Agony in the Garden

After the Last Supper and immediately before his arrest Christ retired to the Mount of Olives to pray. 'Agony' (from the Greek agon a contest) here signifies the spiritual struggle between the two sides of his nature, the human that feared the imminent suffering and would have avoided it, in conflict with the divine that gave him strength: 'Father, if it be thy will, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will but thine be done.' He had taken with him Peter, James and John, and then withdrawn a little apart from them. According to Luke 'there appeared to him an angel from heaven bringing him strength, and in anguish of spirit he prayed the more urgently'. When he returned to the disciples he found them asleep and rebuked them for their lack of resolve. The theme is seldom found before the 13th cent. In early examples we may see instead of the angel the head of God the Father or his symbol, the right hand pointing out of a cloud. Other early variants may show Christ either kneeling (Luke) or prostrate on his face (Matt., Mark). We may have all eleven disciples sleeping, Or an alternatively Christ praying alone. By the Renaissance certain features became fairly generally established. Christ kneels on a rocky eminence. Below him are the three disciples: Peter, gray-haired with a curly beard and perhaps a sword (in anticipation of his cutting off the servant's ear; James who his (lark hair and a beard; John, the youngest, with long hair sometimes down to his shoulders. in the distance is the city of Jerusalem and a group of approaching figures - the soldiers led by Judas. The nature of Christ's vision came to take two distinct forms. The angel, or angels, may appear before him bearing the instruments of the Passion, or more often the angel brings the chalice and wafer. The convention of representing Christ as if he were about to receive communion, seems to have arisen from the gospels' purely metaphorical reference to a cup, and has of course no textual sanction.