Story about Mary Magdalen and Cult in South of France.

The Cult of the Black Madonna


Several researchers have spoken of an "Underground Church of Mary Magdalene," which

existed in the South of France at the time of the Cathars and Gnostics. No one has

specified with certainty what these cults were about or how they came to be. We do know

that they had been condemned as heretical and eventually eradicated by the Crusaders

and the Roman Catholic Church, but studies show that indeed an important cult of

unorthodox character dedicated to Mary Magdalene and the cult of Black Madonna's

existed in the Middle Ages in the South of France, and still today, Mary Magdalene has a

considerable cult following in the South of France.

Most commentators link the Cult with the historical Mary Magdalene, through

key legends, passed down to us by Jocabus de Voragine. In his Golden Legend,

the Dominican Inquisitor, while concerned to eradicate rooted and ferocious

heresies and subvert the popular Gnostic and Cathars traditions, he realized that

though they had been successful in eradicating the Cult, the figure and story of

Mary Magdalene was always going to live in the heart of the people. The Church

proceeded to present an image of the Magdalene that would conform more to the

Catholic dogmas and faith, Magdalene the penitent whore as a model for sinners

who need Christ and the Church's forgiveness.

Whatever the original Cult was about, it was not an obvious association with a

penitent hermit.

Most commentators link the Cult with the historical Mary Magdalene, through

key legends, passed down to us by Jocabus de Voragine. In his Golden Legend, the Dominican Inquisitor, while concerned to eradicate rooted and ferocious

heresies and subvert the popular Gnostic and Cathars traditions, he realized that

though they had been successful in eradicating the Cult, the figure and story of

Mary Magdalene was always going to live in the heart of the people. The Church

proceeded to present an image of the Magdalene that would conform more to the

Catholic dogmas and faith, Magdalene the penitent whore as a model for sinners

who need Christ and the Church's forgiveness.

Whatever the original Cult was about, it was not an obvious association with a

penitent hermit.

that it is now very difficult to retrace the actual facts regarding the life and true

nature of the historical deity. The process of the Church of taking control of the

Mary Magdalene Cult was completed by establishing an "official" Cult and

pilgrimage at Saint-Maximim-la-Sainte-Baume, the legendary place of her death.

What was it that so alarmed the Church and caused them to move against a Cult

that in its view scandalized the Catholics and shamed the religion? The Church

has allowed very little information in regards, except that the cult held unusual

views about the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus (that they were

married) and which blended so well with the Cathars beliefs. These beliefs have

also become more credible since the discovery of the Mary Magdalene "Gnostic

Gospels," by Mohammed Ali, found at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Commentators

have held that these gospels had been circulating in France before the Crusaders,

in which case the Catholic Church, wanting to appropriate the Cult for its own,

destroyed these gospels and texts to eradicate the Cult and claim the Magdalene Catholic.

The question that is hard to answer is whether the heretical Church was founded on

dogmas as per the "Gnostic Gospels" or whether it had been Magdalene herself who had

founded the Church; however, the fact that these books did exist and were available in

places where Mary Magdalene had lived in France suggests affinity and connection to the

story and that perhaps the Church was not completely successful in destroying all

evidence and suppressing the Cult entirely, as some things point to the contrary. In fact,

the Church of Mary Magdalene was pushed underground but nonetheless survived, and

through the ages, the devotion of Mary Magdalene had retained an odd and deucedly

unorthodox flavor of the outsider, the one who did not fit with people and associations.

Her name came to signify deep shame, people deemed as fallen, committing

In fact, if you were close to a brink or tumble from grace you would be falling in the

categories of "Maggie" and therefore yourself, like the deity, deeply shamed.

Feminists and contemporaries have made attempts to revise the status of Mary

Magdalene, and she has been tentatively acknowledged as the leader of female

disciples, maybe even his thirteen apostle; even though it was thought he never had

female disciples, but in the Gnostic Gospels, discovered in Egypt in 1945, Mary

Magdalene was the star.

These books are indeed hot and permissive and contain explosive information

especially in the Gospel of Mary. The Magdalene, according to these forbidden

books, is the one that Jesus calls the "All" or "The Woman Who Knows All."