Mary Magdalene

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 a saint by Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches with a feast day of July 22. Her name means "Mary of Magdala", a town on the western shore of the Lake of Tiberias. The life of the historical Mary is a subject of ongoing debate.

Expansion of the Mary Magdalene tradition

Tradition as early as the 3rd century {fact} identified as Mary Magdalene the woman who was a sinner in Luke 7:36-50:

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:" 37 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,

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:38 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."

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There is no explicit connection made in the New Testament, nor is the woman in the house of the Pharisee given a name. The idea that Mary was "the woman who was a sinner", or that she was unchaste, was developed by the Patristic writers of the 3rd and 4th centuries.

Related Topics:
Unchaste - Patristic writer

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This idea is rejected by most Protestants. Catholics, on the other hand, consider this one person to be, not only the sinner of Luke 7:36-50 but also Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and the resurrected Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42 and John 1:10). They point to the explicit John 11:1-2 to identify Mary as the sinner who had already annointed Jesus' feet, and who does so again before the Last Supper, and who then goes to the tomb to annoint his dead body on the morning of the resurrection:

Related Topics:
Mary of Bethany - Martha - Lazarus

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:John 11:1-1-2

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: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.)

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The parenthetical explication in the second half of the verse has the character of an explanatory gloss that has become part of the text in recopying, a not uncommon occurrence.

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A sermon of Pope Gregory I ( 591 A.D) reflects the expandede tradition: "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary , we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark."

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Although the Roman Catholic Church withdrew from the linkage between the Mary of John and the Mary of Mark to the sinner of Luke at the Second Vatican Council (1969), it survives strongly in folk Catholicism.

Related Topics:
Second Vatican Council - 1969

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For some Christians, the idea developed by Church fathers, that Mary is also the woman that Jesus had rescued from being stoned to death (as recounted in the Pericope Adulterae) still holds true. However those critical scholars who are drawing conclusions from the canonic texts alone believe that the woman Jesus rescued and Mary were two separate persons. Conservative early-19th century theological traditions, vividly realized in the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ, portray the prostitute and Mary as the same person, and Martin Scorsese's earlier film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis's novel The Last Temptation of Christ followed a similar tradition.

Related Topics:
Stoned to death - Pericope Adulterae - Mel Gibson - The Passion of the Christ - Prostitute - Martin Scorsese - Nikos Kazantzakis - The Last Temptation of Christ

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