John 12:2,3

“ Therefore they made him a feast there, and Martha served; but Lazarus was one of those who were at table with him. 3. Mary therefore, having taken a pound of ointment of pure nard, which was of great price, anointed the feet of Jesus with it and wiped his feet with her hair; and the whole house was filled with the odor of the ointment. ”

When did this supper take place? Of course, according to our hypothesis, on Sunday evening, the day of Jesus' arrival. The subject of ἐποίησαν, they made, is indefinite; this form answers in Greek to the French on. Hence it already follows that this subject cannot be, as is ordinarily represented: the members of the family of Lazarus. Moreover, this appears from the express mention of the presence of Lazarus and of the activity of service on Martha's part, all of them circumstances which would be self-evident if the supper had taken place in their own house. As the undetermined subject of the verb can only be the persons named afterwards, it follows that they are, much rather, the people of the place. A part of the inhabitants of Bethany feel the desire of testifying their thankfulness to Him who by a glorious miracle had honored their obscure village. It is this connection of ideas which seems to be expressed by the therefore at the beginning of John 12:2, and, immediately afterwards, by this detail: “ Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ” That which, no doubt, very specially impelled them to render to Jesus, at this moment, this public homage, was the hatred to which they saw Him exposed on the part of the rulers. This feast was a courageous response to the edict of the Sanhedrim (John 11:57); it was the proscribed one whom they honored.

The text does not tell us in what house the supper took place. Lazarus being there as a guest, not as host (John 12:2), it follows that the scene occurred in another house than his own. Thus is the harmony very naturally established with the narrative of Matthew and Mark, who state positively that the supper took place in the house of Simon the leper, a sick man, no doubt, whom Jesus had healed and who has claimed the privilege of receiving him in the name of all. It is inconceivable that this very simple reconciliation should appear to Meyer a mere process of false harmonistics. Weiss himself says: “The form of expression used excludes the idea that Lazarus was the one who gave the supper.” Every one could not receive Jesus: but every one had desired to contribute, according to his means, to the homage which was rendered to Him: the people of Bethany, by the banquet offered in their name; Martha, by giving her personal service, even in the house of another person; Lazarus, by his presence, which in itself alone glorified the Master more than all that the others could do; finally, Mary, by a royal prodigality, which was alone capable of expressing the sentiment which inspired her.

The general custom among the ancient nations was to anoint with perfume the heads of guests on feast-days. “ Thou preparedst the table before me; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows,” says David to Jehovah, when describing under the figure of a feast which his God gives to him the delights of communion with Him (Psa 23:5). The forgetting of this ceremony is noticed by Jesus (Luke 7:46), as an offensive omission. At Bethany such a mistake was not committed; it was Mary who charged herself with this office, reserving to herself the accomplishment of it in her own way. Μύρον is the generic term which comprehends all the liquid perfumes, and νάρδος, nard, the name of the most precious kind. This word, of Sanskrit origin (in Persian nard, in Sanskrit nalada), denotes a plant which grows in India, and of which some less celebrated varieties are found in Syria. The juice was enclosed in flasks of alabaster (nardi ampullae), and it was used not only to anoint the body, but also to perfume wine. (See Riehm, Handworterb .)

We have translated πιστικός by pure. This word, which is unknown in classic Greek, is not again found in the entire New Testament, except in the corresponding passage in Mark. Among the later Greeks, it serves to designate a person worthy of confidence; thus the one to whom the care of a vessel or a flock is committed. It signifies, therefore, nard on which one can rely, not adulterated. This meaning is the more suitable, since nard was subjected to all sorts of adulterations. Pliny enumerates nine plants by means of which it could be counterfeited, and Tibullus uses the expression nardus pura, which almost gives to our πιστικῆς, in Mark and John, the character of a technical epithet. The meaning drinkable (from πίνω, πιπίσκω) is much less probable, not only because the natural form would be πιστός, or ποτιμός, but especially because the notion of potableness has no relation to the context. The attempt has also been made to derive this word from the name of a Persian city, Pisteira, a name which was sometimes abridged to Pista (comp. Meyer on Mark 14:2). This is a worthless expedient (comp. Hengstenberg and especially Lucke and Wichelhaus). The epithet, πολυτίμου, very costly, can only refer to the first of the two substantives (in opposition to Luthardt, Weiss, etc.); for it was not the plant which had been purchased (νάρδου), but the perfume (μύρου). Αίτρα, a pound, answers to the Latin libra, and denotes a weight of twelve ounces; it was an enormous quantity for a perfume of this price. But nothing must be wanting to the homage of Mary, neither the quality nor the quantity.

