Testimonial: The Story of Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feast day of July 22. She is also commemorated by the Lutheran Church with a festival on the same day. The Orthodox Church also commemorates her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, which is the second Sunday after Pascha (Easter).

Mary Magdalene’s name may identify her as “of Magdala”—the town some believe she came from, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee—and thus distinguishes her from the other Marys referred to throughout the New Testament.

The life of the historical Mary Magdalene is the subject of ongoing debate, while the less-obscure development of the “penitent Magdalene” as the most beloved medieval female saint after Mary, both as an exemplar for the theological discussion of penitence and as a social parable for the position and custody of women, [1] provides matter for the social historian and the history of ideas. In Luke 8:2-3 Mary Magdalene is mentioned as one of the women who “ministered to Him [Jesus] of their substance.” The same passage also refers briefly to an act of exorcism performed on her, on an occasion when seven demons were cast out. These women, who earlier “had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.” later accompanied Jesus on his last journey to Jerusalem (Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:41; Luke 23:55) and were witnesses to the Crucifixion. Mary remained there until the body was taken down and laid in a tomb prepared for Joseph of Arimathea. In the early dawn of the first day of the week Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Gospel of Peter 12), came to the sepulchre with sweet spices to anoint the body. They found the sepulchre empty but saw the “vision of angels” (Matthew 28:5). As the first witness to the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene went to tell Simon Peter and “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” (John 20:1–2) (gaining her the epithet “apostle to the apostles”), and again immediately returned to the sepulchre. She remained there weeping at the door of the tomb. According to John she was the first witness of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus, though at first she did not recognize him. When he said her name she was recalled to consciousness, and cried, Rabboni. She wanted to cling to him, but he forbade her: John 20:17 “Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, “I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.”‘ This is the last mention in the canonical Gospels of Mary Magdalene, who now returned to Jerusalem. She is probably included in the group of women who joined the Apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem after Jesus’ ascension (Acts 1:14).

Identification as a prostitute

Mary Magdalene is sometimes referred to as a prostitute or adulteress, but she was never called one in the New Testament. Luke writes that Jesus casts seven demons from her, after which she joins his disciples and provides for them. She witnesses the crucifixion from the foot of the cross, the male disciples having fled. And she was the first witness to the resurrection and was sent by Jesus to tell his other disciples of his return.[2] Jeffrey Kripal, a religion scholar, wrote, “Migdal or Magdala (meaning “tower” in Hebrew and Aramaic respectively) was a fishing town known, or so the legend goes, for its perhaps punning connection to hairdressers  and women of questionable reputation. This is as close as we get to any clear evidence that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.”[3] According to Kripal, the identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute also goes back to the above-mentioned sermon by Pope Gregory. In this sermon, Gregory identified Mary as peccatrix, a sinful woman, using her as a model for the repentant sinner, but he did not call her meretrix  [4] , a prostitute. However, he also identifies Mary with the adulteress brought before Jesus (as recounted in the Pericope Adulterae, John 8), supporting the view of 3rd and 4th century Church fathers that had already considered this sin as “being unchaste.” Gregory’s identification and the consideration of the woman’s sin as sexual later gave rise to the image of Mary as a prostitute.

Veneration in the Eastern Orthodox

The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that Mary Magdalene, distinguished from Mary of Bethany, and further distinguished from the “sinful woman”, had been a virtuous woman all her life. This view finds expression both in her written life (???? or vita) and in the liturgical service in her honor that is included in the Menaion and performed on her annual feast-day. There is a tradition that Mary Magdalene led so chaste a life that the devil thought she might be the one who was to bear Christ into the world, and for that reason he sent the seven demons to trouble her.
Mary Magdalene is honored as one of the first witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, and received a special commission from him to tell the Apostles of his resurrection (John 20:11–18). Mary’s role as a witness is interesting due to the fact women at that time could not be witnesses in legal proceedings.   Because of this, and because of her subsequent missionary activity in spreading the Gospel, she is known by the title, “Equal of the Apostles”.  She is often depicted on icons bearing a vessel of ointment, not because of the anointing by the “sinful woman”, but because she was among those women who brought ointments to the tomb of Jesus. For this reason, she is called a Myrrhbearer. According to Eastern traditions, she retired to Ephesus with the Theotokos (Mary, the Mother of God) and there she died. Her relics were transferred to Constantinople in 886 and are there preserved.

