Christ in the Mystic Winepress

William S. Abruzzi

(2021)

Christ in the Mystic Winepress was a popular Christian motif during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. It was based on eschatological interpretations of passages in Isaiah and the Book of Revelation, as well as on Catholic belief in the redemptive power of Christ's blood. The winepress motif was one of the few Catholic teachings that survived the Protestant Reformation. However, while Catholic theologians emphasized the winepress as representing Christ's Passion and suffering, Protestant theologians placed greater emphasis on the winepress as expressing Christ's triumph over evil. While the Christ in the Winepress image has largely disappeared from Christian art and theology, the concept of the winepress has continued to serve as a powerful literary metaphor.

Monk Gibbon (1957: 113) describes a unique chapel that he visited while traveling in the Rhineland region of Germany with his young daughter. The chapel lay largely hidden in the woods high on the hill above the village of Ediger-Eller on the Moselle River, a tributary to the Rhine.

The chapel dates to around 1500 and has served as a pilgrimage site for several centuries. The path leading to the chapel from the village below contains fourteen petite pylons showing Jesus' Stations of the Cross.

Today, a wooden sign directs travelers to the chapel from the road on top of the hill.

The first thing one sees upon entering the chapel is a relief of Jesus adjacent to a cross being pressed down on him by a large screw at the center of a winepress. Blood flows from Christ's wounds into the basin below to form the wine that will eventually be used in the sacrament of The Eucharist (Holy Communion).¹ The whole scene is framed by a quote taken from Isaiah (63:3).

What was a captivating discovery for Gibbon and his daughter is but one example of what was once a popular and widespread motif in Western Christianity. Images of Christ in the Mystic Winepress (CMW) were ubiquitous throughout much of Europe during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. While most known images are dated from the 14^th to 17^th centuries, CMW representations were produced as early as the 12^th century and as late as the 18^th century and have been found throughout the European continent, including in Germany, France, Italy, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium and Denmark. The CMW image was notably one of the few Catholic sacred icons retained by Protestant denominations following the Reformation.

Although CMW images have been found throughout much of Europe, they are most heavily concentrated in northern Europe, in particular in Germany and the Netherlands, where the mechanical winepress was used in the production of wine (Duffy 2017: 3). CMW images are largely absent in Great Britain (Defoer 1980: 139), where wine production was not widespread. Such images are also less common in southern Europe, including in such wine producing countries as Italy and Spain.² However, despite being major centers of wine production, the "basket" winepress, which served as the model for the Christological winepress, was not in widespread use in these countries.³

Christ in Mystic Winepress

1550-1600

Milan

Santa Maria Incoronata Church

CMW Images also appear on stained-glass windows.

The center of the above window (mid-section enlarged below) contains an unusual form of press in which Jesus is lying prostrate within the press with the blood flowing from his wounds and through a spout. The foreground of the entire window shows St. Peter, as the primary apostle, treading grapes in a circular tub to the left of Jesus. with angels and apostles transferring the blood of Christ being stored in barrels by both secular and ecclesiastical authorities.

They can also be found on church altars.⁴

Prints containing CMW images were also produced for commercial distribution.

Title Print of Passion Series

Jacques de Gheyn

(1596)

Rotterdam

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

CMW images can also be found on tapestries,

. . . gravestones,

. . . and clay molds.

Christ in the Winepress

(c. 1450)

Terracotta mold

(Rhineland)

London

Victoria and Albert Museum

In the above clay moulds, an angel can be seen operating the press, while Jesus himself is turning the screw. In addition, the verse from Isaiah (63:3) appears on the banderole emerging from Jesus' mouth, making them his words. The kneeling figure, probably the Virgin is shown praying, while God the Father overlooks the scene from among the stars above. Moulds such as these were primarily used for making pastries for the special feast days of the Christian year, but were also used to make cheap metal reliefs to serve as pilgrimage badges and for decorating bells and mortars in bronze foundries (Llobet and Famadas 2019: 42; Victoria and Albert Museum: #C.329&A-1926).

Biblical Origin of the Winepress Motif

The Christian concept of the Mystical Winepress finds its origin in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. While several passages provide biblical support for the tradition of Christ in the Mystic Winepress, two documents stand out both in their theological importance and in the frequency of their citation: Isaiah in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New Testament.

So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God; and the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press . . .  .

From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.  

The above two documents serve as reference points for the two principal CMW images (to be discussed below): Christ as the Man of Sorrows suffering for the sins of mankind, and the Triumphant Christ conquering sin and evil.

The passage quoted above from Isaiah referring to the treading of the winepress is, like that of Isaiah 7:14, taken out of its historical context and applied by Christians to Jesus. Third Isaiah was composed during the closing years of the 6th to the middle of the 5th century BCE, following the return of Jews to their homeland with the end of the Babylonian Exile. That conquest and servitude was attributed by Isaiah to the sins of Judah and its people (see Isaiah 57-59). In Isaiah 62, God announces Judah's coming salvation (political not spiritual) and the rejuvenation of Jerusalem through his defeat of the nations that oppress them. Prominent among these was the Kingdom of Edom immediately to the south of Judah, with its capitol at Bozrah. In Chapter 63:1-6, God spells out how he will accomplish Judah's salvation. When the question is posed, "Who is this that comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he that is glorious in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? God responds, "It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save." When asked, "Why is thy apparel red, and thy garments like his that treads the wine press?", God replies,

    and my year of redemption has come.

The complete quote makes the meaning of the passage clear; God has not forgotten Judah, nor Jerusalem. He is coming back to establish his kingdom, and Jerusalem will be its capital. The reference is to events in the 6th century BCE, not to the end of days when a final judgment of humankind will purportedly take place.

The historical basis of the above passage is reinforced by the fact that it is the third time the winepress motif is used in relation to Judah's fate. An earlier use of the same motif is contained in a theological explanation for the very destruction of Jerusalem and conquest of the Kingdom of Judah that resulted in the exile of thousands of Jews to Babylonia in the first place (see Lamentations 1:1-15).

Jerusalem's fall from grace is expressed in Lamentations 1:1.

How lonely sits the city

    that was full of people!

How like a widow has she become,

    she that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the cities

    has become a vassal.

