The Historical Mary Madgalene
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Topic: The Historical Mary Madgalene
Posted By: Don Quixote
Subject: The Historical Mary Madgalene
Date Posted: 14-Feb-2012 at 02:15
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Mary Magdalene was potrayed for centuries by traditional Christianity as a prostitute who repented and became a follower of Jesus; after his death she spend the rest of her life in repentance. Her repentance was the part that drew artists to her, and she was portrayed with gusto by them as a beautiful woman who turned her back on her beauty and the earthly pleasures to seek forgiveness. Here some of her images as created by different artists in different times: Caravaggio:  Guido Reni  Jusepe de Ribera  El Greko  Again El Greko  Gheorghe Tattare  Dante Raphael Rosetti  She is one of those figures that became so heavily imbued in myth, that for all her popularity as an image we know very little about the real historical person she was. In this thread I would like to keep the religious interpretations of her back, and to talk about what could possibly she had been as a person. So far this is the secular info I scrapped about her: 1. She was born and lived in the small town on Magdala /hence her nick-name, Magdalene/, now Al-Majdal; the both names "Magdala" and "Al-Mjdal" mean "tower", and it's Aramaic name was Migdal Nunnaya or Nunayah, with meaning "Tower of Fish". In ancient times there was flowerimg fishing industry there, as it;s Greek name, "Magdala Taricheae" - Magdala of the Fish Salters - suggests. It is referred to by it's Aramaic names in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. It's likely that the name "Magadan" that Matthew 15:39 referrs was a corrupted form of "Magdala": http://t8.biblos.com/matthew/15.htm - ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 15:39 Greek NT: Tischendorf 8th Ed. with Diacritics Which is translated in http://niv.scripturetext.com/matthew/15.htm - New International Version http://biblica.com/ - (©1984) And in many Bible editions follow the translation of the Cambridge edition on KJB: http://kingjbible.com/matthew/15.htm - King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.) 2. She was probably not married, because in that case she would have the name of her husband to bare, not the name of the town she lived in. Most of what we know of Mary comes from the Synoptic Gospels in the New Testament, according to which she was: - cleansed by Jesus from 7 demons, which in the line of secularizing I'm attempting here would be probably being cured by a disease of some kind, possibly having 7 symptoms; or cured from 7 diseases, which would seem less plausible, but possible; or being a symbolic imagery for something else. - was a sister to Martha and Lazarus, the latter being raised form the dead. - was the first the see the empty tomb on Jesus and the first he appeared to after his resurrection. She is given more significant role in the Gnostic gospels, according to which: - she was a apostle, Jesus told her to go and teach together with her brother Philip, but she wasn't suppose to reveal her female character - she is given her own gospel, in which after the death of Jesus the apostles were all confused and she taught then something that only she knew, because Jesus told this only to her. The next historical info we have about her is that in 1-2 century AD she was given the title "Apostola Apostolarum" by Hippolitus, bishop in Rome: "..."...2 Thimmes writes, "it is significant to note that Hippolytus, bishop of Rome (c. 170-235) [. . .] was the first to grant to Mary Magdalene the title 'Apostola Apostolorum' (apostle to the apostles). In his commentary on Canticle of Canticles he associates her with the bride and with the Bride of Christ, a symbol of the Church" (220-21). According to Lucy Winkett, "The ancient tradition of Mary of Magdala as apostola apostolorum ('apostle of the apostles') is used today by Pope John Paul II" (26. ..." from "The Pity She is a Whore - The Revision of Mary Magdalene in Contemporary Fiction" by Kevin Brown - I cannot give a link to the article because it's from Questia, I'm subscribed to it but it would be against the rules to post an open link with Questia here. Later, in 591 Pope Gregory the Great mixed her with the image of repentant prostitute in the NT, and had a homily against her and her sins. In 1969 the Vatican tacitly separated Mary of Magdala from Mary of Bethany /who was the repented prostitute/ via the Roman Missal/. So now we know that Mary of Magdala wasn't a prostitute. But who was she really? |
Replies:
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 14-Feb-2012 at 04:53
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She's a fascinating figure, highly mythologised and pilloried as Mary the prostitute, to juxtapose against Mary the virgin. Many modern theorisers now want to make her Mary the lover.
