Mary Magdalene

• 1. Introduction

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  The English word maudlin, meaning sickeningly sentimental, comes from the way painters showed Mary Magdalene weeping. The woman behind that word left no writings of her own. She is never mentioned in any of the letters of Paul or in the other epistles. The earliest and most reliable accounts of her come from the three Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, all written in the first century AD. Yet all four canonical gospels place her at the most important moments of the Christian story. Centuries later, her name was attached to a skull, a tibia and a left hand venerated in France and on Mount Athos. Who was she, according to the earliest sources, and how little can historians say for certain? Why do some ancient texts treat her as the one disciple who truly understood Jesus, while others barely mention her? And how did a woman the gospels never call a prostitute come to be remembered that way in the West for well over a thousand years?

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• 2. A Woman Of Magdala

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  Mary was by far the most common Jewish name for girls and women in the first century. That is why the gospel writers needed a second word to tell her apart from the other Marys who followed Jesus. The word Magdalene probably means she came from Magdala, a village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. In antiquity Magdala was known mainly as a fishing town.

  The Gospel of Luke, in chapter 8, gives the fullest summary of her part in the ministry. It describes Jesus going through cities and villages with the twelve, accompanied by women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities. The list names Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. It also names Joanna, wife of Herod's steward Chuza, and Susanna. These women provided for the group out of their own resources. Mark 16:9 repeats the detail about seven demons, but that verse belongs to the longer ending of Mark. The earliest manuscripts lack that ending, and it may be a second-century addition based on Luke.

  Scholars read the number seven in different ways. Bruce Chilton suggests she may have needed seven exorcisms over a long time, because the first six were partly or wholly unsuccessful. Bart Ehrman thinks seven may be symbolic. In Jewish tradition it was the number of completion, so it could mean she was completely overwhelmed. Both agree that she probably suffered severe emotional or psychological trauma. Ehrman also notes that gospel writers usually relish dramatic public exorcisms, with the possessed person wailing and tearing their clothes. Hers gets almost no attention, which may mean it happened privately.

  Because she helped pay for the ministry, she was probably fairly wealthy. Whenever the Synoptic Gospels list a group of women, Mary Magdalene comes first. Carla Ricci observes that her place among the female followers resembles the place of Simon Peter among the male apostles. Women funding a religious community was not unique to Jesus. Inscriptions from a synagogue in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor, from around the same period, show that many of its major donors were women. The Gospel of Mark, thought to be the earliest, does not mention her at all until the crucifixion.

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• 3. At The Cross

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  All four canonical gospels agree that several women watched the crucifixion from a distance, and three of them name Mary Magdalene. Mark lists her with Mary, mother of James, and Salome. Matthew lists her with Mary, mother of James and Joseph, and the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee. John places her beside Mary, mother of Jesus, her sister, and Mary, wife of Clopas. Luke mentions a group of women but gives no names.

  Virtually all reputable historians agree that the Romans crucified Jesus under Pontius Pilate. James Dunn says that this and the baptism are two facts that command almost universal assent. The gospel accounts of the death still differ. Ehrman considers the women's presence probably historical. Christians would hardly invent a story in which the main witnesses were women. Both the Synoptics and John also attest it independently. Maurice Casey agrees it may be a recorded fact. E. P. Sanders offers a reason the women stayed after the male disciples fled. They may have been less likely to be arrested, or braver, or both.

  The burial is more disputed. All four gospels and the apocryphal Gospel of Peter say a man named Joseph of Arimathea took the body down and buried it. Mark names Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as witnesses. Luke mentions only women who had followed Jesus from Galilee. John names no women at the burial but mentions Nicodemus, a Pharisee. Ehrman once accepted the burial as historical but now rejects it. He argues Roman governors almost never allowed burial for executed criminals, and Pilate was not a ruler to break that policy. Sanders calls the burial completely historical. Casey accepts a burial by Joseph of Arimathea but doubts the expensive tomb with a rolled stone. He concludes that the women never saw the tomb.

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• 4. The Empty Tomb

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  Roughly twenty years before any gospel was written, Paul quoted an older creed about the risen Jesus. That passage never mentions Mary Magdalene, the other women or an empty tomb. It credits Simon Peter with being the first to see Jesus. Even so, all four canonical gospels and the Gospel of Peter agree that Mary Magdalene, alone or in a group, was the first to find the tomb empty. The details differ drastically.

  In Mark, the earliest account, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome arrive just after sunrise. They find the stone already rolled away and a young man in white inside. He tells them Jesus has risen and will meet the disciples in Galilee. The women run away and tell no one, because they are afraid. The original text ends there, with no appearance by the risen Jesus. Casey suggests that Mark may simply be an unfinished first draft.

  In Matthew, an earthquake shakes the ground and an angel rolls the stone aside while Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" watch. Jesus himself then meets the women as they leave. In Luke, the women find two young men in white and tell the eleven apostles, who dismiss the story as nonsense. Luke's Jesus appears first to Cleopas and an unnamed disciple on the road to Emmaus. Luke also has him tell the disciples to stay in the precincts of Jerusalem rather than go to Galilee.