The winepress as an act of vengeance also figured prominently in the Book of Joel. Joel was one of the minor pre-exilic prophets. He preached that salvation would come to Judah and to Jerusalem only when the people turned to Yahweh. Following his lament over the destruction of Judah by a plague of locusts, Joel claimed the attacking locusts and the drought that followed were the first signs that the feared "Day of the Lord" was near, a day of dreaded judgment (2:1-10). On the Day of the Lord, Joel asserts, the Lord will judge the nations of the world, including the Children of Israel. Later, following proclamations of fire, destruction and desolation, Joel (2:18) states that God had pity on his people because they have returned to him and he makes them a promise: There will continue to be judgment against those nations that had warred against Judah.

I will remove the northerner far from you,

    and his rear into the western sea;

For Christians, Isaiah 63:3 takes on a new meaning. In the Christian interpretation, Yahweh is replaced by Christ, his vengeance becomes pity; and the blood of those stricken becomes the blood of Christ himself (see Gertzman 2015: 311-312). This is the source of the Man of Sorrows theme associated with the CMW motif.

The Man of Sorrows

Michele Giambono

(c. 1430)

New York

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The retribution theme is expressed most forcefully later in the Book of Revelation.

The earliest Christian (post-Old Testament) use of the winepress motif occurs in the Book of Revelation, first in Revelation 14:14-20 (Reaping the Earth's Harvest):

Then I looked, and lo, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat upon the cloud, "Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe." So he who sat upon the cloud swung his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Then another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has power over fire, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Put in your sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe." So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God; and the wine press was trodden outside the city,⁷ and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for one thousand six hundred stadia.⁸

The reaping of the Harvest, according to Revelation, will take place in two stages. First will occur the "harvest of the earth", i.e., the "ingathering of the Good". This will be followed by the "gathering of the vintage", which represents the crushing of the Wicked. It is the Vintage that will be thrown into "the great wine press of the wrath of God" and whose blood will cover the earth, and it is clearly Christ, the "son of man", who treads the winepress. A similar distinction between the final harvest of good and evil, though without the winepress, is presented in Matthew 13:36-43.

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field." He answered, "He who sows the good seed is the Son of man;  the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The treading of the winepress in the final judgment is again expressed in Revelation 19:11-16 (The Rider on the White Horse):

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.⁹ And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.  

The treading of the winepress as a symbol of the destruction and defeat of one's enemies derives in part from the use of the phrase "under feet" to express dominance over other things and/or conquest of enemies. Speaking of Christ's final return (1 Corinthians 15:24-27), Paul, for example, states,

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For He has put all things in subjection under his feet.

A similar use of the phrase can be found elsewhere in both the Old and New Testaments.

Psalm 8:4-8:

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, 

Psalm 47:2-4:

Matthew 22:44:

Romans 16:20:

Early Church Use of the CMW Motif

Several early Church leaders made reference to Christ treading the winepress, including Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Tertullian, Origen, St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, St. Bonaventure and St. Jerome. (see Engel 1980: 47-48). Pope Gregory the Great (c. 560-604) commented on it, explicitly, drawing attention to the paradox of Christ both treading the winepress and being trod by it.

Perhaps the most notable of early Church leaders to comment on the winepress motif, and the one who most clearly influenced its subsequent interpretation, was St. Augustine (354-430). Augustine's commentary on the winepress motif was largely contained within his Exposition on the Book of Psalms. Augustine expanded Justin Martyr's interpretation of the man treading the winepress in Isaiah as the bloodstained and crucified Christ singly treading out the vintage (evil) for those whom he redeemed with his death. While Augustine accepted Justin's interpretation, he added the notion of Jesus as the bruised and crushed grape-cluster rather than the grape-treader. In Augustine's interpretation, Jesus is likened to the "grapes prepared for the winepress, his skin flayed and his body wrung out upon the cross" (see Hillier 2008: 391).¹¹

Augustine also drew a connection between the winepress of Christ's Passion and the grape-cluster brought back by the spies Moses sent to reconnoiter the Promised Land (see Numbers 13).

After around 1400 the conceptualization of the winepress motif changed and the Christ figure in the winepress became a Man of Sorrows, sacrificing his blood and suffering to atone for the sins of mankind. The image now emphasizes Christ being trodden upon rather than being the treader, though he retains his position as treader. Hence, Pope Gregory's comment that Christ was both treader and trodder. The Christ figure is characteristically shown bent over from the weight of the beam bearing down on him, in contrast to the earlier more positive portrayals of him standing upright. To emphasize Christ's suffering during the Passion, the cross is often substituted for or added to the pressing beam, with the red stains on his clothes caused by the blood flowing directly from his wounds rather than from the fruit of the grapes.¹⁶ In addition, whereas the earliest portrayals show the Christ figure in clean clothing pressing the grapes with his feet to symbolize that the grapes which become the wine of the Eucharist represent his blood, they do not show the profuse flowing of blood from his wounds or the blood-stained clothing that dominate later portrayals.¹⁷ In different portrayals, the operator of the press varies. Sometimes it is human torturers, while other times only the winepress itself is pictured. In some cases, however, the press is operated by angels, the holy spirit or even by God the Father. The significant feature of the winepress portraying the Man of Sorrows is that Christ is a victim of the winepress, not the treader as portrayed in earlier images. He is not in control. The fact that the winepress is operated by different individuals doesn't matter, for as Schwartz (1993a: 223) points out, "Who treads is not as significant as who is being trodden."

Mystical Press

(1622)

(Engraving by Alardo de Popma)

in

Father Melchor Prieto's

Psalmodia Eucharistica

(published in Madrid)

To emphasize the Eucharistic symbolism of the winepress image, the wine is frequently shown flowing into a chalice from the vat of grapes being pressed by Jesus or directly from the blood emanating from his wounds, as in portrayals of the Mass of St. Gregory and many depictions of the crucifixion (see below). The juice flowing into the chalice represents Christ's blood shed as a sacrifice for humankind at the Crucifixion. During the celebration of the Mass, for Catholics, the wine served in the chalice becomes Christ's blood through the miracle of Transubstantiation.