In the gospel of Luke, Chapter 8 verses 1-3, Mary Magdalene was one of the women who supported Jesus and his disciples as they moved around the country. Presumably this was financial help and hospitality, so possibly she had some wealth or her own house to entertain them in. She was among a group of women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. That the demons are specifically mentioned as connected to her, its unlikely she was cleansed of desease, but rather of possession - a form of madness or hysteria. 7 demons could indicate the severity of her illness, or that she was cured on 7 different occasions, and so suffered from a form of recurring mental illness. In the New Testament she is not categorically identified as Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus. That Mary was called Mary of Bethany. It is possible though, and was an early identification. If she were Mary of Bethany, then Magdalene can't mean where she came from, so has a different meaning. She was called the apostle of the apostles because she was the first witness to the risen Christ and the first to spread the word, although the apostles she told were at first skeptical of her report. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 14-Feb-2012 at 21:12
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Well, in the Mesopotamian medicine every disease was thought of as resulting by the action of some deity or another - and there was a deity for every disease. http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eancmed/meso.HTM - http://www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/meso.HTM . The Hebrews were descendents of Mesopotamians, /as Hebrew as language separated from Akkadian in 4000 BC/, so it seems logical to me that they would carry some Mesopotamian ideas, in the same way they preserved the Noah and the Flood from the "Story of Gilgamesh". So, I see the disease interpretation is a possible one. Also, there is a possibility that the 7 demons were allegorical. In the "Forbidden Faith - Gnostic Legacy From the Gospels to the Da Vinci Code" by Richard Smoley, /published2006, HarperCollins Publishers/, I found this interpretation: "...The number 7 is the key here. Ancient cosmology saw the earth as surrounded by the spheres of the 7 planets then known: the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The spiritual forces of there planets were portrayed by ancient esoteric traditions, including Gnosticism, as malign gatekeepers of the heavenly realms who sought to keep man bound to earth. They are in fact the "rulers of the darkness of this world' mentioned in Eph7:12, As we'll see in the next chapter, the liberation of the soul was seen as an ascent through the 7 spheres and an undoing of the bonds of these malign planetary powers. Thus one who is liberated from these powers could be described as having had "seven devils" cast out of her. in it's figurative language, the Gospel could be saying that the "second birth" of the spirit, symbolized by the Resurrection, is attained first and foremost by one who has transcended the influence of the planets, that is, by one out of whom "7 devils" have been cast. If this is true, it would help explain the extremely high esteem for mary Magdalene in early Christianity of both the orthodox and heterodox strain. In all likelihood, she was neither a rehabilitated whore, nor the "woman with the alabaster jar' who anointed the feet of Christ. But the Gnostic texts may be hitting upon some truth when they imply that she, of all Christ students, best understood the deepest truths he was trying to impart. Perhaps this was why he was able to tell her "Thou art she whose heart is more directed to Kingdom of heaven that any thy brothers..." pgs. 28-29. And it's possible the story about the demons to have been just a part of the deification of Jesus, a made-up story like others in the gospels, made to present him as a supernatural person. Of course, I'm just playing with possibilities here, it's anyone's guess what really happened. ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 15-Feb-2012 at 13:36
Good point. From the gospels I'm confused over what was classed as demon or classed as disease. Jesus isn't reported as casting out demons in every case of his healing, even though the individual is healed, and the Gospel of Mark, book 1 verses 32-34 says of Jesus that "they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons" and "he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons" which implies some distinction was being made. A great deal of overlap might have existed in contemporary minds, and we can't really know what they believed Mary was cured of.
I've not read the quoted book, nor heard this theory applied to Mary before. I wonder if it is suggesting that Mary Magdalene had somehow attained the Resurrection before Jesus had been crucified? And how would it relate to the man in the Gospel of Luke book 8 verses 26-33 who had a 'legion' of demons cast out of him? Curious. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 02:49
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My impression is that it implies that Mary Magdalene attained higher knowledge, by getting rid of the obstacles that the 7 planets put in front of humanity and hence create problems this knowledge to be attained. Hence, those planets and their bad influence was the demons. It's kinda "occult" interpretation, which I suppose can be applied by someone who was acquianted with certain Gnostic and Kabalistic ideas - the number 7 was very important there, and layers of symbolism applied to it. I'll try to find more on that; but in general I think that the interpretation of the 7 demons as physical sufferings are more realistic. ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 06:25
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The gnostic Gospels of Mary, of Philip and of Thomas are all meant to concern Mary Magdalene. I need to go away and read them. These gnostic works were often once viewed as just as inspired and equal to the present canonical New Testament. Early Christian churches chose themselves which books to read, or were limited by what was available. (The New Testament canon wasn't settled until the 4th century, and even then people still used their old favourites).
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Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 11:21
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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/magdalene.html - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/magdalene.html ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 12:53
Your words are music to my ears - I'm taking so much heat on another forum for drawing Gnostic Writings into discussions, /with reasoning similar to yours/ that I just revel in someone having interest in them  . I use the a Gnostic archives cite, it has all possible Gnostic/gnostic-connected writings, from the Hermetic Corpus, 2nd century BC to medieval alchemical writings - but right now I cannot link it, because I'm not on my laptop and this one is not listening to me - here it's its name - www.gnosis.org//library. I'll give you a live link first thing I get home. I'm very fond of reading them, and in particularly like the Gospel of Philip.Here is the live link: http://www.gnosis.org/library.html - http://www.gnosis.org/library.html All the Early Christian Gnostic gospels are on the Nag Hammadi place in the index. I'm currently trying to make progress with the Hermetic Corpus - it's a long term project .------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 12:54
That's a good link, CV, thanks ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 20:10
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What happened to her after Jesus ascended into heaven? Did she play a role in the formation of the early church?
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Feb-2012 at 22:21
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Not much is known. I dug out some info by the so-called Blessed James of Voragine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobus_de_Voragine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobus_de_Voragine , but the story he gives is like a medieval romance - Mary was rich,
was of royal blood, the daughter of Syrus /Syrian/ and Eucharia /meaning
"gracious" a term applied to Aphrodite/; her family owned 7 castles, the
village of Bethany and much of Jerusalem; but she preferred to live in
