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The Anointing and the Tomb
The anointing at Bethany in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and John is important, because it clearly acts as a precursor to the story of the empty tomb. The mother of Jesus is not mentioned in association with this story, but we will see that it is nevertheless relevant to a discussion of her role in the gospels.
An anointing of Jesus by a woman appears in all four gospels, although in Luke, the setting is completely different to the other three. We will give the Markan version in full, as it is likely to be the oldest. It comes after the plotting of the chief priests and scribes to kill Jesus, and before the decision by Judas Iscariot to betray him; therefore, its context is the growing tension leading up to the final week of Jesus’ ministry. After this comes the Last Supper, the Passover Feast in Jerusalem just a few miles from Bethany. Mark therefore intends the reader to see the anointing in the context of the inevitability of the crucifixion of Jesus; it is a scene that prepares for the Passion narrative.
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, ‘Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news [gospel] is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’
(Mark 14.3–9)
The story tells us the following explicitly:
· That Jesus’ community were not afraid of mixing with those with diseases which are generalized in the word ‘leper’, as we read elsewhere in the gospels;
· That Jesus’ community were concerned about the poor, which once again is verified in other passages;
· That the death and burial of Jesus is being anticipated.
We might also infer that the anointing on the head is symbolic of the messianic status of Jesus, although anointing of the head could also be an action of hospitality. Given that Jesus is the ‘Christ’ (Greek) or ‘Messiah’ (Hebrew), the ‘anointed one’, the lack of any anointing elsewhere cannot but lead us to think that Mark’s Gospel is suggesting a symbolic reference to it here.1 In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tries to keep secret his status as the Messiah in the early part of the ministry in Galilee (especially when Peter declares it in Mark 8.27–30); then, after travelling to Jerusalem including the stay at Bethany where the anointing takes place, he boldly declares it to the Sanhedrin (14.62) and is condemned as a result.
The position of the anointing during the last week in Jerusalem confirms what the reader already knows but about which many characters in the gospel are still unsure: the Messianic identity of Jesus. It is known only to outcasts and to disciples, although the latter do not understand its implications. Jesus being the ‘Son of David’, hence Messiah, is declared by a blind man (Mark 10.47). Later, Jesus is anointed in the house of a leper by a woman whose actions have overtones of impropriety in the culture of the time, a woman anointing a male guest at a meal unannounced. These passages are powerful reminders of the context for Jesus’ mission, the marginalized people of Israel as in other gospels: the Messiah is the one who heals the poor, blind, lame, lepers, etc. (Matt. 11.5, 15.31, 21.14; Luke 7.22, 14.13, 14.21; John 5.3, and the healings in Acts).
The anointing woman understands what Jesus’ Messianic mission is about: he will have to suffer death. As has been noted in feminist biblical analysis, there is a strange discrepancy between the high praise and promised legacy of this woman and the fact that she remains anonymous. We do not know whether she was one of those who travelled from Galilee, or whether she was a member of the host’s household, but Jesus’ response to her suggests that she is to be considered a true disciple. It is not surprising, therefore, that John identifies her as Mary of Bethany, whom we know from Luke 10.38–42 is associated with discipleship and ‘sat at the Lord’s feet’. In John and Luke, unlike Mark and Matthew, the anointing is of the feet.
The anointing in Mark begins the story of the Passion which ends with the empty tomb story. The fact that the woman has anointed Jesus anticipates concerns about the manner of his burial. In the synoptic gospels, Joseph of Arimathea wraps the body in a ‘clean linen sheet’, but it would seem that, because Jesus had been executed at the command of the Sanhedrin as well as the Roman governor, the appropriate rites are omitted, according to the custom of the time for condemned criminals. The women observe but do not seem to mourn properly. They collect spices and return to the tomb on the third day to try to carry out the anointing having rested on the Sabbath. But, of course, he will not be there. Therefore, the anointing narrative has two symbolic layers added to a story about hospitality to an honoured guest. It is both Messianic and anticipates the need for burial rites as they will not be possible after death. It functions as an excellent vehicle for proclaiming the executed, buried, and raised Jesus as the Messiah.
