Lecture #2: Biblical Background

Course: Two Marys

Lecture #2: Biblical Background

BIBLICAL BACKGROUND

I have dealt generally with women and their history, including touching on Jewish and Christian background but now I want to be more specific about the Biblical background in regard to the female goddesses and wisdom.

First, whether it is right to say there was a "Hebrew Goddess" or not is hard to say because of the editing done on the Hebrew Scriptures by the then monotheistic priests around 550 and later. However, there is no question there were Canaanite goddess, the most important of which was ASHERAH.

Even with the discovery of the Ugaritic texts at Ras Shamra in the early 1930's a lot is assumed as knowledge by the writers so we can't learn much, but can only infer from the texts.

What can be known is Asherah is called "Lady Asherah of the Sea" but not why. She is also called "Progenitness of the Gods" and in this sense is a great mother goddess. She was the wife of El and took Ba'al's side at times to persuade El to give him a palace of his own. Other than this, we don't know much @ her.

ANATH is the other centrally important goddess of Canaan also called Ashtoreth and Astarte. She is the daughter of Asherah, sister of Baal and his wife also. Her personality is quite different in that she will bully El for Baal's palace.

She seems to have been warlike and was held responsible for some earthquakes (when she stamped her foot in anger). She was also a goddess of peace but is responsible for the Canaanite pantheons power. Anath seems to have personally fought to ensure Baal's primacy and, perhaps, fought to establish the earth from the chaos of primordial waters.

What is clear is that Anath is the most warlike and most savage of the deities of Ugaritic mythology. She is much like Kali of Hindu mythology in India.

Tho Baal represents Male fertility, there is really no indication that either Asherah or Anath represent female fertility.

THE ISRAELITES AND ASHERAH

Asherah was worshipped by the people of Canaan, Hebrew- speaking people, for centuries after the territory was ruled by kings of Israel and Judah. Hence it would be correct to say that Asherah was a Hebrew Goddess. There is some evidence in fact that Asherah was worshiped even in the temple in Jerusalem as late as 586 when it was destroyed by Nebecnezzer.

The Hebrew Bible occasionally mentions that the people set up "Asherahs" near alters of Baal on hilltops. These were apparently wooden pillars symbolic of Asherah and were used in the worship of Asherah and Baal. They may have been carved images or simply unadorned stakes. They were large enough that enemies of Asherah's worship had to chop them down to destroy them.

The history of Israel and Judah from about 1200, when they conquered the "promised land" and 586, when they went in to Babylon in exile for 70 years, is interpreted in the Hebrew Bible as cycles of YHWH worship alternating with YHWH worship that included other gods and goddesses.

Even though we know little about Asherah herself we know how popular it was. Before there was a temple in Jerusalem, Asherah was worshiped (Jud. 3:5-7). Solomon, who built the temple, worshiped Asherah (I Kin 11:5). His son Rehoboam placed an image of Asherah in the temple itself (I Kin 15:13) The hills of Israel and Judah were surmounted by images of pillars of Asherah.

The worship of Asherah in the Jerusalem temple came and went with the fluctuations of power politics. It breaks down that in the 347 years between Solomon and the destruction of the temple in 586, she was worshipped there 236 of those years while being absent only 106 during attempts at reform.

The only substantial evidence in the Hebrew bible is found in Jeremiah 7:17-18, 44:9,17-25

The Yahwist prophet is of course totally opposed to the practices he writes about. He won't name her but does give her title, "Queen of Heaven".

The kings of Judah and their wives and the men of Judah and their wives gathered in the streets of Jerusalem and other cities to pay homage to the goddess. They made promises by which they bound themselves to her.

They burned sacrifices to her, poured drink offerings to her because they felt a time of calamity had come upon them (during the reforms of Josiah) and they felt that she had caused them to be in great poverty and to be victims of sword and famine.

Jeremiah felt it was because they had turned from YHWH that this had happened and worshipped Asherah. The cakes they offered her were marked with her image, a form of communion as they were consumed by the family that made them. All participated, including and especially women, and according to Jeremiah, even the king and queen led the worship.

This virtually exhausts our information about the goddess worshipped from about 1250 BCE till 586 BCE. Since all the writing was done against her. One cannot truly say there is a "Hebrew Goddess" Rather, the people worshipped the Canaanite deities along with YHWH.

However, Sophia, or wisdom personified, may qualify since God seems to interact with "her" as if she is an independent power. To that we now turn.

