Mary Magdalene Trivia
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59 free Mary Magdalene trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Mary Magdalene trivia quiz separates what the four gospels say about the most famous woman follower of Jesus from the fifteen centuries of legend that grew up around her. The early questions stick to the New Testament: the town she was probably named for, the seven demons, the women who funded the ministry, who stood at the cross, who found the tomb empty in each gospel, and the garden scene in John where she mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener. The middle of the quiz follows her reputation: the pagan critic who called her hysterical, the Church Fathers, the 591 sermon in which Pope Gregory I fused her with the sinful woman of Luke 7, the Eastern Orthodox titles Myrrhbearer and Equal to the Apostles, the red-egg legend, the medieval French tales of a rudderless boat and a Provençal cave, the rival relics at Vézelay and Saint-Maximin, the Golden Legend, the Reformation debates and the 1969 correction of the Roman calendar. The last questions cover the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, Philip and Thomas, the word maudlin, Donatello and Titian, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Da Vinci Code, the forged Gospel of Jesus's Wife, the 2018 film and the 2016 upgrade of her feast. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Mary Magdalene and related texts.
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Q 01Magdala, Mary Magdalene's presumed home village, lies on the shore of which body of water?
The Sea of Galilee
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.
Q 02Some scholars argue "Magdalene" was an honorific nickname, from the Aramaic word magdala, meaning what?
Tower
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".
Q 03Why do the gospels say "Mary Magdalene" rather than simply "Mary"?
To distinguish her from namesakes
To distinguish her from namesakes: Mary was the most common Jewish woman's name of the time, and the gospels themselves mention several others.
Q 04According to the Gospel of Luke, how many demons did Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene?
Seven
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.
Q 05Long confused with the gospel woman who emptied an alabaster jar over Jesus, Mary Magdalene became patron saint of which trade?
Perfumers
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.
Q 06Luke names Mary Magdalene alongside which other women who 'provided for' Jesus 'out of their resources'?
Joanna and Susanna
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.
Q 07Whenever Mary Magdalene appears in a list of women in the Synoptic Gospels, where does she come?
First
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.
Q 08In John's Gospel, Mary Magdalene stands at the cross beside which other woman?
Jesus's mother
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.
Q 09In John's Gospel, what does the risen Jesus say that makes Mary Magdalene recognise him?
Her name
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.
Q 10Which man do all four gospels say buried Jesus, with Mary Magdalene watching in two of the accounts?
Joseph of Arimathea
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.
Q 11Paul's first letter to the Corinthians names whom as the first to see the risen Jesus?
Simon Peter
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.
Q 12What do all four gospels say Mary Magdalene did on Easter morning?
She found the tomb empty
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.
Q 13In Mark's original ending, what do the women do on hearing that Jesus has risen?
Run away and tell no one
Q 21In two of the gospels, what do Mary Magdalene and the other women carry to Jesus's tomb?
Burial spices
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.
Q 22Which pope dropped the identification of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman from the calendar in 1969?
Paul VI
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.
Q 23What did the Vatican do in 2016 with Mary Magdalene's July 22 memorial?
Made it a feast
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.
Q 14In Luke's account, how do the eleven apostles react to the women's report from the tomb?
They dismiss it as nonsense
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.
Q 15In the Gospel of John, whom does Mary Magdalene mistake the risen Jesus for outside the tomb?
The gardener
The gardener, she assumes, and she asks him where he has put the body so that she can take it away herself.
Q 16What Aramaic word does Mary Magdalene cry out when she recognizes Jesus in John 20?
Rabbouni
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.
Q 17'Noli me tangere', the Latin title of many paintings of Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus, translates as what?
Touch me not
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.
Q 18By what title does the Western church honour Mary Magdalene?
Apostle to the Apostles
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.
Q 19Which second-century pagan critic, later answered at length by Origen, called Mary Magdalene 'a hysterical female'?
Celsus
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'.
Q 20Which pope's 591 sermon fused Mary Magdalene with Luke's 'sinful woman', casting her as a repentant prostitute?
Gregory I
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.
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.
Q 24By what title does the Eastern Orthodox Church honour Mary Magdalene?
Equal to the Apostles
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.
Q 25Orthodox tradition traces Easter eggs to Mary Magdalene's audience with which Roman emperor?
Tiberius
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.
Q 26An eastern tradition has Mary Magdalene ending her days in which city, home of the apostle John?
Ephesus
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.
Q 27Medieval storytellers gave Mary Magdalene what background before she met Jesus?
A wealthy noblewoman
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.
Q 28Which Burgundian abbey, where the Second Crusade was preached in 1146, claimed to hold Mary Magdalene's relics?
Vézelay
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.
Q 29Which supposed relic of Mary Magdalene is displayed in a golden reliquary at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume?
Her skull
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.
Q 30Which thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives gave Mary Magdalene her best-known life story?
The Golden Legend
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.