And being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
All Commentaries on Luke 22:44 Go To Luke 22
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
And his sweat became as drops of blood This has sometimes happened, though in a lesser degree, to persons under extraordinary grief, if we believe Aristotle, lib. iii. Animanium, chap. xix. p. 891, and lib. de part. Animalium, chap. v. p. 1156. Ed. Aureliæ Allobr. an 1607.
This passage of Christ's bloody sweat, and of the apparition of the angel, was heretofore wanting in divers both Greek and Latin copies; as appears by St. Jerome, (lib. ii. cont. Pelagianos. tom. iv, part 2, p. 521) and by St. Hilary, lib. x. de Trin. p. 1062. Nov. Ed. It seems to have been left out by ignorant transcribers, who thought it not consistent with the dignity of Christ. But we find it in the above-said place, in St. Jerome, in St. Chrysostom (hom. lxxxiv. in Matt.), in St. Augustine (in Psalm cxl. tom. iv, p. 1564, and in Psalm xciii, p. 1013.) in St. Epiphanius in Ancorato, p. 36, Ed. Petav. (Witham) _ Ver. 19. In the original, the present tense is used in this and in the following verse. Touto esti to soma mou, to uper umon dido Menon. And, Touto to poterion, . to uper umon ekchunomenon. Here we must also remark, that the relative To, which, is not governed or ruled (as some would perhaps think) by the noun, blood, but by the word chalice, or cup; (poterion) which evidently sheweth that the blood, as the contents of the chalice, or as in the chalice, is shed for us: (in the present tense, for so the Greek hath it, and not only as upon the cross) And, therefore, as it followeth hence evidently, that it is no bare figure, but his blood indeed, so it followeth necessarily that it is a sacrifice and propitiatory, as shed for our sins. For all who know Scripture phraseology, know also that blood to be shed for sin, is to be sacrificed in atonement for sin.
Beza, in his Annot. Nov. Test. an. 1556, says this cannot be truly said either of the chalice, or of the contents of the chalice; which is to give the lie to the evangelist, or to deny it to be true Scripture, though he declares the words are found in all both Greek and Latin copies. (Bristow)