SOPHIA = WISDOM

Is a Greek word meaning wisdom and Sophia was primarily a product of Greek speaking Judaism. It is feminine as is the Hebrew word for wisdom "Hochmah".

The greatest Biblical passages about her are in Proverbs. Here the Wisdom of God is taken to be almost an independent power of God. In Proverbs 8:22-31 she appears there as God's darling and delight. I want to quote it here:

The Lord created me in the beginning of his works, before all else that he made, long ago. Alone, I was fashioned in times long past, at the beginning, long before earth itself. When there was yet no ocean I was born, no springs brimming with water.. .when he set the heavens in their place I was there, when he girdled the ocean with the horizon, when he fixed the canopy of clouds overhead and set the springs of ocean firm in their place, when he prescribed its limits for the sea and knit together earth's foundations. Then I was at his side each day, his darling and delight, playing in his presence continually, playing on the earth, when he had finished it, while my delight was in mankind."

If this passage were taken from Hindu or Canaanite literature it would unquestionably be taken to be about a goddess. But in Jewish literature it presents a problem.

Philo of Alexandria, a great Jewish neo-platonic philosopher, goes so far as to call God "the husband of wisdom.” Yet he denies any intention of Jews worshiping a goddess wisdom, especially a female goddess.

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON a book written about 100 BCE speaks of Sophia as a personage separable from God.

... Send her forth from the holy heavens, and from thy glorious throne bid her to come down so that she may labor at my side and I may learn what pleases thee. For she knows and understands all things. (Wisdom of Sol. 9:9-11)

She also guides human history:

Wisdom it was ho kept guard over the first father of the human race, when he alone had yet been made; she saved him after his fall and gave him the strength to master all things.. Through his fault (Cain) the earth was covered with a deluge and again wisdom came to the rescue, and taught the one good man to pilot his plain wooden hulk. (Wisd. of Sol. 10:1-4)

Sophia is as much a goddess of Christians as a goddess of Jews but Christians do not accept her as such any more than Jews do.

Sophia continued to exist within Christianity. Her attributes were very early (probably the earliest interpretation) taken from her and applied to Jesus. His pre-existence, participation in creation, descent and presence in the world, all derive from Jewish traditions regarding Sophia.

In fact, the prologue of the Gospel of John was probably originally a poem about Sophia. John simply changed the feminine to the masculine, Logos, or word.

Paul speaks of Christ as the "Sophia of God" (1 Cor 1:24) and in Colossians 1 Jesus is the "firstborn of all creation"

Later on, many of the passages speaking of Christ or God as the bridegroom and Israel or the church as the bride came to be applied to the Virgin Mary. As in the Song of Solomon. Allegorically it can be read as the church, the individual mystic or as in catholic popular piety, the Virgin Mary.

SOPHIA: THE GNOSTIC GODDESS

Gnosticism appeared out of the radical syncretism and disruption of religious consciousness that accompanied the ecumenical imperialism of the Greco-Roman world.

There is no single "gnostic myth" though some gnostic traditions appear to have developed complex structure with a Father/Mother/son trinity.

The gnostic traditions have a special involvement with the Jewish Midrash traditions but use it contrary to the original intent. This is true of The Sophia figure which combines the search for divine wisdom for reception in the world with the story of Eve. Sometimes Sophia’s role and Eve's are reversed.

The Feminine Side of God

The highest God often appears with a female (or androgynous) counterpart. This comes close to the mythical sky god/earth mother with humans mediating between the two.

It is from this divine pair that the heaven eons come. Thus, Gnosticism takes over and develops the idea of the "self-engendering" of God (Plato). It serves to permit the development of lower beings from the primordial divine being without destroying the divine unity.

In the Apocryphon of John, one of the apocryphal early church writings, points out that the Mother-Father's permission for the "opposing spirit" in the universe to exist attributed to the Mother.

In this Triad, in the Christian Gnostic literature, Jesus is the "son" with Sophia the "mother" and the male part of the original unity the "Father." The supreme God evolves the Father-Mother-Son triad and both the Mother and Father are androgynous. Unlike the Platonic traditions, the Gnostics regularly have a female figure as the second member of the divine triad.

It was from the Jewish understanding of Sophia that the idea of a female second principle was developed. It is the Valentinians who associate Sophia with Eve. She is associated with Matter as in most philosophical traditions. She represents "sense perception" The faculty necessary for Mind (rep. by Adam) to exist.

