Heretic, harlot or heroine?

She’s at the centre of a controversial bestseller. She’s been the voluptuous subject of hundreds of paintings. Who was Mary Magdalene anyway and why does she matter?

It’s a book that’s hard to put down. Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, is full of mystery and intrigue with amazing twists and turns. Cryptic codes reveal dark secrets about the church in its formative years. For centuries there was a cover-up, hiding the fact that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. The couple moved to Egypt where they had a daughter.

More deep secrets are revealed. The long sought Holy Grail, the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper, is not a thing; it is a person. Mary Magdalene is the Holy Grail, the recipient of the seed of Jesus. That bloodline still lives today and Sophie, a central figure in The Da Vinci Code, is the carrier of that seed.

In this scenario, Mary Magdalene is the symbol of the sacred feminine, a fact the church tried to hide in order to keep sex dirty and the leadership masculine. Goddess worship, not the worship of Christ, was the original form of the faith.

Mary as heretic

If Dan Brown’s theories are correct, Mary Magdalene would be the centre of a heresy that takes away the deity, atoning death and victorious resurrection of Jesus, and replaces these realities with pagan mother goddess worship. Brown makes Mary Magdalene’s supposed marriage to Jesus proof of His humanity. “See,” says Brown, “Jesus was not divine. He was just like the rest of us. He loved a woman, married her, and gave her a child.”

It is totally unnecessary to propound such preposterous and biblically unfounded theories to show our Lord’s humanity. The tendency to undermine that humanity, in what later became a full-blown heresy called Docetism, was addressed in the New Testament.

The apostle John was very emphatic. “We heard him, we saw him, we touched him,” he affirms (1 John 1:1). The humanity of Jesus was never questioned in the New Testament. What it clearly states is that the human Jesus was at the same time God incarnate – the divine Christ (John 1:1,14). Indeed, the apostle’s condemnation of the precise teaching The Da Vinci Code promulgates is pointed and clear: he who denies that the human Jesus is God’s anointed Christ is a liar and the anti-Christ (1 John 2:22).

Mary was not the wife of Jesus and at the centre of an egregious heresy. But neither was she a demon possessed harlot, another long held false portrayal of her.

Mary as harlot

Luke 8:2 describes a number of female followers of Jesus as “women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases” and then singles out Mary Magdalene “from whom seven demons had come out.” Preceding this passage, in the last part of Luke 7, is the story of the sinful woman, no name given, who washes the feet of Jesus with her tears and anoints His feet with ointment. The juxtaposition of this story of an immoral woman with mention of Mary Magdalene in Luke 8 has led many to believe these two women were one and the same – a prostitute.

The immoral Mary myth really took hold after AD 591 when Pope Gregory the Great preached a sermon on Mary Magdalene in which he turned Mary of Bethany, the sinful woman of Luke 7, and Mary Magdalene of Luke 8:2 into one woman, and she was a fallen woman. Once this medieval pronouncement of Mary the Harlot was made, artists began to embellish the story of Mary Magdalene, the reclaimed courtesan, until the real Mary got lost. Hundreds of voluptuous Mary Magdalenes were splashed onto canvasses throughout Europe. In the 20th century, movies and musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar continued to portray Mary as a prostitute.

What about Mary’s severe case of demon possession, as indicated by the number “seven”? Jesus delivered Mary from a very distressing existence, yet there is no reason for connecting the demons with immoral conduct. Such possession is more usually associated with mental disorder.

Jesus entered Mary’s life to do for her what she could not do for herself. He gave her sanity, serenity and wholeness, and she was forever grateful.

Mary as heroine

There are 12 passages in the New Testament referring to Mary Magdalene. Along with other women, she was a disciple and travelling supporter of Jesus. She was not connected to Him in any other sense. If she were related to a male, the Gospels would have recorded this as they did of the other women in the group.

Mary must have been a woman of independent means, which was very unusual in first-century Palestinian society. She shared of her means in support of Jesus’ ministry, and travelled with Him, as pupil with rabbi. Supporting a rabbi was one thing, but for a woman to leave home and travel with a rabbi was unheard of. Indeed, rabbis were not allowed to teach women. Rabbi Eliezer made it very clear: “Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman.”

Jesus broke such oppressive patriarchal norms. He welcomed women into His company, accepted their devotion, and taught them. Think of Mary of Bethany, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to His teaching (Luke 10:39) or the Samaritan woman hearing our Lord’s discourse on the living water (John 4).

Jesus treated Mary Magdalene and His other women followers with dignity, showing them that women and men were equally worthy before God. That view of women was revolutionary in that society. The prevailing view was summed up by Josephus, first century Jewish historian, when he said: “The woman, says the law, is in all things inferior to the man.”

It also took enormous courage for Mary Magdalene and other women to follow Jesus. One can just imagine the gossip and innuendo as people saw these women moving in our Lord’s entourage.

Her courageous acts

Three aspects of Mary’s journey with Jesus are especially heroic.

Along with several other women, Mary Magdalene stood by Jesus in His suffering on the cross (John 19:25). It was risky to be found in the proximity of the crucifixion of an enemy of the state, but Mary Magdalene’s devotion to Jesus outweighed such danger. It is noteworthy that it was women who stood by Jesus when all the disciples except John had fled in fear.

Second, Mary Magdalene was prepared to anoint our Lord’s body. This was another courageous act, for being near the grave of an enemy of the state was just as risky as being found near the cross (Mark 16:1).

Third, Mary Magdalene was the first to see the empty tomb, the first to see the resurrected Lord, and the first to announce His resurrection (Luke 23:54–56; 24:1–12; Mark 16:11; John 20:11–18). In John’s account of Mary’s announcement to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” he leaves out the response. In Luke and Mark it is recorded that Mary’s words seemed to the disciples as an idle tale. Of course. In that culture the credibility of a woman’s testimony was zero. Again, our Lord struck at such tyranny against women by entrusting the announcement of the most revolutionary event in the history of the world to a woman – Mary Magdalene.

Who was Mary Magdalene? She was neither heretic nor harlot, but heroine, a woman transformed by Jesus and willing to risk all to follow Him. Her mission to announce “Jesus is alive!” is the mission of every true believer today.

Walter Unger is President Emeritus of Columbia Bible College, Abbotsford, B.C.