July 22nd, Feast of St. Mary Magdalene
The majority of modern biblical “scholars” – including Catholics – maintain that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany (the sister of Lazarus and Martha), and the sinful woman (of Luke 7) are three distinct women. On the other hand, there is some popular devotion which connects Mary Magdalene at least with the sinful woman, if not with Mary of Bethany. Finally, there is a modern opinion that Mary Magdalene is the adulterous woman of John 8 [in my study of the Fathers and Doctors, I have yet to find any support for this final claim].
It may be somewhat surprising, therefore, to realize that the Western Catholic tradition has held – from at least the 5th century up to the early 1900s – that Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinful woman (of Luke 7, not the adulteress of John 8) are one and the same person. Thus, the ancient and nearly unanimous tradition of the Latin Church is completely ignored by the modern Catholic “scholars”.
Indeed, if Mary Magdalene is not also Mary of Bethany, then we come to the awkward conclusion that Mary of Bethany is not venerated in the Roman Catholic Church – since there is no feast of “St. Mary of Bethany”, nor does the Latin Rite recognize any saint of that description apart from St. Mary Magdalene. Moreover, we point out that the feast of St. Martha of Bethany falls on the octave day of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene – lending additional support to the Church’s tradition.
While there is a tradition in the East which considers Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the sinful woman to be either two or even three women – and there is certainly some ground for such a claim – we will here defend the Latin consensus that these three are indeed only one single woman: The penitent, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, the Magdalen.
The relevant Scripture passages
And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that he sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment; And standing behind at his feet, she began to wash his feet, with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. (Luke 7:37-38)
And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, (Luke 8:1-2)
Now there was a certain man sick, named Lazarus, of Bethania, of the town of Mary and Martha her sister. (And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.) (John 11:1-2)
Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. (John 12:3)
The disappointing (and absurd) commentary of the Navarre Bible
The Navarre Bible is generally a decent commentary (as far as modern Catholic commentaries go). It is filled with many quotations from the Church Fathers, as well as with the comments of certain select authors of modern times (Pope Paul VI and St. Josemaría Esrivá, among others). However, it should be no surprise to realize that even this commentary is occasionally weak on particular points. Indeed, the fact that the commentary makes almost no mention of authors from 800 to 1800 (leaving out 1,000 years of the Catholic tradition) is cause for no little alarm.
Sadly, the discussion of the current question (on the identity of Mary Magdalene) is a particularly poignant example of how even the best and most conservative of today’s Catholic commentaries are infected with modernist tendencies.
Commenting on John 11:2, the Navarre Bible reads as follows:
“There are a number of women in the Gospels who are called Mary. The Mary here is Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus, the woman who later anointed our Lord, again in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper. […] Were Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and the ‘sinful’ woman who anointed Jesus’ feet in Galilee one, two or three women? Although sometimes it is argued that they are one and the same, it seems more likely that they were all different people. […]
“Besides, the Gospels give us no positive indication that Mary of Bethany was the same person as the ‘sinner’ of Galilee. Nor are there strong grounds for identifying Mary Magdalene and the ‘sinner’, whose name is not given; Mary Magdalene appears among the women who follow Jesus in Galilee […] no information is given which could link her with either of the other women.
“Nor can Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene be identified; for John differentiates between the two. […] The women were made out to be one, but there are no grounds for that interpretation. The best-grounded and most common interpretation offered by exegetes is that they are three distinct women.”
We should point out, in particular, the final portion of this commentary from the Navarre Bible: The author is asserting that there are “no grounds” for thinking that the three are all one and the same woman and that all (or at least nearly all, and certainly all the reputable) “exegetes” hold that they are three distinct women.
What is particularly troubling about this commentary is that the author of this portion of the Navarre Bible neglects to mention that nearly every theologian and biblical scholar (including all of the Fathers and Doctors) of the Latin Church, from the time of Augustine through to the early 1900s, maintained that the three were indeed one and the same woman: Mary Magdalene.
This position which is called “groundless” and is presented as contrary to the obvious meaning of Scripture was held not only by all the scholastics, but also by St. Augustine and the Latin Fathers. Can we really be so bold as to claim that St. Augustine just didn’t know the Bible? Shall we believe (as the Navarre Bible apparently would have us believe) that St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Lawrence of Brindisi and nearly every other Latin Catholic Doctor were not true “exegetes”? Was the Bible lost after the death of the last Apostle, only to be rediscovered by the Protestant “scholars” of the 19th and 20th centuries?
It is one thing to depart from the Latin tradition – having presented the Latin opinion, one may certainly offer critiques and even disagree with it (favoring the Greeks) – this would be reasonable, if a bit bold. But, to simply dismiss and ignore the 1500 year old Latin tradition as plainly false and utterly without grounding – this is insane! This is intellectual suicide brought on by a pride of the highest order!
