Where the manuscripts differ · Luke 22:43-44
The angel in Gethsemane and the sweat like drops of blood
Two of the most intense verses in the Gospels are missing from some of the earliest manuscripts and present in others — and there is a serious argument that they were removed rather than added, because they show Jesus in anguish.
In the garden, Luke says, an angel came and strengthened him, and being in agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. Some very early manuscripts have these two verses. Some very early manuscripts do not. This one is not a case where the evidence lines up neatly on one side.
What makes it genuinely hard is that the split is old on both sides. The verses are quoted by Christian writers in the middle of the second century — earlier than any surviving manuscript that omits them. And they are absent from an early papyrus and from great fourth-century codices. Even one famous manuscript preserves the argument inside itself: the first scribe wrote the verses, a later corrector marked them for deletion, and a still later hand restored them.
So the usual instinct — the shorter reading is probably original, because scribes add — runs into a real counter-argument here. A fourth-century writer, Epiphanius, states that copyists removed the passage because they were disturbed by what it showed. Whether he was right or simply repeating a rumor, he tells us that in his own day this was already an argument about deletion, not only about addition.
What the manuscripts actually show
| Witness | Date | What it reads here |
|---|---|---|
| An early Luke papyrus (P75) and Codex Vaticanus | 3rd–4th centuries | Without the two verses — the prayer is followed directly by Jesus rising and coming to the disciples. |
| Codex Sinaiticus | 4th century, with later corrections | The original scribe wrote the verses; a corrector marked them for removal; a later corrector reinstated them. The manuscript preserves the dispute in its own margins. |
| Codex Bezae and Old Latin manuscripts | 5th century and later, reflecting an older Western text | The verses in full. |
| Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus | about AD 150–235 | Refer to the bloody sweat — the earliest evidence of any kind for this passage, predating every surviving manuscript on either side. |
| A number of later Greek manuscripts | 9th century onward | Include the verses but mark them with critical symbols in the margin, showing that scribes knew some copies lacked them. |
The case each way
That it belongs in the text
The second-century citations are the earliest testimony we have. Writers around AD 150 knew this passage as part of the Gospel story.
It is quoted across a wide geographical spread — Greek East and Latin West — which is difficult if it originated as a local addition.
There is a plain motive for removal. In the second and third centuries the church was arguing with people who found a suffering, trembling Christ embarrassing or impossible, and a passage showing Jesus in agony needing angelic strength was awkward ammunition. Epiphanius says outright that some copyists cut it for that reason.
The scene is deeply Lukan in feel: Luke is the Gospel most attentive to prayer, to angels, and to physical detail.
That it came later
The omission is supported by an early papyrus and by weighty fourth-century manuscripts — the very witnesses that are usually most reliable in Luke.
The verses interrupt a passage that some scholars read as a tight, balanced structure without them, so that the surrounding narrative reads more smoothly when they are removed.
There is an argument running the opposite direction from the anti-docetic one: that the passage was *added* precisely to prove Jesus' full humanity against those who denied it. A verse that shows real sweat and real agony is exactly what a second-century defender of Christ's true humanity would want.
The passage floats in the manuscript tradition — some witnesses place it in Matthew's account of Gethsemane instead of Luke's. Text that migrates between Gospels is often text that entered from outside.