by Veronica Bergschneider

Created on: April 18, 2009

Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ loved each other, but not in the romantic way that would make them lovers in many human eyes. They had a deep, abiding love which served as the basis of a close friendship between two fellow servants on each other.

Jesus embodied in His short time on earth the agape, or all-loving spiritual love, of God the Father for creation. Only God can have this perfect, holy love for anyone since no other is perfect. Because He is the truly divine, holy Son of God, Jesus could demonstrate for others what this love is like and how deep it can be. He showed it to all who believed in him, but humanity being less than perfect does not always understand such actions on God or Jesus' part. This misinterpretation leads many into thinking that because Jesus had any love for Mary Magdalene, it must have been eros, the kind philosophically associated with what most people consider lovers.

Philosophers also use a Greek term, philos, to designate brotherly, or in more modern terms, friendly love. Jesus provided humanity with a prime example of how to show this to others in society by both His words and His deeds. Toward Mary Magdalene, he showed this friendly love by casting seven demons away from her and restoring her physical and mental wholeness.

She in turn reciprocated the love by leaving her former life behind and following Him. Mary traveled with the group of disciples and helped support them from her own means. The combination of this and how Jesus treated her with a dignity and respect not shown to women in that era, where many considered women as property, also contributes to modern scholars and lay people alike wondering if they were lovers.

A less philosophical and more practical way of looking at their relationship means exploring some social mores of the time. Jesus and Mary Magdalene would not have taken each other as lovers because to do so would be committing adultery and therefore sin by having sex outside of marriage. This would have surely cast Jesus out of His role as the Son of God and Savior of humanity from sin, and had it happened, the world might still be waiting to be saved.

Both he and Mary certainly would have been cast out of their society, an effect she would not have wanted to face after having been restored to the community when He cast out the demons from her. Modern scholars have no idea exactly what the demons represent, as they are not named in the Bible. It is only human inference leading anyone to believe that Jesus

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