There is no woman whose name appears in history who has been so cruelly dealt with as Mary Magdalene, who, as every reader of the New Testament knows, was one of the closest and most devoted friends of Jesus. She has been represented as a crazy woman. Celsus, the first infidel writer of the second century, declared that the story of the resurrection of Jesus originated with a frantic woman, and Renan, in the nineteenth century, has reiterated the charge, thus hurling calumny upon the name of Mary, while seeking to overthrow belief in the resurrection. The only ground for this charge is the fact that out of Mary Jesus had cast seven demons; but this fact does not prove that she had ever been insane. Demon-possession did not always dethrone reason. Indeed, there is only one example in the New Testament of [429] a man being rendered a maniac by this terrible affliction. He was the man in the country of the Gadarenes, who was possessed by a legion. Neither does demon-possession imply a bad character, or even a wicked spirit, on the part of the person possessed. The boy brought to Jesus, who was subject to epilepsy under the power of the demon, was not a bad boy; and the little girl, the daughter of the woman of Sarepta, who cried after Jesus, and out of whom an evil spirit was cast, was certainly not a wicked person. Moreover, in not a single instance was a person possessed by a demon ever censured as though the affliction was the result of evil-doing. Furthermore, even if Mary had been insane, like the demoniac of Gadara, during the period of her possession, she was certainly restored to her right mind when Jesus cast the demons out, and from all appearances there was not a more rational person among all the attendants of Jesus from that time onward than Mary Magdalene. It is a foul and base slander, then, to represent her as being a frantic woman when she saw Jesus at the tomb; and the only conceivable motive for making the charge is to discredit the fact to which she testified.

      Another aspersion of the name of Mary, much more widespread and much fouler in its character, is the one universal among Roman Catholics and quite common among Protestants, that she had been a strumpet before she became a personal attendant of Jesus. This charge is even more groundless than the former. It is based on the fact that Mary's name is introduced among the attendants of Jesus, in the eighth chapter of Luke, directly after the account, in the seventh chapter, of the woman who was a sinner, and who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. It [430] is first assumed, because this woman is called a sinner, that she was a strumpet, whereas everybody knows that in every community there can be found women, justly called sinners, who can not be charged with unchastity. Having thus assumed that the woman in question was a strumpet, it is next assumed, without a shadow of ground for it, that Mary and this woman were the same. We have as much right to assume that Joanna or Susanna, whose names are introduced in the same paragraph with Mary's, was that sinful woman. Baseless as this charge undoubtedly is, it has gone into history and poetry and religious literature of all kinds, and the name Magdalen, which Magdalene bears in the Latin Bible, has become the distinguishing title of houses for the reformation of harlots. They are called Magdalen institutions.

      It is high time that the name of this pure and benevolent woman, who was so highly honored by Jesus, were relieved from these foul aspirations. She was evidently an associate, not only of the Lord, but of such women as Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and she was intimate with the mother of Zebedee's children, and also with the mother of Jesus. She was also a woman of property, for she was one of those represented by Luke in the chapter already referred to, who followed Jesus and "ministered to him of their substance"--an expression which means that out of their own possessions they supplied his wants. She was a woman, as all passages in which her name appears attest, not only of excellent character, but of intellectual force and personal influence. Her name, instead of being dishonored as it has been, should be enthroned in the hearts of all lovers of Jesus, and inscribed very high among those of whom the world has not been worthy. My [431] blood boils to think of all the injury that has been done her, and I feel that it is a high privilege to lift up my voice in her vindication. So I have done, and so I will do while life shall last.

[SEBC 429-432]