The Quest for Mary Magdalene

by Michael Haag

  Greek-speaking Jews to some degree adapted belief and practice to Greek ways. This would have been especially true at Tiberias, but there were other major centres of Hellenism in Galilee too – Magadan, for instance, the city that centuries later a Byzantine scribe decided to call Magdala. Magadan was founded by the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty, who themselves were Hellenised and who – as the recent excavations show – built their city along Hellenistic lines. Morevoer, despite the Jewish prohibition on depicting living creatures, a Hellenistic-style first-century AD mosaic depicting a boat and fish has been unearthed at Magadan. Perhaps Mary Magdalene really did come from the city we now call Magdala, but whether from Magadan or Tiberias or some other place in Galilee or even from Jerusalem or elsewhere in Palestine, or from somewhere in the Jewish diaspora, her independence suggests that she was used to moving in a Hellenised world.

  The Populations of Palestine and the Diaspora

  Estimates for the size of populations in the ancient world based on the evidence of ancient authors themselves are almost always exaggerations and often demographically impossible. For example Josephus claims that 1.1 million people were killed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, but it is enough to know the area of the city enclosed by its walls to realise that this figure can have no basis in reality.

  Scholars therefore have sought more reliable ways of determining population size. In the case of Palestine the most generally accepted method is to use the grain-growing capacity of the land which has remained constant until fairly recent times. There is good information available on grain consumption in the ancient world, in cities and towns and villages right round the Eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Egypt, and this compares closely to consumption in the same areas right up to the early twentieth century, including Palestine. Moreover there is good data from the ancient world telling the annual grain requirements of a labourer, a family, a soldier and so on. Average annual consumption can therefore be fairly accurately determined and when this information is correlated with grain growing capacity we arrive at the sustainable population size.

  On this basis the first-century AD population of Palestine stood at about one million. But not all of these were Jews. There were Greeks, Canaanites and others living in Palestine at the time. For example, the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty began by controlling a fairly homogeneous Jewish population immediately round Jerusalem, numbering about a hundred thousand, but by the early first century BC the Hasmonean high priest, who was also the king, had greatly extended his boundaries to all of Palestine and also the Decapolis and ruled over an ethnically and culturally diverse population of nearly a million, doing so by means of an ethnically diverse administration drawn from powerful families of the subject districts.

  Late in the first century BC the Hasmoneans were overthrown by the Romans and replaced by the dynasty of Herod the Great. The population was as mixed as ever and the Jewish element is not thought to have been much greater than half. At the time of Jesus, therefore, in the first century AD, the total population of Palestine stood at about one million and its Jewish population just over five hundred thousand.

  But the Jews of Palestine were only a small proportion of the Jews throughout the ancient world, a dispersion that had been going on since at least the sixth century BC when the Persians conquered Palestine. Even then Greeks were already settling and trading and serving as mercenaries throughout the East, but with the defeat of the Persians by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BC all of the lands round the Eastern Mediterranean became influenced by Hellenism. The great Hellenistic cities were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, precisely the cities and the countries where the greatest numbers of Jews were to be found.

  One ancient author who is thought to give reliable figures is the first-century AD Jewish philospher Philo, a citizen of Alexandria, who said there were one million Jews in Egypt out of a total population of about eight million. The Egyptians kept accurate population figures for taxation purposes, so Philo’s number is unlikely to be fanciful. Jews were particularly concentrated in Alexandria. Piecing together written evidence, it is thought that the city’s population was at least half a million, of which two thirds were said to be Jews; so something over 200,000 Jews lived in Alexandria in the first century AD.

  Syria was also home to many Jews and there was a particular concentration of Jews in Antioch. Jews were numerous also in Asia Minor, Greece and Rome.

  Whatever their precise accuracy, the figures demonstrate that by far the greater number of Jews in the ancient world lived outside Palestine. They paid their annual tribute to the Temple in Jerusalem and came to pray and sacrifice there when they could, but culturally they were Hellenised Jews of the diaspora.

  Even within Palestine itself the Jews were part of a heterogeneous population that was likewise largely Hellenised, and many of these would have been Hellenised Jews.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Abomination of Desolation

  WE KNOW WHAT JOANNA was doing in Tiberias. She was the wife of Chuza, steward to Herod Antipas, and Herod had his court at Tiberias. Herod had only recently, in AD 19, built his gleaming new capital on the Sea of Galilee; he named it after his benefactor the Roman emperor Tiberius and he gave it the appearance of a Graeco-Roman city. A wealthy woman, independent and free to follow her own inclinations, would have been at home in Tiberias, delightful for its lake breezes, for its shops and entertainments and luxurious spas, and for its easy ways. A woman like Joanna, and maybe a woman like Mary Magdalene.

