3.15. Mary Magdalene — Adoration after Deliverance

CHAPTER XV Mary Magdalene — Adoration after Deliverance NO character of history has been more grievously misrepresented by legend than that of Mary Magdalene.

Traditionally treated as the typical penitent weeping for her sins, the Magdalen has given her name to institutions for the recovery of her lost sisters with whose shame there is no reason whatever for associating her character. The unhappy misrepresentation has arisen from a double confusion. First, the “woman that was a sinner” who anointed the feet of Jesus in the Galilean Pharisee’s house is unwarrantably identified with Mary of Bethany; then the two are equally without reason identified with the Mary out of whom Jesus cast seven devils. Each of these stages is reached by a leap of imagination, not by a step on the solid ground of argument. In the first place we have the identification of the ’’woman that was a sinner” with Mary of Bethany. No doubt there is a certain similarity in the accounts of the anointing ascribed to these two women. They both bring ointment in an alabaster cruse; in both cases the name of the proprietor of the house where the anointing takes place is Simon. On both occasions the anointment is poured upon Jesus; in both cases the spectao. ts object to the act of homage. But these are all very superficial resemblances. Alabaster was commonly used in the making of small vessels. Anointing was quite customary — Simon was deficient in hospitality because he neglected it, and the preference of ointment to oil in both cases would simply indicate the more sumptuous rendering of the service. Simon was one of the commonest names among the Jews in the time of Christ. As many as twelve Simons are mentioned in the New Testament. On the other hand the points of diflFerence are many and serious. Luke’s anointing by the “woman that was a sinner” is placed in Galilee some time before the end of our Lord’s ministry; Simon is present as host and he is described as a Pharisee; while the name of the woman who brings the ointment is not given, she is described as “ a sinner “; she weeps over the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her hair; it is His feet that she anoints; the complaint is made by the host, and the ground of it is the character of the person from whom Jesus receives this attention; our Lord’s reply treats of the forgiveness of sins and its consequences, which He illustrates in a parable.

Now look at the very different circumstances in the other case. It is at Bethany, in the last week of our Lord’s ministry; the name of the woman is given as Mary, no word is said against her character, and she is identified as the sister of Martha who is serving at the feast, so that she has a right to be present; the Simon to whom the house belongs is a leper, and there is no hint that he is at the feast; the ointment is described as exceptionally precious; Mary pours her ointment over the head of Jesus, i.e. according to the synoptic account — John has “feet”; the complaint is made by the disciples, or one of them; the ground of it is the waste of the money spent in the costly ointment; in defending His friend Jesus- meets this complaint by accepting the offering as for His burial. With so many and so great divergencies to face, the only way in which we could accept the identification of the two accounts of the anointing would be to follow Schleiermacher in his critical treatment of Luke and allow that the narratives differ, because St. Luke’s is inaccurate. But if that be the case his authority falls to the ground, and we have no reason to apply what he says about the character of the woman in his narrative to Mary of Bethany. A much simpler explanation of the divergencies is to admit that they refer to different events. In the second place there is the identification of Mary of Bethany with the Magdalen. The first step in this identification is the assumption that the two anointings were but one, rr at least were both performed by the same person.

Thus the name Mary comes to be transferred to the “woman that was a sinner.” The Magdalen is also named Mary; she had experienced a great deliverance — for out of her there had been cast seven devils, and in consequence she had become one of the most enthusiastic disciples of Jesus. The first step goes with the separation of the anointings.

We have no reason to conclude that the penitent was named Mary. Demoniacal possession as it appears in the Gospels is marked by the symptoms of brain and nervous diseases, insanity and epilepsy, and these only. It is always kept distinct from what we may regard as the diabolical possession of a soul that is abandoned to moral evil. This double misunderstanding was not known in the early church. It crept in with St. Ambrose in the fourth century, found some favour with St. Augustine, and was fully proclaimed by Pope Gregory two hundred years later. On the authority of Gregory it came to be universally accepted, and thenceforth it was taken for gi-anted throughout the middle I ^es. Thus it was adopted by the great schools of art that grew up in this period; and then in turn the painters further popularised it. A late and quite unhistorical legend sends the Bethany household to sea in a rotten boat at the hands of cruel persecutors. They are miraculously preserved and land near Lfarseilles, where Martha makes many converts and works many miracles, while her sister Mary Magdalene retires to a cave near Aries and spends the remainder of her days in penitence.

