Day 1: Sunday, March 22

Matthew 26:1-13. And it came to pass when Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples, You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man is delivered up to be crucified.

Then gathered the chief priests and the scribes, and the elders of the people, into the courtyard of the chief priest, who was called Caiaphas; and consulted that they might take hold of Jesus by deceit, and kill Him. But they said, Not at the festival, lest there be an uproar among the people.

And when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto Him a woman, having an alabaster vessel of ointment, very precious, and poured it on His head as He sat. But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, For what purpose was this loss? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. And Jesus knowing, said to them, Why belabor the woman? For she has worked a good work on Me. For you have the poor always with you; but Me you have not always. For in that she has poured this ointment on My body, she has done it for my burial. Amen I say to you, Wherever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, what this woman has done shall be spoken for a memorial of her.

Arcana Coelestia 10011. And shalt pour it upon his head, and anoint him. That this signifies a representative of the Divine good in the Lord as to the whole Human, is evident from the signification of “pouring oil upon Aaron’s head,” as being the Divine good upon the whole Human of the Lord; for by “oil” is signified the Divine good (see n. 4582, 9474), by “Aaron” the Lord as to Divine good (n. 9806), and by the “head” the whole Human; and from the signification of “to anoint,” as being a representative of this thing (n. 9474, 9954). That the “head” denotes the whole Human, or the whole man, is because everything of man descends from the head, for the body is a derivation thence, and therefore that which man thinks and wills, which is done in the head, is presented in effect in the body. The head is like the supreme or inmost in the heavens, which descends and flows into the heavens that are beneath, and produces and derives them. Therefore also the head with man corresponds to the inmost heaven, the body as far as the loins to the middle heaven, and the feet to the ultimate heaven. In a word, that which is inmost is the only thing in the derivatives that essentially lives. From this it is evident that as the Divine is the inmost of all things, or what is the same, the supreme of all things, it is the one only thing from which is the life of all things, and therefore insofar as a man receives of the Divine, so far he lives.

Moreover, the oil with which the priest was anointed flowed down from the crown of the head into the body, as can be seen in these passages:

Like the good oil upon the head, coming down into Aaron’s beard, that cometh down upon the mouth of his garments (Ps. 133:2).

A woman poured an alabaster box of balm upon the head of Jesus as He lay, and Jesus said, She hath poured this balm upon My body for the burying (Matt. 26:7, 12).

There came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious, and breaking the alabaster box, she poured it upon the head of Jesus; and Jesus said, She hath come beforehand to anoint My body for the burying (Mark 14:3, 8).

From all this also it is evident that “to anoint the head” denotes to anoint the whole body.

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