The Magdalene Mystique - The Path Inward

It’s just a name, but one that’s becoming more interesting these days. The name is Mariamne. In the last few days it has been found on blogs and websites — as one of several names and combination of names scratched on ossuaries (coffins or bone boxes) found in what is now being called by Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron (in a documentary to be aired on Sunday on the Discovery Channel) the “lost tomb of Jesus.” In addition to inscriptions identifed by the investigators as Yose (Joseph), Maria (Mary), James (brother of Jesus) and Yeshua bar Yehosef (Jesus, son of Joseph), Judah, there is Mariamne, found next to Jesus. Apparently two Marys were found next to Jesus, identifed in the documentary as Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mariamne, or Mary Magdalene. Simcha tells us in an interview that finding out that Mariamne is a name for Mary Magdalene was a key moment in the investigation.

(see The Lost Tomb of Jesus on Discovery Channel’s Website) .

Glad to have the focus once more on Mary Magdalene and I can’t fault the point, especially since Simcha refers to the Acts of Philip where two scholars (Francois Bovon and Antti Marjanen*) have connected the figure in the text named Mariamne to Mary Magdalene. ( Mary Magdalene is referred variously in ancient texts as Maria, Mariamne, Mariamme, and Mariam.)

It’s just a name but in this context, it could be explosive. But let us reserve any kind of judgment until all the evidence is in. What I have picked up in academic circles is that the evidence has been barely looked at - certainly not by a wide range of scholars. Those that have been privy to these details haven’t been legally allowed to discuss in academic circles. Sounds a bit early to be airing conclusions. And so much for “evidence.” This is beginning to sound like the Gospel of Judas controversy over the National Geographic documentary. (See April DeConick’s Blog on the Lost Gospel of Judas)

This is not a blog endorsing Cameron’s thesis - nor is it one denying it - just a blog that is interested in the subject. And especially the inscription Mariamne. Whether the tomb turns out to be the historical evidence for the physical existence of Jesus that Jacobovici and Cameron are suggesting or whether the whole thesis crumbles, we will have for the trouble another memory of Mary Magdalene (known in this case as Mariamne).

To find out about Mary Magdalene, under the name of Mariamne, take a look at two ancient texts:
The Acts of Philip and the Martyrdom of Philip. In the latter document, she is travelling with Bartholomew and Philip proclaiming the gospel. In the former, she is especially prominent in the second half of the text. Mariamne has healing gifts and is a teacher and preacher (though, alas, some manuscripts vary as to how much they want to emphasize her preaching and teaching). Also, she shares in the preparation of the bread and the salt for the communion, and she baptizes the women, while Philip baptizes the men. We have an apostolic trio, Bartholomew, Philip, and Mariamne and all of them suffer persecution, save for a miracle that occurs in protection.

In the Acts of Philip, Mariamne is not only a famous figure of the past. She is being presented as a model and a justification for women’s ministry. No mention is made that she had been married to Jesus. That possibility we find suggested (intimated?) in another text dedicated to Philip - the Gospel of Philip - where she is given her more common name, Mary.

So much for names but keep your eye on Mariamne. lost tomb of jesusjesus family tombthe gospel of philipapril deconickgospel of judasgnosticism
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* See Francois Bovon, “Mary Magdalene in the Acts of Philip,” Which Mary? (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002,)75-89. and Antti Marjanen, The woman Jesus loved : Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and related documents (Leiden: E. J. Brill, l996),49.

Here is an article about Catholic Women Priests from Sojourners Magazine.

Rocking the Boat
A new wave of Catholic women answers the call to ordination priesthood- an act of ecclesial disobedience.
by Rose Marie Berger

It was late afternoon at the end of July 2006. The sunlight slanted in and ricocheted unpredictably off the water of Pittsburgh’s three rivers—the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny. Boarding the riverboat Majestic, 400 people attended the first ordination in the United States of Roman Catholic women to the priesthood and diaconate. In doing so, the Catholics present aided in breaking canon law 1024, which states, “Only a baptized man validly receives sacred ordination.” This act of ecclesial disobedience was punishable by excommunication. Read the article…………church

After reading the communique of the Primates’ meeting in Tanzania, some of us have found ourselves in the wilderness — somewhat baffled and disappointed, set back by “the powers that be.”

Yet, and I think I can speak for our contempoary Magdalene Community, we have pushed through that initial reaction by earnestly seeking and searching for our own response in this case. We haven’t been “merely waiting” for answers to come down from “on high,” but intentional in finding our own way and truth.

