St Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles

Western art made her a weeping penitent with loose hair and a jar of ointment. Modern novels and documentaries have made her the secret wife of Jesus or the suppressed leader of a lost Christianity. The Orthodox Church calls her something else: Myrrhbearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles, the woman who stood at the Cross and was the first to see the risen Lord.

This article sets out what the Gospels actually say about her, how a Western sermon of about 591 fused her with two other women, why the Eastern Church never made that identification, what later tradition adds about her life after Pentecost, and how to weigh the claims built on the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary.

In brief

The Gospels say that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary of Magdala, that she followed him and supported his mission from her means, stood near the Cross, saw where he was buried, came to the tomb, and was the first to see him risen and to tell the apostles. Nothing in them calls her a prostitute or identifies her with the sinful woman of Luke 7 or with Mary of Bethany. Around 591 Pope Gregory the Great preached that these were one woman, and that reading shaped Western art and liturgy until the Roman calendar was revised after the Second Vatican Council. The Eastern Church kept the three apart, and still commemorates them on different days. Later tradition says she preached, met the emperor Tiberius with a red egg, and died at Ephesus; these stories are honored as tradition, not documented history. The Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip are second- or third-century texts that tell us about the groups that wrote them, not about a marriage.

Thesis: The real Mary Magdalene of the Gospels, a healed disciple and the first witness of the Resurrection, is more remarkable than either the medieval penitent or the modern secret bride, and the Orthodox title "Equal-to-the-Apostles" fits the evidence.

What the Gospels say

Luke introduces her during the Galilean ministry. With the Twelve were "certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities—Mary called Magdalene, out of whom had come seven demons, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others who provided for Him from their substance."¹ Her name ties her to Magdala, on the Sea of Galilee.

All four Gospels place her at the end. Mark lists her first among the women "looking on from afar" at the crucifixion; John places her by the Cross with the Mother of the Lord and Mary the wife of Clopas.² She saw where the body was laid and came back with the other women at dawn on the first day of the week. Matthew says the risen Jesus met the women on their way; Luke records that when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others told the apostles, "their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them."³

John gives the fullest scene. Mary stands weeping outside the tomb and mistakes Jesus for the gardener until he calls her by name: "Mary!" She answers "Rabboni!" Then he sends her: "go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'" And "Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her."⁴ The longer ending of Mark, which the Church reads as Scripture though Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus lack it, says that the risen Lord "appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons."⁵

{{strong: All four Gospels name Mary Magdalene among the women at the empty tomb, Matthew, Mark and John name her at the Cross, and Matthew, John and the longer ending of Mark describe the risen Christ appearing to her.}} That is the core of what we know, and it is a great deal. Even the pagan critic Celsus, as quoted by Origen, treated her testimony as central enough to attack: who saw the risen Jesus? "A half-frantic woman, as you state."⁶ The site's article on the historical evidence for the Resurrection discusses the women's testimony as evidence.

Three women, or one?

The texts

The confusion comes from three separate passages. In Luke 7, at the house of a Pharisee, "a woman in the city who was a sinner" weeps over Jesus' feet and anoints them; Luke does not name her. In John 11 and 12, Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus, anoints the Lord before his Passion; John notes, "It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair."⁷ And in Luke 8, one chapter after the unnamed sinner, Mary Magdalene appears as a woman healed of seven demons. Nothing in the text says that the sinner is either Mary, or that the seven demons were sexual sins.

Gregory's homily (about 591)

The identification that shaped the West came from a sermon. Preaching on Luke 7 in Rome, Pope Gregory the Great said, in an English translation reproduced by the historian Roger Pearse: "The one that Luke calls a sinner, and that John names Mary (see John 11: 2), we believe that she is that Mary of whom, according to Mark, the Lord has cast out seven demons." He went on: "And what are these seven demons, if not the universality of all vices?"⁸ Pearse points out that this was ordinary preaching, not a decree; the common online claim that Gregory "declared" her a prostitute by papal decision is loose. Yet the sermon was widely read. Its key sentence, in Latin, was later sung as a responsory at the medieval Office of her feast: "Hanc vero quam Lucas peccatricem mulierem Joannes Mariam nominat illam esse Mariam credimus de qua Marcus septem daemonia ejecta fuisse testatur."⁹ Gregory is himself a saint of the undivided Church, honored in the East as Gregory the Dialogist; the site's article Who Was Pope Gregory the Great? tells his story. On this point the East simply did not follow him.

