Maria Magdalena

Mary Magdalene (Hebrew: מרים המגדלית‎; Ancient Greek: Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή) is mentioned, both in the canonical New Testament and in various apocryphal gospels, as a distinguished disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. Her name refers to her place of origin: Magdala, a town located on the western shore of Lake Tiberias and a village near Capernaum.

She is considered a saint by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion, who celebrate her holiday on July 22. She is of special importance for the Gnostic currents of Christianity. In 1988, Pope John Paul II in the letter Mulieris Dignitatem referred to her as the "apostle of the apostles", and on June 10, 2016, the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published a decree by which the celebration of Saint Mary Magdalene is elevated to the degree of a feast in the general Roman Calendar, at the express wish of Pope Francis.

Mary Magdalene in the New Testament

Santa María Magdalena, (Villamuelas, Toledo, Spain).

Information about Mary Magdalene in the canonical gospels is sparse. She is quoted in connection with five different facts:

• According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary Magdalene lodged and materially provided Jesus and his disciples during her preaching in Galilee. It is added that it had previously been healed by Jesus: "The twelve and some women who had been healed of evil diseases and spirits accompanied him: Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom were seven demons Luke 8:1-2.
• According to the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and John, he was present with Mary, the mother of Jesus, other women and the beloved disciple during the crucifixion of Jesus.
• He was present at the tomb and saw where Jesus was put, according to Matthew 27:61 and Mark 15:47. It is mentioned with Mary, the mother of Santiago the minor.
• In the company of other women, he was the first witness of the resurrection, according to a tradition in which the four Gospels are agreed. Then he communicated the news to Peter and the other apostles.
• According to a story that appears only in the Gospel of John, he was an eyewitness to an appearance of the risen Jesus.
• Also the Gospel of Mark shortly mentions the rise of Jesus risen to the Magdalene.

Identification with other characters

The above are the only passages in the canonical gospels in which Mary of Magdala is named. Catholic tradition, however, has identified other characters cited in the New Testament with Mary Magdalene:

• The adulterous woman whom Jesus saves from stoning, in an episode that only relates the Gospel of John
• The woman who anoints the feet of Jesus with perfume and wipes them with her hair before her arrival in Jerusalem according to the synoptic gospels, whose name is not mentioned. The anointing took place during the ministry in Galilee.
• Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, to whom the above-mentioned initiative is attributed in the Gospel of John, and which appears in other well-known passages of the fourth gospel, such as the resurrection of Lazarus. It also identifies with Mary the episode of the dispute between Martha and Mary.

The identity of Mary Magdalene as Mary of Bethany and "the woman who was a sinner" was established in the homily 33 that Pope Gregory I gave in the year 591, in which he said: "She, whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be Mary, from whom seven demons were expelled, according to Mark."

Spread by theologians of the 3rd and 4th centuries, this theory enjoyed great popularity in the 19th century and was a frequent theme in Western Christian iconography.

Mary Magdalene in the apocryphal gospels

Thus Titian saw the appearance of Jesus risen to Mary Magdalene, according to John 20:11-18.

The Gospel of Peter only mentions Mary Magdalene in her role as a witness to the resurrection of Jesus:

On the morning of Sunday, Mary of Magdala, a disciple of the Lord, cared for by the Jews, for they were rabid with anger, had not done in the tomb of the Lord what women used to do for their dear dead, took their friends with them and came to the tomb in which they had been deposited.

Gospel of Peter, v.50. Santos Otero, (1956, pp. 385-386)

In at least two of the Coptic Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, Mary Magdalene is mentioned as a close disciple of Jesus, in a relationship as close as that of the apostles. In the Gospel of Thomas there are two mentions of Mariham (logia 21 and 114), which, according to scholars, refer to Mary Magdalene. The second mention is part of an enigmatic passage that has been the subject of very varied interpretations:

Sta. Maria Magdalena de Malambo.

Simon Peter said to them, "Let Mariham be far from us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus said, "Look, I will take care of making her male, so that she also becomes a living spirit, identical to you men: for every woman who becomes a man will enter the kingdom of heaven.".

