Chapter VIII (2)

But in order to contest the reality of this history, in defiance of the agreement of all the four Evangelists, the negative grounds hitherto adduced must be seconded by satisfactory positive ones, from whence it might be seen how the primitive Christian legend could be led to the invention of such a scene, apart from any historical foundation. But these appear to be wanting. For our only positive data in relation to this occurrence are the passages cited by the synoptists from Isaiah and Jeremiah, prohibiting that the temple should be made a den of robbers; and the passage from Malachi iii. 1–3, according to which it was expected that in the messianic times Jehovah would suddenly come to his temple, that no one would stand before his appearing, and that he would undertake a purification of the people and the worship. Certainly these passages seem to have some bearing on the irresistible reforming activity of Jesus in the temple, as described by our Evangelists; but there is so little indication that they had reference in particular to the market in the outer court of the temple, that it seems necessary to suppose an actual opposition on the part of Jesus to this abuse, in order to account for the fulfilment of the above prophecies by him being represented under the form of an expulsion of buyers and sellers.

§ 89.

NARRATIVES OF THE ANOINTING OF JESUS BY A WOMAN.

An occasion on which Jesus was anointed by a woman as he sat at meat, is mentioned by all the Evangelists (Matt. xxvi. 6 ff.; Mark xiv. 3 ff.; Luke vii. 36 ff.; John xii. 1 ff.), but with some divergencies, the most important of which lie between Luke and the other three. First, as to the chronology; Luke places the incident in the earlier period of the life of Jesus, before his departure from Galilee, while the other three assign it to the last week of his life; secondly, as to the character of the woman who anoints Jesus: she is, according to Luke, a woman who was a sinner, γυνὴ ἁμαρτωλὸς; according to the two other synoptists, a person of unsullied reputation; according to John, who is more precise, Mary of Bethany. From the second point of difference it follows, that in Luke the objection of the spectators turns on the admission of so infamous a person, in the other gospels, on the wastefulness of the woman; from both, it follows, that Jesus in his defence dwells, in the former, on the grateful love of the woman, as contrasted with the haughty indifference of the Pharisees, in the latter, on his approaching departure, in opposition to the constant presence of the poor. There are yet the minor differences, that the place in which the entertainment and the anointing occur, is by the two first and the fourth Evangelists called Bethany, which according to John xi. 1, was a κώμη (town), by Luke a πόλις (city), without any more precise designation; further, that the objection, according to the three former, proceeds from the disciples, according to Luke, from the entertainer. Hence the majority of commentators distinguish two anointings, of which one is narrated by Luke the other by the three remaining Evangelists. [1132]

But it must be asked, if the reconciliation of Luke with the other three Evangelists is despaired of, whether the agreement of the latter amongst themselves is so decided, and whether we must not rather proceed, from the distinction of two anointings, to the distinction of three, or even four? To four certainly it will scarcely extend; for Mark does not depart from Matthew, except in a few touches of his well-known dramatic manner; but between these two Evangelists on the one side, and John on the other, there are differences which may fairly be compared with those between Luke and the rest. The first difference relates to the house in which the entertainment is said to have been given; according to the two first Evangelists, it was the house of Simon the leper, a person elsewhere unnoticed; the fourth does not, it is true, expressly name the host, but since he mentions Martha as the person who waited on the guests, and her brother Lazarus as one of those who sat at meat, there is no doubt that he intended to indicate the house of the latter as the locality of the repast. [1133] Neither is the time of the occurrence precisely the same, for according to Matthew and Mark the scene takes place after the solemn entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, only two days at the utmost before the passover; according to John, on the other hand, before the entrance, as early as six days prior to the passover. [1134] Further, the individual whom John states to be that Mary of Bethany so intimately united to Jesus, is only known to the two first evangelists as a woman, γυνὴ; [1135] neither do they represent her as being, like Mary, in the house, and one of the host’s family, but as coming, one knows not whence, to Jesus, while he reclined at table. Moreover, the act of anointing is in the fourth gospel another than in the two first. In the latter, the woman pours her ointment of spikenard on the head of Jesus; in John, on the contrary, she anoints his feet, and dries them with her hair, [1136] a difference which gives the whole scene a new character. Lastly, the two synoptists are not aware that it was Judas who gave utterance to the censure against the woman; Matthew attributing it to the disciples, Mark, to the spectators generally. [1137]

