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Mary Magdalene and the Devalued Feminine

© Bonnie McCarson

Lately in my reading there seems a bit of synchronicity at work. Many things that I am drawn to in some way or another end up at least mentioning, if not being largely about, topics related to alternative branches of Christian thought and the role of Mary Magdalene. The recent best seller, The Da Vinci Code, of course brought some of the legends surrounding this person to light. Now I am reading a nonfiction collection of writings by scholars who are exploring the facts within the fiction of Dan Brown's novel. Sorting out the facts from the fiction where Mary Magdalene is concerned seems no easy task for the problem of her significance in Christian tradition goes back to the inception of the faith and was troublesome and divisive then, even as it poses questions now.

Why now? Why all the renewed attention suddenly to a character who has always been a part of the story, though with some question about exactly what her part was. I believe, along with some other writers, that the figure of Mary Magdalene draws our attention because she is more than an interesting character in the story. She is perhaps the most significant symbol of the redeemed feminine that we have in Western culture. Though I have read widely on the subject, I cannot attest to what is historically accurate with regard to the figure of Mary Magdalene. I am speaking here only of my views of what the interest in her might symbolize and why I think legends about her have existed and continue to intrigue us.

Like the devalued feminine that has been so central to Jungian thought, Mary Magdalene has been devalued by mainstream Christianity and society at times. The current attention to her not only in fiction but in translations of The Gospel of Mary from the Nag Hammadi codices and in scholarly writing associated with that body of literature may signify that we are coming to a new level in recognizing the redeemed feminine in our collective consciousness. How sad it is that Jung could not have lived to see these events unfold.

For Jung the elevation of the Virgin Mary to Queen of Heaven seated beside Christ was highly symbolic. He saw in it at last after millennia of patriarchy the recognition of the feminine as an equal. For me the idea of Mary Magdalene as consort of Jesus here on earth seems even more significant in an archetypal sense. There is the implied coniunctio (although scholars debate whether there was a sexual or marital relationship between Mary and Jesus, popular literature indicates there was), a union of opposites with the God-man Jesus and the very earthy feminine of Mary Magdalene. The Virgin Mary compared to Mary Magdalene seems very sterile and unreal - at least someone hard to relate to. She came down from Heaven by Immaculate Conception - God breathed her into an earthly vessel, just like her son. On the other hand, Mary Magdalene is the stuff of the earth, flawed, robust, exhibiting the instincts of the earth. Jesus' mother may is some way represent the feminine face of God and the church's recognition of her in the mid 20th century was significant, but it did little to speak to the devalued feminine in everyday life.

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