What the manuscripts show. The verses are absent from the early papyrus P75, from Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Washingtonianus, and from a corrector of Codex Sinaiticus, along with a wide range of early translations. They are present in the first hand of Sinaiticus, in Codex Bezae, in the Byzantine tradition and in the Latin. Some manuscripts mark them with signs of doubt, and one family of manuscripts moves them into Matthew’s Gethsemane account, after Matthew 26:39. This is a genuinely divided picture (Debated).
Early witnesses. The story is old. St Justin Martyr, around AD 160, says that the apostles’ memoirs record that Christ’s sweat fell down like drops of blood as he prayed “If it be possible, let this cup pass” (Dialogue with Trypho 103). St Irenaeus, about 180, lists the sweating of great drops of blood among the proofs that the Lord had real flesh taken from Mary (Against Heresies 3.22.2). So these verses were read in the second century (Strong).
Added or removed? Scholars argue both ways. Some think a scribe added the verses to stress Christ’s true humanity against those who denied it. Others think a scribe removed them because a Christ in agony, needing an angel’s help, seemed unworthy of the Son of God. The NET Bible, for example, brackets the verses as doubtful in Luke’s text, while judging the event itself probably historical because it was known so early and so widely.
What the Orthodox Church reads. The Patriarchal Text prints both verses without any mark. For the Orthodox this passage expresses what the Church confesses at Chalcedon: Christ is truly God and truly man, with a real human soul and body that could suffer anguish. St Irenaeus already used it in exactly that way against those who made Christ’s flesh unreal.
How translations handle it. The KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV, RSV Catholic Edition and Reina-Valera 1909 print the verses in the text; the modern ones add a note that some manuscripts lack them. The NRSVUE encloses them in double brackets.
What it does and does not change. Christ’s real humanity and his agony in the garden are taught elsewhere: his soul is “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” and he prays three times (Matthew 26:38–44; Mark 14:34–39), and Hebrews speaks of his prayers “with strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). These verses add vivid detail, an angel’s help and sweat like blood, but the faith does not rise or fall with them.