Nancy Calvert-Koyzis, King's University College, University of Western Ontario

Abstract

In his overwhelmingly popular novel, The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown states that he describes all documents “accurately” when he asserts the theory that Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship with Jesus, was married to him and bore his children. In this article I will examine the sources for Brown’s ideas and compare them to the actual documents–particularly the Gnostic gospels –that he claims to have carefully described. I will argue that Brown not only misrepresents the documents that he claimed to have used but that he actually replicates the errors of the early church by concentrating on Mary’s sexual status rather than upon her status as the apostle to the apostles.

I. Introduction

[1] Placed just behind J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter volumes in popularity, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Ron Howard will direct the movie version of the book, starring Tom Hanks, to be released in May 2006. Brown has even been compared to Charles Dickens, who was the most popular writer of his day.[1]

[2] While the book is terrifically entertaining, the rebuttal of some of Brown’s implicit and explicit claims in the book has developed into a cottage industry in and of itself. Much of this critique has revolved around Brown’s depictions of Jesus, Constantine, Mary Magdalene and Leonardo. For example, well-known biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman and Ben Witherington have questioned his descriptions of these figures.[2] Roman Catholic scholars, whose religious tradition has been most tarnished by the novel, have also demonstrated their unease with Brown’s claims as exemplified by the work of Carl E. Olson and Sandra Miesel in their book The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code. [3]

[3] Many of these rebuttals begin with Brown’s statements on page 1 of his book that are listed under the title “Fact.”[4] For many scholars, his last statement on this page that “[a]ll descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate” is problematic.[5] While some insist that this page of “facts” is part of Brown’s novelistic fiction, Brown himself has indicated that he believes in the veracity of his work. For example, when Matt Lauer asks him how much of the book is based on reality in an early Today Show interview, Brown replies, “Absolutely all of it. Obviously, there are . . . Robert Landon is fictional, but all of the art, architecture, secret rituals, all of that is historical fact.”[6] Furthermore, in an interview with Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America, Brown states that the theories about the Priory of Sion, the Holy Grail, alternative Gospels and Mary Magdalene as found in the Da Vinci Code are true and that if the book had been non-fiction, the theories that he espouses would not have been different.[7]

[4] Brown is apparently not the only one who is convinced of the book’s veracity. Many who have reviewed the book have implied that they believe the novel is historically accurate. For example, in the Chicago Tribune, reviewer Dick Adler states that in his novel, Brown transmits “several doctorates’ worth of fascinating history and learned speculation.”[8]  In his review in USA Today, Bob Minzesheimer includes the statement by Carol Fitzgerald, president of Bookreporter.com, a web site for book discussions, as saying that the popularity of the Da Vinci Code shows that “readers are clamoring for books which combine historic fact with a contemporary story line. They say, ‘I like being able to learn something as well as read a story. ’ ” [9]

[5] This acceptance of The Da Vinci Code as historically accurate is troubling, particularly in regard to the figure of Mary Magdalene. While biblical scholars such as Ehrman and Witherington have already written about Brown’s many errors and misrepresentations, none have considered his depiction of Mary Magdalene in a way that carefully compares the sources that Brown apparently used with important recent research by scholars of early Christianity on the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in Gnostic texts. Thus after describing Brown’s depiction of Mary Magdalene along with a discussion of his sources, I will turn to these Gnostic texts to consider their portrayal of Mary Magdalene.

II. Mary Magdalene in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

[6] In Brown’s novel, Mary, not an inanimate chalice, is the Holy Grail.[10] The quest for the Holy Grail is the search, not for the chalice used at the Last Supper, but for the resting place of Mary Magdalene.[11] Mary Magdalene was the first and greatest apostle and was of royal blood and of the house of Benjamin.[12] The Catholic Church launched a secret campaign against Mary Magdalene and at a very early date slandered her name and labelled her a prostitute out of spite.[13] But the narrative plot of Brown’s novel depends to the greatest extent upon the idea that Mary and Jesus were married and had children.[14]  Most of the defence of the marital relationship between Mary and Jesus takes place in the Da Vinci Code in a discussion between detective Sophie Neveu and Sir Leigh Teabing in which Teabing states, “the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record.”[15] As Brown depicts it, in support of this idea, Teabing “located a huge book and pulled it toward him across the table. The leather-bound edition was poster-sized, like a huge atlas. The cover read: The Gnostic gospels. Teabing heaved it open, and Langdon and Sophie joined him.” Teabing states,

“These are photocopies of the Nag Hammadi and Dead Sea scrolls, which I mentioned earlier . . . the earliest Christian records. Troublingly, they do not match up with the Gospels in the Bible.” Flipping toward the middle of the book, Teabing pointed to a passage. “The Gospel of Philip is always a good place to start.” Sophie read the passage:  

And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?”[16]

Sophie then states that the passage says nothing about marriage, but Teabing corrects her: “‘Au contraire.’ Teabing smiled, pointing to the first line. ‘As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse.’” Subsequently “Teabing flipped through the book and pointed out several other passages that, to Sophie’s surprise, clearly suggested Magdalene and Jesus had a romantic relationship.”[17]

[7] A page later, Teabing is still talking, “‘I shan’t bore you with the countless references to Jesus and Magdalene’s union. That has been explored ad nauseum [sic] by modern historians. I would, however, like to point out the following.’ He motioned to another passage, ‘This is from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.’” Sophie, unaware that a Gospel existed in the name of Mary Magdalene, reads the following text:

And Peter said, “Did the Saviour really speak with a woman without our knowledge? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?”

