Although it is scarcely necessary to enter fully here into the controversy which has been waged for many centuries as to who St. Mary Magdalene was, it is desirable, for the sake of completeness, to state that there are three distinct opinions on the subject amongst ecclesiastical writers. Some assert that the Mary out of whom Christ cast seven devils, the sinner whom He won back to a good life, and Mary the sister of Lazarus were one and the same person; others that Mary of Magdala and the sinner were one, but that she had nothing to do with Mary of Bethany; and yet others that there were, besides Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary the wife of Cleophas, three women of that name who were brought into close connection with the Lord, namely, Mary Magdalene, Mary the sister of Lazarus, and Mary the sinner.
Whatever may be the truth with regard to this vexed question, popular opinion has so strongly adopted the belief that Mary Magdalene and the sinner were one, and Christian art has so fully accepted and embodied that belief, as to render it impossible, in dealing with representations of the Saint, to distinguish between her and the sinner. The myth, if myth it be, that she who had fallen so low as to be shunned by all, was yet privileged to be with the Lord at His Crucifixion, to stand with His Mother and the beloved disciple near the Cross, to aid in the sacred cares of the Entombment, and, above all, to be the very first to whom the Master appeared after the Resurrection, has appealed for countless generations with irresistible force to the heart and mind of humanity. The remembrance of Mary’s tears of penitence, of her great and enduring love for the Lord, and of the full forgiveness granted to her, has won back many a weak and erring woman to the path of right. She has become the very embodiment of the restoration of the lost, her name is inseparably connected with Christian effort to rescue the fallen, and the Savior’s words, ‘Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much,’ have again and again braced the courage of the weak when all hope seemed gone. If, indeed, injustice has been done to the Mary whose suffering from the evil spirits may have been the result of misfortune, not of crime, might not she herself have been the first to forgive that injustice, for the sake of all the good the mistake has wrought for her fellow women? The sins against her memory, which are many, may well be condoned, for they have been the result, not of willful perversion of the truth, but of a love of mercy and a real appreciation of the force of the Master’s words, no matter to whom they were applied.
All that is actually known of the life of St. Mary Magdalene from the Gospel story is that she, with other sufferers who had been healed by the Lord, followed Him, as ‘He went throughout every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God’; she was one of those who beheld the death on the Cross from afar off; she was with the Blessed Virgin when Christ was laid in the tomb, and went in the dawn of the third day with the other Mary to see the sepulchre, bringing sweet spices with which to anoint the body of the Lord. She was, moreover, the first to find the stone taken away from the sepulchre; the first to spread the alarm that the sacred remains had been removed; the first to see the risen Master, to realize the change which had taken place in Him, to call Him by the loving name of ‘Rabboni,’ and to take to the other mourners the glad news that He had spoken truth when he had foretold His Resurrection.
It was a generally received tradition of the early Church that St. Mary Magdalene, who had been so prominent a figure in the closing scenes of the Lord’s life on earth, was present at His Ascension and at the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and as a result she is constantly introduced in pictures of those two great events. For the rest of the legend respecting her there is, however, little or no foundation, but incidents from it are so often treated in art that it must be fully related here.
Taking it for granted that Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Lazarus were one and the same, St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, following earlier writers, says that her father was named Theophilus and her mother Eucharis, and adds that they were wealthy Jews owning much property at Jerusalem, Bethany, and in Galilee. On the death of Theophilus and Eucharis the property was divided amongst their children, Mary inheriting that in Galilee, including the castle of Magdalum, from which she took her second name, whilst her brother and sister had the lands near Jerusalem and the old home at Bethany. Mary was left too much alone, and being fond of finery and of gay society, she got into trouble and became the prey of evil spirits; and hearing of all the New Teacher had done for the suffering, she was drawn towards Him, as it were, in spite of herself, with the results recorded in the Gospels. Others say the name of the father was Cyrus, and that after his death Mary and Martha remained together at Bethany, whilst Lazarus became an officer in the Roman army, rarely seeing his sisters, who often quarreled, the one living a quiet, meditative life, the other a gay and active one.
