De sancta Maria Aegyptiaca
The Encounter in the Desert
The hermit Zosimas encounters the mysterious and holy Mary of Egypt in the wilderness.
Mary of Egypt, who is called the sinner, lived a life of extreme austerity in the desert for forty-seven years, having entered it around the year of our Lord 270, in the time of Claudius. An abbot named Zosimas, while crossing the Jordan and traveling through the vast desert hoping to find some holy father, saw someone walking with a body that was naked, black, and scorched by the sun. This was Mary of Egypt, and she immediately fled, with Zosimas running after her even faster. Then she said, "Abbot Zosimas, why are you chasing me?" Forgive me, but I cannot face you because I am a woman and naked; please throw me your cloak so I can see you without shame. Hearing himself named, he was astonished; he gave her his cloak and prostrated himself on the ground, asking for her blessing. To this she replied, "The blessing belongs more to you, Father, whom the dignity of the priesthood adorns." When he heard that she knew his name and his office, he was even more amazed and begged her all the more earnestly to bless him.
A Life of Repentance
Mary recounts her past life of sin and her miraculous conversion at the doors of the church in Jerusalem.
Then she said, "Blessed be God, the redeemer of our souls." As she prayed with her hands outstretched, he saw her lifted about a cubit off the ground. Then the old man began to wonder if she might be a spirit, and if she were performing her prayer through some illusion. To this she replied, "May God forgive you, for you thought I was an unclean spirit because I am a sinful woman." Then Zosimas adjured her by the Lord to tell him her story. She answered him, "Forgive me, Father, for if I tell you my state, you will flee as if terrified by a serpent, and your ears will be defiled by my words, and the very air will be polluted by my filth." But when he insisted vehemently, she said, "I was born in Egypt, brother; in my twelfth year I came to Alexandria, and there for seventeen years I publicly gave myself over to lust and denied myself to no one." When the people of that region were going up to Jerusalem to adore the holy cross, I asked the sailors to let me go with them." When they asked me for the fare, I said, 'Brothers, I have no other fare, but you may take my body instead,' and so they took me and accepted my body as payment. But when I reached Jerusalem and arrived with the others at the church doors to worship the cross, I was suddenly and invisibly pushed back and not allowed to enter. Again and again I reached the threshold of the door, and each time I was suddenly met with the injury of being turned away. Since everyone else had free access and faced no obstacles, I looked inward and, thinking this was happening because of the enormity of my sins, I began to beat my chest, shed bitter tears, and sigh heavily from the depths of my heart; then, looking up, I saw an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I began to pray to her with tears, asking that she might obtain forgiveness for my sins. And that she might allow me to enter to worship the holy cross, promising that I would renounce the world and from then on live in chastity. After I prayed this and felt confident in the name of the Blessed Virgin, I approached the church doors again and entered without any trouble. But when I had worshipped the holy cross most devoutly, someone gave me three coins, with which I bought three loaves of bread, and I heard a voice saying to me: 'If you cross the Jordan, you will be saved.'
The Grace of the Eucharist
Mary describes her years of solitude and requests that Zosimas bring her the Holy Eucharist.
I crossed the Jordan and came into this desert, where I lived for forty-seven years without seeing another human being. The three loaves I brought with me stayed as hard as stone the whole time, yet they were enough to sustain me for those forty-seven years. My clothes have long since rotted away, and for seventeen years in this desert I was tormented by carnal temptations, but now, by the grace of God, I have overcome them all. Look, I have told you my whole story, and I ask that you pour out your prayers to God for me. Then the old man prostrated himself on the ground and blessed the Lord for His servant. She said to him, 'I beg you, return to the Jordan on the day of the Lord's Supper and bring the Lord's Body with you. I will meet you there and receive the Lord's Body from your hands, for I have not received Communion since the day I came here.' The old man returned to his monastery, and when the day of the Supper drew near, he took the Lord's Body and went to the bank of the Jordan. Looking across to the other side, he saw the woman standing there; she made the sign of the cross over the water, walked across it, and reached the old man. Seeing her, the old man was struck with awe and humbly prostrated himself at her feet. She said to him, 'Watch what you are doing, for you are carrying the Sacraments.' Keep the Lord's day in your heart and shine with the dignity of your priesthood, but I beg you, Father, to be so kind as to return to me next year. Then, having made the sign of the cross, she walked over the waters of the Jordan and sought the solitude of the desert.