The Mass of St. Gregory

Master of the St. Bartholomew Altarpiece

(c. 1500)

Cologne

Wallraf-Richartz Museum

The image of Jesus suffering in a winepress in which his blood flows freely from his wounds into a vat to become the wine served during the Eucharist seems quite bizarre to modern viewers, including many Christians. However, if one is to appreciate the power presented by the mystic winepress motif, it is necessary to understand the redemptive role that Christ' blood has played throughout the history of Christian worship. It is Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection that forms the core of Christian worship. The chronicle of Passion takes up nearly 40% of the overall gospel narratives. Debelius (1934: 18-24) even argues that the Passion narrative formed the core of early Christian teaching, with other parts of the gospels added later. He notes that the structure of the Passion narrative remained relatively stable throughout the four gospels, despite differences in specific details. This contrasts sharply with the considerable variation that occurred in the stories related to the life and teaching of Jesus throughout the four gospels, none of which are contained in the writings of Paul, the earliest known Christian author. For Dibelius, this suggests that the earliest Christian tradition focused almost exclusively on the death and resurrection of Jesus, with stories about his life and teaching being gradually added to the Christian corpus over time. Due to the centrality Jesus' suffering and death in Christian worship, a belief in the role that Jesus' blood plays in promoting salvation has been a central feature of Christian theology.¹⁹

Worship of the blood of Christ increased sharply during the Middle Ages. It was during this period that, according to Defoer (1980: 137), the idea of Christ "having redeemed mankind by freely taking his bloody sufferings upon himself became explicitly linked with the Eucharist in the Mystic Winepress." The blood of Christ, now identified with the consecrated wine, became "the source of all grace" (ibid.). Wardwell (1975: 21) attributes the sharp increase in the belief in the mystical powers of Christ's blood during the Middle Ages to the relics of Jesus' blood being brought to Europe by Crusaders returning from the Holy Land (see note 4). According to her (ibid.: 21-22), this produced an outpouring of literature and claims surrounding the mystical power of his blood.

This belief in the mystical power of Christ's blood continues to motivate Christians today.²¹

The redemptive role of Christ's blood found expression in innumerable paintings. For example, it is through the mystical power of the blood of Christ that sinners gain salvation in Jean Bellegame's Fount of Life. In this triptych, the sinners with their impure souls, portrayed on the left, bathe in the Fountain of Life in the center containing the blood of the crucified Christ. With their souls cleansed, the former sinners enter Paradise on the right where they are welcomed by awaiting saints (see Duffy 2017: 12).

Fount of Life

Jean Bellegame

(1500-1520)

Lille

Musee des Beaux-Arts

In another composition featuring a fountain flowing with Jesus' life-giving blood, Goswijn van der Weyden shows two angels filling chalices with the blood of Christ emanating from the fountain and pouring it onto sinners below. Two of the sinners are shown praying and looking upwards towards salvation and, consequently, emerging out of the fire of Purgatory. The painting also shows Jesus and his mother kneeling on either side of the fountain pleading to God the Father above for mercy on the souls in Purgatory (Duffy 2017: 12). The title of the piece, Fons Pietitas, can be translated as "Source of Kindness".

Fons Pietatis

Goswijn van der Weyden

(c. 1500)

(Flemish)

Goetenborg, Sweden

Goetenborgd Konstmuseum

The salvific importance of Christ's blood is also expressed in the following two images. In both compositions, a figure representing Faith, using an implement with a handle shaped like a cross, is purifying human hearts by stirring them in a vat containing blood flowing from one of Christ's wounds.

Crucifixion images from the same time period also display the worship of Jesus' blood and express the direct connection between the blood shed by Jesus and the Eucharist distributed in the form of wine during the mass. In numerous images, while on the cross, Christ directs the flow of his blood into chalices held by angels.

Calvary

Master of the Death of Saint Nicholas of Munster

(c. 1470-1480)

Washington, DC

National Gallery of Art

(Below are close-ups of sections from the above image)

The origin of the Mystical Winepress motif, in particular its association with the Eucharist, can be seen in early compositions of the Mystical Grapes, which linked the blood of Christ to the "blood" of the grape. In many of these compositions, Jesus is seen as squeezing the grapes to release their life-giving juice. Wardwell (1975) examines several Renaissance devotional tapestries that illustrate the connection between Christ's blood and the blood of grapes, a connection similarly manifested in the Mystical Winepress images. In the devotional tapestry below, the infant Christ can be seen squeezing the grape, causing its juice to flow into the cup below. At the same time, he holds a small cluster of grapes in the other hand, symbolizing himself as the fruit of the vine. An inscription along the border of the tapestry reads Porrexit manum svam in libationem et libavit de sangvinevve ["He reached his hand into the cup and poured forth the blood of the grape"] (Wardwell 1975: 17). In front of the child is a small globe with a cross on top, symbolizing Christ's crucifixion and death as redeeming of the world.

Infant Christ Pressing the Wine of the Eucharist

(1490-1500)

(Flanders)

New York

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Wardwell examines several other tapestries that elaborate on the connection between Christ's blood and the blood of the grapes. In the following tapestry, the Christ child is flanked on his left and right by his father and mother respectively, with three angels observing the scene from behind. According to Wardwell (1975: 17-20), "the theme of redemption through Christ's incarnation and passion is reiterated in the hidden symbolism of the objects placed upon the table." For example, the crossed globe held by the child's left hand signifies "the universal supremacy of his redemption". The apple placed on top of a cup is the symbol for sin and death resulting from Eve's temptation, which his resurrection conquers. The central importance of the child squeezing the grapes, according to Wardwell, is demonstrated by the fact that only the Christ child is looking straight out; everyone else in the scene is concentrated on him and his squeezing of the grapes. "The occasion is the celebration of the Eucharist, the shedding of Christ's blood for the redemption of mankind." (Wardwell 1975: 17).

Mystical Grapes

(c. 1500)

(Flanders)

Cleveland

Cleveland Museum of Art

Images portraying Christ squeezing grapes, which represent the Eucharistic wine, were quite common and continue to be used as part of Christian worship.

The notion that Christ is the fruit of the vine and that his blood becomes the blood of the grape is further symbolized by images of the Madonna of the Grapevine, in which the virgin is viewed as the vine that produced the grape, which is Christ. This was symbolized in paintings and in sculptures by having the Madonna hold the Christ child in one hand and a bunch of grapes in the other.²⁵

As mentioned earlier, the image of Christ in the Mystic Winepress was one of the few Catholic concepts that survived the Protestant Reformation. However, the interpretation and presentation of that image changed dramatically. While Catholic theologians emphasized the winepress as symbolizing Christ's Passion, Protestant theologians placed greater emphasis on the winepress as representing Christ's triumph over evil.²⁷ Rather than portraying Jesus as the Man of Sorrows suffering for the sins of mankind or shedding blood that becomes the Eucharistic wine, the Christ in the winepress became a triumphant figure who would conquer sin and evil in the world. Martin Luther called the winepress-Passion link “absurd”²⁸ and promoted Revelation 19:15 as a the manifestation of Isaiah 63:2 (Engel 1980: 49). Calvin also denied that the person represented in Isaiah was Christ suffering. He interpreted the Isaiah passage as a reference to the Last Judgment in which a triumphant Christ exacts his vengeance on God’s enemies, as represented by the triumphant Christ portrayed on the cover of the Lutheran Bible.

