MARY MAGDALENE
by contemplativeinquiry
Tomorrow, 22 July, is dedicated to Mary Magdalene. The passage below is from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (1), one of the so-called Gnostic Gospels driven underground in the later 4th century C.E. due to Orthodox repression. These words show the importance of Mary Magdalene as a teacher to many people in the early Christian movement and beyond, and as the Christ Sophia to some (2).
“Peter said to Mary:
‘Sister, we know that the Teacher loved you
Differently from other women.
Tell us whatever you remember
Of any words he told you
Which we have not yet heard’.
Mary said to them:
‘I will now speak to you
Of that which has not been given to you to hear.
I had a vision of the Teacher,
And I said to him:
Lord I see you now
In this vision.
And he answered:
You are blessed, for the sight of me does not disturb you.
There where is the nous* lies the treasure.”
(1) Jean-Yves Leloup The gospel of Mary Magdalene Rochester, VA: Inner Traditions, 2002 (English translation and notes by Joseph Rowe. Foreword by Jacob Needleman)
Nous* Mary’s vision is a vision of the nous. Leloup’s commentary suggests that ancient Christian Gnostics understood nous as the “finest point of the soul”, an intermediate realm between the purely sensory and the purely spiritual, giving access to a vein of prophetic or visionary sacred knowledge.
contemplativeinquiry 