Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 8:2

"and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out," — Luke 8:2 (ASV)

And certain women.—These words present us with a feature in this period of our Lord’s ministry not recorded elsewhere, though implied in Luke 23:49. At this period, the Master and the disciples formed one traveling company. When they arrived at a town or village, they held what we, in the current church language of our time, would call a Mission; the Twelve heralded His approach and invited people to listen to Him as He taught in the synagogue, the marketplace, or the open plain.

Another company, consisting of devout women, mostly from the wealthier class, traveled separately, probably journeying in advance to arrange for the reception and food of the Prophet and His followers. In the history of Elisha (2 Kings 4:10), we find something analogous to this way of helping the preachers of repentance. It is said to have been a fairly common practice in Judea in our Lord’s time for women of independent means to support a Rabbi in his work as a teacher.

Mary called Magdalene.—Regarding the legends and conjectures connected with her name, see Notes on Luke 7:37 and Matthew 27:56. Here it is enough to note the following:

1. Being from Magdala, a town near Tiberias (see Note on Matthew 15:39), she had probably heard our Lord during one of His early mission journeys.
2. The “seven devils” or “demons” (as mentioned in the parable of Matthew 12:45) point to a particularly severe form of possession, with paroxysms of delirious frenzy similar to those of the Gadarene demoniac.
3. Her presence with the mother of our Lord and Saint John at the Crucifixion (John 19:25) seems to imply a special bond of either sympathy or earlier connection with them.
4. She appears, from the names with which she is associated and from the fact that she too ministered of her substance, to have belonged to the wealthier segment of Galilean society.

Later Western legends tell of her coming with Lazarus and Martha to Marseilles and living for thirty years a life of penitence in a cave near Arles. The Eastern form of the legend, however, has her coming to Ephesus with the Virgin and Saint John, and dying there.