Yet, even so, the impression left upon us by St. Matt. xi. 20-30 (which follows on the account of the Baptist's embassy) is, that Jesus was on a journey, and it may well be that those precious words of encouragement and invitation, spoken to the burdened and wearily labouring, [2692] formed part, perhaps the substance, of His preaching on that journey. Truly these were good tidings,' and not only to those borne down by weight of conscious sinfulness or deep sorrow, who wearily toiled towards the light of far-off peace, or those dreamt-of heights where some comprehensive view might be gained of life with its labours and pangs. Good news,' also, to them who would fain have learned' according to their capacity, but whose teachers had weighted the yoke of the Kingdom' [2693] to a heavy burden, and made the Will of God to them labour, weary and unaccomplishable. But, whether or not spoken at that special time, we cannot fail to recognise their special suitableness to the forgiven sinner' in the Pharisee's house, [2694] and their inward, even if not outward, connection with her history.
Another point requires notice. It is how, in the unfolding of His Mission to Man, the Christ progressively placed Himself in antagonism to the Jewish religious thought of His time, from out of which He had historically sprung. In this part of His earthly course the antagonism appeared, indeed, so to speak, in a positive rather than negative form, that is, rather in what He affirmed than in what He combated, because the opposition to Him was not yet fully developed; whereas in the second part of His course it was, for a similar reason, rather negative than positive. From the first this antagonism was there in what He taught and did; and it appeared with increasing distinctness in proportion as He taught. We find it in the whole spirit and bearing of what he did and said - in the house at Capernaum, in the Synagogues, with the Gentile Centurion, at the gate of Nain, and especially here, in the history of the much forgiven woman who had much sinned. A Jewish Rabbi could not have so acted and spoken; he would not even have understood Jesus; nay, a Rabbi, however gentle and pitiful, would in word and deed have taken precisely the opposite direction from that of the Christ.
As St. Gregory expresses it, this is perhaps a history more fit to be wept over than commented upon. For comments seem so often to interpose between the simple force of a narrative and our hearts, and few events in the Gospel-history have been so blunted and turned aside as this history, through verbal controversies and dogmatic wrangling.
The first impression on our minds is, that the history itself is but a fragment. We must try to learn from its structure, where and how it was broken off. We understand the infinite delicacy that left her unnamed, the record of whose much forgiveness' and great love had to be joined to that of her much sin. And we mark, in contrast, the coarse clumsiness which, without any reason for the assertion, to meet the cravings of morbid curiosity, or for saint-worship, has associated her history with the name of Mary Magdalene. [2695] Another, and perhaps even more painful, mistake is the attempt of certain critics to identify this history with the much later anointing of Christ at Bethany, [2696] and to determine which of the two is the simpler, and which the more ornate - which the truer of the accounts, and whence, or why each case there was a Simon' - perhaps the commonest of Jewish names; a woman who anointed; and that Christ, and those who were present, spoke and acted in accordance with other passages in the Gospel-history: [2697] that is, true to their respective histories. But, such twofold anointing - the first, at the beginning of His works of mercy, of the Feet by a forgiven, loving sinner on whom the Sun had just risen; the second, of His Head, by a loving disciple, when the full-orbed Sun was setting in blood, at the close of His Ministry - is, as in the twofold purgation of the Temple at the beginning and close of His Work, only like the completing of the circle of His Life.