Mary of Magdala: Disciple of Disciples

​A small town in France is the destination of thousands of pilgrims every year. The faithful all come to pray before the reliquary of a saint that some say was Jesus' closest apostle, and possibly his wife.

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The reliquary that holds the remains of St. Mary Magdalene lies in a medieval basilica

There is a grotto in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, large enough to house a medieval basilica where the bones of St. Mary Magdalene are encased.

Her tomb is considered the “third vault of Christendom” after the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and St. Peter’s tomb under the Basilica in Rome.

The place was once a Roman agricultural farm known as Villa Latta. The remains of the structure were found beneath the Place Malherbe. 

After the death of Maximin it was renamed to St. Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume.

In the 13th century Charles II, King of Naples and Count of Provence sought out her burial place at Saint-Maximin, driven, he said, by a dream he had of Mary Magdalene. Her bones had lain undisturbed for hundreds of years. He found her under a small chapel in a forest in December, 1279.

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Inside a marble sarcophagus was a papyrus that read:
"The year of the birth of the Lord 710, the sixth day of December, at night and very secretly, under the reign of the very pious Eudes, King of the Franks, during the time of he ravages of the treacherous nation of the Saracens, the body of the dear and venerable St. Mary Magdalene was, for fear of the said treacherous nation, moved from her alabaster tomb to the marble tomb, after having removed the body of Sidonius, because it was more hidden."

Mary Magdalene by del Sarto c.16th century

A wax-covered tablet proclaimed: "Hic requiescit corpus beatae Mariae Magdalenae". Here is the body of the blessed Mary Magdalene.

Eudes (Odo in German) died on January 1, 898. He was the first king of the West Franks (France), and the Capetian kings of France descended from him. No doubt the reliquary was also hidden from the Vikings which were besieging the area during those years, and against which he won several battles.

The blackened skull which was missing the lower mandible lay inside a golden reliquary with flowing hair. The missing jaw was located in St. John Lateran in Rome. It was returned on April 6, 1295. Her lower leg bones were also missing.

Charles II found the priory Sainte Baume and the basilica Sainte Marie-Madeleine which was consecrated in 1316, but due to the scourge of the Black Death, work was stopped until 1404. The work was completed in 1532. Boniface VIII gave it  a papal blessing and placed it under the responsibility of the Dominican monks.

According to Magdalene Publishing:  ​

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Tradition has it that, after the execution of St. James in Jerusalem (son of Zebedee and Mary Salome), Mary Magdalene, her sister Martha and brother Lazarus were persecuted by the Jews of Jerusalem and imprisoned. The Jews were afraid of the crowd if they were to execute the prisoners so they towed them off the shores of Palestine in a boat without sails or oars or supplies and abandoned them to the open sea. Others in the boat included Mary Jacobe, mother of James and the sister of the Virgin Mary, Mary Salome, mother of the apostles James and John, Maximin, one of the seventy two disciples of Christ, Cedonius, the blind man who was miraculously healed by Jesus, Marcelle, Martha’s servant, and Sara, maid of the two Marys.
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After narrowly escaping death during a storm at sea the boat finally came to shore on the coast of Gaul in a town now called Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in Camargue.

Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome and Sara remained in Camargue. Martha traveled towards Avignon and ended up in Tarascon. Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Maximin and Cedonius traveled on to Marseilles where Mary Magdalene began to preach. They ended up converting the whole of Provence. Lazarus became the first bishop of Marseilles. Mary Magdalene then went on to Aix where Maximin had already gone, some twenty miles north of Marseilles.

Sanctuary of Mary Magdalene (source - Drozdin Vladimir | Shutterstock)

Maximin became the first bishop of Aix, and Mary Magdalene retired to a cave at the top of the Sainte-Baume Mountains. where she spent the last 30 years of her life. The place where she took refuge would later become the Sanctuary of Mary Magdalene, a hidden monastery about 15 miles outside of St. Maximin. There was a Gallo-Roman crypt already under the basilica. Besides the reliquary of Mary Magdalene, there are sarcophagi of St. Maximin, Ste. Marcelle, Ste. Suzanne and St. Sidoine.

Mary Jacobe, Mary Salome and Sara are buried in the parish church in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Martha is buried in St. Martha’s Church in Tarascon and the skull of Lazarus is in a reliquary at Cathedral of Saint Mary Major in Marseilles.

The path to the sanctuary is worn away, trod by thousands for a thousand years as they brought their prayers to the Magdalene.

Common men and nobility made the pilgrimage. King Louis XI visited twice in 1447 and 1456. His prayers were answered when his son Charles VIII was born in 1470.

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Mary Magdalene by Boeckhurst c.1650

During the French Revolution when many sacred places were desecrated the statue of St. Magdalene in Rapture was hidden in the town of Plan d'Aups. But not before French revolutionary figure Paul-François-Jean-Nicolas, Vicomte de Barras, stole some of them in 1794.

Despite being born into an aristocratic family he voted to have Louis XVI beheaded. He was alleged to have dozens of mistresses and male lovers, and was known as a corrupt man in both his public and private life. 

