Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, travelled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. In Gnostic writings, Mary Magdalene is depicted as Jesus's closest disciple who uniquely understood his teachings, causing tension with Peter, and is honoured as the "apostle to the apostles".
Mary Magdalene is regarded by believers as a historical figure, possibly from Magdala. She is seen as a prominent follower of Jesus who was believed to have been healed by him, supported his ministry financially, and was present at his crucifixion and burial. She played a key role among his female disciples. Overall, there is limited information about her life.
Apocryphal early Christian writings often portray Mary Magdalene as a prominent, spiritually insightful figure favoured by Jesus, challenging traditional patriarchal norms. These texts have inspired modern reinterpretations of her role. During the Patristic era, Mary Magdalene was mentioned only briefly by early Church Fathers, with her image evolving from a minor gospel figure to being conflated with other women in the Bible. Eventually she became viewed in Western Christianity, largely due to Pope Gregory I's influential 591 sermon, as a repentant prostitute, despite there being no biblical basis for this portrayal.
The Eastern Orthodox Church has always viewed Mary Magdalene as a virtuous Myrrhbearer and "Equal to the Apostles", distinct from other biblical women. The Catholic Church historically conflated her with the repentant sinner in Luke 7 but later emphasized her role as the first witness to the resurrection and honoured her as the "Apostle to the Apostles". Many alleged relics of Mary Magdalene, including her skull, a piece of forehead flesh, a tibia, and her left hand, are preserved in Catholic sites in France and Mount Athos, with notable displays and annual processions honouring them.
Life
Some secular historians agree that, like Jesus, Mary Magdalene was a real historical figure. But this is based only on the early accounts of the bible, with no other contemporary accounts. Nonetheless, very little is known about her life. Unlike Paul the Apostle, Mary Magdalene left behind no known writings of her own. She was never mentioned in any of the Pauline epistles or in any of the general epistles. The earliest and most reliable sources about her life are the three Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which were all written during the first century AD.During Jesus' ministry
Mary Magdalene's epithet Magdalene probably means that she came from Magdala, a village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee which was primarily known in antiquity as a fishing town. Mary was, by far, the most common Jewish given name for girls and women during the first century, so it was necessary for the authors of the gospels to call her Magdalene in order to distinguish her from the other women named Mary who followed Jesus. Although the Gospel of Mark, reputed by scholars to be the earliest surviving gospel, does not mention Mary Magdalene until Jesus' crucifixion, the Gospel of Luke 8:2–3 provides a brief summary of her role during his ministry:File:Paolo Veronese, The Conversion of Mary Magdalene.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The Conversion of Mary Magdalene by Paolo Veronese
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus exorcised "seven demons" from Mary Magdalene. That seven demons had possessed Mary is repeated in Mark 16:9, part of the "longer ending" of that gospel – this is not found in the earliest manuscripts and is possibly a second-century addition to the original text, possibly based on the Gospel of Luke. In the first century, demons were believed widely to cause physical and psychological illness. Bruce Chilton, a scholar of early Christianity, states that the reference to the number of demons being "seven" may mean that Mary had to undergo seven exorcisms, probably over a long period of time, due to the first six being partially or wholly unsuccessful.
Bart D. Ehrman, a New Testament scholar and historian of early Christianity, contends that the number seven may be merely symbolic, since, in Jewish tradition, seven was the number of completion, so that Mary was possessed by seven demons may simply mean she was completely overwhelmed by their power. In either case, Mary must have suffered from severe emotional or psychological trauma for an exorcism of this kind to have been perceived as necessary. Consequently, her devotion to Jesus resulting from this healing must have been very strong. The Gospels' writers normally relish giving dramatic descriptions of Jesus's public exorcisms, with the possessed person wailing, thrashing, and tearing his or her clothes in front of a crowd. By contrast, that Mary's exorcism receives little attention may indicate that either Jesus performed it privately or that the recorders did not perceive it as particularly dramatic.
Because Mary is listed as one of the women who supported Jesus' ministry financially, she must have been relatively wealthy. The places where she and the other women are mentioned throughout the gospels indicate strongly that they were vital to Jesus' ministry and that Mary Magdalene always appears first, whenever she is listed in the Synoptic Gospels as a member of a group of women, indicates that she was seen as the most important out of all of them. Carla Ricci notes that, in lists of the disciples, Mary Magdalene occupies a similar position among Jesus' female followers as Simon Peter does among the male apostles.