Magdala, which supposedly meant "tower". Here is what I found from him as primary source: http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fordham.edu%2Fhalsall%2Fbasis%2Fgoldenlegend%2FGoldenLegend-Volume4.asp%23Mary%2520Magdalene - Internet History Sourcebooks "...And this is she, that same Mary Magdalene to whom our Lord gave so many great gifts. And showed so great signs of love, that he took from her seven devils. He embraced her all in his love, and made her right familiar with him. He would that she should be his hostess, and his procuress on his journey, and he ofttimes excused her sweetly; for he excused her against the Pharisee which said that she was not clean, and unto her sister that said she was idle, unto Judas, who said that she was a wastresse of goods...." After the resurrection she went to preach in Marseilles: "...But by the purveyance of Almighty God they came all to Marseilles, where, as none would receive them to be lodged, they dwelled and abode under a porch tofore a temple of the people of that country. And when the blessed Mary Magdalene saw the people assembled at this temple for to do sacrifice to the idols, she arose up peaceably with a glad visage, a discreet tongue and well speaking, and began to preach the faith and law of Jesu Christ, and withdrew from the worshipping of the idols. Then were they amarvelled of the beauty, of the reason, and of the fair speaking of her...And after that, it happened that the prince of the province and his wife made sacrifice to the idols for to have a child. And Mary Magdalene preached to them Jesu Christ and forbade them those sacrifices..." "...Hegesippus, with other books of Josephus accord enough with the said story, and Josephus saith in his treatise that the blessed Mary Magdalene, after the ascension of our Lord, for the burning love that she had to Jesu Christ and for the grief and discomfort that she had for the absence of her master our Lord, she would never see man. But after when she came into the country of Aix, she went into desert, and dwelt there thirty years without knowing of any man or woman. And he saith that, every day at the seven hours canonical she was lifted in the air of the angels. But he saith that, when the priest came to her, he found her enclosed in her cell; and she required of him a vestment, and he delivered to her one, which she clothed and covered her with. And she went with him to the church and received the communion, and then made her prayers with joined hands, and rested in peace. ..."Ibid. The whole hagiography is on the link, but the mythologizing of Mary's life is so heavy in it that I don't know if it could be used at all. The whole story about her royal blood and the eponims of Syria and Aphrodite's epithet given as her parents is a direct result of her deifying in the lines of the female goddesses/aspects of the Mother-Goddess, like Aphrodite was. Later when Jesus's mother was proclaimed a virgin /splitting the holistic image of teh Great Mother into positive and negative, which is a typical way of creating mythology/ someone had to take the "bad" side, and Mary of Magdala became exactly that - the repentant sinner, the complete opposite of the Virgin Mary - even the names are the same. This process of mythologizing was explained by Joseph Campbell in his "Creative Mythology - The Masks of God". But all this is no good when one tries to uncover some real biographical info  ...------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 24-Feb-2012 at 11:05
In the gnostic Gospel of Mary, after the ascension, the apostles were afraid to preach Jesus' words, so "Mary stood up, greeted them all, and said to her brethren, Do not weep and do not grieve nor be irresolute, for his grace will be entirely with you and will protect you" and "she turned their hearts to the Good." Later, she tells the disciples of a vision she had of Jesus and the words he spoke to her. But Peter and Andrew both dismiss her story as unbelievable, although Levi tells them not to doubt her; "If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her?" Mary Magdalene is likely included in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1 verse 14; [in the upper room in Jerusalem]"All these [the eleven remaining apostles] with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers." This was the day after Jesus Christ is recorded as ascending to Heaven. The next verse states that the brethren numbered about one hundred and twenty. Chapter 2 verses 1-5 says that "they were all together in one place" on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon them and they spoke in tongues. Mary Magdalene may have been there, but "they" may only refer to the apostles, as opposed to the whole one hundred and twenty brethren. Speculation could include her along with the persecuted church in Jerusalem in chapter 8, verse 3; "Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." The only other Biblical reference, although tenuous and not one I've come across, is I Corinthians, chapter 9 verse 5; "Do we [Paul and Barnabas] not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" According to the 13th century James of Voragine; "Some say that Saint Mary Magdalene was wedded to Saint John the Evangelist when Christ called him from the wedding, and when he was called from her, she had thereof indignation that her husband was taken from her, and went and gave herself to all delight, but because it was not convenable that the calling of Saint John should be occasion of her damnation, therefore our Lord converted her mercifully to penance, and because he had taken from her sovereign delight of the flesh, he replenished her with sovereign delight spiritual tofore all other, that is the love of God. And it is said that he ennobled Saint John tofore all other with the sweetness of his familiarity, because he had taken him from the delight aforesaid." So perhaps Mary Magdalene, and some of the other Galilean women who supported Jesus and the apostles, were following their husbands? Her ministry in the church does not seem to be recorded in any early sources. In contrast to later traditions, Gregory of Tours, the 6th century Frankish historian, apparently says (I've not read the original) that Mary Magdalene accompanied John the Evangelist, with Mary the mother of Jesus, to Ephesus where she died. This may or may not relate to the story of her being John's betrothed/wife. If she were his wife, she would have shared his travels as told of him in the Acts of the Apostles. |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 29-Feb-2012 at 19:40
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Mary must have had a larger role than the Gospel writers claim if the resurrected Christ appeared first to her rather than St Peter. She may well have been one of the apostles until Christian censors popularised the superstition 13 was an unlucky number
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 29-Feb-2012 at 21:19
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The Christian Gnostic gospels say that she was an apostle - the Acts of Philip says that Jesus told her to go with Philip but not as a woman: "...94 It came to pass when the Saviour divided the apostles and each went forth according to his lot, that it fell to Philip to go to the country of the Greeks: and he thought it hard, and wept. And Mariamne his sister (it was she that made ready the bread and salt at the breaking of bread, but Martha was she that ministered to the multitudes and laboured much) seeing it, went to Jesus and said: Lord, seest thou not how my brother is vexed 95 And he said: I know, thou chosen among women; but go with him and encourage him, for I know that he is a wrathful and rash man, and if we let him go alone he will bring many retributions on men. But lo, I will send Bartholomew and John to suffer hardships in the same city, because of the much wickedness of them that dwell there; for they worship the viper, the mother of snakes. And do thou change thy woman's aspect and go with Philip. And to Philip he said: Why art thou fearful for I am always with thee...." http://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/noncanonical-literature/noncanonical-literature-nt-acts/acts-of-philip/ - http://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/noncanonical-literature/noncanonical-literature-nt-acts/acts-of-philip/ So Mary was baptizing women, and Philip was baptizing men, as they went together; the gospel is full with fantastic stories like praying for am leopard and as a result the leopard speaking and becoming converted, then a dragon attacking them and in answer of their prayer light coming and blinding the dragon - the usual deifying and miracle stories, full with symbolism. But, as in most fantastic stories, there are parts of that writing that deserve attention - like the fact that the Christian Gnostics considered Mary of Magdala as one of the apostles. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 29-Feb-2012 at 21:27
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There is something behind why Jesus in the "Acts of Philip" said that Mary is not supposed to reveal her feminine aspect - since women weren't seen with any spiritual value at the time, a woman had to be a "man" in a spiritual sense in order to be seen as an apostle.
