Sainte Ponge

According to the New Testament , when Jesus Christ dying on the cross, he uttered seven words. The fifth is:

• Gospel according to Mark , 22:14, "I thirst. And in 15: 36: "Someone ran a sponge soaked in vinegar and, having put on a stick, he gave him to drink, saying: Leave! we see whether Elijah will come down! "
• Gospel according to Matthew , 27-48: "And straightway one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave him drink. "
• Gospel according to John , 19:29: "A vessel was then filled with vinegar. It began around a branch of hyssop a sponge soaked in vinegar and is up to his mouth. "

Thus, to respond and mitigate the agony of Christ on the cross, brought to the lips of Jesus a sponge attached to a stick and dipped in the first posca or vinegar. According to the Gospel story, sponge has collected the blood of Christ pierced by the spear. The New Testament gives no other indication about this.

Representations in Art

Frescoed vaults of the choir of the Abbey Chaalis.
An angel on the right is the sponge on a reed.

One of the most recognizable of this sponge appears in the Last Judgement of Michelangelo , performed in the Sistine Chapel between 1536 and 1541. It is located in the bezel at the top right with the column of the Flagellation and scale, while in the seat left is the cross, the nails and crown of thorns.

Alleged relics

No relic of the "Holy Sponge" has been recognized by the Catholic Church. The very phrase "Holy Sponge" does not exist in the Catholic tradition, which refers only to the sponge with vinegar and is one of the instruments of the Passion.

The first alleged relics of the sponge do not appear until the ^sixth century , 500 years after the crucifixion.

From Jerusalem to Constantinople

A poem Sophronius Jerusalem says that in his day (560-638) an object named "Holy Sponge" and considered by the population as a relic of the sponge cited in the Gospel was venerated in the basilica or Martyrium Constantine, Jerusalem .

Jerusalem was captured by the Persian general Schahr-Baraz in 614. In 629 , when Schahr-Baraz made peace with the Byzantines to ally with them against his rival Persians Niketas son of Schahr-Barazi, brings to two so-called Byzantine relics: the Holy Sponge and the Holy Lance. The arrival of the "Holy Sponge" Constantinople was celebrated Sept. 14 629 .

From Constantinople to Paris

According to unverified legend, this "Holy Sponge" would have remained in Constantinople until its sale by the Latin Emperor of Constantinople , Baldwin II , for an exorbitant sum to Louis IX of France . She would have joined the relics of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris . She would be kept together including the crown of thorns and the True Cross ^Rome

An author of the anticlerical ^nineteenth century , Collin Plancy said in 1821 that a piece of the so-called "Holy Sponge", brown with blood, was kept in Rome in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Fifty years later, another writer restates this. It seems that other witnesses have confirmed this assertion.

What is certain is that there always exists and that an alleged "Holy Sponge" in the chapel of the relics of the Basilica of Holy Cross of Jerusalem.

Other locations

• A canon was written in 1942 that part of the relic of the "Holy Sponge" was preserved in the church of Saint-Jacques de Compiegne in France .

• A book of ^nineteenth century indicates that Charlemagne had acquired a piece of sponge that would be venerated in the cathedral of his capital, Aix-la-Chapelle .

• Still in the nineteenth ^century , a book mentions a "Holy Sponge" in the church of Chirac (former priory, embellished by Pope Urban V ), in a silver reliquary .

• Finally, another work by the ^nineteenth century referred to a "Holy Sponge" to the abbey of Fleury .

Notes

Bibliography

• Jacques Guillerme, Collections: myths and programs, Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1993. ( OCLC 29470665 )
• Xavier Walter, Before the great discoveries: a picture of the earth in the fourteenth century, Roissy-en-France: Alban, 1997. ( OCLC 39313375 )
• Maxime Souplet, The Holy Treasury and the Museum of Notre-Dame, Verdun Cathedral of Verdun, 1961. ( OCLC 13497552 )
• Fernand Cabrol , Dictionary of Archaeology and Christian liturgy, Paris Letouzey and Ane, 1953. ( OCLC 162848756 )

References

• Christianity portal