Margaret Arnold's The Magdalene in the Reformation is the latest addition to an ever- burgeoning list of studies on this intriguing biblical figure. As the title indicates, the monograph brings to light the Magdalene as theologians and thinkers of the Reformation period envisioned her. What it does not reveal is that this study also considers both the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, though Arnold's interest and emphasis converge more on the former than the latter. Here the Catholic Reformation serves more like a control group representing a modified continuity with the medieval tradition and standing against the great experimental changes wrought by Protestant reform groups. This heuristic device works well since it allows fruitful comparisons to be made across the confessional divide.

And the comparisons cry out to be made. As Arnold politely points out, studies such as my own (The Making of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages [Princeton University Press, 2000]), which examine the construction of Mary Magdalene in the Middle Ages, assume that she no longer served as a model to society once the cult of the saints and its legendary accretions had come under attack by reformers. But Arnold's book demonstrates time and again that Mary Magdalene continued to be a useful figure for both women and men to think with throughout the Reformation period. That is, aspects of the Magdalene's story, modulated now in different keys, continued to inspire the various Christian confessions of the sixteen and the seventeenth centuries.

Two central questions drive this study. The first concerns Mary Magdalene's fate in Protestant teaching and devotional life, while the second addresses the refashioning of the medieval Magdalene for new purposes by women of the early modern period. The book is structured to respond to these questions by first presenting the prevailing teachings (usually written by men) on Mary Magdalene and then, in subsequent chapters, the responses by women. The result is that we have a chorus of voices—not always in harmony—trying to wrestle with the laity's place and especially women's role in the evangelical reform movements. It will come as no surprise that the figure of the Magdalene was used toward different ends and her story interpreted in different ways to speak to different concerns. But no matter how she was deployed, Arnold finds that Mary Magdalene could be considered either a model or a warning and therefore relevant for both the followers of Luther and Calvin, but also for the Quakers and Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation. For Luther and his followers, the composite saint of the medieval period was not so much discarded as reconfigured to meet new theological needs. For Luther, her constancy and faith made her into the great example of justification by faith alone. Among the significant texts that Arnold examines are eleven sermons for the week after Easter in which Luther preached on the Magdalene's role in the resurrection narrative of John's Gospel. In these texts, Luther continues to cast Mary as a sinner following Gregory the Great's conflation of biblical Marys, but more importantly, he makes no bones about representing Mary Magdalene as the first preacher of the Gospel. Luther asserted: “Christ makes of her a preacheress, that she must be a mistress and teacher of the dear apostles” (60). His female followers elaborated that assertion to teach nuanced theologies of justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers. Among these followers were a number of women writers from across Europe including Marie Dentière, Katharina Schütz Zell, Argula von Grumbach, and Anne Askew who each seized upon Mary Magdalene's role as preacher of the resurrection. They played variations on this theme in their writings to construct a Protestant theology that was, as Arnold observes, in continuous conversation with Luther. It was a theology that was shaping a public role for women by proposing the Magdalene's public role in the resurrection narrative as a model. In this light, it was fascinating to learn that even Queen Elizabeth I was represented as a Magdalene, if only just fleetingly, in an image published by John Bale in 1548 on the title page of a youthful Elizabeth's own translation of Marguerite of Navarre's A Godly Meditation of the Christian Soul.

In this regard, I would have loved to have seen that image published in Arnold's book. I subsequently found it elsewhere: it shows a young Elizabeth, dressed in her royal finery, clutching a book (perhaps her translation), and kneeling at the foot of a risen Christ in Mary Magdalene's stead. It is puzzling that Arnold mentions this tantalizing image but does not publish it. Indeed, she mentions a number of images in her text but frustratingly does not publish them. Nor does she systematically analyze the handful of plates that are included in the text. They are used illustratively but are rarely contextualized to add complexity to her arguments. Readers will want to know more. Who commissioned them? What churches or readers were they made for? How were the images used? Do we have further evidence of Magdalenian-inspired imagery made in a reform context such as A Godly Meditation?

Calvin certainly would not have approved of such image making. Nor was he an admirer of the medieval superstar Mary Magdalene had become. He poured scorn on her lachrymose performance at Jesus's tomb and even questioned her faith, deeming it to be “superstition alone, accompanied by carnal feelings” (169). But his exegesis would not prevail among reformers: most were far more positive about the Magdalene as an exemplar for women's public roles in a new era. And none more so than the George Fox, founder of the Quakers, who wrote a letter defending one of his female preachers in 1684 stating: “Was it not Mary Magdalene and other women that first preached Christ's resurrection to the apostles? . . . Christ sent these women to preach his resurrection; so it is no shame for such women to preach Christ Jesus; neither are they to be silent when Christ sends them” (214).

Ultimately the great virtue of Arnold's monograph is that it brings together a rich array of early modern texts from across the Protestant and Catholic divide, which often contoured themselves in response to each other, to explore various roles for the laity, especially women in post-medieval society. The book also serves as a gentle reminder to medievalists that though her legends were stripped away, the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene continued to serve as a model for both women and men throughout the early modern period and well beyond.