59 Fun Facts About Mary Magdalene

Magdala, Mary Magdalene's presumed home village, lies on the shore of which body of water?

The Sea of Galilee made Magdala a fishing town, and when a drought lowered the lake in 1986 a fishing boat some 2,000 years old emerged from the mud of its shore.

Some scholars argue "Magdalene" was an honorific nickname, from the Aramaic word magdala, meaning what?

Tower fits a very old reading: some 1,600 years ago Jerome wrote that she was "called the tower from the earnestness and glow of her faith".

Why do the gospels say "Mary Magdalene" rather than simply "Mary"?

To distinguish her from namesakes: Mary was the most common Jewish woman's name of the time, and the gospels themselves mention several others.

According to the Gospel of Luke, how many demons did Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene?

Seven demons is read by many scholars as a severe illness of body or mind rather than literal spirits, and the number itself may simply signal how completely it gripped her.

Long confused with the gospel woman who emptied an alabaster jar over Jesus, Mary Magdalene became patron saint of which trade?

Perfumers are among her patronages, and painters give her an ointment jar. A sermon of 591 merged her with Luke's unnamed woman who anointed Jesus, an identification scholars have since set aside.

Luke names Mary Magdalene alongside which other women who 'provided for' Jesus 'out of their resources'?

Joanna and Susanna are named beside her in Luke 8. Joanna's husband Chuza ran the household of Herod Antipas, so support for Jesus reached into the local ruler's own court.

Whenever Mary Magdalene appears in a list of women in the Synoptic Gospels, where does she come?

First: every list of the women in the first three gospels opens with her name. Scholars read that as a sign she led them, much as lists of the Twelve always open with their leader.

In John's Gospel, Mary Magdalene stands at the cross beside which other woman?

Jesus's mother stands with her close to the cross in John. Two other gospels name Mary Magdalene too but keep the women watching from a distance, and Luke names none of them.

In John's Gospel, what does the risen Jesus say that makes Mary Magdalene recognise him?

Her name is all it takes: Jesus says 'Mary', and she turns and knows him at once. Moments earlier she had answered his questions through her tears without realising who was speaking.

Which man do all four gospels say buried Jesus, with Mary Magdalene watching in two of the accounts?

Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Jewish council, asked Pilate for the body and laid it in a rock-cut tomb. Mary Magdalene saw where it was laid, so she knew which tomb to return to after the Sabbath.

Paul's first letter to the Corinthians names whom as the first to see the risen Jesus?

Simon Peter, called Cephas in the letter, heads Paul's list of witnesses. Written before any of the gospels, it never mentions Mary Magdalene or the other women at all.

What do all four gospels say Mary Magdalene did on Easter morning?

She found the tomb empty in every gospel, yet they disagree on her company: she comes alone in John, with one other Mary in Matthew and in a larger group in the other two.

In Mark's original ending, what do the women do on hearing that Jesus has risen?

Run away and tell no one: the oldest copies stop right there, with the women afraid and silent. Later scribes added a longer ending in which the risen Jesus appears, first of all to Mary Magdalene.

In Luke's account, how do the eleven apostles react to the women's report from the tomb?

They dismiss it as nonsense and refuse to believe the women. Luke's risen Jesus never appears to them at all: he is first shown walking with two travellers on the road to Emmaus.

In the Gospel of John, whom does Mary Magdalene mistake the risen Jesus for outside the tomb?

The gardener, she assumes, and she asks him where he has put the body so that she can take it away herself.

What Aramaic word does Mary Magdalene cry out when she recognizes Jesus in John 20?

Rabbouni means 'teacher', and John keeps her own word beside its translation. Jesus answers by sending her to tell the disciples, which makes her the first to announce the resurrection in that gospel.

'Noli me tangere', the Latin title of many paintings of Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus, translates as what?

Touch me not is the traditional reading, though many modern Bibles prefer 'do not cling to me'. A scrap of skin kept among her relics bears the Latin name too, and is said to mark where his fingers touched her.

By what title does the Western church honour Mary Magdalene?

Apostle to the Apostles reflects John's Gospel, where the risen Jesus sends her to tell the disciples the news they would carry to the world. Medieval theologians made the title commonplace, and since 2016 a Mass preface has borne it.

Which second-century pagan critic, later answered at length by Origen, called Mary Magdalene 'a hysterical female'?

Celsus put the resurrection reports down to a hallucination born of wishful thinking or, likelier in his view, a tale told to impress others. Origen replied that Matthew names a second witness beside her, 'the other Mary'.

Which pope's 591 sermon fused Mary Magdalene with Luke's 'sinful woman', casting her as a repentant prostitute?

Gregory I, called the Great, preached that Luke's sinner, Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene were one woman. No gospel calls her a prostitute, yet his composite shaped Western art and preaching for nearly 1,400 years.

In two of the gospels, what do Mary Magdalene and the other women carry to Jesus's tomb?