  Herod’s New Capital

  Tiberias was built as an open city – powerful walls were added only later in the century – and it was laid out to a Hellenistic plan, the colonnaded cardo maximus forming a north-south spine with a grid pattern of streets running off on either side. The cardo was lined with shops and statues, its surface patterned with basalt paving stones, and beneath it were pipes that distributed water to homes and fountains throughout the city, drawn by an aqueduct from springs to the east.

  Tiberias from the air sometime between 1910 and 1920. Like the ancient city built by Herod Antipas, this recent Tiberias is a long narrow strip along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, hemmed in by mountains behind. Though delightful for its lake breezes, when they were not blowing the atmosphere of the city could be close and feverish.

  Tiberias from the air. Library of Congress.

  There were temples to Diana, Mars and Apollo; naked statues of Venus celebrated the goddess in the city baths; and a luxurious spa was fed from hot springs nearby. A great oval stadium gratified the Greek passion for sports and games and the Roman taste for gladiators and wild animals engaged in deadly combat, while a semi-circular theatre entertained audiences of seven thousand with lectures and plays. Herod also built himself a magnificent palace at Tiberias, its walls richly decorated with scenes of painted or carved animals. The fertility of the surrounding farmland was proverbial and the city’s position by the teeming lake provided a handsome living for fishermen.

  Herod Antipas built a complete Roman-style city here on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, including an amphitheatre seating seven thousand for plays and other entertainments.

  Tiberias amphitheatre. Wikimedia Commons.

  But though Herod founded Tiberias in the lifetime of Jesus, it is mentioned only once in the New Testament, and then only to say that some boats from the city had carried people across the lake to hear Jesus give a sermon on the far shore (John 6:23). Perhaps once upon a time Mary Magdalene had made that crossing with Joanna to join the multitudes gathering to hear Jesus. But this time, as the boats sailed across the lake from Tiberias, Mary Magdalene was already on the far shore standing with Jesus and his disciples as he gave his last great sermon.

  Loaves and Fishes

  The events surrounding that sermon, including the miracle of the loaves and fishes, would mark the climax of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and lead directly to his crucifixion.

  Herod, who had recently execut
ed John the Baptist, began receiving reports of Jesus’ preachings. Luke 9:7-9 describes their unnerving effect. ‘Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by [Jesus]: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead. . . . And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him.’

  Jesus instead withdrew into a remote place near Bethsaida where he was followed by a great multitude wanting him to speak to them of the kingdom of God and to heal those who needed healing. ‘And when the day began to wear away’, reports Luke 9:12-14, ‘then came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about, and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place’. There were five thousand men to feed and great numbers of women and children too, but ‘we have no more but five loaves and two fishes’. The miracle that followed, when Jesus said ‘Give ye them to eat’, and there was food enough for everyone, is one of only two miracles that is recorded in all four gospels – the other being the resurrection.

  Afterwards Jesus prayed with his disciples, among them Mary Magdalene, and he asked them, ‘Whom say the people that I am? They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias [Elijah]; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God.’ This was the moment, according to Luke, that Jesus was recognised as the messiah. But ‘he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing; Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day’ (Luke 9:18-22).

  Across the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum and Bethsaida Jesus heals the sick and feeds the multitude. Jean LeClerc, French, early 17th century.

  Jesus heals the sick and feeds the multitude. Wellcome Library.

  Jesus’ mission in Galilee was at an end and now he turned towards Jerusalem, to that momentous passion week concluding with his crucifixion, his burial and his resurrection. ‘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’ (Luke 9:51).

  Mary Magdalene was later reminded of those moments that had taken place on the far shore of the Sea of Galilee when after the crucifixion and after she discovered the empty tomb, two men in shining garments appeared to her, saying, ‘Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’ (Luke 24:6-8).

  Spiritual Pollution

  The contrast between those two shores of the Sea of Galilee, the region to the north round Bethsaida and Capernaum which Jesus made the centre of his mission, and Herod’s capital to the southwest at Tiberias could not have been greater. In the north people in their thousands followed Jesus and listened to his words about the kingdom of God. Across the water Herod’s Tiberias was a spiritually polluted city, the abomination of desolation. Jesus appears to have avoided going to Tiberias; the gospels make no mention of him ever going there. But Mary Magdalene, companion of Joanna, wife of Chuza, may have known Tiberias all too well.

  While Tiberias was a monument to Greek and Roman values it was a monumental desecration of Jewish beliefs, a standing testimony to Herod and his court’s dismissive attitude to the prescriptions of the Torah. Not only had Herod married his brother’s wife, for which John the Baptist charged him with breaching sacred law, but he also lavishly decorated his new palace with representations of animals, again in violation of the Torah. But worst of all, Herod had built his new city on a Jewish cemetery, knowing that corpse impurity was the worst kind of spiritual pollution. No devout Jew wanted to live there.

