June, 2004
|
June, 2004 |
Brock, Ann Graham
Mary Magdalene: The First
Apostle and the Struggle
Harvard Theological Studies 51,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2003. Pp. xviii +
This review was
published by RBL .2004
by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a
This is a book whose time has come.
Popular books and television documentaries concerning Mary .the Great. (a
dubious reconstruction of Magdalene) and her intimacy, even marriage, with Jesus
have put this New Testament figure in the spotlight. This is not to say,
however, that Ann Graham Brock addresses her subject in a trendy manner. Indeed,
her thorough study is informed by recent scholarship, while it also acknowledges
that Mary Magdalene has been of importance in the Christian tradition, East and
West, for centuries. Called “equal to the apostles” or even “apostle to
the apostles,” Mary has fired the imagination of penitent, liturgist,
egalitarian, and misogynist.
The author goes about her task with
clarity and with a generous spirit toward those whom she would seek to correct.
She inquires into .the struggle for authority. in the early church, through an
examination of texts concerned about the meaning(s) of the term apostle,
and the specific figures of Mary Magdalene and Peter. Adopting a method that is
at once literary-rhetorical and historical critical, she first treats Luke,
John, and the Pauline writings and then moves on to consider noncanonical texts,
some that are fairly well known (Gospel of Peter, Nag Hammadi texts, Acts
of Peter, Acts of Paul) and others that are less often read (Acts of
Philip, especially in its Coptic version, and other Coptic and Syriac
texts). These texts are read with an eye to detail, with a specific focus upon
the various valuations of Mary and Peter, and with a concern to trace historical
trajectories. For the latter task, Brock builds both on the hypotheses and
‘substantial evidence. (14) of the Tübingen school and on the foundations of
those who have more lately engaged in gender analysis of ancient biblical texts,
especially Pesch, Pagels, Schüssler Fiorenza, Schaberg, and Karen King.
The author’s close readings
disclose intriguing details, particularly when she joins literary analysis to
redactional questions. However, as is often the case with projects that link
minute observations to a larger quest, it is not always clear that the analysis inevitably
issues in the final reconstruction. Instead, her conclusion (that the
respective prominences of Peter and Mary are inversely proportional in the
traditions) appears prematurely as premise from time to time, obscuring certain
details of the text that might mitigate the effects of her reconstruction. This
is hardly avoidable, given her initial premise that .New Testament scholarship
has uncovered aspects of many patriarchal tendencies within certain branches of
early Christianity and their attempts to suppress the significance of women’s
leadership roles, especially that of Mary Magdalene. (13).
This reviewer, while appreciative of
Brock’s persuasive power in the chapter on Luke's Gospel, also found this
section problematic. Luke is seen as air-brushing and exalting the key apostle
Peter to the detriment of Mary Magdalene; detailed evidence is mustered to
demonstrate these two (seemingly related) actions. However, there are points at
which the analyst forces the evidence or oversteps the constraints of the text.
Given the detailed nature of Brock’s argument, I must give particulars.
Her departure point seems to be
Luke’s omission of Jesus. rebuke when Peter rejects the coming passion (Matt
16:22//Mark 8:33). Must we conclude, however, that Luke's motive for this lacuna
is to put Peter in a better light? It is, after all, Matthew (where the rebuff
remains) that establishes Peter’s status in a manner not found in Luke (Matt
16:17ff.) Again, Brock’s contention that Luke ‘subtly softens. (28) Peter's
ignorance at the transfiguration is hardly demonstrable. Luke bluntly states
that .Peter did not know what he
said, . while Mark offers an excuse (.Peter did not know what to say, for
they were afraid .) and Matthew seems not to consider Peter's .booth.
proposal a blunder.
Thus, among the transfiguration
narratives, Matthew, not Luke, rehabilitates Peter! Furthermore, it is
Matthew who describes Peter as .first. (Matt 10:2) when the disciples are
listed, a title not replicated in Luke 6:14. (Matthean Petrine priority,
however, is useless to Brock’s thesis, since in Matthew we do not find the
concomitant diminution of Mary Magdalene.) Brock’s thesis is further mitigated
by omitted or downplayed evidence. By special pleading, Luke's unique .call.
narrative is seen as complimentary to the apostle, even
though he is there self-described as
.a sinful man. (5:8).hardly a promising beginning for a hierarch! Again, Brock
passes over Peter’s cheeky dismissal of Jesus. Prophetic acumen (only in Luke
8:45). Moreover, some of the parallelisms that Brock establishes are only
seemingly probative. At one point, Brock suggests that Luke’s Peter alone does
misspeak regarding his own future denial. A closer look at the parallels shows
that Luke rather emphasizes
Peter’s overconfidence and impending denial at 22:31.34: he connects it with a
dispute over greatness, extends it by Jesus. introductory comments, and
highlights Peter, whereas in the other Gospels all the disciples make similar
protestations (Matt 26:35b//Mark 14:31b). Brock further argues that in Luke
Jesus does not especially indict Peter for his Gethsemane nap (Matt 26:40//Mark
14:37//Luke 22:45).but in fact Luke has not established the inner disciples as
the cast in this vignette, in contrast to the other two Gospels. Peter thus is
neither privileged to .watch. with Jesus nor singled out for disapprobation.
