Theological Dissertation on the Theologoumena of Macarius Magnes

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Ecclesiastical, lib. 2 & 5, which he wrote against Theosthenes the Gentile 9) regarding the discrepancy of the Evangelists and other things falsely objected to us in the Gospel. For he says, for that which one Evangelist said, 10) putting a sponge around a reed, another said 11) because of the similarity of the shrub, putting it around hyssop, when it should be said, he says, a reed. Likewise, that which one Evangelist 12) said, wine, has been called vinegar 13) again on the cross (for they drew from the same vessel placed there, when they reached Calvary, and on the cross), especially, he says, since the Evangelists preserved the law of history: and they wrote nothing beyond what was said at that time in that tumult and fury. For they thought that the history would be free from all suspicion, εἰ μὴ περιεργότερον ἀλλ' ἄπλαστον εὑρεθείη τῆς ἱστορίας τὸ γράμμα, that is, if the letter of the history were found not curious, but simple. Macarius therefore solves the proposed difficulty of the difference of the Evangelists from the fact that Matthew and Mark called the hyssop of John a κάλαμον reed because of the similarity of the shrub, such that that staff was prepared from the stalk of the hyssop: since the Greeks have also called the stalks of rushes and various shrubs

as if Holy Scripture used certain names according to the opinion of the common people: which way of reconciling, however, Macarius Magnes by no means approves in this cited place. For by this reasoning cold water would be poured upon the slanders of his adversary PORPHYRY, who accuses the Evangelists with a profane mouth because, to make a miracle for the ignorant, they called the Sea of Genezareth that which it was not, upon which the Lord walked. See HIERONYMUS in his book of Hebrew Questions on Genesis.

9) Read rather, to Theosthenes against the Gentile. See our Diss. I. §. XVI. But under the name of Gentile, it is made probable that Porphyry is meant, both from the reason of the age in which he wrote, and from other places of his fragments. Compare Diss. I. §. XVI.
10) Matt. XXVII. 48; Mark XV. 36.
11) Luke XXIII. 36; John XIX. 29.
12) Matt. XXVII. 34, 48; Mark XV. 23.
13) John XIX. 29.