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St Mary of Egypt -- 21 interesting facts
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Steve Hayes
Apr 1, 2012, 1:50:09 PM4/1/12
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Since in 2012 we celebrate a rare dual celebration of St. Mary of Egypt, today
being both her April 1st feast as well as her feast for the Fifth Sunday of
Great Lent, I thought I would compile some interesting facts about this great
saint.
1. Her life was recorded by St. Sophronios of Jerusalem, who served as
Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 to 638. He says St. Mary lived within his
lifetime and he heard the tale from a fellow monk of St. Zosimas himself.
2. One third of the Life is of Mary's first-person account to Zosimas of her
sinful youth, conversion, and flight into the desert.
3. Mary left home at 12-years-old, was a "prostitute" in Alexandria for 17
years, and at the age of 29 converted and left for the desert. During the
entire time she was a "prostitute", she never actually received payment for
her sexual favors, but survived by begging and by "spinning coarse flax
fibers". Her "prostitution" was merely to gratify her sexual appetite.
4. Mary must have been baptized as a child, since there is no record of her
having been baptized after her conversion. And in her story to Zosimas, she
says: "I am protected by Holy Baptism." Furthermore, we can assume she had
some sort of Christian education in her youth, since her first prayer of
repentance was addressed to the Virgin Mary.
5. Mary's conversion occurred on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross, which was on September 14th. We know that in 614 the Persians stole
fragments of the Cross from Jerusalem, and it wasn't returned until after the
Persian Campaign by Emperor Heraclius himself in 629.
6. The Icon of the Virgin Mary before which Mary of Egypt prayed in the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre was displayed “on a raised place” in the courtyard
before the Church of Constantine; it is mentioned, for example, by the
Piacenza Pilgrim (ca. 570) and by Epiphanios the Monk (8th century).
Epiphanios states explicitly that he saw “on the left side of Saint
Constantine ... the icon of the Most-holy Theotokos, who forbade Saint Mary to
enter the church on the day of the Exaltation.” St. John the Damascene
references this icon which St. Mary of Egypt prayed before in his defense of
holy icons.
7. Before going into the desert Mary received Holy Communion in the Church of
St. John the Baptist near the Jordan River. The church, built by the emperor
Anastasios I (491–518), was located approximately 8 km north of the Dead Sea
(and about 30 km from Jerusalem), at the traditional site of Christ’s baptism
by John the Baptist.
8. St. Euthymios the Great in the early 5th century was the first to introduce
the practice of monks going into the innermost desert of Palestine alone for
40 days. However, he establish for it to be done on January 14th following the
feast of Epiphany, in imitation of Christ who spent 40 days in the desert
following His baptism. Through prayer and fasting they thus prepared
themselves for Easter. A few decades later St. Savas the Sanctified moved the
date of the retreat to after the celebration of the feasts of Sts. Anthony and
Euthymios (17 and 20 January). Soon after it was placed to the first week of
Great Lent.
9. Mary lived 47 years in the desert, and never encountered a human being all
those years. Thus when she encountered Zosimas, she was 76-years-old. Zosimas
was 53-years-old when he encountered Mary in the desert, having lived in a
monastery since infancy. Mary died when she was approximately 78-years-old.
Zosimas died when he was nearly 100-years-old.
10. Mary encountered great temptation in the desert for 17 years, which is the
same number of years she lived a licentious lifestyle in Alexandria.
11. Since Mary was illiterate, the writing on the sand where her dead body lay
must be looked upon as miraculous.
12. Mary died on April 1st, which was a Holy Thursday. This means that Easter
that year was April 4th. If one consults a perpetual calendar that is keyed to
the Julian Calendar (the one in use at the time), one finds that there are 24
years in the relevant centuries on which April 1 occurs on a Thursday. Of
these, the years on which Easter would fall on April 4 according to the Julian
Calendar are: 443, 454, 527, 538, and 549. We must incur from all the evidence
of dates and ages mentioned above, that only the last two or three years are
candidates for the date of the death of Mary of Egypt.
