Sara: the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Known as Black Sara, this patron saint of gypsies has extraordinary affiliations. Among them, being the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

The first legends about Jesus and his marriage to Mary Magdalene come from the time immediately after that of Jesus himself. However, these stories were relegated and finally displaced towards visions considered heretical, so that they became clandestine, secret and, above all, dangerous stories.

The possibility that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that a girl was born from that union gained strength in the Middle Ages; especially in the south of France, more precisely in the region of Aix en Provence, where tradition assures that Martha and Lazarus of Bethany arrived from their exile along with a pregnant Mary Magdalene.

Other legends maintain that Sara was not born in France, but arrived on the shores of Britain with Joseph of Arimathea and a court of followers of Christ who had fled Palestine, among them, Mary Salome, Mary of Cleopas, Maximinus, Marcela , Celandine, Trophimus of Arles and some others

The trip to France was made thanks to a nautical miracle. The boat crossed the Mediterranean without rudder or sails until reaching Our Lady of Ratios, which since 1838 was called Saintes Maries de la Mer, in the region of Provence, very close to Arles. According to tradition the group dispersed in the year 48 AD Lazarus went to preach in Marseille, Martha and Marcella to Tarascon, Maximus went to Aix en Provence, Trophimus to Arles and Mary retired to a cave in the mountains of Saint Maximin la. Sainte Baume.

Sara’s figure, on the other hand, is much more elusive. Medieval legends barely suggest it as a disturbing possibility. Because her main task was to beg to finance the evangelizing expeditions of her companions, she was associated with the gypsy people, and since then she has been considered their patron saint or saint, even though she was never canonized.

However, legends often contradict each other, offering very different versions of the same character. For example, Sarah is also said to have lived for a time on the banks of the Rhône in Gaul. There she practiced a very powerful kind of primordial magic. The gypsies adored her, and once a year they held a procession to her house to receive her blessing. This same tradition maintains that Sarah was not actually the daughter of Jesus, and that her task was to help the exiles from Palestine who were seeking refuge in that area.

Those who defend the theory that Sara was the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene maintain that the girl’s true identity had to be protected at all costs; and that it was not strange that she was made to pass as her servant in order to protect her from her enemies.

Sara appears in many oral traditions, but only in 1521 was she mentioned in a text by Vincent Philippon called: The Legend of the Saint Marys (La légende des Saintes-Maries). There it is said that in 1447 René of Anjou asked Pope Nicholas V for a bull to allow him to trace the bodies of the saints who were secularly venerated in the region. Renato found the mortal remains of Mary Magdalene and her companions, and they were placed in ornate reliquaries. Poor Sara, on the other hand, did not qualify as a saint, so her remains were preserved in very modest reliquaries, as Jean de Labrune would later record.

Historically, no cult of Sara, the hypothetical daughter of Jesus, is recognized, at least before 1800. Folklorist Fernand Benoit comments that the gypsies carry out a strange annual procession just before the procession of the Marys. This tradition comes from the 15th century, although it is not known for sure if its objective was to secretly worship Sara.

Those who are in favor of the figure of Sara as the daughter of Jesus, maintain that the gypsies sought to mask their cult, and that they worshiped her in the form of a black woman, whose statue was carried on litters to the sea shores.

In this sense, the hypothesis is anthropologically unviable. The gypsies come from India, where they worshiped the goddess Kali, represented as a woman black as ebony, and her worship consisted of long pilgrimages to the sea. Too many coincidences to be two different cults.

Sara’s story does not end here. The idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that together they gave birth to Sarah is strongly established in local legends. However, no conclusive evidence has been found that places her cult in ancient times.

For lovers of etymologies, it must be said that the name Sara, in Hebrew Sarah, literally means “princess.”

Mythology. I Biblical myths.

The article: Sara: the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene was carried out by . For reproduction, write to us at