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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mary Magdalene: Mrs Jesus or Apostle?
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Duo Seraphim
Ubi caritas et amor
# 256
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Posted
One of the theories advanced in the Da Vinci Code is that Mary Magadalen was indeed Mrs Jesus, the hidden bride (although why a secret was never satisfactorily explained) and the mother of a sacred bloodline.
The New Testament references to Mary Magdalen show her to be both disciple and supporter of Jesus, present at the Crucifixion and first witness to the Resurrrection.
But was she also the source of a competing version of the teachings of words of Jesus? Or even the author of St John's Gospel?
In short who was she really: repentant harlot, hidden bride, disciple or secret apostle?
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Embrace the serious whack. It's the Catholic thing to do. IngoB
The Messiah, Peace be upon him, said to his Apostles: 'Verily, this world is merely a bridge, so cross over it, and do not make it your abode.' (Bihar al-anwar xiv, 319)
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Gextvedde
Shipmate
# 11084
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Posted
I'm more open to the idea of Mary having a different agenda that was in conflict wth jesus than I am to the idea that she was his Mrs. To be quite honest though, I don't find either idea particularly convincing. If we look through all of ur sources that we have about Jesus there isn't any good evidence to suggest a marriage. Most of it revolves around dodgy speculation, for example:
Because Jesus was called a Rabbi, he was probably a Pharisee and therefore had to be married because remaining single was condemned by the pharisees and also in Jewish society at that time.
The problem here is that it builds speculation upon speculation to make a case and makes absolutes of cultural norms. Jesus may have been a pharisee but being called rabbi doesn't provide enough to support this. St Paul was a strict Jew and yet remained unmarried. Also, many Jewish fringe groups at the time advocated celibacy so to say that Jesus had to be married according to ancient Jewish custom is, well, wrong.
The reason I'm open to a conflict is that we know there was diversity in the early Christian groups and some variations didn't survive. it's possible but I'd need more to be convinced.
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"We must learn to see that our temperament is a gift of God, a talent with which we must trade until he comes" Thomas Merton
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madteawoman
Shipmate
# 11174
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Posted
Interesting that even with all this conspiracy theory in TDVC about the naughty Catholic church being so mean to Mary, the only alternative she gets offered by Dan Brown is being a wife and mother! Where is Mary the apostle to the apostles? Supporter of the whole Jesus movement? And not a secret apostle either, that is right there in the NT. Nor was she a harlot, that was a much later development (and that was the RC Church, I believe) and far more to do with not having Mary as an apostle rather than not having Mary as a wife (I suspect).
Posts: 1446 | From: by the fireside | Registered: Mar 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Thank you, madteawoman!
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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HenryT
Canadian Anglican
# 3722
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gextvedde:
...St Paul was a strict Jew and yet remained unmarried. Also, many Jewish fringe groups at the time advocated celibacy so to say that Jesus had to be married according to ancient Jewish custom is, well, wrong....
A good point, but Peter, I think, we only know was married because his mother-in-law is mentioned. I don't think there's any scriptural reference to confirm or deny that any of the other disiples or apostles was or was not married.
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"Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned" P. Henry, 1788
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April*
Shipmate
# 4614
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Posted
Are we sure Paul was unmarried? I often wondered if a marriage was one of the sacrifices he made when he became a Christian.
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Justice may sleep, but it never dies.( Francis Grimke 1902)
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Gextvedde
Shipmate
# 11084
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Posted
In a word, yes. Well, as sure as we can be about anything that happened a long time ago. He stated explicitly that he wished people to remain unmarried, as he was, and had some ideas about marriage, esp' in 1st Corinthians, that seemed to put it as a second best, largely due the ever nearing end times that he wanted people to be ready for.
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"We must learn to see that our temperament is a gift of God, a talent with which we must trade until he comes" Thomas Merton
Posts: 293 | From: The Twilight Zone, near the M25 | Registered: Feb 2006
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Nunc Dimittis
Seamstress of Sound
# 848
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by madteawoman:
Interesting that even with all this conspiracy theory in TDVC about the naughty Catholic church being so mean to Mary, the only alternative she gets offered by Dan Brown is being a wife and mother! Where is Mary the apostle to the apostles? Supporter of the whole Jesus movement? And not a secret apostle either, that is right there in the NT. Nor was she a harlot, that was a much later development (and that was the RC Church, I believe) and far more to do with not having Mary as an apostle rather than not having Mary as a wife (I suspect).
YES. Hear hear.
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
And 'hear, hear" from here too.
Why do people only look at the fiction and shaming of Mary Magdalene instead of the lack of information about her? It's fantasy being doubled.
And she could be "promoted" to being like Lydia, who has no mention of a husband. Right through history, there are many women who have been real human beings.
And Jesus was only called a "rabbi" by those who were listening to his teachings - I bet the authorities were not so respectful.
And rabbis didn't have to be married before they were 40 IIRC.
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London
Flickr fotos
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
The support offered for Mary being Christ’s wife is pretty absurd, in my view, and again, demeaning to women as a whole. Plus this whole “secret society” thing is just silly. Sure ain’t the way my God works. But now some knutt over here in the US claims he thinks it might be true, and the Vatican knows all about it, blah, blah, blah. I should pull a stunt like this myself, maybe I could make my million.
