I must not quit the subject of the Magdalene without some allusion to those wild legends which suppose a tender attachment (but of course wholly pure and Platonic) to have existed between her and St. John the Evangelist.[314] In the enthusiasm which Mary Magdalene excited in the thirteenth century, no supposition that tended to exalt her was deemed too extravagant: some of her panegyrists go so far as to insist that the marriage at Cana, which our Saviour and his mother honoured by their presence, was the marriage of St. John with the Magdalene; and that Christ repaired to the wedding-feast on purpose to prevent the accomplishment of the marriage, having destined both to a state of greater perfection. This fable was never accepted by the Church; and among the works of art consecrated to religious purposes I have never met with any which placed St. John and the Magdalene in particular relation to each other, except when they are seen together at the foot of the cross, or lamenting with the Virgin over the body of the Saviour: but such was the popularity of these extraordinary legends towards the end of the thirteenth and in the beginning of the fourteenth century, that I think it possible such may exist, and, for want of this key, may appear hopelessly enigmatical.
Martha presents her sister Mary to our Lord.
In a series of eight subjects which exhibit the life of St. John prefixed to a copy of the Revelation,[315] there is one which I think admits of this interpretation. The scene is the interior of a splendid building sustained by pillars. St. John is baptizing a beautiful woman, who is sitting in a tub; she has long golden hair. On the outside of the building seven men are endeavouring to see what is going forward: one peeps through the key-hole; one has thrown himself flat on the ground, and has his eye to an aperture; a third, mounted on the shoulders of another, is trying to look in at a window; a fifth, who cannot get near enough, tears his hair in an agony of impatience; and another is bawling into the ear of a deaf and blind comrade a description of what he has seen. The execution is French, of the fourteenth century; the taste, it will be said, is also French; the figures are drawn with a pen and slightly tinted: the design is incorrect; but the vivacity of gesture and expression, though verging on caricature, is so true, and so comically dramatic, and the whole composition so absurd, that it is impossible to look at it without a smile.
St. Martha.
Ital. Santa Marta, Vergine, Albergatrice di Cristo. Fr. Sainte Marthe, la Travailleuse. Patroness of cooks and housewives. (June 29, A.D. 84.)
Martha has shared in the veneration paid to her sister. The important part assigned to her in the history of Mary has already been adverted to; she is always represented as the instrument through whom Mary was converted, the one who led her first to the feet of the Saviour. ‘Which thing,’ says the story, should not be accounted as the least of her merits, seeing that Martha was a chaste and prudent virgin, and the other publicly contemned for her evil life; notwithstanding which, Martha did not despise her, nor reject her as a sister, but wept for her shame and admonished her gently and with persuasive words; and reminded her of her noble birth, to which she was a disgrace, and that Lazarus, their brother, being a soldier, would certainly get into trouble on her account. So she prevailed, and conducted her sister to the presence of Christ, and afterwards, as it is well known, she lodged and entertained the Saviour in her own house.‘[316]
According to the Provençal legend, while Mary Magdalene converted the people of Marseilles, Martha preached to the people of Aix and its vicinity. In those days the country was ravaged by a fearful dragon, called the Tarasque, which during the day lay concealed in the river Rhone. Martha overcame this monster by sprinkling him with holy water, and having bound him with her girdle (or, as others say, her garter), the people speedily put an end to him. The scene of this legend is now the city of Tarascon, where there is, or was, a magnificent church, dedicated to St. Martha, and richly endowed by Louis XI.
The same legends assure us that St. Martha was the first who founded a monastery for women; the first, after the blessed Mother of Christ, who vowed her virginity to God; and that when she had passed many years in prayer and good works, feeling that her end was near, she desired to be carried to a spot where she could see the glorious sun in heaven, and that they should read to her the history of the passion of Christ; and when they came to the words, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,’ she died.