John Lightfoot on Luke 8:2

[Mary called Magdalene.] Whence should she have this name?

I. We have observed above, in our notes upon Matthew 27:56, that there is mention made in the Talmudic authors of Maria Magdila the daughter of Maria, a plaiter of women's hair; who they say was the wife of Papus Ben Juda, but an adulteress. They make this Papus contemporary with Rabban Gamaliel (of Jafneh) and R. Joshua, and with R. Akibah: who all lived both before and after the destruction of Jerusalem: so that the times do not very much disagree. And probable it is, that the Gemarists retained some memory of our Mary Magdalene, in the word Magdila.

II. We further observe in our notes upon John 12, that there was a certain town near Jerusalem called Magdala, of a very ill fame, which perhaps was Bethany itself; or be it some other, yet might our Mary (if she was the sister of Lazarus) not unfitly be called Magdalene, either as she might have lived there some time, being there married, or have imitated the whorish customs of that place. But I am apt to think that Bethany itself might go under the name of Magdala.

[Out of whom went seven devils.] As to the number seven, we contend not, when there is hardly any thing more useful than to put this certain number for an uncertain. Our difficulty is, whether these words are to be taken according to their letter, or according to the Jewish sense, who were wont to call vices by the name of devils: as "An evil affection is Satan": "Drunkenness by new wine is a devil." If this Mary be the same with the woman that was a sinner in the foregoing chapter, as is believed, then by devils seems to be understood the vices to which she was addicted: especially when both the Pharisee and evangelist call her a sinner, rather than demoniac. But this we leave at the choice of the reader.