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Truth is coming forth during the Millennium. The Nag Hammadi Scrolls including the Gospel of Mary (see below), the Gospel of Phillip, etc. gives us new insight regarding the true character of Mary of Magdala. She was never a prostitute. Controlling men have blasphemied her name in order to suppress women thoughout the ages. The Gospel of Mary (see resources below) is an ancient records which gives further insight concerning the spirituality and status of Mary of Magdalene. It also shows (along with other records) the hot-tempered and jealousy of Peter. The first six pages are missing from this record. It was Mary that consoled the other Apostles when they were afraid of being killed as Jesus was killed. It was Mary who received a vision and further teaching from the resurrected Jesus. Read all of the ancient Gospels not included in the Bible (by men) and you have the key information to determine that Mary was the first woman Apostle and wife of Jesus.
Jesus was the Supreme Example of the Sacredness of Marriage. It would have been a sin for a Rabbi to NOT be married during the time that Jesus lived. He did fulfill the laws of Moses and lived to teach an even higher law. Put away the teachings of men who have suppressed women for generations for the pure and precious Truth. Jesus came to this earth to teach by example and to show us the way of God. As sons and daughters of God, Marriage is a Holy Ordinance ordained by God. The truth makes sense. He taught us the importance of being evenly yoked in marriage. Let no man put it asunder.
It was at Jesus's own wedding with His Mother Mary as the Hostess that Jesus performed His first Miracle changing the water to wine. It was to Mary, his wife that he first appeared and said "Touch me not.." because at that time he had to focus on His Mission. Mary understood and ran to proclaim the risen Christ.
Jesus teachings have many meanings. The teaching of the Bride and the Bridegroom is on one level an account of Jesus and His Eternal Love for Mary of Magdala who understood His teachings because their connection was spiritual and physical. Mary was a spiritual, visionary woman (see below). On other levels the teaching of the Bride and Bridegroom is for the entire world to be ready spiritually for His return.
Mary taught the other Apostles even though Peter was jealous of her because the Lord favored her over them. These ancient scriptures clearly state that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene over any other woman and over the other Apostles. Mary was pure in heart. She was blessed and she did see God. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God".
Jesus rebuilt the "Temple" in three days. He was the Temple, no earthly edifice of idolatry, rituals and blood oaths. In fact, God destroyed the temple of the Pharisees and Saducees after He was crucified by them. Did He not control the elements? After 5,000 were raised from the dead and teaching those who were His followers, He then went to teach His other sheep and ascended into the Heavens. There is NO ONE in history that has done the things as the Savior has for mankind. He is the Supreme Example. It is for man and woman to be one in Holy Matrimony unto God.
The following includes: The Gospel of Mary, other resources, books and further information regarding Mary of Magdala:
The Gospel of Mary
[The Coptic papyrus, from which the first six pages have been lost, begins in the middle of this gospel.]
"...will, then, matter be saved or not?"
The Savior said, "All natures, all formed things, all creatures exist in and with one another and will again be resolved into their own roots, because the nature of matter is dissolved into the roots of its nature alone. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." [cf. Matt. 11:15, etc.].
Peter said to him, "Since you have now explained all things to us, tell us this: what is the sin of the world?" [cf. John 1:29]. The Savior said, "Sin as such does not exist, but you make sin when you do what is of the nature of fornication, which is called 'sin.' For this reason the Good came into your midst, to the essence of each nature, to restore it to its root." He went on to say, "For this reason you come into existence and die [...] whoever knows may know [...] a suffering which has nothing like itself, which has arisen out of what is contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in the whole body. For this reason I said to you, Be of good courage [cf. Matt. 28:9], and if you are discouraged, still take courage over against the various forms of nature. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." When the Blessed One said this, he greeted all of them, saying "Peace be with you [cf. John 14:27]. Receive my peace for yourselves. Take heed lest anyone lead you astray with the words, 'Lo, here!' or 'Lo, there!' [cf. Matt. 24:5, 23; Luke 17:21] for the Son of Man is within you [cf. Luke 17:21]. Follow him; those who seek him will find him [cf. Matt. 7:7]. Go, therefore, and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom [cf. Matt. 4:23; 9:15; Mark 16:15]. I have left no commandment but what I have commanded you, and I have given you no law, as the lawgiver did, lest you be bound by it."
