Sovereign Spanish Magistral Order of the Knights Templar
Maria Magdalena
Saint Mary Magdalene St. Mary Magdalene, Patron Saint of Arahal..jpg Vicarian Image of Santa María Magdalena, patron saint of Arahal (Seville). Saint Birth Magdala (Judea) Death 1st century Ephesus ?
Revered in All the churches that recognize the worship of the holy main sanctuary Basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume Feast 22 July Attributes Long hair, skull, perfume vessel and embrace at the feet of Christ crucified Hairdressing Patronage, Viana Anguiano and Arahal Mary Magdalene (in Hebrew: Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή in ancient Greek: Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή) it is mentioned, both in the canonical New Testament and in several apocryphal Gospels
Its name refers to its place of origin: Magdala, a town located on the western coast of Lake Tiberias and a village near Capernaum. She is considered holy by the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion, who celebrate their feast day on July 22.
It is of particular importance to the Gnostic currents of Christianity. In 1988, Pope John Paul II in the letter Mulieris Dignitatem referred to it as the "apostle of the apostles", and on June 10, 2016, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published a decree by which the memory of St. Mary Magdalene is raised to the degree of feast in the General Roman Calendar,1 by express wish of Pope Francis.
Mary Magdalene in the New Testament St. Mary Magdalene, (Villamuelas, Toledo, Spain). Information about Mary Magdalene in the canonical gospels is scarce. He is quoted in connection with five different facts: According to the Gospel of Luke,4 Mary Magdalene housed and provided materially to Jesus and his disciples during his preaching in Galilee. It is added that it had previously been healed by Jesus: “The twelve and some women who had been cured of diseases and evil spirits were accompanied: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons Luke 8:1-2 had come out.
According to the Gospels of Mark,5 Matthew6 and John,7 was present during the crucifixion of Jesus. He was present at the grave and saw where Jesus was placed, according to Matthew 27:61 and Mark 15:47. She is mentioned next to Mary the mother of James the youngest. In the company of other women, she was the first witness to the resurrection, according to a tradition in which the four gospels agree.8 9 10 11 Then he communicated the news to Peter and the other apostles. According to an account that only appears in the Gospel of John, he witnessed an appearance of the risen Jesus.12 Identification with other characters The cited are the only passages of the canonical gospels in which Mary of Magdala is named.
- Catholic tradition, however, has identified with Mary Magdalene other characters cited in the New Testament: The adulterous woman whom Jesus saves from stoning, in an episode that only relates the Gospel of John13 The woman who anoints with perfumes the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her hair before her arrival in Jerusalem according to the synoptic gospels,14 15 16 whose name is not mentioned. The anointing took place during the ministry in Galilee. Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, to which the aforementioned initiative is attributed in the Gospel of John,17 and which appears in other well-known passages of the fourth gospel, such as the resurrection of Lazarus.18 It is also identified with the Mary of the episode of the dispute between Martha and Mary.19
- The identity of Mary Magdalene as Mary of Bethany and “the woman who was a sinner” was established in homily 33 that Pope Gregory I gave in 591, in which she said: “She, which Luke calls the sinful woman, which John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believeNote 1 that is Mary, of whom seven demons were expelled, according to Mark.”20 Spread by the theologians of the third century
Mary Magdalene in the Apocryphal Gospels Thus saw Titian the appearance of Jesus raised to Mary Magdalene, according to John 20:11-18.
The Gospel of Peter only mentions Mary Magdalene in her role as witness of the resurrection of Jesus: On Sunday morning, Mary of Magdala, disciple of the Lord -frightened because of the Jews, for they were rabid of anger, she had not done in the tomb of the Lord what women used to do for their dear dears - took her friends with her and came to the tomb in which she had been deposited. The Gospel of Peter, v. 50. Santos Otero, from (1956, pp. 385-386)
In at least two of the Coptic Gnostic texts found in Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Philip, Mary Magdalene is mentioned as a close disciple of Jesus, in a relationship as close as that of the apostles.