In the Gospel of Philip (log. 32) she is considered the companion (κοινωνος) of Jesus:

Three (are those who) walked continually with the Lord: her mother Mary, her sister and Magdalena, whom she appointed as her companion [κοινωνος]. Mary is, in fact, her sister, her mother and her partner..

Not all scholars, however, agree that the Gospels of Thomas and Philip refer to Mary Magdalene. For Stephen J. Shoemaker it would rather be a reference to the mother of Jesus.

Lastly, another important reference to the character can be found in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a text of which only two Greek fragments from the century have survived III and another, longer one, in Coptic, from the V century. In the text, three apostles discuss the testimony of Mary Magdalene about Jesus. Andrew and Peter distrust her testimony, and it is Levi (the apostle Matthew) who defends Mary.

Later Legends

Mary Magdalene in a Greek icon.

According to Orthodox tradition, Mary Magdalene withdrew to Ephesus with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John, and died there. In 886 her relics were transferred to Constantinople, where they are preserved today. Gregory of Tours (De miraculis , I, xxx) corroborates the tradition that she retired to Ephesus, and does not mention any connection with France.

Later on, however, a different tradition arose in the Catholic world, according to which Mary Magdalene (identified here as Mary of Bethany), her brother Lazarus, and Maximinus, one of the seventy-two disciples, as well as some companions They traveled by boat through the Mediterranean Sea fleeing persecution in the Holy Land and finally disembarked in the place called Saintes Maries de la Mer, near Arles. Subsequently, Maria Magdalena traveled to Marseille, from where she supposedly began the evangelization of Provence, to later retire to a cave -La Sainte-Baume- in the vicinity of Marseille, where she would have led a life of penance for 30 years.. According to this legend, when the hour of her death came, she was taken by angels to Aix-en-Provence, to the oratory of Saint Maximin, where she received viaticum. Her body was entombed in an oratory built by Maximin in Villa Lata, since then known as St. Maximin.

The Easter Egg Tradition

There is an ancient Christian tradition of painting Easter eggs. These eggs symbolize new life and Christ emerging from the grave, in fact, Orthodox Christians accompany this tradition with the slogan: "Christ is risen!".

An Orthodox tradition relates that after the Ascension, Mary Magdalene went to Rome to preach the gospel. In the presence of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, and holding a chicken egg, she exclaimed: "Christ is risen!" The emperor laughed and told her that this was just as likely as the egg turning red. Before she finished speaking the egg had turned red.

Another tradition speaks^{[citation needed]} that the sacred heart of Christ would be enclosed in an egg-shaped container of which Mary Magdalene would be the guardian.

Veneration of Mary Magdalene

Interior of the Basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

Vézelay

The first place in France known to have worshiped Mary Magdalene was the city of Vézelay, in Burgundy. Although, it seems, in its beginnings the temple of Vézelay was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and not to Mary Magdalene, for some reason the monks decided that the abbey was the burial place of Mary Magdalene, and pilgrimages to the tomb are attested of Mary Magdalene in Vézelay since at least 1030. On April 27, 1050, a bull from Pope Leo IX officially placed the abbey of Vézelay under the patronage of Mary Magdalene. Santiago de la Vorágine refers to the official version of the transfer of the relics of the saint from her tomb in the oratory of Saint Maximin in Aix-en-Provence to the newly founded Vézelay abbey, in 771. Saint Maximin in this legend is a character that combines traits of the historical bishop Maximino with the Maximino who, according to legend, accompanied Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus to Provence.

Saint-Maximin

A later cult that attracted numerous pilgrims began when the body of Mary Magdalene was officially discovered, on September 9, 1279, in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Provence, by the then-Prince of Salerno, future King Charles II of Naples. A large Gothic-style Dominican monastery was built on that location, one of the most important in southern France.

In 1600, the supposed relics were deposited in a sarcophagus ordered by Pope Clement VIII, but the head was deposited separately, in a reliquary. The relics were desecrated during the French Revolution. In 1814 the temple was restored and the head of the saint was recovered, which is currently venerated in that place.

Mary Magdalene according to the Catholic Church

I blame Maria Magdalena in Llanes, Asturias, Spain.

Mary Magdalene is officially venerated by the Catholic Church as Saint Mary Magdalene. There are multiple temples around the world dedicated to this Catholic saint. Her name day is July 22.

