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.

Wife of Jesus?

Some modern writers, notably the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982) and The Da Vinci Code (2003), hold that Mary Magdalene was the wife of Jesus. These writers cite non-canonical and Gnostic writings to support their argument. While sources like the Gospel of Philip do depict Mary Magdalene as being closer to Jesus than any other disciple. However, there is no ancient document which claims she was his wife and Gnosticism was generally non-supportive of sexuality. The closeness in these writings depict Mary Magdalene, representing the Gnostics, as understanding Jesus and his teaching while the other disciples, representing the Church, did not.

Related Topics:
Modern - Holy Blood, Holy Grail - The Da Vinci Code - Jesus - Gnostic - Gospel of Philip - Disciple - Gnosticism

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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. On the other hand, there is neither any evidence that Jesus was unmarried.

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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.

Related Topics:
Jewish - Mitzvah - Rabbi

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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 Second Temple in A.D. 70 that Rabbinic Judaism became dominant and the role of the rabbi made uniform in Jewish communities. Before Jesus celibate teachers were known in the communities of the Essenes and John the Baptist also was celibate. Later, Paul of Tarsus was an example of an unmarried itinerant teacher among Christians. Jesus himself approved of voluntary celibacy for religious reasons and explicitly rejected a duty to marry: "There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it." (Matt. 19,12)

Related Topics:
Second Temple - Rabbinic Judaism - Essenes - John the Baptist - Paul of Tarsus - Matt.

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Metaphysical marriage

Writers employing metaphysical analogy and allegory assert that Christ was already married— to the Church. This image goes back to Old Testament depictions of the covenant between God and his people as a marriage, especially in the books Hosea, Ezekiel and the Song of Songs. Imagery of marriage also appears in the Gospels and is applied to Jesus in the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament. This was later expanded by the Church fathers. Some writers, following an early tradition that Jesus is in a mystical sense the second Adam that began with Paul and continued with Irenaeus and others, embody this sense with literal parallels: like the first Adam, his bride was taken from his side when he had fallen asleep (died on the cross). In medieval Christian anagogic 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.

Related Topics:
Analogy - Allegory - Old Testament - Hosea - Ezekiel - Song of Songs - Apocalypse of John - Church father - Adam - Irenaeus - Anagogic - Exegesis - Baptism - New covenant

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