It is this inward path of searching and seeking that I want to highlight today.

From the perspective of the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) Jesus teaches that we are to acquire the peace within ourselves. We are to look within to find our truth. The promise is that when we seek this truth, we will find it. Then we are to follow it!

It is a truth that we discover for ourselves, as we reach into our own spirits filled with grace. It is not to be a truth we’ve picked up from someone else - even someone we admire and think has more knowledge than we do. That kind of thinking is simply an easy way out. In matters of the Spirit, it is to be a truth from our own spirit and grace. This takes struggle, thinking and praying, and process.

In our Magdalene Community, we find the ancient text entitled the Gospel of Mary very relevant today. We continue to be amazed by the relevance of the Gospel of Mary to our time.

It is also the case that this inward path is not to be carried out in isolation from community. So it is important to keep alert to the many voices in the fray. It seems that blogging is just right for hearing many voices. I hope you will leave a comment or two. “House of Deputies president Bonnie Anderson isues statement on Primates’ communique” found on-line Episcopal News Service) is a statement by Bonnie Anderson the president of the House of Deputies, who speaks of the communique as raising serious issues as to whether the House of Bishops can respond in this case. She says “The polity of the Episcopal Church is one of shared decision making among the laity, priests and deacons and bishops.” This raises the question as to whether the “House of Bishops [is] the right body within the Episcopal Church to respond to the Primates’ requests.” As president of the 800 plus member House of Deputies, she assures us that “the voice of the clergy and the laity of the Episcopal Church will be heard as the Church discusses and debates the Primates’ request and that the process will not be pre-empted by the House of Bishops or any other group.”

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has also briefed the Church Center community on the Primates’ Meeting. I refer you to this statment “Presiding Bishop briefs Church Center community on Primates’ Meeting” found on-line at Episcopal News Service. Her statements reveal her thinking as to why she signed the communique in the first place. She also indicates that the House of Bishops “can answer” the request made by the primates though it is an open question as to “whether they have the will to do that.” Few bishops are interested in acting unilaterally, she adds.

In more general terms she continues: “we have been asked to pause in the journey. We are not being asked to go back… Time and history are with this Church.”

And read on when she says “I ache for the pain that this communique is causing to people in our own church who see issues of justice as absolutely central, because I share that view” and then adds that she hungers for a vision of the world where people of different opinions can sit at the same table. This is not either-or thinking but open-ended thinking giving respect for process and struggle. It is clear that the Presiding Bishop sees the Episcopal Church as an instrument for raising awareness so that “reason can become an equal partner in the discussion with scripture and tradition.” I take it this is a filling out of a remark she made on her way back from Tanzania that the “Episcopal Church’s charism [grace or gift] is to encourage the conversation.”

Read the rest of the article; it is well worth your time to see what an open-ended and searching voice sounds like in this case. And re-visit the interviews we earlier posted on this site. gay rightsgay marriagereligionschoriprimatesanglicanchurch See New York Times Article “A Divide, and Maybe A Divorce”

I chanced upon this poem in my reading today. I am sending it your way for your meditation.

“The Journey” by Mary Oliver (found in Ten Poems to Change Your life, by Roger Housden, (New York: Harmony Books, 2001),9-10

“One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life that you could save.”
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I find in the newly discovered Gospel of Mary (Magdalene) a spirituality for our time. Those of us in our contemporary Magdalene community are continually amazed by its relevance.

Take the last portion of the Gospel when conflict breaks out in the community. This happens just after Mary has spoken her truth. Andrew cannot understand her vision and declares her ideas are “strange.” Peter goes further, utterly repudiating her views as unfaithful to the teachings of Jesus.

Agreement is apparently complicated for this early second century group, as it is for us today. Yet in the end the gospel is quite clear: different views and different spiritual paths are to be recognized and accepted within the community. We are not expected to be “the same.”

And there is a word of caution about not laying down any rules or laws that might eventually come to enslave us.

Our Magdalene community seeks conversation and dialogue within our own community and with other spiritualities and religious traditions. We are bridge-builders and connectors, hopeful in our desire to deepen relationships.

Yet, like Mary, we must speak our truth. Connection cannot be bought at the expense of our truth. And we must trust ourselves when a relationship has become more coercive than freeing and has broken away from mutual respect.

I hope you will find some relevance here for today and will join me with your thoughts.

