Saint Mary Salome

Greek fresco of St Salome

Myrrhbearer, Midwife

Died 1st century

Venerated in Roman Catholicism

Eastern Catholicism

Eastern Orthodoxy

Feast 24 April (Roman

Church–Missouri

Synod)

Sunday of the

Myrrhbearers

(Eastern Orthodox &

Eastern Catholic)

Attributes Thurible

Salome (disciple)

Salome was a follower of Jesus who appears briefly in the canonical

Mary Salome) was counted as one of the Three Marys who were

daughters of Saint Anne, so making her the sister or half-sister of

Mary, mother of Jesus.

The name was a common one; apart from the famous dancing

"daughter of Herodias", both a sister and daughter of Herod the Great

were called Salome, as well as Queen Salome Alexandra (d. 67 BC),

the last independent ruler of Judea.

In Mark 15:40-41, Salome is named as one of the women present at

the crucifixion who also ministered to Jesus: "There were also women

looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses;

and Salome who also followed Him and ministered to Him when he

was in Galilee. And many other women who followed Him to

20:20, in which she petitions Jesus to let her sons sit with him in

Paradise.

In John, three, or perhaps four, women are mentioned at the

crucifixion; this time they are named as Jesus' "mother, and his

mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene."

(John 19:25 KJV) A common interpretation identifies Salome as the

sister of Jesus' mother, thus making her Jesus' aunt.

Traditional

interpretations associate Mary the wife of Cleophas (the third woman

him." (Mark 16:1 KJV) They discovered that the stone had been

rolled away, and a young man in white then told them that Jesus had

risen, and told them to tell Jesus' disciples that he would meet them in

Galilee. In Matthew 28:1, two women are mentioned in the parallel

passage: Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary" – identified

previously in Matthew 27:56 as Mary the mother of James and Joses.

The canonical gospels never go so far as to label Salome a "disciple"

("pupil" mathētēs), and so mainstream Christian writers usually

describe her as a "follower" of Jesus per references to the women

who "followed" and "ministered" to Jesus (Mark 15:41). However,

sister of Elizabeth and Anne who is the mother of Christ's mother

Mary. Thus Salome's mother Mary would be Jesus' great aunt, the

sister of his grandmother Anne and aunt of his mother.)

The Diatessaron, which is part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers collection,

separates Salome and the mother of the sons of Zebedee as two distinct persons, contrary to tradition that

identify them. "And there were in the distance all the acquaintance of Jesus standing, and the women that

came with Him from Galilee, those that followed Him and ministered. One of them was Mary Magdalene; and

modern editors

to Clement of Alexandria, contains a further mention of Salome which is not present in the

canonical Mark at 10:46. Clement quotes the passage in his letter: "Then he came into Jericho. And the sister

of the young man whom Jesus loved was there with his mother and Salome, but Jesus would not receive

them." The lines complete a well-known lacuna in Mark as the text currently stands.

In the non-canonical Greek Gospel of the Egyptians (2nd century), Salome appears again as a disciple of

Jesus. She asks him how long death would hold sway, and he says to her, "So long as women bring forth, for I

come to end the works of the female." To this Salome replies, "Then I have done well in not bringing forth." It

would appear from this text that there was an early tradition that Salome the disciple was childless, and

possibly unmarried.

state. He described the variety of Christian sects at the time he was writing, c. AD 178, as extremely broad.

His treatise is lost, but quotes survive in the attack written somewhat later by Origen, Contra Celsum

("Against Celsus"): "While some of the Christians proclaim [that] they have the same god as do the Jews,

others insist that there is another god higher than the creator-god and opposed to him. And some Christians

teach that the Son came from this higher god. Still others admit of a third god - those, that is to say, who call

themselves gnostics - and still others, though calling themselves Christians, want to live according to the laws

of the Jews. I could also mention those who call themselves Simonians after Simon, and those naming

themselves Helenians after Helen, his consort. There are Christian sects named after Marcellina, Harpocratian

Christians who trace themselves to Salome, and some who follow Mariamne and others who follow Martha,

and still others who call themselves Marcionites after their leader, Marcion."

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13. Fernando Lanzi, Gioia Lanzi, Saints and Their Symbols (Liturgical Press 2004

14. Stefano Zuffi, Gospel Figures in Art (Getty Publication 2003 ISBN 9780892367276), p. 350

Sources