The Abbé Guerin says that Mary Magdalene went to the house of Simon with the intention of making a public confession of her sins, not merely out of love of Christ, and he dwells much on the completeness of her reform, whilst others assume that she was again and again tempted back to her old evil ways. All agree, however, in the opinion that before the death of the Master she had become entirely converted, and had given up all her worldly possessions for the sake of following Him who had rescued her from her misery. After the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord she was very active in preaching the Gospel, giving much attention to the rescue of those who had fallen like herself into the power of the Evil One, and her zeal aroused the anger of the heathen, who cast her adrift in a rudderless boat with her brother Lazarus, her sister Mary, and certain other converts to Christianity who had rendered themselves especially obnoxious to the authorities, including St. Joseph of Arimathea, St. Maximin, the future Bishop of Aix, who was one of the first seventy-two disciples, Cedon the blind man, who had been restored to sight by Jesus, and a handmaiden named Marcella, who had remained faithful to the family at Bethany, when all others had forsaken them. Although none of the strangely-assorted party knew anything of navigation, the vessel was Divinely guided to the coast of France, and ran aground in what is now the harbor of Marseilles, where the exiles landed. They were at first received with hostility; but, as related in connection with the legends of St. Martha and St. Lazarus, they gradually won upon the goodwill of the natives by the miracles they wrought, so that they decided to remain until the will of God was further revealed to them, and work in the neighborhood to which they had been so strangely led.
Soon after the arrival of the exiles a certain Prince of the country, hearing of the preaching of St. Mary Magdalene, came to listen to her, and was so much struck by what she said that he came to her alone to ask if she could help him to obtain the desire of his heart: a son to inherit his name and kingdom. St. Mary finding that he was a heathen and had but lately been worshipping in the temple of his gods, told him that he must first forsake his errors, and he naively replied that he would wait to do that till the birth of the coveted boy. ‘And will you, indeed, then believe?’ said Mary. ‘Ay, that I will,’ he said. So, the Saint promised that his wish should be granted. In due time the days were nearly accomplished for his long-barren wife to bring forth her first-born child. At this late hour a fresh doubt seized the expectant father, and he resolved to go to Jerusalem to see St. Peter, and make quite sure the one God St. Mary urged him to confess was indeed the true one, before he kept his promise of renouncing his old belief. His wife begged him not to leave her behind, and he reluctantly consented to take her with him, although he risked the loss of all his hopes by exposing her to the perils of the sea. They had not been on board many days when they were overtaken by a terrible storm; in the midst of it the little one was born prematurely, and the poor mother died.
The sailors, superstitious then as now, demanded that the dead body should be flung overboard, for it would bring bad luck to the ship; but the father, by large bribes, persuaded them to let him take it with him, and they pretended to consent. Presently, however, when they came to a rocky island, they compelled him to land the dead mother and the still living child on it. So, he laid the babe upon his wife’s breast and there he left them, to pursue his miserable way to Jerusalem. Arrived in the Holy City he sought St. Peter, told him the whole sad story, and entreated his aid. The saintly Bishop comforted him with assurances that, if he had but faith in the Lord Jesus, all would yet be well; and in course of time the unhappy father became an earnest believer.
Two years passed by, and the Prince had become familiar with all the sacred spots in Palestine; he had knelt and prayed on the Mount of Olives, he had stood where the Cross had been raised on Calvary, he had wept bitter tears at the Holy Sepulchre, and in spite of the frustration of the hopes which had led him to inquire into the truth of Christianity, he resolved to return home and convert his people to the new faith. On his way back he halted at the island where he had left his loved ones, to bid them a last farewell, and lo! living alone and feeding on the spoil of the sea was a little naked child of two years, who fled in terror at the approach of the stranger and hid himself beneath the cloak still covering his dead mother. Then the father knew that through the prayers of St. Mary Magdalene his son had been preserved to him, and kneeling beside the corpse of his wife, he offered thanks for the great mercy which had been vouchsafed to him. Then took place the yet greater miracle of the resurrection of the mother, for she presently sat up, and rubbing her eyes as one who had slept long, held out her arms to her husband. The happy trio then returned to the ship, and when they got back to their own land the Prince issued orders that the heathen temples should be destroyed, and all should own the risen Christ as the one true God.
