Unfortunately, the fact that Mary Magdalene is freed from the possession of seven demons has resulted in greater focus on the perceived stigma of her past as interpreted in Homily 33 than on her cleansed state after this healing. Only in 1969 did the Catholic Church officially repeal Gregory’s labeling of Mary as a whore, thereby admitting their error—though the image of Mary Magdalene as the penitent whore has remained in the public teachings of all Christian denominations. Like a small erratum buried in the back pages of a newspaper, the Church’s correction goes unnoticed, while the initial and incorrect article continues to influence readers.
But it’s important to remember that Jesus Christ does relieve Mary of the seven demons—or, perhaps, those aspects that can cloud vision and energy at each of the seven chakras. Presumably, she no longer possesses the seven deadly sins—pride, lust, envy, anger, covetousness, gluttony, and sloth. In their place exist the corresponding virtues10—the way has been cleared for “the seven virgins of light.”11 If her purification is viewed in this way, it makes her the most thoroughly sanctified person mentioned in the New Testament. Imagine being completely cleansed of prejudice and old grudges, fogs of illusion, hereditary obstacles to health, all desires. Once healed, she can truly see the spiritual truth that works in all things. She can see the barbarity of other human beings, as well as the transcendent beauty of Jesus Christ’s teachings. In modern terms, her heart and energetic centers are open.
On the third morning after the Crucifixion, Mary Magdalene feels a call to visit Jesus’ tomb. She takes with her a container of unguent, perhaps one in the series of ancient oils used to assist the dead through the underworld and into the realms of spirit. She alone meets Jesus Christ at the tomb in his resurrected body. It is easy to imagine that she receives an important teaching here, one that can be comprehended only by a person whose seven demons have been lifted.
The evangelists John, Mark, and Matthew all relate this first appearance to Mary of the risen Christ. The brief verbal exchange that then occurs between Christ and Mary as related in the Gospel of John has spurred much debate. When she understands that the man she has assumed is the gardener is actually her teacher, she speaks the intimate word rabboni, and reaches toward him. Jesus Christ responds, in the King James version ( John 20:17), “Do not touch me.” The Latin translation is, “Noli me tangere.” These words have been interpreted as confirmation that Mary Magdalene still carries some of the taint from her sins. In other words, some perceive Jesus Christ’s words as, “Stay away from me, you soiled woman.” Indeed, many statues with the inscription, Noli me tangere depict a transcendent Jesus Christ and a woman below him, groveling in the ultimate shame of rejection.
Were Mary Magdalene still soiled from her past, however, then we would have to conclude that Jesus Christ is not really an effective healer—that he hadn’t really done the job of cleansing her of her demons. If we look at Christ’s words in the original Greek, the meaning translates a little differently. “Me mou aptou” uses the imperative mood of the verb (h)aptein, “to fasten.” A better translation would then be, “Don’t hold onto me” or “Don’t cling to me.”
Now for the full line: “Do not cling to me, for I am not yet ascended to the Father.” The last part of the sentence takes on the greater importance—Jesus Christ refers to the nature of the resurrected body that exists between the earthly body and the ascended body, a nature which we could think of as the eidolon, that is, the “pure and ideal image.”12
When we let go of the emphasis on Mary Magdalene’s rejection that some hear in Jesus’ words outside the tomb, and see this instead as a teaching about the other worlds in which we can exist, we can then understand that these words may indicate her very special role. She is the one—perhaps, because of her purified state, the only one—who can deliver Christ’s message: “Go to my brethren and tell them I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” At this point, she becomes in the canonical Gospels the “apostle of apostles,” which the other gospels (from Nag Hammadi, the third-century Pistis Sophia, and so forth) expand upon.13 Jesus clearly asks her to represent a teaching to the others—to the men who were not to be found at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion, the men who did not believe Jesus himself when he told them he would rise.
