Mary of Magdala: the mother of Jesus?

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English translation of an article published in french in: Connaissance hellénique, BILLETS, N°141 (July 2015)

http://ch.hypotheses.org/1278

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Marie de Magdala : la mère de Jésus ? - thierry-murcia-recherches-historico-bibliques.over-blog.com

Article paru dans : Connaissance hellénique , BILLETS, N°141 DE JUILLET 2015 http://ch.hypotheses.org/1278 English version Link below Paper published in french in : Connaissance hellénique ...

http://thierry-murcia-recherches-historico-bibliques.over-blog.com/2017/12/marie-de-magdala-la-mere-de-jesus.html

About the Author

Thierry Murcia is a french historian (Doctor in History with highest honors, unanimous jury congratulations and special mention) who specializes in the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. He reads Hebrew, Greek, and Latin fluently and deciphers Aramaic. This enables him to work on texts in the languages in which they have been passed down and contributes to the authenticity of his findings.

Mary of Magdala: the mother of Jesus?

The very question is surprising. Is Mary of Magdala, alias Mary the Magdalene, not the repented former prostitute Luke mentions in his Gospel (Luke 7:36-50)? That is, indeed, the tradition the Roman Church has upheld since the end of the sixth century (Gregory the Great, 591). But this tradition has not been upheld either by the Greek Church or the Syriac Church. Nor do the Gospels say anything of the sort. While the lukan sinner is left anonymous, Mary of Magdala is presented as a privileged witness and a leading actor. She is also the female character to whom the Gospels most often refer. At the heart of the group that follows Jesus, the Magdalene takes precedence: whenever she is in the company of other women, she is always named at the top of the list. She is present at Calvary and is expressly listed at the head of the group of women who go to the tomb. And it is she who fulfils the rituals relating to the body of the deceased that would ordinarily be carried out by the mother. In John, it is even to her that Jesus appears on Easter morning. Particularly noteworthy, however, is the fact that, in the Gospels, Mary of Magdala and the Mother of Jesus are never presented simultaneously, with the sole exception of John 19:25: “But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the [wife] of Clopas and Mary of Magdala”. 

How many women at the foot of the cross?

Exegetes are still divided on the question of whether the Evangelist refers to three or four women here. However, as is often the case, neither side is correct… Because John only mentions two women here: he presents them, then he names them, but in reverse order as it is a chiasmus (of the classic scheme ABBA). Many commentators (for example Raymond E. Brown, not to be confused with Dan Brown…) have rightly observed that, in John, the whole narrative of the crucifixion and the burial followed a chiastic structure, not only on the basis of words in this instance, but on the basis of sentences, and ideas – let us call it ‘macro-chiasmus’. It has also been established that this structure is organised around John 19:25-27, which is therefore the key that should allow us to grasp the whole. Nobody until now has managed to crack the ‘code’ because nobody thought to extend the analysis beyond the macrostructure. Well, it turns out that these three verses of John, located at the heart of the ‘macro-structure’, also correspond, albeit on the basis of the microstructure, to a chiastic pattern, which therefore gives:

“But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother (A)

And his mother’s sister (B),

Mary the [wife] of Clopas (B)

And Mary of Magdala (A).

When Jesus therefore saw his mother (A),

And the disciple standing by (B),

Whom he loved (B),

He said to his mother (A):

‘Woman (A),

Behold your son (B)’.

Then he said to the disciple (B):

‘Behold your mother (A)’.” (John 19:25-27)

In short, the Evangelist discretely inscribes a series of crosses (X) over the Cross († or T) on which Jesus is hung. (There is a specific reason for the use of this particular construction in John’s Gospel, but let us not go into detail on that here.) The remainder of the narrative is well known: Mary of Magdala goes to the tomb where Jesus appears to her. John’s narrative is therefore entirely coherent: in the same way that his Mother is present at the Cross, she is also present at the tomb. According to the traditional reading of the gospel sources, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, though present during the public ministry of her Son (Matthew 12:46-50; 13:55; Mark 3:31-35; 6:3; Luke 8:19-21; John 2:1-12), was absent for the Passion (except in John), for the burial, and for the visit to the tomb. But with this new perspective, it is clear that that is not the case. She has not ceased to be present.