Burial spices: the Sabbath rest began before the body could be anointed, so the women came back at first light to do it. Eastern Christians still honour them as the Myrrhbearers.

Which pope dropped the identification of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman from the calendar in 1969?

Paul VI's revised calendar noted that her day concerns only the woman to whom Christ appeared, not Martha's sister or Luke's sinner. The repentant prostitute lived on anyway in novels, films and musicals.

What did the Vatican do in 2016 with Mary Magdalene's July 22 memorial?

Made it a feast: the decree, issued at Pope Francis's wish, gave the first witness of the resurrection the same rank in the calendar as the men she was sent to tell.

By what title does the Eastern Orthodox Church honour Mary Magdalene?

Equal to the Apostles is a title she shares with Emperor Constantine and his mother Helena. Orthodox tradition has her preaching the resurrection across Italy and before the emperor in Rome.

Orthodox tradition traces Easter eggs to Mary Magdalene's audience with which Roman emperor?

Tiberius, in one telling, said a man could no more rise from the dead than an egg could change colour, and the egg did. The story is told to explain the custom of giving eggs at Easter.

An eastern tradition has Mary Magdalene ending her days in which city, home of the apostle John?

Ephesus is where Greek tradition and a sixth-century Frankish bishop place her grave, and her relics were said to be carried to Constantinople in the ninth century. Western legend told a rival story of her last years.

Medieval storytellers gave Mary Magdalene what background before she met Jesus?

A wealthy noblewoman of royal blood, the tales said, who owned the castle of Magdala while her brother Lazarus held part of Jerusalem. In the story she gives up her riches and pleasures to follow Jesus.

Which Burgundian abbey, where the Second Crusade was preached in 1146, claimed to hold Mary Magdalene's relics?

Vézelay became one of the great pilgrim churches of medieval France on the strength of the claim. Its decline began in 1279, when a rival shrine announced that it had found her real tomb.

Which supposed relic of Mary Magdalene is displayed in a golden reliquary at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume?

Her skull has been the town's treasure since Charles II of Naples had a tomb there opened in 1279. He built a great basilica over the spot, and pilgrims drifted to it from the rival shrine in Burgundy.

Which thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives gave Mary Magdalene her best-known life story?

The Golden Legend, compiled around 1260 by the friar Jacobus de Voragine, was read across Europe for its stories. Sixteenth-century scholars such as Juan Luis Vives then denounced it as unreliable.

In the best-known medieval tale, a rudderless boat carrying Mary Magdalene, Martha and Lazarus washes ashore where?

Marseille's pagan governor, in the story, converts after her prayers bring him and his wife a long-wanted child. The city then chooses Lazarus as its first bishop.

According to medieval tradition, how did Mary Magdalene spend the last thirty years of her life?

As a hermit in a cave she needed no food, the story goes: angels lifted her into the air at every hour of prayer to hear the music of heaven, and that was her only meal.

Which medieval heretics did church writers accuse of teaching in secret that Mary Magdalene was Christ's wife?

The Cathars of southern France were charged with it by hostile chroniclers. The crusade against them opened in 1209 with the sack of Béziers on 22 July, her own day in the calendar, when townspeople were cut down inside her church.

Which early Renaissance sculptor carved the gaunt wooden Penitent Magdalene now in Florence's cathedral museum?

Donatello showed her wasted by fasting where other artists painted a beauty, and Vasari praised the anatomy of the starved body. The statue was damaged in Florence's 1966 flood and later restored.

What did the Sorbonne do in 1521 with the claim that Mary Magdalene was not Luke's sinful woman?

The Paris theologians condemned the idea as heretical when the humanist Jacques Lefèvre argued it, and the English bishop John Fisher wrote against him too. Rome reached Lefèvre's view some 450 years later, in its 1969 calendar.

Which order of friars took charge of Mary Magdalene's shrine at Saint-Maximin and made her a patron?

The Dominicans were installed there by Charles II of Naples once her supposed grave had been discovered, and they adopted her as co-patron of their Order of Preachers.

Which English word for sickeningly sentimental derives from depictions of Mary Magdalene weeping?

Maudlin is how medieval English speakers said 'Magdalene', and painters showed her in tears so often that the name came to mean weepy. The old pronunciation survives at Magdalen College, Oxford.

In medieval art the 'Penitent Magdalene' is often shown naked but covered by what?

Her very long hair covers her because artists borrowed the story of Mary of Egypt, a saint whose clothes wore away in the desert. Some German carvers went further and gave her a coat of body hair.

In Gothic crucifixion paintings, Mary Magdalene usually wears a dress of what colour?

Red was her marker: painters gave her a bright red dress so viewers could find her at once among the mourners at the cross.

The Gospel of Mary surfaced in 1896 in a codex bought in Cairo and written in what language?

