Saint Mary Salome

Mark names her twice, both times in a list of women. At the cross: "And there were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph, and Salome." ⁹ And at the tomb: "when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought sweet spices, that coming, they might anoint Jesus." ¹⁰

Mark adds that these women were not new to the company. When Jesus "was in Galilee," they "followed him, and ministered to him," and many other women had come up with him to Jerusalem. ⁹ The Norwegian bishops' saints database (katolsk.no), which calls her Maria Salome, notes that she is also called simply Salome. ²

Matthew tells the crucifixion with a slightly different list: "Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee." ⁸ James F. Driscoll, in the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, sets the two lists side by side and concludes that the comparison "gives a well-grounded probability" that Mark's Salome is Matthew's mother of the sons of Zebedee. ¹ katolsk.no states the identification without hedging: she was the wife of Zebedee and the mother of the apostles James the Greater and John. ²

If so, she was married into a fishing family on the Lake of Galilee. Mark describes Jesus finding "James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother" mending their nets in the boat, and says they left "their father Zebedee in the ship with his hired men" and followed him. ⁵ The household had hired men, and its two sons walked away from it.

Matthew gives her one scene of her own. On the way up to Jerusalem, "came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, adoring and asking something of him." ⁶ Jesus asked what she wanted. "Say that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom." ⁶

The answer was addressed to all three of them. "You know not what you ask. Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?" The sons said they could. ⁶ Jesus told them they would, but that the places at his right and left were "not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father." ⁶ The other ten apostles were indignant, and Jesus called them together: "whosoever will be the greater among you, let him be your minister." ⁶

Mark tells the same story without her: there James and John come to Jesus and make the request themselves. ⁷ Driscoll cites Matthew's version as one of the places where the mother of the sons of Zebedee is mentioned "in connection with the petition in favour of her sons." ¹

Whatever she had asked for on the road, she was there, at a distance, when he died. Matthew counts her among the "many women afar off, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him." ⁸ Mark has Salome there by name. ⁹

On the morning after the sabbath she went with the two Marys to the tomb with spices, "very early in the morning, the first day of the week," wondering on the way who would roll back the stone. ¹⁰ They found it rolled away, and inside a young man in a white robe: "Be not affrighted; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here." ¹⁰ He told them to tell the disciples and Peter. Mark ends the scene with their fear: "they said nothing to any man; for they were afraid." ¹⁰

Luke names the women at the tomb differently, as "Mary Magdalen, and Joanna, and Mary of James, and the other women that were with them," and Salome is not named there. ¹¹ katolsk.no points out that Luke has Joanna where Mark has Salome. ² The current Martyrology follows Mark: Mary of Clopas and Salome came with Mary Magdalene on Easter morning to anoint the body of the Lord, and were the first to hear the news of his resurrection. ³

John's Gospel gives yet another list of women at the cross: "his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen." ¹² Driscoll reports that "some writers conjecture more or less plausibly" that the sister of the Blessed Virgin named there is Salome. ¹ Driscoll does not adopt the view himself, and adds that beyond the Gospel references "and what may be inferred from them nothing is known of Salome." ¹

Later legend gave her a life after Easter. katolsk.no records two. One says that she went to Veroli, in what is now the province of Frosinone in Lazio, and spent the rest of her life spreading the Gospel there. ² The other, which katolsk.no dates to the eleventh century and to the arrival of supposed relics at Vézelay, brings the three Marys by sea to Provence. ²

katolsk.no adds that in the sixth century Saint Caesarius of Arles built a convent beside a shrine of the Virgin in the Camargue, Sainte-Marie-de-la-Barque, which later became Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and that its church still keeps three venerated tombs said to hold the remains of the three Marys. ² In art Salome is shown with an ointment jar, a cup or a wine jug, and often with her two apostle sons. ²

None of the sources consulted names Saint Mary Salome as the patron saint of anything, and the page does not supply a patronage. ¹²³

Saint Mary Salome's feast day is April 24 in the current Roman Martyrology, which keeps on that day, at Jerusalem, a joint commemoration of the holy women Mary of Clopas and Salome. ³

Older books kept her alone on October 22. The 1897 English edition of the Martyrology reads, under that day, "At Jerusalem, of St. Mary Salome, who, as we read in the gospel, carefully attended to the burial of our Lord." ⁴ katolsk.no also gives October 22 as her own day, August 3 in the East, and May 25 as the feast of the Three Marys together. ²

The one thing Salome is remembered for saying is a mother's request, and it was the wrong request. ⁶ Jesus did not rebuke her. He told her and her sons that they did not know what they were asking, and asked them whether they could drink his chalice. ⁶ When he drank it himself, she was among the women watching from a distance. ⁸⁹

She followed him from Galilee and served him there, which Mark mentions almost in passing. ⁹ She bought spices with the other women after the sabbath to do the last thing that could be done for a dead man. ¹⁰ The first news of the resurrection came to women who had gone out to anoint a corpse. ³¹⁰

Mark does not tidy up how they took it. They ran from the tomb trembling and, for the moment, told no one. ¹⁰ The Martyrology still counts her among the first to hear. ³