The Glorious Magdalene

After the Virgin Mary, no saint was as revered or important in the Middle Ages as Mary Magdalene.^[1] As the first witness to Christ’s resurrection, Magdalene is arguably the founder of the Christian religion, but she also serves as an example of conversion, penitence, and contemplative practice. However, as we shall see, the Mary Magdalene of the Middle Ages is more myth than historical figure, a “composite saint”^[2] comprised of multiple characters and whom popes and authors attached more and more legends to over time. Confusing and frustrating as this is for the modern reader, this mythical Magdalene was very real to the medieval faithful, and therefore influential to medieval spirituality. Although she was admired by men as well as women,^[3] it is her influence on Western women’s spirituality, particularly that of the mystics, that this article seeks to explore. Thus, by looking at three major archetypes or models of “the Magdalene”—the penitent, the contemplative, and the apostle—my goal is to understand how and why she inspired such love and devotion in some of the major female figures of the era and, in turn, discover how they spread and encouraged that same devotion in others. But before we begin, it is important that we understand more about the historical Mary and how she evolved into the mythical Magdalene she came to be, starting with what the Bible has to say about her.

The Historical Magdalene

Mary Magdalene is named in the Gospels thirteen times—a mere six if you do not include the parallel passages throughout the four Gospels. The only mention of her before the passion and resurrection narratives is found in the beginning of Luke 8, in which it is stated that “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,” traveled with Jesus and the twelve apostles along with Joanna, Susanna, and other women, “who ministered to them out of their own resources.”^[4] Magdalene is a witness to the crucifixion and the empty tomb in all four Gospels and, aside from in Luke, the first or among the first to see Jesus post-resurrection. This is where the Gospel of John beautifully highlights Magdalene, placing her as the premiere witness to the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ, as well as the first to inform the other disciples of both events—literally the first to preach the good news of Christianity.

What can we know about the historical Mary Magdalene? For starters, the aforementioned passage in Luke tells us that Mary was a Jewish woman from Galilee, specifically from the town of Magdala, if her nickname is anything to go by, and probably wealthy; according to Bart Ehrman, “ministered” is an acceptable translation of the Greek term διηκόνουν, which carries with it the connotation of providing financial support.^[5] Whether she was wealthy by way of family, marriage, or independent means, it is impossible to say; however, Katherine Jansen speculates that her sole identification with a city, as opposed to a husband or family member, points to her living “some sort of independent life.”^[6] Because she is almost always named first when the women are mentioned,^[7] Ehrman proposes that Magdalene may have been one of the leaders, if not the leader, of Jesus’s female followers.^[8] But most importantly, that Magdalene was a witness at the cross and the empty tomb is likely “rooted in history,” given the consistency between the Gospels. “At the very least,” Ehrman writes, “we have secure historical data to suggest that Mary Magdalene was the first to discover and proclaim the resurrection of Jesus.”^[9]

But confusion quickly rose surrounding Magdalene’s identity, as seen in the writings of the early church Fathers. The abundance of Mary’s in the New Testament—at least six, including Magdalene—presents a problem, particularly with Mary of Bethany. According to Mark Goodacre, the difficulty lies in the fact that the term “Mary of Bethany” is only found in John; in Luke and the other Gospels, she is only referred to as “Mary.” The key to identifying her, then, is to look for where she is found alongside her sister, Martha; but as Goodacre also points out, Mary of Magdala and Mary of Bethany rarely appear together in early Christian writings outside the synoptics and John: “Mary is sometimes called Magdalene and she is sometimes seen alongside Martha, but the two Mary’s seldom appear together—they have become one.”^[10]

One notable example can be found in the Commentary on the Song of Songs by Hippolytus of Rome, where “Mary” and Martha are the first witnesses to the resurrection.^[11] Ambrose of Milan, struggling to make sense of the many Mary’s and the discrepancies in the resurrection narratives, even suggests that there were two Mary Magdalene’s.^[12] The woman who anoints Jesus in all four Gospels—unnamed in Matthew and Mark, a “sinner” in Luke, and Mary of Bethany in John—further adds to this confusion. Whether the story in Luke is a different occurrence was thus debated; Augustine, for example, thought it was possible that Mary of Bethany could have anointed Jesus on two different occasions,^[13] but unlike most, he did not conflate the two Mary’s.^[14]