That women played such an active and important role in Jesus' ministry was not entirely radical or even unique; inscriptions from a synagogue in Aphrodisias in Asia Minor from around the same time period reveal that many of the major donors to the synagogue were women. Jesus' ministry did bring women greater liberation than they would typically have held in mainstream Jewish society.
Witness to Jesus's crucifixion and burial
All four canonical gospels agree that several women watched Jesus's crucifixion from a distance, with three explicitly naming Mary Magdalene as present. lists the names of these women as Mary Magdalene; Mary, mother of James; and Salome. lists Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and Joseph, and the unnamed mother of the sons of Zebedee. mentioned a group of women watching the crucifixion, but did not give any of their names. lists Mary, mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary, wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene as witnesses to the crucifixion.Virtually all reputable historians agree that Jesus was crucified by the Romans under the orders of Pontius Pilate. James Dunn states of baptism and crucifixion that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent". Nonetheless, the gospels' accounts of Jesus's crucifixion differ. Ehrman states that the presence of Mary Magdalene and the other women at the cross is probably historical because Christians would have been unlikely to make up that the main witnesses to the crucifixion were women and also because their presence is attested in both the Synoptic Gospels and in the Gospel of John independently. Maurice Casey concurs that the presence of Mary Magdalene and the other women at the crucifixion of Jesus may be recorded as a historical fact. According to E. P. Sanders, the reason why the women watched the crucifixion even after the male disciples had fled may have been because they were less likely to be arrested, they were braver than the men, or some combination thereof.
File:Raffaello, pala baglioni, deposizione.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|The Deposition by Raphael, showing a distressed, reddish-blond-haired Mary Magdalene dressed in fine clothes clutching the hand of Jesus's body as he is carried to the tomb
All four canonical gospels, as well as the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, agree that Jesus's body was taken down from the cross and buried by a man named Joseph of Arimathea. lists Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus as witnesses to the burial of Jesus. lists Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as witnesses. mentions "the women who had followed him from Galilee", but does not list any of their names. does not mention any women present during Joseph's burial of Jesus, but does mention the presence of Nicodemus, a Pharisee with whom Jesus had a conversation near the beginning of the gospel. Ehrman, who previously accepted the story of Jesus's burial as historical, now rejects it as a later invention on the basis that Roman governors almost never allowed for executed criminals to be given any kind of burial and Pontius Pilate in particular was not "the sort of ruler who would break with tradition and policy when kindly asked by a member of the Jewish council to provide a decent burial for a crucified victim". Casey argues that Jesus was given a proper burial by Joseph of Arimathea, noting that, on some very rare occasions, Roman governors did release the bodies of executed prisoners for burial. Nonetheless, he rejects that Jesus could have been interred in an expensive tomb with a stone rolled in front of it like the one described in the gospels, leading him to conclude that Mary and the other women must not have seen the tomb. Sanders affirms Jesus's burial by Joseph of Arimathea in the presence of Mary Magdalene and the other female followers as completely historical.
Resurrection of Jesus
The earliest description of Jesus's post-resurrection appearances is a quotation of a pre-Pauline creed preserved by Paul the Apostle in, which was written roughly 20 years before any of the gospels. This passage made no mention of Mary Magdalene, the other women, or the story of the empty tomb, but rather credits Simon Peter with having been the first to see the risen Jesus. Despite this, all four canonical gospels, as well as the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, agreed that Mary Magdalene, either alone or as a member of a group, was the first person to discover that Jesus's tomb was empty. Nonetheless, the details of the accounts differ drastically.According to, the earliest account of the discovery of the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went to the tomb just after sunrise, a day and half after Jesus's burial and found that the stone had already been rolled away. They went inside and saw a young man dressed in white, who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead and instructed them to tell the disciples that he would meet them in Galilee. Instead, the women ran away and told no one, because they were too afraid. The original text of the gospel ends here, without the resurrected Jesus making an appearance to anyone. Casey argues that the reason for this abrupt ending may be because the Gospel of Mark is an unfinished first draft.