From the "Gospel of Thomas":
"...22. Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom." They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."..." http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnosis.org%2Fnaghamm%2Fgosthom.html - The Gospel of Thomas Collection -- Translations and Resources "...114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."..." The both quotes talk about the necessity of becoming one full person to enter the kingdom of heaven. According to Grace M. Jantzen in her "Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism' early Christianity woman who achieved spiritual growth was considered "a honorable man", because spirituality came to be considered a male characteristic. She gave examples of such women http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DFdti4-2v7ZEC%26pg%3DPA51%26lpg%3DPA51%26dq%3Dwomen%2Bwhose%2Bspirituality%2Bwas%2Bbeyond%2Bquestion%2Bwere%2Bdescribed%2Bas%2Bhonorary%2Bmales%25E2%2580%2599.%26source%3Dbl%26ots%3DTaW-py1TYP%26sig%3D2b4P3SYf7hdt2SawNSEJHRfL_wA%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26ei%3DnuEoT_LBMuraiQLb1cHPCg%26ved%3D0CCAQ6AEwAA%23v%3Donepage%26q%3Dwomen%2520whose%2520spirituality%2520was%2520beyond%2520question%2520were%2520described%2520as%2520honorary%2520males%25E2%2580%2599.%26f%3Dfalse - Power, gender, and Christian mysticism - Grace Jantzen - Google Books In this context we can understand why Jesus said that he will make Mary "a man" - he said that he will make her spiritual, will make he a disciple, and apostle, like his other apostles. So I suppose that this is how she was seen by the Christian Gnostics - as equal to the other apostles. In the "Acts of Philip" she was worshipped together with Philip and Bartholomew, as equal to them: http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnosis.org%2Flibrary%2Factphil.htm - "...And they fell and worshipped Philip and Bartholomew and Mariamne; and all set out together praising God...." http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnosis.org%2Flibrary%2Factphil.htm - http://www.gnosis.org/library/actphil.htm http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnosis.org%2Flibrary%2Factphil.htm - ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 01-Mar-2012 at 17:17
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Found this essay. Thought it interesting, and it pulls together references from the New Testament, Gnostic literature and the Talmud regarding Mary Magdalene and her importance to the Gnostic traditions, the references to becoming a man, and the later traditions of her being a prostitute and going to Marseilles.
%20 - http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_mary_magdalene.htm |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 03-Mar-2012 at 19:28
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Looking back, it's strange to think Mary was changed into a man. It sounds like Jesus was a proto-feminist willing to give believers equal treatment if they proved themselves
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 03-Mar-2012 at 23:23
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It's more like since women were seen only in there traditional role of mothers-wives, they were refused by the society the ability to have spiritual life; having the last was male characteristic, so a woman who dares to be more that what her biology implies was considered an "honorary man". I see the expression "change your woman aspect" like allowing her to behave like a man - have a spiritual life and teach and baptise - /something what only men were allowed to do in the Jewish tradition, women couldn't become rabbis/. I think Jesus was a feminist of sorts, even in his NT gospels - he doesn't make sexist distinctions, and teaches women as well as men, in fact this is why Christianity became so popular amongst women., Roman women in particular, which is well documented. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 03-Mar-2012 at 23:25
For some reason the link gives me that the page cannot be found  ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2012 at 17:18
Sorry Don Quixote. Can't seem to attached link. http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_mary_magdalene.htm http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_mary_magdalene.htm - |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2012 at 18:14
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OK, I copied the dead link and pasted it on search, so I got the essay http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_mary_magdalene.htm - http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_mary_magdalene.htm This is the one you are talking about, right? ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2012 at 19:28
I've noticed medieval queens were also masculinised. Both Elizabeth and Mary Stuart were referred to as princes ------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2012 at 19:35
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I read the essay and found it very interesting. I'm going to take the liberty to post here a short summary with quotes from it, because it connects the Gnostic texts from 2-3 century with the NT gospels in a really convincing way. The idea of the essay can be summarized by this statement: "...In the rest of the New Testament and in orthodox Christianity of the next few centuries Mary Magdalene has been tacitly relegated to president of Jesus' "ladies' auxiliary." But the situation is strikingly different when we turn to Gnostic Christian documents which were not included in the New Testament, various gospels and related writings of the first few centuries C.E. Suddenly we find Mary Magdalene as a, or even the, prime revealer of the gnosis of Jesus, his closest disciple, and the greatest of the apostles! I will endeavor to show what these two starkly contrasting bodies of evidence have to do with one another and, if possible, with the historical Mary Magdalene. To anticipate, I will suggest that Mary Magdalene did receive visionary revelations and became the apostle of an egalitarian, celibate Christianity which preached spiritual marriage with Christ. I will suggest that other currents of earliest Christianity reacted to her radical gospel by minimizing and distorting her role in the ministry of Jesus and the early Christian community, and that her apostolic role was preserved in Gnostic circles and their sacred texts...." http://www.historum.com/redirect-to/?