Holy Blood, Holy Grail (50 page)

“Village of Doves’, and there is some evidence that sacrificial doves were in fact bred there. And the dove was the sacred symbol of Astarte.

One chapter before he speaks of the Magdalene, Luke alludes to a woman who anointed Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark there is a similar

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anointment by an unnamed woman. Neither Luke nor Mark explicitly identify this woman with the

Magdalene. But Luke reports that she was a “fallen woman’, a “sinner’.

Subsequent commentators have assumed that the Magdalene, since she apparently had seven devils cast out of her, must have been a sinner. On this basis the woman who anoints Jesus and the Magdalene came to be regarded as the same person. In fact they may well have been. If the Magdalene were associated with a pagan cult, that would certainly have rendered her a “sinner’ in the eyes not only of Luke, but of later writers as well.

If the Magdalene was a “sinner’, she was also, quite clearly, something more than the

“common prostitute’ of popular tradition. Quite clearly she was a woman of means. Luke reports, for example, that her friends included the wife of a high dignitary at Herod’s court and that both women, together with various others, supported Jesus and his disciples with their financial resources. The woman who anointed Jesus was also a woman of means.

In Mark’s Gospel great stress is laid upon the costliness of the spikenard ointment with which the ritual was performed.

The whole episode of Jesus’s anointing would seem to be an affair of considerable consequence. Why else would it be emphasised by the Gospels to the extent it is? Given its prominence, it appears to be something more than an impulsive spontaneous gesture. It appears to be a carefully premeditated rite. One must remember that anointing was the traditional prerogative of kings and of the “rightful Messiah’, which means ‘the anointed one’. From this, it follows that Jesus becomes an authentic

Messiah by virtue of his anointing. And the woman who consecrates him in that august role can hardly be unimportant.

In any case it is clear that the Magdalene, by the end of Jesus’s ministry, has become a figure of immense significance. In the three Synoptic Gospels her name consistently heads the lists of women who followed Jesus, just as

Simon Peter heads the lists of male disciples. And, of co use she was the first witness to the empty tomb following the Crucifixion. Among all his devotees, it was to the Magdalene that Jesus first chose to reveal his

Resurrection.

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Throughout the Gospels Jesus treats the Magdalene in a unique and preferential manner. Such treatment may well have induced jealousy in other disciples. It would seem fairly obvious that later tradition endeavoured to blacken the Magdalene’s background, if not her name. The portrayal of her as a harlot may well have been the overcompensation of a vindictive following, intent on impugning the reputation of a woman whose association with Jesus was closer than their own and thus inspired an all too human envy. If other “Christians’, either during Jesus’s lifetime or afterwards, grudged the Magdalene her unique bond with their spiritual leader, there might well have been an attempt to diminish her in the eyes of posterity. There is no question that she was so diminished. Even today one thinks of her as a harlot, and during the Middle Ages houses for reformed prostitutes were called Magdalenes. But the Gospels themselves bear witness that the woman who imparted her name to these institutions did not deserve to be so stigmatised.

Whatever the status of the Magdalene in the Gospels, she is not the only possible candidate for Jesus’s wife. There is one other, who figures most prominently in the Fourth Gospel and who may be identified as Mary of

Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. She and her family are clearly on very familiar terms with Jesus. They are also wealthy, maintaining a house in a fashionable suburb of Jerusalem large enough to accommodate Jesus and his entire entourage. What is more, the Lazarus episode reveals that this house contains a private tomb a somewhat flamboyant luxury in Jesus’s time, not only a sign of wealth but also a status symbol attesting to aristocratic connections. In Biblical Jerusalem, as in any modern city, land was at a premium; and only a very few could afford the self-indulgence of a private burial site.

When, in the Fourth Gospel, Lazarus falls ill, Jesus has left Bethany for a few days and is staying with his disciples on the Jordan.

Hearing of what has happened, he nevertheless delays for two days a rather curious reaction and then returns to Bethany, where Lazarus lies in the tomb. As he approaches, Martha rushes forth to meet him and cries, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” (John 11:21) It is a perplexing assertion, for why should Jesus’s physical

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presence necessarily have prevented the man’s death? But the incident is significant because Martha, when she greets Jesus, is alone. One would expect Mary, her sister, to be with her. Mary, however, is sitting in the house and does not emerge until Jesus explicitly commands her to do so. The point becomes clearer in the “secret’

Gospel of Mark, discovered by Professor Morton Smith and cited earlier in this chapter. In the suppressed account by Mark, it would appear that Mary does emerge from the house before Jesus instructs her to do so. And she is promptly and angrily rebuked by the disciples, whom Jesus is obliged to silence.

It would be plausible enough for Mary to be sitting in the house when Jesus arrives in Bethany. In accordance with Jewish custom, she would be “sitting

Shiveh’ sitting in mourning. But why does she not join Martha and rush to meet Jesus on his return? There is one obvious explanation. By the tenets of Judaic law at the time, a woman “sitting Shiveh’ would have been strictly forbidden to emerge from the house except at the express bidding of her husband. In this incident the behaviour of Jesus and Mary of Bethany conforms precisely to the traditional comportment of a Jewish man and wife.

There is additional evidence for a possible marriage between Jesus and Mary of Bethany. It occurs, more or less as a non sequitur, in the Gospel of

Luke:

Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.

But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said,

Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.

