2. The belief that IMarj' of Bethany and Mary Mag- dalene are identical is yet more startling. Not one sin- gle circumstance, except that of love and reverence for their Master, is common. The epithet Magdalene, what- ever may be its meaning, seems chosen for the express purpose of distinguishing her from all other Marys. No one evangelist gives the shghtest hint of identity. Luke mentions Martha and her sister Mary in x, 38, 39, as though neither had been named before. John, who gives the fuUest account of both, keeps their dis- tinct individuality most prominent. The onlj' simula- crum of an argument on behalf of the identity is that, if we do not admit it, we have no record of the sister of Lazarus having been a witness of the resurrection.
HI. Traditions. — 1. On the above Identijication. — This lack of evidence in the N. T. itself is not comjiensated by any such -weight of authority as -would indicate a really trustworthy tradition. Two of the earliest writers who allude to the histories of the anointing — Clement of Alexandria {Pcedag. ii, 8) and Tertullian (/>e Pudic. chap. 8) — say nothing that would imply that they ac- cepted it. The language of IrenKus (iii, 4) is against it. Origen (/. c.) discusses the question fully, and re- jects it. He is followed by the whole succession of the expositors of the Eastern Church : Theophilus of Anti- ocli, Macarius, Chrysostom, Theophylact. The traditions of that Church, when they wandered into the regions of conjecture, took another direction, and suggested the identity of Mary Magdalene with the daughter of the Sj'ro-Phoenician woman of Mark vii, 2G (Nicephorus, ^. E. i, 33). In the Western Cliurch, however, the other belief began to spread. At first it is mentioned hesitat- ingly, as by Ambrose {De Virg. Vel., and in Z,?<c. lib. vi), and Jerome {in Matt, xxvi, 2 ; contr. Jovin. c. 16). Au- gustine at one time inclines to it {De Consens. Evang. c. G9), at another speaks very doubtingly (Tract, in Joann. 49). At the close of the first great period of Church history, Gregorj- the Great takes up both no- tions, embodies them in his Homilies (in Ev. 25, 53), and stamps them with his authority. The reverence felt for him, and the constant use of his works as a text-book of theology during the whole mediajval pe- riod, secured for the hypothesis a currency which it never would have gained on its own merits. The ser-
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vices of the Feast of St. INIary Magdalene were con- structed on the assumption of its truth (^Brev. Rom. in Jul. 22). Hymns, and paintings, and sculptures fixed it deep in the minds of the Western nations, France antl England being foremost in their reverence for the saint whose history appealed to their sj'mpathies. (See below.) In particular, that passage in Luke has been adopted as the lesson of the day for her festival (Meyer on Luke vii, 37), and her- name has passed into all the languages of Western Christendom as expressive of a female penitent, Deyling {Obss. Sacr. iii, 201) gives a history both of the progress of the identification and of those controversies, especially in the Gallic Church, which resulted in the distinction being again drawn between them ; and a testimony to the success with which this was done will be found in Daniel (Thesaui'us Ilymnologicus, ii, 129), who tells us that in the missals of various churches, the words " Peccatricem absolvisti" were substituted for those which unquestionably belong to that noble hymn, the Dies Irce, in its original condi- tion, " Qui Mariam absolvisti." WeU-nigh all ecclesias- tical writers, after the time of Gregory the Great (Al- bert the Great and Thomas Aquinas are exceptions), take it for granted. When it was first questioned Ity Fe\Te d'Etaples (Faber Stapulensis) in the early Bibli- cal criticism of the IGth centurj', the ne^v opinion was formally condemned by the Sorbonne {Ada Sanciorum, 1. c), and denounced by bishop Fisher of Rochester. The Praj-er-book of 1549 follows in the wake of the Breviary; but in that of 1552, either on account of the uncertainty or for other reasons, the feast disappears. The Book of Homilies gives a doubtfiU testimony. In one passage the "sinful woman" is mentioned without any notice of her being the same as the Magdalene {Sermon on Repentance, part ii) ; in another it depends upon a comma whether the two are distinguished or identified (ibid, part ii). The translators under James I, as has been stated, adopted the received tradition. Since that period there has been a gradually accumu- lating consensus against it. Calvin, Grotius, Hammond, Casaubon, among older critics, Bengel, Lampe, Gres- ■well, Alford, Wordsworth, Stier, Meyer, Ellicott, 01s- hausen, among later, agree in rejecting it. Romanist writers even (Tillemont, Dupin, Estius) have borne their protest against it in whole or in part; and books that represent the present teaching of the Galilean Church reject entirely the identification of the two Ma- rys as an unhappy mistake (Migne, Diet, de le Bible?). The mediiBval tradition has, however, found defenders in Baronius, the writers of the Acta Sanctorum, Maldo- natus, bishop Andrewes, Lightfoot, Isaac WUliams, and Dr. Pusey.
2. It remains to give the substance of the legend formed out of these combinations. At some time before the commencement of oiu- Lord's 'ministry, a great sor- row fell upon the household of Bethany. The younger of the two sisters fell from her purity and sank into the depths of shame. Her life was that of one possessed by the "seven devils" of uncleanness. From the city to which she then went, or from her harlot-like adorn- ments, she was known by the new name of Magdalene. Then she hears of the Deliverer, and repents, and loves, and is forgiven. Then she is received at once into the fellowship of the holy women and ministers to the Lord, and is received back again by her sister and dwells with her, and shows that she has chosen the good part. The death of Lazarus and his return to life are new motives to her gratitude and love; and she shows them, as she had shown tliem before, anointing no longer the feet only, but the head also of her Lord. She watches by the cross, and is present at the sepulchre, and witnesses the resurrection. Then (the legend goes on, when the work of fantastic combination i« completed)^ after some years of waiting, she goes with Lazarus, and Martha, and iMaximin (one of the seventy) to Marseilles. Comp. Lazari's. They land there ; and she, leaving Martha to more active work, retires to a cave in the neighbor-