Who framed Mary Magdalene?
How the first witness to Christ's Resurrection was made into a prostitute, and how women today are restoring her reputation.
Heidi Schlumpf
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE RESURRECTION. Twenty centuries of Christianity—and the faith of billions—rest on this singular event. And who is the primary witness to this momentous miracle, the first person to whom Jesus revealed himself? It would seem that fact would be such an essential element of the faith that all Christians should be able to respond without even thinking—as they do to similar questions, like "Who is Jesus' mother?" or "Which apostle betrayed Jesus?"
Reducing one of the most important leaders of the early church to a prostitute has exacted a price for women by feeding into the notion that women are either madonnas or whores.
But the first witness to the Resurrection—as all four gospel writers agree—was a woman whose name and reputation have become so misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misconstrued over the centuries that she is more commonly, though erroneously, remembered as a prostitute than as the faithful first bearer of the Good News.
That woman is Mary of Magdala, and, finally, her centuries-old case of mistaken identity is being rectified.
Now that scripture scholars have debunked the myth that she and the infamous repentant sinner who wiped Jesus' feet with her tears are one and the same woman, word is trickling down that Mary Magdalene's penitent prostitute label was a misnomer. Instead, her true biblical portrait is being resurrected, and this "apostle to the apostles" is finally taking her rightful place in history as a beloved disciple of Jesus and a prominent early church leader.
"We're trying to right a 2,000-year-old wrong," says Christine Schenk, C.S.J., executive director of FutureChurch, a Cincinnati-based church-reform organization that launched nationwide observances of Mary Magdalene's feast day (July 22) two years ago. The idea quickly grew from a handful of celebrations to nearly 130 prayer services last year at Catholic parishes, Newman centers, schools, retreat houses, hospital chapels, motherhouses, and in small faith communities.
"People see this as a positive, constructive way to show they support women's equality," says Schenk, who believes reclaiming Mary Magdalene's reputation as an early church leader will have implications for women's leadership in the church today, including the ordination of women.
As part of a Women in Church Leadership project cosponsored by FutureChurch and Call to Action, the feast day celebrations were created to accomplish two goals: to provide opportunities for visible liturgical roles for women and to disseminate current biblical scholarship that counters the myth of Mary Magdalene as public sinner.
Badgered witness
Many cradle Catholics are shocked to learn that there is no biblical evidence that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute or public sinner. She is mentioned 12 times in the New Testament—making her the second most mentioned woman, after the Virgin Mary. Most references are found in the Crucifixion and empty tomb narratives, where she is portrayed as a loyal disciple at the foot of the cross and as one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection.
Unlike other women in the Bible, Mary of Magdala is not identified in relation to another person; she is not anyone's mother, wife, or sister. Instead, she is called Mary of Magdala, a title that implies some prominence in the city, a center of commercial fishing on the northwest bank of the Sea of Galilee. She left her home to follow Jesus, and it is believed she was among several well-off, independent women who financially supported Jesus' ministry.
These female followers of Jesus—disciples, really—became central when everything started to fall apart. While others fled, the women were faithful, and they were led by Mary of Magdala.
Details differ in the four gospel accounts of the Resurrection as to the number of heavenly visitors at the tomb, which women accompany Mary Magdalene to anoint the body, and whether or not the women are believed when they run to tell the news of Christ's Resurrection. But on this all four gospels agree: Mary Magdalene was faithful until the end, and her faithfulness was rewarded with an appearance by the risen Lord.
"It's really remarkable that all four gospels have the same story," says scripture scholar Mary Thompson, S.S.M.N., adjunct professor of religious studies at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York and author of Mary of Magdala: Apostle and Leader (Paulist, 1995). "You can be sure that if it had been possible to eliminate those women who went out from the empty tomb, [the gospel writers] would have done it" because of the prevailing attitude toward women in those times, she says.
Despite the fact that legally a woman's testimony at that time was considered invalid, the authors of the four gospels all make women the primary witnesses to the most important event of Christianity. That leads Thompson and others to believe that detail has historical validity.
In Matthew's version (28:1-10) Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" first learn of Jesus' Resurrection from an angel at the tomb, who tells them to "go quickly and tell his disciples." As they leave they are met by Jesus, who also instructs them to spread the Good News to the others.
Likewise in Mark's account (16:1-8) Mary Magdalene is accompanied by Mary, the mother of James, and Salome to anoint Jesus' body. But inside the empty tomb they find an angel who tells them Jesus has been raised from the dead. Again, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene, but when she tells the disciples, they do not believe her.
Luke (24:1-12) says the three women are Mary Magdalene; Mary, the mother of James; and Joanna and that they first find the stone rolled away and are told by two men "in dazzling clothes" that Jesus has risen from the dead. The other disciples do not believe their "idle tale," and Peter runs to the tomb to see for himself the burial cloths.
In John's Resurrection account (20:1-18) Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb alone, sees that the stone has been rolled away, and runs to get Peter. What follows are parallel stories: Verses 3-10 describe how Peter and the disciple Jesus loved witness the burial cloths, but "they did not understand"; while verses 10-18 tell the story of Jesus' appearance to Mary of Magdala.
"Woman, why are you weeping?" Jesus asks his beloved friend, who is lost in her grief. Mary Magdalene initially mistakes Jesus for the gardener who had just asked the same question of her. But then she turns and in her recognition calls out, "Rab-bouni" (meaning "rabbi" or "teacher"). Then Mary of Magdala goes to tell the disciples, "I have seen the Lord."
A Mary mixup
If Mary of Magdala is consistently portrayed as a crucial player in arguably the most important event of Christianity, why is she not remembered for this role?
"Unquestionably and clearly, Mary of Magdala was the primary witness to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and our whole Christ-ianity depends on that," says Thompson.
The problem lies in the alternate image of Mary Magdalene as the fallen and redeemed woman, as the epitome of sensuality and spirituality—an image that has become ingrained in the imaginations of centuries of Christians and one that continues to be fostered through depictions in art, literature, and even movies.
So how did Mary of Magdala become a prostitute some several hundred years after her death?
The short answer is that Mary Magdalene has been confused with several other women in the Bible, most significantly—and ultimately problematically—with the unnamed sinner in Chapter 7 of Luke. In that story, a woman bathes Jesus' feet with her tears, anoints them with ointment from her alabaster jar, and dries them with her hair. When the Pharisees object, noting that she is a known sinner, Jesus admonishes them and forgives her "because she has shown great love" (Luke 7:47). Nowhere does it say that this woman was a prostitute, and nowhere is she identified as Mary of Magdala.
The confusion may have come from the proximity of that passage to the one that identifies Mary of Magdala by name as a follower of Jesus who had had seven demons cast out of her (Luke 8:2). Although previously interpreted as referring to sexual sin, the mention of seven demons is now believed to mean illness, most likely mental illness.
The waters get even muddier when this unnamed sinner gets lumped in with another Mary—Mary of Bethany, Martha and Lazarus' sister—who also anoints Jesus' feet and wipes them with her hair, as described in Chapter 12 of John's gospel. An earlier version of this story in Matthew refrains from naming this woman. In Matthew this woman is a close friend of Jesus—not a stranger with a reputation as a sinner.
Some believe the conflation of Mary of Bethany and Mary of Magdala results not just from their shared name but also from the presence of the alabaster jar of perfumed oil. It's easy to see why the sinful woman who anoints Jesus' feet is confused with Mary of Bethany, who does the same. It's possible that the shared symbols of incense and tears have historically united these women with Mary of Magdala, who was among the women who brought jars of perfumed oil to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body.
Sister Barbara Bowe, R.C.S.J., New Testament professor at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, says a similar thing happened to several "Johns" and the unnamed "beloved disciple." It was a tendency, especially in the earlier period, she says. "Characters get blended together and homogenized in ways that don't preserve the integrity of the texts."
Although the decline of Mary of Magdala's reputation as apostle and leader most likely began shortly after her death, the transformation to penitent prostitute was sealed on Sept. 14, 591 when Pope Gregory the Great gave a homily in Rome that pronounced that Mary Magdalene, Luke's unnamed sinner, and Mary of Bethany were, indeed, the same person.
"She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark," Gregory said in his 23rd homily. "And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices? ... It is clear, brothers, that the woman previously used the unguent to perfume her flesh in forbidden acts..."
Few ascribe malicious intent to Gregory ("Although I have a hard time with the 'Great' part," says Thompson), who most likely wanted to use the story to assure converts that their sins would be forgiven. Indeed, the gospel passage is a powerful one—and can still be, without being inaccurately attached to Mary Magdalene.
"I have people who tell me, 'I liked her as a prostitute,'" says Schenk. "That story spoke very deeply of the profundity of forgiveness."
But Christians deserve to hear about the multiplicity of women in scripture, argues Schenk. And reducing one of the most important leaders of the early church to a prostitute has exacted a price, especially for women, by feeding into the notion that women are either madonnas or whores.
"This fans the flames of the stereotype of women as sinful," says Bowe. "For women today who look to the Bible for inspiration and liberation, their choices are limited enough. When we suddenly cut Mary Magdalene off at the knees and turn her into some evil sex pervert, we deprive men and women, but especially women, of a figure with whom they can identify."
Mary Magdalene's story and that of Luke's unnamed sinner need to be separated, Bowe says. "Then you can take them each in their integrity," she says. The passage in Luke is powerful, she says. "But it's not Mary Magdalene."
Lead us not
While no pope or other person deserves the singular blame, many feminist theologians have no doubt that Mary Magdalene's reputation was deliberately altered to suppress women's leadership in the church in those early centuries. Given the gospel accounts, her importance could not be denied—but her character could be changed to be less threatening.
"To have silenced and suppressed the tradition with respect to the most prominent woman in Christian circles isn't an accident," says Jane Schaberg, a professor of religious studies and women's studies at the University of Detroit-Mercy who is writing a book on Mary of Magdala.
Schenk admits she wouldn't use the word conspiracy, but she says, "It's clear there wasn't much resistance to changing her image. I'm not sure we can understand the degree of resistance and anger and determination on the part of male leadership to put female leaders back in their place. Unfortunately, that continues today."
That women were leaders in the early Jesus movement is becoming clearer and more commonly accepted among scholars. Not only do several biblical passages describe them, but apocryphal, noncanonical writings also portray women as apostles, deacons, and co-workers. Studies of ancient burial inscriptions also have confirmed these titles—as well as the feminine presbytera—for women in the first centuries.
Women play a prominent role in the so-called gnostic gospels—writings that, though not included in the official canon, provide important historical evidence about the church of the first centuries.
For example, in the Gospel of Mary—the only apocryphal text named for a woman—Mary Magdalene is depicted as a visionary who receives secret revelations from Jesus, much to the chagrin of Peter. "Mary Magdalene, by virtue of her encounter with Jesus in John 20, was regarded as someone who was a special channel of secret knowledge," Bowe says.
A more egalitarian, shared leadership was practiced among gnostic sects, with Mary of Magdala and other women figuring prominently. But as the early Christian church struggled for legitimacy, a male-dominated, hierarchical style of leadership prevailed. "The gnostic materials are full of the theme of opposition to Mary Magdalene's leadership," says Schaberg. "To put it simply, the people who opposed her won out."
Others believe the characters of Mary of Magdala and Peter represent not the actual historical people but rather are used as literary devices in many gnostic writings.
"Peter is the symbol of what he is today—the power structure—while Mary Magdalene represents the pattern for the role of women in the early church," says Thompson. "Two competing visions of church were jockeying for position, and it's obvious which one won out. Women were already being subordinated. Patriarchal forces were trying to quell them."
Thus the stage was set for Mary of Magdala to become denigrated as a sexual sinner and to lose her legacy as the first evangelist of the Good News of Jesus' Resurrection.
Thompson and other feminist Christians associate some of the loss of Mary Magdalene's legacy with the rise of a celibate clergy in the fourth and fifth centuries. "This seems to have been a creeping effect of patriarchy," says Thompson. "I think we have to ponder the enormity of what happened to Mary Magdalene. The implications are still with us today."
Interestingly, the Eastern church took a different tack with Mary Magdalene. "They never fell for the prostitute fallacy," says Thompson. "She is honored according to the biblical portrait."
A legend in the Eastern tradition has Mary of Magdala traveling to Rome and appearing before the court of Emperor Tiberius. When she tells Tiberius about Jesus' death and Resurrection, he challenges her story, saying no one could rise from the dead any more than an egg in a dish on the table could turn red.
With that, according to the legend, Mary picked up an egg and it turned bright red in her hand. To this day, icons of Mary Mag-dalene often depict her holding an egg, and Eastern Christians still color their Easter eggs a bright red.
In the West, however, the image of Mary Magdalene as sensual temptress is deeply entrenched. Even today the prostitute continues to be reinforced by popular culture.
Few can forget Mary Magdalene's character sensually singing "I Don't Know How to Love Him" in the '60s musical, and later the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar. Although the portrayal poignantly depicted the depth of her devotion and deep love for Jesus, it unfortunately tainted it with an oversexualization of her character.
The sexy saint stirred up even more controversy in Martin Scorsese's 1988 movie, The Last Temptation of Christ. Based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, the film includes a sex scene between Mary Magdalene and Jesus, actually a dream sequence of what might have happened if Jesus had not been crucified. The film also erroneously identifies Mary Magdalene as the woman stoned for adultery in John 8:3-11.
But 20th-century artists aren't the first to be misled into using the image of Mary Magdalene as temptress. In paintings throughout history, she is often pictured bare-breasted, and more often than not, clothed in red, the color of passion.
The vamp revamped
Today, reclaiming Mary Magdalene's rightful role as apostle and leader remains an uphill battle, her supporters say. "The biblical scholarship is still relatively new," says Thompson.
The news is just beginning to filter down to people in the pews. The feast day celebrations sponsored by FutureChurch and Call to Action are one way many Catholics are getting reintroduced to Mary of Magdala.
"I've long been an admirer of Mary Magdalene," says Janelle Lazzo of Kansas City, Missouri, who once chose "sinner1" as her computer password because of her strong connection to the story in Luke.