It is but one stage further in this region of baseless inr vention to go with the Talmudists who identify Mary the mother of Jesus with the Magdalen, by a strange perversion of the surname, though derived from a possible interpretation of it, giving out that she was a woman hairdresser. From these wild and foolish stories let us turn to the true Mary Magdalene of the Gospels. There is some doubt as to the meaning of her surname. One explanation of it is to derive it from the Hebrew Gadal, which means to plait, so as to get the meaning “hair-plaiter.” Hence wo have “Miriam with the braided locks.” Even this is dis.’^orted into a sign of female vanity, and as pointing to a person of light character. In Christian art the Magdalen appears with long hair — no doubt with a reference to the incident in Simon the Pharisee’s house. But a more probable explanation of the name is that which derives it from the town of Magdala on the west shore of the sea of Galilee, a few miles south of the plain of Gennesareth. Thus she is Mary of Magdala.

There is reason to suppose that Mary Magdalene was in less humble circumstances than most of our Lord’s disciples. Not only is she one of those who maintain the common purse which meets the wants of Jesus and the twelve, but she assumes a certain prominence in the narrati ’g especially towards the end, indicating a place of distinction among the ministering women.

If this surmise is correct, then the contrast between her outward rank and her terrible affliction must have been peculiarly painful. She is introduced by St. Luke, the physician, as “Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.” ^ Her case must have been one of peculiar severity. A similar aggravation of possession is described in the parable of the man who is like a house swept and garnished and empty till the demon who has been dispossessed returns with seven companions worse than himself,^ and in the narrative of the fierce demoniac among the tombs of Gadara who names himself “ Legion,” after the idea of his multitudinous possession, 1 Luk 8:2. Mat 12:43-45.

Whatever this fearful calamity might be, these cases must be reckoned as among its most severe manifestations. Such was the mournful condition of Mary Magdalene. A large part of the healing work of Christ and His apostles was directed to the deliverance of persons who were said to be possessed by demons. Evidently a great number were held to be suffering from this affliction in the time of our Lord. Nor was this class of sufferers confined to that t)eriod. References to them are common in early church history, in Jewish legends and Talmudic writings, and also in pagan literature, though not so frequently as among Christian and Jewish authors. From this widespread evidence it would appear that the centuries about the time of the rise of Christianity were oppressed with a vast terror of demoniacal possession. No greater service could be rendered to society in those days than to cast out demons. The early church had a special order of exorcists entirely devoted to that function.

Now it would be easy to assert that all this is nothing but a monstrous superstition. It has been pointed out that there is little or nothing in the phenomena of possession that does not occur in well-known brain and nerve diseases, with perhaps the addition of hypnotism and thought-transference, in a few cases. That may be said to be the modern medical view of the accounts that have come down to us. If we admit it we do not deny the misery of the afflicted persons who certainly thought themf”«^lve3 to be possessed, and we must still perceive the greatness of the works of healing performed by Jesus Christ and by His disciples on the strength of His name. For the sufferers were cured. Mary Magdalene was delivered, whatever may be the scientific account of her affliction, and the greatness of the deliverance redounded to the glory of the Deliverer.

Further, it is not at all unreasonable to allow that Jesus would have effected these cures on the Unes of the prevalent belief. This would be the best way of approaching the sufferers, since they were firmly convinced that they were actually inhabited and controlled by evil spirits with a personality distinct from their own. Besides, it was not the mission of Jesus Christ to anticipate the pathological discoveries of the nineteenth century any more than it was His mission to reveal the truths of modern astronomy and geology. He moved in the atmosphere of His time.

If He had not done so He could not have been the Son of Man for His own age as well as for the future. He could not have been understood, and He would have been regarded as quite out of sympathy with His contemporaries. Whatever may be our modern notions about the symptoms which were formerly regarded as signs of demoniacal possession, the only possibility in the time of Christ was that they should be spoken of and treated according to the universal belief about them.

