CHAPTER XIII.

_The bloody sweat of Christ._

Saint Luke relates of Christ himself, that, "when he was in an agony by the fervency of his prayers, his sweat was like drops of blood falling down on the[139] ground."

[139] _Chap. xxii. v. 44._

This passage is generally understood, as if the Saviour of mankind had sweated real blood. But the text does not say so much. The sweat was only [Greek: hôsei thromboi haimatos], as it were, or like drops of blood; that is, the drops of sweat were so large, thick and viscid, that they trickled to the ground like drops of blood. Thus were the words understood by Justin Martyr, Theophylactus and Euthymius. And yet Galen has observed, that _it sometimes happens, that the pores are so vastly dilated by a copious and fervid spirit; that even blood issues thro' them, and constitutes a bloody sweat_.[140]

[140] _Lib. de utilitate respirationis._