Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (854 page)

In order to come to a decision on this question we must take the two other Evangelists into consideration. The presentation to Jesus of a drink mingled with vinegar is mentioned by all four, and even the two who have the vinegar mingled with gall, or the myrrhed wine, as the first drink offered to Jesus, mention afterwards the offering of simple vinegar. According to Luke, this
offering of vinegar,
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was an act of derision committed by the soldiers not very long after the crucifixion, and before the commencement of the darkness (v. 36 f.); according to Mark, shortly before the end, three hours after the darkness came on, one of the bystanders, on hearing the cry of Jesus:
my God, my God
, etc., presented vinegar to him, likewise in derision, by means of a sponge fixed on a reed (v. 36); according to Matthew, one of the bystanders, on the same cry, and in the same manner, presented vinegar to him, but with a benevolent intention, as we gather from the circumstance that the scoffers wished to deter him from the act (v. 48 f.);
^*
whereas in John it is on the exclamation:
.I thirst,
that some fill a sponge with vinegar from a vessel standing near, and raise it on a stem of hyssop to the mouth of Jesus (v. 29).
Hence it has been supposed that there were three separate attempts to give a beverage to Jesus: the first before the crucifixion, with the stupefying drink (Matthew and Mark); the second after the crucifixion, when the soldiers in mockery offered him some of their ordinary beverage, a mixture of vinegar and water called
posca
^†
(Luke); and the third, on the complaining cry of Jesus (Matt., Mark and John).
^‡
But if the principle of considering every divergent narrative as a separate event be once admitted, it must be consistently carried out: if the beverage mentioned by Luke must be distinguished from that of Matthew and Mark on account of a difference in the time, then must that of Matthew be distinguished from that of Mark on account of the difference in the design; and, again, the beverage mentioned by John must not be regarded as the same with that of the two first synoptists, since it follows a totally different exclamation. Thus

^*
Vid. Fritzsche, in loc.

^†
Camp. Paulus, in loc.

^‡
Thus Kuinöl, in Luc., p. 710 f.; Tholuck, s. 316.we should obtain in all five instances in which a drink was offered to Jesus, and we should at least be at a loss to understand why Jesus after vinegar had already been thrice presented to his lips, should yet a fourth time have desired to drink. If then we must resort to simplification, it is by no means only the beverage in the two first gospels, and that in the fourth, which, on account of the agreement in the time and manner of presentation, are to be understood as one; but also that of Mark (and through this the others) must be pronounced identical with that of Luke, on account of their being alike offered in derision. Thus there remain two instances of a drink being offered to Jesus, the one before the crucifixion, the other after; and both have a presumptive support from history, the former in the Jewish custom of giving a stupefying draught to persons about to be executed, the other in the Roman custom, according to which the soldiers on their expeditions, — and the completing an execution was considered as such, — -were in the habit of taking with them their
posca.
But together with this possible historical root, there is a possible prophetic one in Ps. lxix., and the two have an opposite influence: the latter excites a suspicion that the narrative may not have anything historical at its foundation; the former throws doubt on the explanation that the whole story has been spun out of the prophecies.

On once more glancing over the various narratives, we shall at least find that their divergencies are precisely of a nature to have arisen from a various application of the passage in the Psalms. The eating of gall and the drinking of vinegar being there spoken of, it appears as if in the first instance the former particular had been set aside as inconceivable, and the fulfilment of the prophecy found in the circumstance (very possibly historical, since it is mentioned by all the four Evangelists), that Jesus had vinegar presented to him when on the cross. This might either be regarded as an act of compassion, as by Matthew and John, or of mockery, with Mark and Luke. In this manner the words:
they gave me vinegar to drink,
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, were indeed literally fulfilled, but not the preceding phrase:
in my thirst,
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; hence the author of the fourth gospel might think it probable that Jesus actually complained of thirst, i.e.cried,
I thirst,
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an exclamation, which he expressly designates as a fulfilment of the
scripture,
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by which we are doubtless to understand the above passage in the Psalms (comp. Ps. xxii. 16); nay, since he introduces the
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, that the scripture might be fulfilled,
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, Jesus. knowing that all things were now accomplished,
he almost appears to mean that the fulfilment of the prophecy was the sole object of Jesus in uttering that exclamation: but a man suspended on the cross in the agonies of death is not the one to occupy himself with such typological trifling — this is only the part of his biographer who finds himself in perfect ease. Even this addition, however, only showed the fulfilment of one half of the messianic verse, that relating to the vinegar: there still remained what was said of the gall, which, as the concentration of all bitterness, was peculiarly adapted to be placed in relation to the suffering Messiah. It is true that the presentation of the
gall,
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meat
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, which the prophecy strictly taken required, was still suppressed as inconceivable: but it appeared to the first Evangelist, or to the authority which he here follows, quite practicable to introduce the gall as an ingredient in the vinegar, a mixture which Jesus might certainly be unable to drink, from its unpalatableness. More concerned about historical probability than prophetic connexion, the second Evangelist, with reference to a Jewish custom, and perhaps in accordance with historical fact, converted the vinegar mingled with gall, into wine mingled with myrrh, and made Jesus reject this, doubtless from a wish to avoid stupefaction. As however the narrative of the vinegar mingled with gall reached these two Evangelists in company with the original one of the presentation of simple vinegar to Jesus; they were unwilling that this should be excluded by the former, and hence placed the two side by side. But in making these observations, as has been before remarked, it is not intended to deny that such a beverage may have been offered to Jesus before the crucifixion, and afterwards vinegar also, since the former was apparently customary, and the latter, from the thirst which tormented the crucified, natural: it is merely intended to show, that the Evangelists do not narrate this circumstance, and under such various forms, because they knew historically that it occurred in this or that manner, but because they were convinced dogmatically that it must have occurred according to the above prophecy, which however they applied in different ways.
^*