Still let us beware of dogmatism. The dogmatism of religion is outworn; what we are now subject to is the dogmatism of science. The latest results of science are pressed upon us as absolute verities. But consider this very significant fact. No work of science that is ten years old is held to be valid. Science is perpetually superseding science. Then how can we believe that the latest of its wave-marks will not be washed out by a still higher tide, as was the case with all preceding ones? The advance of science is simply magnificent, but it is advance in a line the end of which we do not yet see, and meanwhile, like the mythological Saturn, science is perpetually devouring ibi own children. Can we be so sure that there is no dark spiritual secret behind the phenomena which our medical men now ascribe to nerve and brain disorders. The whole subject is exceedingly obscure, as the doctors themselves admit. Perhaps we shall be told some day that later discoveries are bringing us back to beliefs which a crude half-science had abandoned too hastily. This is not a subject for scorn and arrogance. The mystery of it is too great. And now, however we may account for the terrible trouble with which Mary Magdalene had been afflicted, when she- first appears in the gospel story she is in her right mind and found among the most devoted women who give their property and much of their time for the service of Jesus Christ. She travels with the little band of ministering women. And all the while the memory of that dark and dreadful past is with her — not as a cloud and a terror — she is too completely emancipated — but rather as an inspiration of never-failing gratitude. And yet we must not think of Mary as simply indulging in emotionalism. With her deep feelings she is also a woman of action. First she joins the band of ministering women. Possibly of ampler means than the majority of them, she becomes the chief support of the travelling company. The other women gather round her as a person of some position, and the fascination of her character does more to secure her a prominent place among them than her mere superiority in social position. But common devotion to Jesus unites the sisterhood as one family, from Joanna the court lady to Salome the fisherman’s wife; and if the Magdalen has wealth that some do not possess, she does not dream of joining herself especially to Joanna, patronising the humbler women. It is a united band of loyal disciples. In the company of these attendant women Mary Magdalene travels up to Jerusalem on that last dread journey, which, Jpsus had told them, was to His death. She is of the group of those who stand afar off watching the crucifixion. In every list of these women given by the synoptic evangelists her name comes first.^ It would seem, therefore, Mat 27:56; Mark 15:40; Luk 23:55 compared with 24:10. In John, however, the mother of Jesus stands first and the Magdalen last (John 19:25) that here also Mary Magdalene may have taken the lead among the women. Perhaps it was her devotion that encouraged the others to be present at the execution, though womanly instinct would naturally shrink from the appalling spectacle. A fearful fascination draws the Magdalen to the fatal spot, and she brings her companions with her. There is nothing to be done. But if their presence were perceived by the sufferer it would afford that solace of sympathy for which His soul had more than once craved in vain. We cannot quite bring the various accounts into agreement on this point. The Synoptics place the women “ afar off “; St. John at the foot of the cross. His mother must have been close at hand when Jesus committed her to the charge of the beloved disciple.

We shall never be able to settle some of these minor details. But of course it in quite possible that both accounts are correct; that the women were first at a distance, and then as the darkness gathered and the agony grew more intense, crept up closer till they actually found themselves among the soldiers near the foot of the cross.

It is not the custom of the evangelists to describe the feelings of the various personages of their narratives, and in this case, as usual, they content themselves with a bare recital of the facts, leaving all else to conjecture. That those six hours of mortal agony on the cross must have rent the soul of a woman of Mary’s excitable nature goes without saying. One consequence that might have been feared did not ensue. We might have supposed that so severe a strain would have occasioned a return of Mary’s dreadful malady; it was enough to have unhinged the reason of a person who had not passed through her sad experience. But nothing of the kind occurred. The cure had been perfectly effective, and its results were permanent and capable of withstanding the greatest shock. So Mary was able to watch the last moments and hear the awful cry with which the spirit of her Lord took its flight, and remain herself.

After this she took her share with the other women in preparing the spices for the entombment. With her companions in grief she rested through that most mournful Sabbath the world has ever known, the Sabbath that knew only a dead Christ. For Mary the tension of waiting in the depths of despair must have been exceptionably trying.

