Zosimas and the Desert Meeting

The third-person frame of the Life of Mary of Egypt: the elder Zosimas and his Jordan-valley monastery, whose Lenten custom of dispersing alone into the desert is the narrative device that brings him to Mary; the meeting far beyond the Jordan with a naked ascetic who knows his name and his priesthood; the cloak, the prayer in which she is seen raised from the ground, and the later crossing of the Jordan on foot; and the agreement that she will tell him her story in exchange for his silence until her death. All of it is given here as the Life tells it, pinned to chapter and Patrologia Graeca column.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

How to Read This File

Everything below is the narrative of the Life attributed to Sophronius of Jerusalem (BHG 1042; PG 87:3697–3726), in the standard English translation of Maria Kouli (in Talbot, ed., Holy Women of Byzantium, 1996, 65–93). It is reported as the Life reports it, with chapter and column cited, and is not asserted as documented history; see The Source Situation for what kind of text this is and what it can bear (METHODOLOGY §3.5, §5).

Zosimas and His Monastery

The Life opens not with Mary but with the monk through whose eyes the reader will meet her: Zosimas, an ascetic of long standing who, the narrative says, had spent his whole life in monastic discipline from infancy and had come to wonder whether anyone could instruct him further (Life 2–3; PG 87:3700). Guided as he believed by God, he came to a monastery by the River Jordan and was received by its superior (Life 4; PG 87:3701). There Zosimas found monks who “continually chanted psalms during all-night vigils, and always had handiwork in their hands, and psalms on their lips,” who “did not indulge in idle talk and were not preoccupied with cares for material things,” each pursuing the single aim “that . . . he mortify his body, since they had died once and for all as far as the world . . . were concerned” (Life 5; PG 87:3701, trans. Kouli, 73). This portrait of the brotherhood — and the embedded fragments of monastic rule the Life preserves — is part of what gives the text its documentary interest for Palestinian monasticism (Kouli, 65).

The Lenten Custom: The Narrative Device

The hinge of the whole frame is the monastery’s distinctive Lenten observance, and the Life presents it as the very reason “God led Zosimas to that particular monastery” (Life 6; PG 87:3702, trans. Kouli, 74). On the first Sunday of Great Lent the divine liturgy was celebrated and all the monks communed; then, after prayers and mutual forgiveness, “the gate of the monastery was opened and all the monks came out singing in unison, ‘The Lord is my light and my Savior, whom shall I fear?’” (Life 7; PG 87:3702–3, trans. Kouli, 74, quoting Ps. 26[27]:1). Each took what little food he wished — “one carried bread . . . , another dried figs, another dates, another legumes soaked in water, while another carried nothing at all, apart from his own body and the ragged habit he wore” — and “as soon as they crossed the Jordan, they separated and moved far away from each other and made the desert their city” (Life 7; PG 87:3703, trans. Kouli, 74–75). The governing rule was a strict mutual hiddenness: “not to be concerned with the way that the other monks practiced self-restraint or conducted themselves”; if one saw another approaching, “he immediately turned away . . . and went to another place” (Life 7; PG 87:3703, trans. Kouli, 75). They returned only on the eve of Palm Sunday, and “no monk asked another anything whatsoever about how . . . he had exerted himself” (Life 8; PG 87:3703–4, trans. Kouli, 75).

Kouli notes that this custom corresponds to a real and datable Palestinian monastic practice — the withdrawal into the inner desert for Lent introduced in the early fifth century by Euthymius the Great and later adjusted by Sabas (Kouli, 75 n. 35, citing Hirschfeld, The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period, 1992, 214–16). Within the Life, however, its function is narrative: it is the device that sends a holy and discreet witness alone into the deep desert, where Mary can be found and her story heard and afterward, by his oath, kept.

Into the Inner Desert

Following the rule, Zosimas crossed the Jordan and walked into the wilderness, “hoping to find a holy father dwelling there” deeper than himself (Life 9; PG 87:3704, trans. Kouli, 76). After twenty days, pausing at the sixth hour to pray toward the east, he saw “the shadowy illusion of a human body appear to the right of where he was standing” (Life 10; PG 87:3705, trans. Kouli, 76). At first he feared “a demonic phantom,” but signing himself with the cross he looked again and saw “a naked figure whose body was black, as if tanned by the scorching of the sun,” with “hair white as wool” that “did not reach below the neck” (Life 10; PG 87:3705, trans. Kouli, 76, alluding to Rev. 1:14). The figure fled; Zosimas, “as if unmindful of his old age,” pursued, calling out tearfully, “Why are you running away from this old and sinful man? . . . give to an old man your blessing and benediction, for God never abhors anyone” (Life 11; PG 87:3705, trans. Kouli, 76–77).

