One of the most relevant stories that the Church can have since the beginning of Christianity is that of Saint Mary Magdalene. A story that has created so much controversy in theology and popular beliefs, that it was made into a movie multiple times, so be sure to learn about it here in this article.
Santa María Magdalena
Mary Magdalene is rarely mentioned in the New Testament, but in the apocryphal gospels she is described as one of the disciples of the Master Jesus of Nazareth. Her name describes the city of her origin Magdala, which was located on the western shore of Lake Tiberias, very close to the city of Capernaum. Both the Catholic Church, as well as the Orthodox and the Anglican Communion consider her as a holy woman, whose celebration feast is on July 22 of each year.
For the so-called Gnosticism that is within Christianity, he is a very important character. In 1988 Pope John Paul II called her in his letter Mulieris Dignitatem The Apostle of the Apostles named her and elevated her to the category of Saint, giving her a feast day in the General Roman Calendar, by express order of Pope Francis, after on June 10, 2016, the same Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, issued the respective decree.
Mary Magdalene in the New Testament
According to the Canonical Gospels, the information regarding Mary Magdalene is very little, and she is only mentioned in five different events or events:
- In the Gospel of Luke it is said that it was Mary Magdalene who provided lodging and materials to Jesus and all the disciples while he was preaching in Galilee, and in the same way he adds that she had been cured by Jesus himself: “Jesus was accompanied by the twelve disciples and several women who were healed of diseases and evil spirits: Mary called Magdalene, from whom they had cast out seven demons” (Luke 8:1-2)
- In the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and John say that she was present at the time of his crucifixion.
- In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, it says that she was also present at the time he was buried, and that she was close to Mary the mother of James the Less.
- In the four gospels, she is mentioned along with other women as witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus and is the one who brings the news to Peter and the other disciples.
- In the Gospel of John she is mentioned as the only witness to the appearance of the risen Jesus.
Identification with various Bible characters
The passages that we mentioned before are the only ones where she is directly mentioned in the canonical gospels as Mary of Magdala. Throughout the tradition in Catholicism she has been identified with several different characters that appear in the New Testament.
One of them is the one that is narrated in the Gospel of John where there is an adulterous woman who is saved from being stoned by a mob by Jesus himself, which is where the words "He who is without sin cast the first stone”.
It has also been associated with the woman who kneels at Jesus' feet and weeps over them, then puts perfume on them and dries them with her hair, before he goes to Jerusalem, but her death is never mentioned. name, this anointing would be when Jesus was in the city of Galilee.
Another of his associations is with María de Betania, the sister of Lázaro, and who also appears speaking with Jesus in the death of her brother and in his resurrection and later due to an argument that arises between Marta and María.
These associations were used and distorted in the homily number 33 of Pope Gregory I, who in the year 591, when he establishes that Mary of Bethany and the sinful woman, are the same Mary from whom the seven demons described in Mark were expelled. . Between the XNUMXrd and XNUMXth centuries, this idea was the most widespread by theologians, which spread throughout the centuries and was the reason for a great variety of iconography and images on this subject.
Mary Magdalene in the Apocryphal Gospels
In the Gospel of Peter it is mentioned that Mary Magdalene was one of the witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. In the passage it is mentioned that on Sunday morning Mary of Magdala, who was one of the disciples of Jesus, was afraid of the Jews, since they were angry, since she had not done what women do for men. beloved dead, and that she had taken some friends to go to the sepulcher where the body had been deposited.
There are two Coptic Gnostic gospels that were located in Nag Hammadi, which are called The Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, where they mention that Mary Magdalene was a disciple of Jesus, one of the closest to him, and of the same manner with the were the twelve apostles. The Gospel of Thomas mentions her twice as Mariham, and all scholars of these texts say that she is Mary Magdalene.
In a second episode where he is mentioned is a cause for discussion, since he has represented a true enigma and has been the object of very varied interpretations, this passage says the following:
Simon Peter tells them: “May Mariham move away from all of us, since women do not have dignity to be alive”, to which Jesus replies: “Look Pedro, I myself am going to make her become a male, so that she can become a living spirit, just like men, since every woman who becomes a man can enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
Now in the Gospel of Philip she is described as the companion of Jesus. But not all scholars agree with the Gospels of Thomas and Philip, since they think that she refers to the mother of Jesus. In the Apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene, of which two fragments written in Greek and dating from the XNUMXrd century and also one in Coptic language dating from the XNUMXth century have been obtained, it is said that three apostles discussed Mary Magdalene and Jesus, Andrés and Pedro mistrust her and Mateo, whom they call Levi, is the one who defends her.