Yet she lived through this also, and still retained her reason. At length the dreary Sabbath has dragged out its course, the following night is over — the most eventful night in the history of the world, though as yet nobody knows of its great event. And now at length it is possible to set out for the tomb with the spices that are to be used in the last ministry of love. Here again we meet with some difficulty in fitting together the several accounts of the evangelists. Was the sun already risen when the women reached the tomb, as St. Mark asserts? ^ Or was it still dark, as St. John says 1^ Or do the synoptic accounts and that of the fourth gospel refer to different events? They are very different in their further details. In the Synoptics Mary Magdalene comes with the other women; in the fourth gospel she is alone.

St. John’s account is very full and explicit, and it is with this that we have to do now. Possibly, as has been suggested, though the women set out together, the Magdalen in her eagerness outran the other women, reaching the garden while it was still dark, and having then her own private sight of the empty tomb; after which she may have gone back another way in search of Peter and John, so that she was not met by the women whom she had left on the road earlier. Thus when they came to the tomb, later in the morning after the sun was up, they were still in ignorance of what had happened, and amazed at discovering that the stone had been rolled away. Then after their departure Mary may have returned with the two disciples. This seems to be the simplest reconciliation of the divergent accounts, though it must be admitted that it does not entirely clear up the difficulties. The Synoptics drop no hint as to the division of the party; but then they may not have known of it. St. John gives us no idea that Mary was accompanied by other women when ghe set out from the city; but then while he knew these earlier gospels, his sole purpose was to supply his own special information.

We cannot understand how the women would have been so long on the road, that though Mary was able to reach the tomb while it was yet dark, they did not arrive till after sunrise. Some of them may have gone for more spices on the way; and wo must remember that the dawn and twilight in more southern latitudes are shorter than with us. Still we need not concern ourselves with these small details. We can allow of the discrepancies and yet retain all that is essential to the narrative; and it is wiser to do so than to throw the whole into a haze of uncertainty by straining at forced explanations. Our business now is to follow the course of Mary Magdalene. It is St. John, as we have seen, who gives us the account of her adventure. First she was distressed at finding the tomb empty. In regard to that important fact, it is to be remarked in passing, all the four evangelists are unanimous. Mary at once concludes that somebody must have rifled the tomb and stolen her Lord’s body. Who the body-snatcher might be she cannot guess, nor can she have any notion as to the motive for this sacrilege.

It might have been the work of some peculiarly malignant enemy bent on distressing the Galileans, by depriving them of the comfort of performing the last offices for the dead.

Mary cannot stay to think now. The news is too momentous to be kept a secret; and the startled woman runs back at once to tell the two principal disciples. It would seem that she had to look them up in separate places, the language of the evangelist suggesting that she went first to St. Peter and then to “ the other disciple.” ^ To both her message was the same: “ They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid Him.” That word “ we “ rather than *’ I “ may imply that after all Mary had been accompanied by the other women at this first visit to the tomb. Else why did she use the plural pronoun 1 But we cannot clear up this point.

Mary’s news was alarming, and the two disciples ran off at once to ascertain the facts for themselves. She also returned, and after the two had visited the tomb and gone away, awed and perplexed at what they had seen, Mary still stood there weeping. She could not tear herself away.

Bewildered, distressed, despairing, there was nothing for her to do but weep; there was nowhere for her to go, for no place had any comfort. The barbarism of this supposed outrage would be most terrible; but it is not that so much as the fact of the loss of the body that most troubles Mary.

Presently, still weeping, Mary stoops and looks into the tomb. Is it just possible that she has been mistaken before in the darkness, and that the dear body is still peaceably resting on its last bed, that cold, hard bed of rock? She is amazed at the sight of what she had not discovered in the shock of disappointment that came to her on the occasion of her first visit. Then she had only observed the one supreme fact that Jesus was not in the tomb. Now she sees two angels in white, one sitting at the head, the other at the foot of the grave. The statement that they are in white seems to imply that visions of angels did not generally assume this guise; and most descriptions of angel visits given in the Bible suggest that the appearance was very like that of men in their ordinary attire. But this is exceptional. And yet Mary does not seem to be very much startled. She does not behave in the least like the other women when they saw the young man sitting in the tomb, and fled in terror. She is too dazed to be capable of further astonishment, too overwhelmed with sorrow to have anything worse to fear. The angels are comforters. They ask her why sho weeps. It is because her Lord has been taken away, and she knows not where they have laid Him, Then she turns. Did she hear a sound? Or was she moved by that vague, undefinable sense that somebody is near, although as yet no sign of His presence has been given? There is some one; and as soon as she sees Him He speaks to her, repeating the angels’ question — Why is she weeping? and then adding the further question, Whom is she seeking?

