Mary Magdalene
I marked the memorial of St. Mary Magdalene by reading again the Gospel of Mary, a second-century manuscript rediscovered in the late 19th century, and published first only in 1955. (The text can be found at http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm.) I am struck by several passages that seem appropriate reminders to the contemporary Church, for example, the risen Christ commands the disciples to preach, but warns them: “Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it.” And of course, this “apostle to the apostles,” the first witness to the resurrection who brought a word of hope to her frightened brothers, ticked off a resentful Peter, who said “Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her?” In the Gospel of Mary, Peter is shushed by Levi, who says: “Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered.” They listen to Mary, and head out to proclaim the Word. For more, including a discussion of women’s leaderrship in the early Church, see Karen L. King’s 2003 book: The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle.
Lisa-
The respect, recognition and acceptance of women and their gifts in the life of the Church is criticially important matter. I agree with you on that wholeheartedly. But why have recourse to one of the Gnostic Gospels? I just read the text in the link your provided and the whole thing sounds pretty bizzare to me (e.g. 4:30: 30) Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body.) Didn’t Luke Timothy Johnson pretty much make hash of the Gnostic Gospels in several articles in COMMONWEAL in the late 90′s? I find the four canonical Gospels a good place to start when coming to know Jesus. These Gnostic ones are on the whole quite bizzare and I think we should handle them carefully.
The continuing discussion (and need for reform) of the role of women in the Church is too important to get sidetracked by discussions on Gnostic Gospels. At Mass on Wednesday, I said in my brief homily that Mary Magdalene was one of the Lord’s closest followers, and we her role in announcing the resurrection has much to teach us–and challenge us. Can’t we just stick to the canonical Gospels to get this point across?
It is true that “respect, recognition, and acceptance of women and their gifts in the life of the Church is a critically important matter”. One must keep in mind, however, that it was Christ, and not the Church, who instituted the Sacrament of Holy Orders at The Last Supper.
The gnostic gospels have nothing to offer in regards to our Faith because they are all a work of fiction to begin with.
F.y.I.-
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp_ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio_sacerdotalis_en.html
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html
Thanks for the edit!
Jesus shared the New Passover meal with Galilean men. In the early years of the Church people outside that circle often instituted the Eucharist. Thanks to those changes, even Gentiles were allowed to make bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Along the way, the Church decided to limit what became known as the priesthood to single men. Some day, when the Holy Spirit inspires the Church, more will be called by the Church. Until that time, the arguments based on who was at the First Eucharist are not easy to defend.
We should look at the gnostic gospels, to a certain extent, the way we look at the canonical gospels. What makes sense can be used and what does not may be relegated. The major issue is there is such a crushing of women in the church by the Empire and the Fathers of the Church. Historically, this can hardly be doubted.
Even the canonical gospels attest to Peter’s excitability to say the least. Granted that they are dated the gospels cannot be understood unless we see that they do reflect a pretty patriarchical attitude in places.
As far as the Last Supper it is by no means clear who was there and how many women were there. And what Catholic history has done to Magdalen is shameful. Despite Vatican II and advances in scriptural genre and understanding, the role of women is still shrouded in ignorance in the church.
Fortunately, women will be writing many of the theological works in the future. So that will be corrected. We should applaud the long overdue respect now being given to the “Apostle of the Apostles.”
The claim that the New Testament is not The Word of God or that The Word of God in the New Testament is not Divine is just a spin on the recycled arian heresy.
There’s an interesting past article from Commonweal – Why Not? Scripture, History & Women’s Ordination by Robert J. Egan, who teaches theology and spirituality at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
Another article of interest – Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis by NT Wright
On the introductory page for the Gnostic Society’s rendition of the Gospel of Mary, it is claimed that “it is clear this named Mary is the person we call Mary of Magdala”. Unfortunately, this is far from clear; on the same website, the book is listed as “The Gospel of Mary of Bethany (or Magdalen)”.
Karen King argues thematically for Mary of Magdala, but that is mostly against the idea that it is about Mary the mother of Jesus. While the themes she uses may distinguish the Mary of this gospel from the mother of Jesus, they do not distinguish her from Mary of Bethany, eg Magdala’s Mary may be more of a disciple than the mother of Jesus, but it is of Bethany’s Mary that Jesus says “she has chosen the better part”. Mary at the tomb can refer to MofM on Easter Morning, or MofB at her brother’s tomb at HIS resurrection.
For those who identify these two Marys, this is not a problem. And for devotional purposes, the two Marys are so similar it probably does not matter. But claims of clarity need to be tempered by how little we know of this text and the community that produced it.
What is clear is that this is a work of fiction and not very good fiction to boot.
F.Y.I.-
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2006/awelborn_intvwmm_may06.asp
Thanks Lisa – I had not realized it was the memorial of Mary Magdalene. I find reading the Gnostic Gospels opens my eyes in new ways, and helps me think about the familiar canonical Gospels with a fresh appreciation.
And, I imagine there are many wonders of that time that are simply forever lost to us.
