§ See Hengstenberg, l.c. p. 2.
| See his sermon on ‘Our Risen Lord’s Love for Penitenta,’ in which he refers to his note at the end of Sermons preached at St. Saviour’s proving the identity of the sister of Martha, the penitent who anointed the Lord’s feet, and St. Mary Magdalene.
4] Dr. E. A. Abbott suggests that ἢ may have been lost after αὐτῇ, and that the words are a reproach to Judas, ‘or is it your wish that she should keep it for my embalming?’ ie. ‘de you grudge it the living, that she may bestow it on the dead?’
MARY
which she had set her heart. . . . The utter
stupor of grief is shown in her want of power to recognize at first either the voice or the form of the Lord. . . . At last her own name uttered by that voice, as she had heard it uttered, it may be, in the hour of her deepest misery, recalls her to consciousness ; and then follows the ΕΤΟΥΣ recog. nition, and the rush forward to cling to His feet.’ * The title Rabboni, however, by which she ad- dresses the risen Saviour, falls very far short of the address of Thomas, and shows that she had not yet realized the change which had come over her relation to Him, whom she had known as her earthly master and teacher. And therefore the first lesson which she receives is a warning against supposing that the familiarities of earth are any longer possible. A higher and closer communion will be open to her when He has ascended to the Father, but it will be that of spirit with spirit. She must cease to clasp His feet, must rise and carry to the disciples His message, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’
This is all that the Bible tells us of the Mag- dalene. Before going on to inquire what has been built up on this foundation by the later legends, it may be well to consider whether the facts as
iven above lend any probability to the medieval Belief that she was the same as the sinful woman or the sister of Lazarus. It may be granted that something of the same type of character is visible in them all. All show an impassioned devotion, a generosity of feeling, which lifts them far out of the common groove. But may it not be said that this is partly a national trait, Jewish history abounding in high deeds of female heroism, and is partly. due to the overpowering spiritual influences of the time? Anyhow, the similarity was sufficient to suggest to the in- terested hearer or reader of the three stories, whose imagination was already at work to fill in the picture from the slight outline given in each case, that this result might be most easily obtained by combining them into one. She who had been possessed by seven demons and came from Magdala must have been a sinner: she brought spices to the tomb, she clasped the Lord’s feet, she was the most faithful and loving of all the women that followed Him from Galilee: must it not have been she who anointed His feet during His life, and whose faith and love had been specially commended by Him? And the same would apply to Mary of Bethany. She, too, ministered to Jesus of her substance, she fell at His feet, she anointed Him beforehand for His burial, she, too, was loving and beloved — she cannot have deserted her Lord in His last struggle, she cannot have left it to others to pay Him the last token of respect. It is she, and not another, who performed these pious offices under the name of Mary Magdalene. Yet the improbability is even greater on the other side. We have seen this already in the case of the sinful woman, and it is equally impossible that John should either have been ignorant of the identity of Mary of Bethany and the Magdalene, or knowing it should have given no hint of it to the reader. Nor can it be said that the characters are quite the same. The Magdalene could not be selected as a type of contemplation like the sister of Martha; and we can hardly believe that the latter, who had so lately witnessed the triumph over death in the raising of her brother, could have been so slow to believe in the rising again of Him whom she knew to be the Resurrection and the Life.
It may seem strange that while the general tendency was to combine the three of whom we have spoken into one, others were led to make two
“ΕΗ. Plumptre in Smith's DB.
MARY 288
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different Magdalenes, owing to the difficuity of reconciling the narratives of the crucifixion. Thus Eusebius (ad Marinum, ii. 7) says there may have been two Marys, each belonging to Magdala, one of whom is the subject of Matthew’s narrative, the other of John’s. The first goes to the tomb with the other Mary ; they see the angel sitting on the stone; they receive his message for the disciples, and depart quickly in fear and great joy. As they are on their way Jesus meets them, anc they come and hold Him by the feet, and worship Him. The second goes alone to the sepulchre, stands weeping outside, is forbidden to touch the feet of Jesus when He appears to her. Some identified the former, the rejoicing Magdalene, with the sister of Martha; the latter, the weeping Magdalene, with the sinner.