In the Gospel of Thomas there are two mentions of Mariham (logy 21 and 114), which, according to scholars, refer to Mary Magdalene. The second mention is part of an enigmatic passage that has been the subject of many varied interpretations: Sta. Mary Magdalene of Malambo Simon Peter said to them, “Let Mariham be removed from us, for women are not worthy of life.” Jesus said, “Behold, I will be sure to make it a male, so that she also may become a living spirit, identical with you men: for every woman who becomes a man shall enter the kingdom of heaven.”21
- In the Gospel of Philip (log. 32) is considered the companion (κοινωνος) of Jesus: Three (were those who) walked continuously with the Lord: his mother Mary, his sister of this and Magdalene, whom is designated as his companion [κοινωνος]. Mary is, in fact, her sister, her mother and her companion..22 Not all scholars, however, agree that the gospels of Thomas and Philip refer to Mary Magdalene. For Stephen J. Shoemaker would rather be a reference to Jesus’ mother.
- Finally, another important reference to the character is found in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, a text of which only two Greek fragments of the third century and another, more extensive, in Coptic, of the fifth century are preserved. In the text, three apostles discuss Mary Magdalene’s testimony about Jesus. Andrew and Peter are wary of their testimony, and it is Levi (the apostle Matthew) who defends Mary.
- Later legends Mary Magdalene in an icon of the Orthodox Church. According to Orthodox tradition, Mary Magdalene withdrew Ephesus with the Virgin Mary and the apostle John, and died there. In 886 their relics were moved to Constantinople, where they are preserved today.
Gregory of Tours (De miraculis, I, xxx) corroborates the tradition that he retired to Ephesus, and does not mention any relationship with France. Later, however, a different tradition emerged in the Catholic world, according to which Mary Magdalene (identified here with Mary of Bethany), her brother Lazarus and Maximinus, one of the seventy-two disciples, as well as some companions, traveled by boat through the Mediterranean Sea fleeing persecutions in the Holy Land and finally landed in the place called Saintes Maries de la Mer, near Arles.
Later, Mary Magdalene traveled to Marseilles, from where she supposedly undertook the evangelization of Provence, and then retreated to a cave -La Sainte-Baume- in the vicinity of Marseilles, where she would have led a life of penance for 30 years.
- According to this legend, when the time of his death came he was taken by the angels to Aix-en-Provence, to the oratory of St. Maximinus, where he received the viatic. His body was buried in an oratory built by Maximino in Villa Lata, known since then as St. Louis. Maximin.
- The tradition of the Easter egg There is an ancient Christian tradition of painting Easter eggs. These eggs symbolize the new life and Christ emerging from the tomb,23 in fact, Orthodox Christians accompany this tradition with the slogan: “Christ is risen!” An Orthodox tradition23 relates that after the Ascension, Mary Magdalene went to Rome to preach the gospel. In the presence of the Roman emperor Tiberius, and holding a chicken egg, he exclaimed, “Christ is risen!” The emperor laughed and told him that was as likely as the egg turned red. Before he had finished speaking, the egg had turned red.
- Another tradition speaks [citation needed] that the sacred heart of Christ would be enclosed in an egg-shaped vessel of which Mary Magdalene would be guardian.
Work out with Jesus Magdalena penitente, by Francesco Hayez. Some recent authors have put into circulation a hypothesis according to which Mary Magdalene would have been the wife, or sentimental companion, of Jesus of Nazareth, in addition to the depository of a Christian tradition of feminist sign that would have been carefully hidden by the Catholic Church.
- These ideas were first developed in some pseudo-history books, such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, 1982, by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln; and The Templar Revelation (1997) by Lynn Picknett and Clive Princey.
