The Seven Demons of Mary of Magdala

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Mary Magdalene The Unsuspected Truth (Part XXVII)

Mary Magdalene with Seven Devils (James C. Christensen, 1942-2017)

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Les sept démons de Marie de Magdala - Marie appelée la Magdaléenne (Marie, Marie-Madeleine)

Recommended Book on Academia / Livre recommandé sur Academia Mary Magdalene with Seven Devils (James C. Christensen, 1942-2017) - Si Marie de Magdala est bien la mère de Jésus, comment l'évang...

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If Mary of Magdala is indeed the mother of Jesus, how could the evangelist Luke have said that “seven demons had gone out” from her? It seems inconceivable to me.

The Seven Demons of Mary Of Magdala

- You are asking an excellent question: how can we conceive that the one who would one day officially become the own “Mother of God” could have been “possessed”?
It may not shock the historian that you are, but it is theologically unacceptable.
- Provided you believe in demons!
That is right.
- Besides, according to Pope Gregory the Great himself, these seven demons of the Magdalene were “all the vices”.
The seven deadly sins?
- Somehow. According to an ancient tradition, vices and sins were personified. They were called the “seven misleading spirits” and the Spirit of Fornication occupied the first place among them.
What does this have to do with Jesus’ mother here?
- In truth: nothing! But remember, Pope Gregory confused Mary of Magdala with the unnamed “sinful woman“ of Luke’s Gospel, a woman about whom nothing was known but who was quickly promoted to the rank of “repentant ex-prostitute”.
So, we are hardly more advanced ...
- This exegesis is still of interest.
Why?
- We can see that, from the end of the sixth century, a pope could freely profess that the demons of the Magdalene were not demons in the conventional sense of the term. It is already a first step.
What do you mean?
- According to several current specialists, Mary of Magdala simply suffered from a form of mental illness. In the East, in the time of Jesus and after, when a physical and/or psychic pathology – most often inexplicable – was impressive in its manifestations, it was beleived to be demonic possession.
But if Mary of Magdala is the mother of Jesus, this explanation does not seem to me more adequate than the previous one ...
- I totally agree with you ... But other scholars have thought it was rather an incurable or difficult-to-cure disease. According to them, it is a particularly formidable pathology which explains the fact that the Gospel writer attributed it to the action of “seven demons” ...
Yes, but ... which one?
- Unfortunately, all attempts to identify it have been unsuccessful.
Why’s that?
- Because none of the explanations put forward so far can answer this essential question: Why seven demons?
And you, what do you say about that?
- In fact, the “demonic heptads”, or groups of seven demons, have their origin in the mythology of the ancient East. These evil entities were believed to attack humans by inflicting deadly fevers on them. It is alluded to in the Old Testament ...
Really?
- These are the “seven plagues” with which God threatens to strike the Hebrews if they do not obey His commandments. They are present in the Gospels, in a parable reported by Luke and Matthew. These fever demons are also mentioned in a scroll fragment found at Qumran, in the Talmud and in other ancient Jewish writings.
So, these are fever demons?
- Fever was considered as a deity or a “demon” throughout the Middle East and in the Mediterranean basin, including in Rome where a temple was dedicated to it.
But fever is not a disease. It is only a clinical sign of a disease.
- You are right. But not so long ago, disease, symptom and clinical sign were commonly confused.
And what could have caused this fever?
- The most widespread disease in the world: malaria. It is the main cause of fevers.
At that time too?
- At that time, in this environment. The proof: it is the most frequently mentioned “disease” at the crossroads of Antiquity and the Middle Ages in a series of amulets found in Palestine. And we can see precisely that the talismans in question had precisely the function of warding off these dreaded “fever entities”.
And paludism – or malaria – is clearly mentioned in the New Testament?
- Yes, but not under these names, obviously. The word “paludism”, derived from the Latin paludis, “marsh”, is a relatively recent term. The same is true of the word “malaria” which comes from Italian mal aria (“bad air”) as it was assumed the disease was caused by “bad air” emanating from swamps. The New Testament only uses the words “fever” and “great fever”.
And are we sure this is malaria?
- This is the least bad explanation. We know that until the beginning of the twentieth century, the marshy regions of the Jordan and the shores of Lake Tiberias – where Jesus exercised his ministry – were conducive to malaria. Peter’s mother-in-law was likely to have it and some commentators have even speculated, to explain his fairly quick death on the Cross, that Jesus himself suffered from it. Paul too, no doubt, who suffered from a chronic illness ...
