1. “The narrative of the raising of Lazarus is unique in its completeness. The essential circumstances of the fact in regard to persons, manner, results, are given with perfect distinctness. The history is more complete than that in chapter ix., because the persons stand in closer connection with the Lord than the blind man, and the event itself had in many ways a ruling influence on the end of His ministry. Four scenes are to be distinguished:—(1) the prelude to the miracle (1-16); (2) the scene at Bethany (17-32); (3) the miracle (33-44); (4) the immediate issues of the miracle (45-57)” (Westcott in the Speakers Comm.).

Bethania. This village lay nearly two miles east of Jerusalem; see verse [18], and our remarks on [vi. 19]. To prevent the reader from confounding it with Bethania beyond the Jordan ([i. 28]), the Evangelist adds that he means the village of Mary and of Martha her sister, who are supposed to be already known to the reader from the Synoptic Gospels. [pg 192] See, e.g., Luke x. 38-42. Bethania is spoken of as their village, not because they owned it, but because they resided there, just as Bethsaida is called the city of Andrew and Peter (i. 44). In this village, then, Lazarus was seriously ill (ἀσθενῶν; see James v. 14).

2. (Maria autem erat, quae unxit Dominum unguento, et extersit pedes eius capillis suis: cuius frater Lazarus infirmabatur.)2. (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.)

2. The Greek aorist (ἡ ἀλέιψασα) shows that the reference is to some unction that had already taken place, and not to that which happened subsequently, and which is narrated by our Evangelist (xii. 3; Matt. xxvi. 7; Mark xiv. 3). The unction here referred to we take to be that recorded by St. Luke (vii. 37, 38); and hence, notwithstanding their apparently different characters, we regard Mary the sister of Lazarus (xi. 2) as identical with “the woman who was a sinner in the city” (Luke vii. 37). For St. John in the words: “Mary was she that anointed the Lord,” &c., certainly seems to speak of an unction already known to his readers, and the only unction of Christ, as far as is known, that had taken place before this illness of Lazarus, is that recorded by St. Luke in the passage referred to. In this view, then, our Lord was twice anointed by a woman; on the first occasion in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke vii. 40, 46), probably in Galilee (see Luke vii. 11), as recorded by St. Luke vii. 37, 38; on the second occasion at Bethania, in Judea, in the house of Simon the leper (Matt. xxvi. 6), as recorded by Matthew, Mark, and John (J. xii. 3). As the present verse proves that Mary, the sister of Lazarus, had already anointed our Lord: and as John xii. 3, with its context, proves that the same sister of Lazarus again anointed Him on a subsequent occasion, we hold that the only woman referred to in the Gospels as having anointed the living body of our Lord, is Mary, the sister of Lazarus; and that she did so on two different occasions. Thus, as already stated, we identify Luke's “sinner in the city” with the sister of Lazarus. If it be objected that the contemplative character of the sister of Lazarus (Luke x. 38-42), and the close friendship of Jesus with her and her family (John xi. 3, 5), forbid us to regard her as identical with the woman who had once been “a sinner in the city,” we reply that Mary, converted in the beginning of our Lord's public life, had now for some years led an edifying life of penance. As a sinner she had lived in some city of Galilee, far away from home, whither she may have gone with some lover whom she met at Jerusalem at one of the great festivals; now she lived with her brother at [pg 193] Bethania, in Judea, where possibly her former sinful life may have been unknown, so that there was no danger of scandal in Christ's friendship with herself and her family. To those who, like Steenkiste (Comm. on Matt. Quaes. 678, conclusio), have “a deep-rooted repugnance” to believing that the sister of Lazarus had ever been a public sinner, we would recall the fact that there are many sinners in heaven to-day enjoying the society of God after a far shorter penance than we require to suppose in the case of the sister of Lazarus, before she began to enjoy the friendship of Christ. Our Divine Lord's tenderness and mercy towards sinners are written on every page of the Gospels, and the only real difficulty here is that to which we have already replied, arising from the danger of scandal, through our Lord's associating with such a woman.

Thus far we have spoken only of “the sinner,” and the sister of Lazarus; but there is a further question, whether Mary Magdalen (Luke viii. 2; Matt. xxvii. 56, 61; Matt. xxviii. 1; John xx. 1, &c.) and they are all three, one and the same person. We believe it to be more probable that they are. The more common opinion among the fathers identifies the three; from the sixth till the seventeenth century their identity was unquestioned in the Western Church; and our Roman Breviary and Missal still identify them on the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen, the 22nd of July. So, too, Tertull., Gregory the Great, Mald., Natal-Alex., Mauduit, M'Ev., Corluy.

We have stated what we consider the most probable view—that Christ was twice anointed during His public life, and on both occasions by the same person, the sister of Lazarus, who is identical with “the sinner” and Magdalen. It is right, however, that we should add, that there is great diversity of opinion, even among Catholic commentators. Some have held that there were three different unctions, others that there was only one. Some have held that the sister of Lazarus, “the sinner,” and Magdalen are all three distinct; others, that at least the sister of Lazarus and the sinner are distinct; and among those who will not admit the identity of all three are found such able commentators as St. Chrys., Estius, Calmet, Beelen. In such a case, where the Scriptures are obscure, where the fathers disagree, where commentators are so divided, and the Greek Church, which celebrates three different feasts [pg 194] for the three women, seems (we say seems, because the different feasts might possibly be celebrated in honour of the same woman) to differ from the Latin, it is hard to attain to anything more than probability, and we have set forth above what, after a very careful examination of the whole question, seems to us most probable. See Corl., Dissert., p. 263 and foll.; Mald. on Matt. xxvi. 6, 7, and xxvii. 56; Steenk. on Matt. Quaes. 678.

3. Miserunt ergo sorores eius ad eum, dicentes: Domine, ecce quem amas infirmatur.3. His sisters therefore sent to him, saying: Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

3. They merely announce their trouble through a messenger, and in hopeful confidence leave the remedy to Jesus. “Sufficit ut noveris: non enim amas et deseris” (St. Aug. on this verse).

4. Audiens autem Iesus dixit eis: Infirmitas haec non est ad mortem, sed pro gloria Dei, ut glorificetur Filius Dei per eam.4. And Jesus hearing it, said to them: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God: that the Son of God may be glorified by it.

4. And Jesus hearing it, said to them (“to them” (eis) is not genuine): This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God: that the Son of God may be glorified by it. The words of Christ were obscure until the miracle threw light upon them. They mean that the sickness of Lazarus was not to end in ordinary death, for ordinary death is the end of mortal life, whereas Lazarus was to live again a mortal life. The sickness and death of Lazarus were intended to show forth the Divine power of Jesus in the miracle to be wrought.