When the happy father sought St. Mary Magdalene, she who had been the cause of all these wonders was no longer to be found, for, as had been her desire ever since her conversion, she still loved solitary meditation better than active effort. Ignorant of the glory which had accrued to her through this great miracle, she was living alone in a cave on a lofty mountain some miles from the scene of the labors of St. Martha and St. Lazarus, whither she had withdrawn soon after her interview with the Prince. In this retreat she lived alone for thirty years, doing penance for her past sins, and seeing no human face except on the rare occasions when she went down to the church of St. Maximin, who had now become a power in the land, to receive the Holy Communion from him. Her loneliness was cheered, however, by the visits of angels, who often came to bear her to a lofty point of rock still known as Le Saint Pilon, a fact proved, says the legend, beyond the possibility of doubt by the testimony of a hermit who dwelt in a cell at some little distance, and more than once not only saw the Saint with her celestial escort, but heard the songs they sang. When she felt that her end was approaching, St. Mary Magdalene begged the angels to take her down to the church which by this time had risen up in Aix, and there she received the last Sacraments from the hands of her old friend St. Maximin. According to some, she expired at the foot of the altar immediately afterwards, but others assert that the angels took her back to her cave, where she yielded up her soul to God, dying, as she had lived so long, with no human friend beside her. In any case, her remains were reverently placed by St. Maximin and his assistants in a beautiful alabaster tomb in memory of her box of ointment, and buried outside Aix in a suburb called the Via Lata.
As was so often the case in the early days of the Church, the exact spot where the interment took place was long forgotten, but the remains of St. Mary Magdalene, with those of her brother St. Lazarus, are said to have been discovered in the thirteenth century, that era of the revival of faith and enthusiasm and of the foundation of the great religious orders. The excitement was of course intense, and a church was at once erected over the sacred relics; wonderful miracles are said to have taken place at the tomb, and the cult of St. Mary Magdalene received an immense impulse. Charles I. of Naples, then Count of Provence, the founder of the new church, attributed his delivery from captivity to her intercession, and was present in 1279, when the greater part of the remains were solemnly translated from the subterranean chapel in which they had long lain, to a place of honor above the High Altar. A stately Dominican convent rose up beside the lonely cave in which the penitent had spent so many years, and was named after it La Sainte Baume. In it were long preserved many quaint memorials of the Saint, but unfortunately the convent was sacked in the French Revolution, when the relics were all either destroyed or dispersed.
The great impulse given to the love and veneration in which St. Mary Magdalene was held by the discovery of her relics in the thirteenth century led to the evolution of many a romantic fiction respecting her, and as time went on no honor was considered too great for her. She was even said to have been the Bride at the Marriage of Cana, St. John the Evangelist having been the bridegroom; but as this supposition was inconsistent with the cherished tradition of her long, lonely penance in Provence, the story was rounded off by an account of how the Master interfered at the last minute to prevent the union between two saints, set apart for a far higher destiny than wedlock. Though never really accepted in the Church, the idea of this marriage took root amongst the common people, especially in France; and in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris is a MS. copy of the Revelation of St. John the Divine enriched with eight scenes from the life of the Evangelist, in one of which he is baptizing a beautiful woman with long golden hair, evidently intended to represent the Magdalene, whilst a number of men outside the church are trying to find out what is going on by peeping through the keyhole and the window.
