MARY, THE SISTER OF LAZARUS (Mapla). Whatever may be the teaching of tradition, and whatever inference we may be disposed to draw from the similarity of their feelings and conduct to wards our Lord, and of his towards each of them, there can be no doubt that the words of Scripture present to our minds Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and Mary Magdalene, as two distinct individuals. The first mention of Mary the sister of Martha is in the loth chapter of St. Luke, where he says that in a certain village there was a woman named Martha who received Christ into her house, Kai TJIE .ISEX04) KaXoutdvn Mapia. Now, it seems impossible that he should have introduced to us in this manner a person of whom he had spoken in the 8th chapter as Mapia ,;) Kalloup.lini Ma-y8aXnvi, cicp' ocztnovta 4nriz 4€X77X60€1. The specific description of each at their first mention seems to imply a purpose of distinguishing them, and would obviously be a source of error which St. Luke would have avoided had he been relating different things of the same person. Then if we take St. John's Gospel, we shall find Mary the sister of Martha introduced in the it th chapter with a particular description, Mapia it aXehpacra rbp iniptov µupyz Kat ercpciEcco-a r6Sas abroir riks Opttiv 7,r O ciSeXObs Agapor it was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.' Let this be interpreted by St. John himself, and we shall find a full account of the transaction in the beginning of the 12th chapter.
He also specifies another Mary as Mapla lj May3a.
Had he not mentioned the anointing by Mary the sister of Lazarus in the 12th chapter, and were we obliged to explain John xi. 2 by Luke vii. 38, there would be ground for believing Mary the sister of Lazarus to be the woman who was a sinner ; but if we let each gospel explain itself, the anointing by Mary at Bethany was a different anointing from that by the penitent woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee. And we may add that the very fact of this latter anointing having been described by St. Luke would have deterred St. John, if he was acquainted with St. Luke's gospel, from describing Mary the sister of Lazarus as Maples i7 cathfraaa rbv ta5ptoy, etc., had the penitent woman of Luke vii. 38 also been named Mary. This consideration gives some additional probability to the opinion that the penitent woman was not Mary Magdalene.
The opinion that Mary the sister of Lazarus was the Magdalene is grounded by Baronius on the improbability that one who loved him so much should not have been named as present at his death and resurrection. There is no great weight in this argument, for by the same rule we should have expected a mention of Martha. It is possible that both Martha and Mary may have been included in the al Noorat of Luke xxiv. to, just as we may sup pose Mary Magdalene to be included in the yunuElv of Acts i. 14.
But who was the woman mentioned by Matthew and Mark as having poured the ointment on his head in the house of Simon the leper ? Certainly Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus ; and cer tainly this anointing was the same as that mentioned in John xii. 3. It is remarkable that neither Mat thew nor Mark makes any specific reference to the household at Bethany of which we have such a lively description in St. Luke and St. John, or to any of its members by name, but both of these Evangelists record our Lord's most memorable prophecy, ' Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her.' Can we consider this pro phecy to be fulfilled unless we know the name of the person who performed this good work ? if it is the same transaction which St. John describes,
the name is declared to us ; if a different transaction, then St. John, who does not relate the prophecy, leads the whole Christian world into the error of attributing to Mary the sister of Lazarus an honour which our Lord did not promise to her, but to another person. We infer, therefore, that it is the same transaction, and that St. John's account sup plements that of St. Matthew and St. Mark. Having thus shown what appears to be the correct view as to the identity of Mary the sister of Lazarus, we have only to relate briefly what the Evangelists say respecting her. She is introduced to us by St. Luke, sitting at the feet of Jesus in the house of her sister Martha, an active and hospitable person of comfortable means and simple habits, who received our Lord at Bethany. Martha, troubled and anxious in her preparations for his entertainment, comes in and reproaches her sister for not helping her in her work, and gives our Lord occasion to pronounce that beautiful com mendation of Mary's spirituality of mind, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things ; but one thing is needful, and Mary bath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.' This occurred about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, in the month Tisri, or September, of the year before our Lord's crucifixion. Some months afterwards he was at Bethany again, on the occasion of the illness and death of Lazarus. When the sisters sent to him, he was at another Bethany, in Perma, beyond Jordan, whither he had retired to escape the malicious plottings of the Jews. He did not come at once on hearing from them, foreseeing the great miracle he had to per form ; and the sisters seem to have been left in doubt as to his intentions. In the meantime Lazarus died, and was buried. Martha was pro bably outside the house when she heard that he was coming, and went at once to meet him ; while Mary, not aware of his approach, remained sitting within, surrounded by her mourning friends.* She was aroused from her attitude of silent grief by a whisper from Martha, ' The Master is come, and calleth for thee.' He was still at the spot where Martha had met him, wishing, perhaps, to keep as much as might be out of observation. Mary in stantly rose and went to him. Her friends—they are called 'IouSalot, and this word usually designates persons of position and influence among the Jews— rose and followed her, thinking she was going to weep at the tomb. When Mary met the Lord, she fell at his feet and said, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.' There is a touching tenderness in the Greek of these words as compared with those of Martha, which does not appear in the English of the A. V., and cannot very easily be expressed, Martha had said, Keine, el (335e, oOs as 6 dacNO6s not, 4refhnjrcet, My brother would not be (now) dead ; Mary says, KOpte, et ;is oim tip sou evr/Oavev 6 eiSeX06s, My brother would not (or perhaps could not) have died ; while the recurrence of the same thought from the lips of both sisters almost admits us into the sick chamber of Lazarus to hear the very words spoken at his bedside. The intensity with which Mary appro. priated Lazarus to herself as her brother, would seem to have some significance, as if Lazarus really did belong to her in a stronger sense than he did to Martha. And it would seem from the 45th verse, that it was especially with Mary that the Jews came to condole. Martha was evidently the mistress of the house, probably much older than Lazarus and Mary, perhaps by a different mother.