The Eastern practice

The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910, whose author himself defended Gregory's identification, admitted: "The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons: the 'sinner' of Luke 7:36-50; the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38-42 and John 11; and Mary Magdalen."¹⁰ The Orthodox calendar shows the same distinction. On Holy Wednesday, Fr Thomas Hopko writes, "the focus is on the fallen woman who repents," contrasted with Judas.¹¹ Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, have their own day on June 4.¹² Mary Magdalene is kept on July 22. On the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women the Orthodox Church in America lists "Mary Magdalene (July 22)" and "Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus (June 4)" as distinct saints.¹³ {{strong: The Eastern Church has not identified Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman of Luke 7 or with Mary of Bethany, and commemorates them separately.}}

Honesty requires one qualification. Orthodox lives of the saint do speak of her former sinfulness. The OCA's life, translated from Russian sources, says that "Tradition informs us that Mary of Magdala was young and pretty, and led a sinful life," and describes her as "formerly immersed in sin."¹⁴ That is not an identification with the woman of Luke 7, but it shows that the East, too, has filled in what the Gospels leave unsaid.

Rome's revision

In the West the identification lasted for centuries. In a 2016 article, Archbishop Arthur Roche of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship wrote that "ecclesial tradition in the West, especially since the time of Gregory the Great, has identified Saint Mary Magdalene, and the woman who anointed Christ's feet with perfume in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and the sister of Lazarus and Martha, as one and the same person." He adds that the Bollandists' study of the question "prepared a path for the liturgical reform of the Roman Calendar" after the Second Vatican Council.¹⁵ In 2016 Pope Francis raised her commemoration in the Roman calendar to the rank of a feast, the rank of the apostles.¹⁶

"Apostle to the apostles" and "Equal-to-the-Apostles"

Western writers gave her the title apostolorum apostola, "apostle of the apostles." Roche traces it to Rabanus Maurus and St Thomas Aquinas, "because she announces to the apostles what in turn they will announce to the whole world."¹⁵ The Orthodox title is "Equal-to-the-Apostles," given to saints whose preaching made them like the apostles. The OCA's life puts it simply: "The Apostles proclaimed the Glad Tidings to the world, but she proclaimed it to the Apostles themselves."¹⁴ Both titles rest on John 20: she is sent, and she tells.

The title describes a kind of witness. It does not make her one of the Twelve.

After Pentecost: what tradition says

Scripture is silent about her later life. The OCA's life says as much: "Holy Scripture does not tell us about the life of Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection of Christ." It then gives the Church's tradition. She preached in Rome and through Italy. "Tradition relates that in Italy Mary Magdalene visited Emperor Tiberias (14-37 A.D.) and proclaimed to him Christ's Resurrection. According to Tradition, she brought him a red egg as a symbol of the Resurrection, a symbol of new life with the words: 'Christ is Risen!'"¹⁴ The life connects the Paschal egg with her, citing a prayer for the blessing of eggs in an old Greek manuscript kept at a monastery near Thessalonica, without giving its date.

The same life says that in old age she moved to Ephesus, where the Apostle John was working, and died there, and that her relics were moved to Constantinople in the ninth century.¹⁴ The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the year of the translation as 886 and notes that Gregory of Tours, in the sixth century, already supports the tradition that she went to Ephesus.¹⁰ A rival Western tradition, strong in France, says that she, Lazarus and their companions landed at Marseilles, and that she ended her days in a cave at La Sainte-Baume; her supposed relics were claimed by Vézelay and then, from 1279, by Saint-Maximin in Provence.¹⁰ {{debated: Mary Magdalene died and was buried at Ephesus, as the Eastern tradition holds.}} The Ephesus tradition is older and more modest than the Provençal one, but neither can be checked against first-century evidence.

