Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute!
Named as Mary Magdalene, the Magdalene and also as the Madeleine, she belonged to Magdala – a village on the Sea of Galilee which meant tower in Hebrew. She was a Jewish woman who traveled with Jesus as his close companion and one of the early followers. Her name has been mentioned twelve times in the canonical gospels. It is said that she had seven demons in her, which according to Luke, Jesus cast out of her before making her a part of his travelling party.
The gospel of Luke gave birth to an infamous conspiracy which portrayed Mary Magdalene as a prostitute. In that gospel, Luke mentioned that Mary traveled with a group of women which included the unnamed sinful woman and Mary of Bethany. Mary Magdalene was a woman of wealth and beauty as elaborated in the medieval legends from Western Europe. This mention of her stirred the masses to judge her character as a promiscuous women.
Mary Magdalene in the Bible
There have been many travelers who had followed Jesus in his journey but not all of their names are known. The mention of her name twelve times in the gospels was ample indication of her importance. To top this off, she was also a witness to Jesus’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. All these events were enough to batter the egos of some early western church leaders. They could not comprehend the thought of a woman having a significant voice in Jesus’s ministry as it would make it difficult for them to lead church later on. It was easy for them to portray her as a sinful woman so her voice would lose its value. Thus, making her character questionable gave them leverage so they could diminish her importance. This way she couldn’t have led people because the purity of her profession was at stake.
All these claims were denied later on by the churches. Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute indeed. Later on, she was used as a symbol penance by the Catholic Church during the catholic reformation. She is considered to be a saint instead of a prostitute by many churches such as Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox. The eastern churches also celebrate her on the Sunday of Myrrhbearers, which is a close replica of three Mary`s traditions. The mention of Mary Magdalene with the sinful woman and the Mary of Bethany was removed by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
