Wonderful Mary!

Tommy Dillon

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her. John 20:18

Have you ever been a victim of type-casting? That question keeps coming to mind lately as I have been reading Susan Haskins' book, Mary Magdalene- Myth and Metaphor. It explores Mary's various assumed or invented roles preserved in literature and art since her entrance into history in the Gospels. You know most of the rumors and speculations. She was either Jesus' wife, lover, confidant; a demon-possessed disreputable sinner, a prostitute; the model of repentance, or maybe all or none of these.

Mary Magdalene's legend often grew out of mistaken identity. There were at least five different Marys in Scripture. (Not surprising, since over half of the women in first century Israel were named Mary, after the Prophet Miriam, the clever and outspoken sister of Moses and Aaron.) Mary Magdalene is often pictured in art as the long haired woman with the little perfume bottle who anointed Jesus' feet, in the assumption the woman was a prostitute and so was Mary. She wasn't. That particular slander originated in an influential sermon given by Pope Gregory I in 591. What the Scriptures do tell us about Mary is that she, Joanna and Susanna financed Jesus' ministry, she was the disciple at the cross, the first witness to the resurrection and, as Susan Haskins puts it, the Herald of the New Life, yet to many people, she is still identified as the repentant prostitute, type-cast in a role she never played.

At least, current scholarship is making a valiant effort to vindicate Mary, but her story is a good reminder to us to avoid being casting directors to those around us. The next time we are tempted to say, "Of course you know about what he used to do?", or "she's just not my kind of person," let's remember Mary. Bad casting can last 1,400 years.