I think Mary was more a contemporary of His mother, or at least a little older than Jesus. (that’s really just supposition, the rest is a little more considered). Much can be gained just by mulling over the Scripture references, and considering the historical background. I try to think it through by thinking about ordinary people living this out. You can gather from the little that is written about her that she was very likely the leader of the women’s contingent. She is mentioned first in any listing of the women accompanying Jesus. And on Easter morn, she apparently left the rest of the group of women at the tomb immediately to inform Peter and John of what she’d seen.
She is also the only woman in the group referred to by her city, not her familial ties (unless you take the view that “magdala” referred to an adulteress, a pretty flimsy connection in my view). Apparently, then, she was more well known by her connection to the place for a number of possible reasons:
1. Her demon possession, causing her to be known as perhaps the “madwoman of Magdala,” or some such thing.
2. Her family was one of the chief families there. (Hence her wealth, if she had any - the reference in Luke doesn’t have to mean they were all well-to-do.)
3. She had no family, hence had to be denoted by her place of birth or residence. This could be due to her being disowned or orphaned - there are reports that the second Augustinian enumeration was particularly vicious in Magdala.
And although there is scant mention of her in Scripture, there is one possible post-Gospels reference - Paul says in Romans 16:6 to “greet Mary, who bestowed much labor on us.” While obviously not definitive, it fits her character - devoted, capable, and working well in a Roman setting, which growing up in Magdala would have helped with. “Mary,” of course being a Hebrew name in the original, so likely whoever it was had a Jewish background, and being an urbane type from a Greco-Roman-Jewish town, could have worked well with Paul, who had a similar mixed cultural background.
All this fits with Mary having a leading role in both Christ’s entourage and in the early church. And if you think about it, so does resurrection morning, as I’ve already alluded to. Has anyone ever been the one who held everyone up through a trying time such as a funeral, only to collapse after everyone else has gotten through the initial grief? I think that’s what happened here. Mary kept track of everything- where He was laid, etc. The male disciples (except John) were busy hiding. It makes perfect sense to assume she was assuring His mother that she’d see to the preparation of the body, helping to assuage her grief, and so on. I think that when she went to the tomb that morning with the other women, she bolted back immediately, not having seen the angel, to tell Peter and John (not everyone, hence she was being discreet and attempting to get this thing resolved before it caused more confusion or, worse yet, His mother Mary found out and was traumatized again). Hence the three “head honchos” returned to the tomb, with Peter & John outrunning Mary - she’d already done this once - and leaving her there (clods! OK, maybe she wanted to stay behind). Anyway, at that point, I think it just overwhelmed her. With no one to support, and no one around, she just “lost it” - it finally hit home that He was gone, and she wept out of the deepest part of her being.
The tender scene in John makes more sense if you accept the translation that He said “Don’t keep clinging to me,” not “Don’t touch me.” Again, the former makes more sense as He didn’t prevent the other women from touching Him. It also makes if you think about it in “real people” terms again. What He said was essentially “Don’t keep hanging on me, go tell everyone the good news!”, in a joyous, not impervious, sendoff.
I for one can’t imagine what it would have been like to have been her that incredible morning. Some expositors try to explain her not recognizing Jesus by saying her eyes were supernaturally held like the two on the road to Emmaus. But I think the only possible need for supernatural intervention on that first meeting would have been for the Lord to miraculously keep her from fainting dead away at the sight of a man she’d seen brutally murdered and buried, standing before her alive.
What a marvelous woman she must have been. Neither whore nor wife, but a capable, devoted supporter of the early church, the “apostle to the apostles,” and the first to see the risen Lord.
Blessings,
Tom
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
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sakura
Shipmate
# 1449
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Posted
Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but after I read the Da Vinci Code I happened to look closely at the mosaic of the Last Supper that we have behind the high altar in my church. It is Italian, 19th century, I think.
And it turns out the disciple next to Christ is a young woman. And none of the people I pointed this out to had noticed. We've had a Last Supper with a woman in it for a hundred years.
(I am sure the clergy and servers had picked it up. But all we bog standard pew-dwellers had not.)
The young woman is clearly one of the twelve. So in my church Mary Magdalene is an apostle! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Keep me as the apple of Your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of Your wings.
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Beautiful post, Tom ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Tom of Tarsus:
quote:
there are reports that the second Augustinian enumeration was particularly vicious in Magdala.
Sounds great! What does it mean?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Echo Callan, Tom. Even if its a tangent, there are at least two of us who'd be interested in the background to that sentence.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sakura:
I happened to look closely at the mosaic of the Last Supper that we have behind the high altar in my church. It is Italian, 19th century, I think.
And it turns out the disciple next to Christ is a young woman. And none of the people I pointed this out to had noticed. We've had a Last Supper with a woman in it for a hundred years.
(I am sure the clergy and servers had picked it up. But all we bog standard pew-dwellers had not.)
The young woman is clearly one of the twelve. So in my church Mary Magdalene is an apostle!
"She" may be clearly one of the Twelve, but is she clearly a woman, and Mary Magdalene at that? What unambiguous features lead you to that conclusion, sakura? If it took so long for punters to notice, don't you think this might be because it isn't a woman depicted?
