XVI. THE TWO DEBTORS. LUKE Vii. 41-43. We may affirm with tolerable certainty that the two first Evangelists and the last, in all their relations of our blessed Lord's anointing, refer to one and the same event. (Matt. xxvi. 7; Mark xiv. 8; John xii. 3.) But the question whether St. Luke narrates the same circumstance, and the woman here," which was a sinner," be Mary the sister of Lazarus, which then must follow, is more difficult, and has been the subject of much variety of opinion from the earliest times in the Church. The main arguments for the identity of all the relations are, first, the name Simon, as that of the giver of the feast in one place (Luke vii. 40), and most probably so in the other, in which he appears as the master of the house where it was given (Matt. xxvi. 6); secondly, the seeming unlikelihood that twice the Lord should have been honored in so very unusual a manner; and thirdly, the strange coincidence, as it would otherwise be, that in each case there should have been on the part of some present a misinterpretation of the thing done, an offence taken. To these arguments, however, it may be answered that the name Simon was of much too frequent use among the Jews for any stress to be laid upon the sameness of the name. Again, that the anointing of the feet with odors or with ointments, though not so common as the anointing of the head, yet was not in itself something without precedent, the * Thus Curtius of the Indian monarchs (1. 8, c. 9): Demtis soleis odoribus illinuntur pedes, and Plutarch makes mention, though on a very peculiar occasion, of wine and sweet-smelling essences as used for this purpose. (BECKER's Charikles, v. 1, p. 428.) The custom of having the sandals taken off by those in attendance before meals, which would render the service of the woman easy and natural to be done, is frequently alluded to by classic writers. Thus Terence: Adcurrunt servi, soccos detrahunt, only remarkable coincidence here being, that Mary the sister of Lazarus, and the woman "which was a sinner," should have each wiped the feet of the Lord with the hairs of her head. (Luke vii. 38; John xii. 3.) Now if this had been any merely fantastic honor paid to the Lord, which to offer would scarcely have occurred to more persons than one, we might well wonder to find it twice, and on two independent occasions, repeated; but take it as an expression of homage, of reverence and love, such as would naturally rise out of the deepest and truest feelings of the human heart, and then its recurrence is no wise wonderful. And such it is; in the hair is the glory of the woman (see 1 Cor. xi. 15), long beautiful tresses having evermore been held as her chiefest adornment; they are in the human person highest in place and in honor,— while on the contrary the feet are lowest in both. What then was this service, but the outward expression, and incorporation in an act, of the inward truth, that the highest and chiefest of man's honor and glory and beauty were lower and meaner than the lowest that pertained to the Son of God; that they only found their true place when acknowledging their subjection and doing service to him? And what wonder that the Lord, who called out all that was deepest and truest in the human heart, who awoke in it, as none else might ever do, feelings of the warmest love and profoundest reverence, should twice† have been the object of this honor? Yet was it an honor, we may observe, with some differences in the motives which called it forth. Once, in the case of Mary the sister of Lazarus, the immediately impelling cause was intense gratitude, she had found the words of Christ, words of eternal life to herself, and he had crowned his gifts to her by giving back to her a beloved brother, whom she now beheld restored to life and health before her; the pound of ointment "very costly" which she brought, was a thank-offering from her, and as less of shame was mingled in her feelings, she anointed both her and in all the ancient bas-reliefs and pictures illustrative of the subject, we see the guests reclining with their feet bare. (See the Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Antt., s. v. Coena, p. 253.) * So the Latin poet: Quod primum formæ decus est, cecidere capilli. And of nearly similar uses of the hair in extreme humiliation and deprecation of the divine anger we have abundant examples in profane history. Thus Livy, 1. 3, c. 7: Stratæ passim matres crinibus templa verrentes veniam irarum cælestium exposcunt. Cf. Polybius, 1. 