Patristic era of the
Dura-Europos church dates to and contains the oldest surviving depiction of Mary Magdalene. She is shown alongside two other women (the third now almost completely missing due to extensive damage), each holding a lit torch and a bowl of
myrrh, as they approach
Jesus's tomb, which is still sealed. Most of the earliest
Church Fathers do not mention Mary Magdalene, and those who do mention her usually only discuss her very briefly. In his anti-Christian polemic
The True Word, written between 170 and 180, the pagan philosopher
Celsus declared that Mary Magdalene was nothing more than "a hysterical female... who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and through wishful thinking had a hallucination due to some mistaken notion (an experience which has happened to thousands), or, which is more likely, wanted to impress others by telling this fantastic tale, and so by this cock-and-bull story to provide a chance for other beggars". The Church Father
Origen ( 184 – 253) defended Christianity against this accusation in his apologetic treatise
Against Celsus, mentioning , which lists Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" both seeing the resurrected Jesus, thus providing a second witness. Origen also preserves a statement from Celsus that some Christians in his day followed the teachings of a woman named "Mariamme", who is almost certainly Mary Magdalene. Origen merely dismisses this, remarking that Celsus "pours on us a heap of names". A sermon attributed to
Hippolytus of Rome ( 170 – 235) refers to Mary of Bethany and her sister
Martha seeking Jesus in the garden like Mary Magdalene in , indicating a conflation between Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene. The sermon describes the conflated woman as a "second
Eve" who compensates for the disobedience of the first Eve through her obedience. The sermon also explicitly identifies Mary Magdalene and the other women as "apostles". The first clear identification of Mary Magdalene as a redeemed sinner comes from
Ephrem the Syrian ( 306 – 373). Part of the reason for the identification of Mary Magdalene as a sinner may derive from the reputation of her birthplace, Magdala, which, by the late first century, was infamous for its inhabitants' alleged vice and licentiousness. In one of his preserved sayings,
Gregory of Nyssa ( 330 – 395) identifies Mary Magdalene as "the first witness to the resurrection, that she might set straight again by her faith in the resurrection, what was turned over in her transgression".
Ambrose ( 340 – 397), by contrast, not only rejected the conflation of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the anointing sinner, but even proposed that the authentic Mary Magdalene was, in fact, two separate people: one woman named Mary Magdalene who discovered the empty tomb and a different Mary Magdalene who saw the risen Christ.
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) entertained the possibility that Mary of Bethany and the unnamed sinner from Luke might be the same person, but did not associate Mary Magdalene with either of them. Instead, Augustine praised Mary Magdalene as "unquestionably... surpassingly more ardent in her love than these other women who had administered to the Lord".
Portrayal as a prostitute The portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a
prostitute began in 591, when
Pope Gregory I identified Mary Magdalene, who was introduced in Luke 8:2, with
Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:39) and the unnamed "sinful woman" who
anointed Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36–50. Pope Gregory's Easter sermon resulted in a widespread belief that Mary Magdalene was a repentant prostitute or promiscuous woman. This composite depiction of Mary Magdalene was carried into the Mass texts for her
feast day: in the
Tridentine Mass, the
collect identifies her as Mary of Bethany by describing Lazarus as her brother, and the Gospel is the story of the penitent woman anointing Jesus's feet.
Eastern Orthodox churches believed Mary was a disciple, and believed that after the Resurrection she lived as a companion to Mary the mother of Jesus. The
Benedictine Order always celebrated Mary of Bethany together with Martha and Lazarus of Bethany on July 29, while Mary Magdalene was celebrated on July 22. John Chrysostom in the East (
Matthew, Homily 88), and Ambrose (
De virginitate 3,14; 4,15) in the West, when speaking of Mary Magdalene after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, suggest she was a virgin. Gregory states that Mary Magdalene was buried in the city of Ephesus.
Modestus, the
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem from 630 until 634, describes a tradition that Mary Magdalene had come to Ephesus to live with the apostle John following the death of Mary the mother of Jesus.