  John gives her the largest role. Mary goes to the tomb while it is still dark and runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple. They confirm the tomb is empty and go home. Alone in the garden, she sees two angels, then a man she takes for the gardener. When he says her name, she cries out "Rabbouni!", Aramaic for teacher. His reply is often translated as "Don't touch me", but "stop clinging to me" fits the grammar better. He sends her to tell the apostles, which is why some Christian traditions call her the "apostle to the apostles".

  Scribes were unhappy with Mark's abrupt ending and wrote alternatives. The shorter ending, found in very few manuscripts, has the women report to "those around Peter". That contradicts Mark's last verse, which says they told no one. The longer ending, found in most manuscripts, borrows from the other gospels. It opens with an appearance to Mary Magdalene alone, as in John.

  In a book published in 2006, Ehrman argued that the empty-tomb story traces back to the historical Mary. Women were unreliable witnesses in Jewish society, so early Christians would have preferred Peter as the discoverer. N. T. Wright likewise finds it impossible to imagine the women were added after Paul's day. Casey replied that the women are heroines of a Jewish tradition, not legal witnesses. In a book published in 2014, Ehrman reversed himself. If Jesus was never entombed, no one could have found his tomb empty, and the claim of "no motive" to invent it suffers from "a poverty of imagination". He still concludes that she must have had an experience in which she believed she saw the risen Jesus.

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• 5. Gnostic Voices

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  In 1945 a collection of ancient texts came to light at Nag Hammadi, and several of them put Mary Magdalene at the center. Gnostic Christian writings such as the Dialogue of the Saviour, the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip portray her as an apostle. They show her as Jesus's closest disciple, the only one who truly understood him. Her closeness stirs tension with Peter, who resents her gender and the special teachings she receives. Scholars do not treat these texts as reliable sources for her life. Sanders says very little in the apocryphal gospels could go back to Jesus's time, and he calls them legendary and mythological.

  The Dialogue of the Saviour, badly damaged, is probably the earliest dialogue between Jesus and Mary. In saying 53 she speaks three aphorisms that the New Testament attributes to Jesus. The narrator commends her as a woman "who understood everything".

  The Pistis Sophia is possibly as old as the second century and was found in the 18th century in a large volume of Gnostic treatises. It is a long dialogue of 64 questions, and 39 of them come from a woman called Mary or Mary Magdalene. Jesus calls her blessed beyond all women on earth. Peter protests: "My master, we cannot endure this woman who gets in our way and does not let any of us speak, though she talks all the time." Mary answers that she fears Peter because he threatens her and hates their gender.

  The Gospel of Thomas, a list of 114 sayings, mentions a woman named Mary twice, generally taken as Mary Magdalene. In saying 114, Peter demands that she leave, since women are not worthy of life. Jesus replies that he will make her male so she may become a living spirit. The Gospel of Philip calls her his koinonos, a Greek word that can mean partner, companion or comrade. A fragmentary passage says Jesus loved her more than the other disciples and kissed her. Ehrman explains that the early Christian kiss of peace symbolized truth passing from one person to another.

  The Gospel of Mary is the only surviving apocryphal text named after a woman, though it is anonymous and probably written over a century after her death. The main text is a Coptic translation in a fifth-century manuscript found in Cairo in 1896, which was not published until 1955. About half the text is lost. Two third-century Greek fragments were published in 1938 and 1983. In it, Mary comforts the frightened disciples and describes a vision of the Lord. Andrew doubts her, and Peter asks whether Jesus really spoke with a woman in private. Matthew rebukes Peter, saying that if the savior made her worthy, no one has standing to reject her.

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• 6. From Apostle To Sinner

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  Between 170 and 180, the pagan philosopher Celsus wrote The True Word, and in it he called Mary Magdalene "a hysterical female". He claimed she either hallucinated or invented a fantastic tale to impress others. The Church Father Origen answered in Against Celsus. He pointed to Matthew, where Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" both see the risen Jesus, giving a second witness. Origen also preserved Celsus's remark that some Christians followed a woman named Mariamme, almost certainly Mary Magdalene. Most early Church Fathers barely mentioned her at all.

  A sermon attributed to Hippolytus of Rome, who lived around 170 to 235, describes her as a "second Eve" whose obedience compensates for the first Eve's disobedience. It also names Mary Magdalene and the other women "apostles". The same sermon confuses her with Mary of Bethany, an early sign of the mixing to come. The first clear portrayal of her as a redeemed sinner comes from Ephrem the Syrian. Part of the reason may be Magdala's reputation, since by the late first century it was infamous for alleged vice. Ambrose rejected the merging of the women and even proposed two separate Mary Magdalenes. Augustine praised her as more ardent in love than the other women who served the Lord.

  In 591, Pope Gregory I preached an Easter sermon that changed her reputation in the West. He identified the Mary of Luke 8:2 with Mary of Bethany and with the unnamed "sinful woman" who anointed Jesus's feet in Luke 7. He asked what the seven devils signified, if not all the vices. He declared that she had once used perfume on her flesh in forbidden acts. The seven demons turned into the seven deadly sins, and she became a repentant prostitute in Western imagination. The canonical gospels never say so. In Jewish society of the time, "sinful" could simply mean someone who did not carefully observe the law of Moses.

