Mary Who?

by Angie Allport.

There are a number of women called Mary in the New Testament. Some of them have not only been confused with each other, but with other women briefly mentioned in the gospels.

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair.[1] (John 12:3a)

Who is the Mary in this reading? From the context, it is probably Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, as the anointing is said to take place in their house in Bethany.

And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.[2] (Luke 7:37-38)

Who is this woman in the house of a pharisee named Simon? Which ‘city’ is Jesus in? His last identified location in Luke’s Gospel was Nain.

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.[3] (Mark 14:3)

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table.[4] (Matthew 26:6-7)

So now we’re back in Bethany at the house of Simon ‘the leper’, who may or may not have also been a pharisee, and the woman is not identified as ‘a sinner’.

Is the unnamed woman Mary Magdalene? There is nothing in the texts to suggest that it is, but she has come to be identified with her. The mistake appears to have been made in the fourth century by Gregory the Great, who identified her as the sinful woman who anointed Jesus, and the idea has been a powerful force since then, even to the extent that Mary Magdalene came to be viewed as a prostitute. You may even have heard this view propounded from the pulpit. Yet there is no justification for identifying the ‘sinner’ from Luke’s account with Mary Magdalene, who appears in the next chapter (Luke 8:2-3) as having been healed from possession by seven demons (i.e. mental illness) and as accompanying Jesus with some other women and the twelve men.  It also says the women supported Jesus from their resources, and Jesus is hardly likely to have lived off the earnings of a prostitute!

Western literature, film, music and art more often than not portray Mary Magdalene as a sinful woman repenting of her (sexual) sins – as an internet search of images of her will show. This was to play into the idea that women are inherently promiscuous and ever in need of repentance. But what do we know of the biblical Mary Magdalene?  Apart from her healing and accompanying Jesus, we find her at the centre of Christ’s passion and resurrection: she is named as being among the women at the foot of the cross and at Jesus’ burial; on Easter day she is portrayed as going to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, an act which she wouldn’t have to perform had she anointed him when he was alive; it was to her whom the risen Jesus revealed himself, and it was Mary Magdalene who was chosen to proclaim that Jesus is alive.

The ’repentant sinner’ was to be sainted by the Church. In 2016, the Roman Catholic Church raised the liturgical celebration honouring Mary Magdalene from a memorial to a feast, putting her on par with the apostles. Her Feast Day is 22^nd July.

Mary Magdalene, of course, is not the only character whose story is not consistent either within or beyond the Biblical texts. Why not, for example, look up the references to Judas Iscariot and see what you make of his story in relation to what you have been taught.

---

[1] The Holy Bible. John 12:3a. New Revised Standard Version: Anglicized Edition (2007). London: Harper Collins.

[2] The Holy Bible. Luke 7:37-38. New Revised Standard Version: Anglicized Edition (2007). London: Harper Collins.

[3] The Holy Bible. Mark 14:3. New Revised Standard Version: Anglicized Edition (2007). London: Harper Collins.

[4] The Holy Bible. Matthew 26:6-7. New Revised Standard Version: Anglicized Edition (2007). London: Harper Collins.