The Gospel of Mary: the ancient text in which Magdalene teaches and Peter doubts her

For centuries, the dominant image of Mary Magdalene was that of a repentant prostitute. The association was born in 591, when Pope Gregory I, in an Easter sermon, merged three different women from the Gospels into one. An ancient text left out of the Bible shows her differently: as the person who comforts the apostles, teaches, and is defended by one of them against Peter's doubt. It is the Gospel of Mary.

Apocryphal is the term for a religious writing that churches did not include in the canon, the official list of sacred books. The Gospel of Mary is Gnostic, tied to the early-centuries current that placed inner knowledge, gnosis, at the center of salvation. A video from Canal do Slow, devoted to apocryphal texts and Gnosticism, narrates it with an emphasis on the vision it contains. It's worth knowing what the text says, where it comes from, and what scholars conclude about it.

Where the text comes from

The video links the gospel to the Nag Hammadi library, found in Egypt in 1945, but that's incorrect. The text survives in two third-century Greek fragments and in a longer Coptic translation, preserved in a manuscript known as the Berlin Codex, acquired in Cairo in 1896. It is missing pages 1 to 6 and 11 to 14. It was only published in 1955, after the Nag Hammadi discovery — but it is not among those codices.

The Savior's teaching

The text opens with Jesus, called "the Savior," explaining to the disciples that all natures and creatures exist with one another and return to their roots. The world doesn't appear as a fixed, hierarchical creation, but as a movement of forms seeking their spiritual origin. Sin wouldn't be divine decree, but a human choice, a departure from one's essence.

Mary's courage

Jesus departs, and the disciples, afraid, ask how they will be spared if he was not. Mary stands up and, instead of ready-made phrases, reminds them of what they have lived through. She says grace will be with them, for the Savior prepared them and made them who they are. That reversal is the text's hallmark: it is not Peter or James who rallies the apostles, but a woman.

The vision

Peter asks Mary to tell what the Savior told her in secret. She recounts a vision. Spiritual perception, she explains, comes neither from the soul nor from the spirit, but from the mind that stands between the two. She then describes the soul's path to liberation, which passes through seven powers that imprison consciousness: darkness, desire, ignorance, the excitement of death, the kingdom of the flesh, the foolish wisdom of the flesh, and wrathful wisdom.

Having passed through them, the soul declares that what bound it has been destroyed, that ignorance has died, and that it enters the rest of time. The journey is one of disidentifying from the ego, fears, and material illusions, an idea present in many mystical traditions.

Peter doubts, Levi defends

On hearing the account, Peter is suspicious: would the Savior really have spoken with a woman and not with them? Mary weeps. Levi, identified with Matthew, steps in: "If the Savior made her worthy, who are we to reject her?" He asks the disciples to set aside their arrogance and preach, as they were commanded.

What the text suggests

For the video, the gospel presents a Christianity without fear, without inherited sin, and without blind obedience: the Kingdom would lie within each person, and a woman would have voice, vision, and spiritual authority. The tension between Peter and Mary would suggest that a dispute over authority already existed among the earliest followers, and that the text preserves the side that lost.

This is one possible interpretation, not the only one. Scholars debate the date of composition, generally placed in the second century, and the weight the text carried among early Christians. What they agree on is that, for some ancient groups, Mary Magdalene was a figure of authority and teaching.