What can we actually verify?

(a) Contemporary or near-contemporary evidence

The four Gospels, written within the first century, are the only early sources for her life. All four put her at the empty tomb; Matthew, Mark and John name her at the Cross (Luke speaks of the women from Galilee), Matthew and Mark at the burial; and three of them record a meeting with the risen Lord. Luke and the longer ending of Mark record her healing from seven demons. Celsus's attack, preserved by Origen, shows that her witness was already central in arguments about the Resurrection.

(b) Later hagiographical tradition

Her preaching in Italy, the meeting with Tiberius and the red egg, her death at Ephesus and the translation of her relics come from later tradition. Gregory of Tours in the sixth century is the earliest witness this article could trace for Ephesus; the Tiberius story is later still. These are honored in the Church as tradition and teaching stories, not as documented history.

(c) Reported miracles

The only miracle tied to her in Scripture is her own healing. Later reports of wonders at her relics are received as the testimony of the faithful, not as proof.

The Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip and the Da Vinci Code

The Gospel of Mary

A Coptic text called the Gospel of Mary survives in a codex bought in Cairo in 1896 and copied around the late fourth or early fifth century, with two small Greek fragments from Oxyrhynchus.¹⁷ In it Peter says, "Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman," and later objects: "Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us?"¹⁷ Scholars such as Karen King, whose study of the text is subtitled Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, read it as evidence that some early Christians saw Mary as a leading teacher. It is not an apostolic Gospel and does not claim she married Jesus, and its account of the soul's ascent past hostile powers reflects ideas the site discusses in Why Were the Gnostic Gospels Left Out of the Bible? and in What Was Gnosticism?

The Gospel of Philip

The Gospel of Philip, found at Nag Hammadi in 1945, is a Valentinian anthology. Its translator Wesley Isenberg dated it to the second half of the third century; Hans-Martin Schenke thought a second-century date more probable.¹⁸ Two passages are cited for a marriage. The first, in Isenberg's translation: "There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion."¹⁹ The second is usually printed as saying that the Lord "used to kiss her often on her mouth."

Neither passage shows a marriage, and the claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene is false. Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code has a character say that "companion" in Aramaic meant spouse. Bart Ehrman, no defender of traditional Christianity, replies that the Gospel of Philip "was not written in Aramaic," that the word in the Coptic text is the Greek loan-word koinonos, and that "it is not the Greek word for spouse. It normally means 'associate,' or 'companion.'"²⁰ As for the kiss, the manuscript has holes at the key points. Ehrman gives the text as "kiss her [gap] on her [gap]," and Elijah Hixson, writing in the British paper Evangelicals Now, says that "'mouth' was simply a guess about what was once there," adding that the verb "can simply mean 'greet.'"²¹ Earlier, the same gospel says that "it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another," which shows that the kiss in this text is a ritual and spiritual image.¹⁹

The "Gospel of Jesus' Wife"

In 2012 a papyrus scrap reading "Jesus said to them, My wife" was announced by the Harvard scholar Karen King. After an investigation by the journalist Ariel Sabar traced it to a German owner named Walter Fritz, King herself said in 2016, "I'm leaning toward modern forgery."²² King deserves credit for saying so when the evidence turned.

The Orthodox position

• Scripture and dogma. Mary Magdalene was a healed disciple of Jesus, a witness of his death and burial, and the first to see him risen and announce it to the apostles. The Church's faith in the Resurrection rests in part on her testimony.
• Common tradition. The Church honors her as Myrrhbearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles, on July 22 and on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women. The OCA's troparion sings: "You followed Christ Who was born of a virgin for our sake, O revered Mary Magdalene, / keeping His commandments and laws."²³ The red egg, the meeting with Tiberius and her death at Ephesus are cherished tradition.
• Not Orthodox teaching. That she was the sinful woman of Luke 7 or Mary of Bethany, or that she was a prostitute. That she was married to Christ, or was the bearer of a secret Gnostic teaching, is false.

