APPENDIX No. 2.

THE BLOODY SWEAT,

REFERRED TO AT PAGES 207 AND 222

Some of the adherents of the prevalent theory, in accordance with their custom of transmuting into metaphor such hbr saeh scriptural 9 passages as oppose their dogma, have expressed their belief that the bloody sweat of Gethsemane was but a figure of speech. St. Luke was a writer of the greatest simraplicity and directness; he was a stranger to amplification or hyperbole, and dealt little in metaphor. Had he sought a rhetorical figure to indicate the profuse perspiration of his Lord, great drops of water would have been a more natural and apposite comparison than great drops of blood. The thought of blood would not have been likely to enter the imagination of the evangelist, had not the Holy Ghost impressed on him the awfulawfal phenomenon of the garden.

But the great majority of those who profess the prevalent theory feel themselves bound to admit the sweat of blood at Gethsemane. They seek, however, to evade its hostile bearinug upon their theory, by affirming that history records many other instances of bloody perspiration, caused, not only by corporeal disease, but also by extreme mental agonoiay. And to sustain a proposition so important to their dogma@ they cite the following authorities: Aristotle, Hist. Anim. Tom. I1. lib. 3iii. chap. 19, page 809. Ibid. de part Anim. Tom. I. lib. 3iii. chap. 5, page 1008. Diodorus Siculus, Tom. II“. lib. 17xyii. page 560. Voltaire’s”s Ujniversal History, chap. 142, narrating death of Charles IX. of France. Sir John Chardin’s”s History of Persia, Vol. 1I. page 126. Thuanxius Hist. Temp. lib. 10x. page 221. Acta Physico-Med. Norimbergaem, Vol. 1. page 84; Vol. 8VIII. page 425. Leti’2s Life of Pope Sextus 5V., p@age 200.

THE BLOODY SWEAT. 353

It is, indeed, true that bodily disease has sometimes caused an exudation of blood, by debilitating the system, and rendering the veins and arteries incapable of retaining and circulating their vital fluid. And it is, no doubt, also true, that mental agony, if intense and protracted may, at least in feeble subjects, superinduce bodily disease, with all its frightfu”al consequences. But we cannot yield our credence to the proposition that spiritual agony, unaccompanied by corporeal infirmity, has ever forced through the healthful body great drops of blood, save in the garden of Gethsemane.

Aristotle, in one of the quoted pages, says; “If much blood is lost, life languishes; if the loss is extreme, life is extinguished. When the blood is immoderately charged with humours, disease attacks; for then it is converted into a thin unnatural state, and has, in some cases, broken out into a bloody sweat.” And in the other quoted page of his writings, he says: “Some through an ill habit of body have sweat a bloody excrement.”al It will be perceived that - thist learned I “scholar attributes bloody exudations to corporeal disease. If they had ever been caused by mental agony, it seems to have escaped the knowledge of the profound Stagyrite. Diodorus Sioulus, in the page of his works referred to, is speaking of the Indian serpents, and observes: “ If any one be bitten by them, he is tormented with excessive pains, and seized with a bloody sweat.”@@ The Roman scholar gives no more intimation, than did his Greek predecessor, that bloody perspiration is ever caused by meore mental agony. Voltaire, in his Universal History, thus describes the death-sickness of Charles IX. of Trance:

“He died in his thirty-@fifth year; his disorder was of a very remarkable kind; the blood oozed out of all his pores. This malady, of which there have been other instances, was owing, either to excessive fear, or violent agitation, or to a feverish and melancholy temperament.” The only fact here recorded is that the king was sick unto death; and that, in his last illness, his blood oozed out from his pores. The cause of his illness and of the symptom stated, is left to rest on vaguae conjecture. The quotation from Voltaire is no proof of the proposition advanced by our opponents; his conjectures are not entitled to controlling influence in a Christian iInvestigation.

The advocates of the prevalent theory have referred to Sir r

John Chardin’?s History of Persia. We believe that such a work

30*

054 APPENDIX NO. “.

was never written by the author referred to. He travelled in Persia@ and published his travels in several volumes, which is, doubtless, the production intended. Though not an Englishman, his first volume (to which alone the reference of our opponents points) was translated into English under his own superintendence, and originally published by ,him at London. Afterwards all the volumes were published on the continent, in French. The English copy may, therefore, be regarded as the true original of his first volume. We have examrained it, and found no mention of a bloody perspiration in the page cited, or elsewhere in the volume. To the continental edition we have not had access. If the learned reader should find any thing in the English volume which has escaped our notice, or anything superadded in the continental edition, we would beg leave to remindremincl, him, that Sir J”ohn Chardin, though reputed to be a writer of truth, travelled in the land of exaggeration and romance. What he recorded from his own observation, is entitled to fair credit; what he recorded from Persian hearsay should be taken with many grains of allowance.

Our opponents have also referred to Thuanuiis (the celebrated French de Thou) HisL,3t. Temp. lib. 10x. ”pPage 221. We find no such page in his tenth book; nor do we find in any part of the book any allusion to bloodyv perspiration. Thuanus is a very voluminous writer; and our leisure has not allowed us to explore his history page by page. The learned reader@@, if he shall discover theif the passage intended by the reference, will please to bear in mind, in testing its applicability, that the point ”Oh@ -here at issue between the advocates of the prevalent theory and ourselves, is, not whether bloody exudations have occurred elsewhere than at Gethsemane, but whether such other cases were caused by spiritual agony, unaccompanied by corporeal disease.