In terms of the anointing, Matthew’s Gospel follows Mark reasonably closely as it often does, and John’s Gospel is different in its approach to this story as it often is. The anointing of Jesus’ body before burial is completed in John 19.38–42 and carried out, surprisingly, by males who do not appear to be family members of Jesus, and quite excessively so, a Johannine device to remind us of Jesus’ kingly status. This is odd in light of the fact that, in the anointing story of John 12.1–8, Mary of Bethany has purchased the oil for Jesus’ burial and has already anointed him with it, but it is a much smaller amount, a hundredth of that used by Joseph and Nicodemus. We also have a different sequence in John’s Gospel, which places the anointing before Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem rather than after it.
Luke takes the anointing somewhere else entirely. Now the anointing is in Galilee, and it comes immediately before the introduction of the women who have been healed and follow Jesus. The anointer is a ‘sinner’ from the ‘city’ (it is not clear which city this is). The fact that she might be of questionable status could be inferred from the account in Mark and Matthew, but it is not made explicit there as it is in Luke. Luke neither tells us which sins she has committed nor her name, but Western tradition identified her as a prostitute, put her together with the Mary who anointed Jesus in John, and then conflated her with Mary Magdalene, who was healed of seven demons and introduced in the very next passage. Thus, the repentant prostitute Mary Magdalene was born, although not until the sixth century! This has been reversed in Roman Catholicism recently, which now accepts the Eastern view that these are three distinct women.
There is a certain confusion about all the gospel Marys which spills over into the Christian apocrypha of following centuries. It is not surprising that the early Church began to confuse Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany, as their roles with respect to the burial and the recognition of Jesus as the crucified Messiah are close, and they both have allusions to the Bride of the Song of Songs: Mary of Bethany with her costly ointment (Song of Songs 1.12) and Mary Magdalene as the seeker and finder of Jesus (3.1–4, 5.6, 6.1), who attempts to hold onto him (3.4) in the garden (4.12–5.1, 6.2). In the apocrypha, the name ‘Mary’ when it has no further identifying information, might be Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Bethany.
What is interesting is that one of the women who follow Jesus is ‘Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza’ (Luke 8.3). A woman who had lived in the entourage of Herod’s court and enjoyed its fruits might well be a better candidate for a reformed sinner from the city than Mary Magdalene; just before this passage, we have heard Jesus talk about John the Baptist, referring to his greatness, and he is the one who will be beheaded by Herod.
Of course, we will never know whether a particular woman was behind this story; most likely, the anointing woman in Luke is a representative of women converts generally for the purposes of the narrative. Many converts – both men and women – will have regarded their past lives as sinful, some probably with better reason than others. The power of Jesus to forgive is at the heart of this story, and so the woman is an ideal disciple; the anointing serves as a precursor to the healing of the women followers which follows directly after this scene in Luke 8.1–3.
The table below demonstrates the main differences in the three anointing stories.
The anointing in its position in Mark begins the story of the Last Supper and Passion, and may have been taken from earlier sources, probably oral, in which the Passion was recited. It is intimately linked to the empty tomb story because of the reference to oil and burial, and the anointing along with the empty tomb form the bookends within which the Passion narrative is placed. There are two meals at which Jesus prepares his disciples and companions for the imminence of his death, this one in Bethany and the Last Supper in Jerusalem. In John, the action of Mary of Bethany, anointing Jesus’ feet, comes before him washing his disciples’ feet. This seems to be one of those instances where Luke and John have some interdependence, as Luke 10.38–42 tells us that Mary sat at Jesus’ feet while Martha prepared the meal, a situation repeated in different circumstances in John 12.1–8. The possibility that Mary and Martha are fictitious ideal types is suggested by the fact that their names only differ by one letter in Greek, and this might also be the same for Lazarus, whose name is associated with resurrection in Luke 16.19–31.
What has the Anointing got to do with Mary the Mother of Jesus?
At first sight, there is no obvious link between the anointing and Mary the mother of Jesus. In John’s Gospel, the woman is called Mary, but she is the sister of Martha and Lazarus; they all live in Bethany. Because we know from the crucifixion stories that women followed Jesus from Galilee, it would be reasonable to suppose that the evangelists imagined them to be close at hand when this incident occurred, but the text does not say this. Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are only tangentially connected to the anointing through their observing the burial of Jesus in the synoptic gospels which is prefigured in this episode. The woman does not keep the oil for the burial because she has used it for the anointing, so we cannot presume that the writer of Mark intends us to think that she may have been at the burial.