 And Levi answered, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like an adversary. If the Saviour made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Saviour knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us.” [18]

Thus through the mouth of Teabing, Brown would have the reader believe that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had a sexual relationship and that this is part of the historical record that has been established by scholars. He also suggests that Mary bore Jesus children and after Jesus’ death escaped to France.[19]

III. Dan Brown’s Sources

[8] By speaking through his character Teabing, Brown lists the major sources upon which he is dependent for his theories: The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail and The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine, both by Margaret Starbird; and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln.[20]

[9] Among these sources, Brown is most dependent upon the work by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. In fact, the first name of the character called Leigh Teabing in the Da Vinci Code comes from the name of the second author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Teabing’s surname is an anagram of Baigent.[21] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln put forth a variety of factors that they believe show that Jesus would have been married. For example, they maintain that it was almost mandatory according to Jewish custom that a man be married, except among the Essenes in certain communities. Otherwise, celibacy was vigorously condemned.[22]  Furthermore, they maintain that the story of the wedding at Cana in the John 2:1-11 is actually Jesus’ own wedding. In their interpretation, Mary orders Jesus to replenish the wine, acting as if she is the wedding hostess. Furthermore, when Mary says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you,” Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln believe that the servants “comply, as if they are accustomed to receiving orders from both Mary and Jesus.”[23] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln question why Jesus’ holy gifts should be used for producing something as banal as wine, why Mary should make such a request of her son and why two “ ‘guests’ at a wedding [should] take on themselves the responsibility of catering – a responsibility that, by custom, should be reserved for the host.” The answer at which they arrive is that the wedding is really Jesus’ own wedding. Furthermore, they argue, when the “governor of the feast” (NRSV: chief steward) speaks to the bridegroom saying, “‘Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou has kept the good wine until now’ [he] is clearly addressing Jesus, who is the same person as the bridegroom.”[24]

[10] While Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln argue determinedly for their position, they are mistaken in a number of ways in their arguments that support Jesus’ married state. While it has been claimed occasionally by scholars that Jesus was married, the vast majority of scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity are convinced that he was celibate.[25] In Jesus’ first-century Jewish milieu, other groups existed in which the members were expected to remain celibate, such as certain groups of Essenes, as Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln maintain.[26] Members of another ascetic group, the Therapeutae that existed in Egypt and bore resemblances to the Essenes also practiced celibacy.[27] It is also probable that in Matthew 19:12 when Jesus speaks of those “who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of heaven,” there is an indication of Jesus’ commitment to celibacy in the face of his all-consuming mission to preach the kingdom of God.[28] Paul, who was Jewish himself, saw celibacy as commendable because of the claims of the kingdom (1 Cor 7:7-9) and at least some later Christians were familiar with men who remained celibate (Rev. 14:4). Thus, contrary to what Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln think, celibacy in the time of Jesus was not universally condemned and it is most probable that Jesus was unmarried.[29]

[11] As for the wedding in Cana, it is likely that according to the Jewish wedding customs of the time, the wine supply was dependent to some degree upon the gifts of the guests.[30] Thus the “responsibility of catering” as understood in a twentieth or twenty-first century context was not understood in the same way in a first century, Palestinian context. Additionally, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln seem not to have noticed that the text clearly states that Jesus and his disciples were “invited” to the wedding, presumably meaning that he was not the bridegroom (John 2:2). It is also probably the case that the author of the Fourth Gospel includes the story in order to make a theological point. Jesus turns water into wine–in fact, lots of wine–in order to illustrate that Jesus is the one who was sent by the Father. He replaces water that was to be used for Jewish purification by the choicest of wines, indicating that all previous religious institutions and feasts lose meaning in his presence.  Thus the author of the Fourth Gospel concentrates upon Mary and Jesus’ interactions and their interactions with the servants in order to make a point about this first sign of Jesus’ messiahship.[31]

[12] In Holy Blood, Holy Grail, it is Mary Magdalene who is Jesus’ wife. The authors argue that this is the case in part because it would have been unthinkable for an unmarried woman to travel unaccompanied, particularly with a religious teacher and his entourage.[32] While it was true that women and men were supposed to travel with members of their own family, in this case it seems that Jesus was happy to have followers of both genders who were not from his own biological family.[33] While brothers accompanied some of the disciples, in the canonical Gospels the disciples do not travel with spouses.

[13] When it comes to whether or not Mary Magdalene was actually a prostitute, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln condemn the early Christian portrayal of Magdalene as a prostitute, because the motivation was the “overcompensation of a vindictive following intent on impugning the reputation of a woman whose association with Jesus was closer than their own and thus inspired human envy.” They believe that the early church begrudged her unique bond with Jesus and attempted to diminish her in the eyes of posterity. She has been thought of as a harlot for centuries, but for Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, she did not deserve to be so stigmatized.[34]

[14] But while they assert that Mary is not said to be a prostitute in the canonical Gospels, they simultaneously state that the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus in the story of the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50 may actually have been Mary Magdalene because Luke calls her a “fallen woman” or a “sinner.” Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln state:

Subsequent commentators have assumed that the Magdalen, since she apparently had seven devils cast out of her, must have been a sinner [cf. Luke 8:2]. On this basis, the Magdalen and the woman who anoints Jesus came to be regarded as the same person. In fact, they may have well been. If the Magdalen was associated with a pagan cult that would certainly have rendered her a “sinner” in the eyes not only of Luke, but of later writers as well.[35]

They further assert that Magdalene is “something more than the common prostitute of popular tradition” because they believe she was a woman of financial means (Luke 8:3), and that her name is consistently at the head of the lists of female followers of Jesus just as Peter’s name is at the head of the lists of male followers in the Gospels. Furthermore, when “Magdalen” anoints Jesus, it is significant for Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln because it is the proper prerogative of kings, and of the Messiah, which means “the anointed one.” She was also the first to witness the empty tomb after the crucifixion, and “Among all his devotees it was to the Magdalen that Jesus first chose to reveal his Resurrection.”[36] In other words, when biblical interpreters in the early church mistakenly associate Mary Magdalene with the prostitute in Luke 7:36-50, it is inexcusable, but when Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln also presume she was a prostitute, it is a necessary component of their argumentation.