"I thought if Jesus loved her that much with her various shortcomings, my own might not look so bad to him either. Once I realized what a pivotal role she had in his ministry, I was more than hooked."
Through the local Call to Action chapter, Lazzo helped organize and presided at a Mary Magdalene prayer service on her feast day at St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City. The service featured a proclamation of the Resurrection account from John, inclusive-language hymns and prayers, and time for personal sharing among the 60 or so gathered. Storyteller Sister Lillian Harrington, O.S.B. read a "Letter from Mary of Magdala," in which a fictionalized Mary describes her true role in Jesus' ministry.
In Indianapolis, Call to Action leaders organized seven observances last July. Organizer Lynette Herold, who attended several, including a Mass at her own parish, says the mood was energizing.
"It was very freeing, especially for the women," she says. "It can be hard to relate to women in the Bible. So many of the stories are so negative. With Mary Magdalene, we're finally getting another side of the story."
Although she noticed that some participants wanted to hold onto the image of the penitent prostitute, Herold believes the "woman as temptress" monopoly must be broken. "We just don't hear the women who were leaders and disciples proclaimed very loudly. Many people can't admit that women had a key role in Jesus' time. Because if we admit that, we have to ask why it isn't happening now."
It's precisely that connection between the reinterpretation of the Mary Magdalene story and contemporary calls for expanded roles for women in the Catholic Church that has some Catholics concerned.
Although nearly all modern scripture scholars agree that the prostitute label is mistaken, not everyone is comfortable with the way her story is being retold. Some say feminists are hijacking Mary Magdalene's story to serve their own agendas.
A 1998 article in the ultraconservative Catholic newspaper The Wanderer compared the new scholarship about the "historical Magdalene" to the "historical Jesus" movement in biblical studies. The church reformers—blatantly described as "heretics"—are said to be "distorting the historical figure of Mary Magdalen[e] in their crusade for a laywoman-run church."
While feminist theologian Schaberg certainly isn't in the same camp as The Wanderer, she nonetheless cautions against contemporary legend-making that is not grounded in serious biblical scholarship.
"I hope the efforts to reclaim Mary Magdalene will look more carefully at her tradition," she says. "These efforts have to take into account the serious struggle New Testament scholars have with this material."
For more on Mary:
Mary Magdalene
Art of Mary Magdalene
from Magdalene.org
But Schenk and others insist they are merely trying to right a centuries-old wrong—a correction that happens to provide a positive role model for contemporary women in the church. "I just think this has been a terrible injustice," says Schenk. "I think of all the Christian women who need positive role models from scripture."
With the prostitute baggage properly disposed of, Mary of Magdala can emerge as a model of a faithful, devoted follower of the Lord, as well as a strong, independent leader in the early church. Her leadership can motivate women of the 21st century, says Thompson.
"Mary of Magdala didn't ask anybody whether or not she could lead. She simply led," she says. "And that's what women have to do today. Just do it."
Heidi Schlumpf is Managing Editor of U.S. Catholic. This article appeared in the April 2000 (Volume 65; pages 12-17) issue of U.S. Catholic.
http://uscatholic.claretians.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9509&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=usc_
lunedì 29 marzo 2010
Dismantling The Da Vinci Code
Dismantling The Da Vinci Code
SANDRA MIESEL
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream.
“The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)
The Holy Grail is a favorite metaphor for a desirable but difficult-to-attain goal, from the map of the human genome to Lord Stanley's Cup. While the original Grail — the cup Jesus allegedly used at the Last Supper — normally inhabits the pages of Arthurian romance, Dan Brown's recent mega–best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, rips it away to the realm of esoteric history.
But his book is more than just the story of a quest for the Grail — he wholly reinterprets the Grail legend. In doing so, Brown inverts the insight that a woman's body is symbolically a container and makes a container symbolically a woman's body. And that container has a name every Christian will recognize, for Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children.
Over the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel. Therefore Brown claims that “the quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene," a conclusion that would surely have surprised Sir Galahad and the other Grail knights who thought they were searching for the Chalice of the Last Supper.
The Da Vinci Code opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre's curator inside the museum. The crime enmeshes hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim's granddaughter, burgundy-haired cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei "monk" named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the "Grail."
But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.
With his twice-stated principle, "Everybody loves a conspiracy," Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier best-sellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn't so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation's books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies' book club.
Brown's lack of seriousness shows in the games he plays with his character names — Robert Langdon, "bright fame long don" (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, "wisdom New Eve"; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, "zebu anger."; The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, "legal duce." The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman).
While his extensive use of fictional formulas may be the secret to Brown's stardom, his anti-Christian message can't have hurt him in publishing circles: The Da Vinci Code debuted atop the New York Times best-seller list. By manipulating his audience through the conventions of romance-writing, Brown invites readers to identify with his smart, glamorous characters who've seen through the impostures of the clerics who hide the "truth&"; about Jesus and his wife. Blasphemy is delivered in a soft voice with a knowing chuckle: "[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication."
But even Brown has his limits. To dodge charges of outright bigotry, he includes a climactic twist in the story that absolves the Church of assassination. And although he presents Christianity as a false root and branch, he's willing to tolerate it for its charitable works.
(Of course, Catholic Christianity will become even more tolerable once the new liberal pope elected in Brown's previous Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, abandons outmoded teachings. "Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ," says one of the book's progressive cardinals.)
Where Is He Getting All of This?
Brown actually cites his principal sources within the text of his novel. One is a specimen of academic feminist scholarship: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The others are popular esoteric histories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird. (Starbird, a self-identified Catholic, has her books published by Matthew Fox's outfit, Bear & Co.) Another influence, at least at second remove, is The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker.
The use of such unreliable sources belies Brown's pretensions to intellectuality. But the act has apparently fooled at least some of his readers — the New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, "His research is impeccable."
But despite Brown's scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful — and malicious—ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown’s claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources.
A Multitude of Errors
So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his "impeccable" research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn't a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
Brown's contention that the five linked rings of the modern Olympic Games are a secret tribute to the goddess is also wrong — each set of games was supposed to add a ring to the design but the organizers stopped at five. And his efforts to read goddess propaganda into art, literature, and even Disney cartoons are simply ridiculous.
No datum is too dubious for inclusion, and reality falls quickly by the wayside. For instance, the Opus Dei bishop encourages his albino assassin by telling him that Noah was also an albino (a notion drawn from the non-canonical 1 Enoch 106:2). Yet albinism somehow fails to interfere with the man's eyesight as it physiologically would.
But a far more important example is Brown's treatment of Gothic architecture as a style full of goddess-worshipping symbols and coded messages to confound the uninitiated. Building on Barbara Walker's claim that "like a pagan temple, the Gothic cathedral represented the body of the Goddess," The Templar Revelation asserts: "Sexual symbolism is found in the great Gothic cathedrals which were masterminded by the Knights Templar...both of which represent intimate female anatomy: the arch, which draws the worshipper into the body of Mother Church, evokes the vulva." In The Da Vinci Code, these sentiments are transformed into a character's description of "a cathedral's long hollow nave as a secret tribute to a woman's womb...complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway."
These remarks cannot be brushed aside as opinions of the villain; Langdon, the book's hero, refers to his own lectures about goddess-symbolism at Chartres.
These bizarre interpretations betray no acquaintance with the actual development or construction of Gothic architecture, and correcting the countless errors becomes a tiresome exercise: The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals of their time, which were commissioned by bishops and their canons throughout Europe. They were unlettered men with no arcane knowledge of "sacred geometry" passed down from the pyramid builders. They did not wield tools themselves on their own projects, nor did they found masons' guilds to build for others. Not all their churches were round, nor was roundness a defiant insult to the Church. Rather than being a tribute to the divine feminine, their round churches honored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Actually looking at Gothic churches and their predecessors deflates the idea of female symbolism. Large medieval churches typically had three front doors on the west plus triple entrances to their transepts on the north and south. (What part of a woman's anatomy does a transept represent? Or the kink in Chartres's main aisle?) Romanesque churches — including ones that predate the founding of the Templars — have similar bands of decoration arching over their entrances. Both Gothic and Romanesque churches have the long, rectangular nave inherited from Late Antique basilicas, ultimately derived from Roman public buildings. Neither Brown nor his sources consider what symbolism medieval churchmen such as Suger of St.-Denis or William Durandus read in church design. It certainly wasn't goddess-worship.
False Claims
If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown's material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other.
Brown's approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story. From Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Brown lifts the concept of the Grail as a metaphor for a sacred lineage by arbitrarily breaking a medieval French term, Sangraal (Holy Grail), into sang (blood) and raal (royal). This holy blood, according to Brown, descended from Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, to the Merovingian dynasty in Dark Ages France, surviving its fall to persist in several modern French families, including that of Pierre Plantard, a leader of the mysterious Priory of Sion. The Priory — an actual organization officially registered with the French government in 1956 — makes extraordinary claims of antiquity as the "real" power behind the Knights Templar. It most likely originated after World War II and was first brought to public notice in 1962. With the exception of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, its illustrious list of Grand Masters — which include Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, and Victor Hugo — is not credible, although it's presented as true by Brown.
Brown doesn't accept a political motivation for the Priory's activities. Instead he picks up The Templar Revelation’s view of the organization as a cult of secret goddess-worshippers who have preserved ancient Gnostic wisdom and records of Christ’s true mission, which would completely overturn Christianity if released. Significantly, Brown omits the rest of the book’s thesis that makes Christ and Mary Magdalene unmarried sex partners performing the erotic mysteries of Isis. Perhaps even a gullible mass-market audience has its limits.
From both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation, Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and a grossly distorted image of Jesus. He's neither the Messiah nor a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne of David. His credentials are amplified by his relationship with the rich Magdalen who carries the royal blood of Benjamin: "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false," laments one of Brown's characters.
Yet it's Brown's Christology that's false — and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325 at the behest of the emperor. Then Constantine — a lifelong sun worshipper — ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed, which is why no complete set of Gospels predates the fourth century. Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.
But by Brown's specious reasoning, the Old Testament can't be authentic either because complete Hebrew Scriptures are no more than a thousand years old. And yet the texts were transmitted so accurately that they do match well with the Dead Sea Scrolls from a thousand years earlier. Analysis of textual families, comparison with fragments and quotations, plus historical correlations securely date the orthodox Gospels to the first century and indicate that they're earlier than the Gnostic forgeries. (The Epistles of St. Paul are, of course, even earlier than the Gospels.)
Primitive Church documents and the testimony of the ante-Nicean Fathers confirm that Christians have always believed Jesus to be Lord, God, and Savior — even when that faith meant death. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. For Brown, it isn't enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor's old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith. Brown drags out old (and long-discredited) charges by virulent anti-Catholics like Alexander Hislop who accused the Church of perpetuating Babylonian mysteries, as well as 19th-century rationalists who regarded Christ as just another dying savior-god.
Unsurprisingly, Brown misses no opportunity to criticize Christianity and its pitiable adherents. (The church in question is always the Catholic Church, though his villain does sneer once at Anglicans — for their grimness, of all things.) He routinely and anachronistically refers to the Church as "the Vatican," even when popes weren't in residence there. He systematically portrays it throughout history as deceitful, power-crazed, crafty, and murderous: "The Church may no longer employ crusades to slaughter, but their influence is no less persuasive. No less insidious."
Goddess Worship and the Magdalen
Worst of all, in Brown's eyes, is the fact that the pleasure-hating, sex-hating, woman-hating Church suppressed goddess worship and eliminated the divine feminine. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites is enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. What else would one expect of a Cathar sympathizer?
Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon's Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes — possibly a twisted version of the Temple's corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the tetragrammaton YHWH derives from "Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah."
But as any first-year Scripture student could tell you, Jehovah is actually a 16th-century rendering of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai ("Lord"). In fact, goddesses did not dominate the pre-Christian world — not in the religions of Rome, her barbarian subjects, Egypt, or even Semitic lands where the hieros gamos was an ancient practice. Nor did the Hellenized cult of Isis appear to have included sex in its secret rites.
Contrary to yet another of Brown's claims, Tarot cards do not teach goddess doctrine. They were invented for innocent gaming purposes in the 15th century and didn't acquire occult associations until the late 18th. Playing-card suites carry no Grail symbolism. The notion of diamonds symbolizing pentacles is a deliberate misrepresentation by British occultist A. E. Waite. And the number five — so crucial to Brown's puzzles — has some connections with the protective goddess but myriad others besides, including human life, the five senses, and the Five Wounds of Christ.
Brown's treatment of Mary Magdalene is sheer delusion. In The Da Vinci Code, she's no penitent whore but Christ's royal consort and the intended head of His Church, supplanted by Peter and defamed by churchmen. She fled west with her offspring to Provence, where medieval Cathars would keep the original teachings of Jesus alive. The Priory of Sion still guards her relics and records, excavated by the Templars from the subterranean Holy of Holies. It also protects her descendants — including Brown's heroine.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, "apostle to the apostles," died in Ephesus. The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren't reported there until the 13th. Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ's "companion," meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to "kiss her on the mouth" and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter's reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that "women are not worthy of Life," Jesus responds, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
That's certainly an odd way to "honor" one's spouse or exalt the status of women.
The Knights Templar
Brown likewise misrepresents the history of the Knights Templar. The oldest of the military-religious orders, the Knights were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their rule, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was approved in 1128 and generous donors granted them numerous properties in Europe for support. Rendered redundant after the last Crusader stronghold fell in 1291, the Templars' pride and wealth — they were also bankers — earned them keen hostility.
Brown maliciously ascribes the suppression of the Templars to “Machiavellian” Pope Clement V, whom they were blackmailing with the Grail secret. His "ingeniously planned sting operation" had his soldiers suddenly arrest all Templars. Charged with Satanism, sodomy, and blasphemy, they were tortured into confessing and burned as heretics, their ashes "tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber."
