Note 62 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

Thus if the identity only of the last Evangelist’s narrative with that of the two first be acknowledged, it must be confessed that we have, on the one side or the other, an account which is inaccurate, and disfigured by tradition. It is, however, not only between these, but also between Luke and his fellow Evangelists collectively, that they who suppose only one incident to be the foundation of their narratives, seek to remove as far as possible the appearance of contradiction. Schleiermacher, whose highest authority is John, but who will on no account renounce Luke, comes in this instance, when the two so widely diverge, into a peculiar dilemma, from which he must have thought that he could extricate himself with singular dexterity, since he has not evaded it, as he does others of a similar kind, by the supposition of two fundamental occurrences. It is true that he finds himself constrained to concede, in favour of John, that Luke’s informant could not in this case have been an eyewitness; whence minor divergencies, as for instance those relative to the locality, are to be explained. On the other hand, the apparently important differences that, according to Luke, the woman is a sinner, according to John, Mary of Bethany; that according to the former, the host, according to the latter, the disciples, make objections; and that the reply of Jesus is in the respective narrations totally different—these, in Schleiermacher’s opinion, have their foundation in the fact that the occurrence may be regarded from two points of view. The one aspect of the occurrence is the murmuring of the disciples, and this is given by Matthew; the other, namely, the relations of Jesus with the pharisaic host, is exhibited by Luke; and John confirms both representations. The most decided impediment to the reconciliation of Luke with the other evangelists, his designation of the woman as a sinner, ἁμαρτωλὸς, Schleiermacher invalidates, by calling it a false inference of the narrator from the address of Jesus to Mary, Thy sins are forgiven thee, ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι. This Jesus might say to Mary in allusion to some error, unknown to us, but such as the purest are liable to, without compromising her reputation with the spectators, who were well acquainted with her character; and it was only the narrator who erroneously concluded from the above words of Jesus, and from his further discourse, that the woman concerned was a sinner in the ordinary sense of the word, whence he has incorrectly amplified the thoughts of the host, v. 39.62 It is not, however, simply of sins, ἁμαρτίαι, but of many sins, πολλαῖ ἁμαρτίαι, that Jesus speaks in relation to the woman; and if this also be an addition of the narrator, to be rejected as such because it is inconsistent with the character of Mary of Bethany, then has the entire speech of Jesus from v. 40–48, which turns on the opposition between forgiving and loving little and much, been falsified or misrepresented by the Evangelist: and on the side of Luke especially, it is in vain to attempt to harmonize the discordant narratives.