It just seems unlikely in the extreme that an Italian devotional piece of 19th C. intended as the centrepiece for public worship would depict a woman at the Supper. I mean, against all the cultural and religious norms of the times, why?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
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Petaflop
Shipmate
# 9804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sakura:
Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but after I read the Da Vinci Code I happened to look closely at the mosaic of the Last Supper that we have behind the high altar in my church. It is Italian, 19th century, I think.
And it turns out the disciple next to Christ is a young woman. And none of the people I pointed this out to had noticed. We've had a Last Supper with a woman in it for a hundred years.
I've found a number of "last suppers" in my home city as well in which John is distinctly effeminate.
However, the conspirisy theory ignores all the facts supporting a more mundane explanation:
1. Many of our gender cues are cultural. I was looking at roman nude sculptures or emporers and their concubines in the Uffizi gallery in Florence last year, and was struck by how often I mis-identified the sex of the statue when I could only see the head.
2. There have long been artistic conventions in the portrayal of biblical figures. Have a look at these:
John on Patmos
Mary and John
The young John is protrayed as effeminate, the old John (even from the same artist) has a beard.
And the Catholic church preserved a lot of these paintings!
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
Callan, Barnabas,
The significance of the brutality of the enumeration was that perhaps she had been orphaned by the murder of her family by the Romans. It wasn't just a census, and if i recall the story correctly, the Romans would kill people to get property for more cooperative people - there was a lot of corruption.
I had, at one time, considered that such brutalization may have lead to the demon posession as well, but that really doesn't hang together with what (very little) we know about demon posession. Unless "demon posession" is really just a psychological disorder caused by abuse or trauma, which I really doubt.
Amethyst:
Thank you. I've always thought her story was far more beautiful and compelling than I'd ever seen portrayed in the literature. Just wish I had time to really research it and get it written!
Blessings, all,
Tom
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Tom, yes, a beautiful story indeed. In far-off Evo days when I was younger (and thinner) than I am now, I used to do a bit of dance/drama and the like, and I was nearly always cast as Mary ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) . I have had a soft spot for her ever since.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
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sakura
Shipmate
# 1449
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
"She" may be clearly one of the Twelve, but is she clearly a woman, and Mary Magdalene at that? What unambiguous features lead you to that conclusion, sakura? If it took so long for punters to notice, don't you think this might be because it isn't a woman depicted?
It just seems unlikely in the extreme that an Italian devotional piece of 19th C. intended as the centrepiece for public worship would depict a woman at the Supper. I mean, against all the cultural and religious norms of the times, why?
It is very clearly a young woman with long red hair, as I recall (can't check until after Easter as the mosaic is covered in Lenten array at present). You're right, I don't know for sure that it is the Magdalene, but my understanding is that she is often presented with red hair and the picture looks, frankly, a bit too gorgeous to be a depiction of Our Lady. So that's the conclusion I leap to.
And naturally many people over the century must have noticed. But I had been in the pews or choir gallery for 6 years without noticing, and many others said the same. The mosaic is a long way from the congregation and the 6 tall candles do block the view.
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Keep me as the apple of Your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of Your wings.
Posts: 478 | From: Melbourne | Registered: Oct 2001
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Fr Alex
Shipmate
# 10304
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Posted
quote:
You're right, I don't know for sure that it is the Magdalene, but my understanding is that she is often presented with red hair and the picture looks,
According to art historian friend of mine, S John was traditionally painted very feminine, to emphasize his youth, a bit like those family groupings in big houses where the little boys all wore dresses.
Sadly, Dan Brown has seemed to miss this historical point, but then it would rather ruin his plot!
Fr Alex
Ps For the record, I thought it was a very good read, fiction, but a good read.
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If this sig appears below a post about a Dead Horse or about how mean the hosts and admins are, you may be looking at my final post.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by sakura:
It is very clearly a young woman with long red hair.
But that's just what I'm asking, sakura - what makes it so "very clearly" a female? Given, as several posters have pointed out (Fr A most recently), the convention of depicting St John in a "girlish" way to emphasise his youth, why assume it's not him?
The case for its being St John (unless there is unambiguous evidence in the mosaic to the contrary, e.g., clearly discernable breasts or exclusively feminine attire) is overwhelming.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
Getting back to more of what our dear Duo Seraphim was asking in the OP, it is asked
quote:
In short who was she really: repentant harlot, hidden bride, disciple or secret apostle?
As I said in my long(er) post above, the evidence for her being the wife of Jesus is quite silly. F'r instance, one text cited as proof is a fragment form the "gospel" of Phillip, where it is stated that Jesus used to kiss her on the mouth frequently, and it ticked the disciples off. Unless such PDA's, even between the married, were verbotten back in them days, one would ask, "If she's his wife, what's the problem?"
Also, I think even the RC church is now saying that Mary M, Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and the "woman who was a sinner" in Luke 7 are three different people. The contraction into one person began, I think, in the 7th century.
I don't believe she was a repentant harlot. Demon possesion was an awful malady, but there is no indication that it was brought on by sin. The demoniac is never said to repent, but instead is healed. That whole subject could make a thread in Purg, I suppose, but there really is scant we can get from Scripture about it.
Anyway, it seems from Scripture that she was particularly alone for some reason; healed of her malady and free to follow Christ; his cadre becoming her family after a sort. Of the 4 choices in the OP, I go with "disciple" and add "not-so-secret apostle," although not very well-documented, either.