Thus between the narrative of John, and that of Matthew and Mark, there is scarcely less difference than between the account of these three collectively, and that of Luke: whoever supposes two distinct occurrences in the one case, must, to be consistent, do so in the other; and thus, with Origen, hold, at least conditionally, that there were three separate anointings. So soon, however, as this consequence is more closely examined, it must create a difficulty, for how improbable is it that Jesus should have been expensively anointed three times, each time at a feast, each time by a woman, that woman being always a different one; that moreover Jesus should, in each instance, have had to defend the act of the woman against the censures of the spectators! [1138] Above all, how is it to be conceived that after Jesus, on one and even on two earlier occasions, had so decidedly given his sanction to the honour rendered to him, the disciples, or one of them, should have persisted in censuring it? [1139]

These considerations oblige us to think of reductions, and it is the most natural to commence with the narratives of the two first synoptists and of John, for these agree not only in the place, Bethany, but also, generally, in the time of the event, the last week of the life of Jesus; above all, the censure and the reply are nearly the same on both sides. In connexion with these similarities the differences lose their importance, partly from the improbability that an incident of this kind should be repeated; partly from the probability, that in the traditional propagation of the anecdote such divergencies should have insinuated themselves. But if in this case the identity of the occurrences be admitted, in consideration of the similarities, and in spite of the dissimilarities; then, on the other hand, the divergencies peculiar to the narrative of Luke can no longer hinder us from pronouncing it to be identical with that of the three other Evangelists, provided that there appear to be only a few important points of resemblance between the two. And such really exist, for Luke now strikingly accords with Matthew and Mark, in opposition to John: now, with the latter, in opposition to the former. Luke gives the entertainer the same name as the two first synoptists, namely, Simon, the only difference being, that the former calls him a Pharisee, while the latter style him the leper. Again, Luke agrees with the other synoptists in opposition to John, in representing the woman who anoints Jesus as a nameless individual, not belonging to the house; and further, in making her appear with a box of ointment, ἀλάβαστρον μύρου, while John speaks only of a pound of ointment, λίτρα μύρου, without specifying the vessel. On the other hand, Luke coincides in a remarkable manner with John, and differs from the two other Evangelists, as to the mode of the anointing. While, namely, according to the latter, the ointment is poured on the head of Jesus, according to Luke, the woman, who was a sinner, as, according to John, Mary, anoints the feet of Jesus; and even the striking particular, that she dried them with her hair, [1140] is given by both in nearly the same words; excepting that in Luke, where the woman is described as a sinner, it is added that she bathed the feet of Jesus with her tears, and kissed them. Thus, without doubt, we have here but one history under three various forms; and this seems to have been the real conclusion of Origen, as well as recently of Schleiermacher.

In this state of the case, the effort is to escape as cheaply as possible, and to save the divergencies of the several Evangelists at least from the appearance of contradiction. First, with regard to the differences between the two first Evangelists and the last, it has been attempted to reconcile the discrepant dates by the supposition, that the meal at Bethany was held really, as John informs us, six days before Easter; but that Matthew, after whom Mark wrote, has no contradictory date; that rather he has no date at all; for though he inserts the narrative of the meal and the anointing after the declaration of Jesus, that after two days is the feast of the Passover, ὅτι μετὰ δύο ἡμέρας τὸ πάσχα γίνεται, this does not prove that he intended to place it later as to time, for it is probable that he gave it this position simply because he wished to note here, before coming to the betrayal by Judas, the occasion on which the traitor first embraced his black resolve, namely, the repast at which he was incensed by Mary’s prodigality, and embittered by the rebuke of Jesus. [1141] But in opposition to this, modern criticism has shown that, on the one hand, in the mild and altogether general reply of Jesus there could lie nothing personally offensive to Judas; and that, on the other hand, the two first gospels do not name Judas as the party who censured the anointing, but the disciples or the bystanders generally: whereas, if they had noted this scene purely because it was the motive for the treachery of Judas, they must have especially pointed out the manifestation of his feeling. [1142] There remains, consequently, a chronological contradiction in this instance between the two first synoptists and John: a contradiction which even Olshausen admits. [1143]