Legends arisen around him
For the Orthodox Church, it is Mary Magdalene who goes to Ephesus together with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John, where she died. In the year 886 some relics were taken to Constantinople, where they have been kept until today. Gregory of Tours attests that this information is true and that she went to Ephesus, and there is no mention of her having retired to France.
But later, in the Catholic world, a different version arises through which they identify her with María de Betania, with Lázaro and Maximino, one of the 72 disciples of Jesus and some other people who left in a boat through the Mediterranean Sea, since they were Persecuted in the Holy Land, they arrived at a place called Saintes Maries de la Mer, very close to the city of Arles.
From there she went to Marseille where she began to preach and evangelize in Provence and later retired to live in a cave in La Sainte Baume, very close to Marseille, where she would have lived for 30 years doing penance. Until now, this has been taken as a legend, and it ends by saying that she was taken at the time of her death, by angels to Aix en Provence, to the oratory of Maximin, where she received a viaticum, then her body was buried in a oratory that was built by Maximino himself in Villa Lata, which is known today as Saint Maximin.
Easter Egg Tradition
The old tradition of painting eggs at Easter is a way of symbolizing new life and Christ who has risen from his tomb. For the Orthodox it is common to say Christ is risen! When they are doing this tradition. They also say that after the Ascension, Mary Magdalene went to Rome to preach the gospel, and being in the presence of the Emperor Tiberius, she held a chicken egg and said those words: Christ is risen.
The only thing the emperor did was laugh and told him that this possibility was as valid as the egg turning red, and before he finished saying the sentence it had changed color. And another of the legends is that the Sacred Heart of Christ would have remained locked in an egg-shaped container and that it would be the same Magdalena who was the guardian of it for life.
Veneration of Mary Magdalene
Through the centuries the figure of Mary Magdalene was associated with a prostitute or adulteress, a sinful woman whose life Jesus saved, it was not until the middle of the 180th century that this conception of her began to change, taking a turn XNUMX degrees. But there are places where she has been venerated through the centuries such as:
Vézelay
In this place he is known as the first to worship Mary Magdalene, since it would be the first city where she went, and which is in Burgundy. Initially, this temple of Vézelay was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but it is not known why the monks decided to say that Mary Magdalene was buried there, and many pilgrims began to arrive to see her tomb, which dates back to at least the year 1030. On April 27, 1050, Pope Leo IX writes a bull in which he names the abbey of Vézelay under the protection of María Magdalena as its patron saint.
Santiago de la Vorágine makes a version of how the relics of this saint were taken from her holy sepulcher to where the oratory of Saint Maximin is located in the city of Aix en Provence, until the true abbey of Vézelay was founded in the year 771 This Maximin is believed to have been a historical bishop or a disciple of Jesus who accompanied Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus to the city of Provence.
Saint Manimin
This cult is much later than the one mentioned above, and has a large number of pilgrims and supposedly begins when the body of Mary Magdalene was found on September 9, 1279, in the city of Saint Maximin la sainte Baume, in Provence. At that time, the Prince of Salerno, Charles II of Naples, who would later become king, ordered the construction of a Dominican monastery, in the Gothic style, which is considered of great importance in the south of France.
By the year 1600, the relics were apparently carried in a sarcophagus by order of Pope Clement VIII, but leaving the head aside, in a reliquary, they would have been desecrated in the events of the French Revolution. In the year 1814 the temple was restored and the head of the saint appeared, which is currently in that place and where she is venerated by her faithful.
Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church
In the Catholic Church she is venerated as Saint Mary Magdalene, and for this reason many temples have been built or named in her honor, so that she is venerated and the faithful show their devotion, celebrating her date in Catholicism on July 22. That is why in it you can see Mary Magdalene in two ways as a penitent or as other Catholic saints.
Penitent Mary Magdalene
For Eastern Christianity, it is normal for Mary Magdalene to be honored for having been close to Jesus, and where she is considered equal to the other apostles, while in the West she is taken by identifying her with other women who are mentioned in the Gospels, always from the point of view that she had been a sinner before she met Jesus, and perhaps that is why the Catholic Church, although it never mentions it, her profession at the time of Jesus would have been prostitution. This idea arose when he described her as having been a sinner who loved her very much and also because seven demons had been cast out of her.
