Pouring Out a Drink Offering
The specifics of sacrificial language may be lost on us today. When we speak of sacrifice, we are usually using the word metaphorically. We make sacrifices to achieve our goals, but these sacrifices are our time, energy, and resources, not our goats, sheep, and oxen. As a result, there are times when we may miss the point being made even when reading passages that refer to sacrifice metaphorically, such as 2 Timothy 4:6. To understand this verse better, we need to delve into what it meant to be poured out as a libation.
The Greek religious system was much more complicated and diverse than their mythology would indicate. Gods and goddesses could be found anywhere, above or below ground, performing a wide variety of tasks. We may know of Poseidon as the god of the sea, but he was also the god of horses. However, there were likely different shrines dedicated to the different facets of Poseidon. If you wanted safe travels on the sea, there was a Poseidon shrine for that. If you wanted to offer a prayer and sacrifice in the hopes Poseidon would heal your sick horse, you would go to a different shrine to Poseidon.
Furthermore, as much as you may expect that all the gods were in the heavens, aside from the underworld deities, of course, you could reach out to Zeus above or below ground. It would be an oversimplification to suggest that the sky versions of gods (ouranic deities) helped people when it came to social or personal power or some sort of religious purity and the ground versions of the gods (chthonic deities) dealt more with fertility of people and the land. However, there were many cases in which that distinction was true. Ouranic deity sacrifices could be much more of a project, involving selecting an animal to sacrifice, slaughter, and burn on an altar, where the pleasing aroma of the cooked meat would rise to the gods. Chthonic deity sacrifices could be much simpler, pouring wine mixed with grain down a hole in the center of the altar, trusting that it would reach the god dwelling somewhere below.
This wasn’t true only of Greeks, though given the massive growth of the gentile church, this language in 2 Timothy may be referring to the Greco-Roman sacrificial system. Whoever read this was probably more familiar with Greek sacrifice than Jewish sacrifice. However, the Israelites also had a sacrificial system that included both burnt offerings, usually of animals, and drink and grain offerings. This was a common feature of the ancient world, and again, broadly speaking we can see these ground offerings as seeking something along the lines of fertility. They would offer something to God in the ground, so that God would make the ground produce abundantly.
When the author of 2 Timothy speaks of being poured out as a libation, this is probably what he is referring to. He is comparing himself with wine being poured down a sacrificial drain to entreat God to give fertility to something or someone, but how does this sacrifice work? Who are the parties involved?
It is clear that the author, claiming to be Paul, considers himself the sacrifice. It seems reasonable to assume that God is the recipient of the sacrifice, but then we have three missing parties remaining: the one who performs the sacrifice (a priest), the one who offers the sacrifice, and the one who benefits from the sacrifice. Sometimes there could be some overlap in these roles, but let’s consider each one separately.
Who is the priest here? Traditionally, Paul was executed by the Romans. If this author is referring to something else, that isn’t clear, but given the violence against some Christian leaders, pouring Christians out to God could very well have been a Roman action. If that is the case, there is a remarkable irony here. In trying to kill Paul and other leaders, the Romans were accidentally offering fertility sacrifices to God. The theological embracing of suffering was an incredibly effective part of the spread of early Christianity. Those who suffered, enduring torture and even death, became heroes whose last moments affirmed the validity of the Christian message. In a way, this demonstrates the power of God, who alone has the power to make suffering a redemptive act. When authorities thought they were hurting Christians, they were unwittingly making themselves priests, offering sacrifices to the God they rejected to make the church grow.
We can offer a few suggestions about who is offering this sacrifice. On the one hand, Paul himself seems to have been happy to suffer for the sake of the Gospel. Perhaps he, and other leaders after him, offered themselves as libations for the sake of the good news. Of course, there is also a sense in which anyone being poured out is passive. They aren’t pouring themselves out. Wine doesn’t spill itself. Perhaps it would be better to say that Christ, who had already suffered and died for the sake of the world, was guiding people to martyrdom. There are remarkable stories from the Christian extra-Biblical tradition making this idea clear. One story recounts Peter fleeing Rome to avoid martyrdom and encountering Jesus upon the road. When Peter asks whereJesus is going, Jesus responds that he is going to Rome to be crucified again. Hearing this, Peter turns back to Rome and is martyred. This may be a fanciful story that never made it into the canon, but it is nonetheless profound. When we lack the courage to suffer, Jesus goes to suffer for us. When Christians become sacrifices for the Gospel, Christ is with them giving them the courage and faith they need to confess in the face of life-threatening hostility.
Finally, we can turn to the one who benefits from the sacrifice. Who is the horse who gets healed? Who is the land that produces abundant crops? It seems clear at this point that the offering is on behalf of the church. It has been said that the church is watered by the blood of the martyrs. Not only did the church grow, but their faith was reinvigorated by the courage or their heroes facing certain death. But fertile land doesn’t benefit for its own sake. Fertile land produces abundantly so that all may have a place at the table, and the needs of all may be satisfied. We have inherited a tradition of people who have offered their very lives for the church. We are the fertile land that Paul and other martyrs were poured out for. By their faith, we have the creeds, we have the Scriptures, we have a long tradition that points to the power of God in our world. I doubt that anyone reading this will be sacrificed for the sake of the Gospel. We aren’t being poured out as libations. We are the benefactors of these offerings, as a result, it is incumbent upon us to be like blessed, fertile land and produce a crop worthy of these offerings.
