Heortology

by K. A. Heinrich Kellner

(1) ST MARY MAGDALEN

This is especially the case with regard to St Mary Magdalen, whose feast, not indeed in Rome, but throughout the South of France, and even elsewhere, as in Cologne, was kept as a feast of obligation in the Middle Ages.

According to the general opinion, Mary, the sinner of Magdala, who took her name from that place, either because she was born there, or because it was the scene of her excesses, was the sister of Lazarus and Martha of Bethania; she was the same person who humbly bathed the feet of our Blessed Lord with her tears and anointed them with ointment. According to another opinion, prevalent in the Greek Church, there were three Marys connected with our Lord—Mary, the sister of Lazarus; Mary of Magdala, on the Lake of Gennesaret; and the sometime sinner mentioned in St Luke vii. 37. This latter opinion distinguishes Mary Magdalen from Mary, the sister of Lazarus. The Latin tradition, on the other hand, from Tertullian downwards, regards them as identical; the sister of Lazarus having lived a life of sin at Magdala, came, after her repentance, to live with her brother and sister at Bethania, but was still popularly known as Mary Magdalen. She was also the same person, mentioned by the other two synoptists (St Mark xvi. 9; St Luke viii. 2), who was possessed by seven devils.[664] Both opinions received support from the words of the gospels; but the Roman liturgy has adopted the latter, and even the lections drawn up for St Martha’s Feast are influenced by it. This office of St Martha is only of late introduction in the Liturgy.

In addition, we must take into account the adventures of the Magdalen and her family after our Lord’s death, or rather the adventures ascribed to her. Our information is scanty; the pseudo-Clementines state that Lazarus followed St Peter in his missionary journeys in Syria;[665] other documents mention Cyprus as the scene of his labours and death. Absolutely no information concerning the further doings of his sisters has come down to us from antiquity; however, Western mediæval documents dating from the thirteenth century are remarkably rich in details; in these it is admitted, indeed, that he was Bishop of Cyprus, although this would have been incompatible with the actions here ascribed to him. This information is contained in a voluminous work which has been audaciously ascribed to Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda, although it is difficult to see how he, in his retired monastery, surrounded by forests, could have gained possession of such information.[666] The greater part of this work, chapters i.-xxxv., is devoted to a description of the life of St Mary Magdalen and her family, which follows and elaborates the biblical narrative; but it contains several additions to the facts mentioned in the New Testament; especially there is a great deal said about Marcella, as the housekeeper of the family at Bethania is said to have been called, who later on played an important part in the legend. The second part begins with the thirteenth year after Christ’s Ascension, when St James the Great had been beheaded and St Peter was in prison. Then, according to the story, Herod Agrippa drove the faithful from Palestine, and twenty-four of the disciples of Jesus, with Maximinus at their head, were sent by the apostles as missionaries to Spain and Gaul. St Mary Magdalen joined them, and Martha and Lazarus followed her example, the latter being at the time Bishop of Cyprus; they embarked unmolested, and were carried by the south-east wind to the shores of Southern Gaul, where Maximinus became Bishop of Aix in Provence. The other disciples distributed themselves over the other provinces, of which there were seventeen in Gaul and seven in Spain—twenty-four in all, just the number of the disciples. As a matter of fact, Spain and Gaul did comprise this number of provinces, not however in the time of Christ, but in the fifth century, as the Notitia Dignitatum shows. This betrays the late origin of the legend. St Mary Magdalen is said to have lived at Aix with Bishop Maximinus, and to have often preached there to the faithful. According to other accounts, she is said to have passed thirty years in a life of solitude and penance in the cave of the Ste Baume, near Marseilles, while Lazarus is said to have been Bishop of Marseilles, where he died a martyr.