Do we know what she taught? The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is the primary source of the teaching that she received. Jean-Yves Leloup’s commentaries add much insight to the text, which is missing some critical pages, and restores this text to a place of importance which other Gnostic compilations have ignored. In a way, this teaching received by Mary at the site of the Resurrection is the most important one of all.
Tradition hands us a picture of the final moments of Jesus Christ’s life on the cross. Three figures stand at his feet, three central people through whom his teachings will go out into the world ( John 19:25): Mother Mary, John the Apostle, and Mary Magdalene.
Mother Mary will become the center of the disciples and will focus the descending power of spiritual fire at Pentecost, whereupon the disciples, “filled with the spirit,” will go out and preach the gospel, evangelize, convert, and baptize. The so-called apostolic succession means that official Christianity has come through the successive initiations of priest to priest, beginning with Peter. Mother Mary, as the human progenitor at the beginning of this line of succession, becomes the mysterious figure onto whom the faithful project all hidden needs. The tradition of succession, this spiritual stream beginning with the virgin birth of Jesus, concentrates on the outer work of the Church, on telling the Good News of the Gospels, on proselytizing to convince and convert others to this understanding.
The second figure, John, will accompany Mother Mary to Ephesus for her final years, become the bishop of Ephesus, and eventually suffer exile to the island of Patmos, where he will receive and record a powerful revelation along with his version of the Gospel story. One can gather all the Johns, including John the Baptist, into John the Apostle’s mystical teachings and the way of mysticism that has grown from them.14
But can we identify what lives today from Mary Magdalene’s connection to Jesus Christ and her presence at the cross? We see the apostles taking the work of Jesus into the world—but Magdalene was not present at Pentecost. Based on our studies of Mary Magdalene, we imagine the idea of proselytizing did not resonate with her direct experience of the Divine. Perhaps her kind of wisdom was not something she could preach about. Instead, Mary Magdalene focuses on the inner worlds of initiation.
We imagine that, not through outer pomp and pageantry, but through gnosis or direct knowing, she seeks union with the Divine. Hers is the path of the sacred marriage,15 accomplished within.
Her path emphasizes inner preparation, introspection, and inner transformation. Perhaps, in addition, she also represents the feeling world; she carries the sensitivity of sensuality, in the truest meaning of the word, finding the divinity in the senses.
In addition, the presence of Mary at the Crucifixion and at the tomb, beyond illustrating her love for Jesus, also indicates her comfort and familiarity with death. The many artistic depictions of Magdalene with a skull may suggest that this has long been seen as part of her identity. In fact, Golgotha, the hill where Jesus was crucified, means “place of the skull.” Perhaps visionary artists of the past, in their representations, were implying that Magdalene understands the thresholds of death. Her appearances with special oils to use in anointing Jesus Christ place her in the tradition of priests and priestesses of Isis, whose unguents were used to achieve the transition over the threshold of death while retaining consciousness.
Jesus accepts and encourages this anointing, explaining to the other disciples that she “helps prepare me for my burial.” This statement implies Jesus’ knowledge that Mary is aware of what is happening at a deeper level than the other disciples. We can ask ourselves, “By what authority does she anoint him?” But we cannot ignore the fact that the very word christ means “anointed one.�
�� How can it be that Christians have pushed into a dark corner the female minister of the rite of anointing?
After one anointing of Christ by Mary, in Mark 14: 9, Jesus remarks, “Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, what she has done here will be told in remembrance of her.” How is it, then, that all Christians do not remember and revere this memorial, so clearly marked by their teacher? Why do most people know her as the reformed prostitute, rather than as what seems more likely—a ministering priestess with a deep understanding of the thresholds of the spirit world?
In the legends and stories told about Mary Magdalene there can be found some hint of what she may represent to us today: As one who was cleansed from sin; who remains with Christ throughout his death on the cross; and who first witnesses, understands, and believes Christ’s resurrection, she represents a human being who is open and available to true “inner knowing,” who can “see” in deeper, clearer ways through a unique spiritual connection to both earthly death and the Divine. In southern France there is a strong belief that Mary Magdalene journeyed there along with a small band of followers of Jesus Christ after the chaos that prevailed in Jerusalem.
