The Da Vinci Hoax (12)

The Errors - Christian History

Mary Magdalene

Brown presents a number of claims that come from Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Teabing says: "Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene" (p. 248). Along with Jesus' supposed marriage to Mary Magdalene and fathering of a child (p. 255) this is "the greatest cover-up in human history" (p. 249). After Constantine the new patriarchal Church engaged in a "smear campaign," in fact "outlawed speaking of the shunned Mary Magdalene" (p. 261).

1. If Christian leaders were determined to suppress Mary Magdalene's role in their history to the point that "her name was forbidden by the Church" (p. 254), they did a lousy job of it. She is mentioned twelve times in the Gospels. Why was her name not removed when the Church was doing all those alterations to the Bible that The Da Vinci Code claims? Instead she is mentioned more often than most the apostles except Peter and John! The Gospels record her as present at the crucifixion and every Gospel presents her as the first witness to the Empty tomb. The Risen Lord even sends her to the apostles to announce His resurrection. Hippolytus (AD 170-236) therefore calls her the "apostle (apostolos: one sent forth) to the Apostles." The Eastern Church still refers to her by this title.

2. If the Church wished to demonize her again they failed, considering that by the 8th century her feast day had been established (July 22nd) and she was, after the Blessed Virgin, one of the most widely-revered saints of the Middle Ages. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (1978) tells us that "her popularity in England is reflected in the 187 ancient dedications of churches and in her universal appearance in medieval calendars."

3. The popular concept of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute was not a "smear campaign" but due to a conflation of biblical persons by Pope Gregory I. He wrote in AD 591, about two and a half centuries after Nicaea. At the end of Luke 7 there is an episode of an anonymous woman sinner from the city who anointed Christ's feet with oil and wiped them with her hair (vs. 36-50). She was evidently well known as a sinner and so extrapolation made of her being a prostitute. The passage is almost immediately followed by the naming of Mary of Magdala as one of Christ's followers, "out of whom seven devils were gone forth" (Luke 8:2). In John's Gospel Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha (John 11), also anointed Christ's feet with oil and wiped them with her hair (John 12:1-8). Pope Gregory simply combined these three women into one. This melded image of Mary Magdalene became popular in the West but with no evidence of disparagement and never as an official teaching. In the Eastern Church (where Constantine lived and Nicaea is located) they always kept the three women separate. If there was a conspiracy to defame Mary it sure was poorly organized both in terms of timeline and geography.

4. In Brown's book the Priory is hiding the bones of Mary Magdalene from the Church, which sees them as a threat. In the novel they are buried beneath the glass pyramid at the Louvre - a detail I am sure Brown only means for dramatic effect. The Church has never felt threatened by Mary Magdalene nor by her remains. In fact two churches have long claimed major relics: the basilicas at Vezelay, France and at St.-Maximin-la-Ste.-Baume, France. An arm is claimed at Vezelay and a skull at St.-Maximin-la-Ste.-Baume. No one knows if they really belonged to Mary Magdalene. Ironically, it can be said that at least one of Mary Magdalene's bones is at a museum, although not the Louvre. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a reliquary that was made to house one of her teeth.



Icon of St. Mary Magdalene (with Easter egg)

Mary Magdalene in the Gnostic Gospels

Brown refers to the Gnostic Gospel of Philip and Gospel of Mary Magdalene to prove the special status of the Magdalene. In the Gospel of Philip it says, "And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene." The protagonist in Brown's book claims that the word "companion" in this verse literally means "spouse" because that's what the Aramaic word meant in those days (p. 246).

1. The word used for "companion" or "consort" in the Gospel of Philip is the Greek koinonos and it has a number of meanings. It can mean spouse or consort but also simply one-who-accompanies or co-worker. One impartial web-site notes a "conjugal context is almost unprecedented in contemporary texts" (www.magdalene.org). Brown's suggestion the Magdalene and Jesus had a romantic relationship (p. 246) does not align with the majority of scholars in the field. Antti Marjanen, author of the monograph The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents (1996) writes that her role in the Gnostic texts is not established but varies in them. "Not all of them portray Mary Magdalene as the privileged disciple and only in the Gospel of Philip can the idea of her spiritual marriage with Jesus find support." In other words it is only by a very selective use of texts and passages that one can create such an impression.

2. Brown further quotes from Philip that the other disciples were offended because Christ loved Mary more than them "and used to kiss her often on her mouth." This passage (verse 59) is actually incomplete in the Nag Hammadi manuscript - the word "mouth" is not in the text, there being a hole. It is given here according to a common reconstruction. Here is the Patterson Brown translation of the text with bracketed areas indicating missing reconstructed text: "And the consort of the [Christ] is Mariam the Magdalene. The [Lord loved] Mariam more than [all the (other)] Disciples, [and he] kissed her often on her [mouth]." One can wonder if Mary was married to Jesus why his apostles would take offense of him so kissing her? Brown is giving this passage a modern and not a Gnostic interpretation. For in a preceding passage of Philip where kissing occurs, it is described not as an act of romantic love but spiritual nourishment: "For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another. We received conception from the grace which is in one another" (58:30-59:6). In fact, it is from this passage that scholars have reconstructed the missing word in the other. When the disciples ask Jesus why he loves Mary more he does not speak of sexual love but of Mary's spiritual insight into what he is conveying to her (Philip 64:7). In The [Second] Apocalyse of James, another Gnostic text, the risen Jesus imparts his secret mysteries to James by kissing him on the mouth and calling him, "My beloved." It is a non-sexual, symbolic act, Marjanen tells us, demonstrating James' privileged position. In the canonical First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians the apostle tells them to "salute all the brothers with a holy kiss" (1 Thess. 5:26).

3. While one can argue that at least in the two Gnostic documents Brown cites Mary Magdalene is given a special status as the disciple whom Jesus "loved more than all the disciples," that in itself is no indication he made her head of his Church. But even if the documents explicitly said he did it would make no difference. Why? Because these writings are spurious and have no historical link to Christ or His apostles. They are written over a century after Christ's death and resurrection and the founding of the Church. More will be said about this in the appendix to this essay.

4. Interestingly Dan Brown fails to mention the most famous Gnostic document from Nag Hammadi, The Gospel of Thomas. This is the manuscript the controversial Jesus Seminar esteemed as a "fifth Gospel." Its final verse does not fit well with the image Brown is trying to convey of Gnosticism's view of Mary Magdalene or any supposed belief in the sacred feminine. It reads: "Simon Peter said to him, 'Let Mary [Magdalene] leave us, for women are not worthy of life.' Jesus said, 'I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven'" (v. 114). That is certainly an odd way to honour Mary and exalt the status of women!

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