After five centuries, the “composite saint” would definitively come together on September 21, 591, when Pope Gregory the Great delivered a homily that officially combined Luke’s unnamed sinner, Mary of Bethany, and Mary Magdalene into one individual, thereby establishing “a new Magdalene for Western Christendom.”^[15] But perhaps most significant of all is Gregory’s insinuation of sexual sin, from his interpretation of Magdalene’s seven demons “as the totality of vices”^[16] or seven deadly sins, of which lust is included, to the ointment Luke’s sinner used to anoint Jesus’s feet: “It is evident…that a woman who had earlier been eager for actions which are not allowed had used the ointment as a scent for her own body…She had used her hair to beautify her face; now she used it to wipe away her tears.”^[17] And with the popular medieval belief that sexual sin is “the woman’s sin par excellence,”^[18] it took no real leap to suppose that Magdalene engaged in prostitution before being exorcised by Jesus, although Jansen and Ehrman note that the reputation Magdala had come to develop as a city of immoral lifestyles and depravity may have also played a role in this assumption.^[19] Nevertheless, the damage was done, for “by means of a potent combination of implication, insinuation, and ideology,” Magdalene was transformed into the penitent prostitute.^[20]

Furthermore, in assuming the character of Mary of Bethany, and with her the siblings Martha and Lazarus, Magdalene becomes the woman in the tenth chapter of Luke who sits at Jesus’s feet and listens attentively to his teachings—all of which Gregory makes clear in another one of his popular homilies.^[21] Mary Magdalene is not only the first woman to spread the Gospel, but she is now the model penitent and the model contemplative—spiritual themes that “the Magdalene,” now more the mythical figure than the historical one, would come to encapsulate in the Middle Ages.

The Mythical Magdalene

But there is still more to review before we turn to our female mystics, as the legend of the Magdalene continued to grow long after the homilies of Gregory. Evidence for the Western medieval cult of the Magdalene dates back to at least the eighth century in the form of liturgical feast days and prayers, but by the eleventh century, physical signs of devotion begin to appear in droves. Jansen reports that the most important site was the great abbey church at Vézelay in Burgundy, which claimed to have Magdalene relics; conveniently located along one of the routes to the Santiago de Compostela, Vézelay became a pilgrimage destination in its own right. As for written works, the first known hagiography of the Magdalene is the ninth-century vita eremitica. Originating out of southern Italian provenance, it only took half a century to cross Europe and become known in England. Perhaps most notable about this text is that it conflates Mary Magdalene with Mary of Egypt, who was said to be a penitent former prostitute who became an ascetic in the desert.^[22] It also seemed to inspire the entry for Magdalene in The Old English Martyrology,^[23] another ninth-century text which tells of how after proclaiming the resurrected Christ, “she never wanted to see another man again,” and thus went into the desert for thirty years.^[24]

But the text of greatest significance is undoubtedly The Golden Legend, “the most celebrated collection of medieval saints’ lives.”^[25] Written by Dominican Jacobus de Voragine in the thirteenth century, the compendium essentially became a bestseller, if you will, with over a thousand surviving manuscripts, many of which are in European vernaculars. According to Eamon Duffy, “Within two generations,” of it being written, “hagiographical compilers all over Europe were adopting Jacobus’s framework and lifting material wholesale from his book.”^[26]

The Golden Legend’s entry on Magdalene presents the definitive composite saint: sister to Martha and Lazarus, all three of them wealthy, and Magdalene admired for her beauty and well-known for her sexual sins until she gave it all up to follow Christ. After Christ’s ascension, the siblings and some other disciples set sail away from Palestine but became lost at sea. They eventually wash up in Marseilles, where Magdalene preaches, performs miracles in Christ’s name, and dies thirty years later.^[27] With this history and development of the Magdalene myth in mind, we will now look at our mystics and the models of Magdalene spirituality they followed, starting with the penitent Magdalene.

The Penitent Magdalene

Fra Giunta of Bevegnati’s extensive biography of Saint Margaret of Cortona (1247–1297) tells of a young woman who, after the dual trauma of her lover’s murder and being cast out by his surviving family, experienced a dramatic conversion and led a life of penance as a mystic, ascetic, and renowned public figure in the Third Order of Saint Francis.^[28] Because of this conversion, Margaret modeled herself after the penitent Magdalene, and was in fact called the “new” or “second Magdalene.”^[29]

To Fra Guinta, “Margaret is the second Magdalene, just as Francis is the second Christ”; as such, Thomas Renna suggests that Fra Guinta sees Margaret as the restorer of the Franciscan Order on top of being the model penitent of Cortona.^[30] But above all, the stories and legends of the Magdalene seem to have greatly comforted Margaret. In one vision, Margaret—distraught over her past sins and at no longer being a virgin—asks Christ if the Magdalene has a place in the choir of virgins in heaven. Christ responds, “Except for the Virgin Mary and the martyr Catherine, there is no one greater than the Magdalene.”^[31]

