Mary of Egypt | |
|---|---|
 18th-centuryRussian icon of Saint Mary of Egypt | |
| Born | Province of Egypt |
| Died | Trans-Jordan desert,Palaestina |
| Venerated in | |
| Canonized | Pre-congregation |
| Feast |
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| Attributes | Cilice, skull, loaves of bread |
| Patronage | Chastity (warfare against the flesh; deliverance from carnal passions); demons (deliverance from); fever; skin diseases; temptations of the flesh[2] |
Mary of Egypt (Greek:Μαρία ἡ Αἰγυπτία;Coptic:Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ Ⲛⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ;Egyptian Arabic:مريم المصرية/ماريا المصرية;Amharic/Geez: ቅድስት ማርያም ግብፃዊት;Latin:Maria Aegyptiaca) was an Egyptiangrazer saint, said to have dwelled inByzantine-era Palestine in the5th century AD (inlate antiquity /Early Middle Ages).[3][4]
ThehagiographyThe Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt tells her life story through the framing device of her encounter with thehieromonkZosimas of Palestine near the Jordan River. Mary recounts to Zosimas debauched life oflust so great she traveled from Alexandria to Jerusalem seeking to seduce pilgrims traveling to theElevation of the Holy Cross. Arriving at theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre she encounters the power of an icon of theMary the mother of Jesus barring her entrance. She receives instructions to cross theJordan River to seek glorious rest wandering the desert as anascetic. Mary and Zosimas then part ways resolving to meet by the Jordan one year later so that Zosimas can administerHoly Communion; at this meeting Zosimas witnesses Marywalking on the water.[5][6]
The story concludes with Zosimas waiting one year hence to reunite only to find Mary's deceased body; after praying he receives divine instruction to provide herChristian burial. The hagiography then states that Zosimas told his fellow monks about Mary, who after his own death told the story to the text's credited authorSophronius,Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the7th century.[5]
Later, in the8th century the hagiography was read into the record at the Fourth Session of the historicalSecond Council of Nicaea, preserving it. The Council, debating whether to revive the practice of icon veneration amidByzantine iconoclasm, heard Mary of Egypt's conversion as an argument for the virtues of icons.[7]
TheRoman Martyrology of theCatholic Church,Synaxarion of Constantinople ofEastern Orthodox Church, and the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion of theCoptic Orthodox Church each list Mary of Egypt as a saint with a feast day.[8][9][10] TheMartyrology characterizes her time in the desert as an act ofpenitence andmortification. In contrast, theSynaxarion of Constantinople emphasizes her time in the desert as spiritual elevation throughself-control.[8][10]
Thehistoricity of Mary of Egypt is uncertain and has been questioned by some historians.[11][12] Art historians further note that artists ofMedieval andRenaissance Europe regularlyconflated Mary of Egypt withMary Magdalene.[13][14]
According to tradition, Mary of Egypt was born somewhere in theRoman Province of Egypt, and at the age of twelve ran away from her parents to the city ofAlexandria. There, she lived an extremely dissolute life.[15] In herVita it states that she often refused the money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion", and that she mainly lived by begging, supplemented byspinningflax.[5]
After seventeen years of this lifestyle, she traveled toJerusalem for theGreat Feasts of theExaltation of the Holy Cross. She undertook the journey as a sort of "anti-pilgrimage", stating that she hoped to find in the pilgrim crowds at Jerusalem even more partners to sate her lust. She paid for her passage by offering sexual favors to otherpilgrims, and she briefly continued her habitual lifestyle in Jerusalem. HerVita relates that when she tried to enter theChurch of the Holy Sepulchre for the celebrations, she was barred by an unseen force. Realizing this was because of her impurity, she was struck with remorse, and upon seeing anicon of theTheotokos (theVirgin Mary) outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness and promised to give up the world (i.e., become anascetic). She attempted again to enter the church, and this time was able to go in. After venerating therelic of theTrue Cross, she returned to the icon to give thanks, and heard a voice telling her, "If you cross the Jordan, you will find glorious rest." She immediately went to themonastery of SaintJohn the Baptist on the banks of theRiver Jordan, where she receivedabsolution and afterwardsHoly Communion. The next morning, she crossed the Jordan eastwards and retired to the desert to live the rest of her life as ahermit in penitence. She took with her only three loaves of bread she had bought, and once she had eaten these, lived only on what she could find in the wilderness.[5][16]
Approximately one year before her death, she recounted her life toZosimas of Palestine,[17] who encountered her in the desert. When he unexpectedly met her in the desert, she was completely naked and almost unrecognizable as human. She asked Zosimas to toss her hismantle to cover herself with, and then she narrated her life's story to him. She asked him to meet her at the banks of the Jordan onHoly Thursday of the following year, and to bring her Holy Communion. When he fulfilled her wish, she crossed the river to get to him by walking on the water, and received Holy Communion, telling him to meet her again in the desert the following Lent.[5]
The next year, Zosimas went to the same spot where he first met her, some twenty days' journey from his monastery. There, he found her lying dead; an inscription written in the sand next to her head stated that she had died the very night he had given her Communion, herincorrupt body miraculously transported to that spot. He buried her body with the assistance of a passinglion. On returning to his monastery, he related her life story to the other brethren, and it was preserved among them asoral tradition until it was written down by Sophronius.[5]
There is disagreement among various sources regarding the dates of Mary's life. Some scholars doubt her existence, on the grounds of the similarity of herVita to the stories of other "desert mothers": "[I]t is impossible to provide a chronology for the life of Mary, or even to establish her historicity."[12] The dates given above correspond to those in theCatholic Encyclopedia. TheBollandists place her death in 421, or 530 (seeProlog from Ohrid, 1 April). The only clue given in herVita is the fact that the day of her repose was 1 April, which is stated to beHoly Thursday, meaning thatEaster fell on 4 April that year.
