Introduction Mary Magdalene: Woman or Archetype?
1. This and subsequent quotes in this paragraph are from “Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to Artists,” April 4, 1999, www.cin.org/jp2/jp2artist.html.
Chapter 1 Mary, Mary
1. St. John’s Missal for Every Day (Belgium: Brepols’ Catholic Press, 1958), 1314.
2. John W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Artisan Sales, 1985), 37.
3. See Morton Smith, Jesus, the Magician (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), for a more complete discussion of contemporary sources related to demonic possession.
4. See Ann Graham Brock, Mary Magdalene. The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
5. S. G. F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967). Brandon presents the political scenario and reasons for downplaying the influence of the family of Jesus and his Jewish connections.
6. Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel (New York: Harper and Row, 1973). A copy of a letter quoting an apparently authentic version of Mark’s gospel was discovered in 1958 by Dr. Smith at the Monastery of Mar Saba. The text of Clement of Alexandria’s letter is available online.
7. Marvin W. Meyer, ed., The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 232. First published by Harper Collins, 1987.
8. See Margaret Starbird, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy (Rochester, Vt.: Bear & Company, 2003), for explanation of the gematria and sacred geometry associated with Mary and especially with the epithet h Magdalhnh. The coded numbers provide direct association with the Great Goddess of the ancients and with Pythagorean geometry.
9. Jean-Yves LeLoup, Gospel of Philip (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2004), 65.
Chapter 2 Apostle to the Apostles
1. “The Lost Gospel of Peter,” in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (Cleveland: Forum Books, 1963).
2. This research is available on the Internet in a dissertation entitled “Mary Magdalene: Author of the Fourth Gospel,” by Ramon K. Jusino, http://members.tripod.com/~Ramon_K_Jusino/magdalene.html.
3. See Dr. Dorothy Irvin’s research published in her 2004 calendar, “The Archaeology of Women’s Traditional Ministries in the Church, 300–1500 A.D.” (St. Paul, Minn.: n.p., 2004).
Chapter 3 Bride and Beloved
1. Saint John’s Missal for Every Day, 1315–16.
2. See Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, 94–95, 123–24, 128, for details about the use of the letter X in medieval art as a symbol for esoteric or alternative Christianity and the Church of Amor.
3. Hugh Pope, “Mary Magdalene,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).
4. Pope John Paul II, Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way (New York: Warner Books, 2004), 33.
5. For examples of liturgical poetry celebrating the sacred marriage, see Samuel N. Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1969).
6. Michael Jordan, Mary, the Unauthorized Biography (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001), 38–40.
7. James Teackle Dennis, trans., The Burden of Isis (London: John Murray, 1920), 34. Available online at www.sacred-texts.com/egy/boi/boi00.htm. This earlier liturgical poem from the cult of Isis and Osiris contains many lines similar to, and some verbatim with, the Song of Songs, suggesting that the Song of Songs is a redaction and reworking of the earlier Egyptian liturgy celebrating solar and lunar divinities as bull and cow.
8. Karen King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 2003), 141. The title of this book is an interpolation of the title of the original text. Neither Magdala nor the title Magdalene is mentioned in the treatise or in its title. The text is called simply the Gospel of Mary.
9. Ibid., 151–52.
10. Frederic Manns, “Magdala dans les sources littéraires,” in Studia Hierosolymitana. I Studi Archeologici, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Collectio Maior 22 (1976): 311.
11. Yohanan Aharoni, et al., The Macmillan Bible Atlas (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 186.
12. Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, book 3, chapter 10 (New York: Penguin, 1960). Available online at www.reluctant-messenger.com/josephusW03.htm.
13. Manns, “Magdala dans les sources littéraires,” 312. See also Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans, eds., Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 110.
14. Manns, 318.
15. Ibid., 326.
16. John W. Taylor, The Coming of the Saints, 36.
17. Ibid., 81.
18. The Holy Bible: New International Version (New York: The American Bible Society, 1978).
19. The New American Bible for Catholics (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1987).
20. T. Maraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Jerusalem: E. J. Brill, 1983), 138. “The primary function of hnh,” according to Muraoka, “lies in indicating that the speaker or the writer wants to draw special attention . . . to a fact or object which can be said to be important, new, unexpected, and so forth.”
21. Caitlín Matthews, Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom (London: Aquarian Press, 1992), 81–82.
22. See Starbird, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy for a more complete discussion of gematria related to Mary Magdalene, the number 153, and the sacred feminine among the ancients.
23. John Michell, The Dimensions of Paradise (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990), 193–95.
Chapter 4 Sophia, Spouse of the Lord
1. Leloup, Gospel of Philip, 3.
2. Christian scripture gematria is the subject of Magdalene’s Lost Legacy. Numerous authors have written on this subject, all virtually ignored in the mainstream. Notable among the available studies of gematria are works by John Michell, David Fideler, Gordon Strachan, Robert Lawlor, Nigel Pennick, and Keith Critchlow.
3. Jean-Yves Leloup, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2002), 171.
4. Leloup, Gospel of Philip, 65. For discussion of the translation of the word koin
nos (consort) with sexual connotations, see R. McL. Wilson, The Gospel of Philip (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 35.
