Mary Magdalene: from the Gospel to Provence, from Vézelay to Saint-Maximin

A woman of the Gospel, three women of the legend

Mary of Magdala — Magdala is a fishing village on the western shore of Lake Tiberias — is one of the few women whom all four Gospels name. Luke presents her among the women who follow Jesus and support him from their own means, “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” (Luke 8:2). She is at the foot of the cross when the disciples have fled, she is present at the entombment, and it is she who, on Easter morning, finds the stone rolled away; in the Gospel of John, she is the first to see the risen Christ, whom she takes for the gardener, and the first to be sent to announce it to the others (John 20:11-18). For this the Church Fathers would call her “the apostle of the apostles”. Nothing in the New Testament says that she was a sinner.