oldest profession in the gospel of luke, just before the first account of mary of magdala. and gregory the great, at the end of the sixth century, read that story, and read about mary, and conflated the two and drew the conclusion that mary herself was a prostitute. >> gregory the great just happened to be pope. and when he preached this revised version of mary magdalene in the year 591, his sermon turned her into a fallen woman for the next 1,400 years. while mary magdalene was being downgraded, mary of nazareth was getting her own makeover -- one that some say fills a primal need. >> what we need is to be able to conceive of the sacred, of the divine, without gender. until we reach that stage -- and we're not there yet -- just as the ancients needed a goddess, so do we, too. and mary becomes that goddess. [ male announcer ] this is george.