Mary Magdalene
Today's the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, apostola apostolorum. We're having tortellini soup with mint tonight, and there's NO connection! I don't actually manage thematic dinners every night, alas.
Of course, there's Mary Magdalene, and then there's Mary Magdalene. She was adored in the middle ages -- the cult's sort of fallen off now, though there are people working on it -- as an icon of the possibility of true remorse, and the promise of redemption. But she'd been conflated out of two or three separate women in the gospels, so it wasn't really her. Or, rather, pieces of it were her. In one of my own all time favorite medieval plays, the Digby Mary Magdalene, she's not only her medieval self in all its glory (she gets to raise people from the dead, for instance), she finally becomes, not just an amalgamation of various gospel women and some accumulated legend, but the Virgin Mary herself -- "hail, Mary, full of grace," she's addressed, and then, in case it's not clear, she's referred to as an "almighty maiden," and "tabernacle of the blessed Trinity."
(My other all time favorite piece of medieval drama is the N-Town Passion, wherein Jesus is fed, by angels, the Host, in order that he be comforted in the garden of Gethsemane, thereby making absolute hash of the doctrine of transubstantiation. A priceless moment in theater history.)
Ah. Well, that's not who she is any more, but she's still the apostle to the apostles, and just as helpful as she ever was, even if now we know that she wasn't the repentant sinner who wiped Christ's feet with her hair and perfumed ointment, making all images of her which focus on her hair or her jar of ointment, such as this , outdated (sorry, Rossetti). Also, this (sorry, Sandys). And this (sorry some more, Sandys again). And this (sorry, Hunt).
Ok, well ANY Pre-Raphaelite depiction of the poor woman, on account of all that hair, which makes her indistinguishable from all other Pre-Raphaelite women.
Of course, there's Mary Magdalene, and then there's Mary Magdalene. She was adored in the middle ages -- the cult's sort of fallen off now, though there are people working on it -- as an icon of the possibility of true remorse, and the promise of redemption. But she'd been conflated out of two or three separate women in the gospels, so it wasn't really her. Or, rather, pieces of it were her. In one of my own all time favorite medieval plays, the Digby Mary Magdalene, she's not only her medieval self in all its glory (she gets to raise people from the dead, for instance), she finally becomes, not just an amalgamation of various gospel women and some accumulated legend, but the Virgin Mary herself -- "hail, Mary, full of grace," she's addressed, and then, in case it's not clear, she's referred to as an "almighty maiden," and "tabernacle of the blessed Trinity."
(My other all time favorite piece of medieval drama is the N-Town Passion, wherein Jesus is fed, by angels, the Host, in order that he be comforted in the garden of Gethsemane, thereby making absolute hash of the doctrine of transubstantiation. A priceless moment in theater history.)
Ah. Well, that's not who she is any more, but she's still the apostle to the apostles, and just as helpful as she ever was, even if now we know that she wasn't the repentant sinner who wiped Christ's feet with her hair and perfumed ointment, making all images of her which focus on her hair or her jar of ointment, such as this , outdated (sorry, Rossetti). Also, this (sorry, Sandys). And this (sorry some more, Sandys again). And this (sorry, Hunt).
Ok, well ANY Pre-Raphaelite depiction of the poor woman, on account of all that hair, which makes her indistinguishable from all other Pre-Raphaelite women.
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