It is said that she lived in the caves that extend throughout the area and developed a kind of clairvoyance—“clear seeing”—that permitted her to become intimate with the caverns and passageways without the use of torches. These caves, carved from the region’s limestone, extend for hundreds of miles, and make up the most extensive subterranean system in the world. There is one cavern at Ste. Baume, in the hills east of Marseilles, where Mary is said to have lived the last thirty years of her life in intimate connection with this hidden part of the earth.
Each morning, according to another legend, a group of angels lifted Mary Magdalene above the summit of the cliffs where she could listen to the entire choir of angelic hosts, the divine sounds of original and continuing creation.
David Tresemer, Ph.D., and Laura-Lea Cannon
INTRODUCTION
ALTHOUGH HISTORIANS of early Christianity now have many gospels in their catalogues, those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John remain the best known. For most churches, they are still the only ones authorized to communicate to us the echoes and interpretations of the events and teachings that took place in Galilee and Judaea about twenty centuries ago.
The recent discovery in 1945 of the library of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt has enabled us to broaden our horizons and enrich our knowledge of certain aspects of Christianity that had previously been hidden or suppressed by the orthodoxies. The gospels contained in this library are written in the Sahidic Coptic language (the word copt comes from the Arabic qibt, which in turn is a contraction of the Greek Aiguptos, or Egypt). Most of them are attributed to direct disciples of the Galilean rabbi Yeshua, considered by some to be the Messiah foretold by Hebraic scriptures, by others as a prophet or a teacher—and by still others as the universal Savior.
Today we are able to study these other gospels—of Philip, Peter, Bartholomew, and most especially of Thomas—right alongside those of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. As with some other gospels that came later, it has been established that the Gospel of Thomas (Thomas being also the name of the evangelist of India whose tomb is believed to be in Madras) contains certain logia, or simple sayings, that are likely to be older than the revisions of the canonical texts, and may have been skillfully used by the editors of the latter.1
Among these other gospels, which have recently become much better known, there is one that does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserves from specialists and is still practically unknown to the public at large. It is the Gospel of Mary, attributed to Miriam of Magdala (Mary Magdalene). Because she was the first witness of the Resurrection, she was considered by the apostle John as the founder of Christianity,2 long before Paul and his vision on the road to Damascus.
By all apostolic accounts, Yeshua of Nazareth himself was certainly not a founder of any “ism,” nor of any institution. He was the Annunciator, the Witness, and some would go so far as to say the Incarnation of the possible reign of the Spirit in the heart of this space-time, the manifestation of the Infinite in the very heart of our finitude, the voice of the Other within the speech of human beingness.
The Gospel of Mary makes up the first part of the so-called Berlin Papyrus.3 This manuscript was acquired in Cairo by C. Reinhardt and has been preserved since 1896 in the Egyptology section of the National Museum of Berlin. It probably came from the area of Akhmin, since it first appeared in an antique shop in that town. According to C. Schmidt, this copy was made in the early fifth century. The papyrological analysis of the manuscript was done by W. C. Till, following the work of C. Schmidt, and then corrected and completed by H. M. Schenke4 The scribe wrote down twenty-one, twenty-two, or twenty-three lines per page, with each line containing an average of twenty-two or twenty-three letters. Several leaves are missing5 from the document: pages 1 to 6, and 11 to 14. This renders its interpretation particularly difficult.
Like the other writings in the Berlin Papyrus, and also like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary is written in Sahidic Coptic, with a number of dialectical borrowings. Several faulty transcriptions and other errors have been discerned in the writing.
