Fathers

Loading…

What the Fathers say

Mark 14:8

Eastern Fathers

Theophylact of Ohrid

At the same time He also exposes Judas, saying that she did this in preparation for His burial, and reveals his shamelessness, as if saying to him: you, betraying Me to death, do not reproach yourself, yet does she really deserve reproach from you for bringing myrrh to prepare Me for burial, and moreover by a kind of special divine inspiration?

Commentary on Mark ↗

Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius

The last and greatest office of piety is the burying of strangers and the poor; which subject those teachers of virtue and justice have not touched upon at all. For they were unable to see this, who measured all their duties by utility. Moreover, there have not been wanting those who esteemed burial as superfluous, and said that it was no evil to lie unburied and neglected; but their impious wisdom is rejected alike by the whole human race, and by the divine expressions which command the performance of the rite.

The Divine Institutes Book 6 (Chapter XII) ↗

Western Saints

Bede

What she had, she did; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. What you consider to be the waste of ointment is the duty of burial. It is not surprising if she gives me the good scent of her faith, since I am going to shed my blood for her.

On the Gospel of Mark ↗