AGONIA DI GESÙ CRISTO. — By “a. di G. C.” is understood that immense accumulation of sufferings to which Jesus was subjected in the garden of Gethsemane, when He began the drama of the Passion. The events are narrated by the three Synoptic Evangelists (Mt. 26, 36-46; Mc. 14, 32-42 and Lc. 22, 40-46). Luke gives the shorter account, but in compensation he alone has the appearance of the comforting angel and the sweat of blood. The word a. (ἀγωνία), used in Lc. 22, 44, which originally meant in Greek exercises and contests, especially in athletic competitions, subsequently came to signify, more generally, trepidation and anguish in the imminence of very grave afflictions and sufferings, particularly as death approached.
Three are the salient points in the Gospel narrative of the a. di G. C.: the Savior’s suffering, His prayer, and the sweat of blood.
1. SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST
He suffers mortal sorrow (“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death,” Mc. 14, 34); terror and astonishment, distress and dismay (“coepit pavere et taedere,” Mc. 14, 33). Catholic doctrine requires that the full truth and reality of Christ’s pains and sufferings be acknowledged. “In the suffering Christ there was true and sensible pain, caused by an injury of a bodily order; there was also inward pain, which is ordinarily called sorrow, arising from the apprehension (whether sensible or intellectual) of something harmful.” Thus s. Tommaso (Sum. Theol., 3°, q. 46, a. 6). Nevertheless, in order to understand the manner in which Christ endured such sufferings, two observations imposed by Catholic doctrine must be kept in mind. First: He suffered because He willed to suffer. Jesus Christ had perfect dominion over His soul and body. If pain arose in Him and reached extraordinary intensity, it was because He ordained that it should arise and attain that particular degree of vehemence; yet no movement ever preceded reason, disturbed it, impeded it, or in any way delayed the free will in carrying out what was fitting. The second observation is this: even amid such immeasurable anguish, Jesus Christ, at the highest summit of the spirit, enjoyed, like the blessed who possess the beatific vision, essential beatitude, consisting in the intuitive vision of God and in the love and joy resulting from II. This simultaneity of supreme joy and supreme suffering is one of the most mysterious depths of the psychology of the Incarnate Word. The beatific enjoyment of God, which takes place in the higher part of the supernatural spirit elevated by the light of glory, did not overflow in Jesus Christ, during His mortal and passible life, either into the lower part of the spiritual soul or into the body and the sensitive faculties. The motives that determined such acute sufferings were: the imminence of the Passion and death, which Christ’s human intelligence clearly saw before Him in all the details of its atrocious reality; the sins of men, past, present, and future, all likewise clearly perceived and assessed one by one in what they contained of offense against the divine Majesty and of harm to soul and body; the indescribable affliction that His own sufferings and death would cause the Blessed Virgin; the spiritual ruin of His fellow countrymen, the Jews; the abandonment and dispersal of the Apostles; and the sufferings that the Church would undergo, sufferings foreseen and penetrated by Christ at that time.2. THE PRAYER OF JESUS CHRIST
“Father! All things are possible to Thee! Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless (let it be done) not what I will, but what (Thou wilt)” (Mc. 14, 36). This prayer is a classic text for establishing that there was in Christ a human will, as indicated by the words “not what I will,” in addition to the divine will. Two wills corresponding to the two natures, divine and human. The same prayer makes clear that in Christ’s human will there were two tendencies and movements: the natural tendency, which recoiled from what was naturally repugnant, such as death and physical and moral sufferings; and the rational tendency, by which He embraced death and suffering insofar as they were willed by God and ordained to the redemption of mankind. Between the two tendencies—which s. Tommaso calls voluntas naturae and voluntas rationis—there was no real opposition. Each pursued its own object, without the voluntas naturae in any way obstructing the movement of the voluntas rationis. Moreover—and this is decisive—the divine will of Christ and His rational human will willed that the natural will and the sensibility should develop their own tendency, according to the principle enunciated by s. Giovanni Damasceno, which governs the whole of this subject: “The Word permitted Christ, in His human nature, to do and suffer what properly belongs to it” (De Fide Orthodoxa, III, 15: PG 94, 1060).3. THE SWEAT OF BLOOD
“Et factus est sudor eius sicut guttae sanguinis decurrentis in terram”: “And His sweat became as drops of blood running down upon the ground” (Lc. 22, 44). Catholic exegesis commonly holds that it was truly bloody sweat, different from ordinary natural perspiration. Nor is it necessary to regard it as having a preternatural origin. The phenomenon of bloody sweat is known to medicine. The profound emotion of Christ’s soul caused an abnormal disturbance in the physical organism, to the point of producing the rupture of the capillary vessels.The appearance of the angel must, according to the sacred text, be regarded as real and not merely imaginary. It is difficult to specify the nature and manner of the consolation brought by the angel to Christ. He did not bring Him a consolation that He was unable to procure for Himself; nor did he reveal truths or events to Him, or suggest motives of consolation that He did not already know perfectly. He could only offer reasons and considerations such as would induce the higher part of Christ’s soul to come to the aid of the lower part and bring it some relief. And Christ willed to receive consolation from an angel in order to demonstrate the reality of His sufferings and the truth of His human nature, essentially inferior to the angelic nature.
The two verses of Lc. 22, 43-44, which narrate the appearance of the angel and the sweat of blood, are absent from various uncial manuscripts, including the Vatican—an extremely authoritative codex—as well as from some minuscule manuscripts and certain ancient versions of the Bible. In their favor, however, is the great majority of manuscripts, both majuscule and minuscule, and a considerable number of versions. They are already found in s. Giustino and s. Ireneo and are frequently cited in the later Fathers. About forty ancient and less ancient Fathers testify to the authenticity of the verses in question. From the critical study of the written documents it must be concluded that Lc. 22, 43-44 formed an integral and authentic part of the Gospel. It is readily understandable that a misguided reverence might have led to the omission of a difficult text which, at first sight, could have seemed less worthy of the person of Jesus. It is less easy, or not easy at all, to understand for what reasons it would have been inserted into the Gospel narrative.
From a strictly dogmatic point of view, it is not permissible to doubt that Lc. 22, 43-44 belongs to inspired Scripture, whose author is God. The Council of Trent, in session IV (cf. Denz-U., 784), defined that the complete books of the Old and New Testaments, with all their parts, as they are customarily read in the Catholic Church and are found in the ancient Vulgate version, must be held to be sacred and canonical. Now, among these parts Lc. 22, 43-44 is certainly included, as is clear from explicit declarations made during the conciliar discussions preparatory to the promulgation of the decree of the fourth session. (Cf. Concilii Tridentini Diariorum pars prima, edited by S. Merkle, in Concilium Tridentinum, Nova Collectio, I, Freiburg in Br. 1901, pp. 38, 45).
The agony of Jesus Christ constitutes an incomparable example and consolation for believers. It is the most human episode in the Gospel: here the Savior appears in the evident reality of a human nature, subject to the infirmities of other men, with the exception of sin. He experiences all suffering, in order to demonstrate the immensity of his love and the sanctifying power of suffering. Thus he becomes the “faithful” and humanly “merciful” priest, who can “humanly” have compassion on our infirmities. (Hebr. 2, 17-18; 4, 15).