Part 21
The learned men of His time had no esteem for women in spiritual matters. They tolerated their presence at the sacred festivals, but they never would have thought of teaching high and secret doctrines to any woman. “The words of the Law,” says a rabbinical proverb of that time, “rather than teach them to a woman, burn them up!” Jesus on the other hand did not hesitate to speak to them of the highest mysteries. When He went alone to the well of Sichar, and the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands came there, He did not hesitate to proclaim His message to her, although she was a woman and an enemy of His people. “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” His Disciples came up, and could not understand what the Master was doing. “And marvelled that he talked with the woman.” They did not yet know that the Church of Christ would make a woman the link between the sons and the Son—the woman who unites in herself the two supreme possibilities of Woman: the Virgin Mother who suffered for us from the night in Bethlehem until the night of Golgotha.
WORDS WRITTEN ON THE SAND
On another occasion at Jerusalem, Jesus found Himself before a woman—the Adulteress. A hooting crowd pushed her forward. The woman, hiding her face with her hands and with her hair, stood before Him, without speaking. Jesus had taught that wife and husband should be perfectly one, and He detested adultery. But He detested still more the cowardice of tale-bearers, the hounding by the merciless, the impudence of sinners presuming to set themselves up as judges of sin. Jesus could not absolve the woman who had brutally disobeyed the law of God, but He did not wish to condemn her, because her accusers had no right to be seeking her death. And He stooped down and with His finger wrote upon the ground. It is the first and last time that we see Jesus lower Himself to this trivial operation. No one has ever known what He wrote at that moment, standing there before the woman trembling in her shame, like a deer set upon by a pack of snarling hounds. He chose the sand on which to write expressly that the wind might carry away the words, which would perhaps frighten men if they could read them. But the shameless persecutors insisted that the woman should be stoned. Then Jesus lifted Himself up, looked deep into their eyes and souls, one by one: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
We are all of us guilty of the faults of our brothers. From the first to the last we are all daily accomplices, although too often unpunished. The Adulteress would not have betrayed her husband if men had not tempted her, if her husband had made himself better loved; the thief would not rob if the rich man’s heart were not so hard; the assassin would not kill if he had not been harshly treated; there would be no prostitutes if men knew how to mortify their wantonness. Only the innocents would have the right to judge; but on this earth there are no innocents, and even if there were, their mercy would be stronger than justice itself.
Such thoughts had never occurred to those angry spies, but Christ’s words troubled them. Every one of them thought of his own betrayals, his own secret and perhaps recent sins of the flesh. Every soul there was like a sewer which when the stone is raised exhales a fetid gust of nauseous vapor. The old men were the first to go. Then, little by little, all the others, avoiding each other’s eyes, scattered and dispersed. The open place was empty. Jesus had again stooped down to write upon the ground. The woman had heard the shuffling of the departing feet, and heard no longer any voice crying for her death, but she did not dare to raise her eyes because she knew that One alone had remained, the Innocent,—the only one who had the right to throw against her the deadly stones. Jesus for the second time lifted Himself up and saw no one.
“Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?”
“No man, Lord.”
“Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more.”
And for the first time the Adulteress dared to look in the face of her liberator. She did not understand His words. What she had done was evidently a sin in His eyes because he commanded her to “sin no more”; and yet he had so acted that the others did not condemn her. And now He also did not wish to condemn her. What man was this so different from all the others, who hated sin but forgave the sinner? She would have wished to turn to Him with a question, to murmur a word of thanks, to reward Him at least with a smile, because her soul was weak and her lips beautiful. But Jesus had begun again to write on the ground of the court, His head lowered, and she saw only the silky waves of His hair shining in the sun, and His finger moving slowly over the sunlit earth.
THE SINNER
But no woman loved Him so much as the woman who anointed Him with nard and bathed Him with her tears in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Every one of us has seen that picture in imagination; the weeping woman with her hair falling over the feet of the Wanderer; and yet the true meaning of the episode is understood by very few, so greatly has it been disfigured by both the ordinary and the literary interpretations. The decadents of the last century, careful workmen in lascivious preciosity, who swarm to the scent of corruption like flies to filth and crows to carrion, have sought out in the Gospel those women who are redolent of sin. And they have made such women their own, adorning them with the velvet of adjectives, the silk of verbs, the jewelry and precious stones of metaphors; the unknown repentant woman, named Mary Magdalene, the unknown adulteress of Jerusalem, Salome the dancer, the sinister Herodias.
