THE MAGDALENE LEGACY: BEYOND THE DA VINCI CODE

by LightEye, Wednesday, August 24, 2005, 13:28

http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/The%20Magdalene%20Legacy.html

The Magdalene Legacy:
Revelations Beyond the Da Vinci Code

By Laurence Gardner

Ten years ago, in Bloodline of the Holy Grail, I first discussed the suppressed archives of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the significance of the hidden lineage of their descendants. These themes have now achieved a new prominence in the world of fiction with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code â€" an explosive and controversial novel which has brought the mysterious life of Mary Magdalene under a new spotlight.

During the past ten years, however, a wealth of additional information has been extracted from Templar and monastic archives, expanding the previously published revelations to extraordinary new levels.

Mary Magdalene is one of the most painted and sculpted of all classical figures. Artists and romantics have adored her, but she has been constantly vilified by the religious establishment. In the New Testament she is given as Jesus’ sponsor, a woman that he loved, a close companion of his mother, and the first person to speak with Jesus after his resurrection. Church doctrine, however, claims her to have been a sinful harlot, albeit a repentant sinner who was finally admitted to the sainthood as late as 1969.

Mary’s position is unique in the Christian story. Despite her apparent supportive role in the Gospels, she appears in other texts as one of its primary figures. In fact, she is apparent as Christianity’s most important figure, far outweighing the presumed status of Peter and Paul. The drama that emerges from Vatican and monastic records is of Mary Magdalene’s marital relationship with Jesus, her exile from Judaea in CE 44 under threat of sedition charges, and the documented persecution of her heirs by a succession of Roman emperors. Why are these things not written in the Bible? They are in part â€" but they are simply not taught or generally discussed.

It is pertinent to note that although there are many early Christian wall-paintings in the catacombs beneath the streets of Rome, the oldest Christian painting so far discovered in an above-ground environment is not of Jesus or his mother, but of Mary Magdalene. Entitled Myrrophore (Myrrh bearer), it depicts Mary at the tomb of Jesus with an alabastron of ointment. Emanating from the early CE 200s (long before the Church of Rome was established) it was found at a chapel on the River Euphrates in Syria, and was moved to the Yale University Art Gallery in the 1930s.

The canonical Gospels do not discuss Mary Magdalene’s parents, but other historical texts do, and the significance of their heritage is of primary importance to Mary’s marital status. In gospels that were strategically excluded from the New Testament when the selection was made in CE 397 at the Council of Carthage, Mary is classified as the spouse and consort of the Messiah. Even Cathar documents from Provence, as late as the 13th century, make it plain that in Gnostic circles, she was “always understood to be the wife of Jesus.”

Certain narrative information which made this clear was edited from the New Testament before its publication, but a good deal else was left intact in the Gospels and other books of the canon. Not least in this respect are the detailed accounts of their marriage ceremony. This is not the wedding at Cana, as some theologians have supposed, but a far more explicit anointing ritual based on the Syrian royal tradition of Mary Magdalene’s family, as corroborated in the Hebrew Old Testament.