13. The earliest manuscript of the Life of Mary of Egypt dates to the ninth
century.
14. Paul the Deacon translated the Life of Mary of Egypt to Latin in the 8th
century.
15. In the National Library of Athens alone, 27 manuscripts of the Life of
Mary of Egypt are preserved. 37 manuscripts are in the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris and numerous others in the libraries of Athos, Mt. Sinai, the
Vatican, Oxford and Cambridge. The great number indicates the popularity of
the text in both the East and West.
16. While the Orthodox Church celebrates Mary of Egypt's feast on the Fifth
Sunday of Great Lent and on April 1st, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates
her feast on either April 2, 3, 9, or 10, depending on the local tradition and
which calendar they follow. The Coptic Church celebrates her on April 14th.
17. There is a chapel dedicated to Mary of Egypt at the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem, commemorating the moment of her conversion.
18. The Temple of Portunus in Rome was preserved by being rededicated to Saint
Mary of Egypt in 872.
19. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that "relics of the saint are venerated at
Rome, Naples, Cremona, Antwerp, and some other places."
20. In Goethe's Faust Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who
pray to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set by Mahler
in his 8th Symphony as the final saint's appeal to the Mater Gloriosa.
21. Scholars who only view such texts as the Life of Mary of Egypt as
literature often try to prove that the life of Mary of Egypt was based on
previous accounts of a certain woman named Mary who lived in the Judean
desert, as described by St. Cyril of Skythopolis and St. John Moschos. But St.
Sophronios both in the beginning and at the end of his text goes to great
length to dissuade people from such thinking, assuring his readers that what
he wrote had never been recorded before and that he had heard the tale from a
monk of the monastery in which Zosimas lived and circulated the tale. He also
assured the reader that he would never make up such a holy tale, which he
believed would incur judgment upon him. To say that he borrowed from other
accounts, therefore, is highly improbable.
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/04/21-interesting-facts-about-st-mary-of.html
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
being both her April 1st feast as well as her feast for the Fifth Sunday of
Great Lent, I thought I would compile some interesting facts about this great
saint.
1. Her life was recorded by St. Sophronios of Jerusalem, who served as
Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 to 638. He says St. Mary lived within his
lifetime and he heard the tale from a fellow monk of St. Zosimas himself.
2. One third of the Life is of Mary's first-person account to Zosimas of her
sinful youth, conversion, and flight into the desert.
3. Mary left home at 12-years-old, was a "prostitute" in Alexandria for 17
years, and at the age of 29 converted and left for the desert. During the
entire time she was a "prostitute", she never actually received payment for
her sexual favors, but survived by begging and by "spinning coarse flax
fibers". Her "prostitution" was merely to gratify her sexual appetite.
4. Mary must have been baptized as a child, since there is no record of her
having been baptized after her conversion. And in her story to Zosimas, she
says: "I am protected by Holy Baptism." Furthermore, we can assume she had
some sort of Christian education in her youth, since her first prayer of
repentance was addressed to the Virgin Mary.
5. Mary's conversion occurred on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross, which was on September 14th. We know that in 614 the Persians stole
fragments of the Cross from Jerusalem, and it wasn't returned until after the
Persian Campaign by Emperor Heraclius himself in 629.
6. The Icon of the Virgin Mary before which Mary of Egypt prayed in the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre was displayed “on a raised place” in the courtyard
before the Church of Constantine; it is mentioned, for example, by the
Piacenza Pilgrim (ca. 570) and by Epiphanios the Monk (8th century).
Epiphanios states explicitly that he saw “on the left side of Saint
Constantine ... the icon of the Most-holy Theotokos, who forbade Saint Mary to
enter the church on the day of the Exaltation.” St. John the Damascene
references this icon which St. Mary of Egypt prayed before in his defense of
holy icons.
