Mary Magdalene was a female disciple and patron of Jesus who was present at his crucifixion, anointed his body for burial, and became the first witness of his resurrection. She has been honored throughout church history with titles such as “Myrrh-Bearer,” “Apostle to the Apostles,” and “Equal-to-the-Apostles.” The Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene is celebrated on July 22 in the East and the West.
Mary From Magdala
Mary is first mentioned in Luke 8:2 as “Mary, called Magdalene,” likely because she came from the town of Magdala on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee. The town was only unearthed by archeologists in the early 2000s, and in 2021 a second synagogue was discovered there. We can imagine Mary as a young Jewish girl going to synagogue, hearing the Torah, and sitting by the beautiful shores of Galilee, watching the fishing boats go in and out.
Delivered From Seven Demons
At some point, things went terribly wrong for Mary. Luke 8:2 records that Satan gained an unusual level of control in her life: she was possessed by seven demons. The number “seven” is often a symbol of completeness, and so Luke is likely emphasizing that she was completely controlled by evil. It has often been claimed that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, but that is actually a myth which goes back to Gregory the Great in the sixth century, who confused Mary with another woman. Perhaps Mary did fall into grave evil or dabble in the occult, but we should be careful to speculate.
Demon possession is actually a very rare thing in the Bible. Demon possession is never mentioned in the Old Testament, nor is it mentioned in the last 22 books of the New Testament. What we actually have are about a dozen references to demon possession in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and in the Book of Acts. This cluster of references suggests that when Jesus walked the earth, God allowed Satan to unleash his worst, because it provided an opportunity for the greater power and identity of Jesus to be revealed.
Since it was a unique time in history, we should not be too quick to draw applications to our day. However, Mary’s story is a reminder of what is very clear in the Bible: there are real spiritual forces at work in the world, and every single sinner is under Satan’s power to some extent—what Colossians 1:13 calls the “domain of darkness.” Mary experienced the full force of this darkness. We can only imagine the mental and physical anguish that she likely experienced. Her situation was dire. She was helpless to save herself. She was without hope. Until Jesus came.
Magdala was just southwest of Capernaum, the headquarters of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee, and at one point Matthew specifically mentions that Jesus took a boat to “the region of Magadan,” which is likely another name for Magdala. Matthew 4 tells us that Jesus “went throughout all Galilee, … and they brought him … those oppressed by demons” (Mt. 4:23–24). Perhaps Jesus spoke in the synagogue at Magdala, and did miracles there, and Mary’s family, desperate to see her delivered, dragged Mary to Jesus. Whatever the case, Mary met Jesus, strong and kind, and everything changed. She was transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Col. 1:13–14).
Disciple and Patron
Mary left her life behind in Magdala and began following Jesus. We often focus on the Twelve (and rightly so), but we sometimes forget about the others who frequently followed Christ around to hear his teachings and witness his miracles. Luke tells us that Mary went with Jesus through cities and villages as he proclaimed and brought the good news of the kingdom of God (Lk. 8:1–2).
Mary traveled with a key group of Jesus’s female disciples—a group which included Joanna, the wife of Chuza (Herod’s household manager), Susanna, and many others. Luke also tells us that Mary Magdalene and these other women played a crucial role in financially supporting Jesus and the Twelve out of their own means (Lk. 8:3). Perhaps Mary came from a more wealthy family in Magdala, or perhaps she was business-savvy like Lydia (Acts 16:14). Whatever the case, she gave what wealth she had to Jesus because he had given her something that was priceless—a new life of peace, joy, and freedom.
Mary wanted her life to count for Jesus. She was no longer concerned with adding to worldly riches. And she reminds us that when we come to Christ, everything that we have belongs to him. The only question is whether or not we will intentionally steward our resources to advance the ministry of Jesus in the world through his church.
Mary at the Cross
Where Mary Magdalene is mentioned most is at the end of the Gospels. When Jesus went up to Jerusalem for his final Passover, Mary and many other women followed him in order to minister to him. Mary was most likely present for Palm Sunday and to hear Jesus teach throughout Holy Week. On Thursday, Jesus took the Twelve into a private room to eat the passover meal, then went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and wait. When Jesus was arrested, the disciples left Jesus and fled. Peter followed for a time, but then denied Christ. Only John is later mentioned as being at the scene of the crucifixion.
However, Matthew 27 says that as Jesus hung at Golgotha, Mary Magdalene and the other women looked on from a distance. Craig Blomberg notes, “They kept a faithful vigil even in the face of the horror of his cross.” Mary Magdalene must have drawn even nearer at some point, because John 19:25 says that she stood “by the cross” with the Virgin Mary. Mary Magdalene saw the blood of Christ with her own eyes. She heard his cries with her own ears. She watched as he bowed his head and died. In his painting of the crucifixion, Anthony van Dyck depicts Mary Magdalene kneeling and weeping at the foot of the cross, with her face resting on the bloody, nail-pierced feet of Jesus.
Mary the Myrrh Bearer
Luke 23 says that the body of Jesus was taken down, wrapped in a linen shroud, and laid in a tomb cut in stone. Mary Magdalene and the other women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. In church tradition, Mary Magdalene is honored as one of the “Myrrhbearers” or “Myrrhbearing women” who ministered to the Lord even in death. In iconography, she is often depicted with a jar of myrrh in her hand.
