Mary Magdalene has her day
By John Quinlan, Journal staff writer | Posted: Sunday, July 22, 2007
Chancellor David Lopez of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City, whose doctorate degree was in religious history, shares his knowledge about St. Mary Magdalene. Above, he is standing in the lobby of the Diocese office on Jackson Street. (Staff photo by Jerry Mennenga)
Today is a big day for Mary Magdalene, the Penitent, the Magdalene, a woman from the Bible days who has been a controversial figure in recent years with pop culture reports that she was an ex-prostitute or even the wife of Jesus Christ.
Such reports were bogus, Siouxland Christian leaders say, whether they view her as a saint, a good friend and devoted disciple of Jesus or even the "apostola apostolorum," Latin for the apostle to the apostles.
For those denominations that do consider Mary Magdalene a saint, such as the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, today is Mary's feast day, a time for special observances in recognition of her sainthood and place in the history of early Christianity. It should be noted, though, that Lutherans don't view her as a saint in the same way that Catholics do.
They all agree that she is a prominent character in the Gospels, worthy of respect.
The day that Catholics call a feast day will be observed in most Lutheran churches, said the Rev. Kevin Vogts, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Dakota Dunes. "This Sunday, because her saint's day falls on a Sunday, that will take precedence over the other readings, and in most congregations, it will be celebrated as St. Mary Magdalene's Day," he said.
The Rev. Nan Allen, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, said she will be talking about Mary and Martha at this morning's service, though it is just a coincidence since her church recognizes no saints. Their story just happens to be part of the regular Methodist lectionary readings.
It is also on the calendar of Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux City, the Rev. Del Olivier, pastor, said
"We look at her, according to the Gospel of John, as the first witness of the resurrection and, in essence then, being an apostle -- 'Go tell the others.' She is the one to bring the news to the men. 'I have seen the Lord.' So it's kind of a cool thing," Olivier said.
He noted that when Mary was living, it was a very patriarchal society, with men viewed first in importance. "And I think that in utilizing Mary Magdalene as the first witness, I think that does bring womanhood up to equal status, if you will," he said.
Vogts said it is significant that Mary Magdalene was also called "the apostle to the apostles," though it doesn't quite put her on equal footing with the 12 apostles. "It's just sort of a way of acknowledging the fact that she was the first witness to the resurrection, and really the first herald of the resurrection," he said.
The significance of that is that the idea that the resurrection story is fabricated or made up is "totally blown away by that because in the ancient world, women were not considered reliable witnesses," he said. "They couldn't testify in court, and that was not the Bible's view of things, but that's the Greek and Roman worlds' view of things. And to make a woman the first witness of the resurrection was ... if you were making the story up, you would never do that in that culture, in that society."
Not an Apostle
But he emphasized that her importance wasn't quite on the same level as that of the 12 Apostles. "She has been traditionally held up not as technically an apostle but as the apostle to the apostles -- literally the one sent to the apostles to tell the Good News; and so that is extraordinary, really," Vogts said.
David Lopez, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City, seconded that motion.
"The apostles have a different status. Not because they were men," he said. "but because they were chosen by Christ to lead the church. So the way in which women exercise in the church is different from the way in which the apostles exercise leadership in the church. It is not because she is a woman that she is not chosen to be an apostle. It's because Christ didn't choose her to be an apostle that she is not an apostle. She's certainly a disciple. She's certainly a saint. She's certainly terribly important in the life of the church, then and now."
As for charges in recent years that Mary and Jesus were married and that she was an ex-prostitute, all those "Da Vinci Code" theories surrounding he popular Dan Brown novel that equate Mary with all sorts of things, Vogts points out that none of these things can be found in the Scriptures.
"Whether or not she was the adulteress woman in John 8, we really don't know. It doesn't say that specifically," Vogts said. "And it says nothing in the Scripture at all that she was a prostitute. That's sort of been an assumption over the years, but it's really not based on Scripture."
Olivier and Lopez agreed.
'We are all sinners'
"To say that she is a former adulteress is not to say anything more against her than we could say about anybody else," Lopez said. "We are all sinners. The point is not that at one time she was a sinner. The point is that when she encountered Christ, she was healed of her sin. And she is St, Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church. She is not 'that woman.'"
He emphasized the important role she played in establishing the church in the first generation of Christ's followers.
"The Bible says that seven demons were cast out of her. But there's nothing about her being a prostitute," Olivier said. "There's just not the biblical evidence to support the idea that she and Jesus were married or even sexually involved."
Olivier noted that Lutherans view sainthood differently than do Roman Catholics. "It's not tied to the number of miracles or whatever," he said. "We consider everyone who is baptized to be a saint."
