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Research into ancient historians’ accounts of first century Rome, and a parallel study of a specific allegorical method of interpreting scripture, unexpectedly led to the historical identity of the woman known as Mary Magdalene. She used several other aliases, all of which she carried longer than the one to three years she appeared as Jesus’ faithful disciple in the First Annual Passover Passion Pageant.

It has long been suspected that women in ancient times were forced to pose as men if they wished to serve in non-traditional roles. And so, this same woman, using one of her several given names, wrote under the pseudonym, Philo, the famous philosopher of Alexandria, Egypt. Her two “nephews,” Marcus and Julius (sons of Alexander the Alabarch), were in fact her sons. Their father Alexander was her step-brother, indeed making them “Philo’s nephews.” But Alexander was also “Philo’s” husband, and Philo was Marcus and Julius's mother. 

These endeavors and adventures would seem to be enough for any one woman’s lifetime. But more astounding still is another alias she assumed during the reign of Emperor Claudius. “Philo” shared a famous grandfather with Claudius: Marcus Antonius – Marc Antony. Emperor Claudius’s grandmother was Marc Antony’s fourth wife Octavia Minor (Emperor Augustus Caesar’s sister). “Mary Magdalene”/“Philo’s” grandmother was Antony’s fifth wife Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. “Grandpa Marcus” was clearly attracted to women who had access to immense power; his grandson Claudius and granddaughter Philo wielded no less.

As the “freedman” called Marcus Antonius Pallas, Claudius’s secretary of the treasury, the woman who was known as “Mary Magdalene” – and who wrote as “Philo” – became, according to historians of the time, the most powerful man in first Century Rome. This novel tells how she and her family managed to preserve herstory and history right under the censors' noses.

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