The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Mary Magdalene S 283

In Western Christianity—R OMAN C ATHOLI CISM and P ROTESTANTISM —much of the speculation about Mary has focused on sexuality. In a sermon delivered on September 14, 591, Pope Gregory I identified Mary with a prostitute whom Jesus had healed. Ever since, tradition has regarded her as a prostitute who repented and received forgiveness. That vision of Mary is portrayed in the rock musi cal Jesus Christ Superstar (1970; film, 1973) and in the controversial film by Martin Scorsese The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), based on a novel with the same title by Nikos Kazantzakis (English translation 1960). In 1969, however, the Catholic Church declared that the identification of Mary with a prostitute was a mistake. E ASTERN O RTHO DOX C HRISTIANITY never did accept the tradition that Mary was a prostitute. Many artists have painted Mary as a repen tant sinner, perhaps because that was an accept able way in which they could paint female nudes. Another common subject has been Mary meeting the risen Jesus in the garden, as recorded in the Gospel of John. Artists and art historians often refer to this scene with the words that Jesus spoke to Mary: Noli me tangere, “Do not touch me”—a command given because Jesus was not yet puri fied. Artists influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy have also painted another scene: It shows Mary before the Roman emperor Tiberius, holding a red egg. The story is that Mary traveled to Rome to tell Tiberius about the resurrection of Jesus. Tiberius replied that a person could no more rise from the dead than that an egg could turn red. Mary picked up the egg, and it turned red. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries many people took a great deal of interest in Mary. A popular book, The Da Vinci Code (2003), claimed that she was the wife of Jesus. Feminist scholars saw in Mary an early Christian authority—indeed, the person on whose testimony all of Christianity was based—whose importance a male-centered church structure had overlooked. Further reading: Holly E. Hearon, The Mary Magdalene Tradition: Witness and Counter-witness in Early Christian Communities (Collegeville,

Thomas A. Kselman, Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983); Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary through the Centuries (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996); Sandra L. Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary: From La Salette to Medjugorje (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991). Mary Magdalene More properly Mary of Mag dala; a follower of J ESUS . The GOSPELS in the N EW T ESTAMENT say more about Mary of Magdala than about any other woman besides M ARY , Jesus’ mother. She has also been the subject of much speculation. According to the gospels Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8.2). She is also said to have stood at the foot of the CROSS dur ing Jesus’ crucifixion. Mary is best known, however, for being the first person to learn of Jesus’ RESURRECTION . In Mark and Luke, Mary and women with her dis cover that Jesus’ tomb is empty. They learn of his resurrection from a man or two men dressed in white. In Matthew, Jesus actually appears to Mary and the others after they find the empty tomb. John recounts a more detailed encounter between Mary and the risen Jesus. Jesus appears only to Mary, but Mary mistakes him at first for a gardener. Ancient writings not included in the B IBLE ( see N EW T ESTAMENT , A POCRYPHAL ) hint that Mary was an important authority among early Christians. One such writing is the Gospel of Mary, parts of which have been lost. What remains tells that Mary had a secret vision of the risen Jesus, in which he taught that “the true seed of humanity exists within you. … Those who search for it will find it.” Accord ing to this gospel, Andrew and Peter improperly rejected Mary’s vision, but Levi rebuked them for doing so. The early Christian teacher Hippolytus iden tified Mary as an APOSTLE . Tradition eventually came to consider her the “apostle of the apostles” because she told the apostles the news of Jesus’ resurrection.