The Last Supper with Mary Magdalene to the Right of Jesus!
Additional research and websights regarding Mary Magdalene and early Christian History which ordained women are given. Truth is coming forth! This is why the Lord commanded us to Seek after Truth!!!
Additional Exciting Research Highlights:
Early Ordination of Women was done until the 5th century when Pope Gelasius I sent a letter to the bishops of Southern Italy to stop ordaining women. Women were ordained to positions of leadership in the early church on into the 9th century in other areas. Great website & video that was shown to a large British audience (millions) which caused the Anglican Church to ordain women to the priesthood three days later after 458 years of suppressing women! See www.womensordination.com
Romans 16.7 speaks of two notable apostles, Andronicus and Junia, and good authorities agree that "Junia" is a woman's name. So here we have another sister as an apostle and a notable apostle. This is remarkable because of the "rewrites" and revisions done to the Bible throughout the ages. Many scriptures mention the women who were powerhouses supporting and teaching Christianity!
Research by Ramon K. Jusino entitled "Mary Magdalene: Author of the Fourth Gospel" contains compelling evidence with this summation: "The evidence supporting authorship of the Fourth Gospel by Mary Magdalene is much stronger than that which established John of Zebedee as its author for nearly two thousand years." You can research this further at http://www.BelovedDisciple.org
The following is copied with permission from that site:
There are many depictions in art of Mary's role as witness to the Resurrection, of her discovery of the empty tomb and subsequent role as bearer of the good news to the other disciples. Her witness, rather than her mission to anoint the dead Christ, is emphasised and St Augustine described her visit to the tomb as "ocular proof" of the Resurrection. [1] Her witness was brought into Hippolytus' exposition on the Song of Songs (aka Song of Solomon, Canticle of Canticles) where he identified the Shulamite searching for her lover with Mary seeking Jesus. After she found Christ, Mary became the new Eve.
Hippolytus was the first to give Mary the title of Apostle in his exposition, saying "Eve has become apostle...So that the women did not appear liars but bringers of the truth, Christ appeared to the [male] apostles and said to them: It is truly I who appeared to these women and who desired to send them to you as apostles." [2] Mary's association with Song of Songs is still with us - Songs 8:6-7 is used as a part of the liturgy for her saints day.
Mary's title of apostle (or "apostle to the apostles") may sound strange to us, for female apostles disappeared quite early in the life of the church. There were still women apostles during the writing of the New Testament, however, and it is not incongruous to see Mary Magdalene as an apostle too. We know of these female apostles from Paul, who speaks in Romans 16:7 of Junia (or Julia) who was pre-eminent among the apostles, and even the misogynistic commentator St John Crysostom admitted this when he wrote:
"And indeed to be apostles at all is a great thing. But to be even amongst these of note, just consider what a great encomium this is! But they were of note owing to their works, to their achievements. Oh! how great is the devotion of this woman, that she should be even counted worthy of the appellation of apostle!" [3]
Mary was also called "apostle to the apostles" by Gregory of Antioch (d595ad) when he had Christ say "Be the first apostles to the apostles. So that Peter...learns that I can choose even women as apostles." [4]
Confusion over the Maries at the tomb began to set in, with the Syriac church identifying all of them, and the Virgin Mary, as one person, and the tradition was carried over to the Western Church, with St Ambrose questioning whether there were three people at the tomb or just one. By the middle of the 6th century Mary had become completely identified with Luke's sinful woman who washed the feet of Christ, a sinner, a prostitute and a penitent. Her title of apostle grew increasingly anachronistic and forgotten in a church which no longer accepted women into the 'discipleship of equals' and which had no place for them in church offices.
2 quoted in Dictionnaire de Spiritualite, Ascetique et Mystique, Doctrine et Histoire ed M Viller et al. Paris (1932) 1978 col 565
3 Crysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans Homily XXXI in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I Vol XI, obtained from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
