In the
Gospel of John, Mary of Bethany (
Hebrew מרים Miryām, Miryam "Bitter"), the sister of
Lazarus appears in connection with the visits of
Jesus to
Bethany and the death and rising from the dead of her brother Lazarus (,,). In , Mary is contrasted with her sister
Martha, who was "cumbered about many things" while Jesus was their guest, while Mary had chosen "the better part," that of listening to the master's discourse. According to the author of the
Gospel of Luke she sat at Jesus' feet, but in the iconic tradition (illustration right) she is seen to anoint his feet (as per ), the role of the unidentified "sinner" in the house of
Simon the Pharisee of . The
Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) states that " there is no suggestion of an identification of the three persons (the "sinner",
Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Bethany), and if we had only
St. Luke to guide us, and not John, we should certainly have no grounds for so identifying them." The Catholic authors go on to adduce the gloss to , "Mary was the one who had anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and dried his feet with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill."
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