The story of Mary Magdalene can be briefly summarised as a Jewish woman who travelled with Jesus as a follower and was witness to the crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
She gets mentioned twelve times in the canonical gospels, but the shame is that we will never get to hear her account.
When we look at gender roles in the Gospels, we have of course; Mary, (the mother of Jesus) and Elizabeth who dominate the infancy and adolescent narratives in the earthly life of Jesus. But Mary Magdalene comes to prominence, among the other Galilean women in the latter part of the story.
They seem almost to stand in a similar relation to one another as the Twelve Apostles and the Lord's brethren. Yet even among this group of women Mary Magdalene seems to stand first, as did likewise Peter among men. Last at the cross, first at the tomb, and it is to her that Jesus appears first after his resurrection.
We are introduced to her by Luke and Mark as having had seven demons driven out of her, presumably by Jesus. One cannot underestimate the magnitude of her prior demonization, as in Semitic interpretation the number seven is linked with the character of totality. Even today, when exorcism is undertaken by a priest in the Catholic faith, there is an understanding that several weekly exorcisms over many years are sometimes required to expel deeply entrenched demons. A reference to seven demons also coincides with the Stoic view of the soul as having seven parts difficult to control: the capacity to feel, hear, touch, taste, see, desire and speak. The eighth part of the soul is believed to be the "commander" which has the task of keeping these different capacities in check and giving direction.
To achieve a life of harmony with the Divine, it is felt that one should free oneself from the claims of the seven more sensual parts. If this is the context of Mary Magdalene's demons, Jesus apparently taught her to control them.
The next thing we should surmise about her was that she was not married, (perhaps divorced as a result of her affliction) as she was never referred to as "Mary, the wife of ------." She was in fact named after her town, where it was believed that she was a woman of some financial substance.
Thus with a number of other women, she followed, "ministered" and helped provide for Jesus's ministry. These other women came from a wide variety of backgrounds, especially Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward and Susanna.
It was in fact unconventional, even scandalous in being public travelling companions to a male itinerant preacher. Apart from the home, a woman was not to be seen in the presence of a man unless accompanied by a male family member. Yet it becomes increasingly apparent that it was an intended part of His ministry that women benefit from His teaching, healing and to be witnesses until His death.
It is also important not to confuse in the case of Mary Magdalene, a state of demonic possession (an illness) with a state of moral corruption. There has been over the years a greater focus on the perceived stigma of Mary Magdalene's past ( reformed prostitute?) than on her cleansed state after healing. Only in 1969 did the Catholic Church officially repeal Pope Gregory's (540-604) labelling of Mary as the penitent whore.
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