Ancient Fragrant Lore: The Scents of the Bible (part 5)

The most intriguing aspect of reading the Bible in search of aromatics is how the spices and sweet unguents are used to denote both sanctity and the pleasure of the bodily senses.

"All your garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made you glad"—Psalm 45:8

Dieric the Elder Bouts, Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee, 1440s (wikimedia commons)

The sacrificial woman who comes to the Savior with an alabaster jar with pure spikenard oil which was extremely costly at the time in a pre-figuration of the embalming rites. She is Mary of Bethany (Matthew 26: 6-13) who pours the fragrant oil on Jesus's feet. There is also the unnamed "sinner in the city" who comes into the house of Simon the Pharisee and washes Jesus' feet with her tears and wipes them with her hair and pours fragrant oil on him. However for centuries the Catholic Church conflated this penitent sinner (a whore? an adulteress?) and the disciple sister of Martha and Lazarus, with another Mary, Mary Magdalene, who is, not coincidentally, the patron saint of apothecaries and perfume makers. Perhaps the connection is that Magdalene is one of the "myrrhophores" depicted in a Syrian fresco dating from the 3rd century AD, the women who bring myrrh resin to embalm Jesus's body and finding the sepulchre open and devoid of its rightful inhabitant, thus being the first witness to the Anastasis.

Please read my historical research into the Scents of the Bible (biblical fragrances) on this link on Fragrantica. (You're welcome to comment here or there).