Blessings,
Tom
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
Posts: 1570 | From: Pittsburgh, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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musician
Ship's grin without a cat
# 4873
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Posted
Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper here clearly shows the figure to the left as you look as it as female.
I'm not clear how it's OK to have "St John" look "effeminate because of his youth" rather than a female in the picture.
I know a lot of lads who'd be mortified and furious to be so depicted.Nor does it make sense. Was Leonardo such a rubbish painter that that was the best he could do??... "sorry Pope, I'm not too good drawing youngish men, so I made him a woman"
I think that's where the stories of a marriage may have gained some hearing. The RC being so anti-female - less so now, but still not too pro-female - that it was preferable to have a somewhat pansy St John to a woman at the table.
Some edge of credulity stuff has da Vinci as part of a passed down, long held tradition of the figure being a woman, and because Mary Magdalen is in the Gospels, she's it. Jesus's mother would have been too old to look as the figure does.
I'm not too sure that all the material binned when the councils decide "who's in and who's out" should be binned. How do we know? Yes, the Church Authorities decided, but CA....that'd be the lot who wanted to crisp Galileo....
There's still a lot of suspicion in the RC church toward us wicked women. That attitude has no doubt caused some appalling happenings throughout the ages.
"Witches" for one. Probably herbal lorists, women who were not amenable to the male Christianity of their times, so were demonised.
It's not clear IMHO that all the "out" gospel bits must necessarily be "wrong". They may only have not fitted with the ideas current, popular and pushable at the time.
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madteawoman
Shipmate
# 11174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
Some edge of credulity stuff has da Vinci as part of a passed down, long held tradition of the figure being a woman, and because Mary Magdalen is in the Gospels, she's it. Jesus's mother would have been too old to look as the figure does.
Somewhere or other I read that Mary M was possibly an elderly woman who looked after 'unattached' young men inclcuding Jesus. The point being that the gospels don't give us enough info to know if she was old, young, whatever. So even if the person in the pictures is a female, it is pure conjecture to suggest she is Mary M.
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Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation.
Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on.
Posts: 1446 | From: by the fireside | Registered: Mar 2006
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I'm no expert on the culture of the day, but I have the impression that a young unmarried woman in Palestine was not free to travel around and associate with men.
The women (including Mary Magdalene) described in Luke 8:2-3 seem to have been older, and apparently they had some financial independence.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Sorry, musician, the figure in Leonardo's Last Supper is not 'clearly a woman'. Look at this - does the figure not look female? It's John the Baptist, hardly feminine in real life.
Leonardo was commissioned to paint the Last Supper, and would not have included a female figure instead of the St John of tradition.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper here clearly shows the figure to the left as you look as it as female.
Clear to whom? Not to me. What are the distinguishing, clear features that it's a woman and not a young man? How many other renaissance portraits of young men have you seen for the purposes of comparison?
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
I'm not clear how it's OK to have "St John" look "effeminate because of his youth" rather than a female in the picture.
I know a lot of lads who'd be mortified and furious to be so depicted.Nor does it make sense. Was Leonardo such a rubbish painter that that was the best he could do??... "sorry Pope, I'm not too good drawing youngish men, so I made him a woman"
Musician, it's the artistic convention of the time! It really doesn't matter what wee Jayson frae Cumnock would or wouldn't like - he's unlikely to be commemorated in a Leonardo freso.
Your argument just doesn't work. If the Church were so misogynist, why did they let Leonardo away with painting a woman at the Supper? I mean, according to your own incisive analysis of the Church at the time, it hardly seems likely, does it? So the Church cannot have thought the figure "clearly female". If John being so girlish were a problem for the chuch authorities they would presumably have let Leonardo know - but what we have is an effeminate John, so they can't have thought his depiction so very objectionable. My argument is that because of the convention, St John was not depicted weirdly or controversially - I mean, until a couple of decades ago, no one even "noticed" he was a bit girlish at all!
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
I think that's where the stories of a marriage may have gained some hearing. The RC being so anti-female - less so now, but still not too pro-female - that it was preferable to have a somewhat pansy St John to a woman at the table.
I just don't understand that last bit, I'm afraid. Do you mean that the Church would rather "pretend" the person depicted was a girlish man that a woman? Is it not possible that rather than there being a big conspiracy, the Church simply doesn't share your particular (somewhat strained) interpretation?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
"Witches" for one. Probably herbal lorists, women who were not amenable to the male Christianity of their times, so were demonised.
The 'herbal lorist' concept of witch accusations is a false one for all but a tiny minority of cases, and those cases are usually complicated by healers being accused of using their powers to kill or harm. Also many of these sort of accused healers are male.
Similarly, witch-burning was practised by both Catholics and Protestants but sizeable parts of the Catholic church (Italy and Spain) did not get involved in it.
'Women not amenable to the to the male Christianity of their times' is a distortion. The vast majority of witch accusations were not made over religion but over domestic disputes and quarrels. In many, if not most cases, the accusations being made by other women who think someone bewitched their baby or cow or made the butter or cheese they were making go off or that someone cursed them because they wouldn't lend some household thing or give alms.