The episode of this anointing has been profoundly misrepresented by such writers. It is simpler and infinitely more profound. The praise of Jesus for the woman who brought Him nard is not praise of carnal sin, or of common love as it is commonly understood by men.
This sinning woman who silently entered the house of Simon with her box of alabaster was no longer a sinner. She had seen Jesus, had known Him before that day. And she was no longer a woman for hire; she had heard Jesus speak, and was no longer the public woman, flesh on sale for masculine desires. She had heard the voice of Jesus, had listened to His words; His voice had troubled her, His words had shaken her. The woman who had belonged to every one had learned that there is a love more beautiful than lust, a poverty richer than clinking coins. When she came to the house of Simon she was not the woman she had been, the woman whom the men of the countryside had pointed out sneeringly, the woman whom the Pharisee knew and despised. Her soul was changed, all her life was changed. Now her flesh was chaste; her hand was pure; her lips no longer knew the bitter taste of rouge, her eyes had learned to weep. From now on, according to the promise of the King, she was ready to enter into the Kingdom.
Without taking all this for granted it is impossible to understand the story which follows. The sinning woman wished to reward her Saviour with a token of her gratitude. She took one of the most costly things left to her, a sealed box full of nard, perhaps the gift of a chance lover, thinking to anoint her King’s head with this costly oil. Hers was an act of public gratitude. The sinning woman wished publicly to thank Him who had cleansed her soul, who had brought her heart to life, who had lifted her up out of shame, who had given her a hope more glorious than all joys.
She went into the house with her box of alabaster clasped to her breast, timid and shrinking as a little girl on her first day of school, as a released prisoner in his first moment outside the prison. She went in silently with her little box of perfume, raising her eyes for only a moment to see at a glance where Jesus was reclining. She went up to the couch, her knees trembling under her, her hands shaking, her delicate eyelids quivering, because she felt they were all looking at her, all those men’s eyes were fixed on her, staring at her beautiful swaying body, wondering what she was about to do.
She broke the seal of the little alabaster flask, and poured half the oil on the head of Jesus. The large drops shone on His hair like scattered gems. With loving hands she spread the transparent ointment on the curls and did not stay her hand till every hair was softened, silky and shining. The whole room was filled with the fragrance; every eye was fixed on her with astonishment.
The woman, still silent, took up the opened box and knelt by the feet of the Peace-bringer. She poured the remaining oil into her hand and gently, gently rubbed the right foot and the left with the loving care of a young mother who bathes her first child, for the first time. Then she could control herself no longer, she could restrain no longer the great burst of tenderness which filled her heart, made her throat ache and brought tears to her eyes. She would have liked to speak, to say that this was her thanks, her simple, pure, heartfelt thanks for the great help she had received, for the new light which had unsealed her eyes. But in such a moment, with all those men there, how could she find the right words, words worthy of the wonderful grace, worthy of Him? And besides, her lips trembled so that she could not pronounce two words together; her speech would have been only a stammering broken by sobs. Then not being able to speak with her lips, she spoke with her eyes: her tears fell down one by one, swift and hot on the feet of Jesus, like so many silent thank-offerings.
Weeping freed her heart of its oppression; the tears relaxed the tension. She saw and felt nothing now but an inexpressible delight which she had never known on her mother’s knees or in men’s arms; it ran through all her blood, made her tremble, pierced her with its poignant joy, shook all her being in that supreme ecstasy in which joy is a pain and sorrow a joy, in which pain and joy become one mighty emotion.
She wept over her past life, the miserable life of her vigil. She thought of her poor flesh sullied by men. She had been forced to have a smile for them all, she had been forced to offer her luxurious bed and her perfumed body to them all. With all of them she had been forced to pretend a pleasure she did not feel. She had been forced to show a smiling face to those whom she despised, to those whom she hated. She had slept beside the thief who had stolen the money to pay her. She had kissed the lips of the murderer and of the fugitive from justice; she had been forced to endure the acrid breath and the repellent fancies of the drunkard.
Never, on a kindly summer night when the eastern sky is all a flashing splendor, had she known the welcoming kiss of a husband who had chosen her, virgin among virgins, that she should be one with him till death. She was outside the community and the laws. She was cut off from her people. She was separated from them all. Women envied her and detested her; men desired her and defamed her.
