but a shadowy
outline. The ideal woman whom all mankind loves and reverences as
Virgin, Mother, and Saint, is objectified by concentrating in Mary of
Nazareth all possible feminine grace, beauty, and purity.

Let us turn now to another Mary who, in the Gospel history, achieved a
fame hardly less renowned than that of her great namesake: Mary of
Magdala, out of whom Christ cast seven devils. Magdala was a town on the
lake of Galilee, as notorious for its profligacy as it was famous for
its wealth, derived from the manufacture of dyes. Mary's affliction was
doubtless as much of a moral as of a mental nature; it may refer to the
abandonment of immoral excess into which she was driven by her
passionate nature. The Jews at the time of Christ were wont to ascribe
every form of evil, physical and also spiritual, to the agency of
demons, who were supposed to have the power of taking possession of
human beings as a habitation. The tradition of the Church has always
identified Mary Magdalene with the woman who, in Simon's house, anointed
Christ's feet with ointment, after washing them with her tears. Still,
it must be confessed that there is no certain foundation for this
belief. On this point, Archdeacon Farrar says: "The Talmudists have much
to say respecting her--her wealth, her extreme beauty, her braided
locks, her shameless profligacy, her husband Pappus, and her paramour
Pandera; but all that we really know of the Magdalene from Scripture is
that enthusiasm of devotion and gratitude which attached her, heart and
soul, to her Saviour's service. In the chapter of Saint Luke which
follows the account of her anointing the Lord's feet in the Pharisee's
house she is mentioned first among the women who accompanied Jesus in
his wanderings, and ministered to him of their substance; and it may be
that in the narrative of the incident at Simon's house her name was
suppressed, out of that delicate consideration which, in other passages,
makes the Evangelist suppress the original condition of Matthew."

Mary Magdalene's great part in the Gospel history was at the
Resurrection. To her ardent love and intense imagination, enabling her
to visualize Him who, though dead, she could not relinquish,
rationalists ascribe the inception of the doctrine of the Resurrection.
According to this theory, as Mary of Nazareth brought Jesus into the
world, so through Mary of Magdala His risen Spirit was born into the
Church. But this is not the faith