[15] They then identify Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, to a large degree because Mary of Bethany is identified as the woman who anoints Jesus (John 12:1-8). [37] They conclude their discussion of Mary Magdalene as Mary of Bethany by saying, “It is thus clear that Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus are the same woman. If not equally clear, it is certainly probable that this woman is also the Magdalen. If Jesus was indeed married, there would thus seem to be only one candidate for his wife–one woman who recurs repeatedly in the Gospels under different names and different roles.”[38] It is this woman–Mary Magdalene–who they believe eventually arrives in France, carrying with her the Holy Grail, or the “blood royal.”[39]

[16] However Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln fail to notice that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are from very different geographical regions–Magdala in Galilee and Bethany in Judea. Their second names are not surnames, but ways to differentiate between them. Of course, it is never stated in the Gospel accounts that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. One of the most noticeable figures to suggest this was Pope Gregory in a homily he preached at the basilica of San Clemente in Rome in 591 CE. While speaking about the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50, he equated her with Mary Magdalene from whom seven demons had gone out and thus depicted Mary Magdalene as a former prostitute.[40] In her recent book Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority, Ann Graham Brock points out that Gregory’s conflation served as an essential factor in the diminishment of Mary Magdalene’s apostolic authority.[41] In effect, his exegesis paved the way for later considerations of Magdalene in which her sexual status as repentant prostitute became more important than her original apostolic status. Thus by conflating the texts in which the sinful woman anoints Jesus (Luke 7:36-50) with the introduction of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:1-3) and wrongly identifying Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany who does anoint Jesus (John 12:1-8), Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln actually follow in Pope Gregory’s footsteps.

[17] For Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, early Gnostic writings only serve to support their argument that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married.  They contend that the Gospel of Mary, which they wrongly include in the Nag Hammadi collection, attests to an ongoing feud between Peter and the Magdalene that represents those who are “adherents of the message” (presumably what is called orthodox Christianity) and “adherents to the bloodline” (presumably those who follow Mary Magdalene’s and Jesus’ descendants). To further prove their point about Jesus’ and Mary’s sexual union, they use a citation from the Gospel of Philip: “And the companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalen” and assert that the word companion is to be translated as “spouse.” They further support their thesis by again citing from the Gospel of Philip: “‘But Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on the mouth.’” [42] In order to argue their case, they seem to have depended to a large degree on Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels where she makes comments suggesting that according to the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip that Mary and Jesus had an erotic relationship.[43] But as I will argue below, the relationship between Mary and Jesus in the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary is most likely not one of erotic love, but of spiritual companionship.

 [18] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln have more to say about Mary Magdalene. One of their major theses is that the original French word for the Holy Grail, the Sangraal or Sangreal or “some such form” was broken subsequently in the wrong place. Instead of “san Graal” or “san Greal” (holy grail) the word should be divided into “Sang Raal,” or “Sang Real.” In modern French, this would be Sang Royal, referring to “royal blood”.[44] Furthermore, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln believe this means that the Holy Grail would have been two things simultaneously:

It would have been Jesus’ bloodline and descendants–the “Sang Raal,” the “Real” or “Royal” blood of which the Templars, created by the Prieuré de Sion [Priory of Sion], were appointed guardians. At the same time, the Holy Grail would have been, quite literally, the receptacle or vessel that received and contained Jesus’ blood. In other words, it would have been the womb of the Magdalen–and by extension, the Magdalen herself.[45]

[19] Once again, the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, provide their readers with a tantalizing half-truth. Their theory about the French for “holy grail” is dubious at best. According to Olson and Miesel, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1470) includes the best telling of the medieval Grail story, where he calls it the Sankgreall and the Holy Grayle. When he speaks of the Sankgreal (blood of the grail), Malory clearly means the Lord’s own blood and not his alleged bloodline. Additionally, “‘grail’ is derived ultimately from the Latin gradale, meaning ‘by degree or stages,’ referring to a type of deep platter from which foods were served course by course at a medieval banquet.”[46] The usage of the term “grail” as a common noun thus predates all references to the Holy Grail. Thus, the division of Sangreal into “Sang” and “real” is wrong. In modern French, royal blood would be le sang royal and Holy Grail is le Saint-Graal. Sangreal means “Holy Grail” and if it were divided, would actually be “San-greal.” What is rather surprising about their theory is that Mary Magdalene’s womb becomes indispensable to her significance. According to their theory, her womb was the vessel that carried the “royal blood” of Jesus, meaning his bloodline. Because Magdalene’s significance is based upon the condition of her womb, in effect Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s Mary Magdalene is prominent ultimately because she had a sexual relationship with Jesus and was biologically capable of producing his descendants.

[20] Brown also used sections from the Templar Revelation, by Picknett and Prince. Although Picknett and Prince critique the Dossiers Secret (secret documents) that Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln depended upon for much of their work as being inconsequential and perhaps even forgeries, they curiously believe this proves the merit of the documents as the basis for their own work [47] When they come to the depiction of Mary Magdalene in the canonical Gospels, Picknett and Prince say that “throughout history, [Mary Magdalene] has always somehow embodied the contemporary attitude to women”[48] and that her depiction as the repentant whore mirrored contemporary attitudes in the church. They further maintain that this characterization as a whore has nothing to do with the Gospels in which she was the first witness to the risen Jesus, and "not merely the first female witness but the first person to see him after he emerged from the tomb.”[49] As well, she was the first disciple to receive a direct apostolic commission from Jesus, who commanded her to take the news of his resurrection to the other disciples.[50] Furthermore, her importance is suggested by the fact that almost without exception (John 19:25), Mary Magdalene’s name comes first whenever a list is given of Jesus’ female followers and that indicates she was a woman of independent means who provided for Jesus and other men.[51]

[21] When they turn to discussing the Gnostic gospels, Picknett and Prince look at both the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip. They date the writing of the Gospel of Mary as “roughly the same time as the canonical Gospels,” indicating that this means it is of a similar status to the canonical Gospels and it was destroyed because it gave witness to a significant secret.[52]  But in this assumption they are mistaken. The Gospel of Mary has been dated to the first or second half of the second century CE, which could up to a century after the canonical Gospels were written, and not a similar time.[53] For Picknett and Prince, in the Gnostic gospels Mary Magdalene’s pre-eminence is proclaimed, because “[S]he is literally Apostle of the Apostles and therefore acknowledged to be second only to Jesus, ranked above both male and female followers. She, it appears, was the one person who was effectively the bridge between Jesus and all his other disciples, and it was she who interpreted his words for their benefit. In these texts, it was not Peter who was Jesus’ chosen second-in-command, but Mary Magdalene.”[54]  As I will also discuss below, in the Gospel of Mary they particularly find a Magdalene who rallies the despondent disciples after the crucifixion and inspires them to become devoted apostles.