But in reality, the initiative for crushing the Templars came from King Philip the Fair of France, whose royal officials did the arresting in 1307. About 120 Templars were burned by local Inquisitorial courts in France for not confessing or retracting a confession, as happened with Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Few Templars suffered death elsewhere although their order was abolished in 1312. Clement, a weak, sickly Frenchman manipulated by his king, burned no one in Rome inasmuch as he was the first pope to reign from Avignon (so much for the ashes in the Tiber).
Moreover, the mysterious stone idol that the Templars were accused of worshiping is associated with fertility in only one of more than a hundred confessions. Sodomy was the scandalous — and possibly true — charge against the order, not ritual fornication. The Templars have been darlings of occultism since their myth as masters of secret wisdom and fabulous treasure began to coalesce in the late 18th century. Freemasons and even Nazis have hailed them as brothers. Now it's the turn of neo-Gnostics.
Twisting da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brown's revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views "while I was studying art history in Seville," but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received "hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions" (actually, it was just one…and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
Brown's analysis of da Vinci's work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it's widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not — as Brown claims — a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L'Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown's argument centers around da Vinci's Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn't a material vessel. But da Vinci's painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, "One of you will betray me" (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John's Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown's contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can't be sustained.
Brown's Mess
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism — gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What's more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown's book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers' shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown's assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it's one we would have happily done without.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sandra Miesel. "Dismantling The Da Vinci Code." Crisis (September 2003).
This article is reprinted with permission from the Morley Institute a non-profit education organization. To subscribe to Crisis magazine call 1-800-852-9962.
THE AUTHOR
Sandra Miesel, medievalist and Catholic journalist, writes from Indianapolis.
Copyright © 2003 Crisis
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html
SANDRA MIESEL
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream.
“The Grail,” Langdon said, “is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the Holy Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be “searching for the chalice” were speaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned non-believers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine.” The Da Vinci Code, pages 238-239)
The Holy Grail is a favorite metaphor for a desirable but difficult-to-attain goal, from the map of the human genome to Lord Stanley's Cup. While the original Grail — the cup Jesus allegedly used at the Last Supper — normally inhabits the pages of Arthurian romance, Dan Brown's recent mega–best-seller, The Da Vinci Code, rips it away to the realm of esoteric history.
But his book is more than just the story of a quest for the Grail — he wholly reinterprets the Grail legend. In doing so, Brown inverts the insight that a woman's body is symbolically a container and makes a container symbolically a woman's body. And that container has a name every Christian will recognize, for Brown claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene. She was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb while bearing his children.
Over the centuries, the Grail-keepers have been guarding the true (and continuing) bloodline of Christ and the relics of the Magdalen, not a material vessel. Therefore Brown claims that “the quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene," a conclusion that would surely have surprised Sir Galahad and the other Grail knights who thought they were searching for the Chalice of the Last Supper.
The Da Vinci Code opens with the grisly murder of the Louvre's curator inside the museum. The crime enmeshes hero Robert Langdon, a tweedy professor of symbolism from Harvard, and the victim's granddaughter, burgundy-haired cryptologist Sophie Nevue. Together with crippled millionaire historian Leigh Teabing, they flee Paris for London one step ahead of the police and a mad albino Opus Dei "monk" named Silas who will stop at nothing to prevent them from finding the "Grail."
But despite the frenetic pacing, at no point is action allowed to interfere with a good lecture. Before the story comes full circle back to the Louvre, readers face a barrage of codes, puzzles, mysteries, and conspiracies.
With his twice-stated principle, "Everybody loves a conspiracy," Brown is reminiscent of the famous author who crafted her product by studying the features of ten earlier best-sellers. It would be too easy to criticize him for characters thin as plastic wrap, undistinguished prose, and improbable action. But Brown isn't so much writing badly as writing in a particular way best calculated to attract a female audience. (Women, after all, buy most of the nation's books.) He has married a thriller plot to a romance-novel technique. Notice how each character is an extreme type…effortlessly brilliant, smarmy, sinister, or psychotic as needed, moving against luxurious but curiously flat backdrops. Avoiding gore and bedroom gymnastics, he shows only one brief kiss and a sexual ritual performed by a married couple. The risqué allusions are fleeting although the text lingers over some bloody Opus Dei mortifications. In short, Brown has fabricated a novel perfect for a ladies' book club.
Brown's lack of seriousness shows in the games he plays with his character names — Robert Langdon, "bright fame long don" (distinguished and virile); Sophie Nevue, "wisdom New Eve"; the irascible taurine detective Bezu Fache, "zebu anger."; The servant who leads the police to them is Legaludec, "legal duce." The murdered curator takes his surname, Saunière, from a real Catholic priest whose occult antics sparked interest in the Grail secret. As an inside joke, Brown even writes in his real-life editor (Faukman is Kaufman).
While his extensive use of fictional formulas may be the secret to Brown's stardom, his anti-Christian message can't have hurt him in publishing circles: The Da Vinci Code debuted atop the New York Times best-seller list. By manipulating his audience through the conventions of romance-writing, Brown invites readers to identify with his smart, glamorous characters who've seen through the impostures of the clerics who hide the "truth&"; about Jesus and his wife. Blasphemy is delivered in a soft voice with a knowing chuckle: "[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication."
But even Brown has his limits. To dodge charges of outright bigotry, he includes a climactic twist in the story that absolves the Church of assassination. And although he presents Christianity as a false root and branch, he's willing to tolerate it for its charitable works.
(Of course, Catholic Christianity will become even more tolerable once the new liberal pope elected in Brown's previous Langdon novel, Angels & Demons, abandons outmoded teachings. "Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ," says one of the book's progressive cardinals.)
Where Is He Getting All of This?
Brown actually cites his principal sources within the text of his novel. One is a specimen of academic feminist scholarship: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels. The others are popular esoteric histories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln; The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine and The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalen and the Holy Grail, both by Margaret Starbird. (Starbird, a self-identified Catholic, has her books published by Matthew Fox's outfit, Bear & Co.) Another influence, at least at second remove, is The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker.
The use of such unreliable sources belies Brown's pretensions to intellectuality. But the act has apparently fooled at least some of his readers — the New York Daily News book reviewer trumpeted, "His research is impeccable."
But despite Brown's scholarly airs, a writer who thinks the Merovingians founded Paris and forgets that the popes once lived in Avignon is hardly a model researcher. And for him to state that the Church burned five million women as witches shows a willful — and malicious—ignorance of the historical record. The latest figures for deaths during the European witch craze are between 30,000 to 50,000 victims. Not all were executed by the Church, not all were women, and not all were burned. Brown’s claim that educated women, priestesses, and midwives were singled out by witch-hunters is not only false, it betrays his goddess-friendly sources.
A Multitude of Errors
So error-laden is The Da Vinci Code that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasions where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth. A few examples of his "impeccable" research: He claims that the motions of the planet Venus trace a pentacle (the so-called Ishtar pentagram) symbolizing the goddess. But it isn't a perfect figure and has nothing to do with the length of the Olympiad. The ancient Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Zeus Olympias, not Aphrodite, and occurred every four years.
Brown's contention that the five linked rings of the modern Olympic Games are a secret tribute to the goddess is also wrong — each set of games was supposed to add a ring to the design but the organizers stopped at five. And his efforts to read goddess propaganda into art, literature, and even Disney cartoons are simply ridiculous.
No datum is too dubious for inclusion, and reality falls quickly by the wayside. For instance, the Opus Dei bishop encourages his albino assassin by telling him that Noah was also an albino (a notion drawn from the non-canonical 1 Enoch 106:2). Yet albinism somehow fails to interfere with the man's eyesight as it physiologically would.
But a far more important example is Brown's treatment of Gothic architecture as a style full of goddess-worshipping symbols and coded messages to confound the uninitiated. Building on Barbara Walker's claim that "like a pagan temple, the Gothic cathedral represented the body of the Goddess," The Templar Revelation asserts: "Sexual symbolism is found in the great Gothic cathedrals which were masterminded by the Knights Templar...both of which represent intimate female anatomy: the arch, which draws the worshipper into the body of Mother Church, evokes the vulva." In The Da Vinci Code, these sentiments are transformed into a character's description of "a cathedral's long hollow nave as a secret tribute to a woman's womb...complete with receding labial ridges and a nice little cinquefoil clitoris above the doorway."
These remarks cannot be brushed aside as opinions of the villain; Langdon, the book's hero, refers to his own lectures about goddess-symbolism at Chartres.
These bizarre interpretations betray no acquaintance with the actual development or construction of Gothic architecture, and correcting the countless errors becomes a tiresome exercise: The Templars had nothing to do with the cathedrals of their time, which were commissioned by bishops and their canons throughout Europe. They were unlettered men with no arcane knowledge of "sacred geometry" passed down from the pyramid builders. They did not wield tools themselves on their own projects, nor did they found masons' guilds to build for others. Not all their churches were round, nor was roundness a defiant insult to the Church. Rather than being a tribute to the divine feminine, their round churches honored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Actually looking at Gothic churches and their predecessors deflates the idea of female symbolism. Large medieval churches typically had three front doors on the west plus triple entrances to their transepts on the north and south. (What part of a woman's anatomy does a transept represent? Or the kink in Chartres's main aisle?) Romanesque churches — including ones that predate the founding of the Templars — have similar bands of decoration arching over their entrances. Both Gothic and Romanesque churches have the long, rectangular nave inherited from Late Antique basilicas, ultimately derived from Roman public buildings. Neither Brown nor his sources consider what symbolism medieval churchmen such as Suger of St.-Denis or William Durandus read in church design. It certainly wasn't goddess-worship.
False Claims
If the above seems like a pile driver applied to a gnat, the blows are necessary to demonstrate the utter falseness of Brown's material. His willful distortions of documented history are more than matched by his outlandish claims about controversial subjects. But to a postmodernist, one construct of reality is as good as any other.
Brown's approach seems to consist of grabbing large chunks of his stated sources and tossing them together in a salad of a story. From Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Brown lifts the concept of the Grail as a metaphor for a sacred lineage by arbitrarily breaking a medieval French term, Sangraal (Holy Grail), into sang (blood) and raal (royal). This holy blood, according to Brown, descended from Jesus and his wife, Mary Magdalene, to the Merovingian dynasty in Dark Ages France, surviving its fall to persist in several modern French families, including that of Pierre Plantard, a leader of the mysterious Priory of Sion. The Priory — an actual organization officially registered with the French government in 1956 — makes extraordinary claims of antiquity as the "real" power behind the Knights Templar. It most likely originated after World War II and was first brought to public notice in 1962. With the exception of filmmaker Jean Cocteau, its illustrious list of Grand Masters — which include Leonardo da Vinci, Issac Newton, and Victor Hugo — is not credible, although it's presented as true by Brown.
Brown doesn't accept a political motivation for the Priory's activities. Instead he picks up The Templar Revelation’s view of the organization as a cult of secret goddess-worshippers who have preserved ancient Gnostic wisdom and records of Christ’s true mission, which would completely overturn Christianity if released. Significantly, Brown omits the rest of the book’s thesis that makes Christ and Mary Magdalene unmarried sex partners performing the erotic mysteries of Isis. Perhaps even a gullible mass-market audience has its limits.
From both Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation, Brown takes a negative view of the Bible and a grossly distorted image of Jesus. He's neither the Messiah nor a humble carpenter but a wealthy, trained religious teacher bent on regaining the throne of David. His credentials are amplified by his relationship with the rich Magdalen who carries the royal blood of Benjamin: "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false," laments one of Brown's characters.
Yet it's Brown's Christology that's false — and blindingly so. He requires the present New Testament to be a post-Constantinian fabrication that displaced true accounts now represented only by surviving Gnostic texts. He claims that Christ wasn't considered divine until the Council of Nicea voted him so in 325 at the behest of the emperor. Then Constantine — a lifelong sun worshipper — ordered all older scriptural texts destroyed, which is why no complete set of Gospels predates the fourth century. Christians somehow failed to notice the sudden and drastic change in their doctrine.
But by Brown's specious reasoning, the Old Testament can't be authentic either because complete Hebrew Scriptures are no more than a thousand years old. And yet the texts were transmitted so accurately that they do match well with the Dead Sea Scrolls from a thousand years earlier. Analysis of textual families, comparison with fragments and quotations, plus historical correlations securely date the orthodox Gospels to the first century and indicate that they're earlier than the Gnostic forgeries. (The Epistles of St. Paul are, of course, even earlier than the Gospels.)
Primitive Church documents and the testimony of the ante-Nicean Fathers confirm that Christians have always believed Jesus to be Lord, God, and Savior — even when that faith meant death. The earliest partial canon of Scripture dates from the late second century and already rejected Gnostic writings. For Brown, it isn't enough to credit Constantine with the divinization of Jesus. The emperor's old adherence to the cult of the Invincible Sun also meant repackaging sun worship as the new faith. Brown drags out old (and long-discredited) charges by virulent anti-Catholics like Alexander Hislop who accused the Church of perpetuating Babylonian mysteries, as well as 19th-century rationalists who regarded Christ as just another dying savior-god.
Unsurprisingly, Brown misses no opportunity to criticize Christianity and its pitiable adherents. (The church in question is always the Catholic Church, though his villain does sneer once at Anglicans — for their grimness, of all things.) He routinely and anachronistically refers to the Church as "the Vatican," even when popes weren't in residence there. He systematically portrays it throughout history as deceitful, power-crazed, crafty, and murderous: "The Church may no longer employ crusades to slaughter, but their influence is no less persuasive. No less insidious."
Goddess Worship and the Magdalen
Worst of all, in Brown's eyes, is the fact that the pleasure-hating, sex-hating, woman-hating Church suppressed goddess worship and eliminated the divine feminine. He claims that goddess worship universally dominated pre-Christian paganism with the hieros gamos (sacred marriage) as its central rite. His enthusiasm for fertility rites is enthusiasm for sexuality, not procreation. What else would one expect of a Cathar sympathizer?
Astonishingly, Brown claims that Jews in Solomon's Temple adored Yahweh and his feminine counterpart, the Shekinah, via the services of sacred prostitutes — possibly a twisted version of the Temple's corruption after Solomon (1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:4-15). Moreover, he says that the tetragrammaton YHWH derives from "Jehovah, an androgynous physical union between the masculine Jah and the pre-Hebraic name for Eve, Havah."
