Mary of Bethany

Mary of Bethany is a New Testament figure who appears in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John as the sister of Martha and of Lazarus. According to these texts, the family resided in Bethany, a village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives a short distance from Jerusalem in first-century Judea, then under Roman rule. The Fourth Gospel states that Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus, which later Christian tradition took as evidence of a close personal friendship. No independent contemporary source outside the New Testament mentions her, and neither the year nor the place of her birth or death is recorded in any surviving ancient document. Historians therefore know her only through the Gospel narratives and through later ecclesiastical interpretation of those narratives.

The best-known Lucan episode (Luke 10:38–42) occurs when Jesus is received into Martha’s house. Martha is described as distracted with much serving, while Mary sits at the Lord’s feet and listens to his teaching. When Martha asks Jesus to tell her sister to help, he replies that Martha is anxious and troubled about many things, that one thing is necessary, and that Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her. Patristic and medieval commentators repeatedly used this contrast to discuss the active and contemplative lives, with Mary standing for attentive discipleship and contemplation.

The Gospel of John supplies two further scenes. In John 11, Lazarus falls ill and dies. The sisters send word to Jesus, who comes to Bethany after Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. Martha meets him first; Mary remains indoors until she is called, then falls at his feet weeping and says that if he had been present her brother would not have died. Jesus is deeply moved, weeps, and calls Lazarus out of the tomb. In John 12:1–8, six days before Passover, during a supper at Bethany, Mary takes a pound of costly ointment of pure nard, anoints Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her hair. Judas Iscariot objects that the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus defends the act as preparation for his burial. A similar anointing by an unnamed woman at Bethany appears in Mark 14 and Matthew 26; whether that woman is Mary of Bethany remains a matter of scholarly discussion.

From late antiquity, Western Christianity often fused Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene and with the unnamed sinful woman of Luke 7, an identification given classic form by Pope Gregory the Great in a homily of 591. Eastern churches generally kept these figures distinct. The Roman liturgical reform of 1969 separated Mary Magdalene (22 July) from Martha (29 July); in 2021 Mary and Lazarus were added to the 29 July memorial with Martha. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Mary and Martha of Bethany on 4 June and also remembers the raising of Lazarus on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. Later medieval legends of a voyage to Gaul, a penitential life in Provence, or a death at Ephesus belong to the composite Magdalene cycle and cannot be verified as historical data about Mary of Bethany as a distinct person. On the basis of the canonical Gospels she remains a disciple associated with Bethany, with listening to Jesus’ word, and with the anointing that the Fourth Gospel presents as a prophetic act in view of his death and burial.