[22] In the Gospel of Philip, Picknett and Prince believe Mary and Jesus are depicted as being on more physically intimate terms than teacher and pupil.[55] When they discuss the phrase in which Mary is said to be the “companion” of the Saviour, they state, “Whereas today the word ‘companion’ implies comrade, colleague and friend in a purely platonic sense, the original Greek word actually meant ‘consort’ or sexual partner.”[56] To support their translation of “companion” as “sexual partner,” they look to McL. Wilson’s early commentary on the Gospel of Philip who nowhere speaks of Mary as a sexual partner, but rather as a “consort” based upon a kind of Gnosticism called Valentinianism which many believe provides the background for the Gospel of Philip.[57] As McL. Wilson points out, in Valentinianism “there are three Christs: the aeon Christ as consort of the Holy Spirit in the Pleroma, the Saviour as consort of Sophia, and the earthly Jesus. It would be natural for them to assume that the latter also had a consort, and Mary is the obvious choice.”[58] The term “consort” here does not seem to have sexual overtones. Furthermore, McL. Wilson dismisses the theory that in the Gospel of Phillip, Mary becomes spiritually pregnant and perfect. Presumably if he does not interpret Mary as being spiritually pregnant in the text, he would not believe her to be physically pregnant, either.[59] Picknett and Prince also believe that the Gospel of Philip “explicitly describes the Magdalene as Jesus’ sexual partner,” particularly because Jesus is said to kiss Mary Magdalene and the numerous allusions in the text to unions between the bride and the bridegroom.[60] I will discuss the significance of this kiss in section IV, below.

[23] After a number of leaps in logic that I do not have space to analyze at length, Picknett and Prince finally arrive at a conclusion that is similar to that of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln: Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were the same woman and Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, although in their view she was a sacred prostitute.[61] For Picknett and Prince, Jesus and Mary had a sacred marriage because she was a pagan priestess through whom Jesus actually became King (of the Jews). “It was through sexual union with her that he actually became the acknowledged king. Without her he was nothing.”[62] In fact, she was a sexual initiatrix whom Jesus protected as she faced discrimination in the patriarchal world of Judaism.[63] It is noteworthy that while Picknett and Prince are not supporters of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s theory that Mary’s womb was the Holy Grail and they begin with more evidence for Mary’s apostolic status, they too ultimately find Mary’s major significance in her sexual relationship with Jesus.[64]

[24] Because Margaret Starbird concentrates primarily on her personal journey as she constructed her theories of Mary Magdalene in her book The Goddess in the Gospels, I will not comment on it here. But in The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail she makes surprisingly uncritical use of Holy Blood, Holy Grail in her discussion of Mary Magdalene. She bases theories about the Magdalene on a fourth-century legend in which Magdalene is said to have brought the “Sangraal” to the south coast of France.[65] She further states, again, based upon Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s work, that if you break the word sangraal after the g, the result is sang raal, which in the Old French means “blood royal.”[66] Based upon this interpretation she states, “Suddenly one is faced with a new reading of the familiar legend: Instead of a cup or chalice, the story now states that Mary Magdalene brought the ‘blood royal’ to the Mediterranean coast of France.” And, for Starbird, it is not enough that Magdalene would have brought the blood in an “earthen vessel” such as a chalice. She asks, “What if that earthen vessel was a woman? Perhaps this Mary was actually the wife of Jesus and brought a child of his to Provence!”[67]

[25] Starbird also identifies Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, who sat at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:38-42) and anointed Jesus with nard (John 11:2, 12; 12:3).[68] At the same time, she believes that the church wrongly labelled Mary as a prostitute and that the anointing of “Jesus at Bethany by the woman with the alabaster jar may have been misinterpreted by the author of Luke’s Gospel writing nearly fifty years after the event.”[69] Instead, Mary was a “sacred woman” (prostitute) of the Temple of the “Goddess”, who played an important part in the everyday life of the classical world.[70] Jesus’ statement that she was anointing him for burial (Mark 14:8; Matt 26:12) would have then been understood by the early Christian community as indicating Magdalene’s status as the bride who was anointing a king for marriage, similar to the “Sacred Marriage” celebrating the union of a local god and goddess in ancient times.[71] Starbird, too, uses the Gospel of Phillip to “confirm that Mary Magdalen was an intimate companion of Jesus” by saying that she is said to be a close “companion” or “consort” of Jesus who often kissed her on the mouth.[72]

[26] What is also surprising about Woman with the Alabaster Jar is that although Starbird considers herself a feminist, she argues that the archetypal symbol for female, the V or ▼, is actually the archaic symbol for the chalice that is the “vessel” or “womb” of life. The male archetypal symbol, on the other hand, is an upside down V or . After arguing for the amalgamation of these two into a symbol for wholeness, Starbird states “that the feminine principle is that of love and relatedness in the Jungian sense” while the masculine principle is that “of Logos/reason, which is associated with power and light.”[73] Thus for Starbird the essence of being female has to do with love and relatedness while the essence of being male has to do with achievement (she defines the Greek term Logos–which is usually translated as “word”–as achievement) and reason.[74] Presumably without intending to do so, Starbird has fallen into a general understanding of men and women that began with Plato (428-347 BCE) and was summed up well by Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE – 40 CE) when he distinguishes between the intellect, which he calls masculine, and sensation, which he calls feminine in De opificio mundi, 165.[75] In ancient times women were generally believed to be is inferior to men, particularly in their inability to reason, while they was particularly good at sexual vocations because they excelled at receiving passively.[76] Thus Starbird unknowingly supports this ancient way of thinking in which the female is inferior to men in anything other than sex or biological reproduction.