The characteristics of St. Mary Magdalene in art are numerous, and many of them extremely quaint and significant Chief of them is the alabaster box of ointment — symbol of her conversion and her love for the Savior, as well as of the perfume with which she anointed His feet in life and the spices she prepared for the sacred body after death. This box is of varying shape: sometimes a mere beautiful casket, at others a vase of chalice-like form with an ornate cover, which the Saint holds in her hands or which is placed at her feet. More rarely it is carried for her by an attendant angel. Next to the vase of ointment, the most noteworthy attribute of the penitent sinner is her long and beautiful hair, not only in allusion to her having used it to wipe the feet of the Master, but because of a tradition that during her long residence in the cave near Aix she wore no other covering, and it grew down to her feet, shrouding her as completely as any garment could have done, and typifying her complete renunciation of all the pomps and vanities of the world she had once loved too well.
The color of the hair is generally golden, but occasionally, as in some Spanish pictures, it is dark brown. When the Saint wears drapery, it is either red, to typify her ardent devotion; violet, in allusion to her penitence; or blue, the type of constancy; and some few instances occur of her wearing a violet under-garment with a red mantle. In certain quaint old Greek miniatures and illuminations, representing the three Marys at the sepulchre, notably in a MS. long preserved at the Grande Chartreuse Monastery, but now in the British Museum, each of the three women holds a similar vase, and their costumes are exactly alike ; more rarely the vase is replaced by a censer with a closed lid.
In some old calendars, the 22nd of July, the day sacred in the Roman Catholic Church to St. Mary Magdalene, is marked with a censer; and the French have a proverb which explains itself: ‘On Madeleine’s Day the nuts are ripe.’ Sometimes a looking-glass, a string of pearls, or some other accessory of the toilet, lies at the feet of the Magdalene, hinting at her renunciation of vanities. In some old paintings, as in one formerly at Montmartre, to which peasant women used to pray for the raboursement or reform of their husbands, the word ‘Rabboni’ is made to issue from the lips of the Magdalene. In certain early German representations of the Saint, as in one at Fribourg-in-Bresgau, the heads of seven demons are introduced at her feet, in manifest allusion to her rescue from them by the Savior, and to this realistic detail are often added streams of tears flowing down the cheeks of the penitent.
St. Mary Magdalene is, of course, the patron Saint of penitent sinners, and it is in that character that she is most constantly represented in Christian art. She is also invoked by the makers of perfume, and by a natural evolution by glovers, gloves having always been sold by perfumers, as well as by makers of sheaths and scabbards, who also use kid. Tanners, too, claim to be under her special protection, some say because her own skin became tanned by constant exposure to the weather in her lonely mountain retreat ; but the reason is more probably simply because other workers in skin are her special devotees. She is also the patron Saint of many towns, notably of Marseilles and Autun; one of the most popular churches in Paris is dedicated to her, and there is scarcely a church in Roman Catholic Europe which does not contain some representation of her, either as the human friend of the despairing or the glorified intercessor in heaven.
Early Byzantine pictures introduce the favorite Saint as a thin and wasted figure, clothed with her own abundant hair, as in a quaint example preserved in the Florence Academy, in which she holds a scroll, bearing the legend in antique characters: ‘Ne desperetis vos qui peccare soletis. Exemploque meo vos reparate Deo’; and many quaint old engravings have been preserved of scenes from her life, in one of which, reproduced in Pere Cahier’s ‘Caracteristiques des Saints,’ she appears on the right prostrate at the feet of the Master in the bouse of Simon, and on the left in her boat; in her cell upon the hill, and being carried to the Saint Pilon by angels.
Series of scenes abound from the life and legendary story of St. Mary Magdalene in which fact and fiction are inextricably blended. Amongst these may be named as specially interesting the frescoes, now unfortunately much defaced, by Guadenzio Ferrari in the church of S. Cristoforo at Vercelli, in which occur the ‘embarkation of Mary with her brother and sister,’ and ‘Mary Magdalene preaching to the people of Marseilles the frescoes by Giotto in the Bargello Museum, Florence, originally a chapel, also greatly damaged, which included the well-known incident in the House of Lazarus when Christ rebuked Martha, the ’ Raising of Lazarus,’ the ‘Voyage to Marseilles under the guidance of an angel,’ the ‘Magdalene’s Last Communion’ and her ‘Death’; those by the same master in the Capella di S. Maddalena in the lower Church of S. Francesco at Assisi ; the series of similar subjects by Giovanni da Milano in the Rinuccini Chapel of S. Croce, Florence, with the bas-reliefs above the entrance to the Certosa di Pavia.