Two cases of bloody exudations are reported @@ @in Acta@ Physico-

Med. NorimbergæNorimber@. The one was@ that of a boy about twelve years old, who had long suffered under a succession of complicated diseases, but who had not been the subject of any .special mental agony. Of course it has no bearing on the point in issue. The other case requires more consideration. It is, thus nar@ra@ted: “ Joachimus Scacerna, in the sixty-secondd6iftcl year of his age, apparently in health, met me, about noonii in th”ne month of November, deeply distressed, and asked my -advice, saying that he had been accused by somebody of the crime of perjury, and expressing his fears lest he should be cast into prison. Touched with compassion for his calamity, I observed red tears flowing from his eyes, of the appearance of blood. Offering him such consolation as was in my power, I left him. He was afterwards led to prison by the guards, much afflicted, shedding bloody tears, shaking with agues through his whole system, followed by a malignant fever, which terminated his life in three days.”2@

It is manifest from the preceding narration, that the malignant and mortal fever had seized upon its victim before he met the narrator. It was doubtless the occult fever that caused the mental distress, and not the mental distress that caused the fever. There is no proof that the unfortunate man had committed the crime of perjury, or that in fact he had been accused of such crime. It was probably the delirium of inward disease that made him imagine himself accused. It may be inferred that it was his self-accusation - alone which cast him into prison. Had he been guilty, or had he been frightened If a frigumed into mental agony by a false uso Are charge, flight would have been more probable than his gratuitous disclosure to the narrator. That the narrator did not detect the incipient disease, need not excite our wonder. It is not quite certain that he was a physician; and, if he was, it is clear that the dying man did not come to him for medical advice; for he thought himself well. It was not an interview between physician and patient. Their meeting seems to have been a casual and brief one, perhaps in the street. That the disease was susLifficiently virulent to have affected and deranged the veins and arteries and pores and fluids of the system, is proved by its rapid progress and fatal termination. t.@l Since time began, countlt ess millions have, in every age, been justly or unjustly accused of crime; but none, befobre or since the narrated case, 2 ever exhibited, under the mere influence of the accusation, a sweat of blood. The gory exudation in the narrated cas, @e, if it had no cause but the accusation, would stand opposed -to ”the whole course of human experience, and require nearly the same plenitude of proof for its confirmation that wouald be required to prove a miracle. If the unfortunate JSoachimus Sceacerna shed bloody tears because he was charged with an offence, he did what we suppose no other accused person has ever done, from the arraignment of Cain to the present hour.

We have read the Rev. Mr. Farneworth’s”s translation of Leti’s@

356 APPENDIX NO.“

Life of Pope Sextus V, another authority refetbrred to by the advocates of the prevalent theory, and find in it no case of bloody perspiration. We have not had access to .the original; niiaor should we take much pains -to examine it in detail, after learning the characoter of the author for historical fidelity. Chalmers, in his Biographical Dictionary, article Leti, thus speaks of him: ”We know febw writers of history who are less to be depended on, having debased all his productions with fable. It is impossible to give credit to him, unless his facts can be supported by other authority.” Doctor Rees, in his Cyclopæoedia, article Leti, is scarcely less severe. He observes: “Leti was a most industrious writer; his works are said to amount to a hundred volume.s. Most of them are historical; but they are frequently destitute of truth, and cannot be relied on unless supported by other authority than the dictum of the writer.@” ]Farnesworth, his own translator, thus speaks in his preface of the work translated: “When he” 71 (Leti) “i@ wrote his history, he seems to have been far advanced in years, or at least in the decline of life, and got into a talkative stage;” and he informs us elsewhere in his preface that he did not think fit to translate all his author wrote. Whatever is said in the original work of perspiration of blood, was probably deemed fabulouns by the translator, and for that cause omitted in the translation. After this exposition, it is not likely that the advocate of the theory will place great reliance on the authority of Leti.

We suppose that, at the commencement of, his last passion,Ma @”, pusion, Christ possessed the most perfect health. He had @l,@led a life of regular exercise, and of extreme temperance. He had breathed an air then pure and salunbrioulis; aniad attained the age deemed, in that climate, the acme of bodily vigour. His bloody sweat seems to have subsided with the mitigation of the intense agony which caused it, and does not appear to have been attended or succeeded by corporeal disease. Had his body streamed with gory perspi ration when he appeared before the high priests and Roman governors and soldiery, the fact would have excited universal astonishment, and been likely to find its way into profane history. The four evangelists would scarcely have passed it over in silence.

The crucifixion morning found our blessed Lord, as we suppose, in unimpaired health. The Jehovah of the Old Testament declared that the sacrifice of any sickly or blemished animal was an abomination in his sight.—-Deutecronomy, 17xvii. 1. The holy

THE BLOODY SWEAT. 357

Christ of the New Testament, when making the great sacrifice for the sins of our race, of which the Jewish oablations were but the prefiguring types, offered up himself on the altar of eternal justice, free, no doubt, from disease or imperfection, as @” “a lamb without blemish and without spot.”2l—-l Peter 1i. 19. We conclude that the bloody sweat of the garden, caused by spiritual agony, and neither attended or followed by corporeal ailment, was a phenomenon altogether unique, finding no parallel in the annals of the world.