La figura di Zosima, padre "autorevole", nella leggenda di Maria Egiziaca

Abstract

The legend of saint Maria Aegyptiaca knew a large diffusion in hagiographical tradition, between East and West, from VI-VII century to the end of the Middle Ages. Together with Maria, father Zosima is the most important figure of the legend (a true “deuteragonist” of the narrative plot). He meets the heremitic woman in the wilderness of Palaestina and has a particular relation with her, founded on deference and devotion, till the death and the engraving of the old Maria. The type of father Zosima, in the various versions of the story, obtains different cures by the poets and the authors. By some select specimens (essentially taked from Hildebertus of Lavardin’s «Vita beate Marie Egiptiace» and Flodoard of Reims’s «De Maria Aegyptiaca et Zozima»), the author of this paper tries to give some light to the theme of Zosima’s auctoritas (the auctoritas of a spiritual father for Maria Aegyptiaca). That of Zosima is a double figure, which is yet a spiritual father but, also, a zealous disciple of the saint woman.