IV. Teabing and the Gnostic Gospels

[27] I will now return to Brown’s claim that “[a]ll descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate” by considering his descriptions of the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. [77] Of course, one of the first observations to be made about Teabing’s statements is that no one who is a student of early Christian texts believes that the Nag Hammadi documents are the earliest Christian records. The Gospel of Philip is from Nag Hammadi, written in the second or possibly the early third century. It is to this text that I now turn.

A. The Gospel of Philip (2nd century ce)

[28] The Gospel of Philip is the only text from which one might be able to build a case that Jesus and Mary were married and sexually involved.[78] The text from the Gospel of Philip states:

There were three who always walked with the lord: Mary his mother and her sister and the Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary (59, 6-11).[79]

As for the Wisdom who is called “the barren,” she is the mother [of the] angels. And the companion of the [ . . . ] Mary Magdalene. [ . . . loved] her more than [all] the disciples [and used to] kiss her [often] on her [ . . . ]. The rest of [the disciples . . . ]. They said to him, “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The savior answered and said to them, “Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness” (63, 30-64, 9).

B. Companion

[29] Of course Teabing is wrong when he says that the Gospel of Philip is in Aramaic. Nag Hammadi scholar Hans-Martin Schenke confirms that the copy of the Gospel of Philip that has come down to us is in Coptic and that this probably represents a translation from the Greek.[80] In fact, when the author uses the word “companion” in the Gospel of Philip he uses the Greek term koinonos twice and the Coptic term hotre (companion) once. In his book The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents, Marjanen points out what most students of Greek know, that koinonos is used in different ways in many writings, including the New Testament. The word denotes a “person engaged in fellowship or sharing with someone or in something.” What a koinonos “can share with his or her partner can take many forms, ranging from a common enterprise or experience to a shared business.”[81] In the Bible, a koinonos might be a marriage partner (Mal 2:14; cf. 3 Macc 4:6), a companion in faith (Phlm 17), a co-worker in proclaiming the Gospel (2 Cor 8:23), or a business associate (Luke 5:10).[82]

[30] The precise identity of the companion in section 63 of the Gospel of Philip is not altogether clear in the text. But in paragraph 59 (see above), Mary is said to be the “companion” of Jesus. Marjanen suggests that cognates of koinos (Greek for “communal” or “common) as well as their Coptic equivalents can refer to the literal pairing of men and women in marriage and sexual relationships, but also function as a metaphor for a deeper, spiritual partnership (81, 34-82, 7).  The words can also be used to describe the salvific experience of a Gnostic Christian, when the unity with the divine realm is re-established (70, 9-22; 58, 10-14; 5, 23-26).  Furthermore, in the Gospel of Philip, when someone is spoken of as someone’s wife, the Coptic word for wife is used (70, 19; 76, 7; 82, 1). Marjanen states that the term koinonos is “reserved for a more specific usage in the writing. This observation fits well with the fact that the writer of the text is not primarily interested in a marital relationship as such, but in the close relationship it illustrates.”[83]

 C. The Kiss

[31] One still is left wondering what to make of Jesus kissing Mary.  In Schenke’s translation, he has helpfully filled in the word “mouth,” although in the text one cannot be certain where Jesus kisses Mary.[84] In her article, “The Holy Spirit is a Double Name,” Jorun Jacobsen Buckley has stated that in the text the disciples interpret the kiss in a sexual way, thus lending some support to the idea that the kiss is meant to have at least some sexual connotations, and that the context itself attests to a sexual meaning.[85] But as I have shown, the passage cannot be construed clearly to have sexual connotations and interpreting the kiss this way would not seem to be the primary significance here, particularly when earlier in the Gospel of Phillip it states: “For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason, we also kiss one another. We receive conception from the grace which is in one another” (59, 1-5). The reference to Jesus kissing Mary might also be a reference to the “chaste, liturgical ‘kiss of peace’ mentioned several times in the Gospel of Philip and in the New Testament” (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20, 2; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:266; 1 Pet 5:14).[86] In any case, the author primarily has a spiritual emphasis in view, particularly given the reply of Jesus to the disciples about why he loves Mary more than them.

[32] In this reply, Jesus states, “When a blind man and one who sees are both together in the darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and the blind will remain in darkness.” Thus the kiss between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in section 63 indicates her privileged position, a position due, not to her being married to Jesus, but to having spiritual insight into his teaching that exceeds that of the other disciples. The relationship is primarily spiritual, with Mary being understood as Jesus’ spiritual counterpart. The kiss may be the way that special spiritual power is conveyed to her.[87]

[33] The disciples, who are also sometimes portrayed as being spiritually immature in the Gospel of Philip (55, 28-30), are depicted here as being somewhat dazed and unbelieving. It is Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ companion, who understands and who is superior to all of the disciples.[88]

[34] In view of Brown’s claims that his descriptions of documents are historically accurate, it is astonishing that he did not make use of the work of Gnostic scholars such as Isenberg, Schenke and Marjanen mentioned above who had published works on the Gospel of Philip by 1997. Although he makes use of Pagels’ book The Gnostic Gospels, which was first published in 1979 and in which she claimed that the Valentinians rejected ascetic practice, he apparently did not read or make reference to her later article in which she admitted that some Valentinians may have practiced celibacy and even celibate marriage.[89] Even if one suggests that Mary and Jesus could have had a physical relationship as described in this text, it is still not Mary’s sexual relationship with Jesus that is of primary concern.[90] If Brown really was interested in the veracity of his use of the Gospel of Philip, considering that the publication date for The Da Vinci Code was 2003, presumably he could have used these publications in his own research. As I have shown, contrary to Brown and to his creation Teabing, the passage from the Gospel of Philip that they cite are not really about romantic love but about Jesus bestowing spiritual power upon Mary and about Mary’s superior spiritual insight.

