 |
 |
Just a gloss on Mary of Egypt. She was naked because she had spent so many years as a solitary penitent in the desert that her clothes had decayed away. Her hair covered her so that she did not lose her modesty when she confronted a passing monk and asked him to bring her the Eucharist to help her in dying. I don't think that the nakedness was part of her spirituality. The question of covering nakedness is more common: Agnes was shielded by her hair when condemned to a brothel, for example. My guess would be that any women who tried to make some spiritual statement by stripping would be swiftly hustled out of sight and certainly not commemorated in hagiography. Though--maybe among heretics?? Jo Ann McNamara %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%