During this time when the saint's bones were taken by him he wrote that ancient genealogies "must needs be forgotten". Barras' family like many of the Catholic nobility fled to rural Louisiana. He ended his days in luxury, but first confined to his chateau then exiled. After death his memoirs were censored.

What was left of the Magdalene was the skull, some bones and hair. This was kept safe because a sign was placed over the door to the basilica that said "Military Supplies."

One of the teeth circulated its way around the world and has been on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an extremely ornate reliquary since 1917. The tooth is enclosed inside a rock crystal.

The tomb of Mary Magdalene was not the only one to be attacked during the French Revolution. In 1793, the royal chapel at Saint-Denis, north of Paris was ransacked by a mob who pulled the remains of ancient kings from their tombs, mutilated them and threw them into a pit.

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Forensic reconstruction of St. Mary Magdalene c.2017

For the next 200 years there was a severed head, said to belong to Henry IV who was assassinated in 1610. The head was bought and sold at auctions and kept in private collections.

​In 2010, forensic scientists who examined it concluded the head did belong to the 17th century French king. His identity could not be established through mDNA because of too much handling, however an x-ray found a .02 inch bone lesion in the upper left jawbone which corresponded with a wound he received in 1594, in a previous assassination attempt. There were 3 clear cuts to the neck bones which corresponded to an attempt by a revolutionary in 1793, to behead the king's corpse. 

With this technology the skeleton of other kings and queens lying in the mass grave of the basilica could be identified and returned to their tombs.

Dr. Philippe Charlier completed the examination. Previously he found that bones supposed to belong to Joan of Arc, and authenticated in 1909 by a papal commission were in reality the remnants of an Egyptian mummy and a cat.

​In 2016, a paper was published by the Institute of Molecular Anthropology in which mitochondrial DNA taken from one capillary bulb of one of her hairs was examined. "The corresponding haplogroup is K, sub-clade K1a1b1a. As this sub-clade is the mt DNA genetic signature of ancient Jews, that confirms the Pharisian maternal origin of Marie-Madeleine indicated in some traditions."

In 2017, the skull was re-examined, something that had not been done since 1974. Philippe Charlier, a biological anthropologist from the University of Versailles and Philippe Foresch a visual forensic artist used a computer 3D program reconstruct the Magdalene's face. They used 500 photographs taken at different angles. The skull was not removed from the glass case.

Based on their reconstruction the skull was estimated to have belonged to a woman of 50 years of age from Mediterranean descent. The hair that had been on the skull was dark brown, there were particles of clay still attached to the hair and skull which are consistent with clay used at that time to prevent lice.

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Procession with the reliquary containing the remains of St. Mary Magdalene

There has always been a question if Mary Magdalene was not only Jesus' disciple but his spouse as well. The New Testament describes where Jesus cast out "seven devils" from her. She was present at his Crucifixion and was the first to see him after he came back to life.

The second part of her name, Magdalene references her town of origin which was Magdala a village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The Gospel of Mary was declared heretical and destroyed. Only fragments of 5th century papyrus survived, and was discovered in 1896.

Many argue that the Bible has been edited to omit Mary Magdalene's role at Jesus' side. However she is mentioned in all four gospels. There is even the question, if when she fled from Jewish persecution one of the ones that accompanied her was their child.

Her image as a prostitute did not emerge until the 5th century when Pope Gregory I (540-604), perpetrated this story when he delivered a sermon where he made Mary of Bethany and an unnamed, hair-washing sinner woman with Mary Magdalene. For good measure Mary Magdalene was also joined to the portrait of an unnamed woman who was adulterous. Her person could also have been confused with the 6th century story of Mary of Egypt a reformed prostitute. It was from this point on that Mary Magdalene emerged as repentant prostitute. Fifteen hundred years passed before this portrayal was rejected by the Catholic Church. There is no reference in the Bible where she is described as a prostitute.

The Eastern Orthodox religion tells where she died in the Greek city of Ephesus. A relic resides in the Simonopetra Monastery on Mount Athos which is supposed to be her incorruptible left hand.  In 866, the rest of her remains were taken to Constantinople (Istanbul) and buried at a monastery at the Church of Lazarus.

Present day, a crypt under a glass dome protects her remains. Saint Mary Magdalene's feast day is July 22, and a mass and procession with her relics parades through the streets of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. The Feast Day Mass is held the next Sunday after the feast day unless they both coincide. For hundreds of years, a multitude of pilgrims have come to worship at this sacred place.

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Sanctuary of St. Baume (source - Drozdin Vladimir | Shutterstock )

In 2021, a new pilgrimage dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene was inaugurated. The 10-stage route traces a 147-mile trip taken by the "disciple of disciples" through Camargue and Provence.

​It was inaugurated when the Grotto of Saint Mary Magdalene, which had been closed since June 2020 for restoration and safety upgrades, was reopened.

Where does the truth lie as to the woman Mary of Magdala was when she was alive? Her everyday life was full of choices, as all of ours are, with some having more far-reaching consequences than others. Could she have foreseen her role as an apostle, a wife maybe, an exile or even a saint? Doubtful. Perhaps the most unexpected circumstance she could have imagined for herself, is that after 2,000 years her memory persists.

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