5. St. Mary receives the last communion from the hands of Zosimus. I have known this subject to be confounded with the last communion of the Magdalene. The circumstances of the scene, as well as the character, should be attended to. Mary of Egypt receives the sacrament in the desert; a river is generally in the background: Zosimus is an aged monk. Where the Magdalene receives the sacrament from the hands of Maximin, the scene is a portico or chapel with rich architecture, and Maximin wears the habit of a bishop.
6. The death of Mary of Egypt. Zosimus is kneeling beside her, and the lion is licking her feet or digging her grave. The presence of the lion distinguishes this subject from the death of Mary Magdalene.
St. Mary of Egypt was early a popular saint in France, and particularly venerated by the Parisians, till eclipsed by the increasing celebrity of the Magdalene. She was styled, familiarly, La Gipesienne (the Gipsy), softened by time into La Jussienne. The street in which stood a convent of reformed women, dedicated to her, is still la Rue Jussienne.
We find her whole story in one of the richly painted windows of the cathedral of Chartres; and again in the ‘Vitraux de Bourges,’ where the inscription underneath is written ‘Segiptiaca.’
Among the best modern frescoes which I saw at Paris, was the decoration of a chapel in the church of St. Merry, dedicated to Ste. Marie l’Égyptienne: the religious sentiment and manner of middle-age Art are as usual imitated, but with a certain unexpected originality in the conception of some of the subjects which pleased me. 1. On the wall, to the right, she stands leaning on the pedestal of the statue of the Madonna in a meditative attitude, and having the dress and the dark complexion of an Egyptian dancing-girl; a crowd of people are seen behind entering the gates of the Temple, at which she alone has been repulsed. 2. She receives the communion from the hand of Zosimus, and is buried by a lion.
On the left-hand wall. 3. Her apotheosis. She is borne aloft by many angels, two of whom swing censers, and below is seen the empty grave watched by a lion. 4. Underneath is a group of hermits, to whom the aged Zosimus is relating the story of the penitence and death of St. Mary of Egypt.
I do not in general accept modern representations as authorities, nor quote them as examples; but this resuscitation of Mary of Egypt in a city where she was so long a favourite saint, appears to me a curious fact. Her real existence is doubted even by the writers of that Church which, for fourteen centuries, has celebrated her conversion and glorified her name. Yet the poetical, the moral significance of her story remains; and, as I have reason to know, can still impress the fancy, and, through the fancy, waken the conscience and touch the heart.
There were several other legends current in the early ages of Christianity, promulgated, it should seem, with the distinct purpose of calling the frail and shining woman to repentance. If these were not pure inventions, if the names of these beatified penitents retained in the offices of the Church must be taken as evidence that they did exist, it is not less certain that the prototype in all these cases was the reclaimed woman of the Scriptures, and that it was the pitying charity of Christ which first taught men and angels to rejoice over the sinner that repenteth.