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robertmprice.mindvendor.com%2Fart_mary_magdalene.htm - Mary Magdalene: Gnostic Apostle? by Robert M. Price The essay used various NT, Gnostic, philosophical, etc sources, and the author doesn't have any problem with using the said Gnostic gospels as historical evidence together with the other sources we have. He included some sources I didn't write here about, like Philo and the "Dialog of the Savior" /2-3 cent. AD/; and followed the differences between the NT gospels to make sense of them and explain the patten they fall in. This was a very valuable POV for me, because I'm used to opposing the NT and Gnostic gospel, while actually they can be fitted together in very plausible pattern. It follows the reducing of the role of Mary from John to Mathew to Luke, connects them to the stages in the Gnostic gospels, adds an interesting recourse on Mark; then back to John, ending with I Corinthians 15. The line of development becomes very clear - from accepting of Mary as a apostle to completely denying it that omitting her from the picture. "...Mary was remembered as a prominent figure by all segments of the Christian movement but in orthodox circles her claims were ignored and the reasons for her obvious prominence were forgotten. ..." Ibid. Then he follows the story about the 7 demons as villifying her in order to reject her claim as an apostle and discredit her - from which the final blow is accusing his in being a prostitute. The essay end with: "...I have tried to show how the second and third century Gnostic texts depicting Mary Magdalene as preeminent among apostles and opposed by Peter are later stages of a trajectory that can be traced plausibly back into the New Testament documents. With the paradigm furnished by the noncanonical texts, several puzzling canonical texts seem to make new sense as reflecting polemics against claims for Mary's apostleship. If such claims and such polemics go so far back (e.g., the I Cor. 15 list), they would seem to stem from the lifetime of the historical Mary Magdalene herself. Both canonical and noncanonical traditions seem to preserve the memory that Mary claimed a privileged disciple relationship with Jesus both before and after the resurrection, that she received unique revelations after the resurrection, and that these revelations included female equality with males based on the transcendence of sexuality in a spiritual union with Christ. Whether she taught more specifically Gnostic ideas known to us from the later systems is unknown, but her ideas were embraced by early Christian circles which eventually formed part of Gnostic Christianity in whose traditions and texts the memory of her apostleship was kept alive, just as the memory of Peter's apostolic leadership was preserved in orthodox Christianity ...." He said on couple of places that Mary was too important to be ignored, and too many traditions, oral etc, mentioned her, so the way to take her claim from her was done in steps, in 7 stages, after which came the 7 devils and the prostitution accusation. Again we have 7s; and this line of thought made me think that the 7 devils story mat well be a later interpolation,/ maybe based on something, or not all/, a part of the campaign against her, and not a real evidence about her life and personality. Anyway, the essay is very interesting, thank you for linking it here, Sidney .------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2012 at 19:53
Good point, I didn't think about that. Elizabeth was particularly meticulous in that, in all speeches I read from her she refers to herself as "a prince"; like Hatshepsut styled herself "pharaoh". This is still done in gendered languages, like in Bulgarian, that has gender for every word /"uchitel" - is male teacher, but "uchitelka" is female one/ women who have important political or juridical position are called by the male form of the word; for example, a female "Minister" /something like a boss of a state department/ of say, "Ministry of Education" would be "Minister", not "Ministersha" /which means "female Minister", but is used for the wive of the minister, not a female minister/; or a female judge would be called "Sudia" which is "male judge", not "sudiika" which is the proper word for "female judge". This effect is more stark than in English, since English is normally not gendered. ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 06:58
| Thanks for summarising the essay, Don Quixote. |
Posted By: History Student X
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 15:30
| It is interesting that the first person that Jesus revealed Himself to was a woman after He was ressurected. Surely one of the apostles would have been a clear choice, but it shows to His divinity and mercy that it was a woman whose morality was in question at the time. She is an important figure in Christianity and her life is of interest. Her choises in life and her role as a prostitute in her time are very relavent to the events that her later life would reveal. She is a great historical figure and should be respected for her part in religious history. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2012 at 15:47
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She wasn't a prostitute, none of the NT gospels state that, this was a later interpolation, whether by an honest mistake on Pope Gregory the Great, or by an organized campaign to soil her reputation and take the apostleship from her. But even the Catholic Church admitted that she was not a prostitute, and corrected this via the Roman Missal "...In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church corrected the misconception, its Missal, and the Roman Calendar...." http://www.netplaces.com/women-of-the-bible/women-disciples-and-followers-of-christ/mary-magdalene.htm - http://www.netplaces.com/women-of-the-bible/women-disciples-and-followers-of-christ/mary-magdalene.htm ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 06-Mar-2012 at 19:13
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If she wasn't a prostitute or adultress, why did the crowd want to stone her to death (the normal punishment for sexual misconduct)?
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 06-Mar-2012 at 19:44
Within the New Testament there is no evidence that Mary Magdalene is the same as any of the other unnamed women who appear. Whether it be the woman condemned to be stoned, the woman with the bloody flux, Jairus' daughter, the woman with the alabaster jar, the woman at the well, the bride at the marriage of Cana, etc. Mary Magdalene is never stated or implied as having been a sinner, adulterer, prostitute, etc. It is only the assumption that she was that makes the connection with unnamed characters who are identified as such. Some biblical commentators felt a need to identify everyone mentioned in the gospels - so they often made connections that were based purely on the assumption that if person X is mentioned in divine scripture, person X must be very important, therefore person X must have a name; but person X isn't named, so we therefore have to identify person X as someone who is named elsewhere. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 06-Mar-2012 at 21:05
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That's right, there is no name mentioned in John 8-10, which tells the story about the woman who was condemned to be stoned. "...