Coptic, the language of Christian Egypt, preserves the fullest copy. The codex reached Berlin in 1896, but misfortunes including two world wars kept its text from being published until 1955.

In the Gospel of Mary, what does Mary Magdalene share that starts a quarrel?

Teachings from a private vision of Jesus, she says, which Andrew calls strange and Peter refuses to take from a woman. Levi rebukes them: if the Saviour made her worthy, who are they to reject her?

The Gospel of Philip calls Mary Magdalene Jesus's koinonos, a Greek word usually translated how?

Companion is the usual rendering, though the word can also mean a partner in work or business. The same text says Jesus often kissed her, but a hole in the papyrus has swallowed the word that says where.

The Gospels of Thomas and Philip, which both feature Mary Magdalene, were found in 1945 in a library unearthed where?

Nag Hammadi, Egypt, is where local men digging in 1945 came across a sealed jar full of ancient papyrus books. Scholars date the texts too late to tell us anything reliable about the historical Mary.

In the Pistis Sophia, what does a fellow disciple complain Mary Magdalene keeps doing?

Dominating the conversation is the charge: she asks more questions than anyone, and Peter protests that she lets none of the men speak. Jesus replies that whoever understands should come forward and say so.

Which 2003 novel popularised the claim that Mary Magdalene was Jesus's wife?

The Da Vinci Code has a character claim she is the figure at Jesus's right in Leonardo's mural, whom art historians identify as the apostle John. Historians find no ancient evidence that she and Jesus were married.

What did the 'Gospel of Jesus's Wife' papyrus, unveiled by a Harvard scholar in 2012, prove to be?

A modern forgery is now the settled view. In 2016 a reporter traced the scrap to a Florida man whose account of its history fell apart, and the scholar who unveiled it agreed the evidence pointed to a fake.

In which rock opera does Mary Magdalene sing 'I Don't Know How to Love Him'?

Jesus Christ Superstar began as a 1970 album because no one would back a stage show, with Yvonne Elliman singing Mary. In 1971 her single and Helen Reddy's cover were in the US Top 40 at the same time.

Who played the title role in the 2018 film Mary Magdalene?

Rooney Mara plays her as the disciple who understands Jesus best, a deliberate break with the repentant sinner of earlier films. The closing captions say the church pinned the wrong label on her.

Which English singer released the 2019 album Magdalene after her breakup with actor Robert Pattinson?

FKA Twigs made it after that breakup and a spell of ill health, and said she recognised herself in the way Mary Magdalene's story had been rewritten by other people.

Until 1996, Irish institutions named for Mary Magdalene put 'fallen women' to unpaid work in what kind of business?

Laundries run by religious orders confined thousands of Irish women, some for life. The discovery of 155 unmarked graves at a Dublin convent in 1993 set off the scandal that exposed them.

A relic said to be Mary Magdalene's left hand is kept at Simonopetra on which mountain?

Mount Athos keeps the hand at Simonopetra monastery. It is an unlikely home for a woman's relic: women have been barred from the whole peninsula for about a thousand years.

Excavations at Magdala in 2009–13 uncovered a synagogue and a carved stone bearing what symbol?

A seven-branched menorah was carved on it while the Temple in Jerusalem still stood, so scholars think the artist had seen the real lampstand. The synagogue surfaced in a routine dig before a hotel was built.

Which church dropped Mary Magdalene's feast from its prayer book in 1552 and restored it only centuries later?

The Church of England kept her July feast in its first prayer book of 1549, then cut it three years later without a word of explanation. Some 400 years passed before it returned.

Which Italian actress played Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ?

Monica Bellucci's Magdalene appears in a flashback as the woman Jesus saves from stoning. The gospel story of that rescue never gives the woman a name, so the film repeats an old mix-up.

Why does the Gospel of Mary open mid-dialogue?

Its first pages are lost: six are missing from the front of the Berlin copy and four more from the middle, about half the book. What survives picks up partway through a question about the fate of matter.

Which TV drama about the life of Jesus opens with a possessed Mary Magdalene living under the name Lilith?

The Chosen begins with the Pharisee Nicodemus trying and failing to drive out her demons before Jesus heals her. Viewers paid for its first season themselves through crowdfunding.

Which director's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ shows Jesus dreaming of marriage to Mary Magdalene?

Martin Scorsese was handed the Kazantzakis novel by Barbara Hershey on an earlier shoot, and sixteen years later cast her as his Magdalene. In the film the dying Jesus is tempted by a vision of married life with her.

Which actor played Jesus opposite his future wife in the 2018 film Mary Magdalene?

Joaquin Phoenix had acted with her before, in Her (2013), where she played the wife his character was divorcing. The two became a couple while making Mary Magdalene.

Which studio's collapse left the 2018 film Mary Magdalene without a US release for more than a year?

The Weinstein Company held the US rights when the scandal around its co-founder broke in 2017, and it went bankrupt within months. IFC Films finally brought the film to American cinemas in April 2019.