Mary Magdalene Revisited

For some reason Mary Magdalene has been on my mind, so I figured it's time to write about her for Valentine's day. Every since the re-discovery of numerous materials that were left out of the New Testament, there has been growing attention to Mary Magdalene, but even the little that was in the New Testament books was intriguing. The notion that she was the first to understand the resurrection, and thus became the one to bring the news to the other apostles, making her the Apostle to the Apostles, is intriguing, and makes it all the more surprising that she should have exited stage left. In the various other books, perhaps the most interesting description of her relationship with Jesus comes from the Gospel of Philip, as follows:

There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.
And the companion of the [Savior is] Mary Magdalene. [But Christ] loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often[]. The rest of the disciples [were offended by it and expressed disapproval.] They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her?"

There are other cute references to the apostles being bothered by the closeness of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and many have observed the logic that not only would it have been strange if Jesus wasn't married, but also the role which Mary Magdalene played at the time of the crucifixion, including going to the grave to anoint the body would be thoroughly consistent with the role of a wife. There is nothing explicit in the literature that definitively identifies her as Jesus' wife, but it simply makes sense. It is important to note however that not only was she physically close with him, but that there is extensive evidence that the Apostle to the Apostles was indeed a teacher in her own right and in all probability understood what Jesus stood for better than anybody. So much the more amazing that she should fade away in the literature.

At least it is now clear enough that the story of her as a penitent prostitute was a fabrication probably going back to Pope Gregory I, in 591, however that particular story fits in with the efforts of the church to trivialize her, and to shore up the importance of the "official" apostles, centered really on Peter and the theological foundations provided by Paul. The relative neglect of her, and later the attempt to deliberately trivialize her, do make sense if you take into account the fact that in Paul's theological framing of who Jesus was, he is made completely different from us. In that context having Jesus be married would be very inconvenient. Even more so towards the Middle Ages, when the emphasis on celibacy grew in importance and was ultimately made church law, at least in the Roman Catholic church, it becomes all the more important to think that Jesus was above all that, and was exceptional in that regard as well.

From the standpoint of A Course in Miracles it all makes more sense, for the fundamental underlying notion of the Course is that our spiritual growth happens only in relationships, and not by trying to abandon the world in that sense. The very simple logic of the Course is that the ego's notion of separation seeks to reassert itself by relationships to others, starting with parents and siblings, and then evolving to love interests. These relationships make us special (think Valentine's day), and besides that seem to give us the sense of completion which we gave up in embracing the separation, which is the very foundation of our individuality. The Course is based on the notion that the separation can only be healed in relationships, through outgrowing the specialness, and embracing again the Holy Relationship--to thine own Self be true--and therein to transcend our specialness claims on another and learn to embrace inclusive love as the Course means it, which can flow through us and extend into the world through our relationships, as we learn forgiveness ourselves. In this context, when we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, in lieu of chasing the ego's goals, our partners become our teachers, and our relationships become the cradle for the rebirth of the Holy Relationship, which then becomes the central reality in the way we relate to everything in the world. This way the relationships which are started by the ego to reassert itself, form the perfect vehicle in the hands of the Holy Spirit, to relearn the meaning of universal Love through those very relationships.