Vita Mariae Magdalene
Standard abbreviation: Life Mary Magd.
Other titles: none
Clavis numbers: ECCA 180; CANT 72
Category: Hagiography
Related literature: Epistle of Tiberius to Pilate, Erimitic Life of Mary Magdalene, Death of Pilate (Mors Pilati), Life of Martha of Bethany; Golden Legend 96; Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale 92–107
Compiled by Christine Luckritz Marquis, Union Presbyterian Seminary.
Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): Luckritz Marquis, Christine. “Life of Mary Magdalene.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/life-of-mary-magdalene/.
Created April 2019. Current as of January 2024.
1. SUMMARY
The Life of Mary Magdalene is an anonymous, Greek text written in the mid-twelfth to late thirteenth century. Extant in multiple manuscripts, the text witnesses to a Byzantine response to Western claims on the Magdalene. While the story acknowledges a brief presence of Mary in western France, it makes clear that she both began and ended her life in the Eastern empire. The narrative begins by briefly giving her parentage and social background as a wealthy resident of Magdala. It then turns to describe the progression of Mary’s role among Jesus’ disciples. Throughout, the description of Mary as the sinful woman turned disciple is developed through biblical exegesis. Following Jesus’ ascension, Mary travels to Rome to accuse Pilate before the emperor. Overlapping with materials from the Pilate cycle, the Life describes Pilate’s condemnation and death by the emperor. During this portion, the Magdalene herself is largely absent from the plot after her initial role as accuser. Jesus’ death having been avenged, Mary returns to Jerusalem and submits to discipleship under Peter. Peter, in turn, introduces her to a certain Maximus. Among this group of Christians, Mary is tutored until she finds herself attacked by Jews, leading her to flee Jerusalem by boat.
Ultimately, the Magdalene and her Christian companions land at Marseille. While she and her fellow disciples at first suffer from hunger and impoverishment, Mary soon makes contact with the local ruler and his wife. She earns an audience with them after multiple appearances in the wife’s dreams and a nighttime revelation to her husband. She converts them both through promises of pregnancy for the wife. The woman then miraculously conceives. Impressed by the power of the Christian God, the ruler and his wife set sail for Jerusalem to learn from Peter. Mary is tasked with staying back in Marseille to rule in their absence.
While on the water, the wife goes into labor and dies during childbirth. Rather than throw the two bodies overboard, the ruler insists that both mother and child be buried on an island so that he might later gather their bones. The ruler continues his journey, arriving in Jerusalem to study under Peter for two years. On his return home, the father finds not graves on the island but his wife and child alive and well. It is revealed to him that the Magdalene, through her prayers, has healed the mother and protected the two during his absence. The ruler and his family sail on homeward and are baptized by Mary upon their arrival. The entire city is in turn converted, and a church is established for the new Christian community. Having finished her duties to the newly founded Christians, Mary sets sail to continue her journey. She travels to Ephesus to see John the theologian, staying with him until her death. She is buried in Ephesus, and her body remains there until the Byzantine period. The text ends by noting that her body was later translated to the monastery of Lazarus in Constantinople.
Named historical figures and characters: Annas (scribe/high priest), Caiaphas, Cyrus (of Magdala), David (king), Eucharistia, Jesus Christ, John (son of Zebedee), Lazarus, Leo VI, Mary Magdalene, Mary (Virgin), Maximus, Moses (patriarch), Peter (apostle), Pontius Pilate, Satan.
Geographical locations: Constantinople, Crete, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Magdala, Marseille, Rome, Syria.
2. RESOURCES
Untitled painting by the Master of the Magdalen (ca. 1280–1285), Gallerica dell’Accademia, Florence, featuring canonical and noncanonical episodes from the life of Mary Magdalene. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons. Web Gallery of Art.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
3.1 Manuscripts and Editions
3.1.1 Greek (BHG 1161x)
Recension A:
A Mount Sinai, Monē tēs Hagias Aikaterinēs, gr. 20, fols. 77r–88v (15/16th cent.)
