Encounters with Medieval Women: Mary of Egypt
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The Passion of a Saint
In the desert, in the age of this ascetic retreat to the deserts of Egypt and Palestine and Syria, the martyrdom becomes internal. There's not an external political force that is sentencing you to death or to torture. Take on the torture yourself by going to be alone in the desert. And there's a sense in which that's even more painful than being in the cities and among other people with all of those distractions. They go out and they have to face the state of their souls. So I think Mary of Egypt has several different kinds of martyrdoms in that sense.
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