St. Mary Magdalene has the rare privilege of appearing in many scenes from the Passion of Our Lord, in which she is supposed to have been the constant companion of the Virgin. Especially beautiful and celebrated are the ‘Christ taking leave of His Mother’ by Correggio, in the possession of Mr. S. Benson, of London, in which the fainting Virgin sinks into the arms of Mary; the so-called ’Great Crucifixion’ of Fra Angelico in the Chapter-house of San Marco at Florence; the exquisite ‘Pieta’ by Fra Bartolommeo, in which the Magdalene clasps the feet of the dead Savior in a perfect abandonment of grief; the same subject by Andrea del Sarto, both in the Pitti Gallery, Florence; the ‘Entombment ’ by Perugino in the same collection, in which the head of Christ is held by Mary; the same subject by Raphael in the Borghese Gallery, Rome, in which she clings to the Master’s left hand ; the ‘Descent from the Cross’ by Titian and Palma Giovane in the Venice Academy ; the ‘Pieta’ in the Crawshay Collection and that in the Brera Gallery, Milan, both by Crivelli ; the ’ Dead Christ’ by Ribera in the National Gallery ; the ‘Pieta’ by Memlinc in the Doria Palace, Rome, and that by the same master in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges.
Famous devotional pictures in which St Mary Magdalene appears with other Saints are: The St. Cecilia of Raphael, in the Bologna Pinacoteca; the Madonna of St. Jerome, known as ‘II Giomo,’ by Correggio, in the Parma Gallery, considered one of that great painter’s masterpieces; the ‘Nativity’ in the Academy, Florence, by Filippo Lippi, who has introduced a beautiful figure of the Magdalene praying in the background; the altar-piece by Correggio in the collection of Lord Ashburton, representing Saints Martha, Mary Magdalene, Peter, and Leonard; the ‘Virgin enthroned’ with Saints John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene by Andrea Mantegna, in the National Gallery, London ; the altar-piece by Domenico Ghirlandajo, now in the Munich Gallery, the central panel representing the ‘Virgin and Child,’ with Saints Mary Magdalene and Dominic; God the Father, with Saints Catherine of Siena and the Magdalene, by Fra Bartolommeo, now in the Lucca Museum; the great altar-piece, known as the ‘Dispute,’ by Andrea del Sarto, now in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, in which Saints Mary Magdalene and Sebastian are seen listening to an eager discussion going on between Saints Augustine, Peter Martyr, or Dominic, Francis, and Lawrence; the altar-piece by Luca Signorelli in the Berlin Gallery, with beautiful figures of Saints Clara, Mary Magdalene, and Jerome on one of the wings; the ‘Virgin and Saints’ by Sodoma in the Museo Civico, Pisa; the ‘Madonna, with Saints Catherine and Mary Magdalene,’ by Giovanni Bellini, in the Academy, Venice ; and the ‘Paradiso’ by Tintoretto, in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, in which St. Mary Magdalene appears behind St. Monica, on the right of the principal subject.
Well-known single figures of St. Mary Magdalene are those by Domenichino, Perugino, Luini and Titian, all in the Pitti Gallery, Florence; that by Andrea del Castagno, in the Academy, Florence; the ‘Reading Magdalene,’ in the Dresden Gallery, long attributed to Correggio, but now supposed to be by an unknown Flemish master ; the same subject, by Bernard van Orley, in the National Gallery, London; the great painting by Luca Signorelli, now in the Opera del Duomo, Orvieto, intended to be an altar-piece for the Cathedral of that city; the ‘Penitent Magdalene,’ by Sodoma, in the possession of Dr. Frizzoni, of Milan; the same subject, by Timoteo della Vite, in the Bologna Pinacoteca; the ‘St. Mary Magdalene,’ by Tintoretto, in the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice ; that by Carlo Dolci, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence ; that by Murillo, in the Louvre ; and that by Guido Reni, in the National Gallery, London, with the fine statue by Donatello in the Baptistery and that by Della Robbia in the Opera del Duomo, Florence.