The Ascetic Who Knows His Name

Across a dry streambed — Kouli identifies it as a wadi (Kouli, 78 n. 41) — the figure called back, and the Life makes the moment of recognition its first marvel: “Father Zosimas, forgive me in the name of the Lord; I cannot turn toward you . . . for as you see I am a woman and I am naked. . . . if you are really willing to grant one favor to a sinful woman, throw me the garment that you are wearing, so that with it I may cover my feminine weakness and turn toward you and receive your blessing” (Life 12; PG 87:3708, trans. Kouli, 77). That she named him unbidden overwhelmed him: “Shivering fear and astonishment overwhelmed Zosimas . . . when he heard her calling him ‘Zosimas’ by name; for . . . he decided that she could not have called by name a man whom she had never seen or heard about, unless she was clearly blessed with the gift of foresight” (Life 12; PG 87:3708, trans. Kouli, 77). He threw her his “old and torn cloak,” and she covered herself (Life 13; PG 87:3708, trans. Kouli, 77).

A contest of humility followed, each kneeling to ask the other’s blessing, until she revealed a second knowledge — that Zosimas was a priest: “it is fitting for you to give a blessing and prayer, for you have been honored with the rank of priest and you have served at the holy altar for many years” (Life 13; PG 87:3708, trans. Kouli, 78). Kouli observes that the Life withholds Zosimas’ priesthood from the reader until exactly this point, “when it is necessary for him to be an ordained priest to offer the eucharist to Mary” (Kouli, 78 n.) — a mark of the text’s deliberate construction.

The Prayer Seen From the Ground, and the Jordan Crossed on Foot

The Life‘s two best-known wonders attach to this meeting and its sequel, and both are narrated through Zosimas’ sworn testimony, which the hagiographer foregrounds. As Mary turned east to pray “in a soft whisper,” Zosimas, bowed to the ground, “swore, calling upon God as the witness of his words, that when he saw that she was prolonging her prayers, he raised his head up a bit from the ground and saw her elevated about one cubit above the earth, hanging in the air and praying in this way” (Life 15; PG 87:3708–9, trans. Kouli, 78–79). Tormented by the thought that she might be “a demonic spirit who was only pretending to pray,” he was answered before he spoke: making the sign of the cross, she said, “Be assured, my good man, that I am a sinful woman, but I am protected by holy baptism. I am not a spirit, but altogether earth and ashes and flesh” (Life 15; PG 87:3709, trans. Kouli, 79, alluding to Gen. 18:27).

The second wonder belongs to their later meeting (related further on in the Life): a year after the desert encounter, when Zosimas brought her the Eucharist on Holy Thursday at the near bank of the Jordan, “she made the sign of the Cross over the waters of the Jordan” and then walked across its surface to him. The Life presents this, like the levitation, through the elder’s astonished report. Both marvels are reported here strictly as the Life tells them and as the cult receives them — not as documented events (see The Source Situation; METHODOLOGY §5).

The Deal: Her Story for His Silence

The frame closes its first movement with the agreement that motivates the whole text. Zosimas, throwing himself down and clasping her feet, implored her in the name of Christ “do not conceal anything from your servant, who you are and where you came from and . . . in what way you came to dwell in this desert . . . so that you may make manifest the wonders of God” (Life 16; PG 87:3709, trans. Kouli, 79). She consented, but on a condition that is itself the reason the Life exists: that he tell no one until God should take her from the earth — that he keep the secret of her life and of these marvels until her death. This is the narrative seal the whole vita hangs on; the very first words of the Life announce the theme, quoting the angel to Tobit: “It is good to keep close the secret of a king, but it is honorable to reveal the works of God” (Life 1; PG 87:3697, trans. Kouli, 71, quoting Tob. 12:7) — the principle by which Zosimas’ eventual disclosure, after her death, is justified. On these terms Mary began the first-person narrative of her life, which the next file follows.

See Also

References

  • Kouli, Maria, trans. “Life of St. Mary of Egypt.” In Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot, 65–93. Byzantine Saints’ Lives in Translation 1. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996. (All quotations and chapter numbers; the Lenten custom and its historical note at 74–75; the levitation at 78–79; the priesthood note at 78.)
  • Life of Mary of Egypt (BHG 1042). PG 87:3697–3726. (The Greek text underlying Kouli; columns cited inline: the opening Tobit citation at 3697; the meeting and levitation at 3705–9.)
  • Hirschfeld, Yizhar. The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. (The historical Palestinian Lenten-withdrawal custom; cited via Kouli, 75 n. 35.)
  • The Lenten Triodion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber and Faber, 1977. (The liturgical reading of the Life in Great Lent.)
  • METHODOLOGY.md §3.5 and §5, this repository.