Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/378

364 the "clear light of scientific investigation" to which Hebra's case was subjected.

With regard to the so-called bloody sweat of our Saviour, such an undoubted article of faith to many, and so familiar to our ears in the pathetic invocation of the Litany of the Episcopal Church, "By thine agony and bloody sweat," the once celebrated Dr. Mead makes the following observations in his "Medica Sacra": "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 ground. 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 hosoi thromboi 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."

Beza's Latin Testament renders the words, "Erat autem sudor ejus quasi grumi sanguinis descendentes in terram." (But his sweat was as drops of blood falling upon the earth.)

Luther's German version has, "Es ward aber sein Schweisz wie Blutstropfen die fielen auf die Erde." (But his sweat was as drops of blood that fell upon the earth.)

The Rhemish Testament, from the Vulgate of Jerome, gives in the translation recognized by the Catholic Church in this country, "And his sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground."

Our authorized version, "And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground."

The recent revision changes only a single word, making it, "And his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground."

Among modern commentators some agree with Whitby, who says, "I own that these words do not certainly signify that the matter of this sweat was blood, but only that it was like to blood, being in such large drops." But the majority hold with Alford, that it was a veritable bloody sweat.

Adam Clarke contends that the passage must be interpreted according as the emphasis is made to rest on thromboi, or aimatos, and unhesitatingly declares for the latter.

Perhaps it would be better not to add anything to the judicious and non-committal remarks of Dr. Mead, but still I will hazard the following considerations: It is difficult to understand why, if Luke, a clear writer and said to be a physician, wished to state the fact of a bloody sweat, he could not have done so in plain, straightforward language, with no ambiguity about it. If he was, as it is said, a physician, the simile of dropping blood, not an unnatural one in any case for profuse sweat, would be all the more natural and likely to be used.