Mary Magdalene

“ There Mary Magdalene is weeping. There weeps the mother of Jesus. Let them weep. As if her tears meant anything, for that matter the tears of all the mothers, all the women in the universe!
“What are tears?” asks Judas and frenziedly pushes onward the disobliging time, pummels it with his fists, curses it like a slave. It is someone else’s, that is why it does not obey. If it were Judas! but it belongs to all these who are weeping, laughing, gossiping as if they were in the marketplace. It belongs to the sun, it belongs to the cross and to the heart of Jesus who is dying so slowly. ”

“ Meanwhile, for myself, I have two visions of this Mary Magdalene.
One—in one of the acts wherein her eyes do hunger and thirst after righteousness—when she sits before a small table and lifts her pathetic, sweet voice with the words, "When the dawn breaks, and the darkness shall flee away"; and then she stands and the red hair is equally pathetic and twofold bewitching, and she says again, "When the dawn breaks, and the darkness shall flee away." ”

“ But the birth-hour of Christianity, as the worship of Jesus, was that in which Mary Magdalene saw her master as risen and eternally living.
The impulse which caught up and gave wings to his work just when it seemed crushed came from the heart of Mary. In a spiritual sense the mother of Christianity was a woman who had been a sinner, and was forgiven because she loved much. The faith that sent the disciples forth to conquer the world was the faith that their Lord was not dead but living, not a memory but a perpetual presence. That conviction first flashed into the heart of Mary. ”

“ VERUS: Nothing is lost so long as life endures. . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: Hush, I beseech you! . . . Leave me alone in his silence and his will. . . . Let me contemplate, and let me listen to other things. ... I do not yet love him as he would be loved! . . . In vain I raise my eyes to his heaven of light: I see only his death, his sorrows, and his suffering. . . His steadfast face, his eyes that lit up all he looked upon, and his mouth that spoke unceasingly of happiness. ”

“ Nicodemus then joined in to assist Peter, and between the two they talked Magdalene to sleep. When they ceased she opened her eyes and laughingly said, "Nicodemus, I see that Jesus has talked eternal life into you, all right, and I am glad for your sake, for I shall soon be waiting and watching for those I have loved in this life to anchor their barques in that haven of rest where darkness forever hies away, waves of trouble cease to roll; where the sun never sets, the flowers never fade and the child-like glee of Mary Magdalene will depart no more." ”

“ They had heard of the resurrection to be, yet they reasoned that the Promiser was surely dead. Love alone, in the person of Mary Magdalene, most loving because most forgiven, overleaped all doubts, disappointments and fears, to hie away in the thinning darkness, in an utter abandonment to her trust in the words of Him, to whom her heart was given. That was love indeed.”
“Oh, priest, ’tis so. A woman; a woman; leading in religion! I do not much bepraise her, for she, being a woman, easily could believe, where men doubted.” ”

“ Mary Magdalene blushed and dropped her head till her luxuriant golden hair hid her entire face leaving merely the rounded white chin visible:
“How mean art thou, Judas. I seek to forget it, but thou remindest me.”
“No, Mary, thou shouldest not forget it. Why? Let others forget that thou wast a sinner, but thou forget not. It is meet that others forget it, but why shouldest thou?”
“I lived in sin.”
“Let him fear who has committed no sin. But he who has committed sin, why should he fear? Do the dead fear death and not the living? No, the dead mock the living and their fear of death.” ”

“ The scene is a smiling and varied landscape; in the centre Mary Magdalene, with the anticipative glory round her head, is seen dancing along to the sound of a flute and tabor, while a man in a rich dress leads her by the hand: several groups of men and women are diverting themselves in the foreground; in the background, Mary Magdalene, with a number of gay companions, is chasing the stag; she is mounted on horseback, and has again the glory round her head: far in the distance she is seen borne upwards by the angels. This singular and suggestive composition is dated 1519. ”

