In trying to throw some light on this passage I will say that, notwithstanding its seeming harshness in the English translation, I find no real reason to believe that in uttering it Jesus indicated that he was angry, or that he meant to be disrespectful to his mother. This somewhat impersonal form of address to a woman is very common in the East. It _might_ be so spoken as to mean disrespect, but as a rule, and {342} according to the Oriental manner of speech, it is dignified and in good taste. At present the term _hûrmat_ is more extensively used in such cases in Syria. Among the nobility and the educated minority of the people the word _sitt_ (lady) is employed in addressing a woman. However, this impersonal form of address is employed by a man when speaking to a woman who is a stranger to him. The correct form is, "O woman," the same which Jesus used in saying to the "woman of Canaan," in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, the twenty-eighth verse, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." In the same manner the Master assured the woman who had "a spirit of infirmity,"[1] "Woman,[2] thou art loosed from thine infirmity." A superb example of this Oriental usage is found in the fourth chapter of St. John's Gospel, the twenty-first verse, in Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman. With solemn dignity he says to her: "Woman, {343} believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." From the foregoing examples it may be easily seen that the form of Jesus' address to his mother could not be considered disrespectful. Therefore the difficulty which the text offers springs from the fact that it represents Jesus as speaking to his own mother as he would speak to a woman _who was a stranger to him_. Why did he do that? The answer to this question depends partially on thorough knowledge of Oriental thought and largely on acquaintance with the theology of St. John's Gospel.