Luke 22:44 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood— Some commentators have taken this expression in the metaphorical sense; fancying that as those who weep bitterly, are said to weep blood, so they may be said to sweat blood, who sweat excessively by reason of hard labour or acute pain. They explain it, "His drops of sweat were large and clammy, like drops of gore:" but others more justly affirm, that our Lord's sweat was really mixed with blood to such a degree, that its colour and consistency was as if it had been wholly blood; for the Greek particle ωσει, rendered, as it were, does not always denote similitude, but sometimes reality. See John 1:14.Matthew 14:5. Grotius espoused the metaphorical meaning of this passage; but Bartholinus (De Cruce, p. 134.) disputes against him, and gives examples of sweats which have actually been mixed with blood. Dr. Whitby observes, that Aristotle and Diodorus Siculus both mention bloody sweats, as attending some extraordinary agony of mind; and Leti, in his life of Pope Sixtus V. p. 200 and Sir John Chardin, in his history of Persia, vol. 1: p. 126 mention a like phenomenon: to which Dr. Jackson in his works, vol. 2: p. 819 adds another from Thuanus, lib. 10. However, that which puts this matter beyond all doubt, is a fact well known in history; namely, that Charles the IXth of France died of a malady, in which his blood gushed out of all the pores of his body. Voltaire describes it thus, in his Universal History, chap. 142. "Charles the IXth died in his five-and-twentieth year; the malady that he died of was very extraordinary; the blood gushed out of all his pores. This accident, of which there are some instances, was owing either to excessive fear, to violent passion, or to a warm and melancholy constitution." Many learned writers are of opinion, that our Saviour, during this extreme agony, struggled in a peculiar manner with the spirits of darkness; and that hence an angel appeared to strengthen hi