It has been attempted in a variety of ways to evade the farther difference as to the person of the host. As Matthew and Mark speak only of the house of Simon the leper, οἰκία Σίμωνος τοῦ λεπροῦ, some have distinguished the owner of the house, Simon, from the giver of the entertainment, who doubtless was Lazarus, and have supposed that hence, in both cases without error, the fourth Evangelist mentions the latter, the two first synoptists the former. [1144] But who would distinguish an entertainment by the name of the householder, if he were not in any way the giver of the entertainment? Again, since John does not expressly call Lazarus the host, but merely one of the συνανακειμένων (those sitting at the table), and since the inference that he was the host is drawn solely from the circumstance that his sister Martha served, διηκόνει; others have regarded Simon as the husband of Martha, either separated on account of his leprosy, or already deceased, and have supposed that Lazarus then resided with his widowed sister: [1145] an hypothesis which it is more easy to reconcile with the narratives than the former, but which is unsupported by any certain information.

We come next to the divergency relative to the mode of anointing; according to the two first Evangelists, the ointment was poured on the head of Jesus; according to the fourth, on his feet. The old, trivial mode of harmonizing the two statements, by supposing that both the head and the feet were anointed, has recently been expanded into the conjecture that Mary indeed intended only to anoint the feet of Jesus (John), but as she accidentally broke the vessel (συντρίψασα, Mark), the ointment flowed over his head also (Matt.). [1146] This attempt at reconciliation falls into the comic, for as we cannot imagine how a woman who was preparing to anoint the feet of Jesus could bring the vessel of ointment over his head, we must suppose that the ointment spirted upwards like an effervescing draught. So that here also the contradiction remains, and not only between Matthew and John, where it is admitted even by Schneckenburger, but also between the latter Evangelist and Mark.

The two divergencies relative to the person of the woman who anoints Jesus, and to the party who blames her, were thought to be the most readily explained. That what John ascribes to Judas singly, Matthew and Mark refer to all the disciples or spectators, was believed to be simply accounted for by the supposition, that while the rest manifested their disapprobation by gestures only, Judas vented his in words. [1147] We grant that the word ἔλεγον (they said), preceded as it is in Mark by the words ἀγανακτοῦντες πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς (having indignation within themselves), and followed, as in Matthew, by the words γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς (but Jesus knowing), does not necessarily imply that all the disciples gave audible expression to their feelings; as, however, the two first Evangelists immediately after this meal narrate the betrayal by Judas, they would certainly have named the traitor on the above occasion, had he, to their knowledge, made himself conspicuous in connection with the covetous blame which the woman’s liberality drew forth. That John particularizes the woman, whose name is not given by the synoptists, as Mary of Bethany, is, in the ordinary view, only an example how the fourth Evangelist supplies the omissions of his predecessors. [1148] But as the two first synoptists attach so much importance to the deed of the woman, that they make Jesus predict the perpetuation of her memory on account of it—a particular which John has not—they would assuredly have also given her name had they known it; so that in any case we may conclude thus much: they knew not who the woman was, still less did they conceive her to be Mary of Bethany.

