The Sacred Feminine or Apostola Apostolorum

Introduction

Mary Magdalene’s penance
Guido Reni (1635)

Nowadays there is a distorted image of Mary Magdalene, or Mariam of Magdala, very different from the image that existed in the first times of Christianity. We are going to see to what extent she has been discriminated.

We are going to narrate briefly her life and know the different opinions that have been expressed about her. To know and understand the reason why Mary Magdalene has been discriminated is a duty for us, in virtue of our condition of Gnostics.

The goal of this work is to shed light on her image with the help of references to some works written by great scholars that hold this thesis.

It is indispensable for me to release this information, and also to make known the Gnostic point of view about this subject. Therefore, I have read the text to Oscar Uzcategui, my husband, in order to know his opinion. I do this devoid of all pretence. I only want to share with you some of the conversations (the following questions and answers) that we held about Mary Magdalene.

We are not going to speak about the role of the woman in the first times of Christianity. This subject is very interesting, but it is very long and particular. At that times there were a lot of exceptional women, women that were heroes, warriors, prophets, such as for example: Esther, Ruth, Deborah, Huldah, Rahab, etc. And don’t forget about Junias, the wife of the Apostle Paul, who Christified before him! Well. Our goal is simpler and easier.

We are going to talk about the greatest one, Mary Magdalene, a woman to be imitated, an example for all of us, men and women. And as she says very well: «… forget about men or women. We are talking about becoming really HUMAN».

I hope that after reading this booklet we’ll be able to know her better and, above all, to understand that she was not a prostitute…

A little bit of History

The Golden Legend that narrates the life of many Saints, and also the life of Mary Magdalene, is one of the fundamental works of the Middle Ages. It was translated into several languages and it was the most read and edited book of that epoch. It was written by “Jacobo de la Voragine”, Italian friar of the Dominican order, between 1259 and 1266. In that book he speaks of Mary as a sinner, but not as a prostitute.

This is an excerpt from that book:

Mary, with the nickname of Magdalene, from the castle of Magdalo, was born from illustrious parents, since they descended from a royal family. Her father was named Syrus and her mother Eucharía. Mary shared with Lazarus, her brother, and Martha, her sister, the castle situated two miles far from Generaste, Bethany, and a great part of Jerusalem.

Martha supplied with all the necessary to the soldiers, to her servants and to the poor. However, Mary Magdalene, Lazarus and Martha sold all their possessions after the Ascension of Jesus Christ and they gave the money to the apostles.

Q.: Oscar, what does Gnosis say about Martha and Lazarus? Were they really her sister and brother?

A.: Yes, that is true. That’s right. Martha and Lazarus were her sister and brother.

Mary Magdalene appears in the Bible for the first time in the year 25, living in a village of fishermen, in Capernaum, in Galilee, in which Jesus acquired quickly a reputation of healer.

We will know the rest of her life later on, written in the same text.

We can say than due to her essential role in the Resurrection, she was called Apostle of the Apostles (Apostola Apostolorum). The fact of having been the first witness to the Resurrection grants her a great authority. If the role of Mary Magdalene had been better known, it would have originated a more universal or plural Church.

The scene of the resurrection is something of capital importance. We will check it. Besides, this scene is very intimate. This is an example of the intimacy of this scene: First we must say that the Aramaic language was spoken in Palestine at that time. Mary is Mariam in Aramaic language. Jesus Christ never used that language when he performed miracles, when he prayed to God o when he was on the cross… However, there, when he saw Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, he spoke to her in Aramaic language, and he called her: «Mariam…». Then she realized suddenly that she was in the presence of Jesus, and she answered: «Rabboni…», that means Master in Hebrew… This scene is very intimate and very moving on the Christ’s side and on the couple’s side.

Noli me tangere
Agnolo Bronzino (1561)

The Golden Legend explains also the arrival of Mary Magdalene to the French coast sailing aboard a small fishing boat without sails and without oars.