Pastor Allen said that as a woman, she relishes Mary's place in Christianity. "I think it helps us acknowledge that women were very active and had an active role in being followers of Jesus as well as men," she said. "We view her as a good friend of Jesus. And it's not a part of our tradition that Jesus was married, although we realize that there are ancient traditions that lead that way."
The Rev. Kerry Brown, student ministries pastor at Morningside Assembly of God, Sioux City, also discounted the popular "Da Vinci Code'' notions about Mary Magdalene.
"Really, our church just believes that Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jesus. We don't hold her up as a saint or anything like that as other denominations might," he said. "Certainly the things said about her and Jesus being married or having a sexual relationship or something like that are extrabiblical. I mean, there's no evidence in Scripture that that's true and no implication that that's true."
He said much of the information concerning those theories comes from ancient writings that were produced hundreds of years after the time of Christ -- "nothing that is by any stretch of the imagination credible for an eyewitness account or anything like that."
The Gospel of Mary?
Was there really a Gospel of Mary Magdalene?
There is a Gnostic gospel attributed to her, but there are a few problems concerning its authenticity, said David Lopez, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City.
Gnostic gospels are various collections of writings about the teachings of Jesus, written around the second century. They are not accepted by the Catholic Church as part of its standard biblical canon, though they have spurred a lot of interest in recent years.
'It is very doubtful that she actually wrote it," Lopez said. "It was probably written late in the second century. So she wouldn't have been alive 150 years later. Not too likely."
Lopez said there are tons of spurious gospels. Some he considers "merely spurious" because there is nothing in them contrary to the faith, but they simply aren't among the four primordial ones -- Matthew, Mark , Luke and John. "And then over the next 5 or 600 years, people continued to produce documents called the gospel according to so and so and so and so and so. There are hundreds of them," he said.
Then there are those "so and so" gospels that are written in order to make some theological point that is contrary to a point of faith, he said.
Chief among them is the Gospel of Thomas, from scrolls found buried in a jar from someone's private library outside the village of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1948. The church already had the writings of Irenaeus, a second-century bishop in Lyons, France, and they authenticated the fact that these scrolls found in Egypt were also written 1,900 years earlier. In the bishop's document, he listed point by point what the Gnostics had to say about Jesus and why their writings were false. "And he quotes some of these Gnostic gospels, things like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary," he said.
Then the original Gnostic writings were lost until 1948.
"And his argument is still true," Lopez said of Irenaeus. "It's stall false Christianity."
So there is this Gnostic association with Mary Magdalene because of that. Transcriptions of these gospels were first made available in the 1970s and can even be found these days on the Internet. "So it began to filter into the popular imagination. And now it's a very strong part of that because it's everywhere."
Such reports were bogus, Siouxland Christian leaders say, whether they view her as a saint, a good friend and devoted disciple of Jesus or even the "apostola apostolorum," Latin for the apostle to the apostles.
For those denominations that do consider Mary Magdalene a saint, such as the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, today is Mary's feast day, a time for special observances in recognition of her sainthood and place in the history of early Christianity. It should be noted, though, that Lutherans don't view her as a saint in the same way that Catholics do.
They all agree that she is a prominent character in the Gospels, worthy of respect.
The day that Catholics call a feast day will be observed in most Lutheran churches, said the Rev. Kevin Vogts, pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Dakota Dunes. "This Sunday, because her saint's day falls on a Sunday, that will take precedence over the other readings, and in most congregations, it will be celebrated as St. Mary Magdalene's Day," he said.
The Rev. Nan Allen, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, said she will be talking about Mary and Martha at this morning's service, though it is just a coincidence since her church recognizes no saints. Their story just happens to be part of the regular Methodist lectionary readings.
It is also on the calendar of Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux City, the Rev. Del Olivier, pastor, said
"We look at her, according to the Gospel of John, as the first witness of the resurrection and, in essence then, being an apostle -- 'Go tell the others.' She is the one to bring the news to the men. 'I have seen the Lord.' So it's kind of a cool thing," Olivier said.
He noted that when Mary was living, it was a very patriarchal society, with men viewed first in importance. "And I think that in utilizing Mary Magdalene as the first witness, I think that does bring womanhood up to equal status, if you will," he said.
Vogts said it is significant that Mary Magdalene was also called "the apostle to the apostles," though it doesn't quite put her on equal footing with the 12 apostles. "It's just sort of a way of acknowledging the fact that she was the first witness to the resurrection, and really the first herald of the resurrection," he said.
The significance of that is that the idea that the resurrection story is fabricated or made up is "totally blown away by that because in the ancient world, women were not considered reliable witnesses," he said. "They couldn't testify in court, and that was not the Bible's view of things, but that's the Greek and Roman worlds' view of things. And to make a woman the first witness of the resurrection was ... if you were making the story up, you would never do that in that culture, in that society."
