Q: Why is it that Mary Magdalene in the Bible is so often thought of as a prostitute? Nowhere in the Bible is this ever said, so why does this otherwise faithful woman get turned into a hooker?
A: This question was put to yours truly by a gentleman who is in graduate school studying literature. He is correct in both of his statements, that Mary Magdalene is never described as a prostitute but the artistic and literary tradition unfairly brands her as such.
She is often used in paintings to show the dangers of temptation and many times in revealing clothing. Jesus did minister to prostitutes and a number of other undesirable characters, but Mary Magdalene was not one of them.
This unfortunate designation comes to us from Pope Gregory I, who served as pontiff from 590-604 A.D., in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire. Pope Gregory has been called “the Great” because of hismany accomplishments, which included making peace with the barbarian tribes, reforming the Roman liturgy, feeding the poor, effectively establishing the Papal State, and his many writings on the Bible. It is in this last area that he is at his most creative, indeed, his most colorful.
In regard to Mary Magdalene, Pope Gregory made two very large assumptions. He decided that this Mary was the very same woman from whom Jesus had previously driven out seven devils. He took these devils to represent sin. Second, he also associated Mary Magdalene with the unnamed woman in Luke 7:37, a woman with a bad reputation who washed His feet with precious ointment and dried them with her hair.
The interesting thing about these interpretations was that they were not based on ignorance. Gregory was the son of one of the last Roman senators, he was highly educated, was deeply familiar with the Scriptures and could read the New Testament in both its original Greek and in the common Latin vernacular. He is the last known pope who could read Biblical Greek for a thousand years. So where did he get this wacky interpretation of the poor Biblical lady’s story?
First of all, Gregory was very concerned with public morality, and many of his sermons end with injunctions to avoid vice. The public morality of Rome in this period was low, and a century and a half earlier, a young man named Benedict came to Rome and fled because he said, there was so much vice no one could be a Christian in the city. So Gregory was passionately concerned to tell people the importance of virtue, which was the same mindset likely to speak on the repentant character of this Mary.
For example, in the year 590 A.D., the Church in Rome celebrated the commemoration of St. Felicity, a noblewoman who was martyred for her Christian faith around 165 A.D. in the time of Marcus Aurelius. After expounding on the greatness of her faith as a model for all Christians, Gregory then draws a rather strict moral lesson for his listeners. He said, “When the Rigid Judge comes for the terrible examination, what can we say, men, at the sight of the glory of this woman? In what will the weakness of their hearts excuse men when they are shown that woman who, besides the world, has conquered her sex? Let us follow, dear brothers, the austere and harsh path of the Redeemer: the practice of virtues has so smoothed out thatwomen take pleasure in borrowing it. Despise all the goods of the present life; they are worthless, since they can pass. Shame to love what we are sure to lose very quickly. Let us not be dominated by the love of earthly things, nor swell with pride, nor tear with anger, nor defile with lust, nor consume with envy.”
One gets the impression that Gregory did not approve of a lot of partying.
Another interesting passage of Gregory’s method of interpreting the Bible may be found in his homily on the Resurrection of Jesus. In chapter 21 of John’s Gospel, Jesus meets the disciples on the beach at daybreak, while they are fishing. Jesus tells them to cast their nets on the other side of their boat, and at the last moment haul in a huge number of fish, when they bring to shore. There they find that Jesus has prepared breakfast and He shows them that He is indeed risen from the dead.
But then Gregory goes on to interpret this story to say that the sea represents this troubled world that is full of uncertainties and potential death. The shore represents the firm ground of eternal life in heaven, and so their transition from sea to land represents the pilgrimage of the soul. As they pass from one state of existence, danger to safety, they pass by the breakfast Jesus served, which was fish and bread. Gregory goes on to say that the grilled fish represents the sufferings of Christ on the cross, and the bread represents Jesus who had previously said, “I am the bread of life.” And so, Gregory concludes that the sufferings on the cross are what makes this transition from death to life possible.
This story, while beautiful, is nonetheless odd. Christ on the cross is like fish being grilled on a campfire? The water represents the trials of this world? One wants to ask where the good bishop is getting all of these ideas.The heavy use of allegory in philosophical literature goes back to Plato, and Gregory was given a classical education. But because of Gregory and other church fathers from the Roman era, this use of allegory as a means of interpreting the Bible would become increasingly common as the Middle Ages progressed, and Gregory’s sermons would become models for young clergy in their training.
So there we have it, a pope concerned to improve the morals of his people, trained in the classical Platonic use of allegory to interpret texts, ended up giving a good saint a bad name. This would not be the last time the clergy failed to understand women.