Anyway, I was reading "The Magdalene Legacy" by Laurence Gardner, /2005, HarperCollinsPublishers/ and according to him "Mary" wasn't a proper name in the time Jesus lived in Judea, but something like a nicknames meaning "beloved" that was attached to female names, that's why there are som many Marys in the NT. I'm going to type the quote in it's entirety, so it can be used as reference: "...In the Gospel era, as in the Greko-Roman culture, "Mary" was no so much a name as a distinction. This is why there were a numbers of Marys associated with Jesus. Although nominally apparent in the New Testaments, the non-canonical Gospel of Phillip makes particular mention of this: "There were three who always walked with the Lord...his sister and his mother and his consort were each a Mary". The name was a conventual style of the era, and is still used by many nuns in convemts today, placed before their baptismal names to Sister Mary Louse, sister Mary Theresa and the like. Mark 6:3, for example, is generally presented with Jesus as the "son of Mary", but when correctly translated is reads "son of the Mary". ..." pg. 8. I got interested in this detail in Mark 6:3, so I decided to check it out, and see is this is really so, using my archmeasly Greek. Here, Mark 6:3: "...οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τέκτων, ὁ υἱὸς τῆς Μαρίας καὶ ἀδελφὸς Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωσῆτος καὶ Ἰούδα καὶ Σίμωνος; καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν αἱ ἀδελφαὶ αὐτοῦ ὧδε πρὸς ἡμᾶς; καὶ ἐσκανδαλίζοντο ἐν αὐτῷ. ..." http://www.greekbible.com/index.php - http://www.greekbible.com/index.php Which is KJV is translated as: "...3Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him...." http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13%3A55%2CMark+6%3A3&version=KJV - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+13%3A55%2CMark+6%3A3&version=KJV The translation of the beginning of the sentence, word for word: οὐχ - adverb for "ou" - not οὗτός - this one ἐστιν - is ὁ τέκτων, - the carpenter, "the builder with wood"/literally/ ὁ υἱὸς - the son τῆς - the - this is the full article in Greek Μαρίας - Maria καὶ - and ἀδελφὸς - brother Ἰακώβου - of Jacob; in genetive case - Iakob=ou for genetive καὶ - and Ἰωσῆτος - of Joses - Ioset+os for genetive first I thought that maybe the full article in Greek goes in front of all names, but in the case of the brothers there is no "the" in front of the name; nor my Ancient Greek textbook "An introduction to Greek" by Henry Crosby, 1928, mentions the use or the definite article in front of personal names. So, unless someone with better Greek comes around and explains this detail I'll consider L. Gardner's theory as a possibility. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 06-Mar-2012 at 21:47
------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Yepper children, I truly do.Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2012 at 19:20
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Sounds like many in the crowd had already enjoyed her services before
they tried to stone her. Hypocrisy and bigotry concealed by religious
fundamentalism is probably as old as organised religion itself
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2012 at 19:28
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It seems to me that the woman in the story wasn't a prostitute pr se, because there were professional prostitutes among the Hebrews, and many are mentioned in the OT in one or another context, not always negative; they accusers here said that she was "taken in adultery, in the very act" - it seems like a married woman caught in flagrante delicto with a lover. I suppose that most of the accusers were envious that she got some fun when they didn't - there is no more severe judge than someone who would like to do so, but cannot for one or another reason. in any case the woman here wasn't Mary Magdalene, just a woman whose name wasn't recorded. ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2012 at 19:19
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QUOTE=Don Quixote]
Anyway, I was reading "The Magdalene Legacy" by Laurence Gardner, /2005, HarperCollinsPublishers/ and according to him "Mary" wasn't a proper name in the time Jesus lived in Judea, but something like a nicknames meaning "beloved" that was attached to female names, that's why there are som many Marys in the NT. I'm going to type the quote in it's entirety, so it can be used as reference:"...In the Gospel era, as in the Greko-Roman culture, "Mary" was no so much a name as a distinction. This is why there were a numbers of Marys associated with Jesus. Although nominally apparent in the New Testaments, the non-canonical Gospel of Phillip makes particular mention of this: "There were three who always walked with the Lord...his sister and his mother and his consort were each a Mary". The name was a conventual style of the era, and is still used by many nuns in convemts today, placed before their baptismal names to Sister Mary Louse, sister Mary Theresa and the like. Mark 6:3, for example, is generally presented with Jesus as the "son of Mary", but when correctly translated is reads "son of the Mary [/QUOTE] I'm going to disagree with Laurence Gardner; The name Mary may mean "beloved", but everyone's name means something in some language; that doesn't make them all titles or nicknames. If I remember rightly, Gardner says Mary = beloved in the Egyptian language. I don't recall his reasons for thinking Jews in Galilee would be speaking Egyptian. I always took Mary to be a diminutive form of Miriam or Maryam - of which Josephus in his 1st Centuy writings names quite a few. If Mary is a title, why doesn't the NT distinguish between the different Marys by just giving their other names? Instead it tells you who they were married to, who they were the mother of, or where they came from. But even if they had a second name this would not be uncommon in the NT (Joseph Barsabbas, John Mark, Tabitha Dorcas, etc). The only evidence given for Mary being a title is one passage that says "the Mary". Only one out of the many dozens of references in the NT to ‘Mary’ would suggest a trans-scribal error, rather than a title. There are also not "so many Marys in the NT". There are only five in the Gospels; 1. Mary the mother of Jesus, 2. Mary of Clophas, the 'sister' of Mary the mother of Jesus 3. Mary the mother of James & Joses, 4. Mary Magdalene, 5. Mary the sister of Martha & Lazarus of Bethany. With Acts of the Apostles adding another; 6. Mary the mother of Mark There are more people named Simon, Judas or James in the NT than called Mary. These are not titles either. Nuns use the name Mary as a reference to them being Brides of Christ in their vow of celibacy, and are referring to the Virgin Mary as perceived by the Catholic Church. It has no relevance to the use of that name in the 1st Century. There seems to be no early records that indicate 'Mary' was a title - not in the NT, the Talmud, the Gnostic literature or Greek/Roman sources. The quote from the Gospel of Phillip just seems another irrelevance to Gardner's argument The full passage reads "There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary his mother and her sister and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister, his mother and his companion were each a Mary." There are actually four women listed here, one of whom is unnamed, unless there has been a trans-scribal error. The Marys are also mentioned in Papias, who wrote in the early 2nd Century AD and knew John the evangelist; “Mary the mother of the Lord; Mary the wife of Cleophas or Alphaeus…; Mary Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of John the evangelist and James; Mary Magdalene. These four are found in the Gospel…Mary, mother of James the Less and Joseph, wife of Alphaeus was the sister of Mary the mother of the Lord, whom John names of Cleophas, either from her father or from the family of the clan, or for some other reason. Mary Salome is called Salome either from her husband or her village. Some affirm that she is the same as Mary of Cleophas, because she had two husbands.” These three Marys are therefore the “three who walked with the Lord” mentioned in the Gospel of Philip – Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Salome