page_title: Latin Church
section_title: Mary Magdalene of Bethany
hierarchical_section_title: Latin Church / Theology and philosophy / Mary Magdalene of Bethany
caption_attribution_description: English: According to Christian tradition, after meeting Christ, Mary Magdalene repented of her former sinful ways. With her ivory skin and long golden hair, the beautiful Magdalene turns her gaze toward heaven. Her cross and the skull make it clear she is meditating on the brevity of life and the salvation made possible by Christ's death. Reni created an idealized, as well as classical style influenced by ancient sculpture and by the Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520). This influence is visible in the Magdalene's rounded, even features, painted so smoothly that the strokes seem to disappear, in contrast with the broad, energetic strokes used for the drapery, more typical of 17th-century painting. Images of female saints sometimes depicted in a seductive manner, were very popular with some artists and patrons in the 17th century, and Reni painted many versions of this composition.
context_page_description: The Latin Church, also known as the Western Church or the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest particular church sui iuris of the Catholic Church, and employs the Latin liturgical rites. It is one of 24 such churches, the 23 others forming the Eastern Catholic Churches. It is headed by the bishop of Rome, the pope – traditionally also called the patriarch of the West – with his cathedra in this role at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, Italy. The Latin Church traces its history to the earliest days of Christianity through its direct leadership under the Holy See that according to Catholic tradition was founded by Peter and Paul.
  The Catholic Church teaches that its bishops are the successors of Jesus' apostles, and that the pope is the successor to Saint Peter upon whom primacy was conferred by Jesus Christ. Of Jesus' twelve apostles, four are associated with apostolic sees of the Western Church: Peter, who founded Rome and Syracuse; Paul, who founded Rome and Malta; Barnabas, who founded Milan; and James, son of Zebedee, who founded Santiago de Compostela.
context_section_description: In the medieval Western tradition, Mary of Bethany the sister of Lazarus was identified as Mary Magdalene perhaps in large part because of a homily given by Pope Gregory the Great in which he taught about several women in the New Testament as though they were the same person. This led to a conflation of Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene as well as with another woman (besides Mary of Bethany who anointed Jesus), the woman caught in adultery. Eastern Christianity never adopted this identification. In his article in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, Hugh Pope stated, "The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons: the 'sinner' of Luke 7:36–50; the sister of Martha and Lazarus, Luke 10:38–42 and John 11; and Mary Magdalen.
  French scholar Victor Saxer dates the identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, and as Mary of Bethany, to a sermon by Pope Gregory the Great on September 21, AD 591, where he seemed to combine the actions of three women mentioned in the New Testament and also identified an unnamed woman as Mary Magdalene. In another sermon, Gregory specifically identified Mary Magdalene as the sister of Martha mentioned in Luke 10. But according to a view expressed more recently by theologian Jane Schaberg, Gregory only put the final touch to a legend that already existed before him.
  Latin Christianity's identification of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany was reflected in the arrangement of the General Roman Calendar until this was altered in 1969, reflecting the fact that by then the common interpretation in the Catholic Church was that Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus were three distinct women.
caption: The Penitent Magdalene by Guido Reni
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