The AD second-century Johannine reaction to the Magdalene

Paul asserted a burial tradition - against, interestingly, Philippians 2. The burial is disputed in Islam, preferring Philippians' Ascension narrative. The earliest paraGospel, perhaps contemporary with the Synoptics, is that in the Egerton papyrus: it may flirt with Ascension, but either way the MSS do not extend to the burial. Since I am Catholic myself, in whose traditions Paul and his creeds know the burial, we are here to deal with those details therefore with the canon. I permit my Muslim readers to move on to another post.

The burial traditions agree to link the burial and even Resurrection with the presence of women, including one or more "Mary". In Mark, this is the Magdalene. Stephen Shoemaker observes that the Johannine tradition contests this. In the West, our MSS for John agree with Mark. In Syria the Mary at John's tomb went unnamed. Here an exegetical tradition glossed that as the Nazarene - that is, as the Virgin. Tatian's "fourfold (dia tesseron)" gospel harmony stuck John 20:1-17 alongside Mark 16:9a, which names the Magdalene, forcing that we read the former as the Virgin; which Ephrem duly read. John Chrysostom raised in Antioch imbibed this lore as well.

It was always a tendency among the Miaphysitical parts of the Near East to load the Mother Of God with as much piety as the Gospel text would allow. As Shoemaker points out, as our Gospels survive, wherever a "Mary" is mentioned who is not the Virgin, the text is careful to mark her out. Chrysostom was a Dyothelete himself to the extent that his enemies would smear him as an "Arian". That he goes with the (west) Syrian canon here is against his interest, therefore a true witness. Hence why the tradition was copied, here.

Tatian preceded these debates. That he wouldn't identify the Mary in his reading of John hints at something else. It may be that "Mariolatry" was so strong among those who copied his harmony that they all agreed to omit the now-canon "of Magdala", however Shoemaker doesn't take this seriously. Tatian's omission with juxtaposition looks too deliberate. And, given the gnostics' own coyness about which "Mary", too early.

The Johannine Mary may instead reflect an earlier debate. That this debate clustered in the Johannine tradition suggests an early second-century milieu, preceding Irenaeus, in which not all Christians read the same Gospels. Tatian's own teacher Justin did not know John firsthand; Justin had used mainly a harmonising commentary of the Synoptics. Tatian worried that his successors might stray from Irenaeus' canon, and that is why he used the canonical four for his harmony's base.

What was going on in John's community? One possibility is that John's community faced a piety toward marǝté Magdalene. (This piety may have been imported from the Synoptics.) The Syrian reaction against this forced at least the Nazarene reading of John 20:1-17 which, as a result, extended to the very text - expressed as the intentional deletion of "of Magdala". Their Miaphysitism and, later, Egypt's carried that un-reading through to Late Antiquity.