Poor Mary of Magdala! For more than fifteen hundred years she has been regarded by Christianity as the resident loose woman of the New Testament. Nearly every movie about the Life of Christ, from Cecil B. DeMille to Mel Gibson, has depicted her as not only a great sinner, but also identifies her as “the one” every time a fallen woman is depicted. Remember the woman caught in adultery and was about to be stoned? That's Mary Magdalene. How about the prostitute who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and wiped them dry with her own hair? That's Mary Magdalene too. You may conclude that Mary was always showing up whenever the Gospels mention a bad girl, or you may conclude, rightfully, that Mary was none of the above. You can read the Holy Bible until your eyes fall out and you won't find a single reference to Mary the Magdalene being a former street walker who abandoned her profession to follow Jesus. In fact, all you will find is a reference to her in which Jesus had exorcised her of seven demons. This condition could have involved actual demons, or it may be a New Testament way of saying she had a severe mental disorder. But in any case, Mary seemed eternally grateful for the cure which Jesus bestowed upon her, and so she became His most loyal follower, standing under the cross along with His mother and His Aunt Mary. She was the first person to see Jesus after the Resurrection, and the first to announce the event to the Apostles. Mary was called Magdalene or The Magdalene because she came from the small village of Magdala. It's like calling Jesus The Nazarene because He came from Nazareth. Mary is the Romanized form of Miriam, or Maryam in Aramaic. There seemed to be a lot of women named Mary around at that time, including The Virgin Mary, her sister-in-law Mary, wife of Jesus' Uncle Cleophas, and of course Mary of Magdala. Now—how did Mary Magdalene become a prostitute if it was not so mentioned in Scripture? This label seems to have been the results of misinterpretations over the centuries. The earliest traditional record we have is attributed to Pope Gregory I in the year 591. During that year's Easter sermon Gregory seems to have either mis-spoken or made a little slip of the tongue when he mentioned Mary Magdalene and the woman in adultery in the same breath. Now Gregory was a very intelligent fellow, and is one of the earliest Doctors of the Church. As his sermon most likely was in Latin, his words may have been misinterpreted by some listeners (who also spoke Latin, but probably street Latin). In all likelihood he knew his Bible well enough to know full well that Mary was not referred to as a prostitute, but the damage was done. Then came the Middle Ages and the popular Morality plays. Over the years somebody got the bright idea to write Mary into the script as a fallen woman who was saved from a life of prostitution by Jesus Christ. The moral here was obvious: If a prostitute could be forgiven, then so could other sinners. So the label of “fallen woman” was established on Mary, as labels were on other stock characters. Pilate, for example, was always depicted as a loud-mouthed braggart. Judas was always shown as a sneaky, shifty-eyed fellow who couldn't be trusted (well, could he?). And Mary Magdalene was the stock public sinner—even though Biblically she had committed no sin but was cured of demonic possession. Legend says that during the first years of Christianity Mary traveled with Joseph of Arimathea to France, where she died and was buried. The DaVinci Code notwithstanding, she is not buried in a glass pyramid in the middle of Paris. Archaeologists have tentatively identified her tomb in the Church of St. Maximin, in Villalta, a small French village. And there she lies today, hopefully at peace despite her wrongful reputation.
@BadPam What a superb insight into the history of Mary Magdalene! It's a refreshing testament as well as an indictment to the power of myth making in order to serve a message.
I went to a Catholic prep from K-12. The primary and middle school years were mostly taught by nuns and the secondary grades Jesuit brothers and priests. The two 'Mary's' were a big theme during the primary grades as the nuns were trying to get us to emulate the saintly behavior of both women...especially the idea of surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit. For this purpose we had to belong to the "Mary Blessed Virgin" club whose meetings were a drumbeat circus for being "pure" in thought, word, body....geez, everything. My cousins and I would refer to this club as the "Too Good To Be True Mary Club" which later got shortened to the "Good Mary" club.
By middle school, my cousins and I, were considered the badass girls on campus. You know the kind of girl that wears her pleated uniform skirt as short as she can, smokes ciggies and makes out with boys behind the bleachers, cusses....LOL. In fifth grade following another boring session at the "Good Mary" club had the brilliant idea of starting up an alternate club, "The Bad Mary's"....such a hoot, it stuck and over the next few years we got referred to by others as "The Maggies" for Mary Magdalene or simply "The Wicked Girls".
I love your posts, BadPam...I think I'll send ya a PM if you don't mind.
Sure, PM away! I'd love to hear from you. I also went to Catholic grade school, and amazingly our jumper skirts were really short for a Catholic school. Drafty too, especially with no stockings on during the Upstate New York winters! But yes, we also had the typical "bad girls" who the nuns knew probably had a career in prostitution ahead of them. And in many cases they were right!
@karinaal: Well from a Christian standpoint it makes sense, because as the Son of God Jesus would have to have been conceived by a supernatural power and not by--well, a human donor!
@BadPam: That is what I mean; that atheists and other not-Christian people cannot believe that Mary was a virgin is understandable but for a Christian to dispute the immaculate conception is meaningless.
@karinaal: Actually this is the Incarnation. The Immaculate Conception is the dogma that Mary was born without Original Sin. People get the two confused.
This is really putting the horse before the cart. Because you don't believe in god, you (quite logically given your assumption)believe that the Incarnation was impossible. If you believed in God, this would not be a difficult problem for you. It was never the intention of the Gospel writers to use this story to convince anyone of God's existence.