The Saint's Departure
Zosimas returns to find Mary has passed away and, with the help of a lion, lays her to rest.
The old man returned to his monastery the following year, went to the place where he had first spoken with her, and found that she had passed away. He began to weep and didn't dare to touch her, saying to himself, "I wanted to bury the saint's body, but I'm afraid that might displease her." While he was thinking this, he saw words written on the ground near her head that read: "Zosimas, bury the body of Mary, return her dust to the earth, and pray for me to the Lord, at whose command I left this world on the second day of April." The old man then knew for certain that as soon as she had received the Lord's Sacrament and returned to the desert, she had finished her life; and that she had crossed in one hour the same desert that Zosimas had struggled to walk through in thirty days, and had migrated to God. As the old man tried to dig the earth but couldn't, he saw a lion approaching him gently, and he said to it, "The holy woman commanded that her body be buried here, and since I am an old man, I cannot dig, nor do I have a tool; you dig the earth, so that we may bury her most holy body." Then the lion began to dig and prepared a suitable grave; once that was done, the lion left like a gentle lamb, and the old man returned to his monastery, glorifying God.
Read the original Latin
Maria Aegyptiaca, quae peccatrix appellatur, XLVII annis in eremo artissimam vitam duxit, quam circa annos domini CCLXX tempore Claudii intravit. Quidam autem abbas nomine Zosimas, dum Jordanem transiisset et eremum magnam percurreret, si forte aliquem sanctum patrem inveniret, vidit quendam ambulantem nudo nigroque corpore et ex incendio solis exusto. Hoc autem erat Maria Aegyptiaca statimque haec fugam arripuit et Zosimas post eam velocius currere coepit. Tunc ait illa: abbas Zosima, quid me persequeris? Ignosce mihi, non possum faciem meam ad te convertere, eo quod mulier sum et nnda, sed pallium tuum mihi porrige, ut possim sine verecundia te videre. Qni se nominari audiens stupefactus pallium tribuit et in terram prostratus, ut se benediceret, rogavit. Cui illa: ad te, pater, benedictio magis spectat, quem sacerdotii dignitas ornat. llle ut audivit, quod nomen et officium ejus sciret, amplius mirabatur et se benedici obnixius precabatur.
Tunc illa: benedictus Deus redemtor animarum nostrarum. Cumque illa extensis manibus oraret, vidit eam quasi unius cubiti mensura elevari a terra. Tunc senex dubitare coepit, ne forte spiritus esset et fiugendo orationem faceret. Cui illa: satisfaciat libi Deus, qui me peceatricem mulierem immundum spiritum existimasti. Tune Zosimas illam per dominum conjuravit, ut conditionem suam ei narrare deberet. Cui illa: ignosce mihi, pater, quia, si tibi statum meum narravero, velut a serpente territus fugies et aures tuae à sermonibus meis contaminabuntur et aër a sordibus polluetur. Cumque ille vehementer instaret, dixit: ego, frater, in Aegypto nata sum, XII aetatis meae anno Alexandriam veni ibique XVII annis publice libidini me subjeci et nulli ullatenus me negavi. Cum autem homines regionis illius pro adoranda sancta cruce Hierosolimam adscenderent, rogavi nautas, ut me secum mitterent proficisci.
