Magdalene, MARY, or MARY of MAGDALA, so named from a town near Tiberias, a woman 'out of whom Jesus cast seven devils,' and who believed in Him and followed Him. She was one of the women who stood by the cross, and one of those who went with sweet spices to the sepulchre. To her He first appeared after His resurrection. In consequence of an unfounded notion identifying her with the woman who had been a sinner, described in Luke, vii. 36-50, as having anointed our Lord's feet with ointment, and wiped them with her hair, Mary Magdalene has been long and generally regarded as a woman whose early life had been very profligate, although of this there is no hint whatever in the narratives of the evangelists; and the Magdalenes, so frequent amongst works of art, represent her according to this prevalent opinion. Our word maudlin (lit. 'weeping-eyed') is due to the same notion, and indeed the very name Magdalene has come to be applied to women who have fallen from chastity, and institutions for the reception of repentant prostitutes are known as Magdalene Asylums.
The conclusion of most commentators is that there were two anointings, one in some city unnamed during our Lord's Galilean ministry (Luke vii.), the other at Bethany before the last entry into Jerusalem (Matt. xxvi., Mark xiv., John xii.). The one passage adduced to prove that in these two narratives we have but one woman is John, xi. 2, and it has been argued by some that this could not possibly refer by anticipation to the history that follows in chap. xii. Against this it may be said that to impute a life of impurity to Mary of Bethany is to make an entirely gratuitous assumption. The evidence to identify Mary Magdalene with either actor in the two narratives is still less secure. The identity of Mary Magdalene with the sinner was first positively asserted by Gregory the Great in his Homilies, and the services of the feast of St Mary Magdalene were arranged on the assumption of its truth. But a great and growing consensus of opinion among the most competent scholars, and those not merely Protestant, is conclusive against it.