High Middle Ages Fictional biographies Starting in early
High Middle Ages, writers in western Europe began developing elaborate fictional biographies of Mary Magdalene's life. Stories about
noble saints were popular during this time period; accordingly, tales of Mary Magdalene's wealth and social status became exaggerated. In the tenth century,
Odo of Cluny ( 880 – 942) wrote a sermon in which he described Mary as an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman of royal descent. Some manuscripts of the sermon record that Mary's parents were named Syrus and Eucharia and one manuscript goes into detail, portraying her family as having land holdings in Bethany, Jerusalem, and Magdala. The theologian
Honorius Augustodunensis ( 1080 – 1151) wrote that Mary was a wealthy noblewoman who was married in "Magdalum", but that she committed adultery, so she fled to Jerusalem and became a "public sinner" (
vulgaris meretrix). Honorius said that, out of love for Jesus, Mary repented and withdrew into a life of quiet isolation. Under the influence of stories about other female saints, such as
Mary of Egypt and
Pelagia, painters in Italy during the ninth and tenth centuries gradually began to develop the image of Mary Magdalene living alone in the desert as a penitent
ascetic. This portrayal became popular and quickly spread to Germany and England. From the twelfth century, Abbot Hugh of Semur (died 1109), Peter Abelard (died 1142), and Geoffrey of Vendôme (died 1132) all referred to Mary Magdalene as the sinner who merited the title
apostolorum apostola (Apostle to the Apostles), with the title becoming commonplace during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Belief of burial in France In western Europe, elaborate and conflicting legends began to develop, which said that Mary Magdalene had travelled to southern France and died there. Starting in around 1050, the monks of the
Vézelay Abbey of la Madaleine in Burgundy said they discovered Mary Magdalene's actual skeleton. At first, the existence of the skeleton was asserted, but, in 1265, the monks publicly announced that they had discovered it and, in 1267, the bones were brought before the king of France, who venerated them. On December 9, 1279, an excavation ordered by
Charles II, King of Naples at
Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Provence, led to the discovery of another burial, said by them to be of Mary Magdalene. According to them, the shrine was found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden. Charles II commissioned the building of a new
gothic basilica on the site and, in return for providing accommodation for
pilgrims, the town's residents were exempt from taxes. Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume gradually displaced
Vézelay in popularity and acceptance. said they discovered Mary Magdalene's skeleton. The
reliquary at St. Maximin, created in the nineteenth century, contains her purported skull.
The Golden Legend Elevation of Mary Magdalene with angels raising her in
SS. Johns' Cathedral in
Toruń The most famous account of Mary Magdalene's legendary life comes from
The Golden Legend, a collection of medieval saints' stories compiled circa 1260 by the Italian writer and
Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine ( 1230 – 1298). In this account, Mary Magdalene is, in Ehrman's words, "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual", but she gives up her life of wealth and sin to become a devoted follower of Jesus. Fourteen years after Jesus's crucifixion, some pagans throw Mary, Martha,
Lazarus who, in this account, is their brother due to a conflation with Mary of Bethany, and two other Christians named
Maximin and Cedonius onto a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean to die. Miraculously, however, the boat washes ashore at
Marseille in southern France. Mary persuades the governor of the city not to offer sacrifices to a pagan god and later persuades him to convert to Christianity after she proves the Christian God's power by successfully praying to Him to make the governor's wife pregnant. The governor and his wife sail for Rome to meet the apostle Peter in person, but their ship is struck by a storm, which causes the wife to go into labor. The wife dies in childbirth and the governor leaves her on an island with the still-living infant at her breast. The governor spends two years with Peter in Rome and, on his way home, he stops at the same island to discover that, due to Mary Magdalene's miraculous long-distance intercession, his child has survived for two years on his dead mother's breast milk. Then the governor's wife rises from the dead and tells him that Mary Magdalene has brought her back. The whole family returns to Marseille, where they meet Mary again in person. Mary herself spends the last thirty years of her life alone as a penitent ascetic in a cave in a desert in the French region of
Provence. At every
canonical hour, the angels come and lift her up to hear their songs in Heaven. On the last day of her life, Maximin, now the bishop of
Aix, comes to her and gives her the Eucharist. Mary cries tears of joy and, after taking it, she lies down and dies. De Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of Mary Magdalene's relics from her sepulchre in the
oratory of Saint Maximin at
Aix-en-Provence to the newly founded
Vézelay; the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard,
Duke of Burgundy.