According to the tradition there were many people aboard the ship, among others, Martha, Sarah, several women called Mary, Lazarus, the bishop Maximianus, Joseph of Arimathaea, etc. «They were got on a ship by the infidels and abandoned on the sea with the purpose of being swallowed by the sea. However, by miracle, they disembarked at a village called today “Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer”».

One of the most ancient evidence of this fact is the Tapestry of the Exile, manufactured about one thousand eight hundred years ago, which belongs to Jeremy Pine, an American antiquarian that takes care of this treasure. One fragment of this tapestry represents the flight of Mary Magdalene. We can see her with a halo around her reddish hair, and with a mark on her forehead; and travelling in a blue-coloured ship. We also can see several people, and a little boy among them. It also can be distinguished a chalice inside the baggages.

In 1212 Grevais of Tilbury says in a piece of writing that seventy two people (men and women), disciples of Jesus Christ, had been expelled from Judea and sent to the sea in a ship without oars.

According to a German scholar that acquired the Gospel of Mary Magdalene (which «got lost» precisely when people started to speak of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute), the text said that Mary Magdalene had a vision in which Jesus tells her that he sees her new image… Afterwards, she exhorted the apostles to follow the commands of Jesus and to preach the teachings to the unbelievers.

Next, Mary Magdalene started a rigorous apostolic and evangelical work. She converted the South of the Gallia to Christianity. And finally, she spent the rest of her life in a grotto, in La Sainte-Baume, in the south of France. Many claim to possess relics, like her bones and pieces of her famous reddish hair.

It is said that Mary Magdalene nourished of divine foods during the thirty years that she was in that grotto living in penance and sunken in contemplation; and it is also said that one day she descended to the plain, to the sanctuary of Saint Maximianus, and she took Communion and received the Body and Blood of Christ. She died in Saint Maximianus’ arms, and her soul flied towards her Saviour.

It is sad to know that the French Revolution and the times of Terror that it brought did not respect the sacred places like this one, mainly because these places had received a royal protection. In consequence many relics got lost forever.

During the 13th century, a cult to Mary Magdalene was developed in Vezelay city, in Burgundy, with the relics of Mary Magdalene. Twelve years later new relics of Magdalene were found at Saint Maximianus’ crypt, near Aix, in Provence… In Marseille there is a chapel dedicated to her. It is built on the ruins of an ancient temple consecrated to Diana of Ephesus. Her anniversary is on July 22nd.

At Saint Maximianus, in the south of France, the Dominican friars showed her skull with a piece of skin that has been preserved by miracle at the place where Jesus Christ touched her forehead after the Resurrection.

Altarpiece of Saint Magdalene
The Saint at the port of Marseille
Pere Mates (1526)

It is interesting to know than in the 13th century, in the times of the Franciscan and Dominican monks, the cult to Mary Magdalene reached an international diffusion. These two orders were devout followers of the Magdalene. Saint Francis of Assisi always saw in Mary Magdalene a model and example to follow.

She is worshipped in the literature of that epoch. There are monuments, convents, churches, chapels, dedicated to her in Provence (France) and Naples (Italy) among other places. Her fame lasted during the whole Middle Ages, but finally she was a victim of the reforms started in the Council of Trent, which culminated later, in the 16th century, with the objective of replaying the Protestants, because they were mocking at the cult to the Saints.

Q.: Oscar, What can you tell us about this?

A.: Yes indeed, the dictates of the Council of Trent were used by Protestantism in order to attack the Catholic Church for the indiscriminate way in which the Church was nominating Saints. It is also true that the Catholic Church took advantage of these attacks carried out by the Protestants and, with that excuse, the Church tried to remove the image and facts of that sacred woman from the history of the legitimate Christianity. In this way Catholicism started in practice a crusade against Mary Magdalene, and they took advantage to put barriers in order leave the religious service in the hands of the male people, that is to say, of the men.

The disastrous side of the History

We have to explain, first of all, that Christianity has gone from being a strange Jewish religion (that preached that the end of the times was coming closer) to being a religion which is very different from the one taught by Jesus Christ.