9, c. 6. † Here, as in so many other places, Strauss (Leben Jesu, v. 1, p. 782), like one before him, murmurs against the evangelical history, crying, "To what purpose is this waste?" as though that history could not but be wrong which was thus prodigal in relating honors done to the Saviour. Gregory the Great, applying the "very costly" to this history, says beautifully (Hom. 33 in Evang.): Consideravit quid fecit, et noluit moderari quid faceret. The whole discourse is full of beauty. Lord's feet and also his head. But what brought this woman with the alabaster box of ointment to Jesus, was the earnest yearning after the forgiveness of her sins, and she, in her deep shame and abasement of soul before him, presumed not to approach hin nearer than to anoint his feet only, standing the while behind him; and kissing them with her lips, and wiping with the hair of her head, she realized, as it were, in an outward act, the bidding of St. Paul, "as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." (Rom. vi. 19.) And to the third argument it may be answered, that though the two events have this in common, that there was on each occasion an offence taken, yet beyond this there is nothing similar. In the one case it is the Pharisee, the giver of the feast, that is offended-in the other some of the disciples, and mainly Judas;—again, the Pharisee is offended with the Lord―Judas, not so much with him, as with the woman;-the Pharisee, because the Lord's conduct seems inconsistent with his reputation for holiness-but Judas, as is well known, from a yet meaner and baser motive of covetousness. To all which it may be added, that there is nothing to make it the least probable, that the Mary of the happy family circle in Bethany,* to whom the Lord bears such honorable testimony, had ever been aforetime one to whom the title of sinner,"† as it is here * Zeμrh Kai σTovdaía, as a Greek Father entitles her. "Which was a sinner," must then mean, "which had been a sinner," that is, in former times, but had long since been brought to repentance and chosen the better part, and returned to, and been received back into, the bosom of her family; even as the history must be related here altogether out of its place, for the anointing by Mary took place immediately before the Lord's death, it was for his burial. (Matt. xxvi. 12.) Many do thus understand the words to refer to sins long ago committed, even as they had been long ago forsaken: as for instance, Grotius, who is partly moved thereto by the necessities of his harmony, which admits but one anointing, and partly, I should imagine, also by his fear of antinomian tendencies in the other interpretation; for that he was in this respect somewhat afraid of the Gospelof the grace of God, his Commentary on the Romans gives sufficient evidence: even as the same fear makes another expositor affirm, that her sin, for which she was thus spoken of as a sinner, was not more than that she was too fond of adorning her person; just as others will not allow Rahab to have been, at least in the common sense of the term, a wóovŋ at all, but only the keeper of a lodging-house. But how much does that view maintained by Grotius weaken the moral effect of the whole scene, besides being opposed to the plain sense of the words;-if the woman had long since returned to the paths of piety and holiness, it is little likely that even the Pharisee should have been so vehemently offended at the gracious reception which she found, or would have spoken of her as he does, "for she is a sinner." We should rather consider this as the turning moment of her life, and it is evident that Augustine (Serm. 99) so considered it, for he says of her: Accessit ad Dominum immunda ut rediret munda, accessit ægra ut rediret sana. Moreover in that other case, the absolving words, Thy sins are forgiven," instead of being those of meant, could have been applied; and, as it has been ingeniously observed, with the risen Lazarus sitting at the table, even this Pharisee would hardly have so rapidly drawn his conclusion against the divine mission and character of his guest. These arguments appear so convincing, that one is surprised to find how much fluctuation of opinion there has been from the very first in the Church, concerning the relation of these histories one to another,the Greek Fathers generally distinguishing them-the Latin, for the most part, seeing in them but one and the same history. This last opinion however finally prevailed, and was long almost the universal one in the Church, that is, from the time of Gregory the Great, who threw all his weight into this scale,* until the times of the Reformation. Then, when the Scriptures were again subjected to a more critical examination, the other interpretation gradually became prevalent anew, and one might say, had for some while been recognized almost without a dissentient voice, till again in our own days Schleiermacher has maintained, not I think with success, but certainly with extraordinary aouteness, that the anointing happened but once. But to enter further on this debate would be alien to the present purpose: and the passage containing the parable of the Two Debtors will be considered without any reference to the histories in the other Gospels, of which indeed I have the