870
VI^'ECIAR
VIRGIN
hands they dissolve into smoke and ashes.' Tliis description would apply either to the fruit of the 'ushr, Calotropis proccra, Willd., or to that of the colocyntli, Arab, hondol. liotli of these have fruits, about the size of a pippin, wliich, when ripe and dry, contain a dust, which would suggest the 'dust and ashes' of Josephus. The 'ushr, however, is not a vine, but a small shrub or tree, and its fruit lias no resemblance to the grape. The colocyntli is a vine, but it grows over a wide range in "Palestine besides the Dead Sea Valley, and its fruit also has no resemblance to a grai)e. It is like a small watermelon when green. We therefore, while accejjting one or both these plants as producing the fruit alluded to by Josephus, un- conditionally reject them both as candidates for the 'vine of Sodom.' Cuctunis prophetarum, L., a tendril-bearing vine, growing in the Dead Sea Valley and southward to Sinai, and having an ovoid, bitter fruit, A to | in. long, might be a candidate, were it not for the fact that its fruits do not grow in clusters. On the other hand, Solanum nicfrum, L., and S. miniatum, Berb., and S. villosum, Lara., produce clusters of berries like very small grapes. These are called by the Arabs 'inab-edh-cihib = wolf's grapes. But they are none of them vines, and none of them peculiar to the Dead Sea Valley. S. coagulans, Forsk., although peculiar to the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley, is not a vine, and has fruits like a small tomato, not like a grape. Oak galls cannot be intended. They are not produced ill this valley, are not clustered, and bear no resem- blance to a grape. We must conclude, therefore, that we have as yet no evidence on which to found a theory as to the plant intended by the vine of Sodom. We (with commentators generally) think that the allusion is ligurative, and that the quality of bitterness is attributed to tlie grape-vine of the enemies of Israel, as their wine is said in the follow- ing verse to be ' the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.' The selection of the vine of Sodom and Gomorrah, of which their vine is said to be a shoot, was due to the proverbial bitterness of the Dead Sea, a quality which may have been supposed to be communicated to what grew on its shores. We have a similar instance (Ezk 17^''") in the rhapsodical riddle of the great eagle, which plucked off a topmost shoot and twigs of the cedars of Lebanon, and set them in a city of merchants, and took of the seed of tlie land, and set it as a willow-tree, and it grew and became a vine of low stature, and shot forth branches towards the furrows, that it might bear fruit. And the roots were pulled up, and the fruit withered. Here we have a combination far more intricate and unreal than that of the 'vine of Sodom,' to which the bitterness of the Dead Sea water is attrihuted, and the wine from the same, which is said to be serpent's venom. G. E. Post.
VINEGAR ([Th homez ; «|oj, acctum).—K sour liijuid, mentioned 5 times in OT and 5 times in NT. The vinegar of Scripture is wine which has I'.ndergone the acetous fermentation caused by the presence of a ferment plant (Myroderma aceti), whereby its alcohol is converted into acetic acid. Besides this ' vinegar of wine ' there is also mentioned ' vinegar of strong drink ' {shc/:dr, Nu 6'), wliich is produced by the fermentation of palm juice or any other saccharine fluid. Both these forms of drink were forbidden to the Nazir- ite (Nu (>■>).
This fluid was used as a relish, 'without \yliich we should miss many of the comforts of civili/cd life' (Pliny, xiv. 25). Into it food was dijiped before eating (Ru 2"). A diluted vinegar or sour wine was used as a drink by the poorer classes (Aristoph. AcharruB, 35), and especially by sol-
diers. Pescennius Niger forbade his Ethiopian troops to drink anything else (Spartianus in Hist. Aufj. Script, minores, ii. ISO). The vessel of vinegar which the Roman soldiers had by tliom at the Crucifixion (Jn 19^) was probably tilled with this drink, which was called posra. It was not re- garded as intoxicating (Plautus, Miles (jloriosus, lii. 836). The Greek medical writers, Oribasius and Aretaius, call it d^vKpaTon. Posca and oil are re- commended in veterinary medicine for wounds by Vegetius, iii. 48, vinegar being, as Plutarch says, the most cooling of fluids (QaaiH. roivviv. iii. 5). Cf. the use of wine (oZ;'os) and oil by the good Samaritan (Lk 10**) to cleanse the wounds of the rolibers' victim.
In the accounts of the Crucifixion given by the four Evangeli.sts vinegar is mentioned, but in each case in a slightly dilierent connotation. Accord- ing to Mt 27*" (AV), the soliiiers ort'ered our Lord vinegar mingled with gall (RV has ' wine,' follow- ing NBD). This was a diilerent drink from the vinegar subsequently given Him on a sponge (v.**), which was probably yjosca. Mark mentions both, but describes the first wine as mingled with myrrh (15** ea/j.vpi'KrtJi^i'oi' oivof); Lk 23** relates that the soldiers after He was crucified ofiered Him vinegar in mockery. Jn 19^ only mentions the vinegar given in response to His exclamation, ' I thirst.' The first 'wine' of Matt, and ^lark was probably in- tended as a narcotic, the xo^V being the equivalent of the Heb. word rosh, also tr^' 'gall,' which was opium (see vol. ii. p. 104). This was given to those about to be executed, in accordance with the Talmudic interpretation of Pr 31", on which see Sanhedrin, 43. 1 ; Lightfoot, Hurm Hcbrair(e, ii. 3G ; and Buxtorf's Lex Talmudica, 2131. Rosen- miiller conjectures tliat it may have been given rather as a stimulant to keep Jesua alive during the torture {Bib. Bot. 163).