Why modern(ist) “scholars” are confused on this point (from the Catholic Encyclopedia)
The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons:
1. the “sinner” of Luke 7:36-50;
2. the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38-42 and John 11; and
3. Mary Magdalen.
On the other hand most of the Latins hold that these three were one and the same. Protestant critics, however, believe there were two, if not three, distinct persons. It is impossible to demonstrate the identity of the three; but those commentators undoubtedly go too far who assert, as does Westcott (on John 11:1), “that the identity of Mary with Mary Magdalene is a mere conjecture supported by no direct evidence, and opposed to the general tenour of the gospels.”
It is the identification of Mary of Bethany with the “sinner” of Luke 7:37, which is most combatted by Protestants. It almost seems as if this reluctance to identify the “sinner” with the sister of Martha were due to a failure to grasp the full significance of the forgiveness of sin. The harmonizing tendencies of so many modern critics, too, are responsible for much of the existing confusion.
The Latin tradition: Fr. Cornelius a’ Lapide (commenting on Luke 7)
And behold a woman in the city. Behold, a wonderful thing, and a wonderful example of penitence. A woman called Mary Magdalene. S. Luke viii. 2. It is questioned whether this is the same woman who is mentioned by the two other Evangelists. S. Chrysostom thinks there were two; Origen, Theophylact, and Euthymius, three who thus anointed our Lord, and that each Evangelist wrote of a different person. S. Matt. xxvi. 7; S. John xii. 3.
But I hold that it was one and the same woman – Mary Magdalene, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, who anointed our Lord, as we read in the Gospels, on two but not three occasions; and this is clear, –
1. Because this is the general interpretation of the Church, who in her Offices accepts what is here written by S. Luke as referring to the Magdalene alone.
2. Because S. John (xi. 2) writes, It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick, thus plainly alluding to this passage of S. Luke, and signifying that only one woman anointed the Lord. For if there had been more than one, the words just quoted would have insufficiently described her. But the meaning is, “when I say Mary, I mean the penitent who anointed the feet of the Lord, as recounted by S. Luke, whom all know to be Mary Magdalene.”
3. Because the Mary mentioned by S. John (xii. 2, 3) is clearly the same Mary Magdalene, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, who anointed Christ here, as described by S. Luke, and again at Bethany, six days before the passover. For S. Matthew (xxvi. 6) and S. John (xii. i) both refer to the same event, as is evident if the two accounts are compared together. Therefore it was Mary Magdalene who anointed Christ, not three times, as Origen would have us believe, but twice only, once as is recorded by S. Luke, and again six days before His death.
4 The same thing is testified to by Church history and tradition, and also by the inscription on the tomb of the Magdalene, which Maximus, one of the seventy disciples, is said to have built.
5. And this is also the opinion of S. Augustine, S. Cyprian, and many other interpreters of scripture.
But it may be objected that this Magdalene followed Jesus from Galilee (S. Matt. xxvii. 55), and was a Galilean, and cannot have been the same as Mary the sister of Martha, who lived at Bethany, and was therefore of Judæa. I answer that she was of Judæa by descent, but seems to have lived in Galilee, it may be in the castle called Magdala, either because she had married the lord of that place, or because it had been allotted her as her share of the family property. Hence she was called Magdalene from the name of the place, Magdala. So Jansenius and others.
In the city. Some think in Jerusalem. But Jerusalem was in Judæa, and these things seem to have been done in Galilee where Christ was preaching. Hence it is very probable that the city was Nain, the scene of Christ’s miracle, as Toletus and others conjecture; but some think that it was the town of Magdala in which she lived, an idea which Adricomius on the word Magdalum supports.
A sinner. Some recent writers, to honour the Magdalene, think that she was not unchaste, but only conceited and vain, and for this reason called a sinner. But in proportion as they thus honour the Magdalene, they detract from the grace of God and that penitence which enabled her to live a holy life. For by the word sinner we generally understand one who not only sins, but leads others also to sin. The word sinner therefore here signifies a harlot, i.e. one who has many lovers although she may not make a public market of her charms, and this interpretation is accepted by S. Augustine, S. Jerome, Isidore of Pelusium, S. Ambrose, Gregory, Bede, and S. Chrysostom, who holds (Hom. 62 ad Pop.) that to her refer the words of our Lord, Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. S. Matt. xxii. 31.
The Catholic Encyclopedia on St. Mary Magdalene
In the view we have advocated the series of events forms a consistent whole; the sinner comes early in the ministry to seek for pardon; she is described immediately afterwards as Mary Magdalen out of whom seven devils were gone forth; shortly after, we find her sitting at the Lord's feet and hearing His words. To the Catholic mind it all seems fitting and natural.
At a later period Mary and Martha turn to the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and He restores to them their brother Lazarus; a short time afterwards they make Him a supper and Mary once more repeats the act she had performed when a penitent. At the Passion she stands near by; she sees Him laid in the tomb; and she is the first witness of His Resurrection – excepting always His Mother, to whom He must needs have appeared first, though the New Testament is silent on this point.
In our view, then, there were two anointings of Christ's feet – it should surely be no difficulty that St. Matthew and St. Mark speak of His head – the first (Luke 7) took place at a comparatively early date; the second, two days before the last Passover. But it was one and the same woman who performed this pious act on each occasion.
St. Mary Magdalene, Pray for us!