THE SECOND BAPTISM
But at the same time the tears of the weeping woman were tears of joy and exaltation. She was weeping not only because of her shame, now forever canceled, but because of the poignant sweetness of her life beginning anew.
She was weeping for her virginity restored, for her soul rescued from evil, her purity miraculously recovered, her condemnation forever revoked. Her tears were the tears of joy at the second birth, of exultation for truth discovered, of light-heartedness for her sudden conversion, for the saving of her soul, for the miraculous hope which had released her from the degradation of the material and raised her to the illumination of the spirit. The drops of nard and her tears were so many thank-offerings for this incredible blessing.
And yet it was not alone for her own sorrow and her own joy that she wept. The tears which bathed the feet of Jesus were also shed for Him.
The unknown woman had anointed her King like a king of olden times. She had anointed His head as the high priests had anointed the kings of Judea; she had anointed His feet as the lords and guests anointed themselves on festal days. But at the same time the weeping woman had prepared Him for death and burial.
Jesus, about to enter Jerusalem, knew that those were the last days of His life in the flesh. He said to His disciples, “For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.” Still living, He was embalmed by a woman’s compassion.
Christ was to receive before His death a third baptism, the baptism of infamy, the baptism of the supreme insult; prætorian soldiers were to spit upon his face. But He had now received the baptism of glory and the baptism of death. He was anointed like a king about to triumph in His celestial kingdom. He was perfumed like a corpse about to be laid in the tomb. This anointing unites the twin mysteries of His Messiahship and of the crucifixion.
The poor sinning woman, mysteriously chosen for this prophetic rite, had perhaps a confused presentiment of the appalling meaning of this premonitory embalming. Love’s second-sight, stronger in women than in men, the foresight of exalted and deep emotion, may have made her feel that this body perfumed and caressed by her was in a few days to be an icy, blood-stained corpse. Other women, perhaps she herself, were to go to the tomb to cover Him for the last time with aromatics, but they would not find Him. He who was now feasting with His friends was at that time to be at the doors of another Hell. Feeling this presentiment, the weeping woman let her tears fall on Jesus’ feet to the astonishment of all the others, who did not know and did not understand.
Now the feet of the Saviour, the feet of the condemned one, are all bathed with tears, the salt of the tears mingling with the perfume of the nard. The poor sinning woman does not know how to dry those feet, wet by her tears. She has no white cloth with her, and her garment does not seem to her worthy to touch her Lord’s flesh. Then she thinks of her hair, her long hair which has been so much admired for its fine silkiness. She loosens the braids, slips out the pins, unclasps the fastenings. The blue-black mass of her tresses falls over her face, hiding her flushed face and her compassion. And taking up the masses of these flowing curls in her hands, she slowly dries the feet which have brought her King into that house.
Now her tears are ended. All her tears are shed and dried. Her part is done, but only Jesus has understood her silence.
SHE LOVED MUCH
Among the men who were present at this dinner there was no one except Jesus who understood the loving service of the nameless woman. But all, struck with wonder, were silent. They did not understand, but they respected obscurely the solemnity of the enigmatic ceremony. All except two, who wished to interpret the woman’s action as an offense to the guest. These two were the Pharisee and Judas Iscariot. The first said nothing, but his expression spoke more clearly than words. The second, the Traitor, presuming on his familiarity with the Master, ventured to speak.
Simon thought to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him, for she is a sinner.” The old hypocrite had for the paid woman the scorn of those who have had much to do with them, or of those who have never known them at all. Like his brothers he belonged to the endless cemetery of white sepulchers, which within are full of foulness. It is enough for such men to avoid physical contact with what they think is impure, even if their souls are sinks of iniquity. Their morals are systems of ablutions and washings; they would leave a wounded man to die, abandoned on the road, for fear of staining themselves with blood; they would let a poor man suffer hunger to avoid touching money on the Sabbath day: like all men they commit thefts, adulteries, and murders, but they wash their hands so many times a day that they imagine them as clean as those of babes.