Iniconography, Mary of Egypt is depicted covered by her long hair or by the mantle she borrowed from Zosimas. She is often shown with the three loaves of bread she bought before her final journey into the desert.[18] Depictions in Russian and Greek icons preserved the tradition of depicting Mary of Egypt as gaunt and emaciated, but artists of Western Europe often conflated Mary of Egypt with Mary Magdalene and produced depictions that combined features of the two.[13][14]
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Herfeast day is kept by Orthodox Christians andGreek Catholics, according to theFixed Cycle, on 1 April, and, according to theMoveable Cycle, on the fifth Sunday ofGreat Lent,[19] on which day it is customary for the priest to blessdried fruit after theDivine Liturgy. TheLife of St Mary by Sophronius is appointed to be read during theMatins of theGreat Canon ofAndrew of Crete on the preceding Thursday, which is accompanied with a canon to her and Andrew sung after each ode of the Great Canon itself.[20]
The Coptic Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Mary of Egypt onParmouti 6, which is 14 April in theGregorian calendar.[21]
In theRoman Rite of the Catholic Church, Saint Mary of Egypt is commemorated on 1 April according to the 2004Roman Martyrology (Ordinary Form) and on 2 April in the 1956 Roman Martyrology (Extraordinary Form].[22]
She is venerated byAnglicans and appears on theEpiscopal Church liturgical calendar.[23]
In Italy, she became associated with the patronage of "fallen women" much likeMary Magdalene, to whom similar traits were associated.
There are a number of churches and chapels dedicated to Saint Mary of Egypt, among them:
![Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca a Forcella, Naples founded in 1342 to house repenting prostitutes.[24]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aChiesa_di_Santa_Maria_Egiziaca_a_Forcella_-_panoramio.jpg)
![Church of Santa Maria Egiziaca a Pizzofalcone, Naples founded as a offshoot of the church at Forcella for a life closer to the cloistered ideal.[25]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aEgiziacaPizzo2.jpg)
First-classrelics of Saint Mary of Egypt are enshrined at the following churches:
Two icons of the Theotokos are claimed to be the very icon before which Mary of Egypt prayed for forgiveness. One is kept in the Chapel of Saint James the Just, located on the western parvis of the Church of Holy Sepulchre.[33] The other icon is located in the Cave of Saint Athanasios the Athonite, on the southern tip ofMount Athos.[34]
The cave believed to be the location where Mary of Egypt spent the rest her life following her conversion is a place of pilgrimage.[35][36]
Rosa Egipcíaca, anAfro-Brazilian religious mystic and formerly enslaved prostitute, renamed herself in 1798 to honour Saint Mary of Egypt.[37] Egipcíaca was the first black woman in Brazil to write a book,Sagrada Teologia do Amor Divino das Almas Peregrinas ("Holy Theology of Divine Love of the Pilgrim Souls"), that recorded her religious visions.[38]
InGoethe'sFaust, Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who pray to theVirgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set byMahler in his8th Symphony, as the final saint's appeal to theMater Gloriosa.
In Ben Jonson's playVolpone (1606) one of the characters uses the expression "Marry Gip". Commentators have taken this to mean "Mary of Egypt".[39]
Mary of Egypt is the subject ofoperas byOttorino Respighi (Maria egiziaca),John Craton (Saint Mary of Egypt), and SirJohn Tavener (Mary of Egypt). The Tavener opera was written in 1992 for theAldeburgh Festival.
The Unknown Masterpiece (1831), a novella byBalzac, contains a long description of a portrait of Mary of Egypt "undressing in order to pay her passage to Jerusalem".
Nalo Hopkinson'sscience fictionnovel,The Salt Roads, also features Mary of Egypt and takes ahistorical fiction approach to telling her story.
InJohn Berryman'sPulitzer Prize winning book of poetry,The Dream Songs, poem 47, subtitled "April Fool's Day, or, St. Mary of Egypt", recounts Mary of Egypt's walk across theRiver Jordan.
"Thrust back by hands of air from the sanctuary door" is the first line ofMaria Aegyptiaca, a poem byJohn Heath-Stubbs about the saint (Collected Poems, p. 289).
