And His sweat was as it were
great drops of blood. The
Greek has θρόμβοι, gouts, thick
masses. The Arabic and S. Irenæus have globi. The Arabic says, “His sweat was
(made) as distilling blood descending on the ground.”
Note. Firstly, Some copies have nothing about this bloody sweat, as S.
Hilary shows (De Trinit. lib. x.); S.
Jerome (lib. ii. against Pelagius),
lest men should ascribe infirmity of mind and weakness to Christ. But now all
versions, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, have the same account, so it is
certainly to be read, according to the agreement of the Council of Trent, Session
IV.
Secondly, Christ is said to have sweated blood not improperly or as a
by-word, and an allegory, as we say of one who is grievously afflicted and
tormented, “he sweats blood,” as Euthymius and Theophylact explain it—but truly
and properly. Hence the words “as it were” denote not resemblance but the
truth. So SS. Hilary, Jerome, Augustine passim.
The Ethiopic renders it plainly, “And His sweat was made as the sweat of blood
flowing down upon the earth.” The Persian agrees with it. S. Athanasius, also,
in hi sixth book to Theophilus, which is on the Beatitude of the Son of God,
says, “Anathema to those who deny that Christ sweated true blood.”
S. Bernard, treating of this prayer of Christ in the garden, says,
“Not only with His eyes does He seem to have wept, but, as it were, with all
His members, that His whole Body, which is the Church, might be the more
effectually purged by His tears” (Serm.
3 on Palm Sunday). The love of Christ indeed was not content with the watery
tears of His eyes, but wished, by the bloody tears of His whole Body, to lament
and blot out our sins, and these tears of Christ were most efficacious with God
the Father. “For,” says S. Irenæus (Lib.
v. cap. i.) “the blood of Christ has
a voice and ‘speaketh better things than that of Abel,’ Heb. 12:24. The blood
of Abel calls for vengeance, that of Christ for mercy.” (Cornelius
à Lapide, The Great Commentary of
Cornelius À Lapide, 8 vols. [4th
ed.; trans. Thomas W. Mossman; Edinburgh: John Grant, 1908], 4:487-88)