Gender roles have much to do with this and there is a lot of extreme misogyny in elite demonological publications, but it needs to be borne in mind that we're talking about a pre-modern society with very fixed ideas about gender. Christina Larner, the great historian of the Scottish witch-hunt observed that when it came to violence 'men used knives and women used words'. Women's violent words in a quarrel were often seen as being potent - capable of carrying curses into effect. Such fears could easily lead to a witchcraft accusation. Much of this stuff is coming from popular folk belief, rather than being imposed by some nasty church.
I'm not just being a pedant here about the witch-hunt because it's a subject dear to my heart that I've researched, this is another example of what Chesterbelloc is pointing out about art-history and what has been discussed on the fact and fiction thread. To understand texts and notions and art-works fom pre-modern societies, we need to do a lot of work.
The past is a foreign country, and they do things differently there. To understand past societies, we need to equip ourselves with a knowledge of their language, culture, assumptions and beliefs and an awareness of our own assumptions and prejudices. If we cannot do that ourselves then we need to turn to people who have bothered to do that. Dan Brown clearly hasn't. If you peruse the judgement on the DVC case in which the judge lays bare his 'research' technique, it consists of his wife spoon-feeding him extracts from a tiny range of dubious books.
Relying on Dan Brown to get anything right about a Da Vinci painting or the Renaissance church is like relying on someone with no knowledge of Italian language or medieval culture trying to translate Dante's 'Inferno' by running it through google translator or looking up each individual word in the dictionary. If you argue from notions in his works, then you are building your case on sand.
If you want to look at the medieval or early modern Church or the witch-hunt, Musician, then you need to make an effort to understand early modern people and their religious assumptions. You can't just make sweeping assumptions about religious culture several centuries ago from your experience of the 21st century and modern Catholicism.
L.
[ 08. April 2006, 15:59: Message edited by: Louise ]
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musician
Ship's grin without a cat
# 4873
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Posted
Hi Chesterbelloc,
the small linked picture isn't terribly clear, but there is the line of a bust on the right side of the fig as you look at it. I hadn't ever noticed it, but when you look, it's quite apparent. Da Vinci was far too good to have done it accidentally and then not noticed. The fresco was in a convent in Milan, so maybe wasn't too scrutinised from Rome, if that's what you are getting at. Even as Da Vinci worked on it, the Last Supper was crumbling because the plaster wall wasn't in great shape.
quote:
Musician, it's the artistic convention of the time! It really doesn't matter what wee Jayson frae Cumnock would or wouldn't like - he's unlikely to be commemorated in a Leonardo freso.
It's quite easy to look at the painting, observe a number(13) figures and note that one is not male looking, so "convention of the time" is hardly applicable.
I don't think there's a great conspiracy. Nor any conspiracy. I just think that the Church is not a Centre for Sexual Equality and has not been through the Ages, so MM may have been sidelined for reasons of the church, not because she was unimportant.
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
Hi Chesterbelloc,
the small linked picture isn't terribly clear, but there is the line of a bust on the right side of the fig as you look at it. I hadn't ever noticed it, but when you look, it's quite apparent.
But, musician, it's really not that apparent - that's my point! All I can see is a somewhat androgynous looking St John. And don't you think that if it were so apparent someone at the time might have noticed it and thought it a bit rum? It would certainly have beeen worthy of comment if Leonardo had replaced one of the Apostles with a woman in a fresco intended for a religious community! And Milan was not an ecclesiatical backwater, where only hick nuns would have submissively seen and accepted the image. This was a significant artistic commission.
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
Da Vinci was far too good to have done it accidentally and then not noticed.
I put it to you that Leonardo was a renaissance artist who was too good not to have left doubt in people's minds if he had intended to put a woman in the place of an apostle in a Last Supper fresco. If he meant it, he'd have mde it clear. If it isn't clear then either he was frightened to make it so in case of a (highly predictable) bad reaction from the Church - in which case, why did he do it at all? - or because he didn't intend that it should be seen as a woman at all. No prizes for guessing which hypothesis I favour!
From the fact that no one at the time seems to have taken the figure to be a woman I think we can safely infer that Leonardo got it right by the standards and conventions of the time.
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
It's quite easy to look at the painting, observe a number(13) figures and note that one is not male looking, so "convention of the time" is hardly applicable.
Er, there are 13 present in the fresco because there were 13 at the Supper. How does this negate the conventions of the time? What would be odd is if Leonardo, having your agenda in mind, had substituted St MM for one of the apostles rather than add her to the figures present. That would just take away from the force of what you allege he was trying to, making the whole point harder to see. If there were 12 identifiable apostles and Christ plus a feminine figure in the fresco then you might have the beginnings of a case.
Frankly, I can't see how the artistic, iconographic and religious conventions of the time could fail to be relevant in this case. Any hypothesis which just ignores them is shooting itself in the foot with the starting-pistol, IMO.
[ 08. April 2006, 17:00: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
musician
You're entitled to your opinion, of course. People are trying to engage you in discussion and have made some very good points. For example, do you think Louise's (to me) excellent points are so dismissable that it is not worth you putting forward a counter-argument?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Or, to be fair, she may just have better things to do on a Saturday night! Unlike me...
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
St John details
Not a bust in sight to me.
