Was Mary Magdalene A Prostitute?

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I have a friend who considers Mary Magdalene(sp?) a prostitute simply because he believes it’s a long standing tradition. He won’t believe anything else.

So was she a prostitute?
 
Starwynd said:
I have a friend who considers Mary Magdalene(sp?) a prostitute simply because he believes it’s a long standing tradition. He won’t believe anything else.

So was she a prostitute?
Click to expand...
Scripture says nothing about Mary Magalene being a prostitute and the Church does NOT teach that.
It was also NEVER a tradition. Talk of this only arose when Pope Gregory I speculated on this by mixing up the different Mary’s in Scripture. Neither the Catholic Church nor even the Eastern Orthodox teaches this.
 
“She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark.”-- Pope Gregory I

I’m not sure how we know he was ‘mixed up’, but he did say it, and I’m not sure that his words should be dismissed out of hand.

It is not an official teaching of the Church, though.
 
Starwynd said:
I have a friend who considers Mary Magdalene(sp?) a prostitute simply because he believes it’s a long standing tradition. He won’t believe anything else.

So was she a prostitute?
Click to expand...
While the belief that Mary of Magdala is the same person as the woman caught in adultery and Mary of Bethany is popular, personally I believe that they are separate people.

In the oft-mentioned sermon, Pope St. Gregory the Great identified Mary as a peccatrix, a sinful woman, using her as a model for the repentant sinner, but he did not call her meretrix, a prostitute. However, he did identify Mary with the adulteress brought before Jesus (cf. John 8), supporting the view of 3rd and 4th century Church fathers that had already considered this sin as “being unchaste.” So he wasn’t technically the source of the popular identification of Mary Magdalene as being a prostitute (since Hippolytus in the 3rd century had also already conflated the three women), but he was instrumental in making this claim accepted, at least in most sectors of the Western Church.

The Eastern Church, meanwhile, always considered the three as being separate. Mary Magdalene (Feast day: July 22nd [August 3rd], which is separate from Mary of Bethany’s feast day, which in turn is held in June 4th) was said to have lived so pious a life that the devil thought she was the woman chosen to be the mother of the Lord. He then subsequently sent the seven demons to torment her.
 
No, she was not, but one can find references to her as such in works as *The Cloud of Unknowng *and even in the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux. It is hard to read those passages without mentally saying a definite “no”. But it is a wrong belief that has crept thru time and still remains, for some reason. Hopefully that idea will some day be a strange concept of the past. St. Mary Magdalene deserves no less.
 
It remains because it’s very hard to overcome hundreds of years of tradition.
 
Of course she wasnt a prostitute…shame on you.

Everyone knows she was jesus’s wife.
🙂
 
I think your humor is unacceptable. If you’re not serious about our faith, then don’t talk non-sense! :mad:
 
muskieman said:
You are correct Jesus never had a wife so therefore she did not exist.
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Pardon me, but I can’t follow the logic here. Is the Biblical Mary Magdalene or the ‘Mary Magdalene-the-wife-of-Jesus’ claptrap the one who does not exist?
 
:coffeeread:
"Mary Magdalene according to the Roman Catholic Church is all of the following:
the sister of Martha and Lazarus of Bethany,
the penitential woman who washed the feet of Jesus with oil and her hair,
and Mary Magdalene who followed our Lord and had the seven demons expelled from her.1 Scriptural references connect all three. (In the Eastern Church these are all seen as three separate persons. In the Protestant Church she is seen as two persons (they are reluctant to identify Mary of Bethany as a sinner, as it is said perhaps they failed to grasp the complete significance of the forgiveness of sin.) 2

Mary Magdalene is mentioned among the women who accompany Christ and minister to Him (Luke 8:2-3), seven devils had been cast out of her (Mark 16:9), she stands at the foot of the cross (Mark 15:40; Matthew 27:56; John 19:25; Luke 23:49). She saw Christ laid in the tomb, and she was the first witness of the Resurrection. 2

It may hold that all are the same, noting just a few of the related verses:
In the Gospel of Luke 7:37-50 is the anointing of Christ’s feet by a woman, a “sinner” in the city.
Immediately afterwards St. Luke describes a missionary circuit in Galilee and tells us of the women who ministered to Christ, among them being “Mary who is called Magdalene, out of whom seven devils were gone forth” (Luke 8:2); but he does not tell us that she is to be identified with the “sinner” of the previous chapter. If we were left with Luke we may not connect the two, as he may not have wanted to connect Mary of Bethany with the sinner and defame the living (as he elsewhere conceals St. Matthew with his other name: Levi the publican/tax collector). 2

But, St. John clearly identifies Mary of Bethany with the woman who anointed Christ’s feet (12; cf. Matthew 26 and Mark 14). It is remarkable that already in 11:2, St. John has spoken of Mary of Bethany as “she that anointed the Lord’s feet.” 2

It is natural series of events that form a consistent whole; the “sinner” initially seeks for pardon; she is described immediately afterwards as Mary Magdalene “out of whom seven devils were gone forth”; shortly after, we find her “sitting at the Lord’s feet and hearing His words.” 2

Mary Magdalene is honored with sainthood and is a model for us in her humility, openness to grace, and growth in holiness.

(For more detailed information check NewAdvent.org)

1Saunders, Fr. William, Who Really Was Mary Magdalene? Catholic Culture.
catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6091
2Knight, Kevin. Mary Magdalen. New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia,
newadvent.org/cathen/09761a.htm
 
You have resurrected a 5 year old thread. We are not supposed to do that.
 
Well, sure she had seven demons exorcised.

But they were bothersome demons, not the real evil sort.
 
Hi Thistle,
i was unaware of that there was some time frame as it said it could post. Perhaps God had a hand in it, as the prior posts were lacking statements from the church and had only personal opinions. The Gospel this weekend is the woman anointing Christ’s feet - so timely. . .
Peace and truth ~
 
Infantblessus said:
Hi Thistle,
i was unaware of that there was some time frame as it said it could post. Perhaps God had a hand in it, as the prior posts were lacking statements from the church and had only personal opinions. The Gospel this weekend is the woman anointing Christ’s feet - so timely. . .
Peace and truth ~
Click to expand...
On threads in general if one has been dormant for at least months and months a new thread should be started even if the topic is the same or similar.

I don’t understand your comment about no statements from the Church. The Church does not have a teaching on Mary Magdalene as to whether she was a prostitute or not.
In short, Scripture does not say she was a prostitute and neither does the Church.
 
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