The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. Luke
Others, however, as F. Lucas, think that it was Michael, for he is the highest of all angels, and it became him, as such, to perform this office for the supreme God, that is Christ.
Strengthening Him . “ The praise and due adoration of Christ,” says Titus, “ being premised,” he comforted Christ by speaking to Him outwardly and setting before Him the will and glory of the Father, and the rich fruit which would ensue, both to Christ Himself , to men, and to angels, from His Passion. For the angel could not affect the inner mind of Christ, nor immediately change His inner powers. And as He could only be tempted by Satan, externally , so He could only be comforted by the angel outwardly. He could not be taught nor illuminated by him, for He was above all angels, and from the first moment of His conception, was full of wisdom and knowledge. So say the schoolmen with S. Thomas (3. p. q. 12, art. 4) : The angel spoke the following, or like words to Christ, “ O Lord, bravest of men, Thy prayer is most acceptable to Thy Father ; because, notwithstanding Thy natural dread of death, Thou resignedst Thyself wholly to the will of the Father boldly to undergo the death appointed for Thee by Him. Lay aside therefore this Thy horror and grief with which Thou hast voluntarily invested Thyself, and reassume Thy former mind and strength, and come to the work of human Redemption, by which Thou wilt most signally celebrate the glory of God, rejoice the angels, redeem men from Hell, and bring them back to the glories of heaven. Endure the cross for the joy that is offered Thee, as the future author and perfector of the faith of very many. Heb. xii. 2. Thus Thou wilt cause SS. Peter and Paul, Laurentius, Vincentius, Agnes, Coecilia and very many other martyrs and virgins, men, and noble heroes and heroines boldly to undergo martyrdom for God, and the faithful, with other holy men, who triumphed gloriously over the flesh, the world, and the devil. I know that Thou, O Lord, hast no need of any strengthening of mine, who am myself strengthened by Thee both to be and to live; but, that this my ministry which I execute as a steward at the command of God Thy Father may be acceptable to Thee, I pray again and again.”
Theophylact thinks that the angel spoke thus, “ O Lord, Thine is the strength, for thou art powerful against death and hell, to set free the race of men.”
Ver. 44. — And being in an agony , He prayed more earnestly . The “ et ” here in the Hebrew is causal, and means quia, because. That is, the angel comforted Him; because being in an agony and praying more earnestly, He sweated blood, and then appeared to need comfort, and to merit it. The following was the order of events. Christ had prayed the first and second time, but felt no help of God. Then His feeling growing on Him, He, permitting the agony (that is, a more vehement horror and anguish) to arise in Himself, He sweated blood. To overcome this, He prayed a third time more earnestly, teaching us that as temptation increases our prayers should increase equally. The angel therefore appeared to Him immediately, comforting Him ; whereupon He ceased to pray and to fear, and to grieve, and, suppressing and overcoming His agony, He manfully prepared Himself for His Passion, and went forth of His own accord to meet Judas.
More earnestly . The Greek is ἐκτενέστερον, that is, more exclusively , more intensely. For this, as appears from SS. Matthew and Mark, was the third prayer of Christ, and He appears to have remained in it longer. More earnestly, because, as the anguish pressed upon Him, Christ, to overcome it, at once directed the contention of His mind, by praying; and He prayed with a more intense feeling and ardour. Luke includes in one as in a compendium , the three prayers of Matthew and Mark, and therefore relates some things of it, which took place in the first and second, and some which took place in the third.
And His sweat was as it were great drops of blood. The Greek has θρόμβοι, gouts, thick masses. The Arabic and S. Irenaeus 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 his 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. Irenaeus (Lib. v. cap . i.) “the blood of Christ has a voice and ‘ speaketh better things than that of Abel,’ Heb. xii. 24. The blood of Abel calls for vengeance, that of Christ for mercy.”
Symbolically, “the reason was,” says S. Augustine, “that Christ might show that from His whole Body would proceed the passions of martyrs ” (Sentent. sent. 68). Again, “ The blood of Christ,” says Bede, “ flowed down upon the earth to show that men of the earth would be moistened by it.”
Ver. 45. — And when He rose up from prayer. For sorrow contracts the heart, and hinders the vital and subtle spirits from being sent to the head ; wherefore the black and crass vapours which are the cause of sleep, invade the brain. But there is a hysteron proteron here. For these things happened before the bloody sweat which took place in the third prayer of Christ, while the former happened in the first prayer, as is clear from SS. Matthew and Mark. The reason is that S. Luke compresses the three prayers into one, and unites what happened at different times in the three prayers as if they had been done in one and the same. For after the first prayer, Christ, visiting the Apostles and finding them asleep, said as follows, Ver. 46. — And said unto them, Why sleep ye? See what has been said on Matthew xxvi. xxvii.