And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:38-42)

From Martha’s appeal, it would seem apparent that Jesus exercises some sort of authority over Mary. More important still, however, is Jesus’s

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reply. In any other context one would not hesitate to interpret this reply as an allusion to a marriage. In any case it clearly suggests that Mary of Bethany was as avid a disciple as the Magdalene.

There is substantial reason for regarding the Magdalene and the woman who anoints Jesus as one and the same person. Could this person, we wondered, also be one and the same with Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus and

Martha? Could these women who, in the Gospels, appear in three different contexts in fact be a single person? The medieval Church certainly regarded them as such, and so did popular tradition. Many Biblical scholars today concur. There is abundant evidence to support such a conclusion.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, for example, all cite the Magdalene as being present at the Crucifixion. None of them cites Mary of Bethany.

But if Mary of Bethany was as devoted a disciple as she appears to be, her absence would seem to be, at the least, remiss. Is it credible that she not to mention her brother, Lazarus -would fail to witness the climactic moment of Jesus’s life? Such an omission would be both inexplicable and reprehensible unless, of course, she was present and cited by the Gospels as such under the name of the Magdalene. If the Magdalene and Mary of

Bethany are one and the same, there is no question of the latter having been absent from the Crucifixion.

The Magdalene can be identified with Mary of Bethany. The Magdalene can also be identified with the woman who anoints Jesus. The Fourth Gospel identifies the woman who anoints Jesus with Mary of Bethany. Indeed, the author of the Fourth Gospel is quite explicit on the matter:

Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of

Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) (John 11:12)

And again, one chapter later:

Then Jesus six days before the passover came to

Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.

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There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.

Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. (John 12:1-3)

It is thus clear that Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus are the same woman. If not equally clear, it is certainly probable that this woman is also the Magdalene.

If Jesus was indeed married, there would thus seem to be only one candidate for his wife one woman who recurs repeatedly in the Gospels under different names and in different roles.

The Beloved Disciple

3)

If the Magdalene and Mary of Bethany are the same woman, and if this woman was Jesus’s wife, Lazarus would have been Jesus’s brother-in-law. Is there any evidence in the Gospels to suggest that Lazarus did indeed enjoy such a status?

Lazarus does not figure by name in the Gospels of Luke, Matthew and Mark although his “resurrection from the dead’ was originally contained in

Mark’s account and then excised. As a result Lazarus is known to posterity only through the Fourth Gospel the Gospel of John. But here it is clear that he does enjoy some species of preferential treatment which is not confined to being “raised from the dead’. In this and a number of other respects, he would appear, if anything, to be closer to Jesus than the disciples themselves. And yet, curiously enough, the Gospels do not even number him among the disciples.

Unlike the disciples, Lazarus is actually menaced. According to the Fourth

Gospel, the chief priests, on resolving to dispatch Jesus, decided to kill

Lazarus as well (John 12:10). Lazarus would seem to have been active in some way on Jesus’s behalf which is more than can be said of some of the disciples. In theory this should have qualified him to be a disciple himself and yet he is still not cited as such. Nor is he said

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to have been present at the Crucifixion an apparently shameless display of ingratitude in a man who, quite literally, owed Jesus his life. Granted, he might have gone into hiding, given the threat directed against him. But it is extremely curious that there is no further reference to him in the Gospels. He seems to have vanished completely, and is never mentioned again. Or is he? We attempted to examine the matter more closely.

After staying in Bethany for three months, Jesus retires with his disciples to the banks of the Jordan, not much more than a day’s distance away. Here a messenger hastens to him with the news that Lazarus is ill. But the messenger does not refer to Lazarus by name. On the contrary, he pro trays the sick man as someone of very special importance,

“Lord, behold, he whom thou lowest is sick.” (John 11:3)

Jesus’s reaction to this news is distinctly odd. Instead of returning post-haste to the succour of the man he supposedly loves, he blithely dismisses the matter: “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” (11:4) And if his words are perplexing, his actions are even more so: “When he heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.” (11:6J In short Jesus continues to dally at the Jordan for another two days despite the alarming news he has received. At last he resolves to return to Bethany. And then he flagrantly contradicts his previous statement by telling the disciples that Lazarus is dead. He is still unperturbed however. Indeed, he states plainly that Lazarus’s “death’ had served some purpose and is to be turned to account: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but

I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” (11:11) And four verses later he virtually admits that the whole affair has been carefully stage-managed and arranged in advance: “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless, let us go unto him.” (11:15) If such behaviour is bewildering, the reaction of the disciples is no less so: “Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (11:16) What does this mean? If

Lazarus is literally dead, surely the disciples have no intention of joining him by a collective suicide! And how is one to account for

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Jesus’s own carelessness the blase indifference with which he hears of Lazarus’s illness and his delay in returning to Bethany?

The explanations of the matter would seem to lie, as Professor Morton Smith suggests, in a more or less standard “mystery school’ initiation.

As

Professor Smith demonstrates, such initiations and their accompanying rituals were common enough in the Palestine of Jesus’s era. They often entailed a symbolic death and rebirth, which were called by those names; sequestration in a tomb, which became a womb for the acolyte’s rebirth; a rite, which is now called baptism a symbolic immersion in water; and a cup of wine, which was identified with the blood of the prophet or magician presiding over the ceremony. By drinking from such a cup, the disciple consummated a symbolic union with his teacher, the former becoming mystically “one’ with the latter.