Thus if the identity only of the last Evangelist’s narrative with that of the two first be acknowledged, it must be confessed that we have, on the one side or the other, an account which is inaccurate, and disfigured by tradition. It is, however, not only between these, but also between Luke and his fellow Evangelists collectively, that they who suppose only one incident to be the foundation of their narratives, seek to remove as far as possible the appearance of contradiction. Schleiermacher, whose highest authority is John, but who will on no account renounce Luke, comes in this instance, when the two so widely diverge, into a peculiar dilemma, from which he must have thought that he could extricate himself with singular dexterity, since he has not evaded it, as he does others of a similar kind, by the supposition of two fundamental occurrences. It is true that he finds himself constrained to concede, in favour of John, that Luke’s informant could not in this case have been an eyewitness; whence minor divergencies, as for instance those relative to the locality, are to be explained. On the other hand, the apparently important differences that, according to Luke, the woman is a sinner, according to John, Mary of Bethany; that according to the former, the host, according to the latter, the disciples, make objections; and that the reply of Jesus is in the respective narrations totally different—these, in Schleiermacher’s opinion, have their foundation in the fact that the occurrence may be regarded from two points of view. The one aspect of the occurrence is the murmuring of the disciples, and this is given by Matthew; the other, namely, the relations of Jesus with the pharisaic host, is exhibited by Luke; and John confirms both representations. The most decided impediment to the reconciliation of Luke with the other evangelists, his designation of the woman as a sinner, ἁμαρτωλὸς, Schleiermacher invalidates, by calling it a false inference of the narrator from the address of Jesus to Mary, Thy sins are forgiven thee, ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι. This Jesus might say to Mary in allusion to some error, unknown to us, but such as the purest are liable to, without compromising her reputation with the spectators, who were well acquainted with her character; and it was only the narrator who erroneously concluded from the above words of Jesus, and from his further discourse, that the woman concerned was a sinner in the ordinary sense of the word, whence he has incorrectly amplified the thoughts of the host, v. 39. [1149] It is not, however, simply of sins, ἁμαρτίαι, but of many sins, πολλαῖ ἁμαρτίαι, that Jesus speaks in relation to the woman; and if this also be an addition of the narrator, to be rejected as such because it is inconsistent with the character of Mary of Bethany, then has the entire speech of Jesus from v. 40–48, which turns on the opposition between forgiving and loving little and much, been falsified or misrepresented by the Evangelist: and on the side of Luke especially, it is in vain to attempt to harmonize the discordant narratives.

If, then, the four narratives can be reconciled only by the supposition that several of them have undergone important traditional modifications: the question is, which of them is the nearest to the original fact? That modern critics should unanimously decide in favour of John, cannot surprise us after our previous observations; and as little can the nature of the reasoning by which their judgment is supported. The narrative of John, say they (reasoning in a circle), being that of an eye-witness, must be at once supposed the true one, [1150] and this conclusion is sometimes rested for greater security on the false premiss, that the more circumstantial and dramatic narrator is the more accurate reporter—the eye-witness. [1151] The breaking of the box of ointment, in Mark, although a dramatic particular, is readily rejected as a mere embellishment; but does not John’s statement of the quantity of spikenard as a pound, border on exaggeration? and ought not the extravagance which Olshausen, in relation to this disproportionate consumption of ointment, attributes to Mary’s love, to be rather referred to the Evangelist’s imagination, which would then also have the entire credit of the circumstance, that the house was filled with the odour of the ointment? It is worthy of notice, that the estimate of the value of the perfume at 300 denarii, is given by John and Mark alone; as also at the miraculous feeding of the multitude, it is these two Evangelists who rate the necessary food at 200 denarii. If Mark only had this close estimate, how quickly would it be pronounced, at least by Schleiermacher, a gratuitous addition of the narrator! What then is it that, in the actual state of the case, prevents the utterance of this opinion, even as a conjecture, but the prejudice in favour of the fourth gospel? Even the anointing of the head, which is attested by two of the synoptists, is, because John mentions the feet instead of the head, rejected as unusual, and incompatible with the position of Jesus at a meal: [1152] whereas the anointing of the feet with precious oil was far less usual; and this the most recent commentator on the fourth gospel admits. [1153]

