Mary Magdalene: Apostle to the Apostles

 On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb before sunrise, and saw that the stone had been rolled away. She must also have seen that the tomb was empty, since she went to John and Peter and told them that they had taken the Lord out of the tomb, and “we do not know where they have laid him.” So John and Peter ran to the tomb, and though John outran Peter, he paused, and Peter went in first, and saw what may be the shroud of Turin, and the napkin that was on his head. Then John went in, saw and believed, though they did not yet know the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Remember that John felt a bit of jealous competition, as did all the disciples, like children, and unlike scholars, hardly knowing enough to hide this appearance, as it falls short of intellectual virtue, and may be his only flaw, if he has any.

   Then Mary, weeping, looked inside the tomb, and saw the two angels. They ask her why she is weeping, and she answers, because they have taken away her Lord, and she does not know where they have laid him. Then she turns, and sees the risen Christ, but she does not recognize him, thinking him to be the gardener. She asks him, if he has taken him away, to tell her where he has lain him, so that she might take him away. Even having seen Lazarus, as John had witnessed the raising of the daughter of Jarius, she still does not suspect, but then…

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him, “Rabboni!” (which means teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”                                                                       John 20: 16-17

   Then Mary went and told the other disciples, and John does not say whether they believed her. Luke, (24:11) says they did not believe her until he appears to some of them that evening, and breathes on them, saying, “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20: 22-23).

   Mark (16) has a slightly different account, as he was not an Apostle, but a follower and scribe for Peter, and though John was not an eyewitness of Mary inside the tomb, he surely spoke to her, and may have been the most likely to listen to her. And one would think that of all the accounts, this would be the most likely to make up the missing first pages of the Gospel of Mary recovered in 1896. One might even imagine John in Judea accidentally folding these pages into his notes, and taking them to Ephesus before writing his Gospel. What is recorded in the Gospel of Mary is a vision of the risen Christ, or a meeting of him in vision, and she asks him there what sort of thing this is. One important teaching through Mary is:

   Impose no law other than that which I have witnessed. Do not add more laws to those given in the Torah, lest you become bound by them.                                                                                     Jesus, Gospel of Mary, p. 7.1-4; 18.20-21)

of course it is Peter who will not listen, and is rebuked by Levi, who concludes:

   Let us grow as he demanded of us, and walk forth and spread the gospel, without tying to lay down any rules and laws other than those he witnessed.

   Peter often gets things wrong, and like all the Apostles, if more so, does not understand what is occurring as it is occurring. And the laws added, beginning with a political requirement to believe this or that point of doctrine, has caused all the division and every murder of which “Christianity” stands accused. Hence, we distinguish Jesus from a legislator, as is Moses and Mohammed, bringing a law to a certain people. We note, too, that it took from the time of Constantine (313-337 AD) until the American Constitution for mankind to begin to sort out the confusion that might have been avoided, had only Peter listened to Mary, or at least shown up throughout the Crucifixion. But he will see Jesus again around the Charcoal fire, and be given the question “Do you love me,” 3 times and in different forms, first the sort in John 13 and 15, to which he twice tries to answer not with agape but philia. The friend of God may be the highest, as in Plato (Symosium 212-213). Finally, Jesus asks Peter, “DO you love (phileis) me? The answer to the first two are, “Feed my lambs,” and then “tend my sheep.” The answer to the third, the highest phronesis, is “Feed my sheep.”

Postscript:

   There are sayings about Mary Magdalene recorded in the Nag Hammadi writings of Thomas (#114) and Philip. These may be the writings of apostles, though not scripture, whereas the writings of Paul, Luke, Mark, Jude and James are scripture, but not the writings of Apostles. This collection may also contain writings of the apostle James, the elder brother of John, the first martyred of the apostles. The James of scripture is the just,” the “brother of Jesus,” who converted after the resurrection, as did Paul. The letter called Apostolae Epistolorum, purporting to be a letter from the Twelve, also seems genuine. The apostles are not the slickest of all fellows, and had difficulty with writing and language, and did not know what was happening while Jesus was with them. That seems, though, to be part of the point, as, like Socrates, Jesus did not write at all, though he may have dictated a brief letter.

   Mary Magdalene in scripture is confused in part because the Apostles do not wish to record her prostitution, if this is true. We always thought her the example of the new creation, and the hope of penance. She may have been the woman saved by Jesus from stoning. She is thought to be the woman who brought the anointing oil and wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair, having washed them with her tears. She was the sister of Martha, and of Lazarus. One wonders about the Samaritan woman at the well. And where is the city Magdalene? Seven demons are said to have been expelled from her, and in her brief gospel she comments on seven sins. She went to France after the crucifixion, as the Romans made life in Jerusalem difficult, until the Jerusalem Church was completely destroyed, by 66 A.D. There are local French histories regarding her hermetic sanctity. Some went to visit her, in her hermitage, and arrived to see her clotheless, with flowing hair, floating high in mid air.