B. The Gospel of Mary (2^nd century)

[35] Although I cannot thoroughly pursue the depiction of Mary in the Gospel of Mary due to lack of space, I will discuss the text briefly because, as Brock points out, it portrays Mary both as the recipient of an appearance of Christ and as the recipient of praise from Christ for not “wavering” after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection (Gos. Mary, BG 10,14).[91] In the text she is the one who comforts and rallies the disciples and preaches to them the words of the Saviour that she received in a vision. The text reports the interchange between Mary and the other disciples after her vision:

 When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you (wish to) say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.” Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things. He questioned them (the disciples) about the Savior: “Did he really speak with a woman without our knowledge (and) not openly? Are we to turn about and listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?”

   Then Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior? Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us. Rather, let us be ashamed and put on the perfect man and acquire him for ourselves as he commanded us, and preach the Gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said” (The Gospel of Mary, 9-18).[92]

In this text Mary has been given a vision from Christ and becomes an authoritative figure. According to Esther de Boer, author of The Gospel of Mary: Beyond a Gnostic and Biblical Mary Magdalene, Mary is depicted in the Gospel as a disciple of Jesus “in the sense that she has been taught by him. She also has had access to teaching that the others have not had.”[93] She functions as a disciple among disciples because “Mary knows more than the other disciples, since the Saviour loved her more than the rest of women.”[94] Thus, for de Boer, Jesus’ love for Mary has nothing to do with her sexuality, but with her being given knowledge. King stresses that Mary is depicted as being a leader based on her spiritual maturity.[95] Marjanen argues that when Mary is spoken of as being loved more than the disciples in the Gospel of Mary, it is not sexual love that is in view but love similar to that expressed for the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel of John.[96]

[36] While Brown would not have had access to the works of Brock and de Boer that were published in 2003 and 2004, respectively, both Marjanen’s The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents and King’s introduction to the Gospel of Mary in The Nag Hammadi Library in English would have been available to him. Both of these authors make it clear that Mary’s primary significance in the Gospel of Mary is her role as the authoritative figure in the text. As mentioned above, Marjanen states specifically that Mary’s role is not sexual. King states, “She [Mary] is the Savior’s beloved, possessed of knowledge and teaching superior to that of the public apostolic tradition.”[97]  As in his treatment of the Gospel of Philip, in the Gospel of Mary Brown ignored the work of Gnostic scholars in which Mary’s authoritative role was made clear. He also omitted the description of Mary in the canonical Gospels. It is to these texts that I now turn.

V. Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles

A. The Gospels

[37] While I have considered Brown’s description of the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary and found him to be in error, I have yet to consider the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in the canonical Gospels, which, contrary to Teabing, contain the earliest description of her. While a vast amount has been written on Mary Magdalene in the canonical Gospels, I will briefly provide the reasons for her significance in these texts.[98]

[38] She is portrayed as a woman who has suffered from demonic possession and from whom Jesus had expelled seven demons (Luke 8:2; cf. Mark 16:9). She is also prominently mentioned as one of the women who accompanied Jesus in his ministry and provided for him from her financial resources (Luke 8:2-3; Mark 15:40-41). Contrary to the theories of Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln, Picknett, Prince and Starbird, she is never said to be married to Jesus, she is never cast as the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus (Luke. 7:36-50) and she is never equated with Mary of Bethany.

[39] One of the major reasons that she is significant in the canonical Gospels is that she is the key witness to the crucifixion (Matt 27:56; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49; John 19:25), Jesus’ burial (Matt 27:61; Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55); and the empty tomb (Matt 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:10; John 20:1). Because other characters shift in the narratives, Mary Magdalene remains as the only one who sees Jesus’ death and burial and discovers the empty tomb in all three of the synoptic Gospels. So the assurance of the correct tomb and the correct body and the empty tomb rest on the reliability and testimony of one woman.[99]

[40] Mary is also portrayed as among those who are the first to see the resurrected Christ. For example, in Matthew 28:9 she and another Mary, presumably Mary the mother of James (cf. Matt 27:56), are the first to see the resurrected Christ who instructs them to go and tell the male disciples that he will meet them in Galilee. In John, she alone is the first to see the resurrected Christ and receive his commission. In Mark’s longer ending, Jesus appears to her after his resurrection. While this scene is not in the earliest, most reliable texts, it does point to the continued significance this tradition played for the members of early Christian communities.

[41] In her recent book The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, Jane Schaberg forcefully argues that the account of Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene in John 20:1, 11-18 contains an account that is better preserved than the one found in Matthew 28.[100] She further believes that the account in John should be viewed particularly against the background of the Elijah/Elisha narrative in 2 Kings 2:1-18 where Elisha takes on the role of the prophet succeeding Elijah and is filled with the spirit that formerly rested upon him.[101] In John 20 this would mean that Mary Magdalene becomes Jesus’ successor. While one may question whether the narrative in John 20 is shaped by the Elijah/Elisha story, Schaberg does succeed in showing how important the tradition that Mary was the first to see the risen Christ was to the early Christian community. Instead of seeing the resurrection appearance to Mary Magdalene as a minor, private and personal encounter between Mary and Jesus before his official meeting with the disciples as many scholars have previously done, Schaberg shows how “women were the–or a–primary source of the resurrection faith.”[102] Of course the central figure among these women was Mary Magdalene.

[42] Ann Graham Brock has shown how Mary as depicted in the Gospels fits the characteristics of an apostle as defined by Paul in her book Mary Magdalene: The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority. As is well known, Paul defines apostles as those who witnessed an appearance of the risen Christ and who received a divine call or commission to proclaim a particular message (1 Cor 15:3, 5-8; Gal 1:15-16).[103] This is particularly true in John’s Gospel, where Mary sees the risen Christ when she is alone and he commissions her to go and tell the disciples of his ascension (John 20:14-18). It is probably because she is the first to announce the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to the disciples that Hippolytus, in his third century commentary on the Song of Songs, called her the “apostle of the apostles” (De Cantico 24-26).