We cannot tell why Mary did not at once see that it was Jesus who was speaking to her. And yet her want of perception is not so very mysterious. She was not in the mood to notice anybody through the veil of her tears. When the soul is absorbed with its own internal feeling of sorrow the faculties of observation are not very keen. And Jesus alive was the very last person Mary expected to see when she was engaged in the search for His dead body. She took the Speaker for the gardener, the most likely person to be found in this private enclosure so early in the day. When Jesus was crucified He was stripped of His clothes, the Romans allowing no clothing to the victim of the cross except the loin-cloth — the suhligatulum. But this was all that labourers wore at their work in the hot climate of Palestine. If Jesus had appeared just as He would have been after leaving the burial bandages behind in the tomb, He would have looked like a man prepared for his work. But this was very different from His appearance with tunic and cloak as Mary had been accustomed to see Him in the old days. It was quite natural, therefore, that in her present distracted condition of mind, not looking up to the face of the Speaker, Mary should take Him for the gardener whom in outward appearance He resembled.

Mary catches at a sudden suggestion. Perhaps it was this gardener who had removed the body.. If so would he tell her where he had conveyed it, that she might go and fetch it away 1 It is amazing that an imaginative French critic should have contrived to found on this simple remark a theory that Mary actually had carried the body of Jesus in her own arms out of the tomb in order to occasion the belief that He had risen. As if it could have been possible for a woman to perform such a feat. And then how could she have disposed of the corpse 1 This strange attempt to resolve the foundation of the Christian belief in the resurrection into a piece of fraud perpetrated by a hysterical woman is only worth mentioning to illustrate the difficulty of explaining the narratives of that event on any other hypothesis than the simple one that it really did occur. Of course Mary could talk of fetching the body if she meant having it conveyed. But we must not weigh the words of passionate grief too exactly. A word is enough to open her eyes. “ Mary! “ It is her own name in the old tone. With a flash of consciousness she suddenly perceives the amazing truth. “My Master! “ she answers, and is about to fling herself on Him in the enthusiasm of her joy.

“Touch Me not,” He says, “for I am not yet ascended unto the Father “ — a strange repulse that has given rise to not a few fantastic conjectures, as that Jesus still felt the pain of His wounds, or that the process of transformation from the natural body to the spiritual not yet being completed He shrank from contact in the transitional condition. A simple explanation is to translate the Greek liaptou that we have rendered “touch” by the English word “hold.”

There is no occasion for holding Jesus in order not to lose Him, because the ascension is not yet. But though this meaning of the word is met with frequently in literature it is not common in the New Testament. Indeed it cannot be proved to have ever occurred there. Another interpretation is, “Do not cling to Me; but go and tell the good news of My resurrection to the others.” This is suggested by the conclusion of our Lord’s words, in which He lays the command on Mary. But it is open to the same objection — namely, that it requires a meaning of the Greek word that is doubtfully if ever found in the New Testament. Following the common New Testament meaning we must retain the idea of Noli me tangere. How this is to be understood we cannot quite say. Perhaps out of the many offered explanations the best is that which points to the most intimate fellowship with Christ as only possible after the resurrection. In the wild excitement of her joy at the recovery of her Lord this passionate woman would embrace Him as she had never dared to do during His earthly life. He draws aside. Not yet. But when He is ascended, when He has passed into the spiritual world, when He is completely with His Father, then the most absolutely unfettered communion will be possible. Thus His ascension, instead of being a departure, is really a drawing near to His people. It is a passing into that unseen but spiritual world where the closest contact is always possible. With this assurance Mary must be content, and live in hope as she goes forth with the joyous news she is commissioned to carry to the disciples whom her Lord now calls His brethren.