As to the dating of the original text upon which the copy was based, it is interesting to note that there exists a Greek fragment—the Rylands Papyrus 463—whose identity as the precursor of the Coptic text has been confirmed by Professor Carl Schmidt. This fragment comes from Oxyrhynchus and dates from the beginning of the third century.6 The first edition of the Gospel of Mary, however, would likely be older than this, that is, from sometime during the second century. W. C. Till places it around the year 150. Therefore it would seem, like the canonical Gospels, to be one of the founding or primitive texts of Christianity. If this is so, what is the reason for the general reticence about reading and discussing it?
Today’s reactions are essentially the same as those of Peter and Andrew themselves, after they had listened to Miriam of Magdala:
Then Andrew began to speak, and said to his brothers:
“Tell me, what do you think of these things she has been telling us?
As for me, I do not believe
that the Teacher would speak like this.
These ideas are too different from those we have known.”
And Peter added:
“How is it possible that the Teacher talked
in this manner, with a woman,
about secrets of which we ourselves are ignorant?
Must we change our customs,
and listen to this woman?
Did he really choose her, and prefer her to us?”
(Mary 17:9–20)
The difficulty of acceptance of this text turns out to be one of the most interesting things about it.
For this is a gospel that was at least inspired (if not literally written down) by a woman: Miriam of Magdala. Here she is neither the sinful woman of the canonical Gospels, nor is she the woman of more recent traditions, which confuse her sin with some sort of misuse of the lively power of her sexuality.
Here, she is the intimate friend of Yeshua, and the initiate who transmits his most subtle teachings.
An even deeper difficulty to acceptance of the Gospel of Mary arises from the nature of its teaching, from the anthropology7 and the metaphysics that are implicit in it. This is not a dualistic anthropology, nor is it a metaphysics of Being, with the essences to which we have become accustomed in Western philosophy. It is instead a fourfold anthropology, and a metaphysics of the Imaginal, whose keys the most liberated and informed minds of our era have just begun to rediscover.
MIRIAM OF MAGDALA
Among all the gospels attributed to men, we have in the Gospel of Mary a text attributed to a woman—the one whom the other disciples acknowledge as having first seen the resurrected Christ (cf. Mk 16:9; Jn 20:18). In the early centuries of Christian writings, there wa
s scarcely a text to be found that did not mention her, sometimes to glorify her, other times in an attempt to minimize her importance.
In addition to the gospel that is our concern here, two other writings also bear her name: the Questions of Mary, mentioned by Epiphanus,8 and The Birth of Mary, one passage of which is also mentioned by him.9
Miriam of Magdala assumes her full importance in the Questions of Mary, yet this same document was also used as a model for a very different text by a later author. In that later work, the Questions of Mary was rewritten and revised so as to take on a markedly dualistic and ascetic character, and the role of Mary somehow became strangely minimized and devalued.
Although the original Questions of Mary has been lost, and is known only through the quotations given by Epiphanus, the dualistic redaction was developed into a long Coptic manuscript, which now resides in the British Library, Additional 5114, known since the eighteenth century under the title of the Pistis Sophia.10
According to Michel Tardieu, editor of the Berlin Codex, the author or authors of the Gospel of Mary “sought to take a position in the debate over the role of Miriam of Magdala; the canonical Gospels already contain hints of stories about this subject.” Tardieu’s further reflections on this are worth quoting at length:
All of these gospels recognize that she had belonged to the group of women who had followed Jesus, that she had been present at his death on the cross, and that she was the first (Mk 16:9) to whom he appeared on the morning of the Resurrection. It is probably due to the latter belief that she was considered as foremost among the women who followed Jesus.
Also, it is said in that same verse of Mark, as well as in Luke 8:3, that Jesus had driven seven demons from her. This is a personality full of contrast—initially possessed by demons, then companion to Jesus and first witness of the Resurrection. There is already plenty here to nourish the Christian imagination. The Mary Magdalene who serves as the poetic foundation of the gospel of Codex B has become at once the confidante of Jesus, his interpreter, and his replacement: Jesus divulges words to her that are unknown to the other disciples; she occupies the place left vacant by him, and she communicates and explains the secrets that she received from him.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene Page 2