The Quest for Mary Magdalene

by Michael Haag

  In the traditional Jewish cultural environment of Palestine one woman of independent means can be an exception, but Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus was accompanied by Mary Magdalene ‘and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance’ (or ‘provided for them out of their own resources’ as the phrase is translated in the New English Bible). How did Mary Magdalene and her female companions come by their money? How had they preserved their independence from the men in their families? The gospels do not say.

  Follow Me

  According to Luke’s gospel, John the Baptist began his mission in the fifteenth year of the reign of the emperor Tiberius, that is AD 29. John’s mission did not last long; he was soon imprisoned and then beheaded, probably in that same year, which was also the year he baptised Jesus. As the gospel of Matthew 4:12-17 explains, Jesus had been forty days in the wilderness resisting the temptations of the devil, but ‘now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum . . . From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’.

  Follow me. Jesus calls the fishermen of Bethsaida and Capernaum to him, telling them that they will become fishers of men. German, early-16th century.

  Follow me. Artbible.net

  The first of the twelve disciples chosen by Jesus were Peter and Andrew, brothers and fishermen from Bethsaida, close by the River Jordan where it runs into the fresh waters of the Sea of Galilee. He said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’. And as Matthew’s gospel 4:18-24 says, ‘They straightway left their nets, and followed him’. Continuing along the shore at Bethsaida, Jesus saw another two brothers, James and John, who were in a ship with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called to them. ‘And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.’

  Bethsaida was a fishing village close by the town of Capernaum on the north shore of the great freshwater lake. When Jesus then came into Capernaum and saw Matthew, a tax collector there, sitting at his work, he said, ‘Follow me. And he arose, and followed him’ (Matthew 9:9).

  And so it went with all the twelve disciples, Simon (whom Jesus called Peter) and his brother Andrew; the brothers James and John, the sons of Zebedee; Matthew (also called Levi); Philip; Bartholomew (Nathanael); Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus (also called Judas or Jude); Simon and Judas Iscariot. Jesus called, ‘Follow me’, and they left their work and they followed him.

  Jesus taught in the synagogues and he healed all manner of sickness among the people, those afflicted with torments and diseases, the insane and those possessed with devils or trembling with palsy; and all the while he preached the kingdom of God. His mission took him all round Galilee and attracted Jews from Syria and beyond the Jordan and from Jerusalem; he led an army of healing and salvation, with camp followers and crowds of people eager to hear, to be healed and to be saved – a great campaign moving through the villages and towns of Galilee – that somebody had to pay for.

  But there were even more than Jesus and the twelve to support, for the disciples sometimes travelled with women, who Paul’s letter, 1 Corinthians 9:5, describes as their ‘sisters and wives’, and most likely they travelled with their children too. Or if they left them behind, these women and children still had to be supported, and the rest of the disciples’ families as well; Peter, for one, was married and had a mother-in-law too; how did Peter’s wife and mother-in-law survive?

  Food, shelter and clothing for thirteen people for a year, possibly three years according to some estimates of the length of Jesus’ mission, and for their dependents too. Also on at least one occasion Jesus sent out seventy people to prepare the way for his mission round the towns of Galilee: ‘After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come’ (Luke 10:1).

  Paying for Jesus

  Jesus himself in Mark 10:28-30 remarked on the scale of his undertaking and the sacrifices and costs involved.

  Then Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

  But though Jesus talks of the spiritual reward, there was a financial cost as well. Who had the money to finance such major undertakings?

  The gospel of Luke 8:1-3 gives the answer: Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna and ‘many others’ (all women, for the original Greek of ‘many others’ is plural feminine) provided for Jesus and the twelve disciples out of their own resources. In other words Mary Magdalene and the other women were socially and financially independent and had sufficient means to help keep Jesus and his twelve disciples on the road, and to help maintain an unknown number of wives, children, aged parents and other dependent relatives left behind when the disciples ‘followed him’.

  Capernaum was Jesus’ headquarters in Galilee. This aerial view shows the results of excavations and restoration works. On the right is a fourth-century AD synagogue which stands on the site of an earlier synagogue where Jesus would have taught. The structure on the left is a Franciscan church. The octagonal shape is owed to the foundations of an early Byzantine church which turned out to be built over an earlier house; the supposition is that Early Christians believed the house to be that of Peter whose walls can be seen by visitors today who enter into the heart of the church.

  Capernaum aerial view. Custodia Terrae Sanctae, Jerusalem.

  But how can that be? Luke’s statement that Mary Magdalene and the other women were providing for Jesus and the disciples out of their resources is remarkable and strange considering that there were few economic activities open to Jewish women in Palestine and little opportunity for women to lead independent lives. In fact Jewish society in first-century AD Palestine was one of the most male-dominated and conservative societies in the ancient world and women’s lives were tightly restricted and controlled.