Penitent Magdalene

While Eastern Christianity especially honors Mary Magdalene for her closeness to Jesus, considering her "equal to the apostles," in the West it developed, based on her identification with other women in the gospels (see below). above) the idea that before knowing Jesus, she had been very sinful and from there comes the assumption, although the Catholic Church does not affirm it, that she has dedicated herself to prostitution.

Gregor Erhart (?): Mary Magdalene (Museum of the Louvre).

This idea is born, first of all, from the identification of Mary with the sinner of whom it is said only that she was a sinner and that she loved much; secondly, from the reference where it is said, this time clearly referring to Mary Magdalene, that "seven demons had come out of her". As can be seen, nothing in these evangelical passages allows us to conclude that Mary Magdalene dedicated herself to prostitution.

It is not known exactly when Mary Magdalene began to be identified with Mary of Bethany and the woman who entered the house of Simon the Pharisee, but already in a homily by Pope Gregory the Great (d. 591) it is unequivocally expressed the identity of these three women, and Mary Magdalene is shown as a repentant prostitute. That is why the later legend of her makes her spend the rest of her life in a cave in the desert, doing penance and mortifying her flesh, and representations of the "penitent Magdalene" are frequent in Western art. ».

The image of Mary Magdalene as a penitent can also be confused thanks to the tradition of Mary Egyptian, saint of the century V, who according to The Lives of the Saints by Jacobo de la Vorágine, had dedicated herself to prostitution and retired to the desert to expiate her guilt. It is common to see representations of the Egyptian Mary, with long hair covering her body or wrapped in reeds, symbols of her penance in the desert. These attributes sometimes accompany the Magdalena, sometimes creating the confusion of both saints.

In the Catholic tradition, therefore, Mary Magdalene became a secondary character, despite her undoubted importance in the Evangelical tradition. The relegation suffered by Mary Magdalene has been related by some authors to the subordinate situation of women in the Church. To this opinion some Catholic theologians oppose the special consideration that the Church has for Saint Mary, mother of Jesus, venerated with hyperdulia, while the apostles and other saints are venerated with dulia.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI withdrew from the liturgical calendar the name "penitent" traditionally assigned to Mary Magdalene; likewise, from that date the reading from the Gospel of Luke was no longer used in the liturgy of the feast of Mary Magdalene about the sinful woman. Since then, the Catholic Church has stopped considering Mary Magdalene a repentant prostitute. However, this vision continues to be the predominant one for many Catholics.

In 1988, Pope John Paul II in his letter Mulieris Dignitatem referred to Mary Magdalene as the "apostle of the apostles" and noted that in "the most difficult test of faith and fidelity" of Christians, the Crucifixion, "the women proved stronger than the apostles".

On June 10, 2016, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published a decree elevating the celebration of Saint Mary Magdalene to the degree of a feast in the general Roman Calendar, by express wish of Pope Francis. Arthur Roche pointed out in his article in L'Osservatore Romano entitled Apostolorum apostola that the decision is framed within the current ecclesial context in favor of a reflection insight into the dignity of women, the new evangelization and the greatness of divine mercy. Roche himself pointed out that "it is fair that the liturgical celebration of this woman has the same degree of celebration given to the celebration of the apostles in the General Roman Calendar and that it highlights the special mission of this woman, who is an example and model for all woman in the Church".

Mary Magdalene and other Catholic saints

María Magdalena was a source of inspiration for two of the most important mystics and doctors of the Church in Catholicism: Saint Teresa of Ávila, who reported having received spiritual help from the Magdalena and Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, who admired this deep love reported in the Gospel in which Mary Magdalene thinks of serving whom she loves; Thus, Teresa decided to dedicate her life to whom she loved the most: Jesus of Nazareth. In 1894 she wrote: "Jesus has defended us in the person of Mary Magdalene."

Contemporary theories about Mary Magdalene

On her relationship with Jesus

Magdalena penitentby Francesco Hayez.