[43] Brown did not make use of the numerous publications that would have been available to him about Mary Magdalene in the canonical Gospels, such as Richard Atwood’s Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels and Early Tradition who argues for Mary’s significant role as the primary initial recipient and transmitter of the message of Jesus resurrection in the Gospel accounts.[104] As I argued earlier, Brown’s portrayal of Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus who bears his child(ren) is drawn from others’ misreadings of the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. But he also ignored the actual “earliest” Christian documents in which Mary Magdalene is portrayed as having apostolic stature.

VI. Conclusion

[44] As I have shown, in the Gnostic gospels Mary Magdalene is shown to have a close relationship with Jesus that is based upon her superior spiritual insight and maturity, not upon a sexual relationship with Jesus or her reproductive capacity. She is a “disciple among disciples” who acts authoritatively and who has special knowledge. In the New Testament documents, Mary is significant because she is the only one to witness Jesus’ crucifixion and burial as well as the empty tomb. The assurance of the correct tomb, the correct body and the empty tomb rest on the reliability and testimony of this one woman. But more importantly, she is the one who receives a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus and a divine call to preach his ascension and resurrection, both of which are characteristics of an apostle. Because she takes Jesus’ message to the disciples, she becomes the apostle to the apostles.

[45] Because Brown uses sources for the Da Vinci Code that do not deal with early Christian texts in a careful or thorough manner and because he does not seem to have carefully studied the Gnostic texts themselves, he does not use the Gnostic gospels as accurately as his statement on page 1 leads his readers to believe. As has been shown, rather than capitalizing upon Mary’s apostolic status, knowledge, spiritual maturity or insight, Brown concentrates instead on her sexual relationship with Jesus. In this way he confines her to this relationship with Jesus instead of seeing her in her own right.[105]

[46] While Brown does speak twice about the tradition of Mary as an apostle, the dubious traditions about Mary Magdalene that are essential to his novel are that she married Jesus and bore children–traditions that have more to do with her sexuality and reproductive capability than with her important apostolic function in the early Church.[106] In a way similar to the views of women held by ancient philosophers, Brown ultimately does not value her for her intellectual or spiritual competencies as much as for her sexual qualities. While Brown and his sources criticize the church for turning Magdalene into a prostitute, he falls into a similar error in his novel. Instead of showing how Mary was important in the early church as an apostle who had seen the risen Christ and acted on his commission, by following the works of Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln, Picknett, Prince and Starbird, he concentrates on her sexuality. In this way Brown actually serves to perpetuate the tradition in which Mary’s sexuality takes precedence over her apostleship and, in effect, contributes to the diminishment of her role as the apostle to the apostles in a way similar to members of the early Church that he condemns so severely.

Notes

[1] David Baddiel, “The Da Vinci Code is as Dickensian as Miriam Margoyles in a Bonnet,” www.timesonline.co.uk, July 23, 2005.

[2] Bart D. Ehrman, Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Ben Witherington III, The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Magdalene and Da Vinci (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2004).

[3] Carl E. Olson, Sandra Miesel, The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004).

[4] Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 1.

[5] For example, Ehrman, Truth, xx; Witherington, Gospel, 28.

[6] “NBC News Transcripts” www.danbrown.com/media/todayshow.htm, June 9, 2003.

[7] “Video: Good Morning America (Host: Charlie Gibson)” www.danbrown.com, Dec. 2003.

[8] Dick Adler, “A Tale of Religious Secrets and Revelations”, pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/abstract/324088861.html April 13, 2003, 2.

[9] Bob Minzesheimer, " 'Code' Deciphers Interest In Religious History," USA Today, December 11, 2003; see also usatoday.com/life/books/news/2003-12-10-da-vinci_x.htm

[10] Brown, Code, 236-39; 243-46; 249; 253.

[11] Brown, Code, 257.

[12] Brown, Code, 247-49.

[13] Brown, Code, 244, 249, 254, 261.

[14] Brown, Code, 245-48.

[15] Brown, Code, 245.

[16] Brown, Code, 245-46.

[17] Brown, Code, 246.

[18] Brown, Code, 247.

[19] Brown, Code, 255, 257.

[20] Brown, Code, 253; Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ (London: Bantam Press, 1997); Margaret Starbird, The Woman with the Alabaster Jar: Mary Magdalene and the Holy Grail (Rochester, VT: Bear and Company, 1993) and The Goddess in the Gospels (Rochester, VT: Bear and Company, 1993); Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, Holy Blood, Holy Grail (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1982; New York: Bantam Dell, 2004).

[21] See also Olson and Miesel, Hoax, 223.

[22] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 330.

[23] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 332.

[24] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 333.

[25] For example, see W.E. Phipps, who argues that Jesus was married in The Sexuality of Jesus (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1970) See John P. Meier’s arguments against Phipps’s conclusions in A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 332-45.

[26] Philo of Alexandria, Hypothetica 11.14; Josephus War II.7.2; War II.8.13.

[27] Philo of Alexandria, On the Contemplative Life, 2.18, 8.68.

[28] Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (WBC 33B; Dallas, TX: Word Publishers, 1995), 550; see also Meier, Historical Jesus, 343-345 and Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 470 for discussions of the authenticity of Matt 19:10-12.

[29] Further arguments for Jesus’ unmarried state could be given here but will not be because of a lack of space.

[30] Raymond E, Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII (AB29; New York: Doubleday, 1966), 102.

[31] Brown, John I-XII, 104-5.

[32] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 333.

[33] Witherington, Gospel, 72-73.

[34] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 335; to avoid repetition, I will sometimes use the term “the Magdalene” that has often been used to refer to her throughout the centuries rather than her full name.

[35] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 334.

[36] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 334.

[37] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 337.

[38] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 337-38.

[39] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 344.

[40] Hom. 33, PL 76:1239.

[41] Ann Graham Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority (HTS 51; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 168-69.

[42] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 382.

[43] Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979), 18, 64.

[44] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 306.

[45] Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, Blood, 400.

[46] Olson and Miesel, Hoax, 182-83.