5. Leloup, Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 39.
6. Ibid., 37.
7. Ibid., Gospel of Philip, 3.
8. Ibid., 121.
9. Ibid., 73.
10. Ibid., 3.
11. Ibid., 11.
12. Ibid., 22.
13. Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians (New York: Harmony Books, 2001), 82–84.
14. Carl Schmidt, ed., “Pistis Sophia” in Nag Hammadi Studies 9, book 1, translated by Violet McDermott (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), book 1, chapter 17. Text available online at www.webcom.com/~gnosis/library/psoph.htm.
15. For associations of Mary Magdalene with the number 153, see Starbird, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy, 134–41. For discussion of the geometry story problem in John 21, see David Fideler, Jesus Christ, Sun of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Quest Books, 1993), 291–308.
16. Jonathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 76–85.
Chapter 5 The Fragile Boat
1. Leloup, The Gospel of Philip, 65.
2. William E. Phipps, The Sexuality of Jesus (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 1996), 40. Phipps cites Kethuboth 63a and Sotah 4b.
3. Ibid. Phipps cites Ludwig Kohler, Hebrew Man (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957), 89.
4. Donna B. Nielson, Beloved Bridegroom (Phoenix: Onyx Press, 1999), 168.
5. Edith Filliette, Saint Mary Magdalene, Her Life and Times (Newton Falls, Mass.: Society of Saint Mary Magdalene, 1983) 137–39.
6. Ean Begg, The Cult of the Black Virgin (London: Penguin Books, 1985), 15.
7. See Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, 59–62, for further discussion of the legend of Sarah and the exiled Christians.
8. James Teackle Dennis, trans., The Burden of Isis, 34. Available online at www.sacred-texts.com/egy/boi/boi00.htm.
9. Discussion of the Sangraal is found in Baigent, et al., Holy Blood, Holy Grail (New York: Delacorte Press, 1982), 306, 359, 400. See also Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, 26–27; 50–52; 59–61.
10. Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, translated by Andrea Dykes (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1971). Jung and von Franz suggest that the Grail legends circulated in an oral tradition from the eighth or ninth century, a date similar to that given for early versions of Cinderella that spring up in many European languages.
11. See Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, especially chapters 5–8, for detailed discussion of medieval art, artifacts, and fairy tales related to the heresy of the Holy Grail.
12. Charles-Moïse Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600 (Leipzig: n. p., 1923).
13. A drawing of this stone plate with the double-tailed mermaid is published in Margaret Starbird, The Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail (Boulder, Colo.: WovenWord Press, 2000), 32.
14. Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 238. Relevant chronicles of Ermengaud of Béziers and Pierre de Vauxde-Cerney are quoted on pages 230–41. I am indebted to Sandra Hamblett for making me aware of this resource for heretical teachings in the Middle Ages.
15. Ibid., 234.
16. Martin Luther makes this comment in his Table Talks. Text is available online at http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ29.HTM.
17. Starbird, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy, 138–41.
18. Ibid., Alabaster Jar, 94, 117–31, and especially 128–29.
Chapter 6 Desert Exile
1. Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch’s Mythology, Modern Library Classics, www.mythology.com/orpheuseurydice.html.
2. David Fideler, Jesus Christ, Sun of God, 202, 351.
3. Ibid., 175.
4. Ibid., 352.
5. Gordan Strachan, Jesus the Master Builder: Druid Mysteries and the Dawn of Christianity (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1998), 81–95. See also John Michell, The Dimensions of Paradise, 29–35, with reference to Stonehenge and its correspondence to the geometry of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation.
6. Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), 65.
Chapter 7 The Beloved Espoused
1. Carl Jung, “Answer to Job,” in R. F. C. Hull, trans., The Portable Jung (New York: Viking, 1971), 643.
2. Other images of Saint Barbara are displayed on the Internet, including a fifteenth-century wall painting in a church in the United Kingdom, online at www.paintedchurch.org/hessbarb.htm. Because long hair and a tower are icons distinctly associated with Mary Magdalene, this painting could easily be her image rather than that of Saint Barbara.
3. Pope John Paul II, 33.
4. See John Williamson, The Oak King, the Holly King and the Unicorn (New York: Harper and Row, 1986) for a thorough explanation of the symbolism of various plants and herbs in the unicorn tapestry panels at the Cloisters. A more complete discussion of the connection of the unicorn tapestries with the Song of Songs is found in Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, 133–44.
5. See Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar. The medieval watermarks found in antique European Bibles show various symbolic twin towers, including the symbol currently used as the emblem for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, representing the ramparts of Jerusalem. The image also occurs in many medieval paintings that show the gate of Jerusalem flanked by two watchtowers, illustrated in figures 6.1 and 7.1, from Briquet, Les Filigrans.
6. Starbird, Magdalene’s Lost Legacy, 57–59.
7. Ibid. The focus of the book is symbolic numbers in the New Testament and the revelations they encode by gematria. See also chapter 4, note 2.
8. Ibid., 135–41.
9. See The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, translated and with a commentary by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar (New York: Polebridge Press, 1993).
10. See chapter 4, note 2.
11. Michell, The Dimensions of Paradise, 193–95.
12. For this prophetic insight concerning the imminent Nuptials of the Lamb, I am indebted to Mary T. Beben.
Epilogue
1. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, A Rebirth for Christianity (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 2005). See also Freke and Gandy, Jesus and the Lost Goddess and The Jesus Mysteries for recent development of this thesis.