The Gospel of Mary: The Woman Who Taught the Men

At a Glance

Who wrote it: Unknown. It is named for Mary Magdalene, who is its central figure, not its author.

When: The 100s AD. Two Greek fragments survive from the 200s.

Where it fits: After my rising. I teach my disciples and leave them, they are afraid, and Mary comforts them and tells them what I showed her in a vision. About half of its pages are lost.

Which Bibles keep it: None.

Where you hear it in your Bible: Mary Magdalene is in all four gospels: healed of seven demons, with me in Galilee, at the cross, and the first to see me risen (Luke 8:2; John 20:1–18).

How close it stays to me: Close in a woman sent to teach the men, and no new laws. Far in a soul escaping the world.

If you only read three chapters: It has none, and is only about eight pages. Read it all, then John 20:1–18.

Words to Know

Mary Magdalene — Mary from Magdala, a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee. One of the women who followed me and paid for our work.

Apostle — from the Greek for one who is sent: someone sent out with a message.

Vision — something seen in the mind or spirit rather than with the eyes.

The powers — in this gospel, forces such as desire, ignorance and wrath that try to stop the soul as it rises.

The Book in Brief

The surviving text begins partway through a conversation after my rising. I tell the disciples that all things will return to their roots, that there is no sin except what people make, and that sickness comes from what is against nature. I say: peace be with you; do not let anyone lead you astray, saying look here or look there, for the Son of Man is within you; go and preach the good news of the kingdom; and do not lay down any rule beyond what I appointed, or give a law like the lawgiver. Then I leave.

The disciples are grieved and afraid. If they did not spare him, how will they spare us? Mary stands up, greets them, and tells them not to weep, for my grace will be with them and protect them.

Peter asks her to tell them the words I told her that they have not heard. She tells them of a vision in which I said she was blessed for not wavering at the sight of me. Four pages are missing. When the text returns, Mary is describing the soul rising past four powers, the first lost in the gap and the others called Desire, Ignorance and Wrath, and answering each one until it is free.

Andrew says he does not believe I said these strange things. Peter asks whether I would really speak privately with a woman and prefer her to them. Mary weeps and asks if he thinks she made it up. Levi rebukes Peter for his temper and says that I knew her well and loved her more than them. They go out to preach.

It is a short book, and most of it is missing. What remains is a scene you will recognize, if you have ever been a woman in a church. Mary has something to teach. Two of the men do not want to hear it: one because it sounds strange to him, the other because of who she is.

A gospel in a Cairo shop

This book was not found at Nag Hammadi, though people often think so. In 1896 a German scholar named Carl Reinhardt bought an old book in Cairo, written in Coptic in the 400s or 500s. It contained four writings, and the first was the Gospel of Mary. Its publication was delayed for nearly sixty years, by two world wars and other troubles, and it was finally printed in 1955.¹

Since then two small pieces of it have been found in Greek, both copied in the 200s. So it was being read in Egypt within about a century or two of my life.¹

The book begins on its seventh page. Pages 1 through 6 are lost, and so are 11 through 14. What you can read is about half of it.

Go deeperThe woman who was never a prostitute

For most of the last fourteen hundred years, people in the Western church believed that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute who repented. You will find her painted that way in a thousand churches: weeping, with long loose hair and a jar of ointment.

None of that is in your Bible. The gospels say she was healed of seven demons (Luke 8:2), that she followed me and supported my work, that she watched me die, and that she was the first to see me risen. Nowhere do they say she was a prostitute, or that she was a sinner at all.

The change came in a sermon. In AD 591 Pope Gregory the Great preached that Mary Magdalene was the same person as the unnamed woman in the city who was a sinner who anointed my feet in Luke 7, and as Mary of Bethany. Three different women became one, and the most important woman in my story became a penitent prostitute.²

The Eastern churches never accepted Gregory’s idea, and remember her as equal to the apostles. In 1969 the Catholic Church quietly changed its calendar, separating her from the sinful woman. In 2016 Pope Francis raised her day to a feast, and the decree gave her an old title: apostle of the apostles.²

No law beyond what I gave

Before I leave in this gospel, I say three things.

I tell them not to be led astray by those who say look here or look there, for the Son of Man is within you. That is close to what I said in Luke: God’s Kingdom is within you (Luke 17:21).

I tell them to go and preach the good news of the kingdom.