Besides the Bishops of Rome have modified the revolutionary antimaterialism taught by Jesus Christ, and they have used the Christianity (term that appears in the 2nd century for the first time) in order to justify the accumulation of power and riches, instead of favouring the Self-Realization preached by the Gnostic documents such as the Gospel of Thomas or the one of Mary.

They have eliminated the search of knowledge and the possibility of getting closer to God in an individual way.

They have denounced the traditions linked to the Mysteries and to the Gnostic practices, calling them heresy.

Q.: What do you think about that, Oscar?

A.: That is a part of the attempt, made by the Church since the Council of Trent up to now, to establish a creed artificially fabricated by them and, therefore, to move away forever from the Gnostic Christian postulates that Jesus Christ established originally.

In the 4th century Constantine converted to a kind of orthodox Christianity, and the Roman Empire became Christian because the State started to exert its influence on Christianity. The Empire, that always had been antichristian, then became Christian. And the Empire dictated the form that the Christian creed was going to have.

Q.: Oscar, what can you tell us about this? This is incredible.

A.: This has been one of the great errors of the Catholic Church: to seek the power by all means, at any price; and, if necessary, to sell the doctrine to a political power, and indeed they have done this several times.

Crucifixion
Raphael

Q.: In this case, was the Great Law who accepted that Christianity had passed on to Constantine’s hands?

A.: The Great Divine Law wanted to spread the teachings of Jesus all over the Empire, and also all over the world; however, unfortunately, those who quickly moved from the Christian side to join Constantine were those Christians that did not want to follow the original teachings of Jesus, those who, later on, formed what today is the Catholic Church. These things happened due to the advanced egoic state of the people of that time, because they were part, then and today, of the Kali Yuga, that is to say, of the epoch of darkness, that was already working on humanity by that time.

Q.: May Gnosis fall in that search of the political power if it existed as Gnostic Church?

A.: Not for the fact of being organized as a Gnostic Church, but definitely Gnosis could fall in the same error if we forget that our search is interior and not exterior.

The Romans of that epoch were full of spiritual movements that hated the flesh: such as Stoicism, Manichaeism, Neo-Platonism. Besides, the Gospel of Mary, in the 4th century, was the main obstacle for the establishment of the masculine preeminence. In consequence, they needed to redo the image of Mary Magdalene and get rid of her Gospel because in that Gospel the authority is not defined as a masculine hierarchy, but as the leadership of men and women that have conquered a force that comes from a spiritual maturity.

Q.: Oscar, what can you tell us about this?

A.: This has always been the mistake of those who betrayed the original message of Jesus, and that mistake led them to consider that the important thing is to have a man ruling the Church, without taking into account whether that man really has inner merits for that charge before the Great Law and before the Divine Hierarchy. For that reason the Grace of Gnosis, in the divine sense, is that it gives men and women the same rights to reach the highest summits of spirituality regardless the sex they belong to.

It is said that in the 2nd century the Church was growing, and it separated the women trying to oppress, subjugate and silence them; and they did the same in regarding the element that, according to some, represented the women: the sexuality. Only some Gnostic groups were well-reputed by the importance that they were giving to the women.

In the 4th century it was stated that the mother of Jesus Christ was virgin. Then, chastity became an ideal, and women were considered as temptresses…

It was in the 12th century when celibacy was obligatory for the roman catholic priests, but the incitement had began long time before.

Q.: Oscar, with these premises, the chance to live the Path for a woman becomes almost null, and it is not easy for men either, so, how can they feel, vibrate, know and get closer to the Sacred Feminine if they have grown with these concepts?

A.: Definitively. Those who do not know how to see the representation of God-Mother in the woman will not be able to receive the Sacred Fires, and will not be able to become reconciled with the Holy Spirit and the Divine Mother. Conclusion: To deny the woman in the Mysteries means to deny the Path to all of us.

The Church’s objective was to annul the esoteric role of the woman. The Church went against the greatest one, Mary Magdalene, in order to introduce its concepts against the women.