But as any first-year Scripture student could tell you, Jehovah is actually a 16th-century rendering of Yahweh using the vowels of Adonai ("Lord"). In fact, goddesses did not dominate the pre-Christian world — not in the religions of Rome, her barbarian subjects, Egypt, or even Semitic lands where the hieros gamos was an ancient practice. Nor did the Hellenized cult of Isis appear to have included sex in its secret rites.
Contrary to yet another of Brown's claims, Tarot cards do not teach goddess doctrine. They were invented for innocent gaming purposes in the 15th century and didn't acquire occult associations until the late 18th. Playing-card suites carry no Grail symbolism. The notion of diamonds symbolizing pentacles is a deliberate misrepresentation by British occultist A. E. Waite. And the number five — so crucial to Brown's puzzles — has some connections with the protective goddess but myriad others besides, including human life, the five senses, and the Five Wounds of Christ.
Brown's treatment of Mary Magdalene is sheer delusion. In The Da Vinci Code, she's no penitent whore but Christ's royal consort and the intended head of His Church, supplanted by Peter and defamed by churchmen. She fled west with her offspring to Provence, where medieval Cathars would keep the original teachings of Jesus alive. The Priory of Sion still guards her relics and records, excavated by the Templars from the subterranean Holy of Holies. It also protects her descendants — including Brown's heroine.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany, that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, "apostle to the apostles," died in Ephesus. The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren't reported there until the 13th. Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
Brown uses two Gnostic documents, the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, to prove that the Magdalen was Christ's "companion," meaning sexual partner. The apostles were jealous that Jesus used to "kiss her on the mouth" and favored her over them. He cites exactly the same passages quoted in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Templar Revelation and even picks up the latter's reference to The Last Temptation of Christ. What these books neglect to mention is the infamous final verse of the Gospel of Thomas. When Peter sneers that "women are not worthy of Life," Jesus responds, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male.... For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
That's certainly an odd way to "honor" one's spouse or exalt the status of women.
The Knights Templar
Brown likewise misrepresents the history of the Knights Templar. The oldest of the military-religious orders, the Knights were founded in 1118 to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their rule, attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was approved in 1128 and generous donors granted them numerous properties in Europe for support. Rendered redundant after the last Crusader stronghold fell in 1291, the Templars' pride and wealth — they were also bankers — earned them keen hostility.
Brown maliciously ascribes the suppression of the Templars to “Machiavellian” Pope Clement V, whom they were blackmailing with the Grail secret. His "ingeniously planned sting operation" had his soldiers suddenly arrest all Templars. Charged with Satanism, sodomy, and blasphemy, they were tortured into confessing and burned as heretics, their ashes "tossed unceremoniously into the Tiber."
But in reality, the initiative for crushing the Templars came from King Philip the Fair of France, whose royal officials did the arresting in 1307. About 120 Templars were burned by local Inquisitorial courts in France for not confessing or retracting a confession, as happened with Grand Master Jacques de Molay. Few Templars suffered death elsewhere although their order was abolished in 1312. Clement, a weak, sickly Frenchman manipulated by his king, burned no one in Rome inasmuch as he was the first pope to reign from Avignon (so much for the ashes in the Tiber).
Moreover, the mysterious stone idol that the Templars were accused of worshiping is associated with fertility in only one of more than a hundred confessions. Sodomy was the scandalous — and possibly true — charge against the order, not ritual fornication. The Templars have been darlings of occultism since their myth as masters of secret wisdom and fabulous treasure began to coalesce in the late 18th century. Freemasons and even Nazis have hailed them as brothers. Now it's the turn of neo-Gnostics.
Twisting da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
(1452-1519)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brown's revisionist interpretations of da Vinci are as distorted as the rest of his information. He claims to have first run across these views "while I was studying art history in Seville," but they correspond point for point to material in The Templar Revelation. A writer who sees a pointed finger as a throat-cutting gesture, who says the Madonna of the Rocks was painted for nuns instead of a lay confraternity of men, who claims that da Vinci received "hundreds of lucrative Vatican commissions" (actually, it was just one…and it was never executed) is simply unreliable.
Brown's analysis of da Vinci's work is just as ridiculous. He presents the Mona Lisa as an androgynous self-portrait when it's widely known to portray a real woman, Madonna Lisa, wife of Francesco di Bartolomeo del Giocondo. The name is certainly not — as Brown claims — a mocking anagram of two Egyptian fertility deities Amon and L'Isa (Italian for Isis). How did he miss the theory, propounded by the authors of The Templar Revelation, that the Shroud of Turin is a photographed self-portrait of da Vinci?
Much of Brown's argument centers around da Vinci's Last Supper, a painting the author considers a coded message that reveals the truth about Jesus and the Grail. Brown points to the lack of a central chalice on the table as proof that the Grail isn't a material vessel. But da Vinci's painting specifically dramatizes the moment when Jesus warns, "One of you will betray me" (John 13:21). There is no Institution Narrative in St. John's Gospel. The Eucharist is not shown there. And the person sitting next to Jesus is not Mary Magdalene (as Brown claims) but St. John, portrayed as the usual effeminate da Vinci youth, comparable to his St. John the Baptist. Jesus is in the exact center of the painting, with two pyramidal groups of three apostles on each side. Although da Vinci was a spiritually troubled homosexual, Brown's contention that he coded his paintings with anti-Christian messages simply can't be sustained.
Brown's Mess
In the end, Dan Brown has penned a poorly written, atrociously researched mess. So, why bother with such a close reading of a worthless novel? The answer is simple: The Da Vinci Code takes esoterica mainstream. It may well do for Gnosticism what The Mists of Avalon did for paganism — gain it popular acceptance. After all, how many lay readers will see the blazing inaccuracies put forward as buried truths?
What's more, in making phony claims of scholarship, Brown's book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism. Dozens of occult history books, conveniently cross-linked by Amazon.com, are following in its wake. And booksellers' shelves now bulge with falsehoods few would be buying without The Da Vinci Code connection. While Brown's assault on the Catholic Church may be a backhanded compliment, it's one we would have happily done without.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sandra Miesel. "Dismantling The Da Vinci Code." Crisis (September 2003).
This article is reprinted with permission from the Morley Institute a non-profit education organization. To subscribe to Crisis magazine call 1-800-852-9962.
THE AUTHOR
Sandra Miesel, medievalist and Catholic journalist, writes from Indianapolis.
Copyright © 2003 Crisis
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html
The Life of Saint Mary Magdalen-The Golden Legend
The Golden Legend
The Life of Saint Mary Magdalen
ere followeth the life of Saint Mary Magdalene, and first of her name.
Mary is as much to say as bitter, or a lighter, or lighted. By this be understood three things that be three, the best parts that she chose. That is to say, part of penance, part of contemplation within forth, and part of heavenly glory. And of this treble part is understood that is said by our Lord: Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken from her. The first part shall not be taken from her because of the end, which is the following of blessedness; the second because of continuance, for the continuance of her life is continued with the contemplation of her country. The third by reason of perdurableness; and forasmuch as she chose the best part of penance, she is said: a bitter sea, for therein she had much bitterness. And that appeared in that she wept so many tears that she washed therewith the feet of our Lord. And for so much as she chose the part of contemplation withinforth, she is a lighter, for there she took so largely that she spread it abundantly. She took the light there, with which after she enlumined other, and in that she chose the best part of the heavenly glory, she is called the light. For then she was enlumined of perfect knowledge in thought, and with the light in clearness of body. Magdalene is as much as to say as abiding culpable. Or Magdalene is interpreted as closed or shut, or not to be overcome. Or full of magnificence, by which is showed what she was tofore her conversion, and what in her conversion, and what after her conversion. For tofore her conversion she was abiding guilty by obligation to everlasting pain. In the conversion she was garnished by armour of penance. She was in the best wise garnished with penance. For as many delices as she had in her, so many sacrifices were found in her. And after her conversion she was praised by overabundance of grace. For whereas sin abounded, grace overabounded, and was more, etc.
Of Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene had her surname of Magdalo, a castle, and was born of right noble lineage and parents, which were descended of the lineage of kings. And her father was named Cyrus, and her mother Eucharis. She with her brother Lazarus, and her sister Martha, possessed the castle of Magdalo, which is two miles from Nazareth, and Bethany, the castle which is nigh to Jerusalem, and also a great part of Jerusalem, which, all these things they departed among them. In such wise that Mary had the castle Magdalo, whereof she had her name Magdalene. And Lazarus had the part of the city of Jerusalem, and Martha had to her part Bethany. And when Mary gave herself to all delights of the body, and Lazarus entended all to knighthood, Martha, which was wise, governed nobly her brother's part and also her sister's, and also her own, and administered to knights, and her servants, and to poor men, such necessities as they needed. Nevertheless, after the ascension of our Lord, they sold all these things, and brought the value thereof, and laid it at the feet of the apostles. Then when Magdalene abounded in riches, and because delight is fellow to riches and abundance of things; and for so much as she shone in beauty greatly, and in riches, so much the more she submitted her body to delight, and therefore she lost her right name, and was called customably a sinner. And when our Lord Jesu Christ preached there and in other places, she was inspired with the Holy Ghost, and went into the house of Simon leprous, whereas our Lord dined. Then she durst not, because she was a sinner, appear tofore the just and good people, but remained behind at the feet of our Lord, and washed his feet with the tears of her eyes and dryed them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointments. For the inhabitants of that region used baths and ointments for the overgreat burning and heat of the sun. And because that Simon the Pharisee thought in himself that, if our Lord had been a very prophet, he would not have suffered a sinful woman to have touched him, then our Lord reproved him of his presumption, and forgave the woman all her sins. And this is she, that same Mary Magdalene to whom our Lord gave so many great gifts. And showed so great signs of love, that he took from her seven devils. He embraced her all in his love, and made her right familiar with him. He would that she should be his hostess, and his procuress on his journey, and he ofttimes excused her sweetly; for he excused her against the Pharisee which said that she was not clean, and unto her sister that said she was idle, unto Judas, who said that she was a wastresse of goods. And when he saw her weep he could not withhold his tears. And for the love of her he raised Lazarus which had been four days dead, and healed her sister from the flux of blood which had held her seven years. And by the merits of her he made Martelle, chamberer of her sister Martha, to say that sweet word: Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But, after Saint Ambrose, it was Martha that said so, and this was her chamberer. This Mary Magdalene is she that washed the feet of our Lord and dried them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointment, and did solemn penance in the time of grace, and was the first that chose the best part, which was at the feet of our Lord, and heard his preaching. Which anointed his head; at his passion was nigh unto the cross; which made ready ointments, and would anoint his body, and would not depart from the monument when his disciples departed. To whom Jesu Christ appeared first after his resurrection, and was fellow to the apostles, and made of our Lord apostolesse of the apostles, then after the ascension of our Lord, the fourteenth year from his passion, long after that the Jews had slain Saint Stephen, and had cast out the other disciples out of the Jewry, which went into divers countries, and preached the word of God. There was that time with the apostles Saint Maximin, which was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, to whom the blessed Mary Magdalene was committed by Saint Peter, and then, when the disciples were departed, Saint Maximin, Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus her brother, Martha her sister, Marcelle, chamberer of Martha, and Saint Cedony which was born blind, and after enlumined of our Lord; all these together, and many other christian men were taken of the miscreants and put in a ship in the sea, without any tackle or rudder, for to be drowned. But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, where, as none would receive them to be lodged, they dwelled and abode under a porch tofore a temple of the people of that country. And when the blessed Mary Magdalene saw the people assembled at this temple for to do sacrifice to the idols, she arose up peaceably with a glad visage, a discreet tongue and well speaking, and began to preach the faith and law of Jesu Christ, and withdrew from the worshipping of the idols. Then were they amarvelled of the beauty, of the reason, and of the fair speaking of her. And it was no marvel that the mouth that had kissed the feet of our Lord so debonairly and so goodly, should be inspired with the word of God more than the other. And after that, it happed that the prince of the province and his wife made sacrifice to the idols for to have a child. And Mary Magdalene preached to them Jesu Christ and forbade them those sacrifices. And after that a little while, Mary Magdalene appeared in a vision to that lady, saying: Wherefore hast thou so much riches and sufferest the poor people our Lord to die for hunger and for cold? And she doubted, and was afraid to show this vision to her lord. And then the second night she appeared to her again and said in likewise and adjousted thereto menaces, if she warned not her husband for to comfort the poor and needy, and yet she said nothing thereof to her husband. And then she appeared to her the third night, when it was dark, and to her husband also, with a frowning and angry visage like fire, like as all the house had burned, and said: Thou tyrant and member of thy father the devil, with that serpent thy wife, that will not say to thee my words, thou restest now enemy of the cross, which hast filled thy belly by gluttony, with divers manner of meats and sufferest to perish for hunger the holy saints of our Lord. Liest thou not in a palace wrapped with clothes of silk. And thou seest them without harbour, discomforted, and goest forth and takest no regard to them. Thou shalt not escape so ne depart without punishment, thou tyrant and felon because thou hast so long tarried. And when Mary Magdalene had said thus she departed away. Then the lady awoke and sighed. And the husband sighed strongly also for the same cause, and trembled.