But peculiar gratitude is rendered to the eye-witness John, because he has rescued from oblivion the names, both of the anointing woman, and of the censorious disciple. [1154] It has been supposed that the synoptists did in fact know the name of the woman, but withheld it from the apprehension that danger might possibly accrue to the family of Lazarus, while John, writing later, was under no such restraint; [1155] but this expedient rests on mere assumptions. Our former conclusion therefore subsists, namely, that the earlier Evangelists knew nothing of the name of the woman; and the question arises, how was this possible? Jesus having expressly promised immortal renown to the deed of the woman, the tendency must arise to perpetuate her name also, and if this were identical with the known and oft-repeated name of Mary of Bethany, it is not easy to understand how the association of the deed and the name could be lost in tradition, and the woman who anointed Jesus become nameless. It is perhaps still more incomprehensible, supposing the covetous blame cast upon the woman to have been really uttered by him who proved the betrayer, that this should be forgotten in tradition, and the expression of blame attributed to the disciples generally. When a fact is narrated of a person otherwise unknown, or even when the person being known, the fact does not obviously accord with his general character, it is natural that the name should be lost in tradition; but when the narrated word or work of a person agrees so entirely with his known character, as does the covetous and hypocritical blame in question with the character of the traitor, it is difficult to suppose that the legend would sever it from his name. Moreover, the history in which this blame occurs, verges so nearly on the moment of the betrayal (especially according to the position given to it by the two first Evangelists), that had the blame really proceeded from Judas, the two facts would have been almost inevitably associated. Nay, even if that expression of latent cupidity had not really belonged to Judas, there must have been a temptation eventually to ascribe it to him, as a help to the delineation of his character, and to the explanation of his subsequent treachery. Thus the case is reversed, and the question is whether, instead of praising John that he has preserved to us this precise information, we ought not rather to give our approbation to the synoptists, that they have abstained from so natural but unhistorical a combination. We can arrive at no other conclusion with respect to the designation of the woman who anoints Jesus as Mary of Bethany. On the one hand, it is inconceivable that the deed, if originally hers, should be separated from her celebrated name; on the other, the legend, in the course of its development, might naturally come to attribute to one whose spiritual relations with Jesus had, according to the third and fourth gospels, early obtained great celebrity in the primitive church, an act of devoted love towards him, which originally belonged to another and less known person.

But from another side also we find ourselves induced to regard the narratives of Matthew and Mark, who give no name to the woman, rather than that of John, who distinguishes her as Mary of Bethany, as the parent stem of the group of anecdotes before us. Our position of the identity of all the four narratives must, to be tenable, enable us also to explain how Luke’s representation of the facts could arise. Now, supposing the narrative of John to be the nearest to the truth, it is not a little surprising that in the legend, the anointing woman should doubly descend from the highly honoured Mary, sister of Lazarus, to an unknown, nameless individual, and thence even to a notorious sinner; it appears far more natural to give the intermediate position to the indifferent statement of the synoptists, out of whose equivocal nameless woman might equally be made, either in an ascending scale, a Mary; or, in a descending one, a sinner.

The possibility of the first transformation has been already shown: it must next be asked, where could be an inducement, without historical grounds, gradually to invest the anointing woman with the character of a sinner? In the narrative itself our only clue is a feature which the two first synoptists have not, but which John has in common with Luke; namely, that the woman anointed the feet of Jesus. To the fourth Evangelist, this tribute of feeling appeared in accordance with the sensitive, devoted nature of Mary, whom he elsewhere also (xi. 32), represents as falling at the feet of Jesus; but by another it might be taken, as by Luke, for the gesture of contrition; an idea which might favour the conception of the woman as a sinner—might favour, we say, not cause: for a cause, we must search elsewhere.

§ 90.

THE NARRATIVES OF THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY, AND OF MARY AND MARTHA.