They grieved and mourned greatly, saying, "How shall we go to the Gentiles and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of the Son of Man? If even he was not spared, how shall we be spared?"
Then Mary stood up and greeted all of them and said to her brethren, "Do not mourn or grieve or be irresolute, for his grace will be with you all and will defend you. Let us rather praise his greatness, for he prepared us and made us into men." When Mary said this, their hearts changed for the better, and they began to discuss the words of the [Savior].
Peter said to Mary, "Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than other women [cf. John 11:5, Luke 10:38-42]. Tell us the words of the Savior which you have in mind since you know them; and we do not, nor have we heard of them."
Mary answered and said, "What is hidden from you I will impart to you." And she began to say the following words to them. "I," she said, "I saw the Lord in a vision and I said to him, 'Lord, I saw you today in a vision.' He answered and said to me, 'Blessed are you, since you did not waver at the sight of me. For where the mind is, there is your countenance' [cf. Matt. 6:21]. I said to him, 'Lord, the mind which sees the vision, does it see it through the soul or through the spirit?' The Savior answered and said, 'It sees neither through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind, which is between the two, which sees the vision, and it is...'"
"...and Desire said, 'I did not see you descend; but now I see you rising. Why do you speak falsely, when you belong to me?' The soul answered and said, 'I saw you, but you did not see me or recognize me; I served you as a garment and you did not recognize me.' After it had said this, it went joyfully and gladly away. Again it came to the third power, Ignorance. This power questioned the soul: 'Whither are you going? You were bound in wickedness, you were bound indeed. Judge not' [cf. Matt. 7:1]. And the soul said, 'Why do you judge me, when I judged not? I was bound, though I did not bind. I was not recognized, but I recognized that all will go free, things both earthly and heavenly.' After the soul had left the third power behind, it rose upward, and saw the fourth power, which had seven forms. The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth the arousing of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the wisdom of the folly of the flesh, the seventh is wrathful wisdom. These are the seven participants in wrath. They ask the soul, 'Whence do you come, killer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?' The soul answered and said, 'What seizes me is killed; what turns me about is overcome; my desire has come to an end and ignorance is dead. In a world I was saved from a world, and in a "type," from a higher "type" and from the fetter of the impotence of knowledge, the existence of which is temporal. From this time I will reach rest in the time of the moment of the Aeon in silence.'"
When Mary had said this, she was silent, since the Savior had spoken thus far with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, 'Say what you think concerning what she said. For I do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are of other ideas."
Peter also opposed her in regard to these matters and asked them about the Savior. "Did he then speak secretly with a woman [cf. John 4:27], in preference to us, and not openly? Are we to turn back and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?" Then Mary grieved and said to Peter, "My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart or that I am lying concerning the Savior?"
Levi answered and said to Peter, "Peter, you are always irate. Now I see that you are contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely the Savior knew her very well [cf. Luke 10:38- 42]. For this reason he loved her more than us [cf. John 11:5]. And we should rather be ashamed and put on the Perfect Man, to form us [?] as he commanded us, and proclaim the gospel, without publishing a further commandment or a further law than the one which the Savior spoke." When Levi had said this, they began to go out in order to proclaim him and preach him.
The Gospel of Mary
Resources for Information on The Gospel of Mary
James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins 1990), pp. 523-527.
(This review appeared in The New York Times, October 25, 2003.)
Mary of Magdala
Jesus and the First Woman Apostle
By Karen L. King
240 pp. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge Press, $20.00 paperback
Discovering Magdalene the Apostle,
Not the Fallen Woman
By Dinitia Smith
There is a breathtaking moment in the Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels, which were denounced by the church as heresy. The apostles witness Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene on the mouth. The apostles are horrified, jealous. "Why do you love her more than us?" they ask. Jesus' response is mysterious and enigmatic. "Why do I not love you like her?" he says.
What is the meaning of those kisses? Sexual passion? A profound friendship? Jesus anointing Mary Magdalene as his successor and as leader of the church?
Traditionally, Mary Magdalene has been seen as a reformed harlot, portrayed in paintings as red haired and bare breasted. But as Karen L. King, the Winn professor of ecclesiastical history at Harvard University, in the Divinity School, points out in her new book, "The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle," nowhere does the Bible say that she was a prostitute.
