It were, however, unjust to disparage Martha. She was of a practical turn, but she was verj- far from stupid. She was mistress of the house, and she was as a mother to her unworldly sister. There was evidently a close sj-nipathy between them. During the dark davs which succeeded their brother's death, thej- had been each other's com- forters and had unbo-^omed their grief one to the other. Their constant plaint had been, 'Had the Lord been liere, our brother had not died ' ; and this was the cry of each in turn wlien they met Jesus (Jn lpi-3-). Martha was calm and self- possessed, but a great tenderness was concealed beneath lier unemotional exterior. She wept less than Mary, but she mourned as deeply. Nor was she lacking in love and reverence for Jesus. Her impatience of Mary's inactivity amid the bustle of preparing the meal was due less to resentment at being left alone to serve, than to anxiety that nothing should be Avanting for the comfort of the dear Master. And she believed in His power to
* See Lightfoot on Jn 11^.
t Euth. Zig. on Lk KH'- Jio fiipfSi; troKiTiia; irctinTxi, r, u.it ^ pa-XTtxr, r, hi B £aiipr,Tixr.,
help even when Lazarus had been dead four days (Jn 11--). Site lacked some qualities which Mary possessed, but she had others of her own, and Jesus appreciated the excellence o*^ her character. He loved Martha no less than her sister and Lazarus
(V.5).
It is no slight attestation of the historicity of the Lukan and Johannine narratives of the family of Bethany that they faith- fully accord in their delineations" of the two" sisters. On the pages of St. John each sustains the character which she exhibits in the little scene so exquisitely depicted by St. Luke. Here are no imaginary pictures, but portraitures of real personages.
St. John says that the village where JIartha and her sister dwelt was Bethany ; but St. Luke does not name it, and he has been charged wtli placing the incident of the meal in Martha's house in Galilee. This idea, however, arises from a misconcep- tion of his literary method. Like the other Synoptists, St. Luke was not an original author but an editor" of the Evangelic Tradition, and his aim was not chronological accuracy but the exhibition of Jesus. He sifted the ample material at his dis- posal, and arranged his selections topically rather than historic- ally. Thus at 9-49-30, recounting what befell in Galilee, he records the Lord's rebuke of His disciples' mistaken zeal ; then, finding another incident which teaches a like lesson (vv. 51-56), he inserts it in this connexion, though it belongs to the last journey to Jerusalem (cf. v.5i). Having begun this section of the Tradition, he continues it, giving various other incidents of the journey, down to the close of ch. 12. Then he returns to what befell in Galilee, resuming the narrative of the journey to Jerusalem at 1711. D.AVID SMITH.
MARY. — 1. Mary the mother of James the Little and Joses, one of the women who followed Jesus from Galilee, stood beside the cross, watched the burial, and visited tlie sejmlchre on tlie Resurrec- tion morning (Mt 2755-56 = Mk 15^"--", Mt 27«i = Mk 15^', Mk 161 = Mt 28i = Lk 24'^'). From Jn 19--' it appears that she was wife to Clopas. This name is distinct from Cleopas (Lk 24'*), and is perhaps identical with Alpha'us, both representing •s'^ij. Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Gal. p. 256. WH write AX^alos (see XT, vol. ii. § 408). If this identifica- tion be allowed, then (1) James tlie Little was prob- ably one of the Twelve (Mt 10^ = Mk 3i*=Lk 16^5) ; (2) he was perhaps brother to Levi (Matthew), the son of Alphteus. The latter inference is favoured by (a) the v. I. 'Iolkw^ov for Aeveiv in ]Mk 2'* ; (b) the tradition that James, like ^latthew, had been a tax-gatherer (Chrysost. in Matth. xxxiii. : Svo TeXwvai, ilar^aios KaV Iclkoo^os ; Euth. Zig. : 'Mardaioi de Kai laKw^os 6 toO 'A\(paiov, reXtDyat). See artt. ALPH.tus and Clopas.
Hegesippus (in Eus. HE iii. 11. 32, iv. 22) mentions a Clopas who was brother to Joseph, our Lord's foster-father ; but there is no evidence that he was identical with this Clopas. Jerome, in support of his theory of ' the Brethren of Jesus,' construes Mxpixu r, To-j K/.auTa in jn 19'2-5 as in opposition to r, aJsXcr rr; u.r.'Tfo; aCreZ, thus reducing the number of the women by the Cross to three, and making 'Mary the [wife] of Clopas' the Virgin's sister. See J B. Lightfoot, Gal. p. 2,i5ff. But (1) it is improbable that two sisters bore the same name, and (2) 'the sister of his mother ' was apparently Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee (cf. Mk 15-»" = Mt 275ti).
2. Mary Magdalene.— She is first mentioned (Lk 8-) as one of a company of women who attended Jesus on His second mission through Galilee in the course of the .second j-ear of His ministry. She is distinguished by two significant epithets : (1) 'the Magxlalene," i.e. the woman of Magdala (Mejdel), a town on the Lake of (ialilee, .some 3 miles from (Tapernaum, at the southern end of the Plain of Gennesaret. The modern Mejdel is a miserable village, but the ancient Magdala was a wealthy place, one of three cities, according to the Talmud, whose tribute had to be conveyed in waggons to Jerusalem (cf. Lightfoot on Jn 12^). It had, however, an evil reputation, and was de- stroyed, according to the same autlioritj-, for harlotry, so that 'Mary the Magdalene' might be equivalent to 'Mary the harlot '(cf. 'Corinthian Lais'). It is only fair, hoMever, to add that many regard this as verj- juecarious.