B Oxford, Bodleian Library, Holkham gr. 9, fols. 105v–118v (16th cent.)
Mount Sinai, Monē tēs Hagias Aikaterinēs, gr. 1716, fols. 55r–63r (17th cent.)
Recension B (unpublished; follows Golden Legend 96 more closely):
New Haven, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 251, pp. 1324–1334 (16th cent.)
Unassigned:
Mount Athos, Monē Dionusiou, 166 (Lambros 3700), item 27 (1616)
Mount Athos, Monē Dionusiou, 263 (Lambros 3797), item 38 (17th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Docheiariou, 105 (Lambros 2779), item 6 (17th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Ibērōn, 1339 (Lambros 5459), item 7 (17th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Megistēs Lauras, Ω154 (Eustratiades 1966), fols. 291–297 (1668)
Mount Athos, Monē Panteleēmos, 862 (Lambros 6369), pp. 103–117 (19th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Pantokrotoros, 190 (Lambros 5697), pp. 130–143 (17th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Xenophōntos, 358, pp. 47–70 (19th cent.)
Mount Athos, Monē Xēropotamou, 242 (Lambros 2575), fols. 245–254 (17th cent.)
Halkin, François. “Une Vie grecque de sainte Marie-Madeleine BHG 1161x.” AnBoll 105 (1987): 5–23 (editio princeps of B with French translation).
3.1.2 Latin
3.1.2.1 Vita apostolica (BHL 5443–5449; manuscripts listed in Lobrichon, p. 164)
Faillon, E. M. Monuments inédits sur l’apostolat de Sainte Marie-Madeleine en Provence. Paris: Migne, 1848 (text of BHL 5443, vol. 2, cols. 433–51).
Lobrichon, Guy. “Le dossier magdalénien aux XIe-XIIe siècles. Édition de trois pièces majeures.” Mélanges de l’école française de Rome 104 (1992): 163–80 (text of BHL 5446, pp. 165–69).
3.1.2.3 Vita evangelico-apostolica (BHL 5450)
3.2 Modern Translations
3.2.1 English
Luckritz Marquis, Christine. “Life of Mary Magdalene.” Pages 223–38 in vol. 2 of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Edited by Tony Burke. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020 (introduction with translation based on A with readings from B).
3.2.2 French
Halkin, François. “Une Vie grecque de sainte Marie-Madeleine BHG 1161x.” AnBoll 105 (1987): 5–23 (editio princeps of B with French translation).
3.3 General Works
Bérenger, Joseph. Did Mary Magdalene Visit Provence? An Examination of the Literary and Archaeological Evidence for St. Mary Magdalene’s presence in South-Eastern France. Peterborough, UK: Fast-Print Publishing, 2015. Translated from Saint Marie-Madeleine en Provence (1925) by Paul Ferguson.
Dobschütz, Ernst von. Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christlichen Legende. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1899 (pp. 207–208).
Foskolou, Vassiliki A. “Mary Magdalene between East and West: Cult and Image, Relics and Politics in the Late Thirteenth-Century Eastern Mediterranean.” DOP 65/66 (2011–2012): 271–96.
Geerard, Maurice. “Marie-Madeleine, denonciatrice de Pilate.” SacEr 31 (1989): 139–48.
Haskins, Susan. Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor. New York et al.: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1993.
Ludwig Jansen, Katherine. The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Saxer, Victor. “La crypte et les sarchopages de Saint-Maximim dans la littérature latine du Moyen Âge.” Provence Historique 5.21 (1995): 196–231.
__________. Le Culte de Marie-Madeleine en Occident des origines à la fin du moyen âge. Cahiers d’archéologie et d’histoire 3. Auxerre: Publications de la Société des Fouilles Archéologiques et des Monuments Historiques de l’Yonne, 1959.
Taschl-Erber, Andrea. “Apostle and Sinner: Medieval Receptions of Mary of Magdala.” Pages 301–26 in The High Middle Ages. Edited by Kari Elisabeth Børresen and Adriana Valerio. The Bible and Women. An Encyclopaedia of Exegesis and Cultural history 6.2. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015.