a variety of translations, some with vinegar, some with sour wine. The comments there note:

judge

Delete

XKV8R

the problem is that the blb is attempting to harmonize the discrepancy between mark/matt and john.

mark 15 (and matt following) is obviously attempting to cast the crucifixion in light of ps 69, which explains the dual offers of drink (it literally interprets the parallel lines of ps 69:21 as two separate offers of drink!). both of which are apparently refused (one explicitly, and the second lacks the affirmative).

however, john appears to make the connection with ps 69, but does not interpret the parallel lines of the poem as two distinct offers. john also has jesus accept the drink.

many study bibles attempt to harmonize the discrepancy by stating that jesus refused the former 'painkiller', but then accepted the second, thirst-relieving drink, but at a moment too late to prolong his life.

stephan huller

The Marcionites, the Marcosians and the Alexandrians of Clement's time (assuming of course the three sects weren't one and the same tradition) did not hold that a divine hypostasis suffered much less 'really' drank any wine. Nevertheless there might have been a mystical significance to the giving of sour wine (vinegar). First let's establish what Schaff and other have already noted - namely that Clement and the Marcosians were connected as one tradition:

"Irenaeus gives an account of Marcus and the Marcosians in 1.13 - 21 ... Hippolytus and Epiphanius (Haer 34) copy their accounts from Irenaeus, and probably had no direct knowledge of the works of Marcus or of his sect. Clement of Alexandria, however, knew and used his writings." [Philip Schaff note on Eusebius Church History iv.11.4]

" ... for on comparison of the sections just cited from Clement and from Irenaeus [regarding the Marcosians] the coincidences are found to be such as to put it beyond doubt that Clement in his account of the number six makes an unacknowledged use of the same [Marcosian] writing as were employed by Irenaeus." [William Smith A Dictionary of Christian Biography p. 161]

"Clement of Alexandria, himself infected with Gnosticism, actually uses Marcus number system though without acknowledgement (Strom, VI, xvi)." [Arendzen JP. Marcus. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX]

Yet what even these people haven't recognized is that the 'Marcosian heresy' was already present at the time Philo was writing. As we noted in our last post, all we need to do is work backwards from Irenaeus's original statement about 'those of Mark' who

express themselves in this manner: that the letter Eta along with the remarkable one constitutes all ogdoad, as it is situated in the eighth place from Alpha. Then, again, computing the number of these elements without the remarkable (letter), and adding them together up to Eta, they exhibit the number thirty. For any one beginning from the Alpha to the Eta will, after subtracting the remarkable (letter i.e. episemon) ... they subtract twelve, and reckon it at eleven. And in like manner, (they subtract) ten and make it nine. [Irenaeus AH 1.16.2 as cited in Hippolytus AH 6:42]

this passage is clearly a citation of Clement's Stromata Book Six or an Alexandrian teaching associated with St. Mark shared by Clement and the so-called 'Marcosians' as we read Clement witness the very same idea:

six is reckoned in the order of numbers, but the succession of the letters acknowledges the character which is not written. In this case, in the numbers themselves, each unit is preserved in its order up to seven and eight. But in the number of the characters, Zeta becomes six and Eta seven. And the character having somehow slipped into writing, should we follow it out thus, the seven became six, and the eight seven.[Stromata 6:16]

The amazing thing of course is that - like St. Mark himself - the tradition goes back to the time of Philo who interestingly enough adds one small detail to the mix (emboldened):

some of those persons who have (in the past) fancied that the world is everlasting, inventing a variety of new arguments, employ also such a system of reasoning as this to establish their point: they affirm that there are four principal manners in which corruption is brought about, addition, taking away, transposition, and alteration; accordingly, the number two is by the addition of the unit corrupted so as to become the number three, and no longer remains the number two; and the number four by the taking away of the unit is corrupted so as to become the number three; again, by transposition the letter Zeta becomes the letter Eta when the parallel lines which were previously horizontal (3/43/4) are placed perpendicularly (1/2 1/2), and when the line which did before pass upwards, so as to connect the two is now made horizontal, and still extended between them so as to join them. And by alteration the word οἶνος, wine, becomes ὄξος, vinegar. [On the Eternity of the World XXII]

The point of course is that the Marcosians interpreted every pericope in the gospel in a kabbalistic or neo-Pythagorean manner. My guess is that Mark 15:23's reference to wine:

And they gave him to drink οἶνος mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.

is a deliberate attempt at dysinformation on the part of the orthodox. In other words, it is one of many readings to confound the mystical interpretation of the Marcosians (who again are one and the same with Clement's Alexandrian tradition and so a rival to the authority of the Roman Church). A parallel is found in the Markan reading of 'third hour' when the Marcosian text clearly read 'sixth hour' (cf. AH 1.14.6 "Of this arrangement, both the beginning and the end were formed at that sixth hour, at which He was nailed to the tree") as with all the other gospels (cf. Eusebius's explanation of the error here as a simple scribal error). Matthew interestingly reads 'vinegar' here:

They gave him ὄξος to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. [Matt 27:34]

What is the underlying signifance? The original gospel was clearly 'like a Diatessaron' where the turning of 'water into wine' initially was followed by a transformation of οἶνος into ὄξος (by a slight mystical alteration of the word) and which - as Philo notes - had some connection to the idea that the fabric of the universe was 'cut' so as to lead to the immediate conflagration of all things.

This is undoubtedly the best answer as it derives entirely from first and second century sources.

stephan huller

A couple more things. It is interesting to note that the various MSS of Matthew seem to disagree whether the correct reading was οἶνος or ὄξος. I think vinegar is the original reading and furthermore I think it was mixed with χολῆς (bitter herbs = 'gall') as part of a Passover reference:

That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs (מָרוֹר), and bread made without yeast (Ex. 12.8)

The LXX reads πικρίδες but it is interesting to note that a number of early Church Fathers witness a Christian festival of Unleavened Bread in which the 'bitterness' was specifically referenced but probably by way of Ps 69:22 "And they gave for my bread χολῆς, and for my thirst they gave me to drink ὄξος"

In other words, none of this ever 'happened' as a historical event per se. It was all part of an effort by 'Mark' (I say the real St. Mark of history) to develop a Pythagorean mystic narrative around some lost historical event.

Doug Shaver

The incident was supposed to be a fulfillment of prophecy. That gave it all the importance that the gospel authors cared about.

The authors either didn't think they were writing about a historical Jesus or didn't care one way or the other, and in either case none of them was under any impression that he was due to make a second visit.

Cege

So what, exactly, was Jesus supposedly offered? wine with gall, wine with myrrh, sour wine with something, sour wine alone? something else?

Chili

Any of them will do but it shows the final end of the very religion that got him thusfar and that is a great tribute to Judasim. Notice that just after that John's Jesus said: "It is finished" and with that statement he declared the very end of the religion that had served him will during the "involutionary period" of his life and that so now is left behind well into the evolutionary period to make the clean break between heaven and earth for him. Notice that Peter was defrocked after that and Thomas became a believer in the removal of faith and doubt as opposites to say that the essence of omniscience was handed to him by world he was about to end.

It does away with "Gnosticism' as well as "Annihilism" as movements that try to reach that same end but never do . .. while that effort alone proclaims the need for it to be.