Commenting on Luke 22:44 and the use of ωσει (“as it were”), Henry Alford noted:
The intention of the Evangelist seems clearly to be, to convey the idea that the sweat was (not fell like, but was) like drops of blood;—i.e., coloured with blood,—for so I understand the ωσει, as just distinguishing the drops highly coloured with blood, from pure blood . . To suppose that it only fell like drops of blood (why not drops of any thing else? And drops of blood from what, and where?) is to nullify the force of the sentence, and make the insertion of αιματος not only superfluous but absurd. (Henry Alford, The Greek New Testament, vol. 1: The Four Gospels [5th ed.; London: Rivertons, 1863], 642; emphasis in original]
