Was Mary Magdalene an apostle?

Yes—and not merely an apostle, but in many ways the foremost among them. The word apostle means "one who is sent," and after the resurrection it was Mary to whom the risen Christ first appeared, and her he sent to carry the news to the others (John 20:14-18, KJV). The early teachers gave her a title that says it plainly: the apostle to the apostles. She was the one sent to those who would themselves be sent. The canonical gospels honor her quietly. She stood at the cross when others fled (John 19:25, KJV). She came to the tomb in the dark, while it was yet night, seeking him (John 20:1, KJV). And when he spoke her name—"Mary"—she knew him (John 20:16, KJV). That moment of recognition is itself a teaching: the Christ is known not by argument but by the heart that loves. The recovered writings say more openly what the canon only hints at. In the Gospel of Mary, when the other disciples are weeping and afraid, it is Mary who steadies them, and Peter himself asks her to share what the Savior taught her in private, for "we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of women" (Gospel of Mary 10.1-6). She then teaches the men—and when Peter bristles at this, Levi rebukes him: "If the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her?" (Gospel of Mary 18.10-15). The Gospel of Philip calls her the companion of the Savior, whom he loved more than the rest (Gospel of Philip 63.32-36). So the resistance to her standing was there from the beginning, and it has never wholly died. But it is the resistance of those who measure worth by hierarchy and gender rather than by spiritual understanding. Jesus measured differently. The one who perceives the truth most clearly, who loves most fully, who recognizes the living Christ first—that one is sent. By every measure Jesus himself used, Mary was an apostle, and a great one. That she was a woman is no diminishment; before God, man and woman stand in equal dignity, two waves of one ocean. If you would like, I can sit with you longer in the Gospel of Mary itself, where her own voice survives.