In the Gospel of John (viii. 1–11), the Pharisees and scribes bring a woman taken in adultery to Jesus, that they may obtain his opinion as to the procedure to be observed against her; whereupon Jesus, by appealing to the consciences of the accusers, liberates the woman, and dismisses her with an admonition. The genuineness of this passage has been strongly contested, nay, its spuriousness might be regarded as demonstrated, were it not that even the most thorough investigations on the subject [1156] indirectly betray a design, which Paulus openly avows, of warding off the dangerous surmises as to the origin of the fourth gospel, which are occasioned by the supposition that this passage, encumbered as it is with improbabilities, is a genuine portion of that gospel. For in the first place, the scribes say to Jesus: Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: now in no part of the Pentateuch is this punishment prescribed for adultery, but simply death, the mode of inflicting it being left undetermined (Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22); nor was stoning for adultery a latter institution of the Talmud, for according to the canon: omne mortis supplicium, in scripturâ absolute positum esse strangulationem, [1157] the punishment appointed for this offence in the Talmud is strangulation. [1158] Further, it is difficult to discover what there was to ensnare Jesus in the question proposed to him; [1159] the scribes quoted to him the commandment of the law, as if they would warn him, rather than tempt him, for they could not expect that he would decide otherwise than agreeably to the law. Again, the decision of Jesus is open to the stricture, that if only he who is conscious of perfect purity were authorized to judge and punish, all social order would be at an end. The circumstance of Jesus writing on the ground has a legendary and mystical air, for even if it be not correctly explained by the gloss of Jerome: eorum videlicet, qui accusabant, et omnium mortalium peccata, it yet seems to imply something more mysterious than a mere manifestation of contempt for the accusers. Lastly, it is scarcely conceivable that every one of those men who dragged the woman before Jesus, zealous for the law, and adverse to his cause as they are supposed to be, should have had so tender a conscience, as on the appeal of Jesus to retire without prosecuting their design, and leave the woman behind them uninjured; this rather appears to belong merely to the legendary or poetical embellishment of the scene. Yet however improbable it may appear, from these observations, that the occurrence happened precisely as it is here narrated, this, as Bretschneider justly maintains, [1160] proves nothing against the genuineness of the passage, since it is arguing in a circle to assume the apostolic composition of the fourth gospel, and the consequent impossibility that a narrative containing contradictions should form a portion of it, prior to an examination of its several parts. Nevertheless, on the other hand, the absence of the passage in the oldest authorities is so suspicious, that a decision on the subject cannot be hazarded.

In any case, the narrative of an interview between Jesus and a woman of the above character must be very ancient, since, according to Eusebius, it was found in the Gospel of the Hebrews, and in the writings of Papias. [1161] It was long thought that the woman mentioned in the Hebrew gospel and by Papias was identical with the adulteress in John; but against this it has been justly observed, that one who had the reproach of many sins, must be distinct from her who was detected in the one act of adultery. [1162] I wonder, however, that no one has, to my knowledge, thought, in connexion with the passage of Eusebius, of the woman in Luke of whom Jesus says that her many sins, ἁμαρτίαι πολλαὶ, are forgiven. It is true that the word διαβληθείσης does not fully agree with this idea, for Luke does not speak of actual expressions of the Pharisee in disparagement of the woman, but merely of the unfavourable thoughts which he had concerning her; and in this respect the passage in Eusebius would agree better with the narrative of John, which has an express denunciation, a διαβάλλειν.

Thus we are led on external grounds, by the doubt whether an ancient notice refer to the one or the other of the two narratives, to a perception of their affinity, [1163] which is besides evident from internal reasons. In both we have a woman, a sinner, before Jesus; in both, this woman is regarded with an evil eye by Pharisaic sanctimoniousness, but is taken into protection by Jesus, and dismissed with a friendly πορεύου, go. These were precisely the features, the origin of which we could not understand in the narrative of Luke, viewed as a mere variation of the history of the anointing given by the other Evangelists. Now, what is more natural than to suppose that they were transferred into Luke’s history of the anointing, from that of the forgiven sinner? If the Christian legend possessed, on the one side, a woman who had anointed Jesus, who was on this account reproached, but was defended by Jesus; and on the other side a woman who was accused before him of many sins, but whom he pardoned; how easily, aided by the idea of an anointing of the feet of Jesus, which bears the interpretation of an act of penitence, might the two histories flow together—the anointing woman become also a sinner, and the sinner also an anointer? Then, that the scene of the pardon was an entertainment, was a feature also drawn from the history of the anointing: the entertainer must be a Pharisee, because the accusation of the woman ought to proceed from a Pharisaic party, and because, as we have seen, Luke has a predilection for Pharisaic entertainments. Lastly, the discourse of Jesus may have been borrowed, partly from the original narrative of the woman who was a sinner, partly from analogous occasions. If these conjectures be correct, the narratives are preserved unmixed, on the one hand, by the two first Evangelists; on the other, by the fourth, or whoever was the author of the passage on the adulteress; for if the latter contains much that is legendary, it is at least free from any admixture of the history of the anointing.

