Prof. W. M. Ramsay ®* favours this third view, but considers that ‘the attempts to harmonize John with Mark and Matthew fail completely. John, who says that “they made him a supper there, and Martha served,” obviously places the meal in Martha’s house: it seems quite absurd to suppose that she would be serving in the house of Simon.’ He thinks Mark fell into error from putting together two separate incidents, one of which was connected with the name Bethany, the other with the name Simon; whom he identifies with a ‘Simon who lived at Bethany and was or had been a leper.’ It does not, however, seem likely that Mark, whose mother was at this time living in Jerusalem, and whose house was a centre of the early disciples, could have been ignorant of the facts connected with the anointing at Bethany. We must there- fore accept the fact that it took place in the house of Simon, just as we accept the fact that Martha had the chief ordering of the feast. The two facts are not necessarily opposed. It may be, as Nicephorus says (HZ i. 27), that Simon was the father of Martha, though living apart from his family. But we need not even suppose any such connexion. John’s description, from its vagueness, ‘they made him a feast,’ rather implies a public entertainment given in His honour by the in- habitants of Bethany, probably in the largest or most convenient house in the village, which might be the property of a leper named Simon.t+
The fourth view is that there were three distinct
anointings by either two or three distinct persons. This view was first propounded by Origen in order to meet the discrepancies between the account
ὭΣ in John and in the first two Gospels. The atter appear to fix the date of the supper two days (Mt 26°, Mk 141), the former six days (Jn 12!), betore the Passover. The latter represent the ointment as poured upon the head, the former speaks of the feet as anointed and then wiped by Mary with her hair. The latter state that the supper was held in the house of Simon the Leper, the former appears to imply that it was in the
* In the work entitled, Was Christ born at Bethlehem? p. 91. + Dr. E. A. Abbott suggests that the appellation Λάζαρος may represent /azzarta’ (yyy), ‘belonging to the leper.’
house of Martha (this difficulty has been already discussed). Hence it has been supposed that ¢ ere were two dillerent anointings in the same week; that on each occasion the same objection was made by the bystanders, and the same answer returned by Jesus. Such a repetition, we may at once say, is impossible; but what are we to make of the discrepancies? Shall we say that they are of no importance, and only such as must be expected in ditlerent reports made several years after the occurrence? We may be quite prepared to allow this; but it appears to be possible to get a little nearer to explaining them, when we observe that the dates given in the different Gospels do not refer directly to the supper. John’s ‘six days before the passover’ is the date on which Jesus came to Bethany, where, as we learn from the other Gospels, He was lodging during the week before the erucifixion.* On the other hand, the two days of Matthew and Mark refer to the close of His discourses in Jerusalem: ‘when he had finished all these words he said to his disciples, Ye know that after two days is the passover.’+ Thus both dates may be literally exact, and yet neither may be the precise date of the supper. As to the other discrepancies, it is possible that the narrative in John, which seems to have been edited by the elders of Ephesus (see 21"), has been to some extent affected by that in Luke. It is remarkable that the feet are thrice referred to (in 11? 12°) as if the writer wished to lay stress on this by seh of correcting a current misapprehension. Such a correction seems strange to us in the present day, to whom the written Gospels are the ultimate authority ; but in the first century the appeal was still to oral tradition, as we may see from the Preface to Luke, and it seems not improbable that the predominant tradition may have laid hold on the anointing of the feet as testifying to a higher degree of humility and reverence than that of the head. If, then, the original narrative of John spoke only in general terms of the anointing of Jesus, we may conceive that the elders might have taken the opportunity to correct what they deemed to be an erroneous report in Mark. Our present feeling would probably be that, where honour is intended by anointing, the head rather than the feet should be anointed. On the other hand, it was natural that the penitent, standing behind the Lord, should wipe away with her hair the tears that fell upon His feet, but less natural that it should be used to wipe away the ointment, which would simply have the eflect of anointing her own hair.
It may be interesting to add a brief sketch of the history of opinion on this question. The treatment of Scripture by early