This article accompanies the fable
Sacred Prostitute



Prostitutes in Antiquity

"Prostitutes usually were slaves, daughters who had been sold or rented out by their parents, wives who were rented out by their husbands, poor women, exposed girls, the divorced and widowed, single mothers, captives of war or piracy, women bought for soldiers -- in short, women who could not derive a livelihood... In Palestine, torn by war, colonial taxation, and famine, the number of such women must have been great." - Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza "In Memory of Her" (1998 edition), p.128

The painting of Mary Magdalene is by Pietro Perugino around 1500, a few years before his contemporary Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. They both have the same faraway look.