firmest conviction that it is altogether independent. a present forgiveness, now first passing upon her, can only be the repeated assurance of a forgiveness which she must long since have received; and how strange and unnatural a supposition this is, every one may judge. * The fact of this opinion being introduced into one of the hymns in the Liturgy as by him reformed,— Maria soror Lazari, Quæ tot commisit crimina, must have had great influence in procuring its general acceptance. Even so we have in the famous Dies ira, composed in the thirteenth century, Qui Mariam absolvisti Mihi quoque spem dedisti; though here may possibly be allusion to Mary Magdalene, who indeed was often, though without the slightest grounds, save that the first notice of her occurs shortly after this incident (Luke viii. 2), identified with this woman that was a sinner; so that many have made but one and the same person of Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and this woman. Thus Gregory himself, Hom. 33 in Evang. The belief in the identity of the two last has indelibly impressed itself on the very language of Christendom; but there is nothing to make us suppose that Mary Magdalene had led an eminently sinful life, before she was found in the company of the holy women that ministered to the Lord, unless we should interpret the seven devils which were cast out of her, to mean seven sins.-There is a good sketch of the history of the controversy concerning this matter in DEYLING's Obss. Sac., v. 3, p. 291. Our Lord having been invited to the house of a Pharisee, had there "sat down to meat." That a woman, and one of a character such as is here represented, should have pressed into the guest-chamber, and this uninvited, either by the Lord, or by the master of the house, and that she should have there been permitted to offer to the Saviour the form of homage which she did, may at first sight appear strange;-yet after all does not require the supposition of something untold for its explanation, as that she was a relation of Simon's, or lived in the same house,-suppositions which are altogether strange, not to say contradictory to the narrative. A little acquaintance with the manners of the East, where meals are so often almost public, where ranks are not separated with such iron barriers as with us, will make us feel with what ease such an occurrence might have taken place.* Or if this seems not altogether to explain the circumstance, one has only to remember how easily such obstacles as might have been raised up against her, and would have seemed insuperable to others, or to herself in another state of mind, would have been put aside, or broken through by an earnestness such as now possessed her even as it is the very nature of such religious earnestness to break through and despise these barriers, nor ever to pause and ask itself whether according to the world's judgment it be "in season" or "out of season."† The following confirmation of what above is written has been since put into my hands: "At a dinner at the Consul's house at Damietta we were much interested in observing a custom of the country. In the room where we were received, besides the divan on which we sat, there were seats all round the walls. Many came in and took their places on those side-seats, uninvited and yet unchallenged. They spoke to those at table on business or the news of the day, and our host spoke freely to them. This made us understand the scene in Simon's house at Bethany, where Jesus sat at supper, and Mary came in and anointed his feet with ointment; and also the scene in the Pharisee's house, where the woman who was a sinner came in, uninvited and yet not forbidden, and washed his feet with her tears. We afterwards saw this custom at Jerusalem, and there it was still more fitted to illustrate these incidents. We were sitting round Mr. Nicolayson's table, when first one and then another stranger opened the door, and came in, taking their seat by the wall. They leant forward and spoke to those at the table." Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839. † Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cxl. 4): Illa impudica, quondam frontosa ad fornicationem, frontosior ad salutem irrupit in domum alienam; and again (Serm. 99, c. 1): Vidistis mulierem famosam . . . non invitatam irruisse convivio, ubi suus medicus recumbebat, et quæsisse pià impudentiâ sanitatem: irruens quasi importuna convivio, opportuna beneficio: and Gregory the Great (Hom. 33 in Erang.): Quia turpitudinis suæ maculas aspexit, lavanda ad fontem misericordiæ cucurrit, convivantes non erubuit; Nam quia semetipsam graviter erubescebat intus, nihil esse credidit, quod verecundaretur foris; and another (BERNARDI Opp., v. 2. p. 601): Gratias tibi, ô beatissima peccatrix; ostendisti mundo tutum satis peccatoribus locum, pedes scilicet Jesu, qui neminem spernunt, neminem rejiciunt, nemi |