simply because they were composed with the desire to glorify him.
According to the Synoptics, when Jesus is led away to be crucified, the Roman guard entrusted with the duty of executing the cruel sentence find a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and compel him to carry the cross.(1) It was customary for those condemned to crucifixion to carry the cross, or at least the main portion of it, themselves to the place of execution, and no explanation is given by the Synoptists for the deviation from this practice which they relate. The fourth Gospel, however, does not appear to know anything of this incident or of Simon of Cyrene, but distinctly states that Jesus bore his own cross.(2) On the way to Golgotha, according to the third Gospel, Jesus is followed by a great multitude of the people, and of women who were bewailing and lamenting him, and he addresses to them a few prophetic sentences.(3) We might be surprised at the singular fact that there is no reference to this incident in any other Gospel, and that words of Jesus, so weighty in themselves and spoken at so supreme a moment, should not elsewhere have been recorded, but for the fact that, from internal evidence, the address must be assigned to a period subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem. The other evangelists may, therefore, well ignore it.
It was the custom to give those about to be crucified a draught of wine containing some strong opiate, which in some degree alleviated the intense suffering of that mode of death. Mark(1) probably refers to this (xv. 23) when he states that, on reaching the place of execution, "they gave him wine [———] mingled with myrrh." The fourth Gospel has nothing of this. Matthew says (xxvii. 34): "They gave him vinegar [———] to drink mingled with gall"(2) [———]. Even if, instead of [———] with the Alexandrian and a majority of MSS., we read [———], "wine," with the Sinaitic, Vatican, and some other ancient codices, this is a curious statement, and is well worthy of a moment's notice as suggestive of the way in which these narratives were written. The conception of a suffering Messiah, it is well known, was more particularly supported, by New Testament writers, by attributing a Messianic character to Ps. xxii., lxix., and Isaiah liii., and throughout the narrative of the Passion we are perpetually referred to these and other Scriptures as finding their fulfilment in the sufferings of Jesus. The first Synoptist found in Ps. lxix. 21 (Sept. lxviii. 21): "They gave me also gall [———] for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar [———] to drink;" and apparently in order to make the supposed fulfilment correspond as closely as possible, he combined the "gall" of the food with the vinegar or wine in strangely literal fashion,(3) very characteristic, however, of
1 We shall, for the sake of brevity, call the Gospels by the
names assigned to them in the Canon.
2 There have been many attempts to explain away [———],
and to make it mean either a species of Vermuth or any
bitter substance (Olahausen, Leidensgeech., 168); but the
great mass of critics rightly retain its meaning, "Gall."
So Ewald, Meyer, Bleek, Strauss, Weisse, Schenkel, Yolk-mar,
Alford, Wordsworth, &c, &c.
the whole of the evangelists. Luke, who seems not to have understood the custom known perhaps to Mark, represents (xxiii. 36) the soldiers as mocking Jesus by "offering him vinegar "(l) [———]; he omits the gall, but probably refers to the same Psalm without being so falsely literal as Matthew.
We need not enter into the discussion as to the chronology of the Passion week, regarding which there is so much discrepancy in the accounts of the fourth Gospel and of the Synoptics, nor shall we pause minutely to deal with the irreconcilable difference which, it is admitted,(2) exists in their statement of the hours at which the events of the last fatal day occurred. The fourth Gospel (xix. 4) represents Pilate as bringing Jesus forth to the Jews "about the sixth hour" (noon). Mark (xv. 25), in obvious agreement with the other Synoptics as further statements prove, distinctly says: "And it was the third hour (9 o'clock a.m.), and they crucified him." At the sixth hour (noon), according to the three Synoptists, there was darkness over the earth till about the ninth hour (3 o'clock p.m.), shortly after which time
1 Luke omits the subsequent offer of "vinegar" (probably the
Pasco of the Roman soldiers) mentioned by the other
Evangelists. We presume the reference in xxiii. 36 to be the
same as the act described in Mt xxvii. 34 and Mk. xv. 23.