The fury of this portrayal is best represented by the triumphant Christ portrayed on the cover of the Elector Bible.(1641-1758) printed in Nuremberg (below right). Here, Christ is shown in the winepress, but in this image the winepress is located on top of a hill with Christ's blood showering the hundred and forty-four thousand  redeemed souls (Revelation 7:4, 14:1, 14:3) standing below. The emphasis is not on his suffering, as in those images that reflected the Man of Sorrows, but rather on humankind's redemption through the risen Christ's triumph over sin and evil. In this illustration, Christ carries the "pennon of the Resurrection", a long swallow-tailed flag attached to a lance topped with a cross and shown piercing a dragon below representing Satan. This image reflects the primary Protestant emphasis on Christ as conqueror of his enemies, in contrast to the Catholic focus on Christ's suffering and the relation between his blood and the sacrament of the Eucharist. The biblical reference in the banners visible in the upper left corner of the Elector Bible (Zechariah 9:13) is presented as an expression of Christ’s final victory over evil, while the banner on the right (Hebrews 9:14) exalts the power that the belief in Christ’s shedding of his blood for humanity (rather than the performance of irrelevant rituals) offers for salvation.
 

Joseph Hall, Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of Norwich (1641-1656), also interpreted Isaiah as a reference to the Final Judgment rather than to Christ's Passion. In his commentary on Isaiah 13:3, Hall (1837: 406), has Christ reply to the question of whether his garments are bloody because of the Passion or the Judgment.

It is true, O my Church, I have been indeed treading the winepress of my Father's wrath: I have been crushing and trampling upon all the clusters of mine enemies; even I alone, by my mighty power, have trod them under my feet, without the supply of all other helps: the victory is mine alone, which I will in my good time, fully accomplish; for I will in my just anger, be exquisitely avenged of all those, that maliciously rise up against me, and will give proofs to the world of my vengeance and their sufferings.

Hall's use of the triumphal winepress motif can also be seen when he likens Christ's defeat of his enemies to Samson's victory over the Philistines.

The Mystic Winepress became another means by which Protestant reformers expressed their opposition to Catholicism. Isaiah (63:3-5) emphasizes not only the winepress as representing Christ’s triumph and punishment of evil, but also of Christ accomplishing his victory alone in much the same way that Christians, according to Reformation teaching, had to achieve their own salvation, i.e., free from the control of the Catholic Church hierarchy and its self-serving rituals and rules. Moreover, in line with Protestant teaching that redemption was to be achieved through faith in Christ alone, not through performing the rituals and sacraments authorized by the Catholic Church, Protestant interpretations of the Mystic Winepress were frequently targeted directly at the Catholic Church. Calvin, for example, in a chapter titled De sacrificio missae written in 1549, argued that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was a unique act and was, thus, inappropriate to be repeated with each celebration of the mass (Llobet and Famadas 2019: 42), a direct challenge to Catholic teaching. Rejecting the Roman Catholic belief in Transubstantiation, Protestant use of the winepress motif often took the form of an attack on the sacrament of the Eucharist. This hostility towards the Catholic Church is expressed in Georg Pencz’ engraving included to illustrate Hans Sachs', The Seven Obstacles on the Christian’s Way to Salvation (see image below). This was an older image, adapted by Protestant reformers to promote both their new theology and opposition to Roman Catholic teaching. Llobet and Famadas (2019: 46) provide a description of the engraving, its theological interpretation, and its expression of Protestant reformers' opposition to the Catholic Church.

In their search for salvation, the pilgrims follow the road from the Old Law, represented by Moses on Mount Sinai on the left side of the engraving, to the Resurrection on the right. After undergoing a number of trials such as the attack by Catholics in the form of wild beasts, one of them points out the road they should follow, which is the blood of Christ flowing out of,  the winepress, and there they rid themselves of their sins before arriving at Mount Zion, where they surround the resurrected Christ, with the Lamb of God depicted at the top of the scene.  The text makes it meaning and function even clearer as an image of redemption: the sinners find salvation thanks to their search for faith and truth in Christ, and there are no intermediaries between man and Christ. In this case, satire is combined with the teaching of the doctrine itself and, as in some Reform works, the Catholics are ridiculed.

The Seven Obstacles on the Christian Way to Salvation

Georg Pencz

(Nuremberg)

1529

London

British Museum²⁹

(#E,8.164)

The Catholic Church’s response to Protestant criticisms was to defend its position as the sole authority of Christian teaching and its indispensable role as a guide to salvation.  Defoer (1980: 137) indicates that CMW representations emphasizing the part played by the Church as Christ's representative on earth first appeared at the end of the 15th century and occur mostly during the 16th and 17th centuries, mainly in northern France. He suggests that these were part of the Church's reaction to the Reformation, whose proponents denied both the miracle of the transubstantiation (and, thus, Catholic teaching regarding the Eucharist) and the authority of the Church as the sole dispenser of Christ's grace. Popes and saints, for example, are shown filling jars with the wine produced by Christ's blood in Marco Pino's Christ in Glory above the Mystic Winepress.

Similarly, in Peter Aertsen's, The Mass of St. Gregory with the Mystic Winepress (below), Christ is pictured leaning forward under the pressure imposed by the cross/winepress placing one foot on the altar with his blood flowing into a chalice held high by Pope Gregory, assisted by two deacons, affirming that the wine consecrated during the mass is identical to Christ's blood. In addition, in the left background of the painting St. Peter, claimed by the Roman Catholic Church as the first pope,³⁰ can be seen treading the grapes cast into the vat by the other apostles. Peter's attribute portrayed in this painting is not the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" given to him by Jesus (Matthew 16:19), but the upside-down cross upon which the late second century apocryphal Acts of Peter (3.37-38) claims he was crucified. To the left of the altar, saints and martyrs, including St. Agnes and St. Lawrence (identified by their attributes) are pouring pitchers of wine into a wine barrel marked with the veil of St. Veronica and Jesus' five wounds. These saints are assisted by two bishops (Probably St. Augustine and St. Ambrose), while Sts. Jerome and Gregory are capturing in pitchers the wine spurting out the left side of the Mystic Winepress. In the background on the right, a barrel of wine is being transported on a cart accompanied by the symbols of the Four Evangelists. The cart is being drawn by St. Paul and delivered to the pope and emperor, embodiments of ecclesiastical and secular authority. Closer to the front of the drawing, a barrel is being stored by a king and high church dignitaries in a wine cellar, i.e. the Church. (Description taken from Defoer 1980: 137-138.) Defoer (1980: 139) provides an interpretation of Aertsen's Mass of St. Gregory.

