Additions in Luke 7,36-50 535 writing of the story. The effort in this brief essay has been to argue 1) that, based on what we know of the tradition before Luke, we cannot say that anything we find ‘added’ to the earliest story was foreign to it or to its author, 2) that care should be given in the use of the term ‘addition’ to make clear what precisely is meant in the concrete case when ‘addition’ is used in literary criticism. Via della Pilotta 25 John J. KILGALLEN I-00187 Rome SUMMARY Given the early development of the tradition about the divinity of Jesus and the Marcan, then Lucan conviction about his authority to forgive sins, it seems reasonable to see how Luke 7, 47-50 are not an addition from outside the story of the woman, Simon and Jesus. Rather, they can be seen as known by earliest editors of the story, with the story passed on and developed as circumstances required.