Note 77 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

Further, in Luke’s narrative of the visit of Jesus to the two sisters, there is no mention of Lazarus, with whom, however, according to John (xi. and xii.), Mary and Martha appear to have dwelt; nay, Luke speaks precisely as if the presence or existence of this brother, whom indeed neither he nor either of the other synoptists anywhere notices, were entirely unknown to him. For had he known anything of Lazarus, or had he thought of him as present, he could not have said: A certain woman, named Martha, received him into her house; he must at least have named her brother also, especially as, according to John, the latter was an intimate friend of Jesus. This silence is remarkable, and commentators have not succeeded in finding a better explanation of it than that given in the Natural History of the Prophet of Nazareth, where the shortly subsequent death of Lazarus is made available for the supposition that he was, about the time of that visit of Jesus, on a journey for the benefit of his health.77 Not less striking is another point relative to the locality of this scene. According to John, Mary and Martha dwelt in Bethany, a small town in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem; whereas Luke, when speaking of the visit of Jesus to these sisters, only mentions a certain town, κώμην τινὰ, which is thought, however, to be easily reconciled with the statement of John, by the observation, that Luke assigns the visit to the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, and to one travelling thither out of Galilee, Bethany would lie in the way. But it would lie quite at the end of this way, so that the visit of Jesus must fall at the close of his journey, whereas Luke places it soon after the departure out of Galilee, and separates it from the entrance into Jerusalem by a multitude of incidents filling eight entire chapters. Thus much then is clear: the author or editor of the third gospel was ignorant that that visit was paid in Bethany, or that Mary and Martha dwelt there, and it is only that Evangelist who represents Mary as the anointing woman, who also names Bethany as the home of Mary: the same place where, according to the two first synoptists, the anointing occurred. If Mary were once made identical with the anointing woman, and if the anointing were known to have happened in Bethany, it would naturally follow that this town would be represented as Mary’s home. Hence it is probable that the anointing woman owes her name to the current narrative of the visit of Jesus to Martha and Mary, and that Mary owes her home to the narrative of the meal at Bethany.