Numerous variations on the theme of The Mass of St. Gregory have been painted (see Defoer 1980; Pierce 2004) based on legends claiming that Pope Gregory witnessed the presence of Christ on the altar at the very moment he elevated the host during its Consecration in the mass (Pierce 2004: 97).³¹ These legends spread following the Fourth Lateran Council (1213), which declared transubstantiation (the physical transformation of  the bread and wine offered in the sacrament of the Eucharist into the actual body and blood of Christ)³² as official Church dogma, and were promoted as proof of the dogma's veracity. Owing to the popularity of these legends, devotion to the mass of St. Gregory spread and became firmly established throughout Europe.³³

A similar emphasis on the role of the Church as the authoritative representation of Christ can be seen in Jacques Laouette's, Le Pressoir Mystique (shown below). This illustration, like The Mass of St. Gregory above and several other CMW representations (including the stained-glass window in the Saint Etienne-du-Mont Church in Paris presented earlier and likely based on Laouette's illustration), shows Christ in a winepress with his blood flowing into a receptacle, from which it is collected, placed in barrels and stored in a wine cellar (the Church) by ecclesiastical and secular authorities. St. Peter is similarly shown treading grapes in a vat, and barrels of Christ's blood are likewise shown being transported in a cart containing the representations of the Four Evangelists (see Defoer 1980: 138-139).³⁴

Le Pressoir Mystique

(The Press of Our Savior Jesus Christ)

Jacques Laouette

(c. 1572-1595)

Paris

Bibliothèque Nationale

The CMW Motif in Sermons, Hymns, Literature and Music³⁵

The use of the Mystic Winepress image was common in hymns and sermons of the late medieval period. As with the visual representations, most non-visual references to the winepress occurred in northern Europe. Ironically, the winepress metaphor was frequently applied in English compositions, despite the complete absence of CMW images throughout Great Britain.

Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Chichester, used the winepress motif frequently when commenting on the suffering experienced by Jesus on the cross:

This was the pain of "the press", so the Prophet [Isaiah] calleth it, torcular ["winepress"], wherewith as if He had been in the wine-press, all His garments were stained and gored with blood.' (quoted in Hillier 2008: 391),

Andrewes based his 1623 Easter Sermon on Isaiah 63:1-3. In that sermon, Andrewes mentions the winepress 24 times (see Dorman 2002, passim). Hillier (2008: 391) notes Andrewes' identification of three winepresses that were manifested throughout Christian history:

(1)  Christ's Agony in Gethsemane;³⁶

Christ's 'unnatural' bloody sweat (Luke 22:44) was 'as if He had been wrung and crushed in a winepress'. (Dorman 2003, sermon 3; quoted in Hillier 2008: 391)

(2)  In the Passion of Christ;

[Christ] became Calcator ["the Treader"]. He who was thrown Himself, threw them now another while into the press, trod them down, trampled upon them as upon grapes in a fat, till He made the blood spring out of them, and all to sprinkle His garments, as if He had come forth of a winepress indeed. And we before, mercifully rather than mightily by His Passion, now mightily [are] also saved by His glorious resurrection. (Dormian 1993: 186; quoted in Hillier 2008: 391)

(3)  Quoting Revelation 19:15, "where God's Word '

treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God',

"Andrewes predicts that, at the Second Coming, the Son will again tread the winepress and achieve an everlasting victory." (Dorman 1993: 187; quoted in Hillier 2008: 391)

Hillier adds that in his Paschal Sermon that same year, Andrewes states,

Hillier (ibid.) also discusses a Lenten sermon given by John Donne in 1620 in which Donne imagines a dialogue between Christ and his angels in which he introduces the winepress metaphor.

Engel (1980: 54) notes that whenever Donne spoke at length in his sermons on sin's spiritual burden, he repeatedly used words like "press", "suppress" and "oppress'.

According to Engel (ibid: 45), the Jesuit priest, Robert Southwell (1561-1595), similarly viewed the Passion of Christ through the winepress image in his poem "Christ's Bloody Sweat,"

Fat soile, full spring, sweete olive, grape of blisse,

That yeelds. that streams, that pours, that dost distil,

Untild, undrawne. unstampt, untoucht of presse,

Deare fruit, cleare brookes. faire oile, sweete wine at will

Thus Christ unforst prevents in shedding blood

The whips, the thornes. the nailes. the speare, and roode

(McDonald and Brown 1967:18-19; quoted in Engel 1980: 45-46)

Henry More (1614-1687), a prolific theologian and philosopher at Christ's College Cambridge, included a hymn with a reference to the "Wine-press of God's Wrath" among his many writings (see Ward 1710: 262).

Engel (1980) states that several 17th century poets also employed the CMW image.

According to Engel, the winepress image lies at the heart of George Herbert's poem, "The Agonie", where the second stanza reads,

Engel also maintains that Christ's suffering and death on the cross provided Henry Vaughan with a context for exploring the winepress image in his poem, "The Passion":

(Fogle 1969: 184-186; quoted in Engel 1980: 46)

Engel contrasts Herbert's application of the winepress metaphor to Christ's suffering with its use by Milton (at the opening of Book IV) in Paradise Regained as a symbol of Christ's triumph over Satan.

(Darbishire 1958: 323; quoted in Engel 1980: 56-57)

The secret sorrows of human hearts put them on ground of equality before God . . . every man must tread the wine-press alone.

Every sorrow which you have that other people cannot understand ought to be a secret tie that binds you more closely and indissolubly to the throne.

the appearance of reality than the reality itself; for not alone shall we tread those silent and solemn galleries. We shall enter them alone; but happy is he who, when the curtain uplifts, shall see on the other side the wicket-gate in which stands the guiding and beckoning angel.