Sophia and the creation of the world

Thus, the Demiurge (Plato), created by Sophia, was the creator of this material world. When he sees all the creation, the lower powers and archons, which stem from him, he becomes boastful and arrogant.

That boast provokes his Mother (Sophia), to repentance, and with divine aid, she initiates the cosmological foundations for salvation in the creation of Adam., revelation of Gnosis (knowledge) to him, and generation of the Gnostic seed. (Apoc. of John)

In most Christian Gnostic speculation, the divine is separated from the material world and from passions of the human soul. This gulf creates difficulties for the role of the divine feminine in creation.

Frequently, the mother, who is responsible for the lower world that we know has little relationship to Sophia. Some accounts have more than one Sophia, one a weak aeon whose passion or desire for knowledge becomes the source for this material world. She may remain bound to this world until all the divine spirit embodied in it are returned to the Heavenly place.

Much of the writings show a very anti-woman tendency accusing Sophia of trying to conceive without a male and getting an ugly mass (Apoc. of John)

A second type of flaw is the desire to imitate the Father when she tries to create beings like the Father did. Or the desire to create without a consort.

Sophia's most important activity in salvation is to provide Spirit to the human, which the demiurge (lower god) has created after and image of the heavenly archetype that had been revealed to silence his boasting. This hidden Spirit makes humanity superior to its creator.

In the Gospel to the Egyptians the Adam story is repeated on each of three levels: the Spiritual, the "soulish" and the carnal. In the middle stage, Sophia creates Eve, an androgynous instructor for Adam. This heavenly Eve is identified with Sophia and Isis in the "I Am" sayings.

In this system, there are only a small number of humans who have Spirit (the pneaumatikas), sown by Sophia thru the angels. the "soulish" (psychis) simply have the breathed in likeness of the demiurge. Those with only earthly, animal souls will, of course, parish along with the rest of material creation.

Redemptive activity by the mother

The continuation of the stories of the "time of origins" usually establishes a pattern of redemptive intervention by the Mother or Sophia. She must protect her seed/light from destruction by the hostile powers who do not want the truth about their inferiority, ugliness, lack of real divinity to be known among humans.

The Old Testament is re-interpreted showing how Sophia "rescued" her seed from some peril, such as the Flood by saving Noah. She gets around the malicious covenant between the creator and Abraham by having the prophets reveal the future coming of Christ to destroy that covenant. However, she must enlist the aid of the first woman, Eve, to prepare a vessel for the coming Christ.

Eve reveals to Adam the true glory they enjoy and gives him knowledge of the true God. The creator retaliates by dividing them into two sexes. At this point knowledge withdraws. Eve, in this view, is an agent of the true God who moves Adam and Eve to disobey the hostile creator and thus receive gnosis. (Apoc o Jn)

With Sophia's activity confined to "holding actions" against the lower god and ordering of the cosmos until the coming of the heavenly revealer of gnosis, one might not consider her much of a savior goddess.

Yet we see that the Instructor- Eve speaks in Isis -like tones to proclaim her identity. The Marcosian ritual attests that one might pay to the Mother in order to defeat the archons, who wish to hinder the soul's ascent into the fullness of the true God. The Mother who orders fate issues a call to Gnostic Baptism.

In the conclusion to the Apoc. of John a series of "I am" sayings punctuates a summary of the saving effect of gnosis.

"I am the kingdom of light, I am the remembrance of the true God"

“I am the light which is in the light"

“I am the thought of the virgin Spirit"

“I am the merciful One.”

The hearer is being summoned to follow this Wisdom despite the fact that she is dishonored in the world. Like Isis, this female figure claims to be behind all of human wisdom.

CONCLUSION

The theological categories of Christianity often lead interpreters to speak of Sophia's fall and to attribute to it the same negative evaluations tradition has attached to the fall of Eve/Adam.

Instead, the structure of Gnostic cosmology does not need to explain fall and alienation from God in terms of sinful disobedience. It needs to explain the distance between the divine world and this one. That structure makes it necessary that some special process of revelation bring humanity knowledge of that divine world.

The mythic summary of Sophia's wanderings fit within the cultic proclamation of saving gnosis. Though the Mother/Sophia is not the highest Father or the only revealer of gnosis, she often appears as the crucial link between the human in this world and that divinity which constitutes his/her truest identity.

Her combination of mythic and philosophical discourse suggests that her, wisdom also provides a challenge to the claims of human reason advanced thru philosophy.

