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 Egyptian grazer saint said to have dwelled in Byzantine-era Palestine in the 5th century AD (in late antiquity / Early Middle Ages).
The hagiography The Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt tells her life story through the framing device of an encounter with the hieromonk Zosimas of Palestine near the Jordan River, describing a debauched life of lust in which she traveled from Alexandria to Jerusalem and seduced pilgrims on their way to the Elevation of the Holy Cross. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre she encountered the icon of the Theotokos, barring her entrance and instructing her to cross the Jordan River and wander the desert as an ascetic. Mary and Zosimas part ways, resolving to meet by the Jordan one year later so that Zosimas can administer Holy Communion; at this meeting Zosimas witnesses Mary walking on the water.
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 her Christian burial. The hagiography then states that Zosimas told his fellow monks about Mary, and that these monks related the story to the text's credited author Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the 7th century.
Later, in the 8th century the hagiography was read into the record at the Fourth Session of the historical Second Council of Nicaea, preserving it. The Council, debating whether to revive the practice of icon veneration amid Byzantine iconoclasm, heard Mary of Egypt's conversion as an argument for the virtues of icons.
The Roman Martyrology of the Catholic Church, Synaxarion of Constantinople of Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Copto-Arabic Synaxarion of the Coptic Orthodox Church each list Mary of Egypt as a saint with a feast day. The Martyrology characterizes her time in the desert as an act of penitence and mortification. In contrast, the Synaxarion of Constantinople emphasizes her time in the desert as spiritual elevation through self-control.
The historicity of Mary of Egypt is uncertain and has been questioned by some historians. Historians further note that artists of Medieval and Renaissance Europe regularly conflated Mary of Egypt with Mary Magdalene.
According to tradition, Mary of Egypt was born somewhere in the Roman Province of Egypt, and at the age of twelve ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. There, she lived an extremely dissolute life. In her Vita 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 by spinning flax.
After seventeen years of this lifestyle, she traveled to Jerusalem for the Great Feasts of the Exaltation 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 other pilgrims, and she briefly continued her habitual lifestyle in Jerusalem. Her Vita relates that when she tried to enter the Church 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 an icon of the Theotokos (the Virgin Mary) outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness and promised to give up the world (i.e., become an ascetic). She attempted again to enter the church, and this time was able to go in. After venerating the relic of the True 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 the monastery of Saint John the Baptist on the banks of the River Jordan, where she received absolution and afterwards Holy Communion. The next morning, she crossed the Jordan eastwards and retired to the desert to live the rest of her life as a hermit 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.
Approximately one year before her death, she recounted her life to Zosimas of Palestine, 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 his mantle 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 on Holy 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.
Tradition says that 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, her incorrupt body miraculously transported to that spot. He buried her body with the assistance of a passing lion. On returning to his monastery, he related her life story to the other brethren, and it was preserved among them as oral tradition.
The written hagiography "The Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt" is stated by several sources to have been written by Sophronius in the 7th century. Later scholarship suggested that the hagiography may have been written earlier "from some other hand."
Documentary evidence shows that in the 8th century the hagiography was read into the record at the Fourth Session of the historical Second Council of Nicaea, preserving it. The Council, debating whether to revive the practice of icon veneration amid Byzantine iconoclasm, heard Mary of Egypt's conversion as an argument for the virtues of icons.
Distinct from Eastern and Coptic Christians, Western Christianity from late antiquity to the Late Middle Ages not only translated Sophronius from the Greek to Latin and vernacular languages, but also created derivative and reinterpreted works in both prose and poetry. This process starts with translation of the text of Sophronius to Latin, credited to 9th century monk Paul the Deacon.
Further evidence of the 9th century arrival of Mary of Egypt's cultus in the West can be found in the inclusion of her name in the marble calendar of Naples (which combined Byzantine and Latin liturgical calendars) as well as the rededication of the Temple of Portunus to Mary of Egypt, each approximately dated to the 870s.
The Frankish chronicler Flodoard, priest of the Reims Cathedral, included the narrative of Mary of Egypt and Zosimas as part of his 10th century Latin epic poem On the Triumphs of Christ and the Saints of Palestine about the early church. A hagiography in Latin verse is attributed to late 10th/early 11th century theologian Hildebert of Lavardin, with several copies kept by the Bodleian Library.
An Old English version of Mary of Egypt's hagiography is found in the same manuscript that is the primary witness of Ælfric of Eynsham's Lives of Saints. According to Hugh Magennis, the hagiography of Mary was not, however, written by Ælfric himself, as "features of which suggest that it was originally written in the Anglian dialect area rather than in the West Saxon with which Ælfric is associated."
A brief account of Mary of Egypt's encounter with the icon of the Theotokos appears in the 11th century compilations of Marian miracles by the monks William of Malmesbury and Dominic of Evesham. Although brief and in Latin, scholars note that these accounts use a third-person perspective about Mary of Egypt herself, rather than the first-person narrative of Zosimas.
In the 12th century an anonymously authored poetic version of Life of Saint Mary of Egypt in Anglo-Norman appears in the textual record. According to scholar Duncan Robertson, this poem begins a shift in narratives and descriptions of Mary of Egypt in Western art and literature: it is here she is first described as blond, her sensual beauty and sexual appetite is emphasized (although later disavowed), and her relationship with Zosimas takes on the tone of a platonic love.