However, the purpose of the story is to link the death of Jesus and his Messiahship, which we know was very difficult for the Jewish tradition, as evidenced by Paul’s statement:
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
(1 Cor. 1.22–24)
Burial and anointing are connected in all four gospels:
The anointing stories therefore create an interplay between Jesus as Messiah and Jesus, the one who is raised from the dead, and who is resurrection and life in person in John’s Gospel (11.25). In all four gospels, the link that is made between the Messianic vocation of Jesus and the fact that he will die, be buried, and raised again on the third day is made prophetically by women. We hear that this is ‘in accordance with the scriptures’ (1 Cor. 15.4, quoted in the Nicene Creed), which admittedly is something of a mystery if we apply this just to the third day, as it is only alluded to in Hosea 6.2: ‘After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him’, but this reference is to the Lord raising up stricken Israel rather than being raised himself. We could possibly add Exodus 19.11–16 when the Lord comes down on Sinai on the third day. But generally, ‘in accordance with the scriptures’ repeated twice in this Pauline passage relates to the whole process of death, burial, and raising up, to which the Psalms and the Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah 52.13–53.12 have ample reference in one form or another. It is with the fulfilment of this prophetic tradition that the women are associated.
Luke’s is the one gospel that does not refer to the anointing as a Messianic prophetic action, but the revelation of the Messianic mission of Jesus to a woman is elsewhere in Luke. In the events of the conception and birth of Jesus, Mary his mother, like the anointing woman, understands by divine revelation Jesus’ Messianic vocation in advance and that she will suffer through it. She is praised in the same way as the anointing woman. In the conception stories, the person who does the praising is Elizabeth: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’ (Luke 1.42), whereupon Mary utters the Magnificat, in which she declares that ‘all generations will call me blessed’ (1.48). In the anointing, it is Jesus who offers the praise: like Mary, the anonymous woman will be remembered wherever the gospel is preached. Both women are prophets.
Luke, the great evangelist of the poor, has reconfigured the anointing story possibly because he dislikes the idea that ‘you always have the poor with you’, in the sense that poverty will endure, and the implication that it was better to spend the money on the oil. Yet, whether it was Luke’s intention or not, the fact that he has removed the prophetic anointing but has added the story of Mary as the prophetic mother of the Saviour helps us to see an equivalence between these two. The women who followed Jesus and supported him, including Mary, are the ones who are most astute in understanding what the mission will mean. The conception and birth narrative presents a parable of the faithfulness of the women disciples as they journey towards the cross, where they will be present even in the absence of the twelve disciples. Among them, we can imagine that the mother of Jesus will have had an important role, one that continued after the events of Easter as is suggested by mention of the ‘certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers’ (Acts 1.14).
This means that all four gospels have a story in which a woman takes the initiative at a crucial moment in the ministry of Jesus. This creates an important thematic pattern which links the anointing with narratives in which Mary the mother of Jesus is the main subject:
The consistent testimony to the anointing stories in all four gospels suggests that women were associated with anointing in pre-gospel traditions. The early Church could easily have created a story of the Messianic anointing of Christ by a man, following the tradition of Old Testament anointers Moses, Samuel, Zadok, Nathan, Elijah, the young prophet instructed by Elisha in 2 Kings 9.1–13, and Jehoiada and his sons, but they did not; the nearest equivalent is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Here, as in the virgin conception story, women stand in where men have become secondary: Jesus is anointed by God and by women but not by men. This creates another connection between the anointing and the virgin conception. Thus, the anointing woman is in the image of Mary the virgin mother of the Lukan account; both stories are parables that tell us about real women in Jesus’ community and historical actions in a compelling and memorable way.
What do we know about the participation of these women in the mission of Jesus? Having considered all the New Testament passages which include Mary as well as other important women, we need to consider what we know of Jesus’ ministry before we can go on to evaluate how Mary and her female companions may have contributed to it.
Notes
1 This is supported by Santiago Guijarro and Ana Rodriguez in Biblical Theology Bulletin 41.3. One of the first scholars in recent decades to suggest the Messianic anointing of Jesus in the Markan and Matthean accounts was one of my tutors at the University of Leeds, J.K. Elliott, Expository Times 85.4.