2. T/ir loitiintinfi in the house of Simon the Leper I. Ill li" " Mk 143-»=Mt 26''-'2).— On His way ^p In til.' Ill I 'ussover, Jesus stopped at the village ul l;. ili.iiiy, where, a few weeks before. He had lai.-ud L:i/,;inis ; and, in defiance of the Sanhedrin's edict (Jn IF"), He was received with grateful rever- ence. One of the principal men of the village, named Simon, made a banquet in His honour. He had been a leper, and, if he had been healed by Jesus, it was fitting that his house should be
* According to the v.l. i ^pt^irr,! in v.so, Simon thought Jesus might be the prophet who should arise and herald the Messiah. Cf. Jnl2'-25 6"7«i.
\ See Lightfoot on Jn 123.
J Orig. in Uatth. Comm. Ser. § 77 : ' Non fuit ansa ad caput Christi venire sed lacrymis pedes ejus lavit, quasi vix etiani ipsis pedibus ejus digna.'
the scene of the banquet.* But it was a public tribute, and others bore a part in it. Lazarus was present, and the good housewife Martha managed the entertainment. And what part did Mary take ? She entered the room with her hair loose and an alabaster vase of precious ointment in her hand, and, approaching the Lord's couch, poured the ointment over His feet and wiped them with her hair. See Maev.
There are several points of difference between John's and Matthew-Mark's accounts of the anointing : (1) Matthew and Mark say that it happened in the house of Simon the Leper,
) put the incident two day8(Mt 26- = Mk 141), whereas
Lord's feet but on His head, and say nothing of her wiping His feet with her hair. On the ground of these discrepancies it was generally maintained by the Fathers that there \
who apparently identified the anointing in the house of Simon the Leper (Mt.-Mk.) with that in the house of Simon the Pharisee ILk.). Origen (in Matth. Comm. Ser. § 77) held that therewere in all three anointings : (a) in the house of Simon the Leper (Mt.-.Mk.); (6) in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk.); (c)at Bethany by Mary (Jn.) ; mentioning also the opinion that there were four, Matthew and Mark recording distinct incidents.
Nowadays the tendency is rather to ignore the differences and identify all the narratives, reducing them to one. The Matthew-Mark narrative is regarded as authentic, the Lukan and Johannine narratives being adaptations thereof (Strauss, Ewald, Keim). Even in Origen s day a similar view prevailed : ' multi quidem existimant de una eademque muliere quatuor Evangelistas exposuisse.'
It hardly admits of reasonable doubt that there were two anointings, one in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and the other by Mary in the house of Simon the Leper at Bethany.t The discrepancies in the triple account of the latter are not inexplicable. (1) Matthew-Mark's omission of the names of
and
ardin
handle the material
topically rather than chronologically
story into juxtaposif
revenge.
gelic tradition, Jlv. They have orougnt t betrayal (Mt 2614-M = 1
1 the traitor's action.
manner of the anointing is an instance of John's habit of tacitly correcting his predecessors. His account is historical, and it would stand so in the Apostolic tradition ; but the Synoptic editors or, more probably, the catechiscrs in their oral repetition of the tradition, wondering, since they did not know who the woman was, at the strangeness of her action, substituted ' head ' for ' feet,* and then omitted the unintelligible circumstance of her wiping His feet with her hair. See JIary.
LiTER-iTURE.— Andrews, Life of our Lord, pp. say. Was Christ Born at Bethlehem! pp. 91-92 ; articles 'Anointing' and ' .Mary ' ; Expositor, Isl
Hastings' DB, I scr. vi. [1877]
-' 7 of the
Hui
ii-ber
David S.mith.
II. Besides the two special incidents already described, some other references to 'anointing' may be briefly dealt with.
1. In Mt 6" Jesus tells His disciples that when they fast they are to anoint {a\d(f>ui) the head as usual. The allusion is to that daily use of oil, as an application soothing and refreshing to the skin, which is common in hot countries, and was regularly practised by the Jews. The meaning of Jesus is that His disciples, when they feel it right to fast, should undertake the observance as in the sight of God, and not ostentatiously parade their performance of it before the eyes of men. They should wash and anoint themselves as usual, and not draw attention by any peculiarities of outward appearance to a matter lying between themselves and their heavenly Father.
* I., I ml. WIS nnl Ihf host, but One of the guests (Jn 122).
Thi- II ■ ■: Mini !ii^ hnuse was the scene of the banquet has
o.ra--; I ,,.. :,ii,i- ;ibout Simon. Theophylact mentions
thi- 1 I III. ii In u,^ Lazarus' father, lately deceased (Ewald).
ANSWERS
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
2. In Mk 6'2 we read of the Twelve on their evangelistic mission, tliat they ' anointed {d\el(poj) with oil many that were sick, and healed them.' The employment of oil as a medicinal agent was familiar in tlie time of Christ (cf. Lk lO^'', Ja 5"), and is doubtless referro.l to here; thoiish the
natural virtues of the oil \mic.m' piiiiii'il in Ihis
case by miraculous powi'i: ni Ik ,iliii;j. In -In i^'' " Jesus, before working ihr niiuilr, u|iiin Ihr liliiid man, anoints (e7r<xp(w) hi:, t-ycs witli clay wliich lie had made by spitting on the ground. Here, also, the anointing may have had a medicinal aspect (see Meyer and Expositor's Gr. Test, in loc. on the ancient belief that both spittle and clay were beneficial to the eyes) ; though, of course, it is the miraculous agency of Jesus that is paramount in the narrative. In Rev 3'* Jesus says to the Church of the Laodiceans, ' . . . and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou niayest see,' where the eft'ect of tlie application of collyrium is used as a figure of the healing and enlightenment which are found in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.