The famous “thorn in the flesh”?
- Absolutely. When the Apostle raises the question, he specifically refers to “a messenger of Satan sent to torment him”. And he praises the Galatians for having refrained from “spitting” before him during one of his crises: a form of conjuration supposed to protect them from the demon who tormented him.
Were evil spirits considered to be the cause of all kinds of diseases?
- The rule is not as strict. But, on this point, Luke is precisely a special case. It is in his Gospel that the tendency to associate “illness” with “evil spirit”, and to confuse “possession” with “physical illness” is most developed. Furthermore, when he mentions Mary of Magdala and the women who followed Jesus, Luke also does not draw a clear distinction between “evil spirits” and “diseases”. The case of the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law is in this respect particularly enlightening. It is reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke in their gospels with a few differences.
Was she “feverish”? ...
- Yes. But the healing is not reported in the same terms by the three evangelists. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus literally exorcises Peter’s mother-in-law who suffers from a high fever. Luke is the only one to speak of “high fever” and to use the verb epitimaô which means “to threaten”, “to reprimand”: it is the verb commonly used by the evangelists when Jesus practices an exorcism or reprimands a possessed one. In the Gospel of Luke, therefore, Jesus clearly threatens the fever like a demon during an exorcism.
What about the other evangelists?
- Mark and Matthew, unlike Luke, do not seem to confuse “demon” with “fever”.
And what about John?
- John is a special case. While in the Synoptic Gospels exorcisms are common, in John’s, Jesus never meets any possessed person and practices absolutely no exorcism.
So then ... John does not believe in the existence of “demons”?
- Let’s say he has a different vision. In John, Satan is master of the world and his influence on human beings manifests itself on a daily basis. But not through demonic possession.
Does Luke give us the names of these supposed fever demons?
- Yes and no. You know, most often, eastern demons simply have the name of the specific disease, symptom or clinical sign they bring: “dumb and deaf spirit”, for example. In Luke, Jesus threatens a “great fever”, which must also be the translation of his name ...
And so, Mary of Magdala has been cured of malaria?
- Cured or relieved, I don’t know. Malaria is a serious, potentially fatal disease – of which we know several forms – which causes fevers, tremors and even convulsions which can be fatal: this disease is today responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Above all, we must not forget that it has been barely a hundred years since we know the vector is a mosquito.
So, this is a relatively recent discovery ...
- Absolutely. Thus, considering, first, that in the Ancient East, and in the Bible itself, fever demons were seven in number; considering, second, that Luke is the only evangelist to confuse “fever” with “demon”; considering, third, that the same evangelist is still the only one (if I disregard Mark’s finale which was written later than Mark’s Gospel) to say that “seven demons had gone out” from Mary of Magdala; we can easily admit – in view of these considerations – that these famous Lucan demons are nothing more than an impressive and morbid manifestation of malaria.
But does Luke report the healing episode of Mary of Magdala?
- No. Luke refrains from reporting the “exorcism” at the end of which this famous “demonic heptad” was finally cast out from Mary. But it must be seen, moreover, that at no point does he tell us the victim had literally been “possessed”. He uses a periphrasis: “from whom seven demons had gone out”.
And does it make a difference?
- Without a doubt, since, on the one hand, diseases were usually considered to have a demonic origin, and, on the other hand, it is Luke who speaks here ... Understood in its Lucan context and translated into Matthean, Markan, or even Johannine language, such a formulation has a much less dramatic and, above all, less “phenomenal” meaning. It then means, more prosaically: “from whom illness was cast out”.

Mary Magdalene

The Unsuspected Truth

Part XXVIII

DEMON OR DAIMON? - Marie appelée la Magdaléenne (Marie, Marie-Madeleine)

Recommended Book on Academia / Livre recommandé sur Academia Mary Magdalene The Unsuspected Truth (Part XXVIII) Mary Magdalene with Seven Devils (James C. Christensen, 1942-2017) En F rançais ...

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Mary Magdalene

The Unsuspected Truth

Part I

Mary Magdalene The Unsuspected Truth - Marie appelée la Magdaléenne (Marie, Marie-Madeleine)

Recommended Book on Academia / Livre recommandé sur Academia Mary Magdalene The Unsuspected Truth (Part I) Notice to the Reader This booklet contains most of the information and discoveries recently

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