Twentieth Century Literary References to Salvation and the Winepress

“the playing out of a morality [tale] in a magnificent natural setting with colourful characterizations and vivid descriptive passages to put flesh on the archetypal confrontation of men with their unruly souls.” (quoted in Dummitt 2013: 73)

Steinbeck made it clear that he saw the suffering of the poor as a direct result of decisions made to protect the wealthy.³⁹ In a letter he wrote to his editor, Elizabeth Otis, in 1938 he stated quite clearly, "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects on workers]." He also clearly expressed his desire to have his readers be outraged by the injustice he portrayed and that he witnessed first-hand during his research on the book and on several articles he wrote examining conditions among agricultural workers in California and elsewhere. "I am not writing a satisfying story. I've done my damnedest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied," he wrote (see Albright 2011; Bragg 2011; Bauer, Mander and Campbell 2018; Jordison 2019). It is for the sense of injustice that Steinbeck felt and portrayed in his book that he borrowed the words from The Battle Hymn of the Republic for its title.⁴⁰

Steinbeck uses the phrase "grapes of wrath" to express the cumulating oppression of the unemployed and of impoverished workers brought on by government and business policies, as well as by the social and political reaction of local communities to the plight of the unemployed, the homeless and impoverished agricultural laborers in Oklahoma and California that resulted in a sharp inequality of suffering produced by the depression.

"In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."⁴¹

He . . . [Des Pres] . . .focuses on the small strands of life and decency which constitute, however faint and scattered, a fabric of discernible goodness amid that evil. From the press of these horrors, he extracts for us some of the characteristics of life itself which are expressed as survival. . . .

Out of the millions who suffered and died silently, a handful of surviving voices filters through.  . . .

For the Christian many of the thoughts developed in this book will have a familiar sound. It is as though we are reading an exposition on some central biblical themes . . . Man facing the defilement and threat of dissolution under the impact of evil . . . . Sin abounds, but we also see the interweaving of a bright strand of grace which even "more abounds."

Conclusion

Images of Christ in the Mystic Winepress, based on eschatological interpretations of verses from Isaiah and Revelation, were popular throughout Europe during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. However, unlike many other sacred images developed during that general time period, (e.g., Sacred Heart, Mystical Grapes and Madonna of the Precious Blood), the use of CMW images has mostly disappeared from Christian worship. They are no longer used to adorn churches and would not be found in any Christian homes. Indeed, most Christians today are completely unaware that such images ever existed and would likely find them odd. CMW images can presently be found primarily in museums; even there, however, they are generally not on public display, but can only be viewed by special request.

Although it developed as an integral part of Catholic theology, the Mystic Winepress survived the Protestant Reformation. However, while the Catholic Church taught that the Mystic Winepress represented Christ's suffering on the cross and the miracle of transubstantiation, Protestant reformers promoted the winepress as expressing Christ's triumph over sin and evil. Because the Catholic Church used the winepress motif to teach Christians the importance of performing its sacraments, in particular the Eucharist, Protestant reformers used the CMW image to undermine Catholic teaching regarding the Eucharist specifically and the Church’s legitimacy generally. The Catholic Church responded by using CMW images to validate its ecclesiastical authority.

By the 19th century, the production of CMW images had ended, and the use of this motif survived only in sermons, hymns and religiously inspired literature. With the subsequent secularization of modern society, literary references to the winepress motif shifted to a temporal rather than spiritual application, though retaining its scriptural foundation.
 

NOTES

1.    Gertzman (2013: 316) provides a description of the relief:

. . . at Ediger-Eller, in Moselle, where a vibrantly coloured Christ in the Winepress relief of about 1500 remains the focal point of the town’s Kreuzkapelle, the sculpted and brilliantly saturated streams of viscous blood hang down from Christ’s wounds and gather as a gelatinous liquid in a trough.

2.     In his PhD. dissertation, according to Llobet and Farnadas (2019: 55), Angela Lodo (1998-99) argues that CMW images in Italy were largely limited to the northern portion of the country, an area he claims was more receptive to central European models. Llobet and Farnadas were also able to locate only one Mystic Winepress image produced in Spain, an engraving by Alardo de Popma used to illustrate Father Melchor Prieto's Psalmodia Eucharistica, published in Madrid in 1622 (ibid.). This absence of images in Spain is rather ironic, given the dissemination of CMW images to New Spain.

3.     Duffy (2017: 4-9) identifies two types of presses portrayed in the painted CMW images; (1) one in which the press contains two upright supports and a beam is moved downwards by a centrally placed screw mechanism, or one in which the two uprights are themselves screws that are used to move the central beam; (2) a simpler form containing one stationary pole on which the beam is looped with a screw at the other end of the trough by which the beam is pressed down. The cross may be (and often is) substituted for the pressing beam in both types of presses.

Type-1 Winepress

Type-2 Winepress

The portrayal of the winepress in the various CMW images is necessarily distorted from what an actual winepress would look like, Many of the parts that would perform the pressing in an actual mechanical winepress are missing in order to make Jesus the object to be pressed. In addition, there is a combination of Jesus pressing the grapes with his feet, as would be done using non-mechanical methods of pressing grapes and the heavy beam of the mechanical basket press controlled by a large wooden screw bearing down on a plate pressing Jesus. Finally, the presser of the beam varies and can include God, angels or humans.

4.     As an interesting side note, the right panel of the Annunciation Triptych (also known as the Merode Altarpiece) shows Joseph, who was according to Matthew (13:15) a carpenter, drilling holes into a square board. Lavin (1977) argues that the board represented the strainer in a winepress to catch "the accumulation of vines, stems, and skins" (ibid.: 299). She bases her argument on her claim that the board Joseph is working on is remarkably similar in form to those used in local wine production in Italy. Lavin indicates that William Voelke, the Curator of Manuscripts at the Pierpont Morgan Library, expressed the same opinion when he observed two twentieth-century vinegar presses in Liege (ibid.: 299, note 9). She maintains that the winepress strainer, in contrast to other objects suggested by different scholars, "has precisely the form of Joseph's board without requiring visual adjustments in shape and size." (ibid.: 300).

As further support for her thesis, Lavin (1977: 300) maintains that, although the manufacture of wine "is not characteristic of the Netherlands, generally . . . the iconography of the Mystic Winepress does have local Flemish resonance." The altarpiece was painted by Robert Campin, a fifteenth century Flemish artist. Also, one of the most prominent Confraternities of the Precious Blood was founded in Bruges in the late 14th century. This organization centered around the veneration of a cloth believed to contain Christ's blood brought back from the Holy Lands following the Second Crusade in the 12th century by Thierry d' Alsace, Count of Flanders. The relic is currently housed in the Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium. The cult of the Precious Blood was an early stage in the development of the Mystic Winepress image.