These flasks of nard hermetically sealed were probably received from the East; to use the contents of them, the neck must be broken; this is what Mary did, according to Mark (Mark 14:3). This act having a somewhat striking character, she must have performed it in the sight of all the guests, consequently over the head of Jesus already seated at the table. His head thus received the first fruits of the perfume (comp. Matt. and Mark: “she poured it on his head ”). Only after this, as no ordinary guest was here in question, and as Mary wished to give to her guest not merely a testimony of love and respect, but a mark of adoration, she joined with the ordinary anointing of the head (which was self evident; comp. Psalms 23:5; Luke 7:46) an altogether exceptional homage. As if this precious liquid were only common water, she pours it over His feet, and in such abundance that it was as if she were bathing them with it; so she is obliged to wipe them. For this purpose she uses her own hair. This last fact carries the homage to a climax. It was among the Jews, according to Lightfoot (II., p. 633), “a disgrace for a woman to loosen the fillets which bound up her hair and to appear with disheveled hair.” Mary bears witness, therefore, by this means that, as no sacrifice is too costly for her purse, so no service is too mean for her person. All that she is belongs to Him, as well as all that she has. We may understand thus the ground of the repetition, certainly not accidental, of the words τοὺς ποδὰς αὐτοῦ, his feet. To this, the least noble part of His body it is, that she renders this extraordinary homage. Every detail in this narrative breathes adoration, the soul of the act. Perhaps the report of the homage rendered to Jesus by the sinful woman of Galilee had reached Mary. She was unwilling that the friends of Jesus should do less for Him than a stranger.

The identity of this event with that which is related in Matthew 26:6-13, and Mark 14:3-9, is indisputable. It is said, no doubt, in the latter passages, that the perfume was poured on the head, in John, on the feet; but, as we have just seen, this slight difference is easily explained. After the anointing in the ordinary form (that of the head), this bathing of the feet with perfume began, which here takes the place of the ordinary bathing of the feet (Luke 7:44). John alone has preserved the recollection of this fact which gives to the scene its unique character. It cannot be supposed that Mary poured on the head of Jesus a whole pound of liquid. As to the place which this story occupies in the two narratives, it constitutes no more serious objection against the identity of the event. For in the Synoptics the place is evidently determined by the moral relation of this act to the fact related immediately afterwards, the treachery of Judas (Matthew vv14-16; Mark vv10, 11).

This association of ideas had determined the uniting of the two facts in the oral tradition, and from this it had passed into the written redaction. John has restored the fact to its own place. The relation of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany with the event related in Luke 7 is entirely different. We have already mentioned the points which do not allow us to identify the two narratives (p. 171). Keim declares that a homage of this kind cannot have occurred twice. But the anointing belonged necessarily, as well as the bathing of the feet, to every meal to which there was an invitation (Luke 7:44). The details in which the two scenes resemble each other are purely accidental. Simon the leper of Bethany, of whom Matthew and Mark speak, has nothing in common with Simon the Pharisee, of whom Luke speaks, except the name. Now, among the small number of persons with whom we are acquainted in the Gospel history taken alone, we can count twelve or thirteen Simons; and can there not have been two men, bearing this so common name, in whose houses these two similar scenes may have taken place? The one lived in Judea, the other in Galilee; the one receives Jesus into his house in the course of His Galilean ministry; the other, a few days before the Passion. The discussion in Galilee has reference to the pardon of sins; in Judea, to the prodigality of Mary. And if the two women wiped the feet of Jesus with their hair, in the case of the one, it is the tears which she gathers up, in that of the other, it is a perfume with which she has embalmed her Master. This difference sufficiently marks the two women and the two scenes. Christian feeling, moreover, will always protest against the identification of Mary of Bethany with a woman of bad morals.