THE TOUCH OF PARISIAN ROMANCE.

Luke's romantic shrinking from unpleasantness, and his
sentimentality, are illustrated by his version of the woman with
the ointment. Matthew and Mark describe it as taking place in the
house of Simon the Leper, where it is objected to as a waste of
money. In Luke's version the leper becomes a rich Pharisee; the
woman becomes a Dame aux Camellias; and nothing is said about
money and the poor. The woman washes the feet of Jesus with her
tears and dries them with her hair; and he is reproached for
suffering a sinful woman to touch him. It is almost an adaptation
of the unromantic Matthew to the Parisian stage. There is a
distinct attempt to increase the feminine interest all through.
The slight lead given by Mark is taken up and developed. More is
said about Jesus's mother and her feelings. Christ's following of
women, just mentioned by Mark to account for their presence at
his tomb, is introduced earlier; and some of the women are named;
so that we are introduced to Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's
steward, and Susanna. There is the quaint little domestic episode
between Mary and Martha. There is the parable of the Prodigal
Son, appealing to the indulgence romance has always shown to
Charles Surface and Des Grieux. Women follow Jesus to the cross;
and he makes them a speech beginning "Daughters of Jerusalem."
Slight as these changes may seem, they make a great change in the
atmosphere. The Christ of Matthew could never have become what is
vulgarly called a woman's hero (though the truth is that the
popular demand for sentiment, as far as it is not simply human,
is more manly than womanly); but the Christ of Luke has made