“ They will not abandon you, Magdalene. The rest depends upon yourself alone. , . . I am good and generous, perhaps, but in my own manner; and we must understand each other. ... So they have arrested him in whom you take so lively an interest, as I told you that they would? . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: They have not only arrested him: all the menials of the Temple, the grooms, the herds, the meanest scullions in the kitchens rushed at him, insulted, flouted and ill-treated him. . . . And, as they were afraid, as they were too cowardly to venture it alone, they made the Roman soldiers help them! ”

“ Man has but one will in the presence of death. . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: My God! My God! ... I am nothing, I am defiled with every defilement: what matters this one, which brings thee life? . . . But am I in question? . . . Is it not thou alone whom I defile today in defiling thy salvation, thou, the very source whence the source of all purity and of every happiness and of every life will spring? ... I no longer know where to thrust back my soul! . . . Nothing remains to me, if I lose it; nothing remains to us, if I save it! ”

“ MARY MAGDALENE: You are only doing your duty in freeing an innocent man. . . .
VERUS: It is not for me to enquire into his innocence; that does not concern me. I am not his judge, but his keeper. . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: Your soldiers will hold their tongues and no-one will know that. . . .
VERUS: My soldiers will not be able to hold their tongues. They will have to choose between silence and their lives. It will therefore be known that they acted only on my orders. Now there is no instance of the high-priests' ever abandoning a prey, a revenge, a hatred. ”

“ Seyton. But there is nothing of hope expressed in the attitude of Mary Magdalene in your picture.
Percival. No; she has loved, and she has lost, her Lord; lost Him, as she thinks, for ever, as regards this mortal life. Mary has kissed the dead feet; has pressed to her lips the wounded hand; and her tears have dropped on the thorn-encircled brow. Even the sight of angels will convey to her no comfort; her grief-dimmed eyes will not recognize the risen Christ Himself, till she hears His own beloved voice pronounce her familiar name. ”

“ MARY MAGDALENE: (Speaking in a soft and distant voice.) Yes, yes. . . . For one sees only little by little. . . . (Staring before her.) It is unfolded slowly, like a thing that has no beginning, no end, no name. . . There are two deaths here, I hold two deaths in my hand; and that is too heavy a weight for a poor creature born upon this earth. . . .
VERUS: Two deaths? . . . What do you mean? . . . You do not intend to follow him, surely? . . . Your death, since he loves you, would only add a very useless bitterness to his. . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: (Repeating in the same soft and distant voice.) ”

“ Mother and John listened motionlessly, while Magdalene bit her lip nervously, trying to form an inquiry which would open the sealed door of the tomb.
"Can the dead communicate with the living?"
"No, Mary."
"From whence came Moses and Elias?"
"From the abode of the living."
Mary Magdalene's voice changed to milder tones as she sympathetically continued: "Oh, can you not ease my aching heart? This burden is greater than I can bear. I do not understand you. I volunteered when in Galilee to follow you, but as we near Jerusalem my heart fails me. Is this the expression of God's love to me? ”

“ He had been four days in the grave! . . .
MARY MAGDALENE: But who? How? Where? . . . And the Nazarene? ... I want to know. . . . Speak for him, Silanus: he has not yet recovered his senses. . . .
SILANUS: Here, in a few words, is what happened. Nevertheless, it is right that I should tell you that I do not entirely share Appius' amazement. It should astonish us no more to see a man return to life than to see a child come to life or an old man leave it. (MARY MAGDALENE makes a movement of impatience.) ”

“ Mary Magdalene
I do not quite understand....
Verus
Yet it is simple enough: in saving him, I hand you over, without defence, to the fellow who will drag you with him, by fall after fall, to the bottom of none can tell what pit of folly and wretchedness, whence no human and reasoning power will be able to extricate you. Moreover, speaking for myself, I lose you irrevocably by thus giving you, with my own simple, foolish hands, to one who robs me of my happiness by methods against which a man who values the name does not try to struggle. ”

“ VERUS: (Clasping her violently.) Have no fear, Mary Magdalene. Nothing can touch you in these arms which close round you. The madness of this land seems more contagious than its pestilence and more tenacious than its leprosy; but Roman reason does not waver, like the rest, at the first foul breath that issues from a tomb. We will cut this matter short. (Turning his head around to face LAZARUS.) You I will not touch with my sword. It shrinks from corpses, even when they walk and drive the trade which you do. It is for the slaves to show you the road back to the sepulcher. ”