Another disciple of the penitent Magdalene was Saint Catherine of Siena (1347–1380). Born exactly one century later than Margaret, this illustrious Doctor of the Church was at a young age given “Mary Magdalene as mistress and mother” by the Lord and the Virgin Mary, following the death of her older sister, Bonaventura.^[32] “There is, it appears to me, a signification in these relations with Mary Magdalene that we ought to observe,”^[33] writes Raymond of Capua, Catherine’s spiritual director, in her hagiography. According to his records, Catherine became utterly devoted to the Magdalene and hoped to obtain a similar forgiveness for her sins;^[34] even her extreme fasting and frightening ascetic practices seem to have been influenced, at least in part, by legends of the Magdalene fasting in Egypt and in France.

Catherine also encouraged her female disciples to follow in the model of the penitent Magdalene. In a letter to a prostitute in Perugia, she implores her to be like Magdalene and turn away from her sins. “As soon as she has seen her evil and sin,” Catherine writes concerning the Magdalene, “as soon as she has seen that she is living in damnation, she rises up with immense hatred for offending God and with love for virtue…Now you do the same, my dearest daughter. Run to him.”^[35]

As for the lay mystic Margery Kempe of Lynn (1373–1438), Susan Haskins observes that she viewed the Magdalene as something of a sister, a role-model yet rival for Christ’s love and, much like Margaret of Cortona, a mirror of her own life and sins.^[36] Kempe, too, came from a wealthy family, was criticized for her vanity and ostentatious clothing, and was subject to sexual temptations; she even came close to committing adultery at one point.^[37] A mother of fourteen children, Kempe’s painful conversion came during what Susan Eberly explains was “a serious postpartum illness which led to temporary insanity, self-mutilation and thoughts of suicide”—perhaps as painful as the seven demons that were afflicting Magdalene.^[38] “I know…how you call Mary Magdalene into your soul to welcome me,” Christ tells Kempe in her autobiography. “You think she is worthiest in your soul, and you trust her most in her prayers next to my mother.” And just so, Christ says, because Magdalene is a good intercessor for Kempe.^[39]

Again, much like Margaret of Cortona, Kempe would continue to be tormented by her past sins, especially the fact that she was not a virgin. Christ consoles her as well, promising that he loves wives as well as virgins, and Kempe in particular “as much as any virgin in the world.”^[40] In a later chapter, she confesses to Christ, “I wish I were as worthy to be as sure of your love as Mary Magdalene was,” and Christ once again reassures her that he loves her as well.^[41] Kempe’s most notable expression of penitence, and arguably what she was most famous for then and now, is her weeping. As Eberly explains, the weeping Magdalene had already become a staple in medieval art and imagination: “While the Virgin Mary had evolved into an icon of unsurpassable purity, characterized by a dignified, lyrical grief, the Magdalene came to represent a model of open grieving,” weeping hysterically at the grave of Lazarus, the foot of the cross, and before the risen Christ.^[42] These tears would become a fixture of Kempe’s life; a visible sign of her sorrow, love, and devotion to Christ.^[43]

The Contemplative Magdalene

Marguerite Porete’s (1250–1310) Mirror of Simple Souls, which she would eventually be burned at the stake for, presents a strange and startling look at the contemplative Magdalene. Relying primarily on the characters Love, Reason, and the Soul to express the annihilated soul, liberated in its detachment and stillness, the Magdalene appears at various times throughout the earlier chapters as an untraditional model contemplative, finding God when she is in the desert and not actively looking: “Then she found God within herself, without seeking him…”^[44] Danielle C. Dubois contends that Porete, while drawing on the usual penitential themes of the Magdalene, introduces new, unusual metaphors that recast her “into an exemplar” of Porete’s annihilated soul.^[45]

Even more intriguing is Chapter 124, the entirety of which features the Magdalene. It begins with Mary and Martha as the familiar contemplative and servant to Christ, respectively, but the Magdalene is soon placed outside the tomb where, in Porete’s version, she does not find Christ. Key is the next interjection: “Ah, God, Mary! [Y]ou who were such, when you searched and loved in human fashion, moved by the affection with which your spirit was so tenderly seized, what were you, dear one, when you no longer sought, and were united in divine love without any affection of your spirit?”^[46] According to Dubois, this “emphasizes the conversion that takes place when Mary Magdalene ceases to search for God and love him in a human manner and begins loving him divinely instead.” Porete’s Magdalene, then, becomes a detached “nonseeking contemplative,” thus “capable of transcending her human nature and affective impulses.”^[47] The Magdalene with an annihilated soul shows Porete’s readers that they, too, can achieve this state.^[48]