her sister, and Mary Magdalene. The gospels, too, single out three women as accompanying Jesus, although they make it clear these were not the only women surrounding him. But the gospels give different names for these women, as if they were following a tradition of there being three, but were unsure of the people involved. If they were unsure of the names, but Mary was a title, why not just say they were all called Mary? The names are; The Gospel of Matthew 27;56 lists “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” Later Matthew mentions Mary Magdalene and the other Mary – implying that he either didn’t know the third woman’s name, or that she wasn’t called Mary. The Gospel of Mark however does give a third name: 15;40 “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.” The Gospel of John 19;25 lists “his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Some modern commentators see this as four women, but early tradition and linguistics favour just three. As noted above, Papias connects Mary the wife of Clopas as Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee (which included John the evangelist). This therefore does confirm the idea of three Marys following Jesus. The Gospel of Luke 24;10 gives ” Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James” In an earlier chapter he lists the women as Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Susanna. Because we are told there were other women with Jesus, it cannot be assumed that the three listed are all the same three women but with different names. Indeed the 2nd Century gnostic texts “The Sophia of Jesus” and the “First Apocalypse of James” state that Jesus had seven female disciples. No source gives a complete list, but the “First Apocalypse of James” lists Salome, Mariam, Martha and Arsinoe, and the “Pistis Sophia” names Salome, Martha, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. If we add Joanna and Susanna, it seems that Mary was just a name common amongst the female followers, and not a special title given to them. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2012 at 20:26
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I'll quote the context in which Gardner talks about Egyptian, it's in the same page like the quote I posted: "...the first think to consider is the community relevance of the Greek name "Mary" /from the Egyptian, Mery, meaning "beloved" and seemingly equivalent to the Hebrew, Miriam/. Similar Egyptian names include Meriamon /Beloved of Amon/ and Merytaten /Beloved of Aten/. other European variations of Mary are Marie and Maria..." Ibid. pg, 8. It seems that he thinks that the word "Mary" in European as well as in Hebrew may have been an Egyptian word, which is quite possible, since The Hebrews lived next to the Egyptians, no matter if a tribe of theirs had lived in Egypt per se, a or not. In any case, both Hebrew and Ancient Egyptian are Afro-Asiatic languages, Hebrew being Semitic, Egyptian being right now considered either Semitic, or closer to Berber; in any case there would be logical some words to have been borrower from one into another culture and language. As for the names - it's not a rarity in ancinet societies women not to hav epersonal manes - for eample, in Rome girls weren't given personal names, instead they got the female version of teh name of their fathers - Julia the daughter of Julius, etc. Some of this tradition is preserved in Slavic cultures where the second name of a person is the first name of the father, in male of female gender, depending on if the kid is male or female. Like, "Borisova" is the second name of a woman whose father is "Boris". Women were invisible for patriachal societies, they were known only by the names of the males around them - fathers and husbands. If Mary of Magdala was married, she would be known by the name of her husband, not by the name of the town she lived in; like the mother of Jesus was known as "Mary wife of Joseph". Women had no value, other than being mothers and daughters, and wives, they were not real persons, that's why they were identified by the males around them. Peter, Simon, etc, were males, they had value, they had names and personalities, Mary's were females, they didn't have such. Anyway, I see this as a possibility, and the Greek text supports such interpretation. Now, in the sentence you give "Mary Madgalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of Jesus" Joana is given with her name, but Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of Jesus were identified with their town and their male offspring respectively. why? If Mary was their personal names, whey did they have to be identified in other way? Only because there were 2 of them? I suppose this is plausible, but the other interpretation is plausible also. In Bulgaria, for example, most people use nicknames, not the real names of the people they love. My mother rerely use my name, unless she is angry at me, otherwise she calls me "Agne"/little lamb/. I used to call my son "Slone" /Elephant/ and he to call me "Jiraf"/Giraffe/, now I call him "Face". I call my high school friend "Govedo"/Cattle/, and another one "Chudovisthe" /Monster/, I rarely call a person by his/her name /unless I'm angry with them/. Maybe that's why I consider the possibility Mary to have been a nickname, for cultural reasons, the mechanism of the nicknames is very close to my thinking process. Which opinion, of course, I don't force on anyone. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 08-Mar-2012 at 20:38
Why is that irrelevant? That they were "each a Mary" again puts a undefinite article in front of Mary. something which is not done in English, no one says 'tghis is the John", or "give this to a John"; "a" is used as an article with professions, like "the teacher", "a teacher" etc; the passage doesn't say "they were each named Mary", or "the name of each was Mary", it puts the article in front of a personal name, that is like 3 grade English - I suppose the interpreters weren't ignoramuses and translated it like that for a reason, even though is grammatically not correct. I don't have the original tough to verify it. Nor do I think the monastic names are irrelevant too - all those nuns were calling themselves Mary for being "brides of Christ" just like supposedly Mary of Magdala was, no matter in physical or spiritual way; in fact this custom likely started with Mary of Magdala, and continued since because of the significance of it's meaning. When I see a strong custom like this going for centuries, I consider that there is something more behind it, that just randomness. ------------- |
Posted By: Louise C
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 01:54
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Elizabeth I liked to emphasise the fact that she had the proper masculine qualities to govern 'the heart and stomach of a man' as she put it. But she also enjoyed being seen as a desirable woman, she loved wearing magnificent dresses and jewellery, and being surrounded by admiring young men. She hungered for masculine admiration. For instance, when the Scottish ambassador came to the English court, she subjected him to a long cross-examination about which was the most accomplished and most attractive, her or Mary. The ambassador's diplomatic skills were taxed to the utmost, as he had to steer a course that did not disparage either queen.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 04:45
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Yes, Elisabeth played both parts very well and knew how to dangle herself in front of a male to get what she wanted. She played a capricious and fragile woman with her nobles when it suited her, and used all male and female qualities depending of the position and role she was in the moment in. Still, in her playing the role of a Prince she entered history as such, and she wasn't the only case like that that was mentioned here. ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 13:07
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I’ll agree to disagree with you on the matter of Laurence Gardner and the Mary as a title issue. I’ll answer your points in the post to explain, and maybe further discoveries or discussion will cause me or you or both of us to change our minds, or maybe not.