During or immediately after the crucifixion Luke represents Jesus as saying:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do
(v. 34); an intercession which is by some limited to the soldiers who crucified him,
^†
by others, extended to the real authors of his death, the Sanhedrists and Pilate.
^‡
However accordant such a prayer may be with the principles concerning love to enemies elsewhere inculcated by Jesus (Matt. v. 44), and however great the internal probability of Luke’s statement viewed in this light: still it is to be observed, especially as he stands alone in giving this particular, that it may possibly have been taken from the reputed messianic chapter, Isa. liii., where in the last verse, the same from which the words:
he was numbered with the transgressors
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are borrowed, it is said : [Heb. letters]
wlapposh’iym yapgiya’
(he made intercession for the transgressors),
which the LXX. erroneously translate
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, he was delivered for their transgressions,
but which already the
Targum Jonathan
renders by
pro peccatis
(it should be
peccatoribus) deprecatus est.

^*
Comp. also Bleek, Comm. zum Hebräerbrief, 2,
s. 312,
Anm.; De Wette, exeg. Handb. 1, 3, s. 198.

^†
Kuinöl, in Luc. p. 710.

^‡
Olshausen, p. 484; Neander, s. 637.All the Evangelists agree in stating that two malefactors
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(Matthew and Mark call them
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thieves)
were crucified, one on each side of Jesus; and Mark, if his 28th verse be genuine, sees in this a literal fulfilment of the words:
he was numbered with the transgressors,
which, according to Luke xxii. 37, Jesus had the evening before quoted as a prophecy about to be accomplished in him. Of the further demeanour of these fellow-sufferers, John says nothing; the two first Evangelists represent them as reviling Jesus (Matt. xxvii. 44; Mark xv. 32): whereas Luke narrates that only one of them was guilty of this offence, and that he was rebuked by the other (xxiii. 39 ff.). In order to reconcile this difference, commentators have advanced the supposition, that at first both criminals reviled Jesus, but that subsequently one of them was converted by the marvellous darkness ;
^*
more modern ones have resorted to the supposition of an
enallage numeri:
^†
but without doubt those only are right who admit a real difference between Luke and his predecessors.
^‡
It is plain that the two first Evangelists knew nothing of the more precise details which Luke presents concerning the relation of the two malefactors to Jesus. He narrates, namely, that when one of them derided Jesus by calling upon him, if he were the Messiah, to deliver himself and them, the other earnestly rebuked such mockery of one with whom he was sharing a like fate, and moreover as a guilty one with the guiltless, entreating for his own part that Jesus would remember him when he should come into his
kingdom
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whereupon Jesus gave him the promise that he should that very day be with him
in Paradise
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In this scene there is nothing to create difficulty, until we come to the words which the second malefactor addresses to Jesus. For to expect from one suspended on the cross a future coming to establish the messianic kingdom, would presuppose the conception of the whole system of a dying Messiah, which before the resurrection the apostles themselves could not comprehend, and which therefore, according to the above representation of Luke, a
thief
must have been beforehand with them in embracing. This is so improbable, that it cannot excite surprise to find many regarding the conversion of the thief on the cross as a miracle,
^§
and the supposition which commentators call in to their aid,
namely, that the man was no common criminal, but a political one, perhaps concerned in the insurrection of Barabbas,
^||
only serves to render the incident still more inconceivable. For if he was an Israelite inclined to rebellion, and bent on liberating his nation from the Roman yoke, his idea of the Messiah was assuredly the most incompatible with the acknowledgment as such,