Margaret of Cortona was also inspired by the contemplative, Mary of Egypt-inspired desert Magdalene. In one of her visions, the ill and bed-ridden mystic “fell into ecstasy and saw Mary Magdalene, the blessed apostle of Christ; she was wearing a silver robe and a crown of precious stones in the midst of holy angels.” Christ tells Margaret that the “brilliant robe the Magdalene is wearing” was earned “in the cave in the desert.”^[49] But Margaret does not need to travel to the desert to be like the contemplative Magdalene, says Christ: “You sought with desire for the state of solitude of the Magdalene, and although I do not intend you to be in the desert, since deserts are not suitable for these times, you should remain in the woods of this region, just as though you were living in a vast desert.”^[50] A literal desert, therefore, is not needed; a contemplative wishing to live like the Magdalene may instead enter a spiritual desert.

A less extreme conception of the contemplative Magdalene can be found in Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582). A little outside of our time period, but still worthy of inclusion here as a mystic and Doctor of the Church, Teresa held the contemplative Magdalene as a model for both herself and her Carmelite sisters. In her autobiography, she states, “I had always felt a special bond with the glorious Magdalene. Often, especially when I was taking Communion, I would reflect on her conversion. This is when I knew for certain that the Lord was inside of me.”^[51] Later on in the same book, she advises cultivating detachment for instances when her readers feel incapable of finding Christ or “transcending form” in contemplative prayer. “Let the soul surrender to his will and trust in his great goodness,” she writes. “Once she has received permission to sit at Christ’s feet, she shouldn’t budge. Let her stay there as long as she likes, emulating the Magdalene.” Further, she encourages us to trust that God will develop our souls to become more resolute and resistant to the ways of the world. “What he did in a short time for the Magdalene he does more slowly for the rest of us, in proportion to the effort we make to allow him to do this work in us.”^[52]

The prolific Teresa mentioned the active Martha alongside the contemplative Mary many times in her writings, always in praise of both women as models of faith. In The Way of Perfection, she writes: “This is a great favor for those to whom the Lord grants it; the active and the contemplative lives are joined. The faculties all serve the Lord together…Thus Martha and Mary walk together.”^[53] In her Meditations on the Song of Songs, she explores further the active-and-contemplative soul: “Although a person’s life will become more active than contemplative…Martha and Mary never fail to work almost together when the soul is in this state.” The active works blooming from the root of the interior produce beautiful flowers, with a fragrance that “spreads to the benefit of many.”^[54]

The Apostle Magdalene

According to Jansen, the exact phrase apostolorum apostola or “apostle of the apostles” is near impossible to trace the origins of, though it was in use by the twelfth century. Notably, the first known artistic representation of Mary Magdalene as the apostle of the apostles comes from the twelfth-century St. Albans psalter,^[55] which shows the Magdalene announcing the resurrection to Jesus’s male disciples. This, along with other illustrations of the Magdalene throughout the book, has led scholars to presume that it was made for the anchoress Christina of Markyate (c. 1096–c. 1155), or at least inspired by her.^[56]

Christina’s story is recorded in the anonymously written, incomplete The Life of Christina of Markyate. Jane Geddes observes that “[i]n terms of her own experiences, Christina often acted as witness to Christ, following the model of Mary Magdalene”; and that “[s]he also suffered humiliation and slander, being called a ‘loose woman,’ accused like Mary Magdalene at the house of Simon the Pharisee.”^[57] Christina was not a “loose woman,” however, having escaped a forced marriage to keep from breaking the vow of chastity she made to Christ at a young age. Interestingly, a priest who also tried to get Christina to break her vow was said to be visited in a dream by John the Evangelist, Benedict, and the Magdalene. Magdalene, “whom the priest particularly revered,” glared and threatened the priest with nothing short of terrifying authority, promising the wrath of God and eternal damnation if he continued to harass Christina. When he awoke, horrified, he went to Christina to seek forgiveness, and thereafter changed his ways.^[58]

The beguine mystic and poet Hadewijch of Antwerp (c. 1200–c. 1260) was also inspired by the authority and agency of the apostle Magdalene. According to Saskia Murk-Jansen, Hadewijch drew on the Bible as justification for her writing, including the story of Mary Magdalene as first witness to the resurrection.^[59] In her Poem in Couplets Three, Magdalene is presented as a great example for Hadewijch and her fellow beguines to follow as witnesses to Christ:

And they who lead the life of Mary to the end
And give themselves up wholly in love;
And they who can point him out with delight,
And say: “He said these things to me! I saw him!”
They shall live very miserably—
But, as far as they are concerned, wisely.^[60]