On how the Church recognizes and honors saints, see How Does Someone Become a Saint in the Orthodox Church?

Objections and replies

"The Church turned her into a prostitute to put women in their place."

The identification was real and long-lived in the West. But it arose from a reading of Luke and John in a sermon, not from a campaign, and Gregory used her as a model of repentance for every listener. The East never made the identification, and Rome revised its calendar in the twentieth century. The evidence supports correcting the story, not a conspiracy.

"The Gnostic gospels preserve the real Mary that the Church suppressed."

The Gospels of Mary and Philip are later than the four Gospels, carry no apostolic authority, and show how Gnostic groups used her name. The canonical Gospels, written earlier, already give her an extraordinary role as first witness of the Resurrection, sent to the apostles. The Church did not need to hide her.

"If she was the first witness, why does Paul leave her out of 1 Corinthians 15?"

Paul's list of witnesses names Cephas, the Twelve, the five hundred, James and himself; it does not mention the women. Scholars explain the omission in different ways; the site's article on Paul's resurrection creed discusses the list. The Gospels, which tell the stories in full, all put the women at the tomb, even though Luke admits that the apostles first dismissed their words as "idle tales."³

What we can say confidently

• Mary Magdalene was healed by Jesus of seven demons, followed him and supported his mission from her means (Luke 8:2-3).
• She came to the tomb on the first day of the week, according to all four Gospels; Matthew, Mark and John name her at the crucifixion, and Matthew and Mark at the burial.
• Matthew, John and the longer ending of Mark describe the risen Christ appearing to her; John describes her being sent to tell the disciples.
• The Gospels never call her a prostitute or identify her with the sinful woman of Luke 7 or Mary of Bethany.
• {{very-strong: The identification of the three women was popularized in the West by Gregory the Great's homily of about 591; the Eastern Church commemorates them separately.}}
• The word used of her in the Gospel of Philip, koinonos, means "companion" or "associate," and the "kiss on the mouth" depends on a gap in the manuscript.

What remains disputed

• Where and when she died. Ephesus is the older tradition; Provence is a later Western one.
• Whether the Paschal egg custom really goes back to her, as Orthodox tradition holds.
• The date of the Gospel of Philip (second or third century) and how far the Gospel of Mary reflects real second-century debates about women's leadership.
• The nature of the "seven demons." Luke does not say, and readings from Gregory onward are interpretations.

Conclusion

The Mary Magdalene of the Gospels does not need to be made into a penitent courtesan or a secret queen to be worth knowing. She was set free by Christ, she gave what she had, she stayed when the men ran, and she went to the tomb in the dark with spices for a dead body. She was the first to hear her name spoken by the risen Lord and the first to say "I have seen the Lord" to the apostles. The Orthodox Church calls her Equal-to-the-Apostles because every Paschal greeting, "Christ is risen," repeats the news she was sent to carry.

