Christian Goddess: The Ritual Authority of the Virgin Mary in Late Antique Egypt, Stewart Lecture by Michael Beshay (Pennsylvania State University), Princeton University, October 29, 2024, 4:30 pm

The Virgin Mary enjoys pride of place among the saints of Coptic (Egyptian) Christianity. Historians often explain this prominence as a reflexive absorption of goddess worship, especially of the Egyptian Isis, and as a response to Christological controversy—above all, the “heresy” of docetism. In contrast, this presentation will highlight ways that late antique Christians derived the ritual authority of Mary from “heretical” traditions that linked the Virgin with the salvific powers of Christian divinities such as the Gnostic Sophia and the Manichaean Mother of Life.

The presentation will focus on the late antique roots of the widespread “magical” tradition of Mary’s prayer “in Bartos,” from its Gnostic and Manichaean foundations among ancient afterlife traditions, to its reinterpretation as a prayer of Mary’s departure (“dormition”) amidst new theological pressures in the sixth century.

Michael Beshay is an assistant professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Jewish Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. His research and teaching focus on the diversity of early Christian social, cultural, and ritual traditions in late antiquity.