The Ultimate image of salvation is neither male nor female but the restored unity of an androgynous Mother/Father, who has passed through diversity.

My conclusion: Why am I doing all this? because, as we shall see, to a great extent, the elevation of the Virgin Mary fills many of the same functions and attributes of Sophia.

This is true of Mary Magdalene to some extent, but the church, as we shall see, quickly put her down and the Virgin up for many reasons which shall be discussed.

NEW TESTAMENT BACKGROUND

The Virgin Mary: Not counting the birth narratives, Mary, the mother of Jesus is mentioned only seven times, even counting the parallels. Counting the parallel scriptures, in which Mark is copied by Matt. and Luke, she is mentioned only four times. In three of those, she is not even named.

Mark, the earliest gospel, mentions her only twice, just in \passing, as it were. It is the two later gospels, Matthew and Luke with the (very different) birth narratives, a much later tradition, that speak much of Mary the mother of Jesus.

We will get back to Mary, Jesus mother in a few lessons but first I want to deal with the much more important, at least in the early church and in Gnostic circles, with Mary Magdalene. Thus, we will spend the next few weeks on her and following that the last several weeks on the "Virgin Mary, her rise to pre-eminence and her appearances.

MARY MAGDALENE

Contrary to the few times Mary the mother of Jesus is mentioned, Mary Magdalene is named 14 times in as many verses. All but one of these is found in the Crucifixion / resurrection stories. This one exception is Luke 8 in which she is named as the one from whom seven demons were cast out.

If we count the parallel passages from Mark, then she is mentioned nine different times. Since Mark, it is agreed, is the first gospel written between 66 and 70 CE, that will be our base.

Mary Magdalene is first referred to by name first in Mark 15:40 in the context of the crucifixion as one of the women looking on. in v. 41 it ios mentioned that they, with many other women came up with him to Jerusalem".

In Mark 16, Mary Magdalene has an integral role when she and Mary the mother of James, and Salome go to anoint Jesus body for burial (they couldn't do it on the sabbath). They find the stone rolled away, the tomb empty and a man telling them he had risen. The women "flee quickly" and tell no one.

It is the later addition to mark (16:9-11) that introduces the element of Mary Magdalene’s possession by 7 devils used later in the creation of her mythical character. It is also here that Mark records that she was the first to see Jesus risen. The men didn't believe her.

Matthew tells much the same story with embellishment (an Earthquake, angel but no spices for anointing.) On their way to tell the other disciples, they meet Christ himself who greets them, and they worship him. He tells them he will meet them in Galilee and to tell the other disciples. (Matt. 28)

Luke's first reference to Mary Magdalene occurs earlier, in Chapter 8:2ff where certain women followed Jesus including Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils…” It is these women who ministered to Jesus out of their substance.

In Luke's account of the crucifixion (chap. 23) the number of people around the cross has grown to include "all his acquaintance, and the women who followed him from Galilee…

In LUKE'S RESURRECTION (chap. 24) there are two men in shining garments who ask, "why do you seek the living among the dead" It is now when Luke confirms that it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James and other women who told the apostles, and were not believed. It is then that Peter goes to check for himself.

Thus, the three "synoptic" gospels (meaning "with one eye") pretty much agree on the events with minor variations. In Mark only Mary Magdalen sees Jesus, in Matt., MM and the other Mary do so, and in Luke, several women see him. In all cases the male disciples don't believe them.

JOHN'S GOSPEL

John gives a very different story. Gone are the women mourners who watch from afar, and he states: "Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene (19:25)

Joseph of Arimathea, along with Nicodemus, take his body for burial. on the "first day of the week" Mary Magdalene comes, discovers the stone rolled away then returns to Peter and the others to report "they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him" making it ambiguous as to who went.

The two men, Peter, and the "beloved disciple" race to the tomb. It is the "other" disciple" who first sees and believes, then Peter does also.

Mary keeps a vigil at the empty tomb weeping. Two angels sit where Jesus had been laid and ask why she is weeping to which she replies: "they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him". In her grief she seems not to notice the grave clothes. Then comes the beautiful scene of recognition so often portrayed in paintings and sculpture in the Middle ages.

“and when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? Supposing him to be the gardener, who said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means teacher or Master)” 20:14-16

In recognizing Christ, Mary Magdalene calls him Rabbani, the Hebrew for teacher but usually reserved for God. John thereby infers that she was acknowledging Christ's new role within the Christian story of salvation.