He had read the Law, and there were still ringing in his ears the execrations and anathemas of Old Israel against prostitutes. “There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel.... Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the Lord thy God.” And Simon, the wise burgher, remembered with equal satisfaction the admonition of the author of the Proverbs: “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.... For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.” The old Jew would perhaps not have felt so bitterly about prostitutes, if they cost nothing! But they are capable, those shameless women, of eating up a patrimony! The old proprietor could not be reconciled to one of those dangerous women in his house, to the fact that she had touched his guest. He knew that the prostitute Rehab had made victory possible for Joshua and that she was the only one to escape from the massacre of Jericho, but he remembered that the invincible Samson, terror of the Philistines, had been betrayed by a worthless woman. The Pharisee could not understand how a man acclaimed by the people as a prophet should not have understood what sort of woman had come to bestow on Him this discreditable honor; but Jesus had read in the heart of the sinning woman and in the heart of Simon, and answered with the parable of the two debtors. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.”
And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon: “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
“Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
“My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
“Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
“And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
The parable and the comment of Jesus show how great, even to-day, is the lack of understanding of this episode. Every one or nearly every one remembers only those words: “Her sins are forgiven, for she loved much.” An attentive reading of the text shows that this ordinary interpretation is the opposite of the truth. It is thought that Jesus forgave her sins because she had loved many men, or because she had shown her love for Him with her perfume and her kisses. The parable of the two debtors makes it clear that the meaning of Jesus’ words, badly quoted and even more completely misunderstood, is entirely the contrary. The woman had sinned greatly and because of her repentance she was wholly pardoned; and because her pardon was great she greatly loved Him who had saved her, who had forgiven her; the nard and her tears and her kisses were the expression of that grateful love. If before going into the house that evening the sinning woman had not already become transformed by virtue of her pardon, she would not have obtained from Jesus forgiveness for her past life spent in evil, not by using all the perfumes of India and Egypt nor by all the kisses of her lips, nor by all the tears of her eyes. Christ’s forgiveness was not the reward for those acts of homage; those acts were her thank-offerings for her forgiveness already received; and they were great because her forgiveness was great, as her forgiveness had been great because great had been her sin.
Jesus would not have repelled the sinning woman even if she had still been a sinner, but if He had not been sure of her conversion He would not perhaps have accepted those tokens of love; from now on even the most rigorous Pharisaical precepts permitted Him to speak with her: “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.”
Simon could think of no answer; but from the side of the disciples a rough, angry voice was raised, well known to Jesus. It was the voice of Judas: “Why was this waste of the ointment made, why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?” And the other disciples, so the Evangelists say, approved the words of Judas, and murmured against the woman. Judas was the man who held the purse; the basest of them all had chosen the basest element,—money.
Money was pleasing to Judas, pleasing in itself and pleasing in its possibility of power. He spoke of the poor, but he did not think of the poor, to whom Jesus had distributed bread in the country-solitudes, as well as to his own companions, too poor as yet to conquer Jerusalem and to found the empire of the Messiah where Judas hoped to be one of the masters. And he was envious as well as grasping; envious as all misers are. That silent anointing which was the consecration of the King and the Messiah, those honors offered by a beautiful woman to his Leader, made him suffer; the everlasting jealousy of man against man, when a woman is concerned, was mingled with the disappointment of his cupidity.
But Jesus answered the words of Judas as He answered the silence of Simon. He did not affront those who had affronted Him, but he defended the woman at His feet. And Jesus said, “Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.”
The inexpressible sadness of this prophecy escaped perhaps those who sat about Him. They could not be persuaded that Jesus, in order to overcome, should be overcome: that in order to triumph eternally He must die. But Jesus felt the day drawing near, “But me ye have not always, she is come to anoint my body to the burying.” The woman listened in terror to this confirmation of her presentiment and another burst of tears rained down from her eyes. Then with her face hidden in her loosened hair, she went away as silently as she had come.
The disciples were silent, not convinced, but abashed. To hide his chagrin Simon filled the guest’s cup with better wine, but in the yellow light of the lamps the silent table seemed a banquet of ghosts among whom had passed the shadow of death.
“WHO AM I?”
And yet the disciples knew. Those words of death were not the first they had heard from Jesus’ lips. They should have remembered that day, not long before, when on a solitary road near Cæsarea, Jesus had asked what people said of Him. They should have remembered the answer which flashed out like sudden flame, the impetuous outcry of belief from Peter’s heart; and the splendor which had shone on three of them on the summit of the mountain; and the exact prophecies of Christ as to the manner of His death.