This edition of Mar Jacob of Sarug's (d. 521) homily on the sinful woman who anoints Jesus at the banquet – widely identified in the west as Mary Magdalene – focuses on the theme of weeping which Jacob describes as the dominant characteristic of repentence. For him, the sinful woman is the example of true Christian contrition. The volume constitutes a fascicle of The Metrical Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain the original Syriac text of Jacob's surviving sermons, fully vocalized, alongside an annotated English translation.