Finally, she asserts that during the trial the Lukan Peter does not explicitly
deny Jesus, in contrast to the parallels (Matt 14:71a//Mark 26:74a versus Luke
22:60a.) How is it possible that Brock misses Luke 22:57, where in response to
the first accusation, Peter responds in denial, “Woman, I do not know
him?”
As Peter is exalted, Magdalene should
be abased. So Brock finds that there is in Luke no unique resurrection
appearance to Mary. However, she is named in first place with the women who
heard the news from the mysterious heavenly visitors, and we encounter her early
in the Gospel. There she is introduced as one whom Jesus has healed of
demon-possession and placed at the head of Luke’s patron-women (8:1.3).
Luke’s reference to the ministering women, following the story of the woman
with the alabaster jar, implies that Magdalene, along with the other women, were
those who .loved much. because they had been healed. In the context of Luke’s
pairing technique, they become a parallel cohort to the twelve (8:1) and are
integral to the story; in the other Gospels, they are named only toward the end.
That the women’s commission to .tell. is omitted in Luke is hardly a slight of
their role but rather an indication of Luke’s special concerns. We might also
note that Luke gives us no actual narrative concerning Peter’s encounter with
the risen Jesus either, but only a brief report, of which Brock makes (too?)
much. Typically, Luke’s emphasis is upon what God is doing through Jesus, not
specifically upon the priority of any group, whether apostles or patron-women.
What then, is Luke’s burden
in the resurrection narratives? The message of the heavenly visitors at 24:7
encapsulates the entire salvation story (where it is restricted to the
resurrection in the parallels); the ensuing Emmaus narrative concentrates upon
salvation history and fulfillment; the climax of the sequence comes when Jesus
appears to the entire company, men and women together. En route,
Magdalene and the women, the first believers in the resurrection, are celebrated
twice, their experience nicely recapitulated in the Emmaus story, where they are
implicitly exalted over the couple that is ‘slow to believe. (24:22.24).
Luke’s concern for his audience may have led him not to present Mary and the
others in a formal manner as apostles. Was he afraid that readers might
also dismiss the message as “an idle tale.?” Yet Mary is integral to the
narrative and finds her place among other women as one who had been touched by
Jesus, who followed and supported him, who did not abandon him during his death,
and who was finally vindicated regarding his resurrection. Simon, the ‘sinful
man,. and Mary, .from whom the Lord cast seven demons,. both enter into his
company and follow him. Both bear news of his resurrection, though no single
witness is sufficient. Instead, in Luke’s apologia to Theophilus, a
cumulative case for the risen Lord is built. Throughout these events, those who
have seen, and their reactions, are subordinated to Luke’s message that the
Hebrew Scriptures have been fulfilled in the Messiah, so that .repentance and
forgiveness. might be proclaimed to all.
Here, then, is the problem. Brock,
seeking clues of struggle and power relations and preoccupied with the question
of status, cannot read Luke’s Gospel in its own terms. For Luke is not
primarily concerned to establish the apostles as the guarantors of orthodoxy or
of church structure but to place Jesus in the central position. Luke, who has a
special concern for humility, may not give his womenfolk the roles that we might
prefer, but it is clear that they are no mere afterthought. His unnamed woman
with the alabaster jar trumps the named dignitary Simon. The ministrations of
the women are as important as the blunders of the apprenticing disciples. The
piety of Anna is as important as the sword cut of Simeon. Indeed, the entire
company of believers is found, at the end of Luke’s first volume,
“continually in the temple” an echo the elderly Anna! Only by such waiting
will they emerge (male and female), in the Acts, with the piercing prophetic
words of Pentecost. And it is another Mary who articulates this dynamic: “He
who is mighty has done great things for me.”
Brock goes on, in her ensuing
chapters, to show the intriguing dynamic between Magdalene and Peter in later
texts and how these may reflect the perplexing conflict regarding women’s
ministry in the early church. She also treats the sad fate of Mary, how in
(especially Western) Christendom she came to be forgotten, even denigrated. Her
work in this regard is engaging and worthwhile as we pursue an obscure period in
history.
Considering the flaws noted in
analysis of Luke, however, this reader is not entirely satisfied that
Magdalene’s fortunes can be neatly traced back to the manipulation of Luke,
nor to the revering of Peter, nor to the formalization of church leadership. Nor
will a close reading of the Fourth Gospel easily demonstrate a reverse situation
(i.e., a concern to diminish Peter, to the benefit of his female counterpart.)
History is messy and not easily captured by trajectories, nor by movements
toward hardening or synthesis.
Luke/Acts and the Fourth Gospel are
highly nuanced narratives that each sets forth a community characterized by
leadership and mutuality and a leadership defined (though not always realized)
in terms of servanthood. To read the Gospels and the very early Christian
documents for insight into power relations may be a contemporary quest that can
yield some tentative results, but it is ultimately to read (at least some of)
these works against their grain. Even the Fourth Gospel, where Magdalene is
featured, is not concerned for this woman’s status but to show that what had
been lost in the first garden has now been restored in the garden of the
sepulcher. As the Eastern tradition would have it, she is .the woman who cast
away the ancestral curse. and so became .one sent. to the disciples. Thus, the
Fourth Gospel, in harmony with Luke, shows that Mary, the beloved disciple,
Peter, and all the rest of the cast have their proper role: to glorify, in their
own manner, the one who tabernacled among humanity and who thus critiques any
who are concerned for prominence. What is that to you? Follow me!.