The moment when she began to identify herself with the Mary of Bethany, or the woman who entered the house of Simon the Pharisee, and washed Jesus' feet with perfume, it is not known when this occurred. In a homily of Pope Gregory the Great who died in the year 591, the wrong expression was made that the three women were one, and the idea was created for centuries that she was a repentant prostitute, hence later it was said that she had passed the rest of his life in a cave in the desert doing penance and flagellating his flesh, and that is the way in which he is represented iconically.
There is an image of a woman known as the Egipciaca, a saint from the XNUMXth century, who according to the writings of Jacobo de la Vorágine could have been confused with the penitent Mary Magdalene. This woman would have spent a long time being a prostitute and tired of leading that life she retired to a desert to do penance for her sins. Her representation is that of a woman with very long hair that covers her entire body and wrapped in Reeds, which are the symbols of people who do penance.
In Catholicism, her character happens to be in the background, that is, a secondary person, without taking into account her important role in the tradition of the Gospels, this way of relegating her was to subordinate the position of women to what she wanted establish the Catholic Church, many theologians disagree with this position since the Church has a special consideration with the holy Mary, the Mother of Jesus, venerating them with hyperdulia, while the apostles are venerated with Dulia.
Pope Paul VI in 1969 removed this appellation of penitent from the liturgical calendar that had been attributed to Mary Magdalene and since then the passage from the Gospel of Luke about the sinful woman ceased to be used in the festivities of Mary Magdalene, ceasing to be consider her as a prostitute full of repentance, but after many centuries of saying the opposite, it is very difficult to change this vision in the Catholic world.
In 1988 it was John Paul II who began to call her the Apostle of the apostles, in his letter Mulieris Dignitatem, and said that she was the test of greater fidelity and faith, the most difficult of a Christian, when women were stronger in the moment of the crucifixion than the same male apostles. It was not until June 10, 2016 that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published the decree by which the memory of Saint Mary Magdalene is included in the General Roman Calendar at the request of Pope Francis himself. .
This fact was pointed out in the press as a better and more thoughtful way to position the dignity of women in the context of the church, in the new evangelization and to express the greatness of God's mercy. With this fact justice was done insofar as women can have a party degree in the calendar equal to that of the apostles and highlights the role of women as an example and model of what every woman in the church should do.
Mary Magdalene and other Catholic Saints
She was an important character for women who had mysticism and who were appointed as Doctors of the Church such as Saint Teresa of Avila, who said she received spiritual help from Mary Magdalene and Saint Teresa of the Child Jesus, who had a great admiration for the love that Mary Magdalene expressed to serve who she loves, for which she herself dedicated her life to loving Jesus of Nazareth, that is why in 1894 she wrote in her books that Jesus had defended us through the person of Mary Magdalene.
Recent theories of Mary Magdalene
Currently, some series of theories have been woven regarding the figure of Mary Magdalene and the relationship she had with Jesus, whether she was his wife or a sentimental partner. The story has been created that she was the repository of a Christian tradition of the female symbol, which would be hidden by the Catholic Church to maintain her power. That is why we can find many pseudo-historical books such as Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln's "The Sacred Enigma" or the "Revelation of the Templars" by Picknett and Princey. They established that between Mary Magdalene and Jesus of Nazareth there would have been the fruit of their union as a couple: a son. These arguments were based on:
In the Gospel of Philip, which is a Gnostic text, it is found that Jesus was very close to Mary Magdalene, much closer than the rest of the disciples, including the twelve apostles. In this gospel it is said that she was the companion of Jesus. The Coptic term used was hot, which can be used to define a sexual relationship or that of a simple partner or friend. It is also mentioned that Jesus kissed her on the mouth, as does the Second Apocalypse of James, but among the followers of Gnosticism, the act of giving a person a kiss was the way to show that he was about to receive a revelation. .
In the Canonical Gospels, Mary Magdalene is mentioned several times, the only one that is mentioned more than her is the Virgin Mary as the Mother of Jesus, it is also mentioned that she was one of the women who always followed Jesus, she is the one who it is mentioned in the most important moments such as his death and crucifixion, as well as in his resurrection, which could be taken to mean that there was a conjugal bond between them, but that the theologians of the church treat it as a simple fantasy of the people.
But the most important argument is that at the time of Jesus and in Palestine it was very rare for a Jewish man with the age of Jesus who was around 30 years old, to be single, especially if he was thought to be a rabbi and was teaching, since that went against the commandment of God that said grow and multiply.