Relic of the Holy Blood

Bruges

Basilica of the Holy Blood

In an earlier detailed analysis of the altarpiece, Rousseau (1957) makes no mention of the physical object that Joseph is working on. According to Russell (2017: 344), that object has had variable descriptions over the last century, including a bait box lid, a cover for a warming pan, a fire screen, and a liturgical apparatus. He does not mention Lavin's claim that it may be a strainer for a winepress. Russell (ibid.) suggests instead that the board in question is similar in form to a "spiked fetter" attached to Jesus in some contemporary paintings (see illustration below). Such fetters, containing spikes and hanging from either Jesus' waist or neck, would have been used to create painful gashes in his legs as he walked.

Christ Carrying the Cross

from the

Hours of Catherine of Cleves

(1400)

(Utrecht)

New York

The Morgan Library and Museum

5.    Matthew (1:23) borrows this quote from Isaiah in order to demonstrate both the virgin birth of Jesus and his claim that Jesus' birth had been predicted by the prophet. However, as with all the other Old Testament quotes Matthew includes in his gospel, this quote was both taken out of its historical context and altered in its wording from the original (see Abruzzi, When Was Jesus Born, note 19). The Hebrew word that Isaiah uses in 7:14 is almah, which translates as "young woman," not virgin. Hebrew contains a completely different word for virgin, bethula, which is used to designate "virgin" some 42 times in the Hebrew Bible.

6.    In Genesis 49, Jacob presents his final words to his sons, telling them what shall become of them in the future. When he gets to Judah, he predicts Judah's greatness proclaiming, "your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you" (49:8). He adds (49:10-11),

    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

until he comes to whom it belongs;

    and his ass’s colt to the choice vine,

he washes his garments in wine

7.    The winepress is "trodden outside the city" because no unclean thing can enter the city.

Blessed are those who wash their robes [do his commandments] that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and every one who loves and practices falsehood. (Revelation 22:14-15)

8.    1,600 stadia equals approximately 180 miles or 300 kilometers. More importantly, according to Wordsworth (1862: 241), it equals four times 4,000 furlongs (or stadia), which is the symbolic representation of all space. The blood is, thus, described as flowing throughout the world, meaning none will escape God's wrath. In Christian mysticism, the number four bears the same relation to space that the number seven bears to time; it signifies universality and is based on the concept of four cardinal points (east, west, north & south). Several sources in both the Old and the New Testaments refer to the "four winds" (of heaven) as a means of expressing the whole world (cf. Jeremiah 49:36; Ezekiel 37:9;  Daniel 7:2, 8:8, 11:4; Zechariah 2:6, 6:5; Mark 13:27; Matthew 24:31; Revelation 7:1). The same universality is expressed using the term "four corners", as in Revelation 7:1 where it states, "I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth."  (see also Revelation 20:8; Isaiah 11:12; Ezekiel 7:2). Irenaeus (c. 130-202 CE), Bishop of Lyon, in an attempt to justify why there are just four legitimate and authoritative gospels in the New Testament, similarly relied on the cardinal importance of the number four.

9.     It is generally accepted that the author of Revelation was the same as the author of the Fourth Gospel. One key to this connection is the similarity by which Jesus is described in both documents. Just as in Revelation 19:13 Jesus is referred to as "The Word of God", the Gospel of John begins, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

10.     The following description of Apocalypse: Christ, Armies of Heaven is contained in the Morgan Library & Museum catalogue:

In the above painting, a bearded John wearing a pearled nimbus, stands with his left hand touching a label containing the inscription from Revelation 19:11-16. Standing within the clouds of heaven, Christ, also wearing a pearled nimbus and holding a sword in his right hand treads in a flaming wine press. The two figures are approached by Christ, whose eyes are flaming and who has a sword at his mouth. Wearing seven disks as crowns (diadems) and garments spotted with blood, Christ holds a rod (made of iron) in his right hand and holds reins in his left hand as he rides on a bridled white horse. He is accompanied by a group of horsemen, though only one of their horses is visible. (Morgan Library & Museum Corsair Online Catalogue: MS M.0524, fol. 18r).

11.    Augustine even goes so far as to connect Christ's suffering in the winepress with King David's being held by foreigners (Allophyli) in the town of Gath, due to the translation of the town's name.

Geth [sic] was a certain city of the Allophyli, that is, of strangers, to wit, of people afar from holy men. All they that refuse Christ for King become strangers.  . . .  There held him," then, "Allophyli in Geth. "We find indeed, brethren, David himself, son of Jesse, king of Israel, to have been in a strange land among the Allophyli, when he was sought by Saul, and was in that city and with the king of that city, 1 Samuel 21:10 but that there he was detained we read not. Therefore our David, the Lord Jesus Christ out of the seed of that David, not alone they held, but there hold Him still Allophyli in Geth. Of Geth we have said that it is a city. But the interpretation of this name, if asked for, signifies "press."... How therefore here is He held in Geth? Held in a winepress is His Body, that is, His Church. (Augustine, Exposition on the Psalms, Psalm 56.3)

12.   The painting of the Israelite Spies by Nicholas Verdun is part of a larger alter panel created by Verdun for the Abbey Church of Klosterneuburg in 1181.

13.     The following description of The Mystical Press with St. Augustine, is contained on the The Feast of the Most Precious Blood webpage.

14.   "Latria" is the highest form of adoration, reserved for God only, (see Aquinas, Summa Theologica, second part of second part, question 84, article 1 and question 103, article 3; see also Gertzman 2013: 334. note 19).

19.   The importance of Jesus' suffering and death in Christian worship is expressed in Roman Catholic devotion to The Five Sacred Wounds, as well as in the numerous individuals who have claimed to have manifested a stigmata, i.e., bodily marks that mimic those experienced by Jesus during his scourging and crucifixion. The most common of these duplicate the five wounds resulting from his being nailed on the cross and having a spear thrust into his side, though they may also include wounds caused by the crown of thorns or from the the scourging and carrying the cross to Golgotha. The earliest recorded claim of having the stigmata was that of St. Francis of Assisi in 1224, followed a century later by St. Catherine of Siena. According to The Britannica, over 300 individuals were identified as having been stigmatized between the 14th and 20th centuries, with some 60 of these being declared either saints or "blessed" * in the Roman Catholic Church. The Feast of the Most Precious Blood was inaugurated by Pope Pius IX on June 30, 1849, following the Church's regaining control of the Papal States subsequent to the defeat of the Roman Republic by French forces.