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You Can Make a Difference in Fighting Poverty Through Education. Help St Jude School buy a water tank. Help support the U N Millennium Goals. A small amount can make a difference, just like drops of water make up the ocean your small donation of $5, $10 etc can buy a water tank for a school in Tanzania. Read more at School of St Jude Blog.
Over 90% of the children at the school receive a totally free education as local and international sponsors individually cover the costs of not only the educational fees but also the uniform, stationery, transport, hot meal, snacks and drinks of each child. What makes this school even more special is the fact that this success comes about due to the group effort of thousands of ordinary people from all over the world coming together to do something quite extraordinary. Individuals, families and service clubs are joining forces by supporting the school’s various sponsorship programs.

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In our contemporary Magdalene community, we think ourselves back to the earliest days of Mary Magdalene’s preaching and teaching — to the days when communities recorded various traditions about Mary Magdalene and Jesus. One such recording is found in the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), written probably during the first half of the second century by a community living in either Syria, Asia Minor, or Egypt.

The Gospel of Mary begins in the middle of a resurrection dialogue with Jesus and four disciples, Peter, Andrew, Levi, and Mary Magdalene. All is well and good while Jesus is communicating openly with the disciples but after delivering his revelatory message, he vanishes, leaving the work of the ministry to the disciples. The disciples fall into grief and tears, wondering what their next actions should be, until Mary Magdalene stands up, greets them, and says,

“Do not weep and be distressed nor let your hearts be irresolute. For his grace will be with you all and shelter you.
Rather we should praise his greatness, for he has prepared us and made us Human Beings.”

I couldn’t help thinking of what Mary’s words might mean to us today as I solemnly read the latest update from Dar es Salaam. The articles I call your attention to can be found on-line at the Episcopal News Service, “Primates Meeting Communique” and “Primates endorse pastoral council, primatial vicar in closing communique,” and on the front page of the New York Times “Anglicans Rebuke U.S. Branch on Blessing Same-Sex Unions.”

In our contemporary Magdalene community we think ourselves back to the earliest days before there was a church organization and institution. We think our way back to those days when in Magdalene communities the people spoke boldly and openly with charisms and gifts of the Spirit - with parrhesia, to use the original Greek term. To speak with parresia, means to speak with “boldness,” “courage,” “confidence,” “joyfulness,” and “fearlessness.”

May we continue to so speak.

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In The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), it is Mary Magdalene and Levi who understand the teachings of Jesus. They have looked inward and found the Human One therein.

Mary Magdalene declares to the other disciples that we should praise the greatness of Jesus for “he has united us and made us true Human Beings.” Levi declares that “we should clothe ourselves with the perfect Human, acquire it for ourselves as he commanded us and announce the good news.”

How fresh this sounds to our ears: to be united and made into true Human Beings. How optimistic! Is this an ancient power of positive thinking?

What would it feel like to be so empowered? How would we act if we got in touch with our true humanity? Let’s try it out by thinking outloud what our actions might be if we were so clothed. What would such a unity look like? Can we even imagine? What would be the goals of a “true Human Being.”

I don’t know what you would list for goals of a “true Human Being” but the UN Millennium Development Goals give us a start. These are the goals that both Archbishop Ndungande and Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori (see Interviews below on video) have been talking about in their desire to transcend the “bickering” within the Anglican Church. Take a look at these goals and consider tonight as you prepare your healthy dinner and lie in your clean bed, what it would mean to be a true human being. Tomorrow I hope you have left some comments so this will not be a monologue. Thanks, and the blessings of peace.
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Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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At the Millennium Summit in September 2000 the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015, that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality

Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990 and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million 1. Child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world’s people received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved sanitation services.

But progress has been far from uniform across the world-or across the Goals. There are huge disparities across and within countries. Within countries, poverty is greatest for rural areas, though urban poverty is also extensive, growing, and underreported by traditional indicators.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of people living in slums, and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs. Asia is the region with the fastest progress, but even there hundreds of millions of people remain in extreme poverty, and even fast-growing countries fail to achieve some of the non-income Goals. Other regions have mixed records, notably Latin America, the transition economies, and the Middle East and North Africa, often with slow or no progress on some of the Goals and persistent inequalities undermining progress on others.

For more information visit The Millennium Project Website.

School of St. Jude Blog
School of St Jude Website
In 2002 a young lady, Gemma Rice (now Gemma Sisia), from a sheep farm in Australia, opened a small school in Northern Tanzania with the help of her family, friends and local Rotary Club. What started with only a handful of children is now a thriving school of approx 850. This school has the potential to really influence the quality of Tanzania’s future leaders. A great example of how one person can make a difference.

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