Some recent authors have put into circulation a hypothesis according to which Mary Magdalene would have been the wife, or sentimental companion, of Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the custodian of a Christian tradition with a feminist sign that would have been carefully hidden by the Catholic Church. These ideas were first developed in some pseudo-history books, such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” (1982), by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln; and The Templar Revelation ("The Templar Revelation", 1997), by Lynn Picknett and Clive Princey. These books also mentioned a hypothetical dynasty resulting from the union between Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene. Subsequently, these ideas have been used by various fictional authors such as Peter Berling (The Children of the Grail) and Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, 2003), among others.

Supporters of this idea rely on three arguments:

Maria Magdalena, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo.

1. In various Gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Philip, it is shown that Jesus had a closer relationship with Mary Magdalene than with the rest of his disciples, including the apostles. Specifically, the Gospel of Philip speaks of Mary Magdalene as a "companion" of Jesus. However, its author uses the Coptic term hotre, which can be used both for a sexual union and for a simple companion. Also in the same Gospel and in the Second Apocalypse of Santiago It is mentioned that Jesus kissed her on the mouth. However, the kiss or holy kiss was for the Gnostics the beginning of an act where a revelation was received.

2. In the canonical gospels, Mary Magdalene is (excluding the mother of Jesus) the woman who appears the most times, and is also presented as a close follower of Jesus. Her presence at the crucial moments of Jesus' death and resurrection could suggest that she was bound to him by conjugal ties. But this deduction is considered by scholars to be fanciful.

3. Another argument used by the defenders of the theory of the marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is that in the Palestine of the time it was rare for a Jewish man of the age of Jesus (about thirty years old) to remain single, especially if he dedicated himself to teaching as a rabbi, since that would have gone against the divine commandment "Be fruitful and multiply". However, the Judaism that Jesus professed was very different from today, and the role of the rabbi was not yet well defined. Only after the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70, did the role of the rabbi become clearly established in Jewish communities. Before Jesus, the existence of single religious teachers is attested, such as the prophet Jeremiah and, already in the first century B.C. C., there were many cases among the Essenes. John the Baptist was also single, according to all indications. Later, some early Christians, such as Paul of Tarsus, would also be celibate preachers.

Magdalena penitent.

However, there is no passage in the canonical or apocryphal gospels that allows us to affirm that Mary of Magdala was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth. For most^{[<citation needed}] scholars of the historical Jesus it is a possibility that does not even deserve to be taken seriously; Prominent among them is Bart Ehrman who concludes that the historical evidence says nothing, "certainly nothing to indicate that Jesus and Mary (Magdalene) had a sexual relationship of any kind". Ehrman notes that the question people ask him most frequently is whether Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married. His answer is: “It is not true that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain Gospels that speak of Mary (Magdalene) and Jesus. [...] It is not true that a marriage of Mary (Magdalene) and Jesus is repeatedly discussed in the Gospels that did not enter the New Testament (the canon). In fact, it is never discussed or even mentioned once. [...] It is not true that the Gospel of Philip calls Mary the wife of Jesus". Regino Cortes also concludes the non-existence of such a marital relationship as an error from the biblical point of view and unreality from a factual. Another first-rate contemporary biblical scholar was ironic about it:

Sometimes the biblists who are dedicated to looking for any of the works that so far are lost, or to publish them, They are not free from sensationalism; and, of course, even if they do not cooperate with it, the press enjoys sensationalism. If I am allowed to generalize, with a certain dose of cynicism, the readers who have no interest in achieving through the canonical gospels a greater knowledge of Jesus, appear to be haunted by any new work that comes to insinuate that Jesus would come down from the cross, marry Mary Magdalene, and go to India to live quietly!

Raymond Edward Brown

On the authorship of the Fourth Gospel

Ramón K. Jusino proposed the theory that Mary Magdalene could be the "disciple whom Jesus loved" who is presented as the author of the Gospel of John and who is traditionally identified with the apostle John. Jusino based himself on the fact that in various apocryphal texts, such as those cited above, it is said that there was a relationship of special closeness between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Raymond E. Brown hypothesized that the Gospel of John would collect the tradition of a community that he called the Johannine or Johannine community. According to Jusino, that community could be traced back to the testimony of Mary Magdalene as an eyewitness of Jesus. This theory of Jusino does not count with the acceptance of most of the historians and Biblical investigators.

Mary Magdalene in cinematography