What could that mean? For starters, it points to a pre-anointing intimate relationship between Mary of Bethany and Jesus. Were they husband and wife? Lovers? Even more importantly however, Mary's act has the character of a sacred ritual pre-arranged by Mary and Jesus -- an extremely important one, far surpassing the spontaneous act of repentance and pre-burial ritual that ordinarily explains it. The act says something important both about Mary Magdalene, and was intended to say something even more important about Jesus himself. It shows Mary to be the bearer of a type of priestly power. After all, there is only one anointing of Jesus (the Christos, i.e. anointed one) recounted in the Gospels. And the anointer is this woman who is acting like a priestess. Just before his death, her act finally designates Jesus as the One -- the expected Messiah. It's like Nathan's identification of David as king a thousand years earlier. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. The priestess has spoken. That's what it says about Jesus.
But how could a woman perform such an act? Why would Jesus allow it? After all, according to Jewish law, women were not even permitted to say ritual prayers at home, much less perform religious rites of such central import as identification and anointment of the Christ. That is, not according to Jewish law. However, according to "pagan" law such election by a priestess was not only permitted but essential for any sacred king. There according to the rite of hieros gamos or sacred marriage, the priestess would anoint the priest-king and by virtue of her act (often consummated by ritual sex), the anointed would be flooded with power of the god. Conversely, without the power conferred by the woman, the king would remain powerless and have no knowledge of himself or of the gods.
This concept of sacred marriage would have been familiar to the pagans of Jesus' day whose "dying and rising gods" were typically anointed by priestesses and assisted by them across the threshold of death while remaining conscious of the entire process. Pagans would have recognized in Mary Magdalene such a priestess who in the Gospels anoints Jesus as "Christos," especially if she were also involved in the burial of the anointed one.
All of these conclusions prove extremely meaningful for contemporary women. Their omission from the standard Christian narrative highlights the way at least one female disciple of extraordinary talent and charisma was not only marginalized but denigrated in the church right from the beginning. Female leaders in the early church were the victims of an extreme misogyny that continues in church circles to our very day.
Put otherwise, besides shedding light on the distant past, the scholarship referenced here exposes the extreme weakness of contemporary ecclesiastical patriarchs in their exclusion of women from the priesthood and from other forms of church leadership. It also uncovers the perversity of their other anti-woman pronouncements regarding topics such as contraception, abortion, and women's rights in general.
In short the discoveries of Magdalene Scholarship help us see beyond the "official story" and even beyond the question of whether or not Jesus was married. They help us discern the fact that female leadership in the Christian community is nothing new. It is the males who are the interlopers and charlatans.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