Comparing the lists of women present at the Passion in the “Synoptics” (i.e. Matthew, Mark and Luke – which seem to ignore the presence of the mother of Jesus) with the list in John, they are no longer incompatible (as has seemed to be the case up until now). Mark (Mk 15:40) and Matthew (Mt 27:56) mention three women: Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses – whom Matthew also calls ‘the other Mary’ (Mt 27:61 and 28:1) – as well as Salome (the mother of the two apostles James and John). Of course, the group mentioned in the Synoptics does include other women, but they are not named. These others, it is made clear, keep their distance and observe from afar. The narrative is in external focalisation. In John, the perspective changes: the narrative is in internal focalisation and the scene is observed up close. This time, there are only two women: the Mother (Mary of Magdala) and the aunt of Jesus (‘the other Mary’, in relation to the former) – in other words, close relatives. There is a change in view point. Why? Put briefly, Mark and Matthew echo the ‘apostolic tradition’ while John, who excludes Salome from the inner circle, echoes ‘familial tradition’.

What do the ancient sources say?

How is it possible, if this reading is correct, that no other ancient sources retain a trace of it? In reality, though it may seem incredible, such sources exist and are numerous. Before Roman tradition made Mary of Magdala into a former prostitute, the far more ancient Syriac tradition identified her as the mother of Jesus. And Ephrem the Syrian is far from being the only representative of this tradition. Traces are also found in numerous other ecclesiastical writings (in Syriac, Coptic, Greek and even Latin), in the Apocrypha, in the gnostic writings or assimilated texts and even in the Talmud of Babylon. As such, the heated debate surrounding the identity of the ‘Mary’ of the gnostic texts that has been troubling experts for years – is it Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary of Magdala? – is ultimately ridiculous because it is irrelevant. Just this once everyone is correct, since she is in reality, just as in the gospels, one and the same person: sometimes known as ‘Mary’, and sometimes as ‘Mary the Magdalene’ (or ‘of Magdala’, but has anyone ever thought to distinguish ‘Jesus’ from ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ or ‘of Nazareth’ in the gospels?). It is especially noteworthy that, in these documents, the two Marys are never present simultaneously (take the Pistis Sophia for example), quite simply because that would be impossible! Trying to distinguish between them comes down to nothing more and nothing less than a disagreement between six of one and half a dozen of the other^[1]. This is the case for all the gnostic or assimilated texts that have reached us so far.

The kiss from Mary to Jesus

Some have tried to make Mary of Magdala into the wife or companion of Jesus by relying on these same documents, in particular the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip. In these texts Mary of Magdala is referred to as the ‘companion’ of Jesus; it is said that Jesus loved her more than any other woman and that he often kissed her on the mouth. But the two are complementary, for in the Syriac tradition, the mother of Jesus is equally referred to as the ‘companion’ of her Son, and it is also said that Jesus loved her ‘more than any other woman’. But what is so surprising about a man who is a priori single and without children, loving his mother thus? All the more so here as filial love obviously doubles up as a mystic love. But the kiss on the mouth remains. Let us leave to one side its symbolic dimension and go straight to the heart of the matter: kissing on the mouth was at that time a widespread practice, between friends and relatives, as many documents attest. Girls would embrace thus; they would kiss their father and brothers, and a son would kiss his mother. But above all, there is a well-established tradition (in many texts), though it is little known at the moment, that states that Mary of Magdala (the mother of Jesus in these texts), when her Son appears to her, wants to kiss him on the mouth: an act that was eminently natural for a mother, especially given the circumstances. Here is how it is reported by the pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem (a text that has come to us in Coptic – like the majority of gnostic writings – and translated here from the Italian):

“He said to her: ‘Mariham!’ She recognized that it was her Son and wanted to embrace him, exclaiming in Hebrew: ‘Rabboni’ which translates as ‘Master’. She ran to meet him, wanting, in her joy, to embrace him and to kiss his mouth – since no human being would be able to restrain his joy at such a moment! – but he wanted to hold her back and said to her: ‘Do not touch me…’”

