Venus in sackcloth : the Magdalen's origins and metamorphoses

The Magdelen's Origins and Metamorphoses

Cover Art for 9780809307074, Venus in sackcloth : the Magdalen's origins and metamorphoses by Malvern Ph.D., Marjorie M.
ISBN: 9780809307074
Publisher: Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press
Published: 1 January, 1975
Format: Hardcover
Language: English

Prostitute, saint, penitent, woman taken in adultery, the Magdalena Venus in sackclothhas evolved through two thoushy;sand years of iconography and literature little understood, this original and proshy;vocative study shows. The complex intermingling of the Magshy;dalen myth in religion and culture proshy;vides a fascinating chapter in the history of ideas. This important new book thereshy;fore not only fills a gap in religious and humanistic studies but also deepens our understanding of how the ideas implanted in the Magdalen figure were sustained over the yearsfrom her origins in Scripshy;ture and Apocrypha to rock opera in our time. Among Malvern's perceptive findings is evidence that it is primarily the Mary Magdalene of the Gospel of John who evokes the fictionalization and early metamorphoses of the Magdalen figure. In Gnostic writings, used as a vessel embodyshy;ing ambivalent attitudes toward life, sex, and women, the Magdalen metamorshy;phosed into the "pure spiritual Mariham" in thePistis SophiafromVenus to Mary. And in tracing the further transformashy;tion of, and complex attitudes toward, the Magdalen from the Crusades to the twenshy;tieth century Ms. Malvern adds signifishy;cantly to our understanding of the conshy;sequent shaping and transmission of the figure. The enigmatic Magdalen, accordshy;ing to the evidence presented, has carried, sometimes covertly, the old radically dualistic religious and secular concepts into modern times.

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