[47] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 47. The Dossiers Secrets have since been shown to be forgeries. See, for example, Bill Putnam and John Edwin Wood, “Unravelling the Da Vinci Code,” History Today 55,1 (2005): 18-20; Massimo Introvigne, “The Da Vinci Code FAQ, or Will the Real Priory of Sion Please Stand Up?” at www.cwsnur.org/2005/mi_02_03d.htm Sept. 7, 2005.

[48] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 61.

[49] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 62.

[50] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 62.

[51] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 63, 64.

[52] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 64.

[53] Karen L. King contends that the Gospel was written early in the second century in The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle, (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2003), 5; Esther A. de Boer argues for a date during the second half of the second century in The Gospel of Mary: Beyond a Gnostic and a Biblical Mary Magdalene (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), 13.

[54] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 62.

[55] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 65.

[56] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 65.

[57] R. McL. Wilson, The Gospel of Philip: Translated from the Coptic Text with an Introduction and Commentary (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1962); on Valentinianism, see Hans-Martin Schenke, “The Gospel of Philip” in Gospels and Related Writings, vol. 2, The New Testament Apocrypha (Cambridge: James Clark and Co., 1991), 182.

[58] McL. Wilson, Gospel of Philip, 97.

[59] McL. Wilson, Gospel of Philip, 97; R. M. Grant, “The Mystery of Marriage in the Gospel of Philip,” Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961): 140.

[60] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 261-62.

[61] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 257.

[62] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 257.

[63] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 259.

[64] Picknett and Prince, Templar, 352-53.

[65] Starbird, Woman, 23.

[66] Starbird, Woman, 26.

[67] Starbird, Woman, 26.

[68] Starbird, Woman, 28.

[69] Starbird, Woman, 29.

[70] Starbird, Woman, 29.

[71] Starbird, Woman, 31.

[72] Starbird, Woman, 53.

[73] Starbird, Woman, 159.

[74] Starbird, Woman, 160.

[75] See Giula Sissa, “The Sexual Philosophies of Plato and Aristotle,” A History of Women in the West I: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, ed. Pauline Schmitt Pantell (Cambridge, MA: Bellnap Press, 1992), 46; see also the discussion by Esther de Boer in Marvin Meyer, with Esther de Boer, The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus, (San Francisco: Harper, 2004), 80-82.

[76] Sissa, “Philosophies,” 47.

[77] For example, Ehrman, Truth, xx; Witherington, Gospel, 28.

[78] See also Bart Ehrman who states that there is nothing in any early Christian texts to suggest that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married in Truth, 160.

[79] W.W. Isenberg, “The Gospel According to Philip. Introduction, Translation,” in B. Layton, ed., Nag Hammadi Codex II.2-7 together with XIII, 2*, Brig. Lib. Or. 4926(1) and P. Oxy. 1, 654, 655. Vol. One: Gospel According to Thomas, Gospel According to Philip, Hypostasis of the Archons and Indexes (NHS 20 Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 159.

[80] Hans-Martin Schenke, Das Philippus-Evangelium (Nag-Hammadi-Codex II, 3) Neu Herausgegeben, Übersetzt und Erklärt von Hans-Martin Schenke (TU 143; Berlin: Akademie Verlag ,1997), 182.

[81] Antti Marjanen, The Woman Jesus Loved: Mary Magdalene in the Nag Hammadi Library and Related Documents (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 151.

[82] Marjanen, Woman, 151.

[83] Marjanen, Woman, 154; see also Birger A. Pearson, “Did Jesus Marry?”, Bible Review 21,2 (2005): 34.

[84] Schenke, Philippus-Evangelium, 37: “auf Ihren [Mund].”

[85] Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, “The Holy Spirit is a Double Name,” Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 215-17.

[86] Pearson, “Marry”, 34.

[87] Marjanen, Woman, 160.

[88] See also Marjanen, Woman, 168-69.

[89] Elaine Pagels, “Pursuing the Spiritual Eve: Imagery and Hermeneutics in the Hypostatsis of the Archons and the Gospel of Philip,” Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen L. King (SAC; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 204.

[90] For example, see Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Reconstructing ‘Real’ Women in Gospel Literature: The Case of Mary Magdalene,” Women and Christian Origins, ed. Ross Shepard Kraemer and Mary Rose D’Angelo (New York: Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999), 124; see Meyer, Secret, 37.

[91] Brock, Apostle, 82.

[92] From Douglas M. Parrot, ed., “The Gospel of Mary” in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), 526.

[93] De Boer, Gospel, 98.

[94] De Boer, Gospel, 99.

[95] Karen L. King, “Why All the Controversy? Mary in the Gospel of Mary,” Which Mary? The Marys of Early Christian Tradition, ed. F. Stanley Jones (SBLSS 19; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 74; see also her introduction to the article, “The Gospel of Mary (BG 8502, I),” The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. J.R. Robinson (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1990), 523-24.

[96] Marjanen, Woman, 110, 116; see also De Boer, Gospel, 208; Schenke, Philippus-Evangelium, 207, n. 34.

[97] King, “Gospel of Mary,” 524.

[98] For an extensive list of literature devoted to Mary Magdalene, see Holly E. Hearon, The Mary Magdalene Tradition: Witness and Counter-Witness in Early Christian Communities (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier/Liturgical Press, 2004).

[99] See Claudia Setzer’s article, “Excellent Women: Female Witness to the Resurrection,” Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997): 259-72 for further expansion of these ideas.

[100] Jane Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene (New York: Continuum, 2004), 318.

[101] Schaberg, Resurrection, 304-5, 314-17.

[102] Schaberg, Resurrection, 298.

[103] Brock, Apostle, 6.

[104] Richard Atwood, Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels and Early Tradition (European university studies: Ser. 23, Theology; Vol. 457; Bern, Lang, 1993), 135-37; see also D’Angelo, “Reconstructing,”  129-49; Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Riverhead Books, 1993).

[105] See Schaberg, Resurrection, 350.

[106] See Brown, Code, 245, 247, where he speaks of her as an apostle.