* "Blessed" is a stage in the canonization process within the Roman Catholic Church. It precedes the declaration of sainthood. Many of those considered for sainthood do not go beyond being designated Blessed.

The worship of Jesus’ Five Sacred Wounds yielded devotional aids, such as the Rosary of the Holy Wounds below (aka,the Dominican Rosary and the Chaplet of the Five Holy Wounds) containing five different images of Jesus’ wounds separating sections of prayer beads.

20.   Gertzman (2013: 317) emphasizes the predominance of images showing blood flowing out of Christ's wounds in later CMW compositions by translating Mane (1990: 100): "blood pouring out of Christ's wounds becomes, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, one of the essential characteristics of the Christ in the winepress image. Reflecting current mentalities, the iconography privileges suffering . . . and exalts the virtue of blood."
 

21.   Observance the Sacred Heart (Sacratissimum Cor Iesu) is one of the most widely practiced Roman Catholic devotions. In this particular worship, the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". Below are two common Sacred Heart images. One shows the heart placed within the chest of a benevolent Jesus pointing to the Sacred Heart within him. The other (this example taken from a Catholic holy card c. 1880) shows the Sacred Heart depicted as a flaming heart surrounded by a crown of thorns and bleeding from the wound made by the lance that pierced Jesus' side while he was on the cross.

Veneration of the Sacred Heart developed out of the devotion to the Five Sacred Wounds with emphasis placed on the Sacred Wound in Jesus' side. No evidence exists for the worship of the Sacred Heart during the first millennium of Christianity. It appears, like the reverence given to Jesus' blood, to have arisen following the Crusades and was heavily influenced by the ministries of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Francis of Assissi during the 12th and 13th centuries. The popularization of this devotion is credited to a French nun, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), who claimed to have learned the devotion during a series of visitations by Jesus, the first occurring on December 27, 1673 and lasting through 1675.

Sometime around 1681 Sister Margaret Mary felt compelled to write a personal testament, donating her life to Jesus with the shedding of her own blood. With the permission of her superior she used a knife to carve the name of Jesus into her breast and used the blood from her wound to sign the document. According to Monseigneur Bougaud (1890: 109),

She herself wrote out the donation, and signed this humble formula: 'Sister Peronne-Rosalie Greyfie, at present Superioress, and for whom Sister Margaret Mary daily asks conversion with the grace of final penitence.' This done, Sister Margaret Mary implored Mother Greyfie to allow her, in turn, to sign, but with her blood. The Mother having assented, Sister Margaret Mary went to her cell, bared her breast, and, imitating her illustrious and saintly foundress, cut with a knife the name of Jesus above her heart. From the blood that flowed from the wound she signed the act in these words: 'Sister Margaret Mary, Disciple of the Divine Heart of the Adorable Jesus' (quoted in Wikipedia, Sacred Heart)

She became upset, however, when the wounds she had created began to heal, she attempted to use a knife to reopen the original wounds several times. However, having failed to keep them open, she decided to burn her chest with fire. Again, according to Monseigneur Bougaud (1890: 110),

Two centuries later, another Roman Catholic nun in Portugal, Blessed Mary of the Divine Heart* (1863-1899), claimed to have received revelations from Jesus in 1898 during which he asked her to contact the pope and request that he consecrate the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On May 25, 1899, Pope Leo III issued an encyclical, Annum sacrum, in which he established the Feast of the Sacred Heart to be celebrated annually on June 11.

22.    This painting, showing the crucified Christ with the virgin, St. Jerome, Mary Magdalene, and John the Evangelist, originally formed the central part of an altarpiece commissioned by the Church of San Domenico in Città di Costello. It is the first work that Raphael signed. Signature: "Painted by Raphael of Urbino". (see Web Gallery of Art)

23.    Wenceslaus Hollar produced an engraving based on this image created by Van Dyck that was widely distributed throughout Europe (Duffy 2017: 20).

24.    Spierre's illutration is based on Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Sangue di Cristo (c. 1669), currently in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (NL). It shows the Cross raised above the ground with the blood of Christ pouring from his wounds into an ocean of blood below, which Duffy (2017: 20) refers to as "a sea of endless mercy for sinners".

Duffy (2017: 21) provides another composition based on Bernini's original drawing that, being in color, even more forcefully dramatizes the belief in the mystical power of Christ's blood, as expressed in the quote above by Duffy.

Sanguis Cristi

(anonymous)

(c. 1670)

Ariccia, Italy

Museo del Barroco Romano

25.   A related theme to the notion of Mary as the source of the redeeming Blood of Christ is that of the Madonna of the Precious Blood (Wardwell 2017: 22) in which the Madonna holds the Christ child on her lap who, in turn, holds a chalice containing his blood. Wardwell (ibid.) refers to a rare version of this image in the church at Batz-sur-Mer in northwestern France (referencing Vloberg 1946: 283) in which the child holds a chalice into which the blood that becomes the Eucharistic wine flows directly from his heart. Images of the Madonna of the Precious Blood (a.k.a. Our Lady of the Most Precious Blood) continue to be used in Roman Catholic worship today.

26.    Lucas Cranach the Elder painted at least four different versions of the Virgin and Child with Grapes.

27.   This view of the winepress was, likewise, drawn from Isaiah and Revelation, in particular:

* Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, and tread, for the winepress is full. The vats are overflowing, for their wickedness is great. (Joel 4:1) [Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)]

Midrash Psalms concludes its discussion of Psalm 8 in general by returning to the first verse of the chapter:
 

The identification of the winepress as triumph can also be seen in the Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis, the largest Aramaic translation of (and expansions on) the Hebrew Bible (see Schwartz 1993a: 225, 1993b: 311). Macho (1968), who originally discovered this targum, considered it a pre-Christian text written in the first century CE. Schwartz (1993b: 312), on the other hand, notes that however early the various targums may have been written, they "underwent revision, editing and even further compilation during the Late Roman or Byzantine periods and even in some cases afterwards", owing in part to the anti-Christian orientation of many of the Jewish wine press traditions.

Schwartz (1993b: 311) shows how the Targum Neofifi expands on Genesis 49:11. Genesis 49:10-12 is presented in much of Jewish tradition as referring to the Messiah (Schwartz 1993b: 311).

    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,