IV-V. MARY AND
THE GARDNER
The risen Christ
and Mary (John 20):
two anonymous dialogue poems:
Both these dialogues take as their
starting point the resurrection narrative in John 20:15-16, where Mary
encounters the risen Christ whom, however, she takes to be the gardener. In St
John’s Gospel the Mary in question is identified as Mary Magdalene (John
20:18), but a widespread early Syriac tradition identified the Mary of this
episode as Mary the mother of Jesus. This is the case in both these poems, as
can be seen from the words my Son in the second stanza of IV, and from
the final stanza of V, ‘Blessed is the Son of the Living one . . . who showed
to His mother that He is the Shepherd’. In V, Mary’s repeated referenced
to her ‘beloved’ will carry deliberate resonances of the Song of Songs.
(Sebastian P. Brock, Mary and Joseph, and Other Dialogue Poems on Mary
[Texts from Christian Late Antiquity 8; Piscataway, N.J. Gorgias Press, 2011],
69)
IV. Mary and the
Gardener (East Syriac poem)
1. On Sunday, in the morning early
along came Mary to the tomb.
2. MARY: Who will shoe me, she was
saying,
my Son and my Lord for whom I am seeking? (Mary and the Gardner (East Syriac
poem), 1-2, c. 5th c., in Mary and Joseph, and Other Dialogue
Poems on Mary [trans. Sebastian P. Brock; Texts from Christian Late
Antiquity 8; Piscataway, N.J. Gorgias Press, 2011], 70)
41. MARY: Peace to that mouth of
yours, o Lord of his
handmaid,
which has revealed to me and his self and had pity on me!
42. JESUS: Peace to you, Mary, remove
your grief,
and go in peace to look for my friends.
43. MARY: Come, Lord, and remove your
friends’
mourning,
for they are all sitting in sorrow.
44. JESUS: I am going to the place
where they are
residing:
my brothers and friends will see me there.
45. –Blessed is the Son of the Living
One who has
arisen from the dead
and shown to His mother that He is the Shepherd! (Mary and the Gardner (West
Syriac poem), 41-45, c. 5th c., in Mary and Joseph, and Other
Dialogue Poems on Mary [trans. Sebastian P. Brock; Texts from Christian
Late Antiquity 8; Piscataway, N.J. Gorgias Press, 2011], 70)
This
confusion of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene is also found in
Jacob of Serugh (alt. Serug):
17 On this day which causes everything
to sprout it was in the
appearance of a gardener that He appeared:
Eden He has opened up, while Sheol he has closed shut.
For this reason He manifested Himself in the likeness o fa
gardener, as He so wished.
18 On this day there approached His
feet that Mary who had acted
boldly;
He did not permit her (to touch Him),
for she held on to older
customs:
she had anointed him with oil before the Sufferings; the
Sufferings had passed – and so had their custom. (Jacob of Serugh, “b-hono
yawmo,” in The Stanzaic Poems of Jacob of Serugh: A Collection of His
Madroshe and Sughyotho [trans. Sebastian P. Brock; Texts from Christian
Late Antiquity 72; Piscataway, N.J. Gorgias Press, 2022], 224)
15 The angels saw as the chaste women
wept,
