The door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: it was here that Mary found herself barred by an unseen but irresistible force. The account of her life given here comes from a Martyrology that was read out to the community at Syon Abbey near Isleworth (pronounced eyes-ul-worth), on the Middlesex (left) bank of the Thames in west London. Founded in 1415 by Henry V, the Abbey was home to a mixed community of Bridgittine monks and nuns, who kept the Augustinian rule as laid down by Bridget of Sweden in 1344. The passage dedicated to Mary of Egypt is one of the longest in the collection, showing that English interest in her remarkable life had not waned since Anglo-Saxon times.
Part 1 of 2
APRIL 1st.* At Palestine, the feast of saint Mary of Egypt — so called because she was born in Egypt and from thence came unto the city of Alexandria. There from the age of twelve years unto twenty-nine, she lived all in filthy lechery, a common woman.* Then came she unto Jerusalem to see the holy cross,* but Christ would not suffer her to come in to the temple;* then she looked by, and saw an image of our blessed lady, before which she knelt with deep contrition and plenteous tears; weeping, besought her of help and succour, and then she entered in to the temple and honoured the holy cross with great reverence and deep devotion, meekly beseeching forgiveness and mercy.
* The Feast of St Mary of Egypt is kept on April 1st, the day of her death, though in churches of the Eastern tradition another commemoration of her is made on the Fifth Sunday of Lent each year. St Sophronius (560-638), Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634, says that Mary told her story to an elderly St Zosimus, who lived sometime between 460 and 560. Mary died on Thursday in Holy Week, so Easter that year fell on Sunday April 4th, which (calculated according to the Julian calendar and the Alexandrian paschalion) happened in the years 527, 538 and 549, during the reign of Emperor Justinian (527-565).
* Naturally, this brief account intended for edification in a mixed community of monks and nuns does not dwell salaciously on Mary’s life prior to her conversion. St Sophronius explains that she was a sex addict so compulsive and so thoroughly predatory that she had become a danger to herself and everyone around her. “I was like a fire of public debauch” she said. “And it was not for the sake of gain — here I speak the pure truth. Often when they wished to pay me, I refused the money. I acted in this way so as to make as many men as possible to try to obtain me, doing free of charge what gave me pleasure.”
* This was for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, on September 14th. For the background, see St Helen Finds the True Cross. The church was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Mary boarded a ship of pilgrims bound for Jerusalem because of the sheer number of men in a confined place — “hunting for youths” as she called it — many of whom she aggressively seduced on the voyage. It was only after landing in Jerusalem that the whim came over her to see the cross inside the church.
* “It was as if there was a detachment of soldiers standing there” Mary told Zosimus “to oppose my entrance.” She gave up after three or four attempts.
Précis
In the days of Henry VIII, the community at Syon Abbey would hear every April 1st about Mary of Egypt, who sexually preyed on young men. One day, she tried to see the True Cross in Jerusalem, but found herself invisibly barred from the church until, catching sight of an icon of Mary, she broke down and prayed for help. (60 / 60 words)
Part Two
Madaba from Mount Nebo in Jordan, just across the Jordan River from Jerusalem. It was in this inhospitable landscape that Mary hid herself for nearly half a century. The effect on her physically was dramatic: St Zosimas found her naked (he gave her his own tattered cloak for modesty), browned and wrinkled by the sun, with short, unkempt hair bleached white. At one time, the fifth Sunday in Lent (in the East, kept as the Sunday of St Mary of Egypt) was known as Carlin Sunday in northeast England, and people would serve ‘carlin peas’ (maple peas or black badgers): which was oddly appropriate, because ‘carlin’ is a dialect word for a wild and wrinkled woman.
Forthwith as she went out a voice from heaven spake unto her saying, Mary go in to the wilderness over and beyond the water of Jordan, and there thou shalt obtain salvation. Whereunto she obeyed and there lived eighteen years with two loaves and a half of bread;* and after she lived thirty years by herbs’ roots; where then saint Zosimas found her of whom she was purely and wholly confessed;* and upon Sheer Thursday* next she went dry footed over the water of Jordan unto his monastery and there of him received the sacrament of Christ’s body, and so returned into the same wilderness; and there forthwith yielded her spirit unto almighty God; whose holy body the same holy father found a year after whole and uncorrupted; unto whom came a lion, and made the grave wherein he buried her.
* These were the hardest years, Sophronius tells us: Mary’s body screamed for a man’s touch and the obscene songs she had once delighted to sing crowded back into her mind, but she could no longer drink herself into forgetfulness. At last the attacks abated somewhat, and after each one Mary, who had fixed her mind’s eye on the icon of the Virgin Mary she saw in Jerusalem, would be bathed in light.
* When St Zosimus (?460-?560) met her, he found her living in utter solitude and complete nakedness, browned and wrinkled by the sun, her short, unkempt hair bleached white. Mary frankly scared him, not because of her wild appearance but because she knew his name without being told it, because she recited Scripture fluently without ever possessing a Bible or attending more than one church service, and because when she prayed in her characteristic continuous whisper unseen hands gently raised her off the ground.
* The old name for Maundy Thursday. ‘Maundy’ comes from a Latin prayer used on that day, whereas Sheer comes from Old Norse skærr, meaning bright, clear, or pure.
Précis
As Mary left the church, she heard the Virgin Mary tell her to go into the desert across the River Jordan. She obeyed, and lived alone in astonishing self-denial for almost twenty years before a monk, named Zosimus, happened to meet her. He heard her confession and gave her communion, and she died almost immediately afterwards. (56 / 60 words)
