Mary Magdalene
or Mary of Magdala
(Heb., Miriam) [1] is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as the most important woman in the movement of Jesus. [2] As a follower, Mary was one of many women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve apostles during his travels. Mary followed Jesus to the very end, and, according to all four Gospels in the Christian New Testament, was the first to witness his resurrection. [3] Jesus commissioned her—a woman—to teach the male apostles the basic tenet of the Christian faith: that he had risen from the dead. [4]:p.145
In the New Testament, Mary Magdalene is distinguished from other women named Mary as "Mary of Magdala", a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Gospel of Luke describes her as a woman "from whom seven demons had gone out."http://www.biblegateway.com/bible?passage=Luke%208:1-3;&version=TNIV; Luke 8:1-3 In addition to these identifications, a number of misconceptions have sprung up regarding Mary, both in antiquity and in modern times. Two of these deserve a brief explanation here: (1) Neither the Bible nor any of our other earliest historical sources call Mary a prostitute; [5] (2) Contrary to modern speculation, none of the reliable ancient sources report any romantic or sexual relationship between Mary and Jesus.[
]
She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be Saint Mary Magdalene, 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). Protestant churches honor her as an apostle of Jesus. She is referred to in early Christian writings as "the apostle to the apostles."
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"Apostle to the Apostles"
Mary's epithet of "Apostle to the Apostles" comes from her ascription as the first witness to the
empty tomb who then shared the good news with Jesus' other close disciples.
[6] In the earliest extant Biblical accounts now available,
[7] Mary of Magdala is described as a Galilean disciple, a witness to both the crucifixion and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth's resurrected body. adds to Mary's persona by alluding to her having had seven
demons cast out of her, which some have taken to signify a perfected status within the movement.
[8] Together with other female followers, Mary accompanied Jesus on his journey to
Jerusalem,
[9] and witnessed the
Crucifixion.
[10] Mary remained at the cross until the body was taken down and laid in a tomb.
[11] In the early dawn, when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene (with other women) came to the
sepulchre with spices to
anoint the body.
[12] They found the
sepulchre empty and were informed of Jesus' resurrection. According to the
Gospel of John, she was the first witness of the
Resurrection appearances of Jesus. At first she did not recognize him. When he said her name, she recognised him and cried,
Rabboni
. She wanted to embrace him, but he forbade 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'".
[13]
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.
[14]
Misidentification as a prostitute
For centuries, Mary Magdalene has been misidentified in
Western Christian Tradition as an adulteress and repentant prostitute, although nowhere does the New Testament identify her as such. Indeed, according to Harvard theologian
Karen King, Mary Magdalene was a prominent disciple and leader of one wing of the early Christian movement that promoted women's leadership.
[15] Pope Gregory the Great made a speech in 591 A.D. where he seemed to combine the actions of three women mentioned in the New Testament and also identified an unnamed woman as Mary Magdalene. He stated that she was a prostitute. This erroneous view was not corrected until 1969 when the Vatican issued a quiet retraction.
King cites references in the Gospel of John that the risen Jesus gives Mary special teaching and commissions her as an "apostle to the apostles." She is the first to announce the resurrection and to play the role of an apostle, although the term is not specifically used of her (though, in
Eastern Christianity she is referred to as "
Equal to the Apostles"). Later tradition, however, names her as "the apostle to the apostles." King writes that the strength of this literary tradition makes it possible to suggest that historically Mary was a prophetic visionary and leader within one sector of the early Christian movement after the death of Jesus.
Bible scholar
Ben Witherington III confirms the New Testament account of Mary Magdalene as historical: "Mary was an important early disciple and witness for Jesus."
[16] He continues, "There is absolutely no early historical evidence that Miriam's relationship with Jesus was anything other than that of a disciple to her Master teacher."
Jeffrey Kripal, a religion scholar, wrote, "
Migdal or
Magdala (meaning "tower" in Hebrew and Arameic respectively) was a fishing town known, or so the legend goes, for its possibly
punning connection to hairdressers (medgaddlela) and women of questionable reputation.
[17] According to Kripal, the misidentification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute goes back to the above-mentioned sermon by Pope Gregory.
However, Gregory identified Mary merely as a
peccatrix
, a sinful woman, using her as a model for the repentant sinner, not a
meretrix
, a prostitute. Gregory also identified Mary with the adulteress brought before Jesus (as recounted in the
Pericope Adulterae
,
[18] concurring with 3rd and 4th century
Church fathers that had already considered the sinful woman's sin as "being
unchaste.") Gregory's identification and the consideration of the woman's sin as sexual later probably gave rise to the image of Mary as a prostitute.
This viewpoint is also espoused by much Western medieval Christian art. In many medieval depictions, Mary Magdalene is shown as having long hair which she wears down over her shoulders, while other women follow contemporary standards of propriety by hiding their hair beneath headdresses or kerchiefs. The Magdalene's hair may be rendered as red, while the other women of the New Testament in these same depictions ordinarily have dark hair beneath a scarf. This disparity between depictions of women can be seen in works such as the Crucifixion paintings by the
Meister des Marienlebens.
This image of Mary as a prostitute was followed by many writers and artists until the 20th century and the identification of Mary Magdalene with the adulteress is still accepted by various Christian groups today. This is reflected in
Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of
Nikos Kazantzakis's novel
The Last Temptation of Christ
, as well as in
José Saramago's
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
,
Andrew Lloyd Webber's
rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar
,
Mel Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ
and
Hal Hartley's
The Book of Life.
Veneration
Eastern Orthodox
The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that Mary Magdalene, distinguished from
Mary of Bethany and the "sinful woman", had been a virtuous woman all her life. This view finds expression both in her written
life
(ß??? 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.
[19] Mary's role as a witness is interesting due to the fact women at that time could not be witnesses in legal proceedings.
[20] 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. (This previous statement appears to be a conflagration of Turkish local traditions about St. John and the Virgin Mary , ,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Virgin_Mary). Her
relics were transferred to
Constantinople in 886 and are there preserved.
Roman Catholic
Gregory of Tours, writing in
Tours in the sixth century,
[21] 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
[22] in the collection of essays in
La Magdaleine, VIIIe – XIIIe siècle
[23] and by Katherine Ludwig Jansen, drawing on popular devotions, sermon literature and iconology.
[24]
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;
[25] the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard,
duke of Burgundy.
[26] 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 (although it is now known that Mary of Bethany was the woman known for washing or anointing the feet of Jesus,
[27] 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. In 1822, the grotto was consecrated afresh. The head of the saint now lies there and has been the centre of many pilgrimages.
Mary as a penitent
The traditional Roman Catholic feast day dedicated to Mary Magdalene celebrated her position as a penitent. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church allegedly admitted what critics had been saying for centuries: Magdalene's standard image as a reformed prostitute is not supported by the text of the Bible.
[28] They revised the Roman Missal and the Roman Calendar, and now there is no mention in either of Mary Magdalene the sinner. However, if true, this is only circumstancial evidence, since the Catholic Church has made no official statement on the matter.
[29]
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"). In contrast, her name was also used for the
Magdalen Asylum, institutions for "fallen women".
In the Orthodox Church, Mary Magdalene is not celebrated as a penitent, but rather as a woman who lived a virtuous life.
Protestant views
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