And then she said: Sir, hast thou seen the sweven that I have seen? I have seen, said he, that I am greatly amarvelled of, and am sore afraid what we shall do. And his wife said: It is more profitable for us to obey her, than to run into the ire of her God, whom she preacheth. For which cause they received them into their house, and ministered to them all that was necessary and needful to them. Then as Mary Magdalene preached on a time, the said prince said to her: Weenest thou that thou mayst defend the law that thou preachest? And she answered: Certainly, I am ready to defend it, as she that is confirmed every day by miracles, and by the predication of our master, Saint Peter, which now sitteth in the see at Rome. To whom then the prince said: I and my wife be ready to obey thee in all things, if thou mayst get of thy god whom thou preachest, that we might have a child. And then Mary Magdalene said that it should not be left, and then prayed unto our Lord that he would vouchsafe of his grace to give to them a son. And our Lord heard her prayers, and the lady conceived. Then her husband would go to Saint Peter for to wit if it were true that Mary Magdalene had preached of Jesu Christ. Then his wife said to him: What will ye do sir, ween ye to go without me? Nay, when thou shalt depart, I shall depart with thee, and when thou shalt return again I shall return, and when thou shalt rest and tarry, I shall rest and tarry. To whom her husband answered, and said: Dame, it shall not be so, for thou art great, and the perils of the sea be without number. Thou mightest lightly perish, thou shalt abide at home and take heed to our possessions. And this lady for nothing would not change her purpose, but fell down on her knees at his feet sore weeping, requiring him to take her with him. And so at last he consented, and granted her request. Then Mary Magdalene set the sign of the cross on their shoulders, to the end that the fiend might not empesh ne let them in their journey. Then charged they a ship abundantly of all that was necessary to them, and left all their things in the keeping of Mary Magdalene, and went forth on their pilgrimage. And when they had made their course, and sailed a day and a night, there arose a great tempest and orage. And the wind increased and grew over hideous, in such wise that this lady, which was great, and nigh the time of her childing, began to wax feeble, and had great anguishes for the great waves and troubling of the sea, and soon after began to travail, and was delivered of a fair son, by occasion of the storm and tempest, and in her childing died. And when the child was born he cried for to have comfort of the teats of his mother, and made a piteous noise. Alas! what sorrow was this to the father, to have a son born which was the cause of the death of his mother, and he might not live, for there was none to nourish him. Alas! what shall this pilgrim do, that seeth his wife dead, and his son crying after the breast of his mother? And the pilgrim wept strongly and said: Alas! caitiff, alas! What shall I do? I desired to have a son, and I have lost both the mother and the son. And the mariners then said: This dead body must be cast mto the sea, or else we all shall perish, for as long as she shall abide with us, this tempest shall not cease. And when they had taken the body for to cast it into the sea, the husband said: Abide and suffer a little, and if ye will not spare to me my wife, yet at least spare the little child that cryeth, I pray you to tarry a while, for to know if the mother be aswoon of the pain, and that she might revive. And whilst he thus spake to them, the shipmen espied a mountain not far from the ship. And then they said that it was best to set the ship toward the land and to bury it there, and so to save it from devouring of the fishes of the sea. And the good man did so much with the mariners, what for prayers and for money, that they brought the body to the mountain. And when they should have digged for to make a pit to lay the body in, they found it so hard a rock that they might not enter for hardness of the stone. And they left the body there Iying, and covered it with a mantle; and the father laid his little son at the breast of the dead mother and said weeping: O Mary Magdalene, why camest thou to Marseilles to my great loss and evil adventure? Why have I at thine instance enterprised this journey? Hast thou required of God that my wife should conceive and should die at the childing of her son? For now it behoveth that the child that she hath conceived and borne, perish because it hath no nurse. This have I had by thy prayer, and to thee I commend them, to whom I have commended all my goods. And also I commend to thy God, if he be mighty, that he remember the soul of the mother, that he by thy prayer have pity on the child that he perish not. Then covered he the body all about with the mantle, and the child also, and then returned to the ship, and held forth his journey. And when he came to Saint Peter, Saint Peter came against him, and when he saw the sign of the cross upon his shoulder, he demanded him what he was, and wherefore he came, and he told to him all by order. To whom Peter said: Peace be to thee, thou art welcome, and hast believed good counsel. And be thou not heavy if thy wife sleep, and the little child rest with her, for our Lord is almighty for to give to whom he will, and to take away that he hath given, and to reestablish and give again that he hath taken, and to turn all heaviness and weeping into joy. Then Peter led him into Jerusalem, and showed to him all the places where Jesu Christ preached and did miracles, and the place where he suffered death, and where he ascended into heaven. And when he was well-informed of Saint Peter in the faith, and that two years were passed sith he departed from Marseilles, he took his ship for to return again into his country. And as they sailed by the sea, they came, by the ordinance of God, by the rock where the body of his wife was left, and his son. Then by prayers and gifts he did so much that they arrived thereon. And the little child, whom Mary Magdalene had kept, went oft sithes to the seaside, and, like small children, took small stones and threw them into the sea. And when they came they saw the little child playing with stones on the seaside, as he was wont to do. And then they marvelled much what he was. And when the child saw them, which never had seen people tofore, he was afraid, and ran secretly to his mother's breast and hid him under the mantle. And then the father of the child went for to see more appertly, and took the mantle, and found the child, which was right fair, sucking his mother's breast. Then he took the child in his arms and said: O blessed Mary Magdalene, I were well happy and blessed if my wife were now alive, and might live, and come again with me into my country. I know verily and believe that thou who hast given to me my son, and hast fed and kept him two years in this rock, mayst well re-establish his mother to her first health. And with these words the woman respired, and took life, and said, like as she had been waked of her sleep: O blessed Mary Magdalene thou art of great merit and glorious, for in the pains of my deliverance thou wert my midwife, and in all my necessities thou hast accomplished to me the service of a chamberer. And when her husband heard that thing he amarvelled much, and said: Livest thou my right dear and best beloved wife? To whom she said: Yea, certainly I live, and am now first come from the pilgrimage from whence thou art come, and all in like wise as Saint Peter led thee in Jerusalem, and showed to thee all the places where our Lord suffered death, was buried and ascended to heaven, and many other places, I was with you, with Mary Magdalene, which led and accompanied me, and showed to me all the places which I well remember and have in mind. And there recounted to him all the miracles that her husband had seen, and never failed of one article, ne went out of the way from the sooth. And then the good pilgrim received his wife and his child and went to ship. And soon after they came to the port of Marseilles. And they found the blessed Mary Magdalene preaching with her disciples. And then they kneeled down to her feet, and recounted to her all that had happened to them, and received baptism of Saint Maximin. And then they destroyed all the temples of the idols in the city of Marseilles, and made churches of Jesu Christ. And with one accord they chose the blessed Saint Lazarus for to be bishop of that city. And afterward they came to the city of Aix, and by great miracles and preaching they brought the people there to the faith of Jesu Christ. And there Saint Maximin was ordained to be bishop. In this meanwhile the blessed Mary Magdalene, desirous of sovereign contemplation, sought a right sharp desert, and took a place which was ordained by the angel of God, and abode there by the space of thirty years without knowledge of anybody. In which place she had no comfort of running water, ne solace of trees, ne of herbs. And that was because our Redeemer did do show it openly, that he had ordained for her refection celestial, and no bodily meats. And every day at every hour canonical she was lifted up in the air of angels, and heard the glorious song of the heavenly companies with her bodily ears. Of which she was fed and filled with right sweet meats, and then was brought again by the angels unto her proper place, in such wise as she had no need of corporal nourishing. It happed that a priest, which desired to lead a solitary life, took a cell for himself a twelve-furlong from the place of Mary Magdalene. On a day our Lord opened the eyes of that priest, and he saw with his bodily eyes in what manner the angels descended into the place where the blessed Magdalene dwelt, and how they lifted her in the air, and after by the space of an hour brought her again with divine praisings to the same place. And then the priest desired greatly to know the truth of this marvellous vision, and made his prayers to Almighty God, and went with great devotion unto the place. And when he approached nigh to it a stone's cast, his thighs began to swell and wax feeble, and his entrails began within him to lack breath and sigh for fear. And as soon as he returned he had his thighs all whole, and ready for to go. And when he enforced him to go to the place, all his body was in languor, and might not move. And then he understood that it was a secret celestial place where no man human might come, and then he called the name of Jesu, and said: I conjure thee by our Lord, that if thou be a man or other creature reasonable, that dwellest in this cave, that thou answer me, and tell me the truth of thee. And when he had said this three times, the blessed Mary Magdalene answered: Come more near, and thou shalt know that thou desirest. And then he came trembling unto the half way, and she said to him: Rememberest thou not of the gospel of Mary Magdalene, the renowned sinful woman, which washed the feet of our Saviour with her tears, and dried them with the hair of her head, and desired to have forgiveness of her sins? And the priest said to her: I remember it well, that is more than thirty years that holy church believeth and confesseth that it was done. And then she said: I am she that by the space of thirty years have been here without witting of any person, and like as it was suffered to thee yesterday to see me, in like wise I am every day lift up by the hands of the angels into the air, and have deserved to hear with my bodily ears the right sweet song of the company celestial. And because it is showed to me of our Lord that I shall depart out of this world, go to Maximin, and say to him that the next day after the resurrection of our lord, in the same time that he is accustomed to arise and go to matins, that he alone enter into his oratory, and that by the ministry and service of angels he shall find me there. And the priest heard the voice of her, like as it had been the voice of an angel, but he saw nothing; and then anon he went to Saint Maximin, and told to him all by order. Then Saint Maximin was replenished of great joy, and thanked greatly our Lord. And on the said day and hour, as is aforesaid, he entered into his oratory, and saw the blessed Mary Magdalene standing in the quire or choir yet among the angels that brought her, and was lift up from the earth the space of two or three cubits. And praying to our Lord she held up her hands, and when Saint Maximin saw her, he was afraid to approach to her. And she returned to him, and said: Come hither mine own father, and flee not thy daughter. And when he approached and came to her, as it is read in the books of the said Saint Maximin, for the customable vision that she had of angels every day, the cheer and visage of her shone as clear as it had been the rays of the sun. And then all the clerks and the priests aforesaid were called, and Mary Magdalene received the body and blood of our Lord of the hands of the bishop with great abundance of tears, and after, she stretched her body tofore the altar, and her right blessed soul departed from the body and went to our Lord. And after it was departed, there issued out of the body an odour so sweet-smelling that it remained there by the space of seven days to all them that entered in. And the blessed Maximin anointed the body of her with divers precious ointments, and buried it honourably, and after commanded that his body should be buried by hers after his death.
Hegesippus, with other books of Josephus accord enough with the said story, and Josephus saith in his treatise that the blessed Mary Magdalene, after the ascension of our Lord, for the burning love that she had to Jesu Christ and for the grief and discomfort that she had for the absence of her master our Lord, she would never see man. But after when she came into the country of Aix, she went into desert, and dwelt there thirty years without knowing of any man or woman. And he saith that, every day at the seven hours canonical she was lifted in the air of the angels. But he saith that, when the priest came to her, he found her enclosed in her cell; and she required of him a vestment, and he delivered to her one, which she clothed and covered her with. And she went with him to the church and received the communion, and then made her prayers with joined hands, and rested in peace.
In the time of Charles the great, in the year of our Lord seven hundred and seventy-one, Gerard, duke of Burgundy might have no child by his wife, wherefore he gave largely alms to the poor people, and founded many churches, and many monasteries. And when he had made the abbey of Vesoul, he and the abbot of the monastery sent a monk with a good reasonable fellowship into Aix, for to bring thither if they might of the relics of Saint Mary Magdalene. And when the monk came to the said city, he found it all destroyed of paynims. Then by adventure he found the sepulchre, for the writing upon the sepulchre of marble showed well that the blessed lady Mary Magdalene rested and lay there, and the history of her was marvellously entailed and carved in the sepulchre. And then this monk opened it by night and took the relics, and bare them to his lodging. And that same night Mary Magdalene appeared to that monk, saying: Doubt thee nothing, make an end of the work. Then he returned homeward until he came half a mile from the monastery. But he might in no wise remove the relics from thence, till that the abbot and monks came with procession, and received them honestly. And soon after the duke had a child by his wife.
There was a knight that had a custom every year to go a pilgrimage unto the body of Saint Mary Magdalene, which knight was slain in battle. And as his friends wept for him Iying on his bier, they said with sweet and devout quarrels, why she suffered her devout servant to die without confession and penance. Then suddenly he that was dead arose, all they being sore abashed, and made one to call a priest to him, and confessed him with great devotion, and received the blessed sacrament, and then rested in peace.
There was a ship charged with men and women that was perished and all to-brake, and there was among them a woman with child, which saw herself in peril to be drowned, and cried fast on Mary Magdalene for succour and help, making her avow that if she might be saved by her merits, and escape that peril, if she had a son she should give him to the monastery. And anon as she had so avowed, a woman of honourable habit and beauty appeared to her, and took her by the chin and brought her to the rivage all safe, and the other perished and were drowned. And after, she was delivered and had a son, and accomplished her avow like as she had promised.
Some say that Saint Mary Magdalene was wedded to Saint John the Evangelist when Christ called him from the wedding, and when he was called from her, she had thereof indignation that her husband was taken from her, and went and gave herself to all delight, but because it was not convenable that the calling of Saint John should be occasion of her damnation, therefore our Lord converted her mercifully to penance, and because he had taken from her sovereign delight of the flesh, he replenished her with sovereign delight spiritual tofore all other, that is the love of God. And it is said that he ennobled Saint John tofore all other with the sweetness of his familiarity, because he had taken him from the delight aforesaid.
There was a man which was blind on both his eyes, and did him to be led to the monastery of the blessed Mary Magdalene for to visit her body. His leader said to him that he saw the church. And then the blind man escried and said with a high voice: O blessed Mary Magdalene, help me that I may deserve once to see thy church. And anon his eyes were opened, and saw clearly all things about him.
There was another man that wrote his sins in a schedule and laid it under the coverture of the altar of Mary Magdalene, meekly praying her that she should get for him pardon and forgiveness, and a while after, he took the schedule again, and found all his sins effaced and struck out. Another man was holden in prison for debt of money, in irons. And he called unto his help ofttimes Mary Magdalene. And on a night a fair woman appeared to him and brake all his irons, and opened the door, and commanded him to go his way; and when he saw himself loose he fled away anon.
