Slander

 SLANDER

Slander means a false attribution of bad attitude or evil deed to another.  The person being thus maligned may not even be aware of it, until someone disputes it and comes to the victim for reassurance.  It is an act of consummate cowardice, and it proceeds sometimes from lips that would be least expected to utter such.

In company with Jesus there were two or three women named Mary.  One of them, Mary Magdalene, is described in Luke 8:3 as Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.  We know nothing more about her.

This being the case, it is amazing that so prevalent a canard as that Mary had been an immoral woman in the past has managed to gain any traction with anyone claiming to respect the Scriptures as the Word of God; but we hear it often.  Sometimes it is in context of a casual, throw-away remark; but whenever and however it is expressed, it is slanderous.  Roman Catholicism has thrown its considerable weight behind the slander by establishing an “order” of reformed prostitutes, and naming it The Order Of St. Magdalen; the “term originated in the mistaken notion that Mary Magdalen, of whom we read in the Gospel, was a woman of bad character; a notion which is still very prevalent …” (McLintock And Strong, Volume 5, page 532)