Holy Sponge
relic claimed to be the sponge used by Jesus to drink posca during his crucifixion
The Holy Sponge is one of the Instruments of the Passion of Jesus. It was dipped in vinegar (Ancient Greek: ὄξος, romanized: oxos; in some translations sour wine), most likely posca, a regular beverage of Roman soldiers, and offered to Jesus to drink from during the Crucifixion, according to Matthew 27:48, Mark 15:36, and John 19:29.
History
Jerusalem
An object thought to be the Holy Sponge was venerated in the Holy Land, in the Upper Room of the Constantinian basilica, where Sophronius of Jerusalem spoke of it c. 600 AD:
Rome
In the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome, a brown sponge is venerated. Other pieces of sponge are present at the following:
the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere
St. Mary in Campitelli
The Chapel of the Relics at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme houses another piece of sponge:
Of all the churches in Rome, Santa Croce has one of the richest collections of relics. A special chapel was therefore built for them in 1930. A staircase to the left of the choir leads to this chapel, where one can see three pieces of the True Cross, one of its nails, a fragment of the INRI ("Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews") inscription, two thorns from Christ's crown of thorns, a piece of the sponge that was held up to him, one of the silver pieces paid to Judas, St Thomas's finger which touched the wounds of Christ, and the crossbar from the Good Thief's cross. The paving stones are said to have been laid on a substantial amount of earth from Golgotha.
Constantinople and France
In the 7th century, Nicetas took part in the conquest of Egypt from Phocas. He was famed for bringing items he claimed were the Holy Sponge and the Holy Lance (the "Lance of Longinus") to Constantinople from Palestine in 612.
The public source identifies “Holy Sponge” as relic claimed to be the sponge used by Jesus to drink posca during his crucifixion. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Holy, Sponge and relic.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3092274. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Holy Sponge” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.