And again, from the same author (Mary speaking):

“I was so happy that I approached to embrace him as was my habit. He said to me: ‘Do not touch me…’”

This is a literary amplification of the episode reported in John (Jn 20:11-18) of which there are many variants. The gnostic texts simply convey the tradition I have called ‘diatessaric’: a tradition principally known and transmitted by authors who used the Diatessaron (‘through the four’), which was a Syriac Harmony of the Four Gospels traditionally attributed to Tatian (ca. 170), but without doubt far older. Incidentally though, one could just as well speak of ‘familial tradition’, already seen above in John: Mary of Magdala is quite simply the full name of the mother of Jesus. But must it really be seen as a toponym?

What does Magdala mean?

According to the most widespread explanation, Mary comes from the region of Magdala, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. But this explanation is most likely incorrect for several reasons. The two main counter-arguments are: firstly, that it was not common usage, at that time and in that place, to name a woman after her place of origin. Secondly, moreover, the way that Luke uses hê kalouménê (ἡ καλουμένη) between ‘Mary’ and Magdalênê (Μαγδαληνή) seems to exclude any reference to a place name. Luke writes (in Luke 8 :2): Maria hê kalouménê Magdalênê (Μαρία ἡ καλουμένη Μαγδαληνή), Mary whose nickname was the Magdalênê. Yet, in the Bible, when the word kalouménos (καλούμενος) – in the feminine in Luke – separates two other terms, and when the first of the terms is a proper noun, the second is never a place name. It is always therefore a nickname that is understood to underline a physical or moral characteristic of the person.

Going back to the Aramaic, the terms that are translated as ‘Mary of Magdala’ can have many meanings. Notably they can mean Mary ‘the Great one’, even ‘the Tower’(magdela). Or even, in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (megaddela): Mary ‘the Honoured one’, ‘the Magnified one’, ‘the Exalted one’. Initially, then, it was a eulogistic epithet attributed to Mary, meant to single her out (on average one in four Jewish women was called Mary in Palestine in this period) and to underline her importance. She had been chosen among women: Luke 1:42. In designating her thus, the evangelists would have had no reason to have been more precise: their first audience knew immediately who she was. Once translated into Greek, however, the sense of the semitic root word was lost and it ended up being falsely interpreted as a toponym.

A less romantic theory…

Evidently, this theory is less romantic and much less saucy than the one developed by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. Neither does it answer today’s public’s voracious appetite for scandal. But it is well backed up and, rather than being simply ignored, merits further examination. To uphold it, after all, there is no need to rely on fake papyrus…

So that was the quickest, comprehensive overview possible of my conclusions concerning this question to date. All that remains is for me to find a publisher for the iconoclastic (?) oeuvre I have been working on for the last seven years and for which I am about to finish the manuscript: Marie appelée la Magdaléenne – I^er – VIII^e siècle – Entre Traditions et Histoire. It should amount to about 500 pages. I’m going through the last of the corrections now^[2]. 

Thierry Murcia,

PhD (University of Aix-Marseille)

Associate Member of the Unité Mixte de Recherche (Joint Research Unit – UMR) 7297 

---

[1] The French expression in the original – “bonnet blanc ou blanc bonnet” – is itself a chiasma.

[2] The work was published in April 2017 by the Presses Universitaires de Provence (Aix-en-Provence, France).

The full text of the article is available as a PDF document (free download)

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" Thierry Murcia: Is Mary of Magdala the mother of Jesus? ", Connaissance hellénique 141, juillet 2015 (English translation 2017).

The very question is surprising. Is Mary of Magdala, alias Mary the Magdalene, not the repented former prostitute Luke mentions in his Gospel (Luke 7:36-50)? That is, indeed, the tradition the Roman

http://www.academia.edu/35344112/_Thierry_Murcia_Is_Mary_of_Magdala_the_mother_of_Jesus_Connaissance_hell%C3%A9nique_141_juillet_2015_English_translation_2017_

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