There was a clerk of Flanders named Stephen Rysen, and mounted in so great and disordinate felony, that he haunted all manner sins. And such thing as appertained to his health he would not hear. Nevertheless he had great devotion in the blessed Mary Magdalene and fasted her vigil, and honoured her feast. And on a time as he visited her tomb, he was not all asleep nor well awaked, when Mary Magdalene appeared to him Iike a much fair woman, sustained with two angels, one on the right side, and another on the left side, and said to him, looking on him despitously: Stephen, why reputest thou the deeds of my merits to be unworthy? Wherefore mayst not thou at the instance of my merits and prayers be moved to penance? For sith the time that thou begannest to have devotion in me, I have alway prayed God for thee firmly. Arise up therefore and repent thee, and I shall not leave thee till thou be reconciled to God. And then forthwith he felt so great grace shed in him, that he forsook and renounced the world and entered into religion, and was after of right perfect life. And at the death of him was seen Mary Magdalene, standing beside the bier with angels which bare the soul up to heaven with heavenly song in likeness of a white dove. Then let us pray to this blessed Mary Magdalene that she get us grace to do penance here for our sins, that after this life we may come to her in everlasting bliss in heaven. Amen.
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden230.htm
The Life of Saint Mary Magdalen
ere followeth the life of Saint Mary Magdalene, and first of her name.
Mary is as much to say as bitter, or a lighter, or lighted. By this be understood three things that be three, the best parts that she chose. That is to say, part of penance, part of contemplation within forth, and part of heavenly glory. And of this treble part is understood that is said by our Lord: Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken from her. The first part shall not be taken from her because of the end, which is the following of blessedness; the second because of continuance, for the continuance of her life is continued with the contemplation of her country. The third by reason of perdurableness; and forasmuch as she chose the best part of penance, she is said: a bitter sea, for therein she had much bitterness. And that appeared in that she wept so many tears that she washed therewith the feet of our Lord. And for so much as she chose the part of contemplation withinforth, she is a lighter, for there she took so largely that she spread it abundantly. She took the light there, with which after she enlumined other, and in that she chose the best part of the heavenly glory, she is called the light. For then she was enlumined of perfect knowledge in thought, and with the light in clearness of body. Magdalene is as much as to say as abiding culpable. Or Magdalene is interpreted as closed or shut, or not to be overcome. Or full of magnificence, by which is showed what she was tofore her conversion, and what in her conversion, and what after her conversion. For tofore her conversion she was abiding guilty by obligation to everlasting pain. In the conversion she was garnished by armour of penance. She was in the best wise garnished with penance. For as many delices as she had in her, so many sacrifices were found in her. And after her conversion she was praised by overabundance of grace. For whereas sin abounded, grace overabounded, and was more, etc.
Of Mary Magdalene.
Mary Magdalene had her surname of Magdalo, a castle, and was born of right noble lineage and parents, which were descended of the lineage of kings. And her father was named Cyrus, and her mother Eucharis. She with her brother Lazarus, and her sister Martha, possessed the castle of Magdalo, which is two miles from Nazareth, and Bethany, the castle which is nigh to Jerusalem, and also a great part of Jerusalem, which, all these things they departed among them. In such wise that Mary had the castle Magdalo, whereof she had her name Magdalene. And Lazarus had the part of the city of Jerusalem, and Martha had to her part Bethany. And when Mary gave herself to all delights of the body, and Lazarus entended all to knighthood, Martha, which was wise, governed nobly her brother's part and also her sister's, and also her own, and administered to knights, and her servants, and to poor men, such necessities as they needed. Nevertheless, after the ascension of our Lord, they sold all these things, and brought the value thereof, and laid it at the feet of the apostles. Then when Magdalene abounded in riches, and because delight is fellow to riches and abundance of things; and for so much as she shone in beauty greatly, and in riches, so much the more she submitted her body to delight, and therefore she lost her right name, and was called customably a sinner. And when our Lord Jesu Christ preached there and in other places, she was inspired with the Holy Ghost, and went into the house of Simon leprous, whereas our Lord dined. Then she durst not, because she was a sinner, appear tofore the just and good people, but remained behind at the feet of our Lord, and washed his feet with the tears of her eyes and dryed them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointments. For the inhabitants of that region used baths and ointments for the overgreat burning and heat of the sun. And because that Simon the Pharisee thought in himself that, if our Lord had been a very prophet, he would not have suffered a sinful woman to have touched him, then our Lord reproved him of his presumption, and forgave the woman all her sins. And this is she, that same Mary Magdalene to whom our Lord gave so many great gifts. And showed so great signs of love, that he took from her seven devils. He embraced her all in his love, and made her right familiar with him. He would that she should be his hostess, and his procuress on his journey, and he ofttimes excused her sweetly; for he excused her against the Pharisee which said that she was not clean, and unto her sister that said she was idle, unto Judas, who said that she was a wastresse of goods. And when he saw her weep he could not withhold his tears. And for the love of her he raised Lazarus which had been four days dead, and healed her sister from the flux of blood which had held her seven years. And by the merits of her he made Martelle, chamberer of her sister Martha, to say that sweet word: Blessed be the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But, after Saint Ambrose, it was Martha that said so, and this was her chamberer. This Mary Magdalene is she that washed the feet of our Lord and dried them with the hair of her head, and anointed them with precious ointment, and did solemn penance in the time of grace, and was the first that chose the best part, which was at the feet of our Lord, and heard his preaching. Which anointed his head; at his passion was nigh unto the cross; which made ready ointments, and would anoint his body, and would not depart from the monument when his disciples departed. To whom Jesu Christ appeared first after his resurrection, and was fellow to the apostles, and made of our Lord apostolesse of the apostles, then after the ascension of our Lord, the fourteenth year from his passion, long after that the Jews had slain Saint Stephen, and had cast out the other disciples out of the Jewry, which went into divers countries, and preached the word of God. There was that time with the apostles Saint Maximin, which was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, to whom the blessed Mary Magdalene was committed by Saint Peter, and then, when the disciples were departed, Saint Maximin, Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus her brother, Martha her sister, Marcelle, chamberer of Martha, and Saint Cedony which was born blind, and after enlumined of our Lord; all these together, and many other christian men were taken of the miscreants and put in a ship in the sea, without any tackle or rudder, for to be drowned. But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, where, as none would receive them to be lodged, they dwelled and abode under a porch tofore a temple of the people of that country. And when the blessed Mary Magdalene saw the people assembled at this temple for to do sacrifice to the idols, she arose up peaceably with a glad visage, a discreet tongue and well speaking, and began to preach the faith and law of Jesu Christ, and withdrew from the worshipping of the idols. Then were they amarvelled of the beauty, of the reason, and of the fair speaking of her. And it was no marvel that the mouth that had kissed the feet of our Lord so debonairly and so goodly, should be inspired with the word of God more than the other. And after that, it happed that the prince of the province and his wife made sacrifice to the idols for to have a child. And Mary Magdalene preached to them Jesu Christ and forbade them those sacrifices. And after that a little while, Mary Magdalene appeared in a vision to that lady, saying: Wherefore hast thou so much riches and sufferest the poor people our Lord to die for hunger and for cold? And she doubted, and was afraid to show this vision to her lord. And then the second night she appeared to her again and said in likewise and adjousted thereto menaces, if she warned not her husband for to comfort the poor and needy, and yet she said nothing thereof to her husband. And then she appeared to her the third night, when it was dark, and to her husband also, with a frowning and angry visage like fire, like as all the house had burned, and said: Thou tyrant and member of thy father the devil, with that serpent thy wife, that will not say to thee my words, thou restest now enemy of the cross, which hast filled thy belly by gluttony, with divers manner of meats and sufferest to perish for hunger the holy saints of our Lord. Liest thou not in a palace wrapped with clothes of silk. And thou seest them without harbour, discomforted, and goest forth and takest no regard to them. Thou shalt not escape so ne depart without punishment, thou tyrant and felon because thou hast so long tarried. And when Mary Magdalene had said thus she departed away. Then the lady awoke and sighed. And the husband sighed strongly also for the same cause, and trembled.
And then she said: Sir, hast thou seen the sweven that I have seen? I have seen, said he, that I am greatly amarvelled of, and am sore afraid what we shall do. And his wife said: It is more profitable for us to obey her, than to run into the ire of her God, whom she preacheth. For which cause they received them into their house, and ministered to them all that was necessary and needful to them. Then as Mary Magdalene preached on a time, the said prince said to her: Weenest thou that thou mayst defend the law that thou preachest? And she answered: Certainly, I am ready to defend it, as she that is confirmed every day by miracles, and by the predication of our master, Saint Peter, which now sitteth in the see at Rome. To whom then the prince said: I and my wife be ready to obey thee in all things, if thou mayst get of thy god whom thou preachest, that we might have a child. And then Mary Magdalene said that it should not be left, and then prayed unto our Lord that he would vouchsafe of his grace to give to them a son. And our Lord heard her prayers, and the lady conceived. Then her husband would go to Saint Peter for to wit if it were true that Mary Magdalene had preached of Jesu Christ. Then his wife said to him: What will ye do sir, ween ye to go without me? Nay, when thou shalt depart, I shall depart with thee, and when thou shalt return again I shall return, and when thou shalt rest and tarry, I shall rest and tarry. To whom her husband answered, and said: Dame, it shall not be so, for thou art great, and the perils of the sea be without number. Thou mightest lightly perish, thou shalt abide at home and take heed to our possessions. And this lady for nothing would not change her purpose, but fell down on her knees at his feet sore weeping, requiring him to take her with him. And so at last he consented, and granted her request. Then Mary Magdalene set the sign of the cross on their shoulders, to the end that the fiend might not empesh ne let them in their journey. Then charged they a ship abundantly of all that was necessary to them, and left all their things in the keeping of Mary Magdalene, and went forth on their pilgrimage. And when they had made their course, and sailed a day and a night, there arose a great tempest and orage. And the wind increased and grew over hideous, in such wise that this lady, which was great, and nigh the time of her childing, began to wax feeble, and had great anguishes for the great waves and troubling of the sea, and soon after began to travail, and was delivered of a fair son, by occasion of the storm and tempest, and in her childing died. And when the child was born he cried for to have comfort of the teats of his mother, and made a piteous noise. Alas! what sorrow was this to the father, to have a son born which was the cause of the death of his mother, and he might not live, for there was none to nourish him. Alas! what shall this pilgrim do, that seeth his wife dead, and his son crying after the breast of his mother? And the pilgrim wept strongly and said: Alas! caitiff, alas! What shall I do? I desired to have a son, and I have lost both the mother and the son. And the mariners then said: This dead body must be cast mto the sea, or else we all shall perish, for as long as she shall abide with us, this tempest shall not cease. And when they had taken the body for to cast it into the sea, the husband said: Abide and suffer a little, and if ye will not spare to me my wife, yet at least spare the little child that cryeth, I pray you to tarry a while, for to know if the mother be aswoon of the pain, and that she might revive. And whilst he thus spake to them, the shipmen espied a mountain not far from the ship. And then they said that it was best to set the ship toward the land and to bury it there, and so to save it from devouring of the fishes of the sea. And the good man did so much with the mariners, what for prayers and for money, that they brought the body to the mountain. And when they should have digged for to make a pit to lay the body in, they found it so hard a rock that they might not enter for hardness of the stone. And they left the body there Iying, and covered it with a mantle; and the father laid his little son at the breast of the dead mother and said weeping: O Mary Magdalene, why camest thou to Marseilles to my great loss and evil adventure? Why have I at thine instance enterprised this journey? Hast thou required of God that my wife should conceive and should die at the childing of her son? For now it behoveth that the child that she hath conceived and borne, perish because it hath no nurse. This have I had by thy prayer, and to thee I commend them, to whom I have commended all my goods. And also I commend to thy God, if he be mighty, that he remember the soul of the mother, that he by thy prayer have pity on the child that he perish not. Then covered he the body all about with the mantle, and the child also, and then returned to the ship, and held forth his journey. And when he came to Saint Peter, Saint Peter came against him, and when he saw the sign of the cross upon his shoulder, he demanded him what he was, and wherefore he came, and he told to him all by order. To whom Peter said: Peace be to thee, thou art welcome, and hast believed good counsel. And be thou not heavy if thy wife sleep, and the little child rest with her, for our Lord is almighty for to give to whom he will, and to take away that he hath given, and to reestablish and give again that he hath taken, and to turn all heaviness and weeping into joy. Then Peter led him into Jerusalem, and showed to him all the places where Jesu Christ preached and did miracles, and the place where he suffered death, and where he ascended into heaven. And when he was well-informed of Saint Peter in the faith, and that two years were passed sith he departed from Marseilles, he took his ship for to return again into his country. And as they sailed by the sea, they came, by the ordinance of God, by the rock where the body of his wife was left, and his son. Then by prayers and gifts he did so much that they arrived thereon. And the little child, whom Mary Magdalene had kept, went oft sithes to the seaside, and, like small children, took small stones and threw them into the sea. And when they came they saw the little child playing with stones on the seaside, as he was wont to do. And then they marvelled much what he was. And when the child saw them, which never had seen people tofore, he was afraid, and ran secretly to his mother's breast and hid him under the mantle. And then the father of the child went for to see more appertly, and took the mantle, and found the child, which was right fair, sucking his mother's breast. Then he took the child in his arms and said: O blessed Mary Magdalene, I were well happy and blessed if my wife were now alive, and might live, and come again with me into my country. I know verily and believe that thou who hast given to me my son, and hast fed and kept him two years in this rock, mayst well re-establish his mother to her first health. And with these words the woman respired, and took life, and said, like as she had been waked of her sleep: O blessed Mary Magdalene thou art of great merit and glorious, for in the pains of my deliverance thou wert my midwife, and in all my necessities thou hast accomplished to me the service of a chamberer. And when her husband heard that thing he amarvelled much, and said: Livest thou my right dear and best beloved wife? To whom she said: Yea, certainly I live, and am now first come from the pilgrimage from whence thou art come, and all in like wise as Saint Peter led thee in Jerusalem, and showed to thee all the places where our Lord suffered death, was buried and ascended to heaven, and many other places, I was with you, with Mary Magdalene, which led and accompanied me, and showed to me all the places which I well remember and have in mind. And there recounted to him all the miracles that her husband had seen, and never failed of one article, ne went out of the way from the sooth. And then the good pilgrim received his wife and his child and went to ship. And soon after they came to the port of Marseilles. And they found