Agony in the Garden (Blake) Agony in the Garden (Blake) The Agony in the Garden is a small painting by William Blake, completed as part of his 1799–1800 series of Bible illustrations commissioned by his patron and friend Thomas Butts. The work illustrates a passage from the Gospel of Luke which describes Christ's turmoil in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and Crucifixion following Judas's betrayal. In Blake's painting a brilliantly coloured and majestic angel breaks through the surrounding darkness and descends from a cloud to aid and physically support Jesus in his hour of agony. The work is dominated by vertical lines, formed
Denial of the virgin birth of Jesus need for the pre-existence to which they objected. The Socinians in fact excommunicated from their number the translator of the first Bible in Belarusian, Symon Budny, for his denial of the virgin birth. A large scale change among Unitarians to acceptance of a human father for Jesus took place only in the time of Joseph Priestley. The young Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an example of what he called "a psilanthropist, one of those who believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph" but later in life Coleridge decisively rejected this idea and accepted traditional Christian belief in