Matthew 27 records a beautiful but haunting detail: Joseph of Arimathea covered the tomb with a large stone, and then “went away,” but Mary Magdalene stayed, “sitting opposite the tomb” (Mt. 27:61). We can imagine Mary Magdalene sitting at the sealed tomb in the eerie silence of Friday evening as the sun set and the world went dark.
Mary at the Tomb
Mary then rested with the other women on the Sabbath, keeping the law, but early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary and the other women returned to the tomb with more spices. They wanted to give Jesus a more fitting embalming. Blomberg notes, “Perhaps they were hoping to talk the guard into helping them get into the tomb.” When they arrived, they were perplexed to find that there were no guards and that the stone had been rolled away. They went inside the tomb, but the body of Jesus was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, two angels stood by them in dazzling apparel. They were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, but the angels said, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Lk. 24:5). Mary then went to Peter and John and the other disciples and told them what had happened, but the apostles didn’t believe her—her words seemed to them like utter nonsense. She then accompanied John and Peter back to the tomb so that they could see for themselves.
John 20 records Mary Magdalene weeping at the empty tomb. She was still struggling to understand what had happened, and did not know if she would ever see Jesus again. But as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb (Jn. 20:11). There, she saw the two angels once again, who asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” We can hear Mary’s love for Jesus in her response: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
When Mary turned around, she saw a man whom she didn’t recognize, and he asked her the same question that the angels had asked: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” The tomb was in a garden, and so Mary presumed that he was the gardener. In Rembrandt’s depiction of this moment, the man has a gardener’s hat and a trowel, representing Mary’s understanding. In her desperation, Mary says, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Then the man said to her, “Mary.” Immediately, the veil was lifted from her eyes, and she realized that the man was Jesus. She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Apostle to the Apostles
Mary, overwhelmed with emotion, wanted to cling to Jesus, but Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (Jn. 20:17). Mary Magdalene then went, full of joy, and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” and told them what Jesus had said to her.
In the first century, women were not considered reliable witnesses. Their testimony was not normally admissible in court. Yet Jesus chose Mary Magdalene to be the first person to see him alive after his resurrection. Not only that, but Mary was the first person whom Jesus personally sent to be a witness of his resurrection. In church history, Mary Magdalene has often been called “the apostle to the apostles”—“the sent one to the sent ones.” In the Eastern Church, she is even given the special title of “Equal-to-the-Apostles,” in the sense that her witness to the resurrection was as important as theirs.
D. A. Carson notes that Matthew, Mark, and Luke each mention several women at the tomb, but “agree in naming Mary Magdalene first. … The Evangelists [took] taken pains to honour her, and thoughtful Christians will remember that God delights to choose what the world deems foolish to shame the wise, so that no-one may boast before him (cf. 1 Cor. 1:27–29).”
Dispelling the Myths
Acts 1:14 refers to a group of women who were present at Pentecost, and it is very likely that Mary was among them, and then continued witnessing to the resurrection throughout her life. However, we have no reliable data about what happened to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection.
Because Mary was so highly respected in the early church, she is featured in numerous apocryphal works, such as the famous Gospel of Thomas. These works are all significantly later than the books that we have in the New Testament and contain bizarre ideas and teachings which blatantly contradict the earlier and more reliable historical accounts.
One of these works, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, claims that Mary received a private revelation from Christ which made Peter jealous, but that John defended her saying, “Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.” This is a common theme in the “Gnostic” Gospels. “Gnostics” (from gnosis for knowledge) were early heretics who claimed to have special, secret knowledge that was necessary for salvation. To try to bring credibility to their teachings, they produced works which put their claims in the mouths of the long-dead apostles or their associates (like Mary Magdalene).
Most relevant to modern misconceptions about Mary is the Gospel of Philip, which like the Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. The Gospel of Philip likely dates to the 3rd century, two centuries after Christ, and it is filled with bizarre Gnostic teachings. The book says that Mary was the “companion” of Christ and that Christ frequently “kissed” her. However, the Gospel of Philip also says that Jesus kissed all of his disciples, and in the highly metaphorical context of the Gospel of Philip, the word “kissed” does not even refer to a physical kiss at all—it is a metaphor for speaking sweet words that help the listener to understand or grow spiritually. “Companion” simply means a close follower—not “wife” or “sexual partner.” Simply put, a very late, very bizarre, completely unreliable document does not actually say that Mary was the wife of Jesus or was sexually intimate with him, and even if it did, there would be no reason whatsoever to believe it. Yet people like Dan Brown in his book The Da Vinci Code have taken this myth and run with it, claiming that the Church suppressed the truth that Jesus had children with Mary Magdalene. It is utter fiction.
Conclusion
Mary was who the Bible says that she was: a devoted follower of Jesus who became the first witness to his resurrection and sets an example for us to follow still today. The Book of Common Prayer includes the following Collect for the feast of Mary Magdalene:
Almighty God, whose blessed Son restored Mary Magdalene to health of body and of mind, and called her to be a witness of his resurrection: Mercifully grant that, by your grace, we may be healed from all our infirmities and know you in the power of his unending life; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