The identification of Mary of Magdala with Mary of Bethany is a mistake. The Western Church went astray in this matter but has subsequently thought better of it. The excerpts cited above from the Gospel of Mary clearly refer to Mary of Magdala as her story is told in the canonical Gospels.
Interestingly enough, while there is a memorial of St. Martha in the liturgical calendar, I have been unable to find a memorial of her sister Mary. Does anyone know the explanation for this neglect apart from inertia and the mistaken, and now abandoned, conflation of Mary of Bethany with Mary of Magdala.
Some helpful information can be found at:
http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/07/the-magdalene-saint-sinner-or-goddess.html
St Martha is commemorated on July 29, the octave of St Mary of Magdala. Clearly, the liturgists who set that up identified MofM with Martha’s sister. That is not surprising, since conflating the two has been the custom for the last thousand years.
I agree wholeheartedly with your desire to see MofBethany remembered. That is one of the reasons I pointed out that the Gospel of Mary may be about her rather than MofM. Whatever is good in the conflated personage is ascribed to MofM, leaving MofB dispossessed of any identity. Perhaps that is the proper course, since Ss Mark and Matthew do not give any name the woman at Bethany.
Nancy,
If you have something to say, then say it. But please remember that all of us are capable of searching the Internet to find information. Ancient Christian texts — even blatantly heretical ones — are of great interest Christian scholars. There is no need worry that Commonweal readers are somehow going to be led astray by reading the Gospel of Mary.
Lisa, welcome to your new role on the blog!
Thanks Cathleen–it’s good to join y’all!
This seems to some degree to be a continuation of the Carter thread, now shut down.
Fair enough.
I too welcome Lisa who raised the issue of woman’s leadership (or lack thereof) in the Church through the frame of the Mary Gospel.
The leadership qwuestion is very much in play in this day and age even if you don’t like (or like) the frame.
As I noted in the previous Carter discussion, the church has moved on from seeing a woman as about equal with a moron (was that the Truth then?) to some kind of equality, that many see as patriarcally circumscribed. It doesn’t seem very successfukl in moving on currently.
(I might add that the shabby treatment of our US religious women underscores the chauvinism at the top.)
Nancy, JPII’s “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis” has been so much discredited that it is virtually worthless — other than as a relic of outdated and insufficient thinking by patriarchal leaders in a diminishing patriarchal church.
See, for example, http://www.womenpriests.org/scholars.asp
Canon law places the burden on the proponent, not the recipients, of purportedly infallible teaching.
If you go to the Vatican’s website, you might want to look up canons 749.3 and 750.1.
“Ordinatio Sacerdotalis” is history, nothing more, nothing less.
I think the use of the Gnostic gospels illustrates the point that there were a range of spiritualities and “Christianities” extant in the first three centuries of the church.
However, a critical reading of the canonical gospels is in order particularly in regard to the whole concept of “The TWelve” The Twelve is clearly (IMO) a literary convention created by the authors of the gospels to allude to the Christian movement which was burgeoing at that time to a new or renewed Israel. I doubt that there were literally 12. There were those who Jesus chose and Paul states he CHOSE to appear to (and he lists them). clearly Mary Magdalen occupies a central role in this regard as the canonical gospels all agree that she was among the first to see him.
Now the conventions at that time listed in importance the “TWelve” beginning with Peter and ending with Jesus. The issue of appearing first surely had signficance.
I did see a documentary of an ancient scholar who reconstructed what the Passover meal would have been and where based on the testimony of the Gospels. It was likely on a roof and the scholar stated that it would not have been unusual for women to be present at that meal in some fashion. Since they followed, he reasoned, it would have been logical to assume that they were in fact there even though this is not attested to in the gospels.
Not placing women there might have been a choice by the gospel authors to not scandalize even further than they already had the Jewish community and religious leadership. But clearly Jesus acted in unorthodox fashion and self consciously adopted religious conventions in religious address to God (Abba) and models of leadership.
The Gnostic gospels were a bit closer to the history than we are so it is not inconceivable that they were drawing on traditions that were in fact present.
As an aside I have heard that in terms of historicity, the Gospel of Thomas is dated around the same time as the canonical gospels which itself is interesting as it gives a very different view of Jesus.
I mean the convention begins wiht Peter ends with Judas,,,, surely Mary being first is significant from a philological point of view
Today’s London times has a story that a Cathedral of the episcopal Church in Englad has two sets of Eucharists, one being set apart for those confected by a woman priest, whom some of the congregation refuses to receive from.
How we see things is very important to the behavior we exhibit: I like the story making the internet round about the woman who looks out the window, sees her neighbors’ laundry as dirty and tells her husband (who remains silent) how terrible this is.
After this occurs several times, one Monday, the wife looks out and says that the neighbor must have gotten a better detergent, the laundry finally looks clean.
No, the husband mumbles, it’s just that I washed the windows.
We have much to learn in the ongoing struggle of women in the Church.
A short time ago, we had a thread on the import of history.
A distinguished professor has written that the main thing we get from history if really studied is humility!
A lesson for all of us – for a Church that thinks’s it’s “better than.” for those who speak in power positions be they clergy, politicians ,etc, and yes, us bloggers(yours truly included) when we think we’re the answermen with the truth.