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. Mary Magdalene. Ca. 1860.]] 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 , and was particularly special to The Gnostics . Her name means "Mary of Magdala ", Magdala being a town on the western shore of the Lake Of Tiberias . The life of the historical Mary is a subject of ongoing debate. MARY MAGDALENE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT In , though at first she did not recognise 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 entry in the canonical New Testament regarding Mary of Magdala, who now returned to Jerusalem. IDENTIFICATION WITH OTHER WOMEN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT .]] Tradition as early as the 3rd century ( Hippolytus , in his ''Commentary on Song of Songs'') identifies Mary Magdalene with Mary Of Bethany and the woman sinner, who anointed Jesus's feet. The latter person can be found in Luke 7:36-50 : :"And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." Though the woman remains unnamed, she is identified with Mary Of Bethany , the sister of Martha and the resurrected Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42 and John 1:10 ), as John 11:1-2 says: :"Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick. The identification of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, also led to her being identified with "the woman who was a sinner". Church Fathers of the 3rd and 4th centuries considered this sin as "being Unchaste ". Catholics traditionally, though unofficially, have identifed all three women as the same Mary; this is reflected in a sermon of Pope Gregory I (A.D. 591): "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary Bethany , we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark." Eastern Orthodox Christians distinguish between Mary Magdalene on the one hand and Mary of Bethany/"the woman who was a sinner" on the other hand. Protestants mostly reject all these identifications. For some Christians, the idea developed by Church fathers, that Mary Magdalene is also the woman that Jesus had rescued from being Stoned To Death (as recounted in the '' Pericope Adulterae '') still holds true. This is reflected in the Mel Gibson movie '' The Passion Of The Christ '' as well as in Martin Scorsese 's earlier film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis 's novel '' The Last Temptation Of Christ ''. Scholars however believe that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the woman Jesus rescued as well as the one who anointed him at Simon the Lepers house in the Gospel of Luke, are all different women. VENERATION OF MARY MAGDALENE The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that the saint retired to Ephesus with the Theotokos (Mary the mother of Jesus) and there died, that her relics were transferred to Constantinople in 886 and are there preserved. Gregory Of Tours (''De miraculis'', I, xxx) 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 is not clear. As a Roman Catholic Saint , Mary Magdalene's Relic s were first venerated at the abbey of Vézelay in Burgundy . Jacobus De Voragine gives the official story of the translation 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 Abbey of Vesoul" in William Caxton 's translation), that was reputed to have been undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard, duke of Burgundy (Medieval Sourcebook) . The Saint Maximin of this legend is a figure who conflates the historical bishop Maximin with the "Maximin" accompanying Mary Magdalen, Martha and Lazarus to Provence. A cult later than the ''Legenda Aurea'' drew pilgrims to the body of Mary Magdalene, officially discovered September 9 1279, at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume , Provence , where they attracted such throngs of Pilgrim s 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. Jacopo De Voragine , compiling his '' Legenda Aurea '' before the competition arose, characterized Mary Magdalen 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-Two Apostles 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 ''Sainte Marie-de-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. There is no earlier mention of these episodes than the notice in 745 , when the chronicler Sigebert, the relics were removed to Vézelay through fear of the Saracens . There is no record of their return and a casket of relics associated with Magdalene remains at Vezelay. In 1279, when Charles II, King Of Naples , erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was marvelously 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 centre of many pilgrimages. The Magdalene became a symbol of repentance for the vanities of the world, and Mary Magdalene was the patron of Magdalen College, Oxford and Magdalene College, Cambridge (both pronounced "maudlin", as in weepy penitents). Unfortunately her name was also used for the infamous Magdalen Asylum s in Ireland where "fallen women" were mistreated and exploited. 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 this sharing is accompanied by the proclamation "Christ 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 Caesar . 