Cum vero me de maulo requirerent, dixi: non habeo, fratres, aliud naulum, sed pro naulo corpus habeatis meum, sicque sumserunt me et corpus meum nauli gratia habuerunt. Cum autem Hierosolimam pervenissem et pro adoranda cruce usque ad fores ecclesiae cum aliis devenissem, subito et invisibiliter repulsam patior nec intus intrare permittor. lterum autem atque iterum perveni usque ad limen januae et subito injuriam patiebar repulsae. Cum tamen omnes liberum haberent aditum nec aliquod invenirent impedimentum, rediens igitur ad me et cogitans, quod hoc mihi ob scelerum meorum immanitatem accideret, pectus meum coepi manibus tundere, lacrymas amarissimas fundere et a cordis intimo graviter süspirare, respiciensque vidi ibi imaginem beatae virginis Mariae. Tunc ipsam lacrymabiliter exorare coepi, ut peccatorum meorum veniam impetraret. et ad adorandam crucem sanctam me intrare permitteret, promittens me saeculo abrenuntiaturam et de caetero caste mansuram. Cumque hoc orassem et in nomine beatae virginis fiduciam recepissem, fores iterum ecclesiae adii et siue aliquo impedimento ecclesiam intravi. Cum autem sanctam crucem devotissime adorassem, quidam mihi tres nummos tribuit, de quibus tres panes emi, audivique vocem dicentem mihi: si Jordanem iransieris, salva eris.
Jordanem igitur transivi et in hoc desertum veni, ubi XLVII annis nullum penitus hominem videns mansi, illi autem tres panes, quos mecum detuli, instar lapidis per tempora duraverunt et XLVII annis mihi ex his comedendo suffecerunt, vestimenta autem mea jamdudum putrefacta sunt, XVII annis in hoc deserto a tentationibus carnalibus molestata fui, sed nunc per Dei gratiam omnes vici: ecce omnia opera mea tibi narravi et rogo, ut pro me ad Deum preces fundas. "Tunc senex ad terram prostratus in famula sua dominum benedixit. Cui illa: obsecro te, ut in die dominicae coenae ad Jordanem redeas et corpus dominicum tecum feras; ego ibidem tibi occurram et de manu tua corpus sarum suscipiam, nam a die, qua huc veni, communionem domini non accepi. Rediens igitur senex ad monasterium voluto anno, dum dies coenae-appropinquaret, tulit corpus dominicum et usque ad ripam Jordanis veniens ex alia ripa mulierem stantem prospexit, quae super aquas facto crucis signaculo ivit et ad senem usque pervenit. Quam videns senex obstupuit et ad pedes ejus humiliter se prostravit. Cui illa: vide, ne feceris, cum sacramenta. dominica penes te habeas et sacerdotii dignitate refulgeas, sed obsecro, ut sequenti anno ad me, pater, redire digneris. Tunc illa facto signo crucis super Jordanis aquas ivit et eremi solitudinem petivit.
Senex vero ad suum monasterium rediens sequenti anno åd locum, in quo primum secum locutus fuerat, venit et eam ibidem exspirasse reperit. Qui laerymari coepit et ipsam tangere non praesumsit, dixitque intra se: ego quidem corpusculum sanctae sepelire volebam, sed timeo, ne hoe sibi displiceat. Hoc eo cogitante vidit juxta caput suum litteras in terra descriptas ita continentes: sepeli, Zosima, Mariae corpusculum , redde terrae pulverem suum et ora pro me ad dominum, àd cujus praeceptum secundo die Aprilis reliqui hoc saeculum. "Tunc senex pro certo cognovit, quod mox, ut domini sacramentum accepit et ad desertum rediit, vitam finivit illudque desertum, quod Zosimas per XXX dierum spatium vix ambulavit, illa in una hora percurrit et ad Deum migravit. Cumque senex terram foderet, sed nequiret, vidit leonem ad se venientem mansuete, dixitque illi: saneta huc mulier praecepit sepeliri corpus suum et ego, cum sim senex, fodere non possum nec etiam habeoferramentum, tu ergo terram fode, ut possimus ejus corpus sanctissimum sepelire. Tunc leo coepit fodere et aptam foveam praeparavit, quo peracto leo nt agnus mansuetus abiit et senex ad suum monasterium glorificans Deum venit.
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