But some researchers suggest that Magdalene had got acquainted with Jesus before the meeting in Simon's house. Christ said that "she loved much," so it can be assumed that Mary was among those who followed Him to Jerusalem.
Magdalene began to follow Christ, serving him and sharing her wealth, and Jesus trusted this woman even with the most intimate secrets. Thus, the disciples of Christ disliked Magdalene and wanted to get rid of the woman. According to the legend, this woman was the only one who did not leave the Savior when he was arrested, while Peter, the most faithful of the apostles, denied his leader three times after he had been taken into custody.
It is known that Mary Magdalene was a witness to the execution of Jesus Christ together with His mother, mother's sister and Mary of Clopas. The follower of the Son of God stood beside Christ, sharing the great pain of sufferings of the Virgin Mary.
When the Savior's heart stopped beating, Mary mourned the Savior, and then followed the body of Jesus to a niche carved into the rock by Joseph. Byzantine literature indicates that after the execution, Mary Magdalene and the Mother of God went to the ancient city of Ephesus to John the Theologian and helped him in his writings. Then the apostles and Magdalene went to the rocky mountain again and saw that the cave was empty.
The disciples of Christ left the grotto mourning, while Mary remained near the tomb, crying and trying to understand the reason for the disappearance of Jesus Christ. Mary Magdalene lifted her tearful eyes and saw two angels sitting in front of her.
When they asked her about the cause of her misery, she replied that she suffered due to obscurity. But when the visitor said her name, she recognized the Son of God and threw at His feet. In the Gospel, Jesus replied to Mary:.
According to the Bible, Mary became a follower of Jesus Christ after cleaning of evil spirits and penitence, so many admirers of Christian traditions thought that Mary Magdalene was a great harlot and sinner. Thus, the Catholic church depicts Magdalene as a former prostitute, and the Italian painter Titian could convey the emotions of the woman in his painting "Penitent Magdalene.
In the Catholic Church, Mary Magdalene was a representative of the oldest profession. When she met the Son of God, she gave up her activity and became his follower. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.
But Jesus refuses to condemn her, or even to deflect her gesture. The scene would be explicitly attached to her, and rendered again and again by the greatest Christian artists. But even a casual reading of this text, however charged its juxtaposition with the subsequent verses, suggests that the two women have nothing to do with each other—that the weeping anointer is no more connected to Mary of Magdala than she is to Joanna or Susanna. Other verses in other Gospels only add to the complexity.
Matthew gives an account of the same incident, for example, but to make a different point and with a crucial detail added:. Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, when a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of the most expensive ointment, and poured it on his head as he was at table. When they saw this, the disciples were indignant. I tell you solemnly, wherever in all the world this Good News is proclaimed, what she has done will be told also, in remembrance of her.
But in other passages, Mary Magdalene is associated by name with the burial of Jesus, which helps explain why it was easy to confuse this anonymous woman with her. The offense taken by witnesses in Luke concerns sex, while in Matthew and Mark it concerns money. But the complications mount. Matthew and Mark say the anointing incident occurred at Bethany, a detail that echoes in the Gospel of John, which has yet another Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and yet another anointing story:.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there; Martha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table.
Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair. Judas objects in the name of the poor, and once more Jesus is shown defending the woman. As before, the anointing foreshadows the Crucifixion. There is also resentment at the waste of a luxury good, so death and money define the content of the encounter. But the loose hair implies the erotic as well.
The death of Jesus on Golgotha, where Mary Magdalene is expressly identified as one of the women who refused to leave him, leads to what is by far the most important affirmation about her. All four Gospels and another early Christian text, the Gospel of Peter explicitly name her as present at the tomb, and in John she is the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus.
This—not repentance, not sexual renunciation—is her greatest claim. Unlike the men who scattered and ran, who lost faith, who betrayed Jesus, the women stayed.
And chief among them was Mary Magdalene. The Gospel of John puts the story poignantly:. It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. Meanwhile Mary stayed outside near the tomb, weeping.
Then, still weeping, she stooped to look inside, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head, the other at the feet. Who are you looking for? As the story of Jesus was told and told again in those first decades, narrative adjustments in event and character were inevitable, and confusion of one with the other was a mark of the way the Gospels were handed on.
Most Christians were illiterate; they received their traditions through a complex work of memory and interpretation, not history, that led only eventually to texts. Once the sacred texts were authoritatively set, the exegetes who interpreted them could make careful distinctions, keeping the roster of women separate, but common preachers were less careful.
The telling of anecdotes was essential to them, and so alterations were certain to occur. The multiplicity of the Marys by itself was enough to mix things up—as were the various accounts of anointing, which in one place is the act of a loose-haired prostitute, in another of a modest stranger preparing Jesus for the tomb, and in yet another of a beloved friend named Mary. Women who weep, albeit in a range of circumstances, emerged as a motif. Facts about Mary Magdalene. Died: c. Best known as: The closest female disciple of Jesus of Nazareth.
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