Editing Mary Magdalene (section)

====''The Golden Legend''====
[[File:Torun SS Johns Mary Magdalene.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[International Gothic]] ''Elevation of Mary Magdalene'' with angels raising her in [[Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, Toruń|SS. Johns' Cathedral]] in [[Toruń]]]]

The most famous account of Mary Magdalene's legendary life comes from ''[[Golden Legend|The Golden Legend]]'', a collection of medieval saints' stories compiled circa 1260 by the Italian writer and [[Dominican Order|Dominican friar]] [[Jacobus de Voragine]] ({{circa}} 1230 – 1298).{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Maisch|1998|page=48}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} In this account, Mary Magdalene is, in Ehrman's words, "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual",{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} but she gives up her life of wealth and sin to become a devoted follower of Jesus.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|pages=7–8}} Fourteen years after Jesus's crucifixion, some pagans throw Mary, Martha, [[Lazarus of Bethany|Lazarus]] (who, in this account, is their brother due to a conflation with Mary of Bethany), and two other Christians named [[Maximinus of Aix|Maximin]] and Cedonius onto a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean to die.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Miraculously, however, the boat washes ashore at [[Marseille]] in southern France.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Mary persuades the governor of the city not to offer sacrifices to a pagan god{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} and later persuades him to convert to Christianity after she proves the Christian God's power by successfully praying to Him to make the governor's wife pregnant.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}}{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} The governor and his wife sail for Rome to meet the apostle Peter in person,{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} but their ship is struck by a storm, which causes the wife to go into labor.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} The wife dies in childbirth and the governor leaves her on an island with the still-living infant at her breast.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} The governor spends two years with Peter in Rome{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=184}} and, on his way home, he stops at the same island to discover that, due to Mary Magdalene's miraculous long-distance intercession, his child has survived for two years on his dead mother's breast milk.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|pages=184–185}} Then the governor's wife rises from the dead and tells him that Mary Magdalene has brought her back.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=185}} The whole family returns to Marseille, where they meet Mary again in person.{{sfn|Ehrman|2006|page=185}} Mary herself spends the last thirty years of her life alone as a penitent ascetic in a cave in a desert in the French region of [[Provence]].{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}}{{sfn|Head|2001|p=659}}{{sfn|Saxer|1959|p=}}<ref>Ecole française de Rome, (1992).</ref>{{sfn|Jansen|2001|page=172}} At every [[canonical hours|canonical hour]], the angels come and lift her up to hear their songs in Heaven.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} On the last day of her life, Maximin, now the bishop of [[Aix-en-Provence|Aix]], comes to her and gives her the Eucharist.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} Mary cries tears of joy{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} and, after taking it, she lies down and dies.{{sfn|Erhardt|Morris|2012|page=7}} De Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of Mary Magdalene's relics from her sepulchre in the [[Oratory (worship)|oratory]] of Saint Maximin at [[Aix-en-Provence]] to the newly founded [[Vézelay]];<ref>"the Abbey of Vesoul" in [[William Caxton]]'s translation.</ref> the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard, [[Duke of Burgundy]].<ref name="GoldenLegend">''Golden Legend''</ref>