Mary of Magdala, the Beloved Disciple

Dr. Joyce Kennedy, former CNWE NEWS editor who was there at CNWE's first conference in 1981 introduces Mary of Magdala as the Beloved Disciple

In her greeting to CNWE Friends on our 20th anniversary, Joyce recalled her seminary discovery in Canon Law of the criteria for Priesthood.

"…a baptized male of 25 years, once ordained by a bishop, was a valid priest, whether or not he eventually turned out to be a psychopath, a sexual predator or a felon. He might not be allowed to practice licitly as a priest but he always retained the valid mark of ordination. On the other hand, if a bishop should happen to ordain a baptized mature woman, she would not be validly or licitly a priest. In her case, the sacrament of ordination would not 'take.' "

Joyce then asked her instructor - a priest Canon lawyer - "Doesn't that put the woman on a level with a dog or a cat?…Once ordained, Judas Iscariot would have a valid sacramental mark of priesthood, which lasts forever; but as for Mary Magdalene, she would be a pretender from whose hands and head the chrism would roll off as so much detritus without leaving a mark."

The priest answered, " I don't know what you mean." He didn't get it!

Joyce then went on to discover, thanks to the publication of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts of the gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, a reinterpretation which renders the distinctions of Canon Law meaningless. "Those texts," she says, "unlocked several significant passages in John's Gospel revealing the Magdalene to be the 'Beloved Disciple.'

"Let me explain. Magdalene was the first witness of the Resurrection. The four Gospels agree on that. But only John's Gospel identifies her as Jesus' 'Beloved Disciple.' However, this identification is hidden." It is hidden by the use of male pronouns. If these are removed, the personna are easily changed.

"We have always been taught that the "Beloved" was St. John himself, the selfsame man who is lying close to the breast of Jesus (Jn 13:23*) at the Last Supper. However, if you have read the two Gnostic Gospels above, you see clearly that Mary Magdalene is repeatedly referred to as the 'Beloved'?. Not only that, but she has been taught truths not revealed to the other disciples, which they ask her to share with them. Peter is annoyed by that.

"John's Gospel reveals her status as the Beloved, one of the first two called by Jesus to follow him. You will notice when you read John 1:35 that two disciples are attracted to Jesus because of the Baptist's preaching. When Jesus sees them following, he asks: 'What do you seek?' And they said to him, 'Rabbi' (which means Teacher), 'where are you staying?' He said to them, 'Come and see.' And they do, but only one is named, Andrew. Who is the other?" Consistently, throughout the Gospels, men are named, women are nameless. The inference suggests itself that those who are not named are women. If the unnamed disciple is Mary of Magdala, then she and Andrew were the first of Jesus' disciples.

The "secret is revealed in Chapter 20. There are two accounts of Mary coming to the tomb and discovering the stone rolled away. They come from different traditions, and are simply strung together with repeated elements. In the second segment, Mary is weeping by the empty tomb, when a man she takes to be the gardener says to her: 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?' She replies: 'Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus said to her, 'Mary.' She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher). So here at the end of the Gospel, by means of this [use of a word], we finally have revealed to us that Mary Magdalene is the unnamed disciple of Chapter 1. Instead of asking Andrew and his hidden companion 'what' they are seeking, He now asks Mary, His Beloved Disciple, 'Whom' is she seeking. Her answer is the same as it was in Chapter 1-'Rabbi/Rabboni.'

Now, Jesus does not invite her to come with him as he did in Chapter 1. Instead, he orders her to go to the other disciples and preach to them the Good News of His Resurrection. And she obeys.

"But there is yet another instance where the Magdalene's true place in Jesus' history is hidden. This is the scene in John 19:25?27. All the disciples have fled and left only the three women standing at the foot of the cross. [As named by John's Gospel], they are his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. In this terrible hour, Jesus looks down at them. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home." Again, change only the word son and the male pronoun and the persons can be revealed.

As it is, that scene has been explicated in ways that defy logic. The Church's official story is that John, the Beloved, took Mary home. Thus the male pronoun suddenly appears though the man to whom it is supposedly attached is nowhere in sight! All the disciples have fled and only three women are left at the cross." As Joan Chittester points out, John appears at the foot of the cross in only one Gospel, his own! Until this final exchange, none of the male apostles are present on Jesus' way of the cross nor at its foot.

Joyce asks, "Why not try to deal with these facts? In doing so, we would see that Jesus is asking his mother to look at him, and then asking his disciple to look at his mother. That is, His last words to His mother are "Remember me"; to his disciple, "Remember my mother." Any woman can tell you who takes care of the widow and orphan-other women. Jesus knew that too. So he entrusted His mother to His Beloved Disciple, Mary Magdalene.

"When I reflect on Mary Magdalene's place in the life and ministry of Jesus, I see a model for us all. She was looking for Truth, first by following John, the Baptist and then by following Jesus. She was one of the first two called by Jesus in John's Gospel account, and she never wavered. Yet we know hardly anything about her, mainly because the other disciples resented her place in Jesus' life. They could not bury the tradition that recorded her as the first Easter witness, but they did manage to bury the Christian communities that gave her first place of honor - until Nag Hammadi." The Gospel of Mary reveals her important place in the community, her greater knowledge of the salvation brought by Jesus and the tensions between her and Peter.

Joyce concludes: "Recovery of Mary as the Beloved Disciple is recovery of authentic priesthood-one where the valid mark of ordination is the hand of Jesus Himself. Until the Patriarchal Church remembers that, it will continue to wander in a dead wilderness of its own creation and to entomb anew the Risen Lord. But we do not have to stand by and watch. We can each take a broken sister home and-as Mary did, start there. As true followers of The Way, we believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit will do the rest."

The editors thank Joyce for this reinterpretation. We also found it hinted at in Michael Crosby's new book on St. John's Gospel.

*John 13: 21-26 (without the male pronouns) "Having said this, Jesus became troubled in spirit and said, "The truth of the matter is, one of you will betray me."

The disciples looked at each other, puzzled as to whom he could mean. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was next to Jesus. Simon Peter signaled to the disciple to ask Jesus whom he meant. The beloved disciple leaned back against Jesus chest and asked, "Rabbi, who is it?"

Jesus answered, "The one to whom I hive the piece of bread I dip in the dish."