And then: Do not lay down any rules beyond what I appointed for you, and do not give a law like the lawgiver lest you be constrained by it (Gospel of Mary, page 9).³

I would say that to the churches now. I gave my friends very few rules. Love God; love your neighbor; forgive; feed the hungry; do not lord it over anyone. I told them that the rulers of the nations lord it over them … But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant (Mark 10:42–43).

Within a few generations my followers had laws about who could teach, who could lead, who could speak in church, what women must wear, and who was in and out. Many of them were laid on women. I had said of the religious leaders of my day that they bind heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders (Matthew 23:4). The churches learned to do it too.

If they did not spare him

Then comes the most human moment in the book.

When I am gone, the disciples weep. They are afraid. How can we go to the nations and preach, they say, if they did not spare him? How will they spare us?³

That is the right fear. They had seen what Rome did to me. They knew what it would do to them.

And it is Mary who stands up. She tells them not to weep or be divided, because my grace will be with them and shelter them. She turns their hearts toward the good, the book says, and they begin to talk about my words.

That is just what the women did in your gospels. When my men ran, the women watched me die. There were also women watching from afar … who, when he was in Galilee, followed him and served him (Mark 15:40–41). The women came to the tomb. The women carried the news. And in Luke, when they told the apostles, These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them (Luke 24:11).

Did he prefer her to us?

Peter asks Mary to tell them the words I said to her that they have not heard. Sister, we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women, he says (Gospel of Mary, page 10).³ So she tells them.

But when she finishes, the men turn on her. Andrew says he does not believe I said it; these are strange ideas. And Peter says: Did he really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us? (Gospel of Mary, page 17).³

Mary weeps. She asks Peter if he thinks she made it up, or is lying about me.

Then Levi speaks up. Peter, you have always been hot-tempered, he says. If I made her worthy, who is Peter to reject her? I knew her very well, and loved her more than them (Gospel of Mary, page 18).³

You saw this scene from the other side at the end of the Gospel of Thomas, where Peter tells Mary to leave because women are not worthy of life. Here Peter makes the same move, and he loses. That tells you that in the 100s my followers were arguing about whether a woman could teach men about me, and that some of them said yes.

In your Bible I first appeared to her. I said to her, go to my brothers and tell them. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:17–18). The first person I sent with the news of my rising was a woman, to teach the men.

Go deeperIs this a Gnostic gospel?

The Gospel of Mary is usually listed with the Gnostic writings, and it shares some of their ideas. Matter will dissolve back into its roots. The soul must rise past hostile powers to reach its rest. Salvation comes through knowing what I revealed in secret.

But it is missing much of what made a teaching Gnostic in the full sense. There is no story of a foolish lower god who made the world by mistake, and no list of heavenly beings. Some scholars, especially Karen King, have argued that the old label hides more than it shows. The book is better read as one voice in a wide early Christian argument about who I was, what my rising meant, and who had the right to speak for me.¹

What is clear is that the book was written for a community that honored Mary Magdalene as a teacher, and that knew other Christians who did not. The book takes Peter and Andrew, two of the most honored apostles, and shows them in the wrong.

Where Mary and I part

In the four lost pages and the pages after, Mary tells of a vision. It is about the soul rising after death, past four powers that try to hold it: the first lost in the gap, and the others called Desire, Ignorance and Wrath. Each challenges the soul. Each time the soul answers, and passes, until it is free of the world and comes to rest in silence.³

That is the book’s idea of salvation: the soul getting out.

It was not mine. I did not teach my friends to escape the world. I taught them to pray Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). I fed bodies. I healed bodies. I rose in a body. God’s kingdom comes down to the earth, to the hungry and the sick and the poor, not up and away from it.

The Gospel of Mary is right about who should be heard. Mary has something to say, and the men should listen. But what she says, in the end, is a way out of the world, and I came to bring God’s kingdom into it.

Check It Yourself

Look up: Luke 24:1–11.

You will find: the women tell the apostles I am risen, and These words seemed to them to be nonsense.

Then read John 20:11–18, and ask who I sent first.

The Short Version

• The Gospel of Mary survives in a Coptic book bought in Cairo in 1896, and two Greek scraps from the 200s. About half of it is lost.
• In it I tell my followers to make no laws beyond what I gave. I gave very few.
• When the men are afraid, Mary comforts them and teaches them.
• Andrew doubts her, and Peter refuses to believe a woman. Levi rebukes Peter. In your Bible, I sent a woman first to tell the men.
• Its salvation is a soul escaping the world. I came to bring the kingdom on earth.