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Mary Magdalene facts for kids

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Saint
Mary Magdalene
Andrea Solario - Mary Magdalen - Walters 37509.jpg
Mary Magdalene (c. 1524) by Andrea Solari, depicting her as a myrrhbearer (artist's fantasy)
Apostle to the Apostles
Born Possibly Magdala, Roman Judea
Venerated in
Canonized Pre-Congregation
Feast July 22
Attributes
  • Western: alabaster box of ointment
  • Eastern: container of ointment (as a myrrhbearer), or holding a red egg (symbol of the resurrection); embracing the feet of Christ after the Resurrection

Mary Magdalene (sometimes called Mary of Magdala, or simply the Magdalene or the Madeleine) was a woman who, according to the four canonical gospels, traveled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion and resurrection. She is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles and more than any other woman in the gospels, other than Jesus' family. Mary's epithet Magdalene may mean that she came from the town of Magdala, a fishing town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Roman Judea.

The Gospel of Luke chapter 8 lists Mary Magdalene as one of the women who traveled with Jesus and helped support his ministry "out of their resources", indicating that she was probably wealthy. The same passage also states that seven demons had been driven out of her, a statement which is repeated in Mark 16. In all the four canonical gospels, Mary Magdalene was a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus and, in the Synoptic Gospels, she was also present at his burial. All the four gospels identified her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women which includes Jesus' mother, as the first to witness the empty tomb, and, either alone or as a member of a group, as the first to witness Jesus' resurrection.

For these reasons, Mary Magdalene is known in some Christian traditions as the "apostle to the apostles". She is a central figure in later Gnostic Christian writings, including the Dialogue of the Savior, the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Mary. These texts portray her as an apostle, as Jesus' closest and most beloved disciple and the only one who truly understood his teachings. Some fiction portrays her as the wife of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene is considered to be a saint by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations. In 2016, Pope Francis raised the level of liturgical memory on July 22 from memorial to feast, and for her to be referred to as the "Apostle of the apostles". Other Protestant churches honor her as a heroine of the faith. The Eastern Orthodox churches also commemorate her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, the Orthodox equivalent of one of the Western Three Marys traditions.

Life

It is widely accepted among secular historians that, like Jesus, Mary Magdalene was a real historical figure. Nonetheless, very little is known about her life. Unlike Paul the Apostle, Mary Magdalene left behind no known writings of her own. She was never mentioned in any of the Pauline epistles or in any of the general epistles. The earliest and most reliable sources about her life are the three Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, which were all written during the first century AD.

The most famous account of Mary Magdalene's legendary life comes from The Golden Legend, a collection of medieval saints stories compiled in around the year 1260 by the Italian writer and Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1230 – 1298). In this account, Mary Magdalene is, in Ehrman's words, "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful", but she gives up her life of wealth to become a devoted follower of Jesus. Fourteen years after Jesus' 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 Sea 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. 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.

Gallery

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: María Magdalena para niños

  • Cathedral of the Madeleine (Salt Lake City, Utah)
  • Jesus' interactions with women
  • La Madeleine, Paris
  • Mary Magdalene, patron saint archive
  • Miriai - Mandaean heroine that some equate with Mary Magdalene
  • New Testament people named Mary
  • Noli me tangere casket
  • Saint Sarah
  • St. Mary Magdalene's flood
  • The Magdalen Reading

Images for kids

  • Dialogue of the Savior

    Fragment of a fourth-century text of the apocryphal Dialogue of the Saviour, in which Mary Magdalene is a central figure

  • Nag Hammadi coptic

    Last page of the Gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi, containing the account of Jesus' reaffirmation of Mary's authority to Peter

  • · Evangelio de Felipe · Codex II, 3 · Biblioteca Copta de Nag Hammadi ·

    Text of the Gospel of Philip from Nag Hammadi

  • Gospel of Mary

    Papyrus Oxyrhynchus L 3525, a fragment of the Greek text of the Gospel of Mary

  • Copiebasiliquereliquaire

    In 1279, the monks of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume said they discovered Mary Magdalene's skeleton. The reliquary at St. Maximin, created in the nineteenth century, contains her purported skull.

  • Maria Magdalene icon

    Eastern Orthodox icon of Mary Magdalene as a Myrrhbearer

  • The Holy Women at the Sepulchre by Peter Paul Rubens

    The Three Marys at the Tomb by Peter Paul Rubens, with Mary Magdalene in red

  • Vasnetsov Maria Magdalene

    Icon of Saint Mary Magdalene depicted as one of the Myrrhbearers with the words "Christ is Risen" in Greek at the top, depicting her discovery of the empty tomb

  • Semiradsky Christ Martha Maria

    Christ with Martha and Mary (1886) by Henryk Siemiradzki, showing the conflated "composite Magdalene" sitting at Jesus' feet while her sister Martha does chores.

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