Note 45 — Chapter VIII · EVENTS IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS, EXCLUDING THE MIRACLES.

An occasion on which Jesus was anointed by a woman as he sat at meat, is mentioned by all the Evangelists (Matt. xxvi. 6 ff.; Mark xiv. 3 ff.; Luke vii. 36 ff.; John xii. 1 ff.), but with some divergencies, the most important of which lie between Luke and the other three. First, as to the chronology; Luke places the incident in the earlier period of the life of Jesus, before his departure from Galilee, while the other three assign it to the last week of his life; secondly, as to the character of the woman who anoints Jesus: she is, according to Luke, a woman who was a sinner, γυνὴ ἁμαρτωλὸς; according to the two other synoptists, a person of unsullied reputation; according to John, who is more precise, Mary of Bethany. From the second point of difference it follows, that in Luke the objection of the spectators turns on the admission of so infamous a person, in the other gospels, on the wastefulness of the woman; from both, it follows, that Jesus in his defence dwells, in the former, on the grateful love of the woman, as contrasted with the haughty indifference of the Pharisees, in the latter, on his approaching departure, in opposition to the constant presence of the poor. There are yet the minor differences, that the place in which the entertainment and the anointing occur, is by the two first and the fourth Evangelists called Bethany, which according to John xi. 1, was a κώμη (town), by Luke a πόλις (city), without any more precise designation; further, that the objection, according to the three former, proceeds from the disciples, according to Luke, from the entertainer. Hence the majority of commentators distinguish two anointings, of which one is narrated by Luke the other by the three remaining Evangelists.45