“ The woman who, under the name of Mary Magdalene,—whether that name be rightfully or wrongfully bestowed,—stands before us, sanctified in the imagination and in the faith of the people in her combined character of Sinner and of Saint, as the first-fruits of Christian penitence,—is a reality, and not a fiction. Even if we would, we cannot do away with the associations inseparably connected with her name and her image. ”

“ MARY, known as Mary Magdalene, a woman mentioned in the Gospels, first in Luke viii. 2, as one of a company who “healed of evil spirits and infirmities . . . ministered unto them (Jesus and the apostles) of their substance.” It is said that seven demons were cast out of her, but this need not imply simply one occasion. ”

“ At the moment when he rushes down, the laurel-hedge is burst through in every part by the yelling and gesticulating crowd pursuing MARY MAGDALENE. She makes a frenzied attempt to reach the terrace. VERUS and his two friends run to wards her, to try to protect her against the invading multitude. Stones fly. VERUS, standing in front of the others, brandishes his bare sword. Just as the fighting is about to begin, when already branches are broken, a statue over turned and so forth, suddenly a loud call of the supernatural voice rings under the nearer olive-trees. ”

“ And now Mary Magdalene, knowing nothing of all this, comes slowly back absorbed with her thoughts that the body has been secretly removed. She stands at the open tomb weeping. Then for the first time she stoops down and looks in. She is startled to see two angels left there to explain matters. ”

“ But the soul quickened from the charnel-house of sin and inducted, not only into a new inner life but into a new fellowship, hungers for more and more. Hence, it is a common thing for the young convert to wish to die, and be away from life’s turmoils and defilements at once and with the glorified, immediately, forever. It is as if the disciple would pass at once from the sepulcher directly up the Mount of Ascension. In this spirit Mary Magdalene pressed forward to embrace to her human heart the newly risen Saviour that morning when he tenderly restrained her. ”

“ When exhibited to us as the patron saint of repentant sinners, Mary Magdalene is sometimes a thin wasted figure with long dishevelled hair, of a pale golden hue, falling over her shoulders almost to the ground; sometimes a skin or a piece of linen is tied round her loins, but not seldom her sole drapery is her long redundant hair. The most ancient single figure of this character to which I can refer is an old picture in the Byzantine manner, as old perhaps as the thirteenth century, and now in the Academy at Florence. ”

“ Joseph of Arimathæa
Listen, Magdalene.... I lack neither courage nor loyalty.... Notwithstanding the power of the priests, I have thrown open my house to those who followed him. I know the price which I shall have to pay.... I am prepared to sacrifice everything and life itself to him. But I know his will and I cannot disobey him.... Peter wished to defend him and drew his sword.... He made him put it up into the sheath.... I was at Gethsemane....
Mary Magdalene
Since you were there, why did you not help Peter?... We save those whom we love; we listen to them afterwards!... ”

“ Mary Magdalene, who separated herself from the society of men, and lacerated her body with scourges even to blood. If I enter in spirit into the deserts and wildernesses, I find hearts broken with continual contrition and sorrow; bodies blanched and wasted by uninterrupted vigils, hunger, and thirst, more dead than alive, clad with hair-shirts furnished with sharp iron nails, scourged with thongs armed with spurs and knives, and other terrible implements of penance with which those repentant souls chastised the flesh. ”

“ Till One came to her side,
And took her hand in His, and what He said
Is past the telling; there are things the soul
Knows well, but cannot blazon to the world.
And when He went His way, upon her brow
Where shame had lain, set the sweet word, Forgiveness.
And Mary Magdalene
Did follow Him, led by a wondrous love,
Did wash His tender feet with grateful tears,
And wipe them with the soft hairs of her head.
MARY.
Joseph of Arimathea laid his form
In a new tomb. I tremble as we come
So near! and tell me, do you note a light,
Fairer than dawn, is cast on all things here. ”