Spouse of John the Evangelist The monk and historian
Domenico Cavalca ( 1270 – 1342), citing
Jerome, suggested that Mary Magdalene was
betrothed to
John the Evangelist: "I like to think that the Magdalene was the spouse of John, not affirming it... I am glad and blythe that St Jerome should say so." They were sometimes thought to be the couple at the
Wedding at Cana, though the Gospel accounts say nothing of the ceremony being abandoned. In the
Golden Legend, De Voragine dismisses talk of John and Mary being betrothed and John leaving his bride at the altar to follow Jesus as nonsense. A document, possibly written by Ermengaud of
Béziers, undated and anonymous, attached to his
Treatise against Heretics, makes a similar statement: In the middle of the fourteenth century, a Dominican friar wrote a biography of Mary Magdalene in which he described her brutally mutilating herself after giving up prostitution, clawing at her legs until they bled, tearing out clumps of her hair, and beating her face with her fists and her breasts with stones. This portrayal of her inspired the sculptor
Donatello ( 1386 – 1466) to portray her as a gaunt and beaten ascetic in his wooden sculpture
Penitent Magdalene ( 1454) for the
Florence Baptistery. In 1449,
King René d'Anjou gave to
Angers Cathedral the
amphora from
Cana in which Jesus changed water to wine, acquiring it from the nuns of Marseilles, who told him that Mary Magdalene had brought it with her from Judea, relating to the legend where she was the jilted bride at the wedding after which John the Evangelist received his calling from Jesus.
Reformation and Counter-Reformation '' (1617) by
Peter Paul Rubens is a typical example of how Mary Magdalene was portrayed during the
Baroque era, emphasizing her erotic allure and blurring the lines between religious and
erotic art. In 1517, on the brink of the
Protestant Reformation, the leading French
Renaissance humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published his book
De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi disceptatio (
Disputation on Mary Magdalene and the Three Days of Christ), in which he argued against the conflation of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the unnamed sinner in Luke. Various authors published a flurry of books and pamphlets in response, the vast majority of which opposed Lefèvre d'Étaples. Luther, whose views on sexuality were much more liberal than those of his fellow reformers, reportedly once joked to a group of friends that "even pious Christ himself" had committed adultery three times: once with Mary Magdalene, once with the
Samaritan woman at the well, and once with
woman taken in adultery. Because the cult of Mary Magdalene was inextricably associated with the Catholic teaching of the
intercession of saints, it came under particularly harsh criticism by Protestant leaders. Zwingli demanded for the cult of Mary Magdalene to be abolished and all images of her to be destroyed.
John Calvin (1509–1564) not only rejected the composite Magdalene, Estates of nobles and royalty in southern Germany were equipped with small, modest
hermitages called "Magdalene cells" that functioned as both chapels and dwellings, where the nobility could retreat to find religious solace. They were usually located in wild areas away from the rest of the property and their exteriors were designed to suggest vulnerability.
Modern era Because of the legends saying that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute, she became the patroness of "wayward women", and, in the eighteenth century, moral reformers established
Magdalene asylums to help save women from prostitution.
Edgar Saltus's historical fiction novel
Mary Magdalene: A Chronicle (1891) depicts her as a heroine living in a castle at Magdala, who moves to Rome becoming the "toast of the tetrarchy", telling
John the Baptist she will "drink pearls... sup on peacock's tongues".
Peter Julian Eymard, a Catholic priest and saint, called her "the patroness and model of a life spent in the adoration and service of Jesus in the sacrament of His Love". The common identification of Mary Magdalene with other New Testament figures was omitted in the
1969 revision of the
General Roman Calendar, with the comment regarding her
liturgical celebration on July 22: "No change has been made in the title of today's
memorial, but it concerns only Saint Mary Magdalene, to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection. It is not about the sister of Saint Martha, nor about the sinful woman whose sins the Lord forgave." Elsewhere it said of the Roman liturgy of July 22 that "it will make mention neither of Mary of Bethany nor of the sinful woman of Luke 7:36–50, but only of Mary Magdalene, the first person to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection". According to historian Michael Haag, these changes were a admission from the Vatican that the Church's previous teaching of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute had been wrong. Mary of Bethany's feast day and that of her brother Lazarus is now on July 29, the memorial of their sister Martha. The view of Mary as a repentant prostitute grew more prevalent in popular culture. She is portrayed as one in
Martin Scorsese's 1988 film adaptation of
The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus, as he is dying on the cross, has a vision from
Satan of what it would be like if he married Mary Magdalene and raised a family with her instead of dying for humanity's sins. Mary is likewise portrayed as a reformed prostitute in
Andrew Lloyd Webber and
Tim Rice's 1971
rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. In
Superstar, Mary describes her sexual attraction to Jesus in the song "
I Don't Know How to Love Him", which shocked many of the play's original viewers.