Having thus accounted for one modification of the narrative concerning the anointing woman, namely, her degradation into a sinner, by the influence of another and somewhat similar anecdote, which was current in the first age of Christianity, we may proceed to consider, experimentally, whether a like external influence may not have helped to produce the opposite modification of the unknown into Mary of Bethany: a modification which, for the rest, we have already seen to be easy of explanation. Such an influence could only proceed from the sole notice of Mary (with the exception of her appearance at the resurrection of Lazarus) which has been preserved to us, and which is rendered memorable by the declaration of Jesus, One thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen, etc. (Luke x. 38 ff.). We have, in fact, here as well as there, Martha occupied in serving (John xii. 2, καὶ ἡ Μάρθα διηκόνει; Luke x. 40, ἡ δὲ Μάρθα περιεσπᾶτο περὶ πολλὴν διακονίαν); here, Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, there, anointing his feet; here, blamed by her sister, there by Judas, for her useless conduct, and in both cases, defended by Jesus. It is surely unavoidable to say, if once the narrative of the anointing of Jesus by a woman were current together with that of Mary and Martha, it was very natural, from the numerous points of resemblance between them, that they should be blended in the legend, or by some individual, into one story; that the unknown woman who anointed the feet of Jesus, who was blamed by the spectators, and vindicated by Jesus, should be changed into Mary, whom tradition had depicted in a similar situation; the task of serving at the meal with which the anointing was connected attributed to Mary’s sister, Martha; and finally, her brother Lazarus made a partaker of the meal:—so that here the narrative of Luke on the one side, and that of the two synoptists on the other, appear to be pure anecdotes, that of John a mixed one.

Further, in Luke’s narrative of the visit of Jesus to the two sisters, there is no mention of Lazarus, with whom, however, according to John (xi. and xii.), Mary and Martha appear to have dwelt; nay, Luke speaks precisely as if the presence or existence of this brother, whom indeed neither he nor either of the other synoptists anywhere notices, were entirely unknown to him. For had he known anything of Lazarus, or had he thought of him as present, he could not have said: A certain woman, named Martha, received him into her house; he must at least have named her brother also, especially as, according to John, the latter was an intimate friend of Jesus. This silence is remarkable, and commentators have not succeeded in finding a better explanation of it than that given in the Natural History of the Prophet of Nazareth, where the shortly subsequent death of Lazarus is made available for the supposition that he was, about the time of that visit of Jesus, on a journey for the benefit of his health. [1164] Not less striking is another point relative to the locality of this scene. According to John, Mary and Martha dwelt in Bethany, a small town in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem; whereas Luke, when speaking of the visit of Jesus to these sisters, only mentions a certain town, κώμην τινὰ, which is thought, however, to be easily reconciled with the statement of John, by the observation, that Luke assigns the visit to the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, and to one travelling thither out of Galilee, Bethany would lie in the way. But it would lie quite at the end of this way, so that the visit of Jesus must fall at the close of his journey, whereas Luke places it soon after the departure out of Galilee, and separates it from the entrance into Jerusalem by a multitude of incidents filling eight entire chapters. Thus much then is clear: the author or editor of the third gospel was ignorant that that visit was paid in Bethany, or that Mary and Martha dwelt there, and it is only that Evangelist who represents Mary as the anointing woman, who also names Bethany as the home of Mary: the same place where, according to the two first synoptists, the anointing occurred. If Mary were once made identical with the anointing woman, and if the anointing were known to have happened in Bethany, it would naturally follow that this town would be represented as Mary’s home. Hence it is probable that the anointing woman owes her name to the current narrative of the visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary, and that Mary owes her home to the narrative of the meal at Bethany.

We should thus have a group of five histories, among which the narrative given by the two first synoptists of the anointing of Jesus by a woman, would form the centre, that in John of the adulteress, and that in Luke of Mary and Martha, the extremes, while the anointing by the sinner in Luke, and that by Mary in John, would fill the intermediate places. It is true that all the five narratives might with some plausibility be regarded as varied editions of one historical incident; but from the essential dissimilarity between the three to which I have assigned the middle and extreme places, I am rather of opinion that these are each founded on a special incident, but that the two intermediate narratives are secondary formations which owe their existence to the intermixture of the primary ones by tradition.