7. Before going into the desert Mary received Holy Communion in the Church of
St. John the Baptist near the Jordan River. The church, built by the emperor
Anastasios I (491–518), was located approximately 8 km north of the Dead Sea
(and about 30 km from Jerusalem), at the traditional site of Christ’s baptism
by John the Baptist.
8. St. Euthymios the Great in the early 5th century was the first to introduce
the practice of monks going into the innermost desert of Palestine alone for
40 days. However, he establish for it to be done on January 14th following the
feast of Epiphany, in imitation of Christ who spent 40 days in the desert
following His baptism. Through prayer and fasting they thus prepared
themselves for Easter. A few decades later St. Savas the Sanctified moved the
date of the retreat to after the celebration of the feasts of Sts. Anthony and
Euthymios (17 and 20 January). Soon after it was placed to the first week of
Great Lent.
9. Mary lived 47 years in the desert, and never encountered a human being all
those years. Thus when she encountered Zosimas, she was 76-years-old. Zosimas
was 53-years-old when he encountered Mary in the desert, having lived in a
monastery since infancy. Mary died when she was approximately 78-years-old.
Zosimas died when he was nearly 100-years-old.
10. Mary encountered great temptation in the desert for 17 years, which is the
same number of years she lived a licentious lifestyle in Alexandria.
11. Since Mary was illiterate, the writing on the sand where her dead body lay
must be looked upon as miraculous.
12. Mary died on April 1st, which was a Holy Thursday. This means that Easter
that year was April 4th. If one consults a perpetual calendar that is keyed to
the Julian Calendar (the one in use at the time), one finds that there are 24
years in the relevant centuries on which April 1 occurs on a Thursday. Of
these, the years on which Easter would fall on April 4 according to the Julian
Calendar are: 443, 454, 527, 538, and 549. We must incur from all the evidence
of dates and ages mentioned above, that only the last two or three years are
candidates for the date of the death of Mary of Egypt.
13. The earliest manuscript of the Life of Mary of Egypt dates to the ninth
century.
14. Paul the Deacon translated the Life of Mary of Egypt to Latin in the 8th
century.
15. In the National Library of Athens alone, 27 manuscripts of the Life of
Mary of Egypt are preserved. 37 manuscripts are in the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris and numerous others in the libraries of Athos, Mt. Sinai, the
Vatican, Oxford and Cambridge. The great number indicates the popularity of
the text in both the East and West.
16. While the Orthodox Church celebrates Mary of Egypt's feast on the Fifth
Sunday of Great Lent and on April 1st, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates
her feast on either April 2, 3, 9, or 10, depending on the local tradition and
which calendar they follow. The Coptic Church celebrates her on April 14th.
17. There is a chapel dedicated to Mary of Egypt at the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem, commemorating the moment of her conversion.
18. The Temple of Portunus in Rome was preserved by being rededicated to Saint
Mary of Egypt in 872.
19. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that "relics of the saint are venerated at
Rome, Naples, Cremona, Antwerp, and some other places."
20. In Goethe's Faust Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who
pray to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set by Mahler
in his 8th Symphony as the final saint's appeal to the Mater Gloriosa.
21. Scholars who only view such texts as the Life of Mary of Egypt as
literature often try to prove that the life of Mary of Egypt was based on
previous accounts of a certain woman named Mary who lived in the Judean
desert, as described by St. Cyril of Skythopolis and St. John Moschos. But St.
Sophronios both in the beginning and at the end of his text goes to great
length to dissuade people from such thinking, assuring his readers that what
he wrote had never been recorded before and that he had heard the tale from a
monk of the monastery in which Zosimas lived and circulated the tale. He also
assured the reader that he would never make up such a holy tale, which he
believed would incur judgment upon him. To say that he borrowed from other
accounts, therefore, is highly improbable.
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2012/04/21-interesting-facts-about-st-mary-of.html
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
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