Who Was Mary Magdalene?

July 21, 2024

This Monday, July 22, we celebrate the feat of Mary Magdalene. There are very few saints whose reputation has been more unjustly sullied by the Church itself, than Mary Magdalene. How did that come to be?
   
In the Gospel, we have Mary Magdalene, and other nameless women who are sinners, and throughout history they have all come to be seen as Mary Magdalene. This includes the woman caught in adultery. Scripture does not name this person and never indicates that it is Mary Magdalene, but “tradition” has told us that she is Mary. The woman “known to be a sinner” (code for prostitute), who comes to the house of the Pharisee and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair (a very sensual act), is also folded into Mary Magdalene, although nothing in Scripture says this and does not give us any name for this woman at all.  

There is also the woman who brings a jar of costly oil and anoints Jesus’ head. Scripture says nothing about her name, but she is presumed historically to be Mary Magdalene. Even in Mother of God Church, if you look at the Crucifixion scene above the tabernacle, you see Jesus on the Cross with Mary, His mother on the left, and John the Beloved Disciple on the right. In the center, on the ground, is Mary Magdalene, with the jar of oil in front of her. Mary Magdalen is also sometimes identified with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, which she certainly is not. Mary Magdalene is from the town of Magdala, and this Mary is from Bethany. These persons are identified in the Crucifixion scene in the Gospel of St. John, when Jesus says to Mary and John, “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”

I do not believe that these very wrong assumptions about Mary are malicious in intent. But they are assertions to her that have not been challenged by scholars until recently and have, therefore become part of our collective imagination. It is time to rescue her reputation as a great saint.
   
So, what do we know about Mary Magdalene? She was from the town of Magdala, which is on the Sea of Galilee, and about 6 miles south of Capernaum, which is where Jesus lived and operated from during His ministry. She had been possessed by seven demons, which Jesus cast out of her, and seems to have been part of the immediate party, along with the Apostles and others, who were Jesus’ closest disciples and supporters.
   
Mary was in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, and was, as is noted in the Gospels, at the foot of the Cross as He died. She is also the first to witness the Risen Christ on Easter morning and was sent by Jesus to the Apostles to tell them that He was risen. As such, she is known as the Apostle to the Apostles. Tradition tells us that after the Ascension, she eventually became a hermit and penitent, living in a cave in the deserts of Egypt. After that, we do not know what happened to her. Presumably she died in Egypt in the first century.
   
We honor her as one of Jesus’ most faithful disciples, remaining with Him when the men fled in terror, and the person Jesus chose to encounter first after the Resurrection.
—Fr. Mike Comer