Greek ‘Mary’ and Hebrew ‘Miriam’ both derive from the Egyptian ‘Mery’. Mery means ‘beloved’ and might have retained that meaning in the other languages. That still doesn’t make it a title. It is still a personal name that just means ‘beloved', just as Susanna means ‘graceful lily’ and Matthew means ’gift of God ’. As I said before, every name means something in some language. Does Gardner say when it was meant to have been used as a title? Ancient Egypt? But it appears as a common element within the name, not as a separate title. Post Jesus? In which case, the Marys in the NT, as being born before Jesus’ teachings, also only held it as a personal name. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of adopting in adulthood a name that has a special meaning to you – Simon called Peter and Saul called Paul are two examples in the NT – but this was a significant event, and none of the Marys are given any such name changes. The Roman practise of naming children is more complicated than saying Julia is named after her father Julius and therefore she didn’t have an identity. Julia/Julius was the equivalent of our surnames. It identified the person as a member of the Julii family, and all members of the family would be called either Julius or Julia. Aemilius/Amelia, Antonius/Antonia, Cornelius/Cornelia are other examples. Each person would also be given a personal name to distinguish between the different members of the family, much as we do with forenames. Other names would also be given to distinguish further between individuals. Repeating the same or variants on a name was equal for sons and daughters (the Emperor Tiberius had exactly the same name as his father), and included giving boys a variation of their mother’s names. For instance Anicius Faustus Paulinus (legate of Moesia in 230AD), was named after his father Quintus Anicius Faustus, and his mother Sergia Paullus; Decimus Claudius Drusus (Roman military commander, died 9BC) got his last name from his mother Livia Drusilla. Handing down a given name through the family doesn’t mean loss of identity. It still occurs today, as you point out, without any sense of it doing so. I also struggle to think of any ancient society where women didn’t have personal names that identified them any less than a man’s personal name would have done. “Women were invisible in patriarchal societies”. Women lacked power, but they weren’t invisible. The amount of women Jesus met in the NT accounts shows how much they appeared in the public places of his ministry. There are many prominent women in the OT (and some of them did have power – Jezebel, Q of Sheba, Deborah). But yes, women were usually viewed as objects to possess and rarely had identity outside of the family. Mary of Magdala was probably a wealthy woman, widowed or unmarried. As you point out with the other Marys, if she had a husband she would have been labelled as Mary wife of X. But men were also distinguished by their male family – John and James the sons of Zebedee (also known as John the brother of James, and James the brother of John), James the son of Alphaeus, Judas the son of James, Judas the son of Simon, Jude the brother of James – as well as being given other qualifying nicknames - Simon the Leper, Simon the Zealot. This isn’t denying them a personality, or assuming the name is a title. It is distinguishing between people with the same name, as is done with the Marys. The Gospel of Philip uses the term ‘a Mary’. Using an article before a name needn’t mean it’s a title, and can still makes sense, specifically when referring to multiples. I’ve referred to “the Marys” a few times in this post, without it meaning a title. If I write “I have four grandsons and each one is a Robert” you know I don’t mean that Robert is a title. Adopting a new name due to religious conversion/vow has gone on for centuries, among men and women, in many different religions. The choice of ‘Mary’ for nuns is down to her popularity as a saint and idol among Christians, not as a continuation of a title. I do not know when the tradition started, but I need to be shown that is has a long history. There are many Anglo-Saxon and French nuns that I know were not called Mary, and there are also many sister Catherines and sister Theresas. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 13:42
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I don't see a reason to disagree with you, Sid, since I mentioned Gardners's idea as a possibility, not as an assertion per se, and because I found it interesting, not because I try to sell it as an some ultimate truth - I like playing with possibilities. Thank you for the interesting post, btw I don't think Gardner was saying that in Ancient Egypt it was being used as a title, just as a name - names traditionally meant things, and giving a name to someone was like putting a spell of him/her, a positive spell - like to be gracious, healthy, beloved-of divinity, etc. As far as I can see he meant that it was a title for the Greek and Jewish culture, at least this is what I got from the quote I posted - something like a nickname. As for the Roman naming - I specifically read that women in Rome didn't have personal names, only surnames, but I don't remember where, so I cannot cite it. I got a new book on Mary "Mary Magdalen - Myth and Metaphor" by Susan Haskins, and if I find in it something of interest that hadn't been posted here I'll write it ------------- |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 17-Mar-2012 at 21:06
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Cheers DonQ. I like to play with possibilities too, but maybe I'm less patient than you are.
Good point about names being magical. Like a deferred wish for the person named. I think we all like to find out if our own names mean something nice, even if whoever named us didn't know the meaning. I understand the point about Roman names now. Women were given two names based on their father's family, whilst the men often had three or even four, including a seperate personal name. So you got a point about women being less of an individual - with fewer names going around more women would have shared the same name as the men did. But this is only in official documents, and many men shared the same name too. But everyone would have had their own nicknames within family and friends to distinguish them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions_for_females - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions_for_females I don't know how peculiar this practise was to Rome and its empire, though. Nor whether it has anything to do with Hebrew naming traditions. A look at the Herodian and Hasmonean family trees show a lack of name variations for men and women. I hope the new book is entertaining and informative, and gives you further inspiration to post stuff for us to read on the thread. |
Posted By: LeopoldPhilippe
Date Posted: 30-Jul-2015 at 20:55
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One of the Easter Gospel accounts I like is The Gospel According to John.
In Chapter 20, John writes how Mary of Magdala came to the tomb and saw the stone had been removed. Two angels asked her why she was weeping. Mary replied that her Lord had been taken. She saw Jesus. However, at first she thought that Jesus was the gardener. |
Posted By: Arthur-Robin
Date Posted: 25-Oct-2015 at 15:50
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No one seemed to see/say that Mary Magdalene (& 7 demons) seems to symbolise either the 7 Churches, or the 7 hills of Rome. Migdol "tower" has same meaning as Pergamos/Pergamum "tower" [and Pergamum where Antipas died church age matches Rome where Telemachus died]. She also figures in Robin Hood legend/mythos and in that area (Lund place name). Some sources say she was a "hairdresser". "Don't touch/cling-to me". |