Here is a short text involving the life of Mary Magdalene after the resurrection of Christ. It survives in quite a few manuscript copies, all dating from the 10th century onward, however it is believed to originate earlier. This tale is pretty similar to other western legends regarding MM though it does not feature her in France, but rather skips right ahead to her being a desert hermit. You could say she becomes the first Christian Desert Mother! Another interesting point is that the Catholic doctrine of turning Mary into a prostitute does not exist in this story. This short text is featured in the book New Testament Apocrypha Volume 3 and the translation is provided by Brandon W. Hawk. Since this is the English debut of this particular text and the translation is in copyright, I will not be reproducing it in full but rather give a synopsis and some commentary. I do highly recommend picking up all those NTA volumes (1 – 3), edited by Tony Burke.
The story is broken into 4 chapters. The first chapter is titled “Mary Magdalene retreats into the wilderness”. It states that Mary no longer wanted to see any other human after the ascension of Christ. Her love of him and the weariness that had taken it’s toll on her after the ascension, had caused her withdraw to the desert. She did not eat any type of food but rather was taken into the air by angels and fed spiritually by their songs.
Chapter 2 is titled “A Priest witnesses Mary Magdalene in communion with angels”. After 30 years, a Priest was wandering through the desert as part of his Lenten seasonal fasting and had seen a person being raised into the air and later brought back. He had witnessed this several times. The Holy Spirit encouraged the Priest to seek out this mysterious person. He was lead to an entrance of a cave.
Chapter 3 is titled “Dialogue between Mary Magdalene and a priest”. The Priest yelled into the cave, first by using the phrase of the trinity and asked if its a human living in the cave or some spirit. A voice responded from the cave and stated that since he adjured her by the Holy Trinity, she introduced who she was. The Priest said he had read and heard about her but it had been thirty years since she last was seen. Mary explains what happened after the ascension, why she decided to live as a hermit and how the angels feed her daily with heavenly sweetness. With the appearance of the holy man, Mary takes this as a sign that her time on earth is coming to an end. She tells the Priest that in seven days, bring her clothing so that she can be among people when she finishes her life.
Chapter 4 is titled “Mary Magdalene’s assumption”. After seven days, the Priest brought the clothing and threw it into the cave. She ordered him to go away and return in three days. Once those three days were up, the Priest returned and Mary requested to be taken to a human dwelling. The Priest took her to his congregation where the church celebrated Mass. Once Mary accepted the communion of the body and blood of Christ, she stood at the altar, hands raised in prayer and she sent forth her own holy spirit. The story ends with the Priest burying her on the church grounds.
The story is a very abridged version of the Golden Legend tale, mainly focusing on the last part. However no talks of her trips to France or visiting Peter via a pilgrimage are included. No mention of the Catholic prostitution lie. The book that features this text mentions in the introductory about it paralleling the story of Saint Mary of Egypt. I absolutely love the Saint Mary of Egypt story and do see a lot of similarities, so I think they be onto something. However, you’d think it’d be fairly easy to shoehorn the prostitution angle into the story if that was the case, but it is not. I suspect this story may have originated in the East. But that is just a hunch and no real evidence behind it. I do like the fact this story makes Mary the first Desert Mother. I’ve been fascinated with the Desert Fathers and Mothers for quite some time (a LOT of wisdom can be found in their sayings), so that aspect brought a smile to my face.
Artwork was made with Midjourney.
bP
Culmination of Wisdom 