  The Old Testament mentions some exceptional cases, for example Deborah who in earliest history, at least as far back as the twelfth century BC, served as a judge and a military commander in battle against the Canaanites, and other women who in later times were prophets, sages and sorceresses, but from the end of the Babylonian exile in 538 BC Jewish women in Palestine were confined to domestic duties and tasks.

  A woman who needed to earn an income could extend her domestic activities into the market place where she could sell clothing, farm produce and bread (though bakers were men), or she could be an innkeeper, letting out rooms in her house. Hairdresser, midwife and professional mourner were traditional occupations for women. But a woman’s earnings were for the benefit of her family; she was not free to dispose of her money herself.

  In Judaism women were legally the property of men. Before marriage girls were the property of their fathers; after marriage a woman became the property of her husband. Widows were placed under the authority of their fathers, sons, uncles or brothers-in-law. A woman achieved a measure of social standing by becoming the mother of a son, but if she remained childless for ten years her husband was obliged to divorce her. Men could initiate divorce at will; women were bound to remain married and faithful.

  Women were not permitted to receive an education. Such religious instruction as they received at home was given by men. Women were not free to become followers of a teacher or rabbi and they certainly could not travel with one. They did not count among the necessary quorum of Jews required for worship – only men mattered. A woman’s testimony was not accepted as evidence in a court of law.

  Generally Jewish women were almost entirely dependent on men economically. They did not own pro
perty except in the rare case of inheriting land from a father who had no sons, and even then they were required to remarry within the tribe so as not to reduce its land holdings.

  The first-century AD Roman-Jewish historian Josephus, writing of the Torah, summed matters up: ‘The woman, says the Law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed; for the authority has been given by God to the man.’

  Independent Women

  But the gospels tell us otherwise, about women who are not submissive, who are not under the authority of men; about women who are socially and financially independent. How to account for this? In speaking of Joanna, Luke gives us some clues. He says that Joanna was the wife of Chuza, who as Herod’s steward was his minister of finance, or at the very least the steward of one of Herod’s estates and in any case an important man. By mentioning Chuza, Luke emphasises Joanna’s association with the rich and powerful; he shows the range of Jesus’ appeal, to the poor and the marginal but also to those at the pinnacle of society; and he tells us that Joanna was a major financial contributor to Jesus’ movement.

  Joanna was probably from an aristocratic Galilean landowning family and one of those Herodian women known to have supported and financed the Pharisees who in turn opposed the Graeco-Roman culture promoted by the Herodian dynasty. It is not such a contradiction as it sounds. Herod Antipas made allies among the Pharisees in order to limit the power of the Sadducees, the old Judaean aristocracy who controlled the priesthood and Temple at Jerusalem; his ambition was to become king as his father Herod the Great had been, and the first step, with the support of the Pharisees, was to place himself at the centre of Jewish religious life by gaining authority over the Temple priesthood. But for Joanna to finance Pharisees was one thing and to follow Jesus was another matter; she may have been attracted to the message of John the Baptist and at his execution by Herod was drawn to Jesus. Not that Luke necessarily means that Joanna was still in a state of marriage; indeed it is hard to see her husband at the court of Herod allowing her to roam with Jesus and his followers. Instead, Chuza might have been dead, or he might have divorced Joanna.

  Mary Magdalene by Sebastiano del Piombo, church of San Giovanni Crisostomo, Venice, 1510. Sebastiano has captured a Mary Magdalene more true to the gospels than the usually simpering, repentant, reclusive, passive, self-abasing Magdalene of Church mythology; instead here she is portrayed as a bold and superior woman, mysterious and powerful. ‘This face and figure’, said the novelist Henry James, ‘are almost unique among the beautiful things of Venice’. She is ‘a strange, a dangerous’ woman, he said, ‘she walks like a goddess. . . . This magnificient creature is so strong and secure that she is gentle. . . . But for all this there are depths of possible disorder in her light-coloured eye’.

  Mary Magdalene by Sebastiano del Piombo. Wikimedia Commons.

  Divorce and widowhood were the most likely ways in which a woman could find herself independent of men’s control and also become financially independent, and this was particularly so if she belonged to an upper-class family.

  A bride’s father paid a dowry to her husband which he was free to use during the course of his marriage but if he divorced his wife or predeceased her the dowry was paid to her. In the case of wealthy families this could be a considerable sum. In addition there might be her ketubba, originally a bride price paid by a husband to the father of his bride as compensation for the loss of her domestic labours, but by the first century AD this had become a promise against the value of the husband’s estate to provide for his divorced or widowed wife. Like the dowry, the value of the ketubba agreed among wealthy families could be very great.

  Jewish law worked against the likelihood of women gaining from inheritance. The Torah prescribed that a woman could inherit her husband’s entire estate only if the marriage and his previous marriages were childless. And a daughter could only inherit from her father if he had no sons or grandsons.

  But Judaism’s patriarchal system was not always as rigid as it seemed. A practice arose in upper class families for a father, husband, mother, brother or other relative to make a gift of property or other forms of wealth to a daughter, wife or sister. By speaking of gift rather than inheritance, disobedience to the Torah was avoided. This allowed women to acquire, own and dispose of property independently of men.