Many scholars tell us clearly that on September 14th, 591, in his homily number 33, the Pope Gregory I mixed three characters into one: the Mary of the seven demons, the Mary of Egypt, and the anonymous sinner. Some Christians, like this Pope, had philosophical concepts in favour of considering the sexuality as a sin, as a vice, and in consequence, women were sources of temptation and sin…

Thus, in short time Mary Magdalene was associated with the adulterous, anonymous woman, whom Jesus Christ had saved from the lapidation, and also with another woman that is not mentioned in the New Testament, Mary of Egypt, a repentant prostitute of the 4th century. There were several legends about different women called Mary that had been prostitutes and they had converted to Christianity…

So, this Pope imposed his interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; and, unfortunately, the monks and priests keep on reading this sermon once and again.

James Carroll (who was ordained priest in 1969, but left the priesthood in 1974 and became writer) says: «Thus began the creation of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, a manoeuvre made by men and for men, a point of view of celibacy completely invented for the celibate ones. This religious movement has started to give proof of misogyny instead of combating it. The motor of this anti-sexual sexualization of Mary Magdalene was that men felt the necessity to dominate women. This need is still felt nowadays in the bosom of the Catholic Church, as well as in other domains».

So, the Pope Gregory decided that the sin of Mary Magdalene was lust, since she was a repentant woman. Thus she became the counterpart of the Virgin Mary, and therefore a woman (or a man) who wanted to be redeemed had to renounce her/his sexuality.

Q.: What do you tell me about this, Oscar?

A.: This is a part of the denial of the human nature held by this Catholic institution, and unquestionably the Popes contributed to this; specially the Pope Gregory I, when he stated the concept of the renunciation of a natural function of the human body as a way to be redeemed, as a way to get closer to our Father. This was a very serious mistake, I repeat, of the Catholic Church. We have to state that lust is a sin, but not sexuality.

Maria Magdalena
Carlo Dolci

Mary Magdalene has been discriminated in the New Testament. The New Testament was structured in the way we know it, and the so-called apocryphal Gospels were forgotten. Jesus Christ never wanted a Bible like this. The spiritual interpretation of Mary Magdalene about the Resurrection has been cut because it was dangerously similar to the Gnostic point of view.

She has been discriminated as a person, as an apostle and as the partner of the blessed Yeshuá Ben Pandirá, not only by the Church, but also by the iconography and the art in general, especially in the last centuries.

In the Middle Ages, during the Reformation and the Renaissance, it took shape the idea that a woman was not QUALIFIED to be apostle. The acceptance of the blessed Magdalene as apostle or as Master modifies the way in which Jesus Christ is seen, and in consequence, the way in which salvation is achieved.

Q.: Her role has been simplified, mixed with other women, as the case of a woman called Mary of Egypt, who was a repentant prostitute, and with all these elements they tried to make a new version of her. All my respects for that repentant Mary, but the point is that she was not Mary Magdalene… Oscar, I think that if we underestimate Mary Magdalene we also underestimate the Resurrection, it loses importance. Is this what has happened?

A.: Yes indeed, because when denying Mary Magdalene’s role in the context of the Christic Drama, then this Drama is distorted because the Great Master Jesus (Aberamentho) would not have been able to accomplish his processes without the help of that great woman. Although the Catholic Church never wanted to accept this fact. This is the reason why the first person who saw the saviour after his resurrection was Mary Magdalene. If we underestimate her, then her testimony loses importance and the proofs of the resurrection become relative, and therefore the history loses the conjugal element that connects the death of Jesus with his resurrection.

So, if we underestimate the importance of Mary Magdalene we underestimate the scene of the resurrection, since she is a part of it. Then the resurrection of Christ becomes a fact that only concerns to him, and not an objective for everybody. If we appraise what she is really, the scene will take a crucial importance. She becomes the apostle of salvation, meaning that we have to follow the Christ. And, as we already know, it is by means of the sexual union that we can reach our goal, our Self-Realization, which is the end of this Path. Now we understand why the Church never spoke of them as a couple. However, the Apostle Philip speaks about this (Gospel of Philip, plate 111).

