An Inquiry into the Inquiry Concerning Mary Magdalene as a Newcomer to Marseille

Document notes

Original title: Disquisitio disquisitionis de Magdalena Massiliensi advena A Latin polemical tract, a slender octavo of roughly ninety-five pages published at Paris, offering a page-by-page refutation of the Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Guesnay's defense of the tradition that Mary Magdalene sailed to Provence, evangelized Marseille, and died in the grotto of La Sainte-Baume, with relics at Saint-Maximin. Working from the axiom of documentary priority (vetus traditio) — that the earliest witness is presumed true while recent testimony without ancient warrant deserves contempt — Launoy argues that no ancient source places the Magdalene in Gaul, exposes forged chronicles (such as the Pseudo-Dexter Chronicum) and suspect diplomas, deploys the argument from the silence of the earliest Gallic writers (Cassian, Salvian, Eucherius, Proculus of Marseille), and marshals Greek and Byzantine authorities (Modestus of Jerusalem via Photius, Gregory of Tours) for a rival burial at Ephesus. The indictment is organized around four vices — audacity, ignorance, calumny, and dissimulation — and closes with a documentary appendix of Vézelay materials (papal bulls and royal charters). 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

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Document excerpt

DISVISITIO DISVISITIONIS DE MAGDALENA MASSILIENSI ADVENA. Quod tanto impendio absconditur, etiam solum- modò demonstrare, destruere est. Tertullianus aduersus Valentianos cap. 3. Auctore IOANNE DELAVNOY Constantiensi, Theologo Parisiensi. BIBLIOTECA NAZ. VITTERIO EMANUELE. PARISIIS. M. DC. XLIII.