Mary Magdalene has a reputation, right? Even if you can’t remember exactly what she said or did in the Bible, you probably have this sense that she was a sinner or a temptress. In the late second century, Celsus piled on, calling her, “a hysterical female…half crazy from fear and grief.” Over the next few hundred years, people started suggesting that Mary Magdalene and the woman caught in adultery were the same person. You know – the one Jesus defended by saying, “whoever is without sin – cast the first stone.” Others said she was the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’s feet and washed them with her hair.
About 591, Pope Gregory I affirmed this, but he went further. He said that when the Bible describes Mary Magdalene as having had seven demons, it’s saying that she was overwhelmed by the seven deadly sins. She was, “to be condemned not only for lust, but for pride and covetousness as well” as the others. So, she was penitent – even regularly described as weeping in remorse – but descriptions and depictions of her tended to point back to her inherent scandalousness and sinfulness.
But if we look again, we see something different. Mary is mentioned twelve times in the gospels – more than a lot of the Apostles. We don’t get a lot of her back story – just that Jesus freed her from seven demons and that she was one of the women who used their own money and resources to aid Jesus in his mission and ministry. She was probably rich, had some level of social status, and was independent to come and go as she pleased. We don’t know exactly what experience she had with the demons. Some say that she had to have seven different exorcisms to get them all out. Others suggest that, since seven symbolized perfection or completeness, she was thoroughly possessed and tormented. Yet, nowhere in scripture do we hear the story of her first encounter with Jesus – of him liberating her from all those demons and her choosing to follow him. Did the exorcism happen in private? Was it somehow not an extraordinary miracle? John reminds us that Jesus did lots and lots of miracles, but there just wasn’t room to write them all down.
Mary Magdalene was incredibly committed. She travelled with Jesus for years. She was there at the cross; she was there when Jesus’s body was buried; she was there on Easter morning. And this is the story that we should remember: Mary Magdalene is the one who waits in the garden, who sees Jesus and mistakenly thinks he is the gardener. She clings to him and he sends her to announce the good news. Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Christ; the first to spread the word. She was the apostle to the apostles.
Paul never mentioned her once and there’s been a lot of church tradition that tried to sideline her. Yet, legends arose that she continued to evangelize. One said that she was a remarkable preacher who converted many. It was said that, “it was no wonder that the mouth that had kissed the feet of our Lord” spoke so charismatically and was, “inspired with the word of God more than any other.”
It was also said that after Christ was crucified, Mary used her status to pull some strings. She landed an invitation to one of Emperor Tiberius’s banquet. Resolutely, she traveled to Italy to preach: describing Jesus as holy and a powerful miracle worker who was crucified and risen. The Emperor laughed at her and said that there was as much chance of Jesus rising from the dead as there was of an egg in her hand turning red. Immediately, the egg in her hand turned red and she continued to preach to the entire imperial house. Yet another legend suggested that near the end of her life, she became a hermit. She never ate. Instead, at each of the hours the church would sing liturgy, she heard angels singing. They lifted her from the earth and nourished her with heavenly food.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene
https://marymagdalen.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SMM2019.pdf
https://www.thenazareneway.com/life_of_st_mary_magdalene.htm
https://spartacus-educational.com/Philosophy_Celsus.htm