She is told not to "cling' to him inferring that her relationship to him is now changed and any physical contact she might have had with him formerly is no longer appropriate.

The sequence ends with Mary Magdalene telling the disciples that she has seen the risen Christ and delivering his message. In John's gospel, there is no intimation that her words are not believed. She becomes the first recipient of an apostolic commission and the first apostle.

These few accounts in the gospels tell us all we can claim to know about Mary Magdalene (MM). Acts 1 tells us that Christ showed himself to many after the resurrection for 40 days till his "ascension'. It is reported that on Pentecost 120 people were gathered in an upper room including "Mary the Mother of Jesus" and his brethren (brothers). We may infer that Mary Magdalene was among them, though she is not named.

There has recently been a tendency to see MM as a leader and has given rise to the tantalizing mystery of MM precise relationship to Christ himself, which has been a source of fascination from the very beginning of the Christian era. However, the texts themselves give the barest of bones.

Judging from the way she is introduced by name first, she seems to have been the most important woman follower, but the fact that the women only appear at the END of all the gospel narratives (except Luke) at the crucifixion and after the burial, would suggest that their relevance and importance, and particularly that of Mary Magdalene herself, is as witnesses, believed or not, to the resurrection, the central tenet of Xianity.

LATER CHRISTIANITY:

One of the most striking aspects of the gospel accounts is the role given Christ's female followers as supporters and witnesses during the first Easter. However, later interpreters increasingly reduced their importance, and the true significance of their witness was for the most part ignored in favor of Peter.

Thus, in the sixth century, Mary Magdalene herself was recreated as an entirely different character to serve the purposes of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This refashioning by the early church fathers has distorted our view of MM and the other women. All but MM of the women described were designated as attached to some male, husband, king, etc. She alone is identified by her place of birth.

It is therefore as an INDEPENDENT woman that she is presented: This implies that she must also have been of some means, to have been able to choose to follow and support Christ.

Mary Magdalene's "seven devils" to which both Luke and the later ending of Mark refer were a focus for speculation among early Christian commentators: Their link with the "evil spirits and infirmities" ascribed to some of the women may well have led to their identification with the seven deadly sins. However, no where in the N. T. is demonic possession regarded as synonymous with sin.

That MM condition might have been psychological rather than sexual seems not to have entered the minds of the early biblical commentators. Only in the 19th cent. did this occur to them, at which time said she had a "violent and chronic nervous disorder"

Her place of birth, Magdalini (grk), was a prosperous fishing village on the N. W. bank of the sea of Galilee. Had had notoriety in the early centuries of Christianity and was destroyed in 75 CE because of its infamy and the licentious behavior of its inhabitants. Today there is only a sign identifying it as MM birthplace.

All these elements taken together and the fact she was confused with other female characters from the gospels, some explicitly described as sinners, and the fact that later commentators were becoming more entrenched in an ecclesiastical environment with celibacy as the ideal, meant that Mary Magdalene, chief female disciple, first apostle and beloved friend of Christ, would become transformed into a penitent whore.

Mary Magdalene was, from the earliest centuries of Christianity, closely linked to and conflated with two other N. T. figures woman described by Luke as a "sinner", and Mary of Bethany, who appears in Luke's gospel and in John's account of the passion.

To a lesser extent she was also associated with the woman from Samaria (John 4:6-42) and the woman taken in adultery (Jn 8:3-11). Her identification with Luke's sinner and Mary of Bethany was so pervasive that for the greater part of the Christian era the persona created for her has overshadowed her biblical role as disciple of Christ and herald of the "New Life"

Confusion @ these women dates at least to the 3rd cent. but it was not till the end of the 6th cent. that pope Gregory the Great (c. 540-604 CE) was to settle the question by declaring that MM, Mary of Bethany and the sinner in Luke were one and the same person. It is clear these are very different individuals and their only point of convergence with MM is in their association with anointing Christ.

In Luke chap 7, just before introducing MM in 8:2, he describes an episode where a woman "which was a sinner" (v. 37) comes to seek forgiveness from Christ. It is a well told scene and has given one of the enduring images of the mythical Magdalen.

This woman is seen by the pharisee as a "sinner in the city" and seems to indicate the latter's conviction that the woman's sins are sexual in nature. The woman apparently wears her hair loose, another sign of her fallen status. Thus, the church has always assumed her sins were sexual and has provided the church with a useful paradigm.