Ki Longfellow's novel
The Secret Magdalene (2005) draws on the
Gnostic gospels and other sources to portray Mary as a brilliant and dynamic woman who studies at the fabled
library of Alexandria, and shares her knowledge with Jesus.
Lady Gaga's song "
Judas" (2011) is sung from Mary's perspective, portraying her as a prostitute who is "beyond repentance". The 2018 film
Mary Magdalene, starring
Rooney Mara as the eponymous character, sought to reverse the portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, while also arguing against statements of her being Jesus's wife or sexual partner. Instead, the film portrays her as Jesus's closest disciple and the only one who truly understands his teachings. This portrayal is partially based on the Gnostic
Gospel of Mary Magdalene. The film, which has been described as having a "strongly feminist bent", was praised for its music score and cinematography, its faithfulness to the Biblical narrative, and its acting, but was criticized as slow-moving, overwritten, and too solemn to be believable. It was also criticized by many Christians, who were offended by the film's use of extracanonical source material.
In Western art , showing her as a penitent The early belief of Mary Magdalene as a sinner and adulteress was reflected in Western medieval Christian art, where she was the most commonly depicted female figure after the
Virgin Mary. She may be shown either as extravagantly and fashionably dressed, unlike other female figures wearing contemporary styles of clothes, or alternatively as completely naked but covered by very long blonde or reddish-blonde hair. The latter depictions represent the "Penitent Magdalene" motif, according to the medieval legend that she had spent a period of repentance as a desert hermit after leaving her life as a follower of Jesus. Her story became conflated in the West with that of
Mary of Egypt, a fourth-century prostitute turned hermit, whose clothes wore out and fell off in the desert. The widespread artistic representations of Mary Magdalene in tears are the source of the modern English word
maudlin, meaning "sickeningly sentimental or emotional". In medieval depictions Mary's long hair entirely covers her body and preserves her modesty, supplemented in some German versions such as one by
Tilman Riemenschneider by
thick body hair, but, from the sixteenth century, some depictions, like those by
Titian, show part of her naked body, the amount of nudity tending to increase in successive periods. When covered, she often wears a drape pulled around her, or an undergarment. In particular, Mary is often shown nude in the legendary scene of her "Elevation", where she is sustained in the desert by angels who raise her up and feed her heavenly manna, as recounted in the
Golden Legend. Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion appears in an eleventh-century English manuscript "as an expressional device rather than a historical motif", intended as "the expression of an emotional assimilation of the event, that leads the spectator to identify himself with the mourners". Other isolated depictions occur, but, from the thirteenth century, additions to the Virgin Mary and
John as the spectators at the Crucifixion become more common, with Mary Magdalene as the most frequently found, either kneeling at the foot of the cross clutching the shaft, sometimes kissing Christ's feet, or standing, usually at the left and behind Mary and John, with her arms stretched upwards towards Christ in a gesture of grief, as in a damaged painting by
Cimabue in the
Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi of 1290. A kneeling Magdalene by
Giotto in the
Scrovegni Chapel, 1305 was especially influential. As Gothic painted crucifixions became complex compositions, the Magdalene became a prominent figure, with a halo and identifiable by her long blonde hair, and usually a bright red dress. As the
swooning Virgin Mary became more common, generally occupying the attention of John, the unrestrained gestures of Magdalene increasingly represented the main display of the grief of the spectators. According to Robert Kiely, "No figure in the Christian Pantheon except Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist has inspired, provoked, or confounded the imagination of painters more than the Magdalene." Apart from the Crucifixion, Mary was often shown in scenes of the
Passion of Jesus, when mentioned in the Gospels, such as the Crucifixion,
Christ Carrying the Cross and
Noli me Tangere, but usually omitted in other scenes showing the
Twelve Apostles, such as the
Last Supper, in which she did not appear in the biblical accounts. As Mary of Bethany, she is shown as present at the
Resurrection of Lazarus, her brother, and in the
scene with Jesus and her sister
Martha, which began to be depicted often in the seventeenth century, as in
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by
Velázquez.