The Bible is full of Marys, notes Ms. King, the author, most recently of "What Is Gnosticism?" There is Jesus' mother, for instance. Another is Mary Magdalene, who probably came from Migdal, in the Galilee, and is the first person to witness the Resurrection. The Gospels of Luke and Mark describe Mary Magdalene as possessed by "seven devils," which are driven out of her. In Luke, she and other similarly afflicted rich women "minister" to him and probably give him financial support. This Mary is sometimes conflated with another, nameless, woman in Luke, "a sinner" who washes Jesus' feet and dries them with her hair, and with Mary of Bethany, mentioned in the Gospel of John, who also washes Jesus' feet.
At the end of the sixth century, Pope Gregory I officially made these Marys into one. "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary, we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark," he said in a sermon. "And what did these seven devils signify, if not all the vices?"
Mary Magdalene became the patron saint of fallen women.
In 1969, the Catholic Church decreed that the biblical Marys were actually different people. But the image of Mary Magdalene as a symbol of repentant female sexuality persisted.
Ms. King and several other scholars, maintain that the church made Mary Magdalene into a sinner in an attempt to denigrate women and to solidify male leadership. Their argument is fueled by the Gnostic gospels, which were written during the early Christian period; they were discovered in the late-19th century and the first half of the 20th in various locations in Egypt, including Nag Hammadi in 1945.
These gospels, like the Gospel of Mary, written in the names of early church figures but not included in the New Testament, present different accounts of Jesus' teachings, and have resulted in a revolutionary challenge to Christian orthodoxy. Scholars argue that gospels like Mary's show that Christianity originally contained diverse beliefs. Christian doctrine was codified in Nicea in A.D. 325 in an effort to centralize and strengthen church authority in the face of persecution.
Now Ms. King has undertaken a new study of Mary's gospel, which dates from the second century A.D. Only short and incomplete passages were found on the papyruses. In them, Jesus has been resurrected and is preaching to the apostles. Peter, the traditional founder of the church, asks Jesus about the nature of sin. In perhaps the gospel's most radical utterance, Jesus replies, "There is no such thing as sin." Sin occurs, Jesus says, when people "act in accordance with the nature of adultery." Ms. King interprets "adultery" not necessarily as illicit sex, but rather becoming mired in the passions of the material body.
Jesus continues preaching and warns the apostles not to "lay down any rule beyond what I determined for you, nor promulgate law like the lawgiver, or else you might be dominated by it." In other words, do not get caught up in rules and regulations, canonical or otherwise.
When Jesus finishes speaking, he leaves, and the apostles are despondent, afraid that if they preach his teachings, they, too, will be killed. Mary Magdalene comforts them, at which point Peter, saying that "the Savior loved you more than all other women," asks her to tell things Jesus said to her but not to them.
Mary relates that Jesus said, "Where the mind is, there is the treasure."
When Mary finishes, Peter becomes angry. "Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it?" he says. "Are we to turn around and listen to her? Did he choose her over us?"
Mary starts to cry, and the apostle Levi rebukes Peter. "You have always been a wrathful person," Levi says, adding, "For if the Savior made her worthy, who are you then for your part to reject her?" Then the apostles go out to preach.
In Ms. King's view, the Gospel of Mary gives legitimacy to women's leadership in the church. It also, she says, undermines the figure of Peter, the male founder of the church, who is portrayed as hotheaded and misinformed.
She seems to interpret the Gospel of Mary as a profoundly humane document, with salvation as a highly personal thing, a matter between the individual and Jesus. God is depicted not as a wrathful judge who punishes the wicked, but as wanting to free people from suffering.
The new study reveals few, if any, new facts about Mary. But Ms. King's close reading is one more step in the current rethinking of orthodox Christian views of the role of women in the church.
Some of Ms. King's interpretations are subtle, some are of interest mainly to theologians. Traditionalists have called such readings tendentious and driven by ideology. But then, it could be argued, all readings of the Gospels are. So little is known of the historical Jesus, it is perhaps impossible to view his life through any lens other than individual belief.
Still, Ms. King's book is an important step by a renowned scholar in the continuing and painful process of opening up the infinite varieties of Christianity to those who struggle with faith.