the blessed Mary Magdalene preaching with her disciples. And then they kneeled down to her feet, and recounted to her all that had happened to them, and received baptism of Saint Maximin. And then they destroyed all the temples of the idols in the city of Marseilles, and made churches of Jesu Christ. And with one accord they chose the blessed Saint Lazarus for to be bishop of that city. And afterward they came to the city of Aix, and by great miracles and preaching they brought the people there to the faith of Jesu Christ. And there Saint Maximin was ordained to be bishop. In this meanwhile the blessed Mary Magdalene, desirous of sovereign contemplation, sought a right sharp desert, and took a place which was ordained by the angel of God, and abode there by the space of thirty years without knowledge of anybody. In which place she had no comfort of running water, ne solace of trees, ne of herbs. And that was because our Redeemer did do show it openly, that he had ordained for her refection celestial, and no bodily meats. And every day at every hour canonical she was lifted up in the air of angels, and heard the glorious song of the heavenly companies with her bodily ears. Of which she was fed and filled with right sweet meats, and then was brought again by the angels unto her proper place, in such wise as she had no need of corporal nourishing. It happed that a priest, which desired to lead a solitary life, took a cell for himself a twelve-furlong from the place of Mary Magdalene. On a day our Lord opened the eyes of that priest, and he saw with his bodily eyes in what manner the angels descended into the place where the blessed Magdalene dwelt, and how they lifted her in the air, and after by the space of an hour brought her again with divine praisings to the same place. And then the priest desired greatly to know the truth of this marvellous vision, and made his prayers to Almighty God, and went with great devotion unto the place. And when he approached nigh to it a stone's cast, his thighs began to swell and wax feeble, and his entrails began within him to lack breath and sigh for fear. And as soon as he returned he had his thighs all whole, and ready for to go. And when he enforced him to go to the place, all his body was in languor, and might not move. And then he understood that it was a secret celestial place where no man human might come, and then he called the name of Jesu, and said: I conjure thee by our Lord, that if thou be a man or other creature reasonable, that dwellest in this cave, that thou answer me, and tell me the truth of thee. And when he had said this three times, the blessed Mary Magdalene answered: Come more near, and thou shalt know that thou desirest. And then he came trembling unto the half way, and she said to him: Rememberest thou not of the gospel of Mary Magdalene, the renowned sinful woman, which washed the feet of our Saviour with her tears, and dried them with the hair of her head, and desired to have forgiveness of her sins? And the priest said to her: I remember it well, that is more than thirty years that holy church believeth and confesseth that it was done. And then she said: I am she that by the space of thirty years have been here without witting of any person, and like as it was suffered to thee yesterday to see me, in like wise I am every day lift up by the hands of the angels into the air, and have deserved to hear with my bodily ears the right sweet song of the company celestial. And because it is showed to me of our Lord that I shall depart out of this world, go to Maximin, and say to him that the next day after the resurrection of our lord, in the same time that he is accustomed to arise and go to matins, that he alone enter into his oratory, and that by the ministry and service of angels he shall find me there. And the priest heard the voice of her, like as it had been the voice of an angel, but he saw nothing; and then anon he went to Saint Maximin, and told to him all by order. Then Saint Maximin was replenished of great joy, and thanked greatly our Lord. And on the said day and hour, as is aforesaid, he entered into his oratory, and saw the blessed Mary Magdalene standing in the quire or choir yet among the angels that brought her, and was lift up from the earth the space of two or three cubits. And praying to our Lord she held up her hands, and when Saint Maximin saw her, he was afraid to approach to her. And she returned to him, and said: Come hither mine own father, and flee not thy daughter. And when he approached and came to her, as it is read in the books of the said Saint Maximin, for the customable vision that she had of angels every day, the cheer and visage of her shone as clear as it had been the rays of the sun. And then all the clerks and the priests aforesaid were called, and Mary Magdalene received the body and blood of our Lord of the hands of the bishop with great abundance of tears, and after, she stretched her body tofore the altar, and her right blessed soul departed from the body and went to our Lord. And after it was departed, there issued out of the body an odour so sweet-smelling that it remained there by the space of seven days to all them that entered in. And the blessed Maximin anointed the body of her with divers precious ointments, and buried it honourably, and after commanded that his body should be buried by hers after his death.
Hegesippus, with other books of Josephus accord enough with the said story, and Josephus saith in his treatise that the blessed Mary Magdalene, after the ascension of our Lord, for the burning love that she had to Jesu Christ and for the grief and discomfort that she had for the absence of her master our Lord, she would never see man. But after when she came into the country of Aix, she went into desert, and dwelt there thirty years without knowing of any man or woman. And he saith that, every day at the seven hours canonical she was lifted in the air of the angels. But he saith that, when the priest came to her, he found her enclosed in her cell; and she required of him a vestment, and he delivered to her one, which she clothed and covered her with. And she went with him to the church and received the communion, and then made her prayers with joined hands, and rested in peace.
In the time of Charles the great, in the year of our Lord seven hundred and seventy-one, Gerard, duke of Burgundy might have no child by his wife, wherefore he gave largely alms to the poor people, and founded many churches, and many monasteries. And when he had made the abbey of Vesoul, he and the abbot of the monastery sent a monk with a good reasonable fellowship into Aix, for to bring thither if they might of the relics of Saint Mary Magdalene. And when the monk came to the said city, he found it all destroyed of paynims. Then by adventure he found the sepulchre, for the writing upon the sepulchre of marble showed well that the blessed lady Mary Magdalene rested and lay there, and the history of her was marvellously entailed and carved in the sepulchre. And then this monk opened it by night and took the relics, and bare them to his lodging. And that same night Mary Magdalene appeared to that monk, saying: Doubt thee nothing, make an end of the work. Then he returned homeward until he came half a mile from the monastery. But he might in no wise remove the relics from thence, till that the abbot and monks came with procession, and received them honestly. And soon after the duke had a child by his wife.
There was a knight that had a custom every year to go a pilgrimage unto the body of Saint Mary Magdalene, which knight was slain in battle. And as his friends wept for him Iying on his bier, they said with sweet and devout quarrels, why she suffered her devout servant to die without confession and penance. Then suddenly he that was dead arose, all they being sore abashed, and made one to call a priest to him, and confessed him with great devotion, and received the blessed sacrament, and then rested in peace.
There was a ship charged with men and women that was perished and all to-brake, and there was among them a woman with child, which saw herself in peril to be drowned, and cried fast on Mary Magdalene for succour and help, making her avow that if she might be saved by her merits, and escape that peril, if she had a son she should give him to the monastery. And anon as she had so avowed, a woman of honourable habit and beauty appeared to her, and took her by the chin and brought her to the rivage all safe, and the other perished and were drowned. And after, she was delivered and had a son, and accomplished her avow like as she had promised.
Some say that Saint Mary Magdalene was wedded to Saint John the Evangelist when Christ called him from the wedding, and when he was called from her, she had thereof indignation that her husband was taken from her, and went and gave herself to all delight, but because it was not convenable that the calling of Saint John should be occasion of her damnation, therefore our Lord converted her mercifully to penance, and because he had taken from her sovereign delight of the flesh, he replenished her with sovereign delight spiritual tofore all other, that is the love of God. And it is said that he ennobled Saint John tofore all other with the sweetness of his familiarity, because he had taken him from the delight aforesaid.
There was a man which was blind on both his eyes, and did him to be led to the monastery of the blessed Mary Magdalene for to visit her body. His leader said to him that he saw the church. And then the blind man escried and said with a high voice: O blessed Mary Magdalene, help me that I may deserve once to see thy church. And anon his eyes were opened, and saw clearly all things about him.
There was another man that wrote his sins in a schedule and laid it under the coverture of the altar of Mary Magdalene, meekly praying her that she should get for him pardon and forgiveness, and a while after, he took the schedule again, and found all his sins effaced and struck out. Another man was holden in prison for debt of money, in irons. And he called unto his help ofttimes Mary Magdalene. And on a night a fair woman appeared to him and brake all his irons, and opened the door, and commanded him to go his way; and when he saw himself loose he fled away anon.
There was a clerk of Flanders named Stephen Rysen, and mounted in so great and disordinate felony, that he haunted all manner sins. And such thing as appertained to his health he would not hear. Nevertheless he had great devotion in the blessed Mary Magdalene and fasted her vigil, and honoured her feast. And on a time as he visited her tomb, he was not all asleep nor well awaked, when Mary Magdalene appeared to him Iike a much fair woman, sustained with two angels, one on the right side, and another on the left side, and said to him, looking on him despitously: Stephen, why reputest thou the deeds of my merits to be unworthy? Wherefore mayst not thou at the instance of my merits and prayers be moved to penance? For sith the time that thou begannest to have devotion in me, I have alway prayed God for thee firmly. Arise up therefore and repent thee, and I shall not leave thee till thou be reconciled to God. And then forthwith he felt so great grace shed in him, that he forsook and renounced the world and entered into religion, and was after of right perfect life. And at the death of him was seen Mary Magdalene, standing beside the bier with angels which bare the soul up to heaven with heavenly song in likeness of a white dove. Then let us pray to this blessed Mary Magdalene that she get us grace to do penance here for our sins, that after this life we may come to her in everlasting bliss in heaven. Amen.
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden230.htm
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
Author: CARL E. OLSON | Source:
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
The real Mary Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr found in The Da Vinci Code.
She was the wife of Jesus and is the Holy Grail.
She embodies the “sacred feminine.” She, not Peter, was meant to be the head apostle. The Church sought to destroy her reputation and slandered her name, forcing her to flee for her life. She is the Mary Magdalene of The Da Vinci Code, a mythical creation who is part priestess, part goddess and all nonsense. But the real Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr.
The Church, according to a character in Dan Brown’s novel, “outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene.” The truth is quite different. There are at least a dozen references to Mary from Magdala (a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee) in the four Gospels. She suffered from demonic possession. Both Mark and Luke recount that Jesus expelled seven demons from her (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2). She is prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his ministry (Luke 8:2), as a witness of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:56; John 19:25), of Jesus’ burial (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47), and of the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:10). And, quite significantly, Jesus appears to her alone at the tomb after his resurrection (Mark 16:9; John 20:1-18).
In the Western Church she became identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:37-50. That passage immediately precedes the description of “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” in Luke 8:2, and the two descriptions were harmonized together. This, in part, was because the woman who is anointed (Luke 7:37-50) is described as a “sinner” and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons, which some understood as evidence that she was that sinner.
A third woman was also identified with Mary Magdalene: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 11). In the Eastern Church, however, the three women were identified separately, with feast days on March 21 (the unnamed sinner), March 18 (Mary of Bethany), and July 22 (Mary Magdalene).
Mary Magdalene has a prominent role in the Gospels as witness to Christ’s resurrection, remarkable considering the low value placed on the testimony of women in first century Jewish society. Yet despite being mentioned more times than some of the apostles (Thaddeus, for example, is named just twice), some feminist writers speak of her being marginalized by a piece of propaganda called the New Testament, written by “the anti-Magdalene party.”
The prime suspect in this alleged crime against femininity is Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). On Sept. 21, 591, he preached a homily based on Luke 7:36-50 — the story of the woman “who was a sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil. “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary,” Pope Gregory stated, “we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices?”
With Rome facing approaching war and famine, the Pope encouraged Christians to repent of their sins — and to follow the example of St. Mary Magdalene. He praised her because “she now immolated herself” and she “turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.” (Hom. XXXIII, PL LXXVI, col. 1239). Gregory likely linked the sinner of Luke 7 and Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene because of their proximity to one another in Luke 7-8. Also, by the sixth century, the biblical city of Magdala had acquired a less than stellar reputation. Most importantly, Gregory’s exegesis of Luke 7 focused on the tropological, or moral, sense of the reading. He believed that the seven demons that once possessed Mary Magdalene were not only literal demons, but also represented the seven deadly sins.
Many early Church Fathers remarked about the Magdalene and she was described by Hippolytus (c. 170-236) as “the apostle to the apostles” in his commentary on the Song of Songs. By the eighth century the Western Church celebrated a feast day for Mary Magdalene on July 22. A century later there were specific prayers for her feast day, and in the 11th century devotion to the Magdalene began to increase.
The cult of Mary Magdalene was established at Vézelay, the Romanesque church in Burgandy founded in the ninth century and originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the abbacy of Geoffrey (1037-1052) she was recognized as the patron of that church in a papal bull dated April 27, 1050 by Pope Leo IX. At the same time, relics of the Magdalene were being sought and gathered in earnest, and soon Vézelay became a major destination for pilgrimages.
A leading tradition in the West held that Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus were expelled from Palestine following the crucifixion of Christ. They eventually arrived at the southern coast of France. In the East, a tradition stated that Mary had been the companion of the Apostle John and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and that they settled in Ephesus. According to The Golden Legend, the Magdalene and John were betrothed. Some legends depict Mary living her final days in a cave in France, a hermit covered only by her long hair; these stories probably date back no farther than the ninth century. The truth is lost in the fog of history.
What is clear is that St. Mary Magdalene has been beloved and celebrated by Catholics for many centuries. She was a brave disciple who stood at her Savior’s cross; she was also a witness to the resurrected Christ. Far from being slandered, Mary of Magdala is recognized as an exemplar of faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel of her Master and Lord.
Carl E. Olson is the co-author,
with Sandra Miesel, of
The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code
(www.davincihoax.com),
published by Ignatius Press.
the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?size=mas&id=2886&option=dedestaca
The Da Vinci Hoax: Mary Magdalene
The real Mary Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr found in The Da Vinci Code.
She was the wife of Jesus and is the Holy Grail.
She embodies the “sacred feminine.” She, not Peter, was meant to be the head apostle. The Church sought to destroy her reputation and slandered her name, forcing her to flee for her life. She is the Mary Magdalene of The Da Vinci Code, a mythical creation who is part priestess, part goddess and all nonsense. But the real Magdalene is a far cry from the mythological feminist martyr.