According to, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" went to the tomb. An earthquake occurred and an angel dressed in white descended from Heaven and rolled aside the stone as the women were watching. The angel told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then the risen Jesus himself appeared to the women as they were leaving the tomb and told them to tell the other disciples that he would meet them in Galilee.
According to Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James went to the tomb and found the stone already rolled away, as in Mark. They went inside and saw two young men dressed in white who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then they went and told the eleven remaining apostles, who dismissed their story as nonsense. In Luke's account, Jesus never appears to the women, but instead makes his first appearance to Cleopas and an unnamed "disciple" on the road to Emmaus. Luke's narrative also removes the injunction for the women to tell the disciples to return to Galilee and instead has Jesus tell the disciples not to return to Galilee, but rather to stay in the precincts of Jerusalem.
File:Alexander Ivanov - Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection by Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov. In, Mary Magdalene sees the risen Jesus alone and he tells her "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father."
Mary Magdalene's role in the resurrection narrative is greatly increased in the account from the Gospel of John. According to, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb when it was still dark and saw that the stone had already been rolled away. She did not see anyone, but immediately ran to tell Peter and the "beloved disciple", who came with her to the tomb and confirmed that it was empty, but returned home without seeing the risen Jesus. According to, Mary, now alone in the garden outside the tomb, saw two angels sitting where Jesus's body had been. Then the risen Jesus approached her. She at first mistook him for the gardener, but, after she heard him say her name, she recognized him and cried out "Rabbouni!". His next words may be translated as "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father" or "Stop clinging to me, ", the latter more probable in view of the grammar as well as Jesus's challenge to Thomas a week later. Jesus then sent her to tell the other apostles the good news of his resurrection. The Gospel of John therefore portrays Mary Magdalene as the first apostle, the apostle sent to the apostles. Because she was the first to witness Jesus's resurrection, Mary Magdalene is known in some Christian traditions as the "apostle to the apostles".
Because scribes were unsatisfied with the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark, they wrote several different alternative endings for it. In the "shorter ending", which is found in very few manuscripts, the women go to "those around Peter" and tell them what they had seen at the tomb, followed by a brief declaration of the gospel being preached from east to west. This "very forced" ending contradicts the last verse of the original gospel, stating that the women "told no one". The "longer ending", which is found in most surviving manuscripts, is an "amalgam of traditions" containing episodes derived from the other gospels. First, it describes an appearance by Jesus to Mary Magdalene alone, followed by brief descriptions of him appearing to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and to the eleven remaining disciples.
In his book published in 2006, Ehrman states that "it appears virtually certain" that the stories of the empty tomb, regardless of whether or not they are accurate, can definitely be traced back to the historical Mary Magdalene, saying that, in Jewish society, women were regarded as unreliable witnesses and were forbidden from giving testimony in court, so early Christians would have had no motive to make up a story about a woman being the first to discover the empty tomb. In fact, if they had made the story up, they would have had strong motivation to make Peter, Jesus's closest disciple while he was alive, the discoverer of the tomb instead. He also says that the story of Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb is independently attested in the Synoptics, the Gospel of John, and in the Gospel of Peter. N. T. Wright states that, "it is, frankly, impossible to imagine that were inserted into the tradition after Paul's day."
Casey challenges this argument, contending that the women at the tomb are not legal witnesses, but rather heroines in line with a long Jewish tradition. He contends that the story of the empty tomb was invented by either the author of the Gospel of Mark or by one of his sources, based on the historically genuine fact that the women really had been present at Jesus's crucifixion and burial. In his book published in 2014, Ehrman rejects his own previous argument, stating that the story of the empty tomb can only be a later invention because there is virtually no possibility that Jesus's body could have been placed in any kind of tomb and, if Jesus was never buried, then no one alive at the time could have said that his non-existent tomb had been found empty. He concludes that the idea that early Christians would have had "no motive" to make up the story simply "suffers from a poverty of imagination" and that they would have had all kinds of possible motives, especially since women were overrepresented in early Christian communities and women themselves would have had strong motivation to make up a story about other women being the first to find the tomb. He does conclude later, however, that Mary Magdalene must have been one of the people who had an experience in which she thought she saw the risen Jesus, citing her prominence in the gospel resurrection narratives and her absence everywhere else in the gospels as evidence.