CHAPTER II MARY AND MARY

Martha and Mary Magdalene By Caravaggio, c. 1598

The Artist Caravaggio called these two women sisters

It is of considerable importance to my premises’ to first prove that the very close friend of Jesus and his family, Mary of Bethany, the unknown woman sinner of Luke, and Mary Magdalene were all three the same person. The modern world of the Orthodox Church seems to be pretty well split on this subject, with the largest detractor from this view being the Roman Catholic Church. So to help prove the premise, I will call on a couple of well known Roman Catholics. The first of these, Pope Gregory The Great, preached a sermon in 591 A.D. that said “we believe that this woman (Mary Magdalene) whom Luke calls a female sinner, whom John calls Mary (of Bethany) is the same Mary from whom Mark says seven demons were cast out”. Of course Luke 8:2 is the passage which actually calls this woman who had seven demons, Mary The Magdalene.

The second of these persons was Cardinal Baronnisus who, while serving as curator of the Vatican Library in the early 17th century, and being commissioned by the Pope to do so, wrote a twelve volume history of the Roman Catholic Church in which he calls Mary Magdalene and Martha of Bethany, the Bethany sisters, when they had landed in Marseilles with some others in a small boat. I will go into more detail with this second story in the chapter titled “AFTER”. My point with these two articles is to show that there was much mainstream belief that these persons were indeed the same individual, Mary Magdalene.

Another clue, also from the Roman Catholic Church, is that although Mary is the more famous of the Bethany sisters, having been the one that had anointed Jesus with her precious unguent (John 11:2), they have venerated Martha, the other Bethany sister, as a saint, having a feast day of July 29th, venerated her brother, Lazarus, as a saint with a feast day of July 22. But Mary of Bethany has not been acknowledged in this way, at least by the Roman Catholic Church. It would seem that at the time of the veneration of Mary Magdalene, they must have assumed they were doing the same to Mary of Bethany as the same person. It should be noted, though, that the Roman Catholic Church’s official view today is that Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene are not the same person. There is, of course, an ulterior motive for this, as I will show in the next chapter called “ANOINTING”.

One argument that has always been used to show the two Marys as not being the same person is in the use of their second names, Bethany and Magdalene. Bethany is a small village located about 2 miles from Jerusalem, indicating Mary of Bethany is from this village. The problem is with the name Magdalene, detractors to my premise will say Magdalene is of a small village called Magdala, which if used in this way would make Mary Magdalene, Mary of Magdala and she and Mary of Bethany could not be the same person being from two different towns. The fact is though, that the second name of Mary Magdalene is never used in this way. As a matter of fact, notice Luke’s comment in the Gospel of Luke at 8:2, he calls her Mary The Magdalene definitely using the second name as a title.

Names of known persons such as Mary of Bethany, Joseph of Arimathea, or Jesus of Nazareth, show where these persons are from, but names like Mary The Magdalene, John The Baptist, or Jesus The Christ are titles. I use Jesus’ name as an example of a person with the name of a place and also a title identifying the same person, the same as I posit Mary of Bethany and Mary The Magdalene being the name of a place (Bethany) and also a title (The Magdalene) identifying them as the same person. Notice also in the scriptures Jesus The Christ is often called Jesus Christ as Mary The Magdalene is often called Mary Magdalene.

If indeed the word Magdalene is a title, what would it mean? The word Magdala in Aramaic or Migdal in Hebrew literally means “tower”, interestingly enough, quite a number of Aramaic proper and common nouns are found in the Christian Greek Scriptures.

In Micah 4:8 of the Hebrew Scriptures also called The Old Testament, we read “and thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion! The Kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem”. The words tower of the flock or watchtower of the flock are translated from the Hebrew Magdal-eder which, coincidently, some believe to be the origin of the name of the town of Magdala. We do know that Jesus knew these scriptures of the Old Testament quite well, and he quoted from them often, and Mary of Bethany being of a literate Jewish family would have also known the Hebrew scriptures well. I contend here, and I should note, that many agree with this, that Jesus feminized the title Magdal-eder to Magdalene as he bestowed this title on his betrothed. As he would be the Christ, she would be the Magdal-eder. As he was the shepherd, she would be the watchtower of the flock. In ancient times of Hebrew Israel, it was common for shepherds to build a large wooden watchtower, so one shepherd could keep an eye on more than his own flock of sheep, in case another was absent on some other chore.

Jesus intended Mary The Magdalene to watch over his flock in his absence. Evidently Jesus was opened minded about the role of women in, at least his idea of, a future society. But of course that does not necessarily mean his male disciples. He mentioned often that they did not seem to learn his teachings as well as he had hoped.

Jesus, of course, had many women followers which literally meant, disciples. But the scriptures, notably, the Christian Greek Scriptures as they exist today, do not call them disciples. In Luke chapter 8, again it says that besides the twelve that went with him (Jesus) from village to village preaching, certain women were also with him, naming Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, and Susanna and then goes on to say also many others, but the scripture makes a point of saying women which had been healed. In keeping with the tradition of editing women out of important roles, it seems the only women who could accompany Jesus were women he had healed from some kind of flaw.

Notice also the contention Luke shows in writing Mary The Magdalene, in some translations even reading “Mary the so called Magdalene”. Is this the first sign of the animosity that later developed between Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ male disciples?