The Church, according to a character in Dan Brown’s novel, “outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene.” The truth is quite different. There are at least a dozen references to Mary from Magdala (a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee) in the four Gospels. She suffered from demonic possession. Both Mark and Luke recount that Jesus expelled seven demons from her (Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2). She is prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his ministry (Luke 8:2), as a witness of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:56; John 19:25), of Jesus’ burial (Matthew 27:61; Mark 15:47), and of the empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:10). And, quite significantly, Jesus appears to her alone at the tomb after his resurrection (Mark 16:9; John 20:1-18).
In the Western Church she became identified with the sinful woman of Luke 7:37-50. That passage immediately precedes the description of “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” in Luke 8:2, and the two descriptions were harmonized together. This, in part, was because the woman who is anointed (Luke 7:37-50) is described as a “sinner” and Mary Magdalene had been possessed by seven demons, which some understood as evidence that she was that sinner.
A third woman was also identified with Mary Magdalene: Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42; John 11). In the Eastern Church, however, the three women were identified separately, with feast days on March 21 (the unnamed sinner), March 18 (Mary of Bethany), and July 22 (Mary Magdalene).
Mary Magdalene has a prominent role in the Gospels as witness to Christ’s resurrection, remarkable considering the low value placed on the testimony of women in first century Jewish society. Yet despite being mentioned more times than some of the apostles (Thaddeus, for example, is named just twice), some feminist writers speak of her being marginalized by a piece of propaganda called the New Testament, written by “the anti-Magdalene party.”
The prime suspect in this alleged crime against femininity is Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604). On Sept. 21, 591, he preached a homily based on Luke 7:36-50 — the story of the woman “who was a sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil. “She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary,” Pope Gregory stated, “we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark. And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices?”
With Rome facing approaching war and famine, the Pope encouraged Christians to repent of their sins — and to follow the example of St. Mary Magdalene. He praised her because “she now immolated herself” and she “turned the mass of her crimes to virtues, in order to serve God entirely in penance.” (Hom. XXXIII, PL LXXVI, col. 1239). Gregory likely linked the sinner of Luke 7 and Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene because of their proximity to one another in Luke 7-8. Also, by the sixth century, the biblical city of Magdala had acquired a less than stellar reputation. Most importantly, Gregory’s exegesis of Luke 7 focused on the tropological, or moral, sense of the reading. He believed that the seven demons that once possessed Mary Magdalene were not only literal demons, but also represented the seven deadly sins.
Many early Church Fathers remarked about the Magdalene and she was described by Hippolytus (c. 170-236) as “the apostle to the apostles” in his commentary on the Song of Songs. By the eighth century the Western Church celebrated a feast day for Mary Magdalene on July 22. A century later there were specific prayers for her feast day, and in the 11th century devotion to the Magdalene began to increase.
The cult of Mary Magdalene was established at Vézelay, the Romanesque church in Burgandy founded in the ninth century and originally dedicated to the Virgin Mary. During the abbacy of Geoffrey (1037-1052) she was recognized as the patron of that church in a papal bull dated April 27, 1050 by Pope Leo IX. At the same time, relics of the Magdalene were being sought and gathered in earnest, and soon Vézelay became a major destination for pilgrimages.
A leading tradition in the West held that Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus were expelled from Palestine following the crucifixion of Christ. They eventually arrived at the southern coast of France. In the East, a tradition stated that Mary had been the companion of the Apostle John and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and that they settled in Ephesus. According to The Golden Legend, the Magdalene and John were betrothed. Some legends depict Mary living her final days in a cave in France, a hermit covered only by her long hair; these stories probably date back no farther than the ninth century. The truth is lost in the fog of history.
What is clear is that St. Mary Magdalene has been beloved and celebrated by Catholics for many centuries. She was a brave disciple who stood at her Savior’s cross; she was also a witness to the resurrected Christ. Far from being slandered, Mary of Magdala is recognized as an exemplar of faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel of her Master and Lord.
Carl E. Olson is the co-author,
with Sandra Miesel, of
The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code
(www.davincihoax.com),
published by Ignatius Press.
the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?size=mas&id=2886&option=dedestaca
sabato 27 marzo 2010
St.Mary Magdalene, St.Mary of Bethany and the sinful woman wo anointed Jesus are separated women
St.Mary Magdalene, St.Mary of Bethany and the sinful woman wo anointed Jesus are separated women.
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany,
that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, "apostle to the apostles," died in Ephesus.
The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren't reported there until the 13th.
Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html
Nothing in the Bible says she was a prostitute. Magdalene is named by Mark (15:40-41) and Matthew (27:55-56) as one of the women from Galilee. Luke (8:2) says seven devils (probably mental illness) were cast from her. The Gospels place her at the Crucifixion, watching from a distance. She might have remained a minor character, except the Bible says she was the first witness to Jesus' resurrection -- therefore a critical figure in the Easter story. But after telling the disciples what she has seen, she's never mentioned again in the Scriptures.
John describes Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus' feet and wiping them with her hair. In Luke, an unnamed woman does the same thing, but this one is called a sinner. In the next chapter, Luke tells of Mary of Magdala and her demons.
Magdalene's reputation as wanton was sealed by 591 when Pope Gregory announced that Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the sinner were the same woman. (In 1969, the Catholic Church restored them to three separate individuals.)
[...more...]
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/m25.html
Although many people still picture the Magdalen as a sinful woman who anointed Jesus and equate her with Mary of Bethany,
that conflation is actually the later work of Pope St. Gregory the Great. The East has always kept them separate and said that the Magdalen, "apostle to the apostles," died in Ephesus.
The legend of her voyage to Provence is no earlier than the ninth century, and her relics weren't reported there until the 13th.
Catholic critics, including the Bollandists, have been debunking the legend and distinguishing the three ladies since the 17th century.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/persecution/pch0058.html
Nothing in the Bible says she was a prostitute. Magdalene is named by Mark (15:40-41) and Matthew (27:55-56) as one of the women from Galilee. Luke (8:2) says seven devils (probably mental illness) were cast from her. The Gospels place her at the Crucifixion, watching from a distance. She might have remained a minor character, except the Bible says she was the first witness to Jesus' resurrection -- therefore a critical figure in the Easter story. But after telling the disciples what she has seen, she's never mentioned again in the Scriptures.
John describes Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus' feet and wiping them with her hair. In Luke, an unnamed woman does the same thing, but this one is called a sinner. In the next chapter, Luke tells of Mary of Magdala and her demons.
Magdalene's reputation as wanton was sealed by 591 when Pope Gregory announced that Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the sinner were the same woman. (In 1969, the Catholic Church restored them to three separate individuals.)
[...more...]
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/m25.html
MARY MAGDALENE AND MARY OF BETHANY AND THE SINFUL WOMAN AND THE ADULTERER WOMAN ARE DIFFERENT WOMEN
CHRISTIAN BIBLE STUDIES
MARY MAGDALENE AND MARY OF BETHANY AND THE SINFUL WOMAN AND THE ADULTERER WOMAN ARE DIFFERENT WOMEN
BY THE NEW TESTAMENT
By Martino Gerber and Giuliano Lattes
********************************************************
The sinful woman, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are three different women in Luke.
The sinful woman who anointed Jesus
Luke: 7, 36-50
[36] And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat.
[37] And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
[38] And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
[39] Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.
[40] And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.
[41] There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
[42] And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?
[43] Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.
[44] And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
[45] Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
[46] My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
[47] Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
[48] And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.
[49] And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?
[50] And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
Mary Magdalene
Luke: 8, 1-3
[1] And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,
[2] And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
[3] And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
Mary of Bethany
Luke: 10, 38-42
[38] Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
[40] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
[41] And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
[42] But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
**************************************
In Luke the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is a repentant sinner from Galilee, forgived.
Mary Magdalene is from Galilee too, but she is a possessed, exorcized.
Mary of Bethany is from Judea, Martha and Lazarus sister, Jesus friends.
Mary of Bethany is from Judea
Luke: 9,51-52
[51] And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,
[52] And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
[53] And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
Mary Magdalene is from Galilee;
Luke: 24,55- And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
Luke: 24, 10- It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Bible:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/luke-kjv.html
**************************************************************
Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are two different women in John
Mary of Bethany Lazarus sister
John: 11, 1-57
[1] Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
[2] (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
[3] Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
[4] When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
[5] Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
[6] When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.
[7] Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.
[8] His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?
[9] Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
[10] But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
[11] These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
[12] Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
[13] Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
[14] Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
[15] And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
[16] Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
[17] Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
[18] Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:
[19] And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.
[20] Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.
[21] Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
[22] But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
[23] Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
[24] Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
[25] Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
[26] And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
[27] She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
[28] And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.
[29] As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.
[30] Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.
[31] The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.
[32] Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
[33] When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
[34] And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
[35] Jesus wept.
[36] Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
[37] And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
[38] Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
[39] Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
[40] Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
[41] Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
[42] And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
[43] And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
[44] And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
[45] Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.
[46] But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
[47] Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
[48] If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
[49] And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
[50] Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
[51] And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
[52] And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
[53] Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
[54] Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.
[55] And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.
[56] Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?
[57] Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.
John: 12: 1-11
[1] Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
[2] There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
[3] Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
[4] Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
[5] Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
[6] This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
[7] Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
[8] For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
[9] Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
[10] But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;
[11] Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
Mary Magdalene Jesus following
John: 19, 25-Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
John: 20, 1-18
[1] The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
[2] Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
[3] Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
[4] So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
[5] And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
[6] Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
[7] And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
[8] Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
[9] For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
[10] Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
[11] But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
[12] And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
[13] And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.
[14] And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
[15] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
[16] Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
[17] Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
[18] Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.
*******************************************************************
In John, Mary of Bethny is from Judea, Jesus friend, Mary Magdalene is from Galilee, Jesus following.
Mary of Betany is not the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, Mary of Bethany is from Judea, Jesus friend,
the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is from Galilee, a forgived repentant.
Mary of Bethany is not the adulterer woman, but she is Jesus friend.
The Adulterer woman in John: 8, 1-11 is not the sinful woman who anointed Jesus in Luke: 7, 36-50.
The adulterer woman is in Judea last time, and the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is in Galilee, in the beginning.
Mary Magdalene is not the adulterer woman, Mary is from Galilee, Jesus following,
the adulterer woman is a Jerusalem sinner.
Bible:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/john-kjv.html
***************************************************
Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are two different women in Mark: 14 ,3 and 15, 40-41;
in Matthew: 26, 6-7 and 27, 55-56.
***************************************************
http://groups.google.com/group/christianbiblestudies?hl=it
MARY MAGDALENE AND MARY OF BETHANY AND THE SINFUL WOMAN AND THE ADULTERER WOMAN ARE DIFFERENT WOMEN
BY THE NEW TESTAMENT
By Martino Gerber and Giuliano Lattes
********************************************************
The sinful woman, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are three different women in Luke.
The sinful woman who anointed Jesus
Luke: 7, 36-50
[36] And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat.
[37] And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,
[38] And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
[39] Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner.
[40] And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.
[41] There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
[42] And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?
[43] Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.
[44] And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
[45] Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
[46] My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
[47] Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
[48] And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.
[49] And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?
[50] And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
Mary Magdalene
Luke: 8, 1-3
[1] And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,
[2] And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
[3] And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
Mary of Bethany
Luke: 10, 38-42
[38] Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.
[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.
[40] But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.
[41] And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
[42] But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
**************************************
In Luke the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is a repentant sinner from Galilee, forgived.
Mary Magdalene is from Galilee too, but she is a possessed, exorcized.
Mary of Bethany is from Judea, Martha and Lazarus sister, Jesus friends.
Mary of Bethany is from Judea
Luke: 9,51-52
[51] And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,
[52] And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.
[53] And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.
Mary Magdalene is from Galilee;
Luke: 24,55- And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
Luke: 24, 10- It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Bible:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/luke-kjv.html
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Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are two different women in John
Mary of Bethany Lazarus sister
John: 11, 1-57
[1] Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
[2] (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
[3] Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
[4] When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
[5] Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
[6] When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.
[7] Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again.
[8] His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?
[9] Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.
[10] But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
[11] These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
[12] Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
[13] Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep.
[14] Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
[15] And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.
[16] Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.
[17] Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
[18] Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off:
[19] And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.
[20] Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.
[21] Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
[22] But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.
[23] Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.
[24] Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
[25] Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
[26] And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
[27] She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
[28] And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee.
[29] As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.
[30] Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him.
[31] The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there.
[32] Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
[33] When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
[34] And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.
[35] Jesus wept.
[36] Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!
[37] And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
[38] Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
[39] Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
[40] Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
[41] Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
[42] And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
[43] And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
[44] And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
[45] Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.
[46] But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
[47] Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
[48] If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
[49] And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
[50] Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
[51] And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
[52] And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.
[53] Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.
[54] Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with his disciples.
[55] And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.
[56] Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think ye, that he will not come to the feast?
[57] Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he were, he should shew it, that they might take him.
John: 12: 1-11
[1] Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
[2] There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
[3] Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
[4] Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
[5] Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
[6] This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
[7] Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
[8] For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
[9] Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.
[10] But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death;
[11] Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
Mary Magdalene Jesus following
John: 19, 25-Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
John: 20, 1-18
[1] The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
[2] Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
[3] Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
[4] So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
[5] And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
[6] Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
[7] And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
[8] Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
[9] For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
[10] Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
[11] But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
[12] And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
[13] And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.
[14] And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
[15] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
[16] Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
[17] Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
[18] Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.
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In John, Mary of Bethny is from Judea, Jesus friend, Mary Magdalene is from Galilee, Jesus following.
Mary of Betany is not the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, Mary of Bethany is from Judea, Jesus friend,
the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is from Galilee, a forgived repentant.
Mary of Bethany is not the adulterer woman, but she is Jesus friend.
The Adulterer woman in John: 8, 1-11 is not the sinful woman who anointed Jesus in Luke: 7, 36-50.
The adulterer woman is in Judea last time, and the sinful woman who anointed Jesus is in Galilee, in the beginning.
Mary Magdalene is not the adulterer woman, Mary is from Galilee, Jesus following,
the adulterer woman is a Jerusalem sinner.
Bible:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/john-kjv.html
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Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are two different women in Mark: 14 ,3 and 15, 40-41;
in Matthew: 26, 6-7 and 27, 55-56.
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