An Episcopalian bishop, John Spong, believes that a marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus is probable, and that the beliefs of the Church are founded in the bad way the Christianity has always treated the women.

Lynn Picknett tells that there are proofs showing that Mary Magdalene was the partner of Jesus. She thinks that the silence around this theme isverystrange: «...it is strange, because Jews thought that celibacy was inconvenient, and the authorities might have suspected that Jesus and his disciples were homosexuals. In regarding the silence in the Gospels, that is due to a kind of union that Jews did not acknowledge…».

Q.: Oscar, what is this kind of union that Mrs. Picknett speaks about?

A.: In reality between Jesus and Mary Magdalene there was a marriage that was celebrated in secret by the Gnostic rite, and surely Jesus put it into practice before the Great Divine Law and before the Great Beings of Him and Her.

Simon Peter suggests that Mary Magdalene should not be in the circleof close relationsof Jesus «because women are not worthy of life…». The Christ answers him: «Look, I will take care of converting her into a man so that she also become a living Spirit like you, the men. Because any woman who become a man will enter the Kingdom of Heaven». The Christ also said: «...reduce the masculine and feminine to the unit, so that man stop being man and woman stop being woman…».

Q.: Oscar, what can he tell us about this?

A.: When Jesus Christ said this to Simon Peter, and to all of us, he meant that (as the contemporary Gnosis of Master Samael Aun Weor explains) it is possible for a woman to take part of the eternal life when she puts her inner Christ into activity. And this was what Jesus tried to explain the apostles: «I am going to work on her so that she become Man», that is to say, so that she become a living incarnation of the Son of Man, that is to say, the inner Christ. And that is the role of any woman and of any man: to achieve the Christification.

Glass Window of "L’iglesia de Kilmore"
Stephen Adam (1910)

Now we can understand the reason why these Churches and these religions are dead: because they have annihilated the spirit of the Sacred Feminine and the union of the duality man-woman, which constituted a fundamental element of the religious cults in Egypt, Greece, etc. In the ancient Greece, Zeus and Athena appeared miraculously before the people in order to help them… There were respect for the sacred things, for this feminine and masculine duality, and then the sacred beings could manifest themselves.

We cannot forget the women who have been burnt in times of the Inquisition, in the so called «witch hunt». I had the chance to study this matter at the university, in Canada. We were told that the majority of the women who were burnt, tortured, they were just herborists, quack doctors, midwives, etc. Besides, the Venerable Master Samael Aun Weor confirms that many of these women were Gnostic, and than few of them were true witches. These women were martyred by the Church, but as these things happened long time ago, and it does not happen now, we have relativized it. At that time there was a religious persecution against Gnosis and against women.

Neither can we forget that the Cathars were surrounded, tortured and executed by the medieval Church. Over one million of them were massacred due to their beliefs, so-called heresies, and according to those beliefs Mary Magdalene had been the wife of Jesus Christ and therefore she was the true spiritual founder of Christianity in the occidental world.

Q.: Why have the Catholics and the Orthodox Christians distanced so much from the primitive Christians, and besides, why have they killed in the name of God? And all of this without speaking of the judgment against the great Joan of Arc!

A.: All of that happened because those pseudo-Christians that afterwards became Catholics, in reality, consciously, due to their desire of power, they betrayed the original message of Jesus. And they attacked, even with armies, all that may become a threat to their personal interests; that’s why they chased and killed the Templars, Cathars, Carbonaros, who were Initiates that were divulging secretly the true and legitimate message of Jesus Christ.

Of course we do not want to fall in feminism or return to the times of the Amazons. No, we are far from that. We just have to find a balance, a balanced relation between man and woman. When there is such an amalgam of man and woman in a society, in the daily life, then it has influence upon our intimate and spiritual life.