- These books also mentioned a hypothetical dynasty fruit of the union between Jesus of Nazareth and Mary Magdalene. Subsequently these ideas have been exploited by several fictional authors such as Peter Berling (The Children of the Grail) and Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, 2003), among others.
- Supporters of this idea rely on three arguments: Maria Magdalena, Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo 1. In several Gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Philip, it is shown that Jesus had with Mary Magdalene a closer relationship with the rest of his disciples, including the apostles.
Specifically, the Gospel of Philip speaks of Mary Magdalene as the “companion” of Jesus. However, its author uses the term Coptic hotre, which can serve both for a sexual union and for a simple companion.31 Also in the same Gospel and in the Second Revelation of James it is mentioned that Jesus kissed her in the mouth.32 However, the oscule or holy kiss was for the Gnostics the beginning of an act where a revelation was received.31 2.
In the canonical gospels Mary Magdalene is (excluding the mother of Jesus) the woman who appears the most, and is also presented as a close follower of Jesus. His presence in the crucial moments of Jesus’ death and resurrection might suggest that he was bound to him by conjugal ties. But this deduction is considered by scholars to be fanciful.31 3.
Another argument that the defenders of the theory of marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene argue is that in the Palestine of the time it was rare that a Jewish man of the age of Jesus (about thirty years) remained single, especially if he was dedicated to teaching as a rabbi, since that had gone against the divine commandment “Grow and multiply”. However, the Judaism that Jesus professed was very different from the current one, and the role of the rabbi was not yet well defined.
Only after the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70, the role of the rabbi was clearly established in the Jewish communities. Before Jesus, the existence of single religious teachers, such as the prophet Jeremiah and, already in the first century BC, is attested. C., there were many cases among the Essenes.31 Also John the Baptist was single, according to all indications.
Later, some early Christians, such as Paul of Tarsus, would also be celibate preachers. However, there is no passage either in the canonical gospels or in the apocrypha that would allow to affirm that Mary of Magdala was the wife of Jesus of Nazareth.
For the majority[citation needed] of the scholars of the historical Jesus it is a possibility that does not even deserve to be taken seriously; among them Bart Ehrman emphasizes who concludes that the historical evidence says nothing, “certainly nothing that indicates that Jesus and Mary (Magdalena) had a sexual relationship of no nature.”33 Ehrman points out that the question that people most often ask him is whether Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married.
His answer is: “It is not true that the Dead Sea scrolls contain Gospels that speak of Mary (Magdalena) and Jesus. [...] It is not true that a marriage of Mary (Magdalena) and Jesus is repeatedly discussed in the Gospels that did not enter the New Testament (the canon). In fact, it is never disputed or even mentioned once. [...] It is not true that the Gospel of Philip call Mary the wife of Jesus.”33 Regino Cortes also concludes the non-existence of such a marital relationship as a biblical error and an unreality from a factual point of view.
- Another contemporary biblist of the first order ironized in this regard: Sometimes the Bible artists who are dedicated to looking for any of the works that so far are lost, or to publish them, are not free from sensationalism; and, of course, even if they do not collaborate with it, the press enjoys sensationalism.
- If I may generalize, with a certain dose of cynicism, readers who have no interest in achieving through the canonical gospels a greater knowledge of Jesus, seem enraptured before any new work that comes to hint that Jesus came down from the cross, married Mary Magdalene, and went to India to live quietly! 35 Raymond Edward Brown on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel Ramon K. Jusino proposed the theory that Mary Magdalene could be the “disciple whom Jesus loved” who is presented as the author of the Gospel of John 36 and who is traditionally identified with the apostle John.
Jusino was based on the fact that in several apocryphal texts, such as those cited above, it is said that there was a relationship of special closeness between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Raymond E. Brown hypothesized that the Gospel of John would collect the tradition of a community which he called the Joanic or Juanic community.38 According to Jusino, that community could go back to the testimony of Mary Magdalene as an eyewitness of Jesus. This theory of Jussino does not have the acceptance of most biblical historians and researchers.