Because of this beautiful story of the unnamed sinner, the most pervasive image we have of Mary Magdalen is one of a weeping woman with long loose hair, holding an ointment jar.

That the second woman, Mary Magdalen, is first described by Luke immediately after the scene in the Pharisee’s house may have given rise to the idea that they were one and the same woman, and the fact that she was also numbered amongst the women "healed of evil spirits and infirmities."

MARY OF BETHANY

In Luke's brief story, (Luke 10:38-42) Christ enters an unnamed village were he is entertained by Martha and her sister, Mary, who sits at his feet to listen. Martha chides Mary for not helping to which Jesus says: "Mary has chosen the better part" without putting down Martha.

This episode leads to John 11:1-45 where with the raising of Lazarus and Mary and Martha his sisters ask Jesus to come save him. In Luke's story, it is Mary who has the more important role as a believer, but in John it is Martha who is the recipient of dogma. Whether these were the same pair of sisters is not known, but they have always been seen as the same.

In the third century, Origin (c. 185-254) the great biblical scholar identified Martha and her sister Mary of Bethany as the active and contemplative forms of the religious life on the basis of Luke's account.

Through the accretion of Luke's Mary to Mary Magdalene by way of Mary of Bethany, the Magdalen would become the symbol of the contemplative life and be regarded as such throughout the Middle Ages and again, with further emphasis, in the 17th cent.

With Mary Magdalen conflated with Mary of Bethany the episode of Lazarus' resurrection was to be included in the medieval and later legends of MM's life, and part of the extensive imagery which built up around her.

It is John's gospel who, in chap 11:2, announces it was that Mary who anointed the Lord w/ ointment, whose brother Lazarus was sick. In John 12:1-8, in the house of Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary takes very costly ointment and anoints Christ's feet, and wipes them with her hair "and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment" (v. 3)

This "scented" imagery, when applied to Mary Magdalene in later allegorical commentaries, contributed to the aura of femininity and eroticism which was to envelop her.

OTHER ANNOINTINGS: to confuse the issue, in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 there are anointings by women mentioned in the house of Simon the Leper. They are also criticized for using costly ointment, and both evangelists show this incident as a catalyst to Judas Iscariot to seek out the chief priests, offering to deliver up Jesus to them in return for money.

These scriptures, of course, are all parallels (Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50; and Matt. 26:6-13). Whether there was one anointing or two, and whether it was carried out by one woman or different women, is a problem which has teased, and still teases, the imaginations of scholars and commentators.

Despite her very different role, the Woman of Samaria (John 4) has been confused with MM solely on the basis of her own admitted sexual sins, and those imputed to MM, an association which appears in some medieval texts, and is still found today.

For the same reason she has been thought to be the woman taken in adultery in John 8. The woman's association with MM, remote though it is, centers on the fallenness of the mythical Magdalen and their sistership in sexual crime.

CONCLUSION: The gospel's show that Christ regarded his women followers as disciples and capable of receiving unique revelation in their own right. However, there are intimations that a different view would prevail.

Mary Magdalene is mentioned in the four canonical gospels as the primary witness to the resurrection, and in John's gospel sent to tell the others becoming the first apostle.

This crucial role is already diminished by Luke when the disciples think it is Idle tales, and they didn't believe them. Peter is prompted to look for himself, probably because of conventional Jewish male prejudice against women's witness (24:12). Luke's gospel ends in a climax which totally eclipses the women's testimony, Christ appears to Peter (v.34).

In the first account of the resurrection to be written, Paul's epistle to the Corn. (Cor 15:5-8) Mary Magdalen's meeting with Jesus is entirely omitted and Peter the first witness.

When the gospel Mary Magdalen is distinguished from other N.T. figures who have colored her persona, it is possible to recognize the extraordinary role which she and the other women disciples played during the paschal events. What happened?

Her role has been played down by the Christian tradition and for almost fourteen hundred years she has primarily been represented as the repentant whore.

The few N. T. references to MM yield an enigmatic and powerful woman. Her role at Easter, her closeness to Christ in John's gospel but leave a lot of room for interpretation. Her very mysteriousness has inspired elaborate legends, which have taken her to Rome, Ephesus, and to a hermit like existence in the south of France.

It is in the apocryphal texts from the first century onwards where the women disciples, particularly Mary Magdalene, are emphasized. These have been regarded by the church as heretical.

It is to the Mary found in these apocryphal texts to which we now turn. Following this, we will deal with the legends of France, the holy grail, etc. in upcoming lectures.