Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Mark 14:34

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

And he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. But some have understood this, as if He had said, I am sorrowful, not because I am to die, but because the Jews, my countrymen, are about to crucify me, and by these means to be shut out from the kingdom of God.

Catena Aurea by Aquinas ↗

Western Saints

Hilary of Poitiers

But even now that we have proved what was the faith of the Apostle, the heretics think to meet it by the text, My soul is sorrowful even unto death. These words, they say, prove the consciousness of natural infirmity which made Christ begin to be sorrowful. Now, first, I appeal to common intelligence: what do we mean by sorrowful unto death? It cannot signify the same as `to be sorrowful because of death:' for where there is sorrow because of death, it is the death that is the cause of the sadness. …

On The Trinity 10.36 ↗

Bede

Endure here, and keep watch. And when he had gone on a little further, he fell to the ground. What he commands, endure here, and keep watch, does not forbid sleep, whose time had not come with impending danger, but the sleep of infidelity and the numbness of the mind. And after giving them the command to endure and keep watch with him, proceeding a little further, he fell on his face and showed the humility of the mind through the habit of the flesh.

On the Gospel of Mark ↗

Bonaventure

But who will deliver us from these plagues? Certainly there is one alone who came to deliver us, namely Christ, who made ten condescensions against the ten plagues. The first was down to our flesh. The second was down to our mortality. The third, to our neediness, for he suffered hunger, thirst, and cold. The fourth was to our poverty, for "he was made destitute," having no place to which he might turn. The fifth, to our temptation, when he permitted himself to be tempted; and in this he bore our weakness. …

Collationes de Decem Praeceptis, Collation 7 ↗