In addition to the subjects already referred to as connected with the Passion of our Lord, the scenes from the Life of St. Mary Magdalene most often represented are the Feast in the House of Simon and the Apparition of Christ in the Garden after His Resurrection. Of the former, perhaps the most celebrated are the fresco in the Capella Rinuccini in S. Croce, Florence, full of simple dignity and religious feeling, long ascribed to Taddeo Gaddi, but now supposed to be by his pupil, Giovanni da Milano; the predella picture by Luca Signorelli, now in the Dublin Gallery; the oil-painting by Charles le Brun, in the Venice Academy; and the three great pictures by Paolo Veronese, one in the Louvre, Paris, one in the Turin Pinacoteca, and one in the Brera Gallery, Milan, all gorgeous rendering^ of contemporary life in Florence rather than interpretations of the Scripture account of the scene.
Of the many renderings of the Apparition of Christ to St. Mary Magdalene in the Garden to which the name of ‘Noli Me Tangere,’ or ‘Touch Me Not,’ is generally given, among the finest is that by Giotto in the Arena Chapel, Padua; that in the Rinuccini Chapel in S. Croce, Florence, by Giovanni da Milano; the ‘Magdalene Kneeling at the Feet of Christ,’ by Correggio, in the Prado Gallery, Madrid, in which the passionate cry of ‘Rabboni!’ seems to tremble upon the lips of the worshipper; the same subject, by Andrea Mantegna, in the National Gallery, London; ‘Christ Appearing to the Magdalene,’ by Titian, in the National Gallery, London; that by Rembrandt, in the Grand Ducal Museum, Brunswick; and that by the same master, in Buckingham Palace, London; the Scene in the Garden in the ‘Passion’ picture by Memlinc, in the Turin Gallery, and that in the great picture by the same master, known as ‘Christ, the Light of the World,’ in the Roval Gallery, Munich, with the beautiful bas-relief by Luca della Robbia, in the Bargello, Florence.
Another scriptural subject in which St. Mary Magdalene is a principal figure is ‘The three Marys at the Sepulchre,’ introduced in many of the series of scenes from the life of Christ already referred to, and finely treated by Fra Angelico in the San Marco frescoes, Florence; by Andrea Orcagna in the painting in the National Gallery, London; and by Annibale Caracci in that at Castle Howard.
St. Mary Magdalene is also sometimes represented as present at the Resurrection of Christ and the Assumption of the Virgin, but rarely as a principal figure, and some few instances occur of her appearing as a spectator in pictures of the Incredulity of St. Thomas, her expression of earnest faith contrasting with the doubt and hesitation of the Apostle.
Amongst the various imaginary incidents from the life of this most popular Saint which have been separately treated by great artists are: ‘Mary rebuked by Martha,’ as in the beautiful work by Luini now in Paris; ‘Mary led to Jesus by Martha,’ as in the engraving by Marc Antonio di Raimondi of a lost picture attributed to Raphael, and the same subject by Pedro Campana, in the National Gallery, London; ‘The Magdalene laying aside her Jewels,’ as in an oil-painting by Paolo Veronese, in the National Gallery; one by Gerard Dow in the Berlin Museum, and one by Charles Lebrun in the Louvre, with the so-called ‘Assumption of the Magdalene,’ a misleading name, as the incident represented is merely that of the Angels carrying the Saint up to Mount Pilon to pray, finely rendered by Giulio Romano in a fresco now in the National Gallery, and in a marble group by Baron Marochetti in the Church of the Madeleine, Paris; the ‘Last Communion,’ beautifully painted by Domenichino, and the ‘Death in the Wilderness,’ of which a fine example is an oil-painting by Rustichino in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Adapted from: The Saints in Christian Art: The Evangelists, Apostles, and Other Early Saints, By Mrs. Arthur Bell, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1901).