Note 57 — Chapter IV · DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

There is a third divergency relative to this point between Matthew and the rest of the Evangelists, in so far as the former mentions no embalming either before or after the sabbath. This divergency, as it consists merely in the silence of one narrator, has been hitherto little regarded, and even the Fragmentist admits that the wrapping of the body in a clean linen cloth, mentioned by Matthew, involves also the Jewish method of embalming. But in this instance there might easily be drawn an argument ex silentio. When we read in the narrative of the anointing at Bethany the declaration of Jesus, that the woman by this deed had anointed his body for burial (Matt. xxvi. 12 parall.): this has indeed its significance in all the narratives, but a peculiarly striking one in Matthew, according to whose subsequent narrative no anointing took place at the burial of Jesus,57 and this fact appears to be the only sufficient explanation of the special importance which the Evangelical tradition attached to the action of the woman. If he who was revered as the Messiah did not, under the pressure of unfavourable circumstances, receive at his burial the due honour of embalmment: then must the thoughts of his adherents revert with peculiar complacency to an event in the latter part of his life, in which a humble-minded female votary, as if foreboding that this honour would be denied to him when dead, rendered it to him while yet living. Viewed in this light the different representation of the anointing in the other Evangelists would have the appearance of a gradual development of the legend. In Mark and Luke it still remains, as in Matthew, that the corpse of Jesus is not really embalmed: but, said the legend, already outstepping the narrative of the first gospel, the embalming was designed for him,—this intention was the motive for the resort of the women to his grave on the morning after the sabbath, and its execution was only prevented by the resurrection. In the fourth gospel, on the other hand, this anointing, from being first performed on him by anticipation while he was yet living, and then intended for him when dead, resolved itself into an actual embalming of his body after death: in conjunction with which, however, after the manner of legendary formations, the reference of the earlier anointing to the burial of Jesus was left standing.