Some early Gnostic Christian circles revered Mary Magdalene as the worthy repository of divine revelation and wisdom. They quite possibly saw her as Jesus' Sophia, perhaps even his spiritual heir. She was the Apostle to the Apostles, an honorific title bestowed upon her after she faithfully carried out the risen Jesus' commission to tell the other disciples the “good news” of his resurrection.

In the third century, Hippolytus, a Christian bishop (circa A.D. 170–236), wrote of female apostles charged to rectify ancient Eve's sin through their obedience. His noting of female apostles suggests that at least in earliest Christianity, apostles were of both genders.

The Gospel of Mary reveals that Mary Magdalene was an authority figure who comforted her fellow disciples and turned their minds from the dark fog of grief and suffering back toward the “Good” after Jesus left them. The writer of that gospel provides a unique lens through which to view women disciples of Jesus in the infant early church that is exemplified in Mary Magdalene. Yet the wider culture, still patriarchal, held a view of women as inferior.

By the end of the second century, Jesus' example of egalitarian and respectful treatment of women shifted back to the patriarchal status quo. A female authority figure with a message had to be defended. It was no longer assumed that she could speak with any real power.

In the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene represents the Gnostic Christian position in which women served as leaders, visionaries, prophetesses, preachers, and interpreters while Peter and Andrew represent the orthodoxy.

The Savior's Discourse and Departure

The Gospel of Mary opens on page seven (pages one through six are missing) in a scene after the Resurrection in which the disciples are having discourse with Jesus about matter and its nature and if it will last forever. Jesus explains that each thing born is interconnected but one day must return to its own root. Peter asks about sin and Jesus explains that there is no sin. The attachment humans have for things of matter is what deceives them. It is the improper mingling of the spirit with matter that causes disharmony and imbalance and that, in turn, brings about sickness and death.

Scholar LeLoup pronounces this teaching as both liberating and demanding. It basically says that people cannot blame others or their circumstances for their woes; instead, they must understand that they alone are responsible for their own actions and thoughts and attitudes. Even sickness and death are a result of their own actions. Blaming is a waste of time and energy.

The Gospel of Mary says that before Jesus departs, he warns the disciples against establishing rules or laws. If they make such laws or rules, then they will necessarily be constrained by them. Jesus commands them to go forth into the world and share the good news. He reminds them that the Son of Man is within each of them. This portion of the Gospel of Mary is known as the “Savior's Farewell.”

After Jesus leaves them, the disciples are overcome with grief and they weep. Their hearts were deeply attached to their teacher. They fear that Jesus' unfortunate fate of being crucified will become theirs. Who will lead them now? Mary Magdalene stands and greets, comforts, and consoles them. She emphasizes the Savior's greatness. Mary, the gospel notes, turned the disciples' hearts away from the heaviness of sorrow and suffering back toward “the Good.”

Seeing with the Mind's Eye

As they begin talking again about Jesus' words, perhaps about the best way to go forth and spread the gospel teachings, Peter tells Mary Magdalene that everyone knows that Jesus loved her more than all the other women. Peter asks her to share some of the Savior's words. He wants her to tell the disciples something that Jesus had not already shared with them. Mary Magdalene agrees. She tells him a vision she had of the Lord and how he called her blessed and praised her for not “wavering” at the sight of him.

Then she says that she asked Jesus how it was she could see him, whether it was with the soul or the spirit (pneuma), and he told her that it was through neither soul nor spirit but the mind between them. Then Mary recounts the part of the vision Jesus gave her about how the soul must move through seven wrathful powers in order to ascend to the place where it rests in silence.

Mary Magdalene's Vision

Mary Magdalene explains that the soul is questioned by seven cosmic powers as she (soul is most often referred to in the feminine gender in ancient literature) ascends from matter through ever-higher realms toward her final place of rest. As she passes successfully through each of the seven powers that bind her to matter, the fetters become loosened.

The seven powers she must pass through are darkness, desire or craving, ignorance, death wish, enslavement to the flesh, foolish fleshly wisdom, and guileful wisdom (wrath). Having successfully moved beyond them, the soul becomes free and rests in eternal peace and silence.

The idea of being able to direct the mind inward and to merge it with divine cosmic consciousness, thereby forever freeing the soul from its karmic bonds, has resonance with ancient eastern philosophies of Buddhism and Hinduism. Buddhists call the resting place of the enlightened Nirvana (meaning “extinguishing or unbinding”), while the Hindus call it Maha Samadhi(meaning “establish”). Dualism is transcended and the soul rests in an effortless and continual state of perfection, in silence, beyond all thought.