page_title: Mary of Egypt
section_title: Cultural references
hierarchical_section_title: Mary of Egypt / Cultural references
context_page_description: Mary of Egypt is revered as the patron saint of penitents, most particularly in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and Oriental Orthodox Churches.
context_section_description: In Goethe's Faust Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who pray to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust.  Her words are set by Mahler in his 8th Symphony, as the final saint's appeal to the Mater Gloriosa.
  In Ben Jonson's play Volpone (1606) one of the characters uses the expression "Marry Gip". Commentators have taken this to mean "Mary of Egypt".
  Mary of Egypt is the subject of operas by Ottorino Respighi (Maria egiziaca) and Sir John Tavener (Mary of Egypt), the latter written in 1992 for the Aldeburgh Festival.
  The Unknown Masterpiece (1831), a novella by Balzac, contains a long description of a portrait of Mary of Egypt "undressing in order to pay her passage to Jerusalem".
  Nalo Hopkinson's science fiction novel, The Salt Roads, also features Mary of Egypt and takes a historical fiction approach to telling her story.
  In John Berryman's Pulitzer Prize winning book of poetry, The Dream Songs, poem 47, subtitled "April Fool's Day, or, St. Mary of Egypt", recounts Mary of Egypt's walk across the River Jordan.
  "Thrust back by hands of air from the sanctuary door" is the first line of Maria Aegyptiaca, a poem by John Heath-Stubbs about the saint (Collected Poems, p. 289).
caption: Mary of Egypt, by José de Ribera
exif: {}