The most enigmatic character of the New Testament is Mary Magdalene. Traditionally thought to be the leader of a group of women supporters of Jesus, she is thought to have come from the town of Magdala. Branded a prostitute, she is mentioned little in the Bible, but her role is nonetheless essential.
Present at His Crucifixion, Mary is also the first to see Christ’s empty tomb. She rushes to tell Peter and John and afterwards she is left weeping. She sees a man she thinks is a gardener, but it is Christ – He tells her to tell the others.
MARY, TRUTH AND CONTRARY
Mary is thus the central witness of both Crucifixion and Resurrection. Thought to have been in conflict with Peter and John, this narration has led to the suggestion that she was the one who actually kick-started Christianity, being the original witness.
Following these events, Mary is believed to have been martyred at Ephesus in Turkey, but alongside this orthodox belief is a whole host of legend and speculation. Typical is the idea having its latest expression in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
This is that Mary Magdalene was actually the wife of Christ and bore him children. After his Resurrection, Mary made it to France with her child. Legends throughout southern France seem to recall this period, and in conspiracy theory we have the idea that Christ’s descendants began the Merovingian Dynasty of Frankish kings.
Perhaps it is the lack of clear coverage in the Bible of such a seminal figure that causes such controversy. Indeed, others ideas are aired, suggesting a cover-up by Christianity regarding the true role of Mary Magdalene.
PAPAL PROPAGANDA
Obscure ideas circulate that she is, infact, the ‘sacred feminine,’ an esoteric concept, whilst other ideas suggest she was the mysterious Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John, this reality hidden because she was a woman. John is often depicted in art with feminine imagery, suggesting that Mary and John were one and the same.
Her identification as a prostitute has come in for much criticism. A repentant sinner appears in Luke, and it seems that the 6th century pope, Gregory the Great, combined the two characters as a role model for such sin. A sinner can thus be changed and the prostitute denies her sexuality.
This did not stop artists depicting her as a sexual object, often naked with long hair. However, we can see her modern popularity as an inevitability of the rise of feminism and its need to remove the slur on women made by a misogynist, patriarchal society. However, could it be that her sexuality may not be far from the truth?
THE GNOSTIC MARY
The discovery, in 1945, of the Nag Hammadi Texts totally revolutionized our view of early Christianity, and Mary Magdalene in particular. Based upon Gnosticism, there is even a Gospel of Mary, in which she is seen as the soul-mate of Christ. In one way we can see the idea of their marriage in this, but a deeper understanding leads us in another, related direction.
There appears to have been a healthy tradition in Gnosticism relating spirituality to sexuality. Many Gnostic texts speak of a spiritual wedding and union with the ‘whore.’
This spiritual/sexuality idea is found throughout early religion from Dionysus to Tantrism.
According to Carl Jung, myth, from which religion came, was anchored in ‘archetypes’ – symbolic characterizations which turn out to be simple elements of our psyche. One powerful archetype was the ‘seductress,’ and she appears as a ‘goddess’ form from Athena to modern iconic images such as Monroe. Even in modern cults we often find gurus raising the status of some female disciples to sexual-spiritual proportions.
MARY AND THE EROTIC
It is often said by Biblical scholars that ideas concerning Mary Magdalene are the result of imagination rather than fact. This is untrue. All speculations so far are simply variations of the sexual-spiritual theme.
Religion and myth repeat this same story time after time – a story that is, in reality, nothing more than the heart of the erotic male/female relationships. This commends the idea to being fact. Mary Magdalene continues to fascinate because she is the ages old symbol of union between man and woman.
© Anthony North, April 2007
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