100 HEMLOCK. 



With this purpose we may suppose that some friendly person, 

 to enable the Saviour to endure the terrible sufferings of cruci 

 fixion, offered him this customary drink, namely, vinegar, or 

 sour wine, into which myrrh and hemlock, called gall, had 

 been put. In Mark xv. 23 myrrh is spoken of, but in Matt, 

 xxvii. 34 the gall alone is mentioned. Of this our Lord refused 

 to drink, not on account of the bitterness of the draught, as 

 one might suppose, but because the holy offering which he was 

 about to make he intended to be complete and the sacrifice 

 unmitigated in its pain, which would not have been the case 

 had he accepted the proffered opiate. He suffered as the Lamb 

 of atonement with a full consciousness of every pain, so that 

 nothing should occur to lessen the worthiness and costliness 

 of the world s solemn offering. The offering of the drugged 

 wine has frequently been confounded with the moistening of the 

 lips of the dying Saviour by means of the vinegar on the 

 sponge; but the acts were separated from each other by a 

 considerable time, the former being intended as the drink 

 which, as we have said, was customarily given before the 

 punishment. 



Large potions of this hemlock caused death, generally pre 

 ceded by numbness. Of this poison it is supposed that Socrates 

 died, having been condemned to drink the unmingled juice of 

 the hemlock. 



