Who was Mary Magdalene?
When they lived First century, in Galilee and in Jerusalem
In short
Mary Magdalene is the woman the Gospels present as following Jesus from Galilee and supporting the group from her own resources, present at the crucifixion, and the first to whom the risen Jesus appears — charged with announcing it to the other disciples. Scripture never calls her a prostitute.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 9 min read
Search for Mary Magdalene and you will find page after page repeating that she was a prostitute. The Bible says that nowhere — not in the four Gospels, not in the letters, not in any other book. The association has a date, an author and an address, and it is set out further down.
What the texts do carry is something else, and it is considerably more interesting. She appears in all four Gospels, always under the same name, always listed first when she appears within a group of women. She is in the funding of the group, at the cross, at the burial and at the tomb. And she is the first person the risen Jesus appears to in three of the four accounts.
What her name says
Mary was among the most common names for Jewish women in the first century, so the Gospels have to tell them apart. They do it by kinship — Mary the mother of James, Mary of Cleophas — or by place of origin. Hers is the second kind: Magdalene is not a surname or a title, it is a place-name. She came from Magdala, a fishing settlement on the western side of the Galilean lake.
The other thing the text reports about her past is that seven demons had gone out of her. It is worth knowing how the Gospels use that language: it describes affliction, illness and possession — nowhere in the New Testament is the casting out of demons used to describe the forgiveness of sexual sin. The number seven signals severity, and what follows from it is that she came out of serious suffering.
The women who funded the group
The third chapter she appears in carries an economic detail that usually slips past. Luke records that Jesus travelled through towns and villages with the Twelve and also with a group of women, and that these women ministered to the group out of their own resources.
The sentence is short and says a great deal. First, that there were women travelling with the group, which was not trivial. Second, that they had property of their own — that is, some financial independence. Third, that the whole operation depended on it. Mary Magdalene is the first named on that list.
At the cross and the burial
The crucifixion accounts differ on several details and agree on one: there were women there, and Mary Magdalene was among them. Mark has them watching from a distance and adds that they had followed and served him since Galilee. John places her beside the cross, next to the mother of Jesus.
Mark also records that she and another Mary saw where the body was put — a detail the narrator inserts because it will be needed later. And once the Sabbath has passed, they are the ones who buy spices and come back.
Worth saying what that meant in context. At that moment, being publicly identified with a man executed for sedition carried risk. The Gospels record that most of the male disciples were not there.
47Now Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph observed where he was laid.
A seemingly bureaucratic verse, and that is exactly where its weight lies: the narrator needs to establish that they knew the address of the tomb, because the Sunday scene depends on it.
At the tomb
All four Gospels put her at the tomb on Sunday morning. John tells the longest and strangest version: she arrives alone while it is still dark, finds the stone moved, runs to tell Peter and the other disciple, the two come, look and leave — and she stays.
It is by staying that she sees. The text records that she was weeping, that she mistook the person for the gardener, and that the recognition comes when her own name is spoken. Then comes the instruction: go to the others and tell them.
That is the core of it. In a culture where the testimony of women carried reduced legal weight, all four Gospels choose to place women as the first witnesses of the episode everything else rests on. If the aim had been to persuade, choosing other witnesses would have been more efficient. This is, in fact, one of the most cited arguments for the antiquity of the account.
The conflation of three women
The Gospels contain three distinct figures that later tradition ended up merging into one.
The first is Mary Magdalene, introduced in Luke 8 and present at the passion and the resurrection. The second is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, who in John 12 pours perfume over his feet and dries them with her own hair. The third is a woman of the city, unnamed, described as a sinner, who makes a similar gesture in a Pharisee’s house, in Luke 7.
No text links the three. They appear in different settings, in different chapters, and two of them are not even named. Who made the merge, and when, is set out in the section below — and it is one of the rare cases where the origin of a traditional addition can be dated precisely.
37And behold, a woman who was in the city, a sinner, found out that he was reclining at table in the house of the Pharisee, so she brought an alabaster container of ointment.
38And standing behind him, beside his feet, she began to wash his feet with tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, and she kissed his feet, and she anointed them with ointment.
The woman of the city, in the Pharisee’s house. Notice that the text never names her, and that the next chapter, in introducing Mary Magdalene, makes no reference at all to this scene.
3And then Mary took twelve ounces of pure spikenard ointment, very precious, and she anointed the feet of Jesus, and she wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.
Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, in a different episode with a different stated purpose. The image of the hair comes from her, and she is identified by name and by family.
Apostle to the apostles
There is a piece of tradition worth setting against the other one, because it is equally old and circulates far less: Mary Magdalene has been called apostle to the apostles in the Latin tradition since the Middle Ages — Thomas Aquinas uses the phrase in his commentary on John — precisely because she was sent to announce to the sent.
In 2016 the Catholic Church raised her celebration on 22 July from a memorial to a feast, putting it on a level with those of the apostles. The Orthodox churches, which never made the merge of the three women, have called her myrrh-bearer and equal to the apostles for far longer.
Which is to say: the tradition is not uniform. It contains the confusion that erased her biography and it also contains the recognition of the place the texts give her. That second side almost never reaches anyone searching her name online.
What the text does not say
Biblical figures gather layers of tradition that Scripture does not support. Telling the two apart does not diminish the story — it gives back what is actually written.
What is commonly said
Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, and that is what Jesus forgave her for.
What Scripture says
Scripture says this nowhere. Not in any of the four Gospels, not in a letter, not in any other book. The only datum about her past is that seven demons had gone out of her — language the New Testament uses for affliction and illness, never for sexual sin. What the texts do assert is that she followed Jesus from Galilee, that she supported the group out of her own means, that she was at the cross and the burial, and that she was sent to announce the resurrection to the other disciples.
Where it comes from: The association comes from a homily preached by Gregory the Great in Rome in 591, which merged into one person Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinful woman of Luke 7, and read the seven demons as the seven capital vices. The merge took hold in the Latin West and organised the iconography of the centuries that followed. The Eastern churches never made it, and kept the three separate. The reform of the Roman calendar in 1969 stopped presenting her as a penitent.
What is commonly said
She is the adulterous woman they were about to stone.
What Scripture says
They are two different women. The woman in the stoning episode is never named, and the passage sits in John’s Gospel in another setting with no connection at all to Mary Magdalene, who is introduced in Luke. Nothing in the text links one to the other.
What is commonly said
She was the woman who poured perfume over the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair.
What Scripture says
That gesture is narrated twice, and in neither case is the woman Mary Magdalene. Once it is the unnamed woman in the Pharisee’s house, in Luke 7; the other is Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, in John 12. Mary Magdalene appears in neither scene.
What is commonly said
She was married to Jesus and had children with him.
What Scripture says
No New Testament text suggests this, by statement or by implication.
Where it comes from: The idea travels by two routes. The first is modern fiction, above all novels and films of the last few decades. The second is the Gospel of Philip, a third-century Coptic text found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, which belongs to no Christian canon and which describes a closeness between the two — and in the manuscript, as it happens, the decisive word of the most-quoted sentence sits in a damaged section and cannot be read.
Where this person appears
1And it happened afterwards that he was making a journey through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him,
2along with certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, who is called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had departed,
3and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many other women, who were ministering to him from their resources.
Her introduction, and the only information the Bible gives about her past. Read the three verses together: they show a travelling group in which the Twelve and a set of women with resources of their own appear side by side, and Mary Magdalene is named first.
40Now there were also women watching from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome,
41(and while he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him) and many other women, who had ascended along with him to Jerusalem.
The women at the crucifixion, and the observation that they had accompanied him since Galilee. The second half of the passage is what turns their presence there from coincidence into trajectory.
25And standing beside the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, and Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
The list of those beside the cross in John’s account, and Mary Magdalene is on it. Worth comparing with Mark, who has the women watching from a distance: both versions exist, and the difference belongs to the text.
15Jesus said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you seeking?” Considering that it was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have moved him, tell me where you have placed him, and I will take him away.”
16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” And turning, she said to him, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).
17Jesus said to her: “Do not touch me. For I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them: ‘I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.’ ”
18Mary Magdalene went, announcing to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and these are the things that he said to me.”
The whole garden scene: the mistake, the spoken name, the recognition and the sending. The last verse is what gives her the place tradition summed up in the phrase apostle to the apostles.
9And behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Hail.” But they drew near and took hold of his feet, and they adored him.
10Then Jesus said to them: “Do not be afraid. Go, announce it to my brothers, so that they may go to Galilee. There they shall see me.”
Matthew’s version of the same moment, with the women receiving the same charge to tell the others. Having two independent accounts assign the first announcement to them is what makes this datum hard to set aside.