John 12:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Behold Judas among the saints: Judas the thief, and more, so that you should not despise the thief and sacrilegious man. For he was not just any thief. He was an embezzler from the Lord’s treasury. Whoever steals anything from the Church is counted with the lost Judas.

Such was this Judas, and nevertheless he went in and out together with the eleven holy disciples. You who are upright, endure the wicked, and you will attain the reward of good and escape the punishment of evil.

Take the example of the Lord living on earth. Why did He who was served by angels need a treasury, unless because the Church was to have its own treasury? Why did He tolerate a thief, unless so that the Church might tolerate thieves, even while suffering from them?

He who had become accustomed to stealing money from the treasury did not hesitate to sell the Lord for money.

Finally, listen here in this passage also, how the fragrance of this oil became life for some and death for others. After pious Mary did this as obedience to the Lord, immediately one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, who intended to betray Him, said: "Why was this myrrh not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?"

Woe to you, miserable man! The fragrance killed you. The holy Evangelist explained why that Judas said this. If his thought had not been revealed through the Gospel, we might have thought that he said it out of concern for the poor. But it was not so.

Why did the Evangelist mention him? Was it to say that he was completely healthy? Or was it to point to this as something remarkable, and simply to note the respect enjoyed by this guest from the other world?

While one sister of Lazarus served the Lord by making arrangements for the meal, the other, Mary, perhaps had not managed to thank the Lord in due time for restoring her brother to life, because Jesus had departed from Bethany in haste. She now wished to make up for that omission.

It was the custom among the Jews to wash the guests’ feet before supper and to anoint the head and feet with fragrances. Mary now wished to do this in honor of her Benefactor.

Without calculating the cost, she brought a vessel of myrrh made from nard, the finest and most costly kind. Pouring it on the Lord’s head and feet, she wiped them with her hair as a sign of her abasement before Him.

Not everyone looked at this in the same way. It seemed to the disciples that it would have been better to sell it for the benefit of the poor. The recent example of Zacchaeus and their constant disposition to help the needy provided sufficient motive for this.

But one of these disciples had another thought in making such a proposal. This disciple, who carried with him the small treasury of their company, thought he might receive the myrrh into his hands for sale, and use the money for distribution to the poor.

Concern for the poor was only a pretext. In reality he hoped to benefit somehow from this sum himself.

The Lord, however, defended Mary. He rejected even the most plausible reason the other disciples had. Constantly trying to impress upon them the thought of His departure from them, He said that the poor were always with them, but He was not always with them.

He added that He accepted this anointing from Mary as a preparatory rite for burial. If great expense is not spared for burial, then there is no reason to spare it now. For Me, of course, you will not be so calculating.

Having become disappointed in the advantages he expected from joining Christ’s company, he began to compensate himself by stealing from the common purse. And now, at the sight of Mary’s generous sacrifice, which translated into money would have made a considerable sum for the apostolic chest, wholly at his disposal, his soul overflowed with indignation and fury.

The devil had already taken possession of him. Tormented by the spirit of greed, with feigned philanthropy he gloomily remarked: Why such waste? "Why was this myrrh not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?"

Some of the disciples expressed displeasure at the wasting of the nard out of a good-natured, though misplaced, concern for the poor. Judas, however, though he too spoke about the poor, was in fact concerned for his own gain.

He had been entrusted with the box for receiving alms needed for common expenses. But each time he stole enough from the alms so as not to be noticed in the theft.

Εβαςαζε means "he secretly took." Such is the meaning of Βαςαζειν (Flavius, Antiquities 1.8.2); otherwise it would be tautology. Origen, Chrysostom, the Ethiopian translator, and Augustine understood it this way.

The latter says: "The Lord Himself had boxes into which offerings and money were placed for the use of those who were with Him" (In Ps. 103). "Why did He who was served by angels have boxes, if not because His Church also was to have them?" (In Iohan. tract. 50).

We are convinced that Judas Iscariot, at the supper in Bethany, truly wished to betray the Lord. We also think that he had already been in contact with the Pharisees. Psychologically it is impossible that such a dreadful thought appeared suddenly. If there had been no evil will in Judas, the thought of betrayal could not have been in his mind and heart. But with an evil will, and with the vices that possessed him, chief among them love of money, he gradually allowed the criminal thought to develop in his soul. This probably happened amid the Pharisees' constant flattery and temptation. He tried, as all who prepare for crime do, to find some justification for it. At last he surrendered himself to it completely. Therefore the Lord said already in Galilee, after the teaching on the Bread of Life, "One of you is a devil." Only the Lord's will did not permit Judas to carry out his intention before the Mystical Supper. That is, it did not permit him to reach final agreement with the Pharisees about the manner and place of the Lord's betrayal. After washing the betrayer's feet, the Lord saw through his soul and perceived that it was finally lost. Then, by giving him the morsel at supper (Jn 13:27), He allowed the devil to take his victim. For by His own authority permitting the dark deeds of Judas, He at the same time consented to the coming of the hour "for which He had come" (Jn 12:27). Judas Iscariot asks why the myrrh was not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor. We shall speak presently about the moral side of this remark. For now we note that D. I. Prozorovsky, in his very good study "On the Metrological Meaning of the Gospel Silver Coin," touches among other matters on the price of the myrrh mentioned in John's Gospel and in Mk 14:5. The Greek denarius is translated in Slavonic by the word meaning a penny. According to this scholar's research, the silver coin, the Roman libra, contained one hundred denarii. He cites the Synaxarion for Great Wednesday: "Upon the top of His head she pours myrrh, being of the price of three hundred denarii, that is, sixty assaria, ten gold pennies, three silver coins." A denarius represented about twenty kopecks, more or less. The price of the myrrh was approximately sixty rubles. Calmet's calculation, in his Dissertation on Biblical Coins, comes close to this. At the beginning of the eighteenth century he equated the denarius with dix sols, ten sous, that is, nominally fifteen modern silver kopecks. Their value, however, was undoubtedly higher two hundred years ago. By asking why the money for the myrrh was not given to the poor, Judas involuntarily lays bare his soul to those present. His question first shows irreverence toward the Lord. He seems to declare that such a costly substance, if turned into money, could have received a more useful purpose. Secondly, he hypocritically cares for the poor, entirely in the Pharisaic spirit. He tries to exalt before others his own piety and goodness. But in the depths of his soul there were still darker abysses. He was secretly a thief, says the Evangelist, and carried the common box of the little flock that was with the Lord. Compare Jn 4:8: "The disciples had gone away into the city to buy food." Luke 8 speaks of offerings that served the Lord's needs. Judas, then, was treasurer and disposed of the money. St. John Chrysostom, in Homily 65 on John, makes a very important observation. The Lord, says Chrysostom, knew that Judas was a betrayer and knew also that he was a thief. Yet he was permitted to carry the box so that his deeds might be exposed, and so that every excuse might be taken from Judas. For he himself managed the money and had no need of it. Chrysostom remarks that his heart is revealed by the Evangelist in order to show the danger of love of money. To this we add that, in all probability, Judas himself offered to be keeper of the purse.