Veneration in the Roman Catholic Church

Gregory of Tours, writing in Tours in the sixth century, supports the tradition that she retired to Ephesus, with no mention of any connection to Gaul.  How a cult of Mary Magdalene first arose in Provence has been summed up by Victor Saxer [5] in the collection of essays in La Magdaleine, VIIIe – XIIIe siècle [6] and by Katherine Ludwig Jansen, drawing on popular devotions, sermon literature and iconology. Mary Magdalene’s relics were first venerated at the abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy. Jacobus de Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of the relics of Mary Magdalene from her sepulchre in the oratory of Saint Maximin at Aix-en-Provence to the newly-founded abbey of Vézelay; the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard, duke of Burgundy. The earliest mention of this episode is the notice of the chronicler Sigebert of Gembloux (died 1112), who asserts that the relics were removed to Vézelay through fear of the Saracens. There is no record of their further removal to the other St-Maximin; a casket of relics associated with Magdalene remains at Vézelay. Afterwards, since September 9, 1279, the body of Mary Magdalene was also venerated at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Provence. This cult attracted such throngs of pilgrims that the earlier shrine was rebuilt as the great Basilica from the mid-thirteenth century, one of the finest Gothic churches in the south of France.
The competition between the Cluniac Benedictines of Vézelay and the Dominicans of Saint-Maxime occasioned a rash of miraculous literature supporting the one or the other site. Jacobus de Voragine, compiling his Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) before the competition arose, characterized Mary Magdalene as the emblem of penitence, washing the feet of Jesus with her copious tears, protectress of pilgrims to Jerusalem, daily lifting by angels at the meal hour in her fasting retreat and many other miraculous happenings in the genre of Romance, ending with her death in the oratory of Saint Maximin, all disingenuously claimed to have been drawn from the histories of Hegesippus and of Josephus.
The French tradition of Saint Lazare of Bethany is that Mary, her brother Lazarus, and Maximinus, one of the Seventy Disciples and some companions, expelled by persecutions from the Holy Land, traversed the Mediterranean in a frail boat with neither rudder nor mast and landed at the place called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer near Arles. Mary Magdalene came to Marseille and converted the whole of Provence. Magdalene is said to have retired to a cave on a hill by Marseille, La Sainte-Baume (”holy cave.” baumo in Provencal), where she gave herself up to a life of penance for thirty years. When the time of her death arrived she was carried by angels to Aix and into the oratory of Saint Maximinus, where she received the viaticum; her body was then laid in an oratory constructed by St. Maximinus at Villa Lata, afterwards called St. Maximin. In 1279, when Charles II, King of Naples, erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden. In 1600, the relics were placed in a sarcophagus commissioned by Pope Clement VIII, the head being placed in a separate reliquary. The relics and free-standing images were scattered and destroyed at the Revolution. In 1814, the church of La Sainte-Baume, also wrecked during the Revolution, was restored, and, in 1822, the grotto was consecrated afresh. The head of the saint now lies there and has been the center of many pilgrimages.
Other religions, especially Christian Mysticism and many New Age faiths, venerate Mary Magdalene as the Bride of Christ, an avatar of Sophia, and even the Co-Messiah with Jesus Christ, or simply combine all three.
The traditional Roman Catholic feast day dedicated to Mary Magdalene celebrated her position as a penitent. This was changed in 1969, with the revision of the Roman Missal and the Roman Calendar, and now there is no mention in either of Mary Magdalene the sinner.  The Magdalene became a symbol of repentance for the vanities of the world to various sects. Mary Magdalene was the patron of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Magdalene College, Cambridge (both pronounced “maudlin).

Easter Egg  tradition

For centuries, it has been the custom of many Christians to share dyed and painted eggs, particularly on Easter Sunday. The eggs represent new life, and Christ bursting forth from the tomb. Among Eastern Orthodox Christians this sharing is accompanied by the proclamation “Christos anesti” (”Christ is risen!”) and the response “Alathos anesti” (”Truly He is risen!”). One tradition concerning Mary Magdalene says that following the death and resurrection of Jesus, she used her position to gain an invitation to a banquet given by Emperor Tiberius. When she met him, she held a plain egg in her hand and exclaimed “Christ is risen!” Caesar laughed, and said that Christ rising from the dead was as likely as the egg in her hand turning red while she held it. Before he finished speaking, the egg in her hand turned a bright red, and she continued proclaiming the Gospel to the entire imperial house. Another version of this story can be found in popular belief, mostly in Greece. It is believed that after the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary put a basket full of eggs at the foot of the cross. There, the eggs were painted red by the blood of the Christ. Then, Mary Magdalene brought them to Tiberius Caesar.