Chesterbelloc makes excellent points - and the scholarly literature associated with the 'Last Supper' (not to mention eyewitness accounts down through the ages) agrees with him. The reading of this figure as St John is perfectly consistent with the way Da Vinci depicts pretty young men and with the iconography and historical context. This is one of the most-studied paintings in the world.
On what basis of expertise, Musician, do you dismiss the findings of people have spent their lives studying Da Vinci and Renaissance art? A not-very-sharp reproduction of a controversially-restored painting on the internet?
Heavily restored and damaged Renaissance paintings do not interpret themselves. You might as well ask me with my history PhD to interpret a cervical smear, as take a wild guess about how to interpret Renaissance paintings without absorbing even the basics of art history and historical context. It's not something self-evident.
L.
[ 08. April 2006, 18:02: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Keren-Happuch
Ship's Eyeshadow
# 9818
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Posted
I'm currently reading Who Was Jesus by NT Wright and the second chapter is a discussion of a book called Jesus the Man: A New Interpretation from the Dead Sea Scrolls by Barbara Thiering. She apparently not only says that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, but that they had 3 children (a boy and 2 girls) before he divorced her and married Lydia... The marriage idea is based on the same bit in the Gospel of Philip, while the 2 sons are based on 2 statements that "The Word of God increased". Where the daughter comes in to it is less clear.
Thiering also identifies Mary M as Jairus' daughter and Rhoda, the maid in Acts 12. The description of Rhoda as "mad" explains the divorce.
Now, all this is NT Wright's account of the book, but it makes DVC sound almost plausible! ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
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Travesty, treachery, betrayal!
EXCESS - The Art of Treason
Nea Fox
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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musician
Ship's grin without a cat
# 4873
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Posted
sorry All, RL got in the way!
Now, Barnabas, could you chill out?
This thread, I thought, was a look at a preposterous idea in a fictitious book.
The idea that MM and JC were an item, had kids and trotted off by way of Marseille is not mainstream anything. It's a hotch potch of circumstantial, wacky, what-ifs.
That said, the Western Church has never had a lot of time for women. Louise,I'd be amazed if at least some of the women condemned as witches didn't fit in there. Certainly when Roman christianity came to supplant the Celtic variety, many of the women of those times were sidelined and either painted up as saints or written off as sorceresses and witches.
My point is simply that an independent woman didn't fit into society terribly well and if she wasn't too fussed about christianity, she'd had it. Either from the neighbours or not.
But that's a side issue, pulled in by me in my first post as an example - it wasn't a derailer.
Chesterbelloc, the idea of the female figure isn't mine. It was in a TV look at the work of Da Vinci. The fellow speaking had suggested that the line on the right of the St John fig suggests a female. I'm sorry that the linked pic is blurred, but it's only blurred in that link. Except for another link I found where the wall is folded right across the exact part of St John.Aarggg! It's true, the whole wall was bent to hide the truth!!
Seriously, I did not imply, nor did I mean to, that MIlan was soem back water. Maybe he painted it in such a way to make a point. Maybe to show solidarity with the nuns. Maybe he was being mischievous - like the organ scholar in one of the English cathedrals who won a bet by playing a theme on "Way hey up she rises" on 15th August.
Who knows?
I'm a little surprised that a post from me has been seen as a scholarly work/an attack on scholarly work.
It's a fiction People.
It's not doctrine, creed or dogma.
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musician
Ship's grin without a cat
# 4873
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Posted
Sorry to double post, but I may not be back - RL again.
Also, I seem to be posting in a way that doesn't say what I mean exactly and causes huge anger to shipmates, so I've asked to be thrown overboard, so if I don't get back at all, I'm not ignoring any of you, I'll have been flung overboard.
It's been fun. Thanks to all.
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
I'm sorry to hear that you've got RL concerns that are taking you away, Musician and I hope it's nothing bad.
You're certainly not making me angry. Please don't think so. I'm taking issue with certain historical positions, not you as a person.
I think when it comes to important subjects like the witch-hunt and misogyny in the church, that we need to do a bit better than relying on comments in fiction and TV programmes and repeating the same old myths about it all being a conspiracy by a nasty church to keep women down. I think this, because these things are important to me, as they are no doubt important to you. I don't want to minimise the very real misogyny and injustice that went on, I want to understand it thoroughly and accurately, all the better to stop it rearing its ugly head again.
cheers,
L
[ 08. April 2006, 22:52: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
musician
Sorry about your RL issues. I wasn't angry with you at all, simply asking a question. (The head-butt post after K H's post was meant as a joke). I know about misogyny in the church - in my own community I was a pioneer (successfully as it turned out) for much greater enlightenment about the role of women in the church and initially took a lot of flack from automatic thinkers (some of whom were female). My local church leadership team has the same number of men as women, and two of the women are in their twenties.
I just dont think it helps to mix up the issues. BTW the above personal info is the sort of thing I mean about the value of discussion. You can get as cheesed off as I do about Dan Brown crapola (and other ignorant misrepresentations) without being in the least supportive of hostile and/or unthinking attitudes towards women and gays. Why do I get cheesed off? Basically, because anything which encourages prejudice, unfairness or misrepresentation of real people is the real seedcorn of witch-hunts - or putting people down. In short, the very same passions for fairness which got me, as a young man, engaged enough to take on misogyny both in my church and work communities are the ones which engage me on issues like Dan Brown crapola. Cynical or ignorant misrepresentation is not a little thing, whether in fact, or fiction, or RL.
