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.

Veneration of Mary Magdalene

The Eastern Orthodox Church maintains that the saint retired to Ephesus with the Blessed Virgin 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.

Related Topics:
Ephesus - Gregory of Tours

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How a cult of Mary Magdalene first arose in Provence is not clear. As a Roman Catholic saint, Mary Magdalene's relics 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).

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - Saint - Relic - Vézelay - Burgundy - Jacobus de Voragine - Aix-en-Provence - William Caxton

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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.

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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 pilgrims 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.

Related Topics:
September 9 - Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume - Provence - Pilgrim - Basilica - Gothic - France

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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 penitance, 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 heppenings 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.

Related Topics:
Jacopo de Voragine - Legenda Aurea - Emblem - Genre of Romance - Hegesippus - Josephus

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The French tradition of Saint Lazare of Bethany is that Mary, her brother Lazarus, and Maximinus, one of the Seventy-Two Apostles andsome 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.

Related Topics:
Saint Lazare of Bethany - Seventy-Two Apostles - Arles - Sainte-Baume - Aix - Saint Maximinus - Viaticum

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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..

Related Topics:
745 - Vézelay

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In 1279, when Charles II, King of Naples, erected a Dominican convent at La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was marvellously found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden.

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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, where it has lain so long, and where it has been the centre of so many pilgrimages.

Related Topics:
Pope Clement VIII - Revolution

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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 Asylums in Ireland where "fallen women" were mistreated and exploited.

Related Topics:
Magdalen College, Oxford - Magdalene College, Cambridge - Magdalen Asylum - Ireland

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