  The Eastern Orthodox Church never made that identification. It has always taught that she was a virtuous woman her whole life and has honored her as a Myrrhbearer and "Equal to the Apostles". A folk tradition tells of her meeting the Roman emperor Tiberius with a plain egg, proclaiming "Christ is risen!" The emperor laughed and said it was as likely as the egg turning red. Before he finished speaking, the egg turned bright red in her hand. The red Easter eggs shared among Orthodox Christians recall that story.

  In the West, the correction came late. The 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar says the memorial on the 22nd of July concerns only Saint Mary Magdalene, to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection. It states it is not about Martha's sister or the sinful woman. Historian Michael Haag reads this as a Vatican admission that the older teaching was wrong. Popular culture kept the former prostitute anyway.

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• 7. Legends And Relics

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  In the tenth century, Odo of Cluny preached a sermon describing Mary as an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman of royal descent. Some manuscripts name her parents as Syrus and Eucharia. The theologian Honorius Augustodunensis added that she was married in Magdalum, committed adultery and fled to Jerusalem as a public sinner. Painters in Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries were already picturing her as a penitent hermit alone in the desert. That image was borrowed from stories of Mary of Egypt and Pelagia, and it soon spread to Germany and England.

  The most famous retelling is The Golden Legend, compiled around 1260 by the Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine. Ehrman summarizes its heroine as "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual" before she turns to Jesus. Fourteen years after the crucifixion, pagans set Mary, Martha, Lazarus, Maximin and Cedonius adrift on a rudderless boat. It washes ashore at Marseille. Mary converts the governor by praying for his wife to have a child. The wife later dies at sea in childbirth, and the governor leaves her on an island with the infant. Two years later he finds the child alive, and the wife rises from the dead. Mary spends her last thirty years in a cave in Provence, where angels lift her up at every canonical hour to hear their songs.

  Other medieval writers pushed rival romances. Domenico Cavalca, citing Jerome, liked to think she was betrothed to John the Evangelist. De Voragine himself dismissed the story of John leaving his bride at the altar as nonsense. The Cistercian chronicler Peter of Vaux de Cernay reported that the Cathars secretly taught that she was Christ's concubine. A document attached to a treatise against heretics says they called her his wife.

  The legends needed a grave. Around 1050, the monks of the Vézelay Abbey in Burgundy began saying they had her skeleton. In 1265 they announced the discovery publicly, and in 1267 the bones were shown to the king of France, who venerated them. On the 9th of December 1279, an excavation ordered by Charles II, King of Naples, at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in Provence found another burial. It was said to hold an inscription explaining why the relics had been hidden. Charles built a Gothic basilica there, and the townspeople were exempt from taxes in return for housing pilgrims. Saint-Maximin gradually displaced Vézelay in popularity.

  Alleged relics of Mary Magdalene include her skull, a piece of forehead flesh, a tibia and her left hand. They are kept in Catholic sites in France and on Mount Athos, with annual processions honoring them.

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• 8. Painted Sung Filmed

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  In 1517, the French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published a book arguing that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinner in Luke were three different women. Many authors answered with books and pamphlets, mostly opposed. In 1521 the theology faculty of the Sorbonne condemned his view as heretical. Luther and Zwingli both supported the composite Magdalene. Luther reportedly joked that even Christ had committed adultery three times, once with Mary Magdalene. Zwingli wanted her cult abolished and all her images destroyed. Calvin rejected the composite figure and mocked Catholics for ever believing in it.

  During the Counter-Reformation, Catholicism stressed her penitence above all. Baroque painters often showed her nude or partly nude, with an emphasis on her erotic beauty. Anton Giulio Brignole-Sale's Maria Maddalena peccatrice convertita, from 1636, is considered a masterpiece of the 17th-century religious novel. Nobles in southern Germany built small hermitages called Magdalene cells on their estates, where they could retreat for religious solace.

  In medieval Western art she was the most commonly depicted woman after the Virgin Mary. Artists dressed her in the fashion of the day or covered her nakedness with very long hair. Donatello showed her as a gaunt, beaten ascetic in his wooden Penitent Magdalene of about 1454. Cimabue painted her at the cross around 1290, and Giotto's kneeling Magdalene in the Scrovegni Chapel, around 1305, was especially influential. Robert Kiely wrote that no figure in the Christian pantheon except Jesus, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist has more provoked the imagination of painters.

  In the eighteenth century, moral reformers founded Magdalene asylums to save women from prostitution, with her as their patroness. The rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, from 1971, shocked early audiences with her song "I Don't Know How to Love Him". Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ also shows her as a prostitute. Ki Longfellow's 2005 novel The Secret Magdalene imagines her studying at the library of Alexandria. Croatian singer Doris Dragović took "Marija Magdalena" to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1999, finishing fourth with 118 points. The 2018 film Mary Magdalene, starring Rooney Mara, tries to reverse the old image and shows her as the one disciple who truly understands Jesus. In 2019, FKA twigs released an album called Magdalene, saying she related to the way the story was revised.

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