Gallery , Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene: Mary Magdalene Speaking to the Angels 1320s , Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene: Noli me tangere, 1320s|left , Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene: Mary Magdalene's Voyage to Marseilles, 1320s|center , Scenes from the Life of Mary Magdalene: The Hermit Zosimus Giving a Cloak to Magdalene, 1320s (1505)|left , Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (1625) , The Penitent Mary Magdalene (17th century) File:Angelico, noli me tangere.jpg|
Noli me tangere ( 1440 – 1442), fresco by
Fra Angelico File:María Magdalena leyendo, por Piero di Cosimo.jpg|
Mary Magdalene Reading ( 1500 – 1510) by
Piero di Cosimo File:Tizian 050.jpg|
Noli me tangere ( 1512) by
Titian File:Ambrosius Benson - Mary Magdalene - WGA1890.jpg|
Mary Magdalene (early 1500s) by
Ambrosius Benson File:Giampietrino Magdalena penitente Hermitage.jpg|
Magdalena Penitente (early 1500s) by
Giampietrino File:Maino Magdalena penitente 1615 col par Ginebra.jpg|
Mary Magdalene (1615) by
Juan Bautista Maíno File:El Greco - The Penitent Magdalene - Google Art Project.jpg|
Penitent Magdalene ( 1576 – 1578) by
El Greco File:Artemisia Gentileschi Mary Magdalene Pitti.jpg|
Mary Magdalene (1615–1616 or 1620–1625) by
Artemisia Gentileschi File:Lille Pdba rubens marie madeleine.JPG|
St Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy ( 1619 – 1620) by
Peter Paul Rubens File:José de Ribera 024.jpg|
Mary Magdalene (1641) by
José de Ribera File:Georges de La Tour - Magdalen of Night Light - WGA12337.jpg|
Magdalene with the Smoking Flame ( 1640) by
Georges de La Tour File:Pietro da Cortona - Cristo appare a Maria Maddalena.jpg|
Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalene (between 1640 and 1650) by
Pietro da Cortona File:George Romney - Lady Hamilton as The Magdalene.jpg|
The Magdalene (before 1792) by
George Romney File:Mariya Magdalena.jpg|
Mary Magdalene (1858–1860) by
Frederick Sandys File:Alfred Stevens (1823–1906) - Maria Magdalena - 1887 - MSK Gent 17-03-2009 12-18-27.JPG|
Sarah Bernhardt as
Maria Magdalena (1887) by
Alfred Stevens File:Albert Edelfelt - Christ and Mary Magdalene, a Finnish Legend - Google Art Project.jpg|
Christ and Mary Magdalene (1890) by
Albert Edelfelt in a Finnish locale File:Carlo Marochetti, La Madeleine du groupe sculptural le Ravissement de sainte Marie-Madeleine. 1843. Marbre. Maître-autel de l'église de la Madeleine de Paris. Photo, Jamie Mulherron.jpg|
The Ecstasy of Mary Magdalene (1843) by
Carlo Marochetti, located in
La Madeleine , Maddalena (1832)|left
In music • The Byzantine composer
Kassia wrote the only penitential hymn for Mary Magdalene,
Kyrie hē en pollais. •
Marc-Antoine Charpentier: •
Magdalena lugens voce sola cum symphonia, H.343 & H.343 a, motet for 1 voice, 2 treble instruments and continuo (1686–1687). •
For Mary Magdalene, H.373, motet for 2 voices, 2 flutes and continuo (date unknown). •
Magdalena lugens, H.388, motet for 3 voices and continuo (date unknown). •
Dialogus inter Magdalena et Jesum 2 vocibus Canto e Alto cum organo, H.423, for 2 voices and continuo (date unknown). • Croatian singer
Doris Dragović represented
Croatia in the
Eurovision Song Contest 1999 with the song "
Marija Magdalena" () where it finished in fourth place with 118 points. The track also served as the lead single from Dragović's twelfth studio album, titled
Krajem vijeka. Within Croatia and
Balkan, the song achieved significant popularity and emerged as one of her most prominent songs. • American recording artist
Lady Gaga assumes the role of Mary Magdalene, whom she found a "feminine force", in her 2011 song "
Bloody Mary". • English singer-songwriter
FKA Twigs released album
Magdalene in 2019, saying that she related to the way Mary Magdalene's narrative was revised. • The French metal band Mürrmürr released an EP titled Magdala, which centers on the figure of Mary Magdalene. ==Religious views and veneration==