John 19:29 Vas ergo erat positum aceto plenum. Illi autem spongiam plenam aceto, hyssopo circumponentes, obtulerunt ori ejus.
Is aceto dat or abl and why? The Greek seems to have genitive here. Either way the meaning (with plenum) seems to be clearly “full of wine.”
hyssopo circumponentes = putting it all around on a hyssop?
But how does that go with the sentence exactly?
“Illi autem spongiam plenam aceto, hyssopo circumponentes, obtulerunt ori ejus” = And they presented to his mouth a sponge full of vinegar, putting it all around a hyssop [or on a hyssop].
But that doesn’t seem right because hyssop is not acc. It’s the “they” who are circumponentes the sponge I suppose.
So: “They putting all around the sponge vingear [and?] hyssop presented [it] to his mouth.”
Ok, I found a note that clarified two things for me:
circumponentes can just mean “placing”
hssyop = on a hyssop (stem)
Illi autem spongiam plenam aceto (abl.), hyssopo (dat.) circumponentes, obtulerunt ori ejus. = And they, placing a sponge full with vinegar (abl.) on a hyssop [stem], presented [it] to his mouth.
Yes that’s it. But circumponentes means more than just placing. It renders περιθέντες and means putting something(acc.) around something(dat.). That’s to say they put the wine-soaked sponge onto the hyssop the way you’d stick a wet sponge onto a stick or a reed (it’s a reed in Mark and Matthew, σπόγγον … περιθεὶς καλάμῳ).
Yea that’s why I was getting tripped up with circumponentes. I couldn’t quite figure out what was going around what exactly. It seems that sticking on a stick is different than sticking around. But obviously there must be some way to conceive that as being “around.”
If you put a sponge on a stick, it’s around the point. The Greeks also used περιτίθημι “I put around” for putting on hats and crowns and so on. Nothing seems impossible about that physical conception.
Mark 15:19 uses κάλαμος as well. He doesn’t seem to have a reed in mind exactly, but something substantial enough to strike a person with, or to raise a wet sponge into the air.
Yes it’s not a difficult conception (unlike the Virgin birth?) but a perfectly literal one. Think of toasting α marshmallow on a skewer over a campfire. The marshmallow is around the skewer.
ok, that’s a helpful way to conceive it: around the tip. For English usage that’s overly literal, so to speak, but it is relatively easy to see that in another language (like Latin & Greek) that’s the normal way of describing what we describe with “on”. Thanks for the help in thinking about that guys!