“sweat became as drops of blood”: εγενετο ο ιδρωσ αυτου
ωσει θρομοι αιματος. Verses 43-44 do not appear in P75 אa A B T W 1071
Marcion, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, Cyril, Damascene, but appear in א* D K L X D Q Y f1 565 700 892 1009 1071 …
2174, Vg, Byzt Lect, Justin, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Dionysius, Arius, Eusebius,
Hilary, Gregory Nanzianzus, Didymus, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine,
Theodoret, et al. The adverb ωσει;
(“as”) could be forming a simile with blood such that the sweat drops were the
size of blood droplets which are normally bigger. More likely, ωσει is an adverb of comparison such that blood was mixed with sweat and thus the
drops looked like blood. That the “agony” (vr. 43: αγωνια, a word preponderantly used for mental
distress) could reach the point in which the small blood vessels of the skin
break and thus allow the blood to mix with water is medically attested.
Hematidrosis is a rare, but very real, medical condition that causes one’s
sweat to contain blood. The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels
that can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture, causing blood to
effuse into the sweat glands. The cause of hematidrosis is extreme anguish.
Luke, being a physician, might have known about this condition, which may be
the reason that only he of the gospel writers mentions this incident. (Robert
A. Sungenis, Commentary on the Catholic Douay-Rheims New Testament from the
Original Greek and Latin, 4 vols. [State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics
International Publishing, Inc., 2024], 2:350-51 n. 671)
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