Martin Luther and the Suffering of Christ in Gethsemane

The sweating of blood and other high spiritual sufferings that Christ endured in the garden, no human creature can know or imagine; if one of us should but begin to feel the least of those sufferings, he must die instantly. There are many who dies of grief of mind; for sorrow of heart is death itself. If a man should feel such anguish and pain as Christ had, it were impossible for the soul to remain in the body and endure it—body and soul must part asunder. In Christ only it was possible, and from him issued bloody sweat. (Section 172 of The Table Talk of Martin Luther, trans. Thomas S. Kepler [Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2005], p. 64).