In the biblical account, Mary Magdalene was present for the key parts of Jesus’ ministry. She was healed of seven demons, and accompanied Jesus for at least part of his ministry (Luke 8:1-3), and was present at his crucifixion,death and burial (Mark 15:40-47). Most importantly, she was the first woman to receive and proclaim the news that Christ had been resurrected (Matthew 28:1-10). Mary’s relationship to Jesus, then, is as a signifier of the place of women in Jesus’ life, ministry and death. While the biblical account doesn’t devote much time to how Mary Magdalene and Jesus interacted, it does mention Mary (and other significant women) alongside Jesus. These women in some ways stand in for all women, bringing attention to the fact that Christ’s ministry was equally for male and female.

It could be the lack of detail in the biblical account that accounts for the elaboration on the part of Christians that followed after her. While undoubtedly prominent, the lack of depth Mary is given in the Bible is almost an invitation for later Christians to create accounts of her activities. That those accounts take place largely after the death of Christ may have something to do with the theological bent of many of those accounts. The Gospel of Mary presents a Gnostic Christianity, one in which spirit and knowledge is held as superior to the corrupted, evil material world. To fit that theology, it is natural that the Gospel of Mary presents a revelation from the resurrected Jesus, a being of pure spirit completely outside the bounds of the material world.

The revelation that Mary recounts in The Gospel of Mary is certainly one of the superiority of the spirit over the material.  Her telling of her revelation from Christ is framed by the apostles despondently fearing that they will be put to death in the same manner as Jesus.  Their concerns are solidly on the material until Mary shares her revelation with them.  Ehrman characterizes her appearance in the narrative in this way: “She alone understands her master’s teaching.  She, the female follower of Jesus, is the true disciple, who has gnosis” (242).  While much of the content of her revelation is missing from the document, what does exist tells the story of a soul ascending through various trials on its way to heaven and confronting the personifications of material forces such as Desire and Ignorance that seek to prevent it from reaching its goal.

A comparison can be drawn between the narrative in The Gospel of Marry and that of the Acts of Thecla.  While Thecla usurped male religious authority by baptizing and commissioning herself as a missionary, the source of her knowledge of Christ was male, in the person of Paul.  In The Gospel of Mary, a woman is presented as a source of knowledge above that which has been revealed to the male apostles.  The apostles even complain about this in the account given.  Peter complains: “Did he, then, speak with a woman in private without our knowing about it?  And are we to turn around and listen to her?  Did he choose her over us?” (Gospel of Mary 10).  The author seems to anticipate the uproar that this foregrounding of women in the person of Mary Magdalene will cause, and uses Peter as a way to present and refute a counter-argument to Mary’s authority.

This, perhaps more than the Gnostic theology present in The Gospel of Mary, is what proto-orthodox Christianity may have found so threatening.  Where Thecla usurped male authority, The Gospel of Mary attempts to have Mary Magdalene supersede and invalidate male authority.  If Peter, the rock on which Christ said he would build his Church (Matthew 16:18), is made to appear hot-headed and foolish in front of a woman, then the structure built on the foundation of his ministry is in jeopardy.