  Josephus describes how Herod had to resort to grants of land and free housing to induce people to settle in Tiberias, how he admitted the poor and granted freedom to slaves if they would live in the city and even forced well-to-do Galileans to settle there. Relying on the lure of the court and the promise of prosperity, Herod also drew gentiles and foreigners to Tiberias.

  Strangers came and inhabited this city; a great number of the inhabitants were Galileans also; and many were necessitated by Herod to come thither out of the country belonging to him, and were by force compelled to be its inhabitants; some of them were persons of condition. He also admitted poor people, such as those that were collected from all parts, to dwell in it. Nay, some of them were not quite free-men, and these he was benefactor to, and made them free in great numbers; but obliged them not to forsake the city, by building them very good houses at his own expense, and by giving them land also; for he was sensible that to make this place a habitation was to transgress the Jewish ancient laws, because many sepulchres were to be here taken away, in order to make room for the city.

  Sorceresses and Devils

  When Jesus went about Galilee preaching the kingdom of God, says Luke 8:1-3, he was accompanied by ‘certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities’, among them ‘Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance’. Mary Magdalene is mentioned first and she is also the worst afflicted; she has been tormented by seven devils.

  There is a popular misconception, which was first promoted by the Church in the early medieval period, that Mary Magdalene’s condition had something to do with sin. But this is plainly not true. Wherever Jesus is driving out devils the gospels are clear that he is healing people of their illnesses, mental and physical. ‘And they brought unto him all sick people’, says Matthew 4:24, ‘that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.’ Jesus heals blindness, deafness, paralysis, epilepsy and madness by driving out devils. ‘Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him’ (Matthew 12:22). ‘And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake’ (Luke 11:14). Jesus taught his disciples to do the same: ‘Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases’ (Luke 9:1); and his disciples ‘cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them’ (Mark 6:13). Nowhere in the gospels does Jesus’ healing campaign mean driving out devils to rid people of sin, least of all does it mean cleansing people of lust.

  Mary Magdalene is exorcised by Jesus who drives out seven devils in this Early Christian wall painting.

  Mary Magdalene exorcised by Jesus. Glorian Publishing.

  So Mary Magdalene is tormented by seven devils. But it is not the word devils that makes Mary Magdalene the worst afflicted. The word for devils in the original Greek of Luke is daimonia which different editions of the Bible translate as devils or demons but the meaning is the same. The other women suffer from evil spirits, pneumaton poneton in the original Greek, which is simply another way of saying demon or devil. All the women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and the rest suffer from spirits that are evil.

  What distinguishes Mary Magdalene’s affliction is the number seven. In the numerologies of ancient Egypt, Babylon and Persia and in ancient Hebrew the number seven symbolised totality or completion, so that in Genesis God made the heaven and the earth and rested on the seventh day when creation was complete; while in Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, there are seven churches, seven stars, seven angels, seven spirits of God, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven heads, seven plagues, seven cups, seven mountains and seven kings – again expressing completeness or totality. The other women with Jesus had been afflicted and possessed, but Mary Magdalene’s possession had been complete; she had been totally possessed by demons.

  All these women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susannah a
nd the many others, are afflicted as though all of them are tormented by a shared spiritual condition. Joanna came from Herod’s spiritually polluted capital of Tiberias and perhaps all the other women did too; like the city itself the women would have been made unclean by the evil spirits.

  But though Tiberias was a centre for Herod’s Hellenistic disregard for a strict adherence to Jewish beliefs and traditions, the problem was extensive and profound. Thoughout the towns and villages of Galilee Jesus was exorcising demons from people who came from far beyond, even from Jerusalem itself, the site of the Temple, Judaism’s holiest shrine. ‘And a great multitude from Galilee followed him’, says Mark 3: 7-11, ‘and from Judaea, And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him . . . And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God’. At a time when traditional beliefs were being undermined, the widespread sense of pollution and fear of demons became the disease of the age.

  The Pharisees presented their version of the cure; ever closer observance of the Torah. But for women, who lived on the margins of Jewish ritual activity from which they were largely excluded, there was another answer: many turned to sorcery. This was an attempt by women to draw upon sacred forces and wisdom to combat afflictions or otherwise gain control over their lives and to promote for themselves and others health, knowledge, power or success. But it brought them dangerously close to the afflictions and demons they sought to cure or control; moreover, because female sorcery challenged the patriarchal structure of Judaism they were often condemned as themselves being agents of demons. Sorcery, or witchcraft, was powerfully condemned throughout the Old Testament, as in Exodus 22:18 ‘Though shalt not suffer a witch to live’, a dictum that justified the hanging and burning of witches right up to modern times in Europe and America. But the legal prohibitions on sorcery and strong attacks on it in the Old Testament show that it was a persistent activity, part of the popular religion of Israel.