  Hellenised Jews

  The position of Hellenised women, including Hellenised Jewish women, was very different to women constrained by strict Jewish tradition. In the Jewish diaspora, in Syria, in Asia Minor, in Egypt, where Greek values and Roman law were the norm, Jewish women enjoyed more rights and autonomy; they could take oaths, be witnesses in court, initiate divorce, own property and engage in business. In Palestine the obstacles to the independence of Jewish women remained formidable, but upper-class women of powerful families were able to bend the rules, while Hellenised families and their women could ignore them altogether.

  Hellenisation had spread in various degrees into all levels of Jewish Palestinian society, not least into the priestly class. Tellingly, the inscription at the Temple at Jerusalem warning strangers not to advance beyond a certain point was in Greek, and the Temple coffers into which the faithful put their contributions were also marked in Greek. Hebrew was all but a dead language except for liturgical use and almost all Jews spoke Aramaic or Greek; the Temple signs in Greek conceded the reality of Hellenised Jews and Jews of the diaspora, those of Syria and Asia Minor and Egypt, whose common language was Greek.

  Jews were among the greatest beneficiaries of Hellenisation. Large numbers of Jews had long since left their homeland and lived as far afield as Mesopotamia and Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor and Greece; there were far more Jews in the diaspora than in Palestine and to a greater or lesser degree they had become Hellenised.

  In Alexandria in Egypt, for example, founded by Alexander and the greatest of Hellenistic cities, where Jews numbered about two-fifths of the population, they had so lost their knowledge of Hebrew that the Torah and the rest of the Jewish Bible had to be translated into Greek as the Septuagint. When the New Testament, which was written in Greek, quoted the Old Testament, it did so not from the original Hebrew but directly from the Alexandrian Greek of the Septuagint.

  The Septuagint was produced at the command of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The Ptolemies, the dynastic successors to Alexander the Great, who ruled Egypt for three hundred years, concluding with the reign of the famous Cleopatra, strongly favoured the Jews. Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the dynasty, introduced 30,000 Jewish colonists to Egypt at the beginning of the third century BC. A great wave of Jews left Palestine in the second century BC propelled by the 160s BC Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids, who like the Ptolemies were dynastic successors of Alexander and ruled over much of the Middle East. This new influx of Jews joined their already Hellenised compatriots in the Delta and the Fayyum and in Alexandria, and many rose to high positions; during the reign of Ptolemy IV, in the mid-second century BC, the control of Egypt’s armed forces was entrusted to Onias IV, the emigrant son of the high priest at the Temple in Jerusalem.

  So prevalent was the use of Greek among Jews of the diaspora, most of whom would have known no Hebrew or Aramaic at all, that the Temple authorities in Jerusalem had to set up this warning in Greek. ‘No foreigner may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.’ By foreigner the inscription means any non-Jew.

  Temple inscription in Greek. Wikimedia Commons.

  Hellenised names became very common among Jews and their adoption of the Greek language was practically universal – the gospel writers called the rabbi Joshua, or Yeshua, by his Hellenised name, Jesus. The use of Greek encouraged Jews to adapt themselves in externals to the pattern of life around them to a remarkable degree, while preserving their distinct beliefs and practices. There are numerous examples of Jews in Egypt choosing
to use Greek law and Greek courts despite the availability of their own independent and protected Jewish legal institutions. Jews also swore oaths by pagan deities. Jewish synagogue dedications read just like pagan dedications to accommodate with Ptolemaic and Roman rule, but unlike pagan temples no statues were permitted in synagogues. Generally Jews accommodated themselves with the pagan world while maintaining the exclusive nature of their faith.

  The great lighthouse of Alexandria and the Greek version of the Jewish Bible were born at the same time, in the same city, on the same island of Pharos. The Jews of Egypt had so completely lost their knowledge of Hebrew that Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who was king from 283 to 246 BC, commissioned a Greek version of the Jewish Bible, called the Septuagint. This was the Bible commonly known not only to Hellenised Jews throughout the diaspora but to educated Jews in Palestine. When the New Testamant writers quote the Old Testament, they are quoting the Alexandrian Greek of the Septuagint. Septuagint means seventy in Greek and refers to the legend that Ptolemy II employed seventy Jewish scholars to translate the Hebrew to Greek. Each man was housed separately on the island of Pharos where Ptolemy had also constructed Alexandria’s towering lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which took its name, the Pharos, from the island. When the work of translation was finished the seventy versions were compared and all were found to be identical.

  Lighthouse at Alexandria. New York Public Library.

  Second only to Egypt, Hellenic influence was strongest along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, that is all along the coast of Palestine and Syria. Hellenism also took a firm hold in eastern Palestine; the cities of the Decapolis to the east and north of the Sea of Galilee were centres of Greek influence. In greater or lesser degree Hellenism made itself felt throughout Palestine and among all classes and in every area of life.