Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor - Softcover

Haskins, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006546773 ISBN 13: 9780006546771

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1994

Synopsis

Here, at last, the truth is revealed about the birth and development of Christian attitudes to women.

At a time when the Church of England looks likely to split into two camps – one that supports having women as priests and one that does not – this book provides the historical evidence to prove how variable the status of women in the Christian Church has been over the ages, and uses the figure of Mary Magdalen as a key to understanding how attitudes towards women have changed.

The Mary Magdalen figure that the Catholic Church created has been one of the two principal stereotypes of female behaviour alongside her ‘opposite’, the Virgin Mary, ever since the early Church Fathers decided on her identity (turning her into the epitome of fallen womanhood, merging three Biblical characters into one) in the fifteenth century.

Susan Haskins looks behind the myth and the metaphor to reveal the truth about Mary Magdalen, and about the Church and women.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Mary Magdalen…is so rich a symbol that every society has adapted her to its own prejudices. Power, politics theological deceit, sexual repression and revolution have all played a part in her myth. It is this story, with its compelling lesson in the relativity of cultural perception, that is the subject of Susan Haskin's book…a book full of delights, anecdotes, observations; it exhibits a wealth of scholarship, and a passion and charm which are hard to resist."
JACKIE WULLSCHLAGER, 'Financial Times'

"Haskin's analysis of the Magdalen myth is a rich and scholar detective story, an unveiling which is at the same time a revelation. This is an intelligent book, which blends a sensitive and critical knowledge of art with theology and history. It is written with style and a delightful mocking wit, and is mercifully free of tediously inconclusive arguments about sex and gender."
ANGELA TILBY, 'Church Times'

"A sober and thoroughly researches cultural history packed with delights. It takes us on a journey Through the four Gospels, the way that the early Fathers of the Church developed views of Jesus' teaching, the history of iconography, the narratives of medieval and Renaissance poems and plays, the recently discovered and newly translated
Gnostic gospels of Nag Hammadi, Victorian photographic pornography and much more."
MICHÈLE ROBERTS, 'Independent on Sunday'

"The strengths of 'Mary Magdalen' are real and obvious. It has a bold sweep. It takes an icon of faith and sexuality and trails it through travesties and beautiful representations on canvas and in bronze…The story, let us face it, is a peculiar one: of an emblem of spiritual love so mired in eroticism that it has attracted and exposed some of the deepest confusions of religious feeling and sexual fantasy."
EAVAN BOLAND, 'Observer'

"A grave, limpid and intelligent book whose crystal-clear prose and copious illustrations make it a pleasure to read."
ANGELA LAMBERT, 'Daily Mail'

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006546773
• ISBN 13: 9780006546771
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 546