I wish you all the best in your RL challenges.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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musician
Ship's grin without a cat
# 4873
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Posted
cheers guys.
again, I've mis-written what I meant. I didn't hear you as annoyed with "Me" - how egocentric would that be - but I don't always type what I'm thinking, although I think that I do.
that's why I'm jumping, nothing to do with...
whinge...whinge..they're all getting at me..
I've posted on a fair number of threads and what's been taken from them was unintended.
The SHip's a great place. This thread's proof of it - a Christian website discussing the book and the strange, wacky and weird that contribute to its story.
Keep it up!
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by musician:
That said, the Western Church has never had a lot of time for women.
Really? Have you actually read any Church History, Musician?
quote:
Louise,I'd be amazed if at least some of the women condemned as witches didn't fit in there.
Well, Louise has given you a fairly scholarly account and all you have to throw back is your amazement. Do you actually know anything about the witch trials that leads you to support your assertions or are we to make do with your amazement?
quote:
Certainly when Roman christianity came to supplant the Celtic variety, many of the women of those times were sidelined and either painted up as saints or written off as sorceresses and witches.
Further unsubstantiated assertions, Musician. Could you provide some evidence for this, please?
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Similarly, witch-burning was practised by both Catholics and Protestants but sizeable parts of the Catholic church (Italy and Spain) did not get involved in it.
I think it is the case that the prevalence of witch burning bore more relation to the prevailing legal system. In Italy and Spain it was the Inquisition that kept a lid on things because they had clear rules as to how to proceed in such matters. In places like Germany where it tended to be more of a matter of local jurisdiction witch burning was rather more prevalent.
quote:
Gender roles have much to do with this and there is a lot of extreme misogyny in elite demonological publications, but it needs to be borne in mind that we're talking about a pre-modern society with very fixed ideas about gender. Christina Larner, the great historian of the Scottish witch-hunt observed that when it came to violence 'men used knives and women used words'. Women's violent words in a quarrel were often seen as being potent - capable of carrying curses into effect. Such fears could easily lead to a witchcraft accusation. Much of this stuff is coming from popular folk belief, rather than being imposed by some nasty church.
I think it also cut both ways. Carlo Ginzburg (IIRC) gives an account of a fertility cult - The Benidanti - which in its initial confessions explained something like the Benidanti's actual beliefs. As the interrogations went on they confessed to something much more like the classical model of diabolism set out in the Malleus. Certainly when I was at university the prevailing model seemed to be one of a clerical 'orthodoxy' about witch beliefs which was superimposed on more fluid local witch beliefs. (The Malleus came out with a Papal Imprimatur "Unputdownable. Frs. Kramer and Sprenger have created a theology which is wholly original and wholly orthodox - Pope Innocent VIII" ![[Biased]](wink.gif) which, oddly, didn't preclude its enthusiastic use by protestants.) But it's years since I studied it in any depth and if the consensus has changed, I'd be fascinated to know more.
In any event the witch craze can't really be taken as evidence for Patristic attitudes towards women. None of the ECF's were exactly feminists but you have to work hard to find anything resembling the deranged rhetoric of the Malleus, which was a truly nasty work and not your common or garden pre-modern gender roles. You can't very well say that the Church suppressed Mary Magdalene in the fourth century and then point to fifteenth century misogyny as evidence.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Musican. Nothing scholarly about this (pace Louise), but a mixture of memory and speculation. I'm sure I was brought up to believe that this depiction of the supper was meant to capture a particular moment. Of course Leonardo could have captured several at the same time - but that would be looking at Leonardo with Picasso in mind!
The particular moment is when Judas grabs the attention of the Beloved Disciple and asks him to as Jesus who the betrayer is. Seems reasonable to me but is this a thesis that has already been debunked?
If not, the old, gruff bearded character is Judas and the "effeminate" one is the Beloved Disciple. I don't think that means Leonardo is making any sort of point about Jesus's sexuality - neither that the Beloved was MM nor that Jesus was "not the marrying kind" as one bishop tactfully put it yars ago.
But given that Leonardo was homosexual, he might well have thought that the most beautiful (and therefore he most appropriate) model he could use for the Beloved Disciple was someone he loved himself. In other words, it could be the artisitic equivalent of a Freudian slip. Is that reasonable? As I said, it'd pure speculation on my part. And someone has already pointed out the androgynous appearance of John the Baptist in another painting. Perhaps the reason the figure'e "effemincy" hadn't been widely commented on (in the original OP) had more to do with latent homophobia than anything else.
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chemincreux:
But given that Leonardo was homosexual, he might well have thought that the most beautiful (and therefore he most appropriate) model he could use for the Beloved Disciple was someone he loved himself. In other words, it could be the artisitic equivalent of a Freudian slip. Is that reasonable? As I said, it'd pure speculation on my part. And someone has already pointed out the androgynous appearance of John the Baptist in another painting. Perhaps the reason the figure'e "effemincy" hadn't been widely commented on (in the original OP) had more to do with latent homophobia than anything else.