Not an Apostle
But he emphasized that her importance wasn't quite on the same level as that of the 12 Apostles. "She has been traditionally held up not as technically an apostle but as the apostle to the apostles -- literally the one sent to the apostles to tell the Good News; and so that is extraordinary, really," Vogts said.
David Lopez, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City, seconded that motion.
"The apostles have a different status. Not because they were men," he said. "but because they were chosen by Christ to lead the church. So the way in which women exercise in the church is different from the way in which the apostles exercise leadership in the church. It is not because she is a woman that she is not chosen to be an apostle. It's because Christ didn't choose her to be an apostle that she is not an apostle. She's certainly a disciple. She's certainly a saint. She's certainly terribly important in the life of the church, then and now."
As for charges in recent years that Mary and Jesus were married and that she was an ex-prostitute, all those "Da Vinci Code" theories surrounding he popular Dan Brown novel that equate Mary with all sorts of things, Vogts points out that none of these things can be found in the Scriptures.
"Whether or not she was the adulteress woman in John 8, we really don't know. It doesn't say that specifically," Vogts said. "And it says nothing in the Scripture at all that she was a prostitute. That's sort of been an assumption over the years, but it's really not based on Scripture."
Olivier and Lopez agreed.
'We are all sinners'
"To say that she is a former adulteress is not to say anything more against her than we could say about anybody else," Lopez said. "We are all sinners. The point is not that at one time she was a sinner. The point is that when she encountered Christ, she was healed of her sin. And she is St, Mary Magdalene in the Catholic Church. She is not 'that woman.'"
He emphasized the important role she played in establishing the church in the first generation of Christ's followers.
"The Bible says that seven demons were cast out of her. But there's nothing about her being a prostitute," Olivier said. "There's just not the biblical evidence to support the idea that she and Jesus were married or even sexually involved."
Olivier noted that Lutherans view sainthood differently than do Roman Catholics. "It's not tied to the number of miracles or whatever," he said. "We consider everyone who is baptized to be a saint."
Pastor Allen said that as a woman, she relishes Mary's place in Christianity. "I think it helps us acknowledge that women were very active and had an active role in being followers of Jesus as well as men," she said. "We view her as a good friend of Jesus. And it's not a part of our tradition that Jesus was married, although we realize that there are ancient traditions that lead that way."
The Rev. Kerry Brown, student ministries pastor at Morningside Assembly of God, Sioux City, also discounted the popular "Da Vinci Code'' notions about Mary Magdalene.
"Really, our church just believes that Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jesus. We don't hold her up as a saint or anything like that as other denominations might," he said. "Certainly the things said about her and Jesus being married or having a sexual relationship or something like that are extrabiblical. I mean, there's no evidence in Scripture that that's true and no implication that that's true."
He said much of the information concerning those theories comes from ancient writings that were produced hundreds of years after the time of Christ -- "nothing that is by any stretch of the imagination credible for an eyewitness account or anything like that."
The Gospel of Mary?
Was there really a Gospel of Mary Magdalene?
There is a Gnostic gospel attributed to her, but there are a few problems concerning its authenticity, said David Lopez, chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City.
Gnostic gospels are various collections of writings about the teachings of Jesus, written around the second century. They are not accepted by the Catholic Church as part of its standard biblical canon, though they have spurred a lot of interest in recent years.
'It is very doubtful that she actually wrote it," Lopez said. "It was probably written late in the second century. So she wouldn't have been alive 150 years later. Not too likely."
Lopez said there are tons of spurious gospels. Some he considers "merely spurious" because there is nothing in them contrary to the faith, but they simply aren't among the four primordial ones -- Matthew, Mark , Luke and John. "And then over the next 5 or 600 years, people continued to produce documents called the gospel according to so and so and so and so and so. There are hundreds of them," he said.
Then there are those "so and so" gospels that are written in order to make some theological point that is contrary to a point of faith, he said.
Chief among them is the Gospel of Thomas, from scrolls found buried in a jar from someone's private library outside the village of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1948. The church already had the writings of Irenaeus, a second-century bishop in Lyons, France, and they authenticated the fact that these scrolls found in Egypt were also written 1,900 years earlier. In the bishop's document, he listed point by point what the Gnostics had to say about Jesus and why their writings were false. "And he quotes some of these Gnostic gospels, things like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary," he said.
Then the original Gnostic writings were lost until 1948.
"And his argument is still true," Lopez said of Irenaeus. "It's stall false Christianity."
So there is this Gnostic association with Mary Magdalene because of that. Transcriptions of these gospels were first made available in the 1970s and can even be found these days on the Internet. "So it began to filter into the popular imagination. And now it's a very strong part of that because it's everywhere."
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