Q.: I think –I do not believe that I am saying a blasphemy– that she is the representation of that aspect of the Christic energy but in feminine. We know the feminine and masculine aspect of the Third Logos. Can we affirm that Yeshua Ben Pandira and Mary Magdalene are the feminine and masculine aspects of the Third Logos? Besides, they both represent a divine and human aspect at the same time. What can you tell us about this, Oscar?

A.: We can not say formally that Mary Magdalene and Jesus are the feminine and masculine aspects of the Second Logos (speaking in kabbalistic terms), however, we can say that Mary Magdalene and Jesus are indeed the living exponents of that Second Logos.

Conclusion

It was in 1969 when the Vatican annulled this interpretation (of Mary Magdalene as prostitute) without apologizing and without any official declaration. This change was due, mainly, to the pressures from inside the Church, and also, it is said, due to the feminists.

Therefore we affirm that she wasn’t a prostitute; rather, she is a heroic woman, a saint, a Self-Realized woman, and besides, she was and is thefavouritediscipleand partnerof theVenerable MasterAberamentho. A divine woman and, at the same time, very human.

All of the scholars, theologians and experts, inside and outside the Catholic Church, believe that, in general, Mary Magdalene has been treated extremely badly along the course of the centuries.

Mary Magdalene is a symbol of repentance and psychological death. She represents also the femininity, love, humility, fidelity, courage, and she represents the seer and the missionary. Moreover, she did miracles, she was full of faith at the foot of the cross, she was the messenger of the Resurrection, she was a disciple and one of the founders of Christianity whom Jesus Christ has entrusted the mission of spreading the Good News (the Gospel).

She is a symbol of strength and courage, because when the apostles are anguished she says: «Do not cry and do not be sad; don’t hesitate any more, because his Grace will descend over all of you and he will protect you. Rather, let’s praise his greatness...». She is suffering more than all of them, but it is thanks to her force, to her greatness and to the wisdom of her heart that she can say all of that.

She anointed the Christ before the Resurrection. Without her, the Christianity transformed along the time into something completely different, very far from Gnosis. If Mary Magdalene is considered sacred, then, the woman is sacred, and therefore sexuality is sacred.

Jesus Christ said: «She is the Kingdom of God». He also said: «Mary, you blessed one, whom I will perfect in all mysteries of those of the height, discourse in openness, you, whose heart is raised to the kingdom of heaven more than your brethren». And he said: «For you are blessed before all women on the Earth, because you shall be the fullness of all fulnesses and the perfection of all perfections».

The Venerable Master Samael Aun Weor tells us: «Mary Magdalene shines and will shine terribly divine».

We have to venerate her, to study her, to understand her role, even if we have been educated in another religion, different from Christianity, due to two important reasons: she is a Great Master, a Christified woman, a disciple and apostle of the greatest Master of our Cosmos, Yeshua Ben Pandira. It is a duty to study all the Masters of the different traditions of the White Lodge, because they are there to help us, and because they are living examples that we should follow.

St. Mary Magdalene
Giacomo Cadevone

The other reason is that we must study her as a self-conscious part of our Being, as that part that helps us to feel repentance.

That’s all. I only wanted to share with you some of this knowledge about Mary Magdalene and about the Sacred Feminine that is represented by her.

I believe that we, women, must move forward, but at the same time, keep our place, the place that God has wished for us. Blessed is the woman who understands and accepts her role with love, and blessed is the man who understands her, respects her, loves her and supports her in all of the complexity of her role. These men and these women will be able to get closer to their Divine Mother and will get a better understanding of Mary Magdalene’s role. This is my wish for all of us…

I give thanks to Oscar for his patience, for his goodness, for answering my questions and for having accompanied me in this search. Obviously, I am grateful to the Venerable Master Samael Aun Weor for having allowed women to gain access to the divine, magical and spiritual knowledge so that we can understand it. Nobody had done this before him… after the Christ, Jesus.

One of the missions of Jesus Christ has been to restore the world of the feminine. The Venerable Master Samael Aun Weor has also done it.

Article written by Lynn Hachey

The Last Supper (piece)
Juan de Juanes