But the Judaism that Jesus professed was very different from the one practiced today, and the functions of a rabbi were not defined, it is after the second temple in Jerusalem is destroyed in the year 70 after Christ, that the functions of the same settle in Jewish communities. Before Jesus began his gospel, there were others who also did and were not married like the Prophet Jeremiah in the first century BC and there are many cases in the Essene community. John the Baptist began to preach and had not married either and after Christ we have Saul of Tarsus, who would later be called Paul, he was a single preacher.
The Supposed Wife of Jesus
This issue is already a common topic today, with much discussion about whether they would really become spouses, whether or not Jesus was married. In most of the apocryphal gospels it is stated that they were married, and that Jesus' intention was for her to be the head of his church, that is why in these gospels there is negativity and hostility from some of Jesus' disciples, Like Pedro and Andrés, María Magdalena did, but they do not give a clear version or affirm if they really got married.
In the New Testament it is suggested that she was part of the disciples of Jesus, one of the women who served him in his preaching, since he himself had expelled seven demons from her. Later he was confused with the sinful woman who washes his feet and whose subject we have already discussed in previous paragraphs, but this association is believed to have been rather to diminish his role or his memory, in the story of Jesus, which manifested that the repentance was the first step to becoming his disciples.
In the scrolls found in the Dead Sea there is nothing that indicates this possibility, in addition this issue was not mentioned or discussed when the texts that would form the Bible as we know it were chosen, in the apocryphal gospels it is said that she was a companion , but it does not indicate that there was a sexual relationship between them.
On this subject, only the sensationalist press abounds, all this has caused people, instead of looking more in the gospel for the word of Jesus, they are looking for information on whether Magdalena was really his wife or not, even going so far as to think that in some way So Jesus came down from the Cross and went with her to live in India.
Mary Magdalene in the Cinema
There are many movies that have been made where this character from the Bible appears. Since 1914, when the cinema was still silent, films began to be made about this woman, the first of which was called mary magdalene which starred Constance Crawley, but we are going to mention some of the best known in this list not only with the name of the film but also its actress and director:
- Jesús de Nazaret (1942): Directed by Adriana Lamar and José Díaz Morales, this was a film made in the golden age of Mexican cinema.
- El Mártir del Calvario (1952): with Alicia Palacios and directed by Miguel Moravta
- The Sword and the Cross (1958): with actress Yvonne de Carlo and director Carlo Ludovico
- The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965): with actress Joanna Dumhan and director George Stevens.
- Jesus of Nazareth (1977 Miniseries) - with actress Anne Bancroft and director Franco Zeffirelli
- The Last Temptation of Christ (1988): with the actress Barbara Hershey and the director Martin Scorsese, a film that created a lot of controversy, and when the investigations of whether Jesus married her or not began. It is also worth noting that this film was censored by the Vatican, and banned in many countries.
- The Passion of the Christ (2004): with the actress Mónica Bellucci and under the direction of Mel Gibson, another film that suffered from censorship, due to the brutal scenes about the passion and death of Jesus, and more than anything because of the way in which the hatred of the Jews towards the person of Jesus of Nazareth was reflected, for which reason the film was banned in Israel.
- The Da Vinci Code (2006): with actress Charlotte Graham and director Ron Howard, in which a lineage or descent from Jesus is established through a lineage in the person of Mary Magdalene. Controversial film where it is established that the Catholic Church has been aware of this information and has kept it hidden only to continue maintaining its power.
- María de Nazaret (2011): with the Spanish actress Paz Vega, and the Italian director Giacomo Campiotti.
- Jesus Christ Superstar (2012) – With Meanie Chisholm and director Andrew Lloyd Weber, based on a very famous play of the same name. In 2014 she does a new play but with another actress in the character of María Magdalena.
Considerations on Mary Magdalene
According to Juan Arias, a correspondent from Spain for the newspaper El País, who works in the Vatican, he is also the author of the book "Jesus that great unknown" and of "La Magdalena, the last taboo of Christianity”, makes a series of considerations about Mary Magdalene that must be understood by the apocryphal gospels, among them are the following:
Mary Magdalene was an enlightened woman who was able to have a direct dialogue with Jesus
According to the so-called Gospel of Mary Magdalene, it is established that at the beginning of Christianity two different currents could be derived: that of Peter and Paul, a Traditional current, and that of the Gnostics led by Mary Magdalene, which was practically discarded by the others. . In the Apocryphal Gospels it can be seen that Jesus is more Gnostic and his theology is based more on knowledge than on sin.
