Saint Salome

Salome (Hebrew, "שלומית", "Shelomit"), was a follower of Jesus who appears briefly in the canonical gospels and in more detail in apocryphal writings. She is sometimes identified as the wife of Zebedee, the mother of James and John, two of the Apostles of Jesus, and sometimes also as the sister of Mary, mother of Jesus. In Roman Catholic tradition Salome is identified with Mary, mother of James and counted as Mary Salome among the Three Marys. In Mark 15:40, Salome is named as one of the women present at the crucifixion: "There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome". The parallel passage of Matthew (27:56) reads thus: "Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children." The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) concludes that the Salome of Mark 15:40 is probably identical with the mother of the sons of Zebedee in Matthew; the latter is also mentioned in Matthew 20:20, in which she petitions Jesus to let her sons sit with him in Paradise. In John, three or perhaps four women are mentioned at the crucifixion; this time they are named as "his [Jesus'] mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." A common interpretation is to identify Salome as the sister-in-law of Jesus' mother, thus making her Jesus' aunt. Traditional interpretations associate Mary wife of Clophas (the third woman in the Gospel of John) with Mary the mother of James son of Alphaeus (the third woman in the Gospel of Matthew). In the Gospel of Mark, Salome is among the women who went to Jesus' tomb to anoint his body with spices. They discovered that the stone had been rolled away, and a figure in white then told them that Jesus had risen, and asked them to tell Jesus' disciples that he would meet them in Galilee. In Matthew, just two women are mentioned in the same story: Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary" - Mary the mother of James son of Alphaeus. The canonical gospels never go so far as to label Salome a "disciple" ("pupil" mathētēs), and so mainstream Christian writers usually describe her as a "follower" of Jesus per references to the women who "followed" and "ministered" to Jesus (Mk 15:41).