Was Christ really offered opium by the soldier?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Futaba
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Futaba

Guest
Matthew 27:34 There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it.

I’ve read some articles, most are from Protestant’s version. They said that “gall” is actually an opium. Is it correct? If yes, then what is the main reason that Jesus reject it? Is it because He must feel all the abuse but opium can lessen the pain, or because doing drug is a sin although that was not a case of a drug abuse?
 
Last edited:
I don’t think it would be drug abuse in the slightest. Not all drug use is sinful.

I’ve never heard the argument, but I think it would, to an extent, lessen the cup that Christ had to drink of.
 
When they execute prisoners in modern times, they are offered a sedative if going to the electric chair. If they are being executed by lethal injection, the first drug injected is a sedative, and I think they’re offered an oral sedative (or an anti-anxiety drug like Valium or Xanax) before being led to the chamber.

Even in Biblical times the sedating power of opiates (and other substances for that matter) was known, and they gave those about to be crucified a sedative to lessen the pain (and I’m sure to act as an early chemical restraint and to reduce panic). I was taught that Jesus refused, because He knew the purpose of Him being on the cross was to experience all the pain, both His physical and that of our sins.
 
Last edited:
Is it known exactly what the Greek word χολή means here? According to Google Translate, it can have several meanings: gall, bile, choler, or the spleen. Here in the context of the Crucifixion, most commentaries explain it as “a bitter herb,” but I don’t know whether that is a conclusion the authors have reached on the basis of the balance of probabilities, or whether it is a known fact. I suspect the former.
 
Last edited:
i’ve always understood that “gall” was bad wine; more or less vinegar

i doubt that the roman occupiers would’ve wasted a medicinal on a crucified “criminal”
 
brian_custer said:
i’ve always understood that “gall” was bad wine; more or less vinegar

i doubt that the roman occupiers would’ve wasted a medicinal on a crucified “criminal”
Click to expand...
Except that it would have made it a lot easier to deal with the criminal. Would anyone (apart from Our Lord, of course) meekly submit to being stretched out and nailed? The alternative would be to have several soldiers kneeling on the person, or else knocking them out with a punch.

Another explanation I’ve read is that the opiate was provided by compassionate Jews, not the Romans themselves.
 
Well, having been scourged from the back of the head to the buttocks, deprived of water for multiple hours, being made to carry a beam that weighed probably 300+ pounds through the baking Jerusalem sun… Resistance would be pretty hard…
 
brian_custer said:
i’ve always understood that “gall” was bad wine; more or less vinegar
Click to expand...
i think that comes from Psalm 69:22

Mark says it was mixed with myrrh which i think had some sedative properties but don’t quote me on that.
 
Jesus was “offered” the “gall” when He was half-way dead & had been nailed to the Cross for quite some time already

2 or 3 roman thugs would’ve had little trouble placing the scourged & tortured Jesus in position on the Cross
 
In the old testament, hyssop was used to ritually purify. For example,
Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Click to expand...
In addition to the ritual significance of hyssop being used in the OT to ritually purify, I have heard before in regards to the use of the hyssop branch at the crucifixion, that hyssop was and is used to help alleviate respiratory distress and to help stop coughing.

In this light, it would make sense that Jesus may have been being offered things to help relieve pain or sedate Him, as they may have viewed this as a way to cause the body to “give up the fight” and quicken the onset of death.
 
Since Jesus was not crucified by the Romans for offending them, but rather just to appease the Sanhedrin because of the worry of rebellion, the Romans had no personal vendetta or need to make Jesus’ execution particularly drawn out or torturous.

In addition, the desire of the Jews to have the crucifixion completed and the bodies removed before the Sabbath also lend some evidence to the fact that there may have been some attempts to quicken thing.
 
Last edited:
The Haydock commentary on the verse in Mark referencing the myrrh being added cites St. Bede the Venerable as saying it caused pain relief, and that is why Jesus refused it (he would have willingly suffered the bitterness if not for its pain relieving properpties). The other Fathers cited just discuss the bitterness.
Matthew says mixed with gall; for gall is here used for bitterness, and wine that has myrrh in it is a very strong bitter; although, perhaps, both gall and myrrh might have been ingredients to increase the bitterness. (St. Augustine) — Or, in the confusion that was occasioned, some might have offered him one thing, some another; one person giving vinegar and gall, another wine mixed with myrrh. (Theophylactus) — Wine mingled with myrrh may perhaps be used for vinegar. (St. Jerome) — This was given to criminals, to lessen their torments. Our Lord was pleased to taste the bitterness, but he would not permit the relief which the admittance of the same into his stomach might have afforded. Thus so were the scriptures fulfilled: they gave me gall for my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Psalm lxviii.) (Ven. Bede)
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
AveOTheotokos said:
Yes, the 4th cup of the Passover.
Click to expand...
In the Hebrew translation of the New Testament used in the Catholic Church in Israel, the Greek word in Matt 27:34 is translated as maror. This is the same word used for the ‘bitter herbs” in the Passover seder. In antiquity, it may perhaps have been the wild lettuce, Lactuca virosa:

en.wikipedia.org

Lactuca virosa - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
This is line 33 and 34 and footnotes from the JB (same in NJB). Some of the speculation (here) is interesting.
.
33When they had reached a place called Golgotha,o that is, the place of the skull, 34they gave him wine to drink mixed with gall,p which he tasted but refused to drink.
.
.
27o. Approximate transliteration of the Aramaic word Gulgoltha, ‘a place of the skull’, in Lat. Calvaria (whence ‘Calvary’).

27p. A narcotic which sympathetic Jewish women (cf. Lk 23:27f) used to offer the condemned to diminish their sufferings. The wine was mixed with ‘myrrh’ (cf. Mk 15:23) rather than with ‘gall’. The ‘gall’ in Mt (like the correction of ‘wine’ to ‘vinegar’ in the Antiochene recension) is due to a reminiscence of Ps 69:21. Jesus refuses the palliative.
 
He was also offered it when they were about to nail Him to the tree.

Edit:By the way, the instance you’re taliking about was when they offered Him common wine when He said, “I am thirsty.”
 
Last edited:
Yes, but adrenaline is powerful. You can have - as my grandmother used to say - the tar beat out of you (no, I’ve never been sure what that meant, LOL), and still have fight in you - and that’s because of adrenaline.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top