Wasn't there even a sort of "beautiful youth" trend in paining back then? A lot of the portaits of youthful male saints have a kind of effeminate quality to them.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Originally posted by Louise:
quote:
Similarly, witch-burning was practised by both Catholics and Protestants but sizeable parts of the Catholic church (Italy and Spain) did not get involved in it.
I think it is the case that the prevalence of witch burning bore more relation to the prevailing legal system. In Italy and Spain it was the Inquisition that kept a lid on things because they had clear rules as to how to proceed in such matters. In places like Germany where it tended to be more of a matter of local jurisdiction witch burning was rather more prevalent.
quote:
Gender roles have much to do with this and there is a lot of extreme misogyny in elite demonological publications, but it needs to be borne in mind that we're talking about a pre-modern society with very fixed ideas about gender. Christina Larner, the great historian of the Scottish witch-hunt observed that when it came to violence 'men used knives and women used words'. Women's violent words in a quarrel were often seen as being potent - capable of carrying curses into effect. Such fears could easily lead to a witchcraft accusation. Much of this stuff is coming from popular folk belief, rather than being imposed by some nasty church.
I think it also cut both ways. Carlo Ginzburg (IIRC) gives an account of a fertility cult - The Benidanti - which in its initial confessions explained something like the Benidanti's actual beliefs. As the interrogations went on they confessed to something much more like the classical model of diabolism set out in the Malleus. Certainly when I was at university the prevailing model seemed to be one of a clerical 'orthodoxy' about witch beliefs which was superimposed on more fluid local witch beliefs. (The Malleus came out with a Papal Imprimatur "Unputdownable. Frs. Kramer and Sprenger have created a theology which is wholly original and wholly orthodox - Pope Innocent VIII" which, oddly, didn't preclude its enthusiastic use by protestants.) But it's years since I studied it in any depth and if the consensus has changed, I'd be fascinated to know more.
In any event the witch craze can't really be taken as evidence for Patristic attitudes towards women. None of the ECF's were exactly feminists but you have to work hard to find anything resembling the deranged rhetoric of the Malleus, which was a truly nasty work and not your common or garden pre-modern gender roles. You can't very well say that the Church suppressed Mary Magdalene in the fourth century and then point to fifteenth century misogyny as evidence.
The Spanish and Italian inquisitions also tended to follow the earlier Canon Episcopi whose author thought that people who claimed to be witches were making it up and should be given a penance on those grounds. You're right though, about local jurisdictions being more likely to convict. That's very frequently the case.
It does indeed cut both ways which is why I mentioned the extreme misogyny of the elite demonologies, but I wanted to draw attention to the popular aspect of this. Ordinary people - many of them women - readily came forward with accusations and the vast majority of these (at least in Scotland) were not about elite demonology but about mundane 'she killed my cow' 'she cursed me' stuff. These people were drawing on popular beliefs about cursing, not elite notions of demonic pact. Without this receptive public, the witch hunt wouldn't have got very far.
But one thing you very rarely see is someone being burned as a witch for challenging the male-dominated status quo on religion. Joan of Arc cases are pretty rare. If you did anythign like that, you usually got burned as a heretic - not a witch. Being poor and quarrelsome was what would do for you. If you were a quarrelsome bloke, you'd end up dead in a feud. If you were a quarrelsome woman there was a tiny chance that if you lived for years and years and got up enough noses that you might be accused as a witch. The witch-hunt certainly wasn't an attack on herbalists or an attempt to deal with female religious dissidents.
L.
[ 09. April 2006, 21:34: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by chemincreux:
But given that Leonardo was homosexual, he might well have thought that the most beautiful (and therefore he most appropriate) model he could use for the Beloved Disciple was someone he loved himself. In other words, it could be the artisitic equivalent of a Freudian slip. Is that reasonable? As I said, it'd pure speculation on my part. And someone has already pointed out the androgynous appearance of John the Baptist in another painting. Perhaps the reason the figure'e "effemincy" hadn't been widely commented on (in the original OP) had more to do with latent homophobia than anything else.
Wasn't there even a sort of "beautiful youth" trend in paining back then? A lot of the portaits of youthful male saints have a kind of effeminate quality to them.
Yes there was - it was particularly common in the Florentine school. Here's a note on it with some handy links to the saintly cheesecake.
All the Young Dudes
L.
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
All the Young Dudes
L.
Heh. Nice title.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Interesting parenthetical about how paedophilia was okay back then, because they thought about it differently than we do, so don't be so judgmental. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Mousethief
I think it was about assessing the interpretation of the images rather than any particular view of behaviour.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
Speaking of sexual-type matters, does it bother anybody that until recently, the two most popular views of MM are both defined by her sexuality: either a repentant whore, or a childbearing, secret wife? Like, she didn't or couldn't contribute to the church in any other fashion?
I'm still of the opinion that she was a full fledged disciple, an older woman (thanks, Moo & someone else I can't find right now), de facto leader of the women's contingient, and possibly the Mary mentioned in Romans 16.
But I may be impressing my 20th century viewpoint onto the Scriptures. Still, if you look at the overall way that women were treated by Jesus, it doesn't seem very patriachal to me.
What think y'sll? What role did she play in the early church?
Blessings,
Tom
(probably still didn't get all the typos...)
[ 10. April 2006, 20:33: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
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