As Murk-Jansen explains, “This, for Hadewijch, is the justification of her own speaking—she too is obeying the injunction of the risen Christ to tell what she has seen.” Further, by applying Christ’s instructions to Magdalene directly to herself and others, she is not restricting “the command to what she has seen in visions,” thus applying “it more generally to sanction her wider spiritual teaching.”^[61]

Lastly, let us return to Catherine of Siena, the ultimate model of the apostle Magdalene in the Middle Ages. The Magdalene appeared in many of Catherine’s letters, but not just as a model of penitence. As a woman who “skillfully intervened in political and ecclesiastical affairs,”^[62] it should come as no surprise that Catherine also took inspiration from the apostle Magdalene. Moreover, as Unn Falkeid points out, “the texts in which she is mentioned are usually letters addressed to females in Catherine’s group of mantellate or to women whom she encourages to recover their special powers.”^[63] As Catherine wrote to a new convert, “That dear Magdalene took up this shield in such a way that she thought no more of herself but with true heart clothed herself in Christ crucified…She, then, is the companion I am giving you. I want you to follow her because she knew the way so well that she has been made our teacher.”^[64]

Perhaps even more remarkable than her writings was Catherine’s success as a preacher. To her disciples, she wrote, “See, dearest daughters, how the Magdalene knew herself, and humbled herself. With what great love she sat at our gentle Savior’s feet!” Drunk with love for Christ, “she showed it in her actions toward his creatures, when after his holy resurrection she preached in the city of Marseilles.”^[65] It is clear that, just as she admired and followed the apostle Magdalene, Catherine was an apostola in her own right.

The Modern Magdalene

As expressed in the introduction, this composite version of Mary Magdalene—as well as the suppression of Mary of Bethany and the other women that were absorbed into the Magdalene—may be a difficult pill for the modern reader to swallow. It certainly is for me, no matter how fascinating I find the historical trajectory. The fact that the Magdalene as the penitent prostitute would go virtually unchallenged for the next 1400 years is particularly frustrating^[66]—not because I am unable to find any beauty in the story, but because it is just that: a story, rooted in the worst stereotypes of female sexuality, and one that we now know is based on poor exegesis of the Gospels. Some theorize that this was done deliberately to diminish her, perhaps in response to the more egalitarian Gnostic groups and texts that emphasized her importance to Jesus;^[67] but I am not making that argument here.

Instead, I wish to ask the following: what are we to do with this Magdalean tradition, with its lack of biblical foundation and historicity, which has been passed down to us from some of the greatest writers and mystics of the faith? Are we to denounce the Magdalene of Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila, or even the Magdalene of Gregory the Great and Jacobus de Voragine, in the same breath as the Magdalene in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ? Is the contemplative Magdalene, which is more Mary of Bethany than Mary of Magdala, on the same level as the Gnostic Magdalene, the New Age Magdalene, the Sex Symbol Magdalene?

According to Haskins, “The true Mary Magdalene has much to offer when freed from the restrictions which gender bias has imposed upon her. Symbolism has done her an injustice.”^[68] Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza cuts right to the heart of the problem: “This distortion of her image signals deep distortion in the self-understanding of Christian women.”^[69] I do not disagree with them. Mary Magdalene is Jesus’s most significant female disciple, and arguably just as important as the Virgin Mary to the story of Christianity. And while I love the Virgin Mary as much as any Christian, as a woman and a feminist, I am inspired by the Magdalene. What we believe about her, and how we speak and write about her, matters.

That said, I imagine that this captivating, enigmatic figure will forever spark new theories and inspire imaginations in new ways—exciting ways, certainly, as well as problematic ways. As the woman who “changed the course of human history, arguably more so than anyone else in the history of the West,”^[70] I suppose this is to be expected. But as scholars continue to look for, uncover, and retrieve the true Mary Magdalene, I propose that Christian feminists, theologians, and all who are interested in the Magdalene and the medieval mystics explored in this article focus less on how wrong their version of the Magdalene was and more on the spiritual insights and wisdom they received from her. After all, this composite, mythical saint was very real to Margaret, Catherine, Margery, Marguerite, Teresa, Christina, and Hadewijch. And to see how the Magdalene inspired these women—the mystics, ascetics, writers, and preachers that they were—is also deeply inspirational to me. While their social location is so very different from mine in the twenty-first century, and although some of their practices may be a bit extreme for modern Christians and spiritual seekers today, I believe there is much we can learn from their penitent, contemplative, apostolic, glorious Magdalean spirituality; and there is much, I think, that we can adopt for our own spiritual practices, if we let them inspire us to action, interior and exterior, the way the Magdalene did for them.