Relationship with Jesus

Many modern writers have come forward with claims that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. These writers cite Gnostic (an apocrypha text) writings to support their argument. Sources like the Gospel of Philip depict Mary Magdalene as being closer to Jesus than any other disciple. However, there is no known ancient document that claims she was his wife; rather, the Gospel of Philip depicts Mary as Jesus’ koinonos, a Greek term indicating a “close friend.” “companion” or, potentially, a lover:

[The Gospel of Phillip – Translation of Wesley  Isenberg ]

There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.
And the companion of the [Savior is] Mary Magdalene. [But Christ] loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often. The rest of the disciples [were offended by it and expressed disapproval.] They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Savior answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like her?”

The closeness described in these writings depicts Mary Magdalene, representing the Gnostics, as understanding Jesus and his teaching while the other disciples, representing the Church, did not. Kripal writes that “the historical sources are simply too contradictory and simultaneously too silent” to make absolute declarations regarding Jesus’ sexuality.[8] On the other hand, the historian John Dickson argues that it was common in early Christianity to kiss a fellow believer by way of greeting (see 1 Peter 5:14 in the New Testament), and as such kissing would have no romantic connotations. Dickson also argues that if Jesus were indeed in love with Mary, then the disciples’ question “Why do you love her more than all of us?” would imply romantic jealousy on their part, a theory which he describes as “utterly implausible for historians.” [9]   Mary Magdalene appears with more frequency than other women in the canonical Gospels and is shown as being a close follower of Jesus. Mary’s presence at the Crucifixion and Jesus’ tomb, while hardly conclusive, is at least consistent with the role of grieving wife and widow, although if that were the case Jesus might have been expected to make provision for her care, as well as for his mother Mary. It also seems to contradict Jesus refusing physical contact in John 20:17. Proponents of a married status of Jesus argue that bachelorhood was very rare for Jewish males of Jesus’ time, being generally regarded as a transgression of the first divine commandment: “Be fruitful and multiply.” According to this reasoning, it would have been unthinkable for an adult, unmarried Jew to travel about teaching as a rabbi.

A counter-argument to this is that in Jesus’ time the Jewish religion was very diverse and the role of the rabbi was not yet well defined. It was really not until after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE that Rabbinic Judaism became dominant and the role of the rabbi made uniform in Jewish communities. Before Jesus, celibate teachers were known in the communities of the Essenes, although these communities were quite separate from mainstream Judaism. John the Baptist was celibate. Later, Paul of Tarsus was an example of an unmarried itinerant teacher among Christians. Jesus himself approved of voluntary celibacy for religious reasons and explicitly rejected a duty to marry: “There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it.” (Matthew 19:12).

Metaphysical marriage

Writers employing metaphysical analogy and allegory have asserted that Christ was already married—to the Church, in the literary theme of The Bridegroom that was developed and enlarged upon in medieval theology. This image goes back to Old Testament depictions of the covenant between God and his people as a marriage, especially in the books Hosea, Ezekiel and the Song of Songs. Imagery of marriage also appears in the Gospels and is applied to Jesus in the letters of the Apostle Paul (e.g. Ephesians 5:22–33) and in the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament. This was later expanded by the Church fathers. Some writers, following an early tradition that Jesus is in a mystical sense the second Adam that began with Paul and continued with Irenaeus and others, embody this sense with literal parallels: like the first Adam, his bride was taken from his side when he had fallen asleep (died on the cross). In medieval Christian anagogic exegesis, the blood and water which came from his side when he was pierced, was held to represent the bringing forth of the Church with its analogy in the water of baptism and the wine of the new covenant. Thus Christ can be said in an allegorical sense to already have a wife in the Church.

Notes:

[1] Jansen, Katherine Ludwig, The Making of the Magdalen 2000.
[2] Williams, Mary Alice , 2003.
[3] Kripal, 2007, p. 52.
[4] Ancient Rome, registered prostitutes were called meretrices while the unregistered ones fell under the broad category prostibulae
[5] Stagg,  1978.
[6] Ecole française de Rome, (1992).
[7] Marvin Meyer &  Esther A. de Boer, The Gospels of Mary 2004.
[8] Kripal, 2007, p. 52.
[9] Dickson John, The Christ Files, p. 95

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