Gospel of Mark 15.40 · 15.40

<p>Mark waits until the cross to tell the reader who these women were. The men have fled (14:50); the women had been following him and serving him in Galilee. <span class="gk">ἀκολουθέω</span>, to follow, is Mark's technical verb for discipleship, the word for the call of the first disciples (1:18), and <span class="gk">διακονέω</span>, to serve, is the verb used of the angels in the wilderness (1:13) and of the Son of Man who came not to be served but to serve (10:45). By these two verbs Mark names them, at the last, as disciples of long standing. Mary the Magdalene stands first, as she does in every list of the women.</p><p>Her name is an epithet, not an address. Where Jesus is from Nazareth, she is <span class="gk">ἡ Μαγδαληνή</span>, the Magdalene, and Luke calls her the one called Magdalene (8:2), the formula he uses for Simon called Peter. The root behind it, g-d-l, means to be great, to magnify; a migdal is a tower, and Jerome read the name as <em>turris</em>, tower, given her for the ardour of her faith (<em>Ep.</em> 127). The Eastern Church keeps her as Isapostolos, equal to the apostles.</p>

Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.

You are reading a page of the Gospel of Mark — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.

The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.

Also on our shelves:

• Plato's Phaedrus — complete, ancient Greek
• Heraclitus, the Fragments — complete
• Dante's Inferno — Italian, canto I
• Dom Casmurro — Brazilian Portuguese