What is an apocrypha?
A gospel is considered apocryphal because it is not considered official by the Church or which the church considers not to have been divinely inspired. This distinction arose between the third and fourth centuries, because before that time all the gospels that were found had what is called dignity, so there was no difference between an apocryphal or an official one.
There came a time when more than 100 gospels were known, so the church began to make a separation of them and only chose four that for them were the most credible and that were inspired by God, for which the others began to be considered false, so they began to be burned and disappeared by the same church that was being formed.
Do the texts found in 1945 in Egypt have any value?
They are quite interesting texts where it is clearly noted that at the beginning of Christianity, which emerged after the death of Jesus, two currents developed: a classical and traditional one led by Peter and Paul, and a more Gnostic one led by Mary Magdalene. A dispute arises between the two that ends up being won by Peter and Paul, who take the current of Mary Magdalene to a corner and shortly after begins a persecution of the so-called Gnostics.
The difference between both currents is that Peter's maintained that salvation came through faith and that the evils of the world were due to sin, whereas the Gnostics thought that evil came from ignorance and that the only way to achieve a repentance was through knowledge.
Salvation according to the Gnostics would not be through faith, but through the way we obtain knowledge, to get to know God, who is within us. Within the group of the Gnostics there were no hierarchies, since the very consciousness of God was in man. For the traditional group, God was outside of consciousness, the cause of all evil was sin, so salvation lay in removing original sin using the sacraments, always in an external way, while the Gnostics thought that this cleansing had to come from within the person.
How much was known of the apocryphal or Gnostic Gospels before 1945??
Nothing was actually known about it since the church had never mentioned them. It should be noted that these Gnostic gospels were completely missing, they were known for some quotes that were made by some church fathers where they were condemned for heresy, it is believed that most were burned except for a group that was saved by the group of Saint Pancomio in the city of Egypt.
This saint lived as a hermit in the desert and had many followers, they were very mystical and highly appreciated these gospels, so they decided to hide them, in a total of 52 documents set out in 13 parchments that were covered in goatskin, buried inside ceramic amphorae, hoping that one day someone would find them and make them known.
What does the Gospel of Thomas say?
This gospel is of great importance since it is believed that it is prior to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and also tells other things about the life of Jesus that these four do not say. According to its structure it is very similar to that of the canonical gospels, which is why it has been called the Fifth Gospel. Of the four canonical gospels, it is not known for sure who their authors were, but it is believed that these were teachings that they left to their disciples and that they would later have written to keep them in time, it is said that they were written many years later. of the death of these four apostles.
On the other hand, the Gospel of Thomas is important because it is dated in the years that followed the death of Jesus, when the apostle Thomas was still alive. In verse 3 of this book he clearly says that God is within each one of us and in all things around us and that the less you know yourself the more you live in poverty.
How the Apocryphal Texts present Mary Magdalene
In the apocryphal gospels they present her as a first-rate protagonist in the ranks of Jesus' disciples, and they mention her as his companion, and that Jesus himself had initiated her into his mysteries, there is a part of this gospel that says that Peter discusses with the others alleging that because Jesus had to teach her things that he did not teach men, when another answers that if Jesus had chosen her, the duty of all of them was to accept the decision of the teacher. For many it is clear that Jesus wanted her, together with men, to bring the message of the gospel to people.
The most important dogma of the entire church is the resurrection of Jesus, and if Peter was the most important disciple for Jesus, why does he choose the figure of Mary Magdalene so that he can see him once he has risen? Why does he not appear to her? to Peter if he was the head of the Church? These are questions that the Christian church in all its currents has never given an answer to.
In the apocryphal gospels, Mary Magdalene is presented to us as an enlightened woman, with much knowledge, as if she had studied and handled a Gnostic philosophy, and therefore was prepared to have a conversation with Jesus as an equal, something that Jesus did not could do with the apostles since they were simple fishermen and had no knowledge of many things, so it can be said that they were practically illiterate.
That is why he spoke to her through the parables, which were easy to understand for Mary Magdalene, in fact Jesus himself tells them that he spoke to them in that way so that those who could understand him would do so, since they knew the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but those who did not know him no matter how hard they looked they would not see and no matter how hard they try to listen they would not hear or understand his words, they could not be converted and they would not be forgiven.
But Mary Magdalene somehow ends up being a friend and confidant, a companion, which is perhaps why she chooses her to appear at the moment of her resurrection, since the person who has loved herself the most on earth would be chosen to do so. .
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