Mary Magdalene
1 CE · Magdala
Mary Magdalene was a Jewish woman from Galilee who followed Jesus. Luke says that seven demons had gone out of her and that she was among the women who supported his mission from their own means (Luke 8:1-3). Her name is usually read as 'of Magdala', a town on the Sea of Galilee. Mark, Matthew and John place her at the crucifixion, and all four Gospels name her among the women who found the tomb empty (Mark 16:1-8; Matthew 28:1-10; Luke 24:1-10; John 20:1-18). In John, the risen Jesus appears to her first and sends her to tell the other disciples. The Gospels never call her a prostitute. The later Western image of her as a repentant prostitute grew from a homily of Pope Gregory the Great (c. 591), which identified her with the unnamed 'sinful woman' of Luke 7 and with Mary of Bethany. Modern scholars hold that the Gospel text does not support that merger, and Eastern Christian tradition never adopted it. A 6th-century tradition, recorded by Gregory of Tours, places her tomb at Ephesus. A medieval French tradition says she ended her life in Provence.
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MagdalaGalilee, Israel
What they did here
Her epithet 'Magdalene' is usually taken to mean she came from Magdala, a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee. The site identification is traditional but widely accepted. Luke places her among the women who travelled with Jesus through the towns of Galilee and supported him from their own means (Luke 8:1-3; cf. Mark 15:41).
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Mary Magdalene’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
- Yonatan ben Uziel· Jerusalem
- Shammai HaZaken· Jerusalem
- Akavya ben Mahalalel· Jerusalem
- Rabban Shimon ben Hillel· Jerusalem
- Rabban Gamliel HaZaken· Jerusalem
- Dosa ben Harkinas· Jerusalem
- Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel I· Jerusalem
- Berenice· Jerusalem
- Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai· Jerusalem
- Rufus of Ephesus· Ephesus
In the same tradition
Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Mary, mother of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Philip the Apostle, Matthias the Apostle, Bartholomew the Apostle, Thomas the Apostle, James, son of Zebedee, Barnabas, Andrew the Apostle, Peter the Apostle, Paul the Apostle, John the Apostle, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollos, Timothy
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Mary Magdalene’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.