The Sinful Woman (Luke 7)

fl. c. AD 31 (unnamed; life unrecorded) · Penitent of Galilee · Anointed Jesus in the Pharisee's house · Galilee

The Apostolic Age

Who The Sinful Woman (Luke 7) was

The unnamed woman ‘which was a sinner’ who entered the house of Simon the Pharisee, washed Jesus's feet with her tears, wiped them with the hairs of her head, and anointed them from an alabaster box — drawing the verdict that shaped the church's whole doctrine of penitence: ‘Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.’ Luke leaves her nameless; the tradition could not. [The Eastern churches — and modern scholarship — keep Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the anonymous sinner of Luke 7 as three distinct women; the West traditionally fused the three into one penitent, following Gregory the Great's Homily 33 of AD 591.] It is by that Western conflation that this nameless Galilean acquired the name and face of the Magdalene.

Also listed in women.

Common questions

When was The Sinful Woman active?

The Sinful Woman (Luke 7) is dated fl. c. AD 31 (unnamed; life unrecorded) in the archive, which places The Sinful Woman in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention The Sinful Woman?

The Sinful Woman (Luke 7) is named in 2 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Luke. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was The Sinful Woman from?

The archive associates The Sinful Woman (Luke 7) with Galilee.

Who were The Sinful Woman’s contemporaries?

The archive links The Sinful Woman (Luke 7) to 3 other figures, including Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and Simon the Pharisee. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Primary-source mentions (2)

Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Luke 7:37–38

c. AD 85

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

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