The Magdalene’s Story

We don’t know very much about Mary Magdalene. She is mentioned 12 times in the New Testament - the earliest of Christian writings. She is one of several female followers of Jesus who assisted him financially when he was teaching and healing from Galilee to Jerusalem. As she ministered to Jesus and the disciples from her own resources, it can be assumed she had an independent source of wealth. She is not named after a father or a husband, but after a word meaning 'tower'. This could be a place name or a name of distinction relating to her ability and kindness. Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, Chumash, and Suzanna and many others also provided Jesus with resources, therefore they were vital to his ministry. 

The gospels tell us that Jesus healed Mary Magdalene of seven demons. We do not know what these demons involved, perhaps illness or distress. Did she come from Migdal, a town in Galilee? It is not thought so, as there was no town of this name in the first century. 

 

When Jesus was visiting the home of a Galilean Pharisee, Simon in Bethany, a strange event occurred. A woman who was known to be a sinner, stood behind him weeping and washed his feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair. She brought with her an expensive jar of perfumed oil and poured it over his head and feet. Many think this was Magdalene, but the gospels do not name her. What is very important is Jesus’s words and the parable of gratitude that Jesus tells at this event. 

What is most interesting about the life of Mary Magdalene is that, when the male disciples fled after Jesus was arrested, Mary, with other women, stood at the foot of the cross to watch his torture and death. Then, after his burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea, Mary went there, probably to clean his body, as the closest female relative had this responsibility. There, she saw the stone had been removed, and a man told her that Jesus was not there. She thought he was the gardener, but it was Jesus, choosing her as the first witness to his resurrection, and though she ran to him, he asked that she did not touch him. At that time, women were not thought to be intelligent or reliable enough to be an accurate witness. As Jesus chose Mary to be the first to see him after his resurrection, and to go and tell the disciples what she had seen, he was endorsing her as a reliable witness and reputable female teacher. For one ‘delivered of demons’ this was quite an acknowledgement. 

The Vatican is built on the site of a temple to Mithras, a very masculine deity of the Roman military. King Constantine was a warrior king who saw a cross in the sky that led to a military victory and he adopted Christianity as the main religion over his lands. Pope Gregory (540AD - 604AD), stated Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and described Mary the Mother of Jesus, the Theotokos, as a pure and unsexual mother! These two aspects of womanhood have governed 1700 years of Christianity! Roles for women were very limited - either work or meditation, either a virginal housewife or be a diseased sex worker! This was the degree of women’s powerlessness to challenge stereotypes. 

 

In 1945 an Egyptian farmer found an ancient earthenware jar filled with leather bound papyrus books. These were found to be 'gnostic' gospels and one describes how Peter was jealous and resented Mary Magdalene, probably due to her closeness to Jesus or of the power she could attain to deliver the Christian message as a competitor to Peter. In the early years of Christianity, women were often seen as powerful spiritual leaders, even Bishops of the church. Paul was misogynistic and wrote resentfully that women should not speak in church.

 

For 1,400 years, Mary Magdalene suffered a gross injustice, as she was accused by the Papacy of prostitution. There is nothing in the New Testament to associate her name with this way of making money. Was Jesus a pimp? It is highly unlikely that she was a prostitute, as Jewish women and the entire society were very strict and kept the most extreme laws. At the time, with Roman soldiers in the city, the foulest of diseases would have been rampant amongst prostitutes, and any woman involved in this would have been driven from the city. 

But so often, we see she is said to be a prostitute again, sexed up and sensationalised to sell a book and to improve careers as writer or TV presenter. Jesus, we know is a circumcised Jewish healer and teacher, whom Magdalene called “Rabbi”. Jesus had a purple robe of kingship placed over his shoulders, a crown of thorns placed upon his head, and had a sign placed above his crucified body, inscribed with “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’! 

From the 4th century, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany, and maybe Mary of Egypt were confused together by the Roman Church. Mary of Egypt was a 6th century saint. She lived a dissolute life in Alexandria where she gave sexual services and begged for money. It is said she used the money to go to Jerusalem and visited the Baptist’s ministry on the River Jordan where she received forgiveness. Her emancipated and naked body was hardly recognisable and she was given a cloak to cover her naked body. Miracles surrounded her death. 

We are told in the Gospel of Luke, that Martha busied herself providing for the disciples when they called at Bethany, and Mary sat and listened to Jesus teaching. These two types of behaviour were compared, and Jesus said that Mary chose the best one. That might be so, but women across all time might not have had such an option; work being a necessary part of the life of women to this day! 

Roman Catholics, in recent years, have defined each Mary more clearly. Now the Magdalene’s feast day is 22nd July and Mary of Bethany, with Martha and her brother Lazarus, is on 29th July. 

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The early Jewish religion featured a male God and a female God, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and even Solomon's temple and the Ark of the Covenant are by some, thought to have originated from this ancient period of male and female deities. Greek, Roman and other religious teachings were well discussed in the time of Jesus. Jesus, having spent his early years in Egypt, might have been influenced by these very ancient concepts. Did he and Mary Magdalene try to revive a greater equality between the sexes, together teaching the equivalent of a mystery school, with Mary as a priestess and Jesus, a priest? Many wonder how and why the Templars had a deep devotion for Mary the Virgin, Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. This devotion might have come from their Founding Father in an area of France where the Templar Order originated, or from the brotherhood’s love of the grieving women they left at home to take up their cause in dangerous places abroad. 

There is an apocryphal story that Mary Magdalene sailed, after the death of Jesus, across the Mediterranean to Marseilles, where there was a large Jewish community. There are many churches dedicated to her name in this area, and an annual gypsy celebration. As a Rabbi, it is likely that Jesus would have been married, unless he was an Essene Rabbi.  In 2016, Pope Francis referred to the Magdalene as the ‘Apostle of the Apostles’.There is a story that Mary Magdalene carried Jesus’s child and there is a venerated relic of a skull said to be hers. The words and deeds of women have been consistently deleted from history and especially from Christianity, yet they were the monetary providers for the disciples, and women across the world are still providing money for the Church to this day! It is high time the Vatican made available their archives for historians and investigators to throw greater light on these enigmatic stories! 

Free pdf:  https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/199647.pdf

 

By Wendy Stokes https://wendystokes.co.uk