The second mistaken identification of Mary Magdalene is with the anonymous adulteress (Jn. 7, 53-8, 11), whom Jesus saves from stoning with the famous words: “Let him who is sinless among you cast the first stone” (8, 7). This was the identification accepted by the famous actor and director Mel Gibson in his much-discussed film The Passion of Christ (for more on this identification, see Jane Schaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament, New York: Continuum, 2002, pp. 65–77, 82).
This process of the gradual de-assignation of the role of Mary Magdalene, with the mistaken readings and identifications, was completed in the 6th century by the declaration by Pope Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.) who, in a homily, presented her as a model of repentance. Pope Gregory took a positive view of the anointing by the anonymous woman, but also assigned it to Mary Magdalene and claimed that the unguents she poured onto…