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. There is also a supposed tradition that the remnants of Christ's heart remain inside an egg-like vessel, and that this vessel is the basis for "the Sacred Heart " motif in Catholicism. In some legends the Sacred Heart exists as a guarded sacred object or a metaphysical essence, passed from hand to hand, with Mary Magdalene being listed among noteworthy caretakers. THE ''GOSPEL OF MARY'' .]] A group of scholars have suggested that for one early group of Christians Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and maybe even the unidentified Beloved Disciple , to whom the Fourth Gospel commonly called '' Gospel Of John '' is ascribed. The most familiar of the scholars is Elaine Pagels . (see ref.) summarized this reading of the texts in 2003. She demonstrated that an early Christian writing portrays authority as being represented in Mary Magdalene or in the church community structure. These scholars also observe that the Mary Magdalene figure is consistently elevated in writings from which formal leadership roles are absent, while the Paul figure is more involved in a tug-of-war between these two opposing systems of church government. Scholars of the Mary who appears in the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts have identified her with the Magdalene, even though she is merely given the (Coptic) equivalent of "Mary". However, Stephen J. Shoemaker, thinks that this Mary is actually the Blessed Virgin Mary (Shoemaker 2001), that this fits in better with the notions that Mary was intimate with Jesus, was his greatest disciple, and was to be the center of Jesus' religion; Shoemaker has made a study of Marian liturgies and devotion in Early Christianity. Further attestation of Mary of Magdala and her role among some early Christians is provided by the Gnostic , Apocryphal '' Gospel Of Mary Magdalene '' which survives in two 3rd Century Greek fragments and a longer 5th Century translation into Coptic . In the ''Gospel'' the testimony of a ''woman'' first needed to be defended. All of these manuscripts were first discovered and published between 1938 and 1983 , but as early as the 3rd Century there are Patristic references to the ''Gospel of Mary''. These writings reveal the degree to which that gospel was despised and dismissed by the early Church Fathers . In the fragmentary text, the disciples ask questions of the risen Savior (a designation that dates the original no earlier than the 2nd Century ) and are answered. Then they grieve, saying, "How shall we go to the influences. Her vision does not meet with universal approval: :"But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, 'Say what you think concerning what she said. For I do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are of other ideas." :"Peter also opposed her in regard to these matters and asked them about the Savior. "Did he then speak secretly with a woman, in preference to us, and not openly? Are we to turn back and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?" Dr. Karen King, a professor of church history at Harvard Divinity School , has observed, "The confrontation of Mary with Peter, a scenario also found in ''The Gospel Of Thomas '', '' Pistis Sophia '', and The '' Greek Gospel Of The Egyptians '', reflects some of the tensions in second-century Christianity. Peter and Andrew represent orthodox positions that deny the validity of esoteric revelation and reject the authority of women to teach." (introduction, '' The Nag Hammadi Library '')
ASSERTIONS ABOUT MARY MAGDALENE Some Modern writers have come forward with claims that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus . These writers cite Gnostic writings to support their argument. Sources like the '' Gospel Of Philip '' do 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 and Gnosticism was generally non-supportive of sexuality. 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. 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's tomb, while hardly conclusive, is at least consonant 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. Given the lack of contemporary documentation, this scenario cannot be proven, and although some consider the idea desirable to believe, most scholars do not take it seriously. An argument for support of the married status of Jesus is that bachelorhood was very rare for Jewish males of Jesus' time, being generally regarded as a transgression of the first Mitzvah (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 the Judaism of Jesus' time 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 19,12) The idea that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus was popularized by books like the pseudo-historical '' Holy Blood, Holy Grail '' (1982) and '' The Da Vinci Code '' (2003), a novel heavily influenced by the former book. These assertions have found limited acceptance from most scholarly circles, and have triggered a massive PR campaign on the part of religious organizations. Multiple books have been written attempting to debunk parts of '' The Da Vinci Code '' such as ''The Truth Behind the Da Vinci Code'' (2004) written by Richard Abanes and ''The Da Vinci Fraud'' by Robert M. Price (2005) of the Jesus Seminar . The Australian scholar Barbara Thiering claims that a full account of the marriage and children of Jesus and Mary Magdalene can be derived from the New Testament by use of the Pesher Technique . However, most scholars still reject the idea that Jesus and Mary were partners. Metaphysical marriage Writers employing metaphysical 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. By shifting from the metaphysical analogy to a literal marriage, it can then be considered impossible or intolerable to believe that he was literally married. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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