Notes

1. Luke 8:1-3 (NKJV).
2. Mark 15:40; John 19:25 (NKJV).
3. Matthew 28:9-10; Luke 24:10-11 (NKJV).
4. John 20:11-18 (NKJV). The NKJV footnote notes that the critical (NU) text reads "I have seen the Lord" in verse 18.
5. Mark 16:9 (NKJV), with its footnote on verses 9-20.
6. Origen, Against Celsus 2.55 and 2.59, trans. Frederick Crombie, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm.
7. Luke 7:37; John 11:2 (NKJV).
8. Gregory the Great, Homily 33 on the Gospels, English translation (translator not identified) reproduced in Roger Pearse, "A homily of Gregory the Great and Mary Magdalene," 12 October 2020, https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2020/10/12/a-homily-of-gregory-the-great-and-mary-magdalene/. Latin in Patrologia Latina 76, col. 1239; the standard English translation is David Hurst, Forty Gospel Homilies (Cistercian, 1990), which was not consulted.
9. Cantus Database, chant "Hanc vero quam Lucas peccatricem," Klosterneuburg, CCl 1012, fol. 26v, feast of Mary Magdalene, https://cantusdatabase.org/chant/285228.
10. Hugh Pope, "St. Mary Magdalen," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (1910), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09761a.htm.
11. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship, "Holy Week," https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-church-year/holy-week.
12. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, June 4, "Righteous Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus," https://www.oca.org/saints/all-lives/2026/06/04.
13. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, "Sunday of the Holy Myrrhbearing Women" (26 April 2026), https://www.oca.org/saints/all-lives/2026/04/26.
14. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, July 22, "Myrrhbearer and Equal of the Apostles Mary Magdalene," https://www.oca.org/saints/all-lives/2026/07/22.
15. Arthur Roche, "Apostle of the Apostles," Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (2016), https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/articolo-roche-maddalena_en.pdf.
16. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Decree Prot. N. 257/16, 3 June 2016, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/sanctae-m-magdalenae-decretum_en.pdf.
17. The Gospel of Mary, introduction and translation, The Gnostic Society Library, http://gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm.
18. "Gospel of Philip," Early Christian Writings, quoting Wesley W. Isenberg in The Nag Hammadi Library in English and Hans-Martin Schenke in New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 1, pp. 182-183, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospelphilip.html.
19. The Gospel of Philip, trans. Wesley W. Isenberg, The Nag Hammadi Library, http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html.
20. Bart Ehrman, "Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and ... Sexual Innuendos?" The Bart Ehrman Blog, 31 January 2021, https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-mary-magadalene-and-sexual-innuendos/.
21. Ehrman, same post; Elijah Hixson, "Non-canonical Gospels Under Scrutiny," Evangelicals Now, 1 May 2019, https://e-n.org.uk/features/2019-05-non-canonical-gospels-under-scrutiny.
22. Ben Guarino, "Harvard professor who made 'The Gospel of Jesus's Wife' famous now thinks it's likely a fake," The Washington Post, 22 June 2016, reprinted at https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/nation-world/2016/06/22/harvard-professor-who-made-the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-famous-now-thinks-its-likely-a-fake/.
23. Orthodox Church in America, Troparia and Kontakia, July 22, https://www.oca.org/saints/troparia/2026/07/22.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.
• Origen. Against Celsus. Trans. Frederick Crombie. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4. 1885.
• Gregory the Great. Homily 33 on the Gospels. Latin in PL 76; English translation reproduced by Roger Pearse (2020).
• Cantus Database. "Hanc vero quam Lucas peccatricem." Klosterneuburg CCl 1012.
• The Gospel of Philip. Trans. Wesley W. Isenberg. In James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English. HarperCollins, 1990. gnosis.org.
• The Gospel of Mary. The Gnostic Society Library, gnosis.org.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Orthodox Church in America. Lives of the Saints (July 22; June 4; Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women) and Troparia (July 22). oca.org.
• Hopko, Thomas. The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship. Orthodox Church in America, oca.org.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Pope, Hugh. "St. Mary Magdalen." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton, 1910.
• Pearse, Roger. "A homily of Gregory the Great and Mary Magdalene." 12 October 2020.
• Early Christian Writings. "Gospel of Philip" (citing Isenberg and Schenke).
• Ehrman, Bart. "Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and ... Sexual Innuendos?" The Bart Ehrman Blog, 2021.
• Hixson, Elijah. "Non-canonical Gospels Under Scrutiny." Evangelicals Now, May 2019.
• Guarino, Ben. "Harvard professor who made 'The Gospel of Jesus's Wife' famous now thinks it's likely a fake." The Washington Post, 22 June 2016.

Sources from the traditions being discussed (Roman Catholic)

• Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. Decree on the Feast of St Mary Magdalene, Prot. N. 257/16. 3 June 2016.
• Roche, Arthur. "Apostle of the Apostles." 2016. vatican.va.