More trustworthy, though not so interesting, is the information which we find in Greek sources concerning Lazarus and his sisters. From these we learn no more than that the Emperor Leo VI. in 887 built a church in his honour in Constantinople, and in 899 a monastery;[667] thither the relics of Lazarus, but not those of his sisters, were translated from Citium in Cyprus, where they had hitherto reposed. The menology of Basil and the calendars of the Copts and Syrians show that St Mary Magdalen was honoured in the Greek Church on the 22nd July. The resurrection of Lazarus was specially commemorated in the Constitution of Manuel Comnenus on the second Saturday before Easter.[668]

In the West the earliest traces of the cultus of St Mary Magdalen are found in Bede, and then in the martyrologies of Rabanus, Ado, and Usuardus, always on the 22nd July, and with the designation, “Natale.” The Hieronymianum does not mention Lazarus and St Mary Magdalen, but the name of Martha occurs five times; however, the sister of Lazarus cannot be intended, for the days (29th July and 17th October) are not those on which she is commemorated. Although the first-named martyrologies contains the mention of St Mary Magdalen, it knows nothing of her voyage to the South of France. Usuardus, indeed, puts Lazarus and Martha together on the 17th December, but merely says that a church was erected in their honour at Bethania. As far as the service-books are concerned, the name of St Mary Magdalen appears for the first time in a missal of Verona of the tenth century, and then in some missals of the eleventh century, but the missals of the Roman rite (secundum consuetudinem Rom. curiæ) mentions her only in the thirteenth century; it is the same with regard to St Martha.[669] Even to the present time Lazarus has not obtained a place in the Roman Breviary, but his commemoration is sanctioned for certain localities on the 17th December. The lections for his office contain no account of his life.

The attitude of the Roman Breviary is significant as indicating the change of views. The lections for St Mary Magdalen are simply taken from a homily of St Gregory, and contain no references to her life, while those of the much later office of St Martha (29th July) contain the more recent form of the legend with the later additions. They know nothing, however, of the pseudo-Rabanus, according to whom St Mary and her companions were forcibly placed by the Jews on board a boat without rudder or sail, and yet, notwithstanding, reached Marseilles in safety.

With regard to St Mary Magdalen in particular, the tradition must not be overlooked which states that she was originally buried in Ephesus; this is maintained by Gregory of Tours at the end of the sixth century, and then, at the beginning of the seventh century, Bishop Modestus of Jerusalem states that St Mary joined St John at Ephesus after the death of our Lady, and there suffered martyrdom; the third witness is Bishop Willibald of Eichstätt, who visited her grave in Ephesus.[670] In 887, as we have said, Leo VI., the Philosopher, placed her relics in the Church of St Lazarus, which he had built in Constantinople, but the writers who mention this fact do not imply that her relics were translated from Cyprus, as some modern writers arbitrarily assert, on account of the mention of St Lazarus’ relics being brought from that island on the same occasion.[671] However this may be, the tradition says nothing about St Mary Magdalen being the sister of Lazarus; in fact, she is described by Glycas as a daughter of Simon the Leper. This tradition furnishes fresh grounds for the belief that the account of the translation of St Mary’s relics refers to a truly historical event.[672]

The investigation of scholars have brought to light the following facts as throwing light upon the Provencial legend: (1) An early sarcophagus at Marseilles, belonging to a certain Lazarus, Bishop of Aix (407-417), who was thought to be the Lazarus mentioned in the New Testament; (2) the existence of reputed relics of St Mary Magdalene in the Monastery of Vezelay in the diocese of Autun. The earliest official mention of Lazarus is in a decree of Pope Benedict IX. of the year 1040[673]; this pope consecrated the Church of St Victor at Marseilles, and from this date the legend developed rapidly. Its complicated history has been clearly set forth in the investigations of L. Duchesne and J. Rietsch; the latter shows that it is probable the Emperor Leo VI. presented the relics of St Lazarus to the widowed Empress Richardis on her visit to Constantinople during her travels in the East; she probably gave them to the Convent of Andlau in Alsace, over which she presided.

Among the numerous works on this subject we may mention: M. Faillon, Monuments Inédites sur l’Apostolat de Sainte Marie Madeleine en Provence (a collection of all documents genuine and otherwise bearing on the question), Paris, 1848. Lacordaire, Vie de Sainte Marie Madeleine, Paris, 1860, popularised the legend, and made it a point of national honour to defend it. L. Clarus (Volk), Geschichte des Lebens, der Reliquien und des Kultus der heiligen Geschwister Magdalena, etc. Regensburg, 1852, is uncritical, but pleasantly written. L. Duchesne, Sainte Marie Madeleine, Toulouse, 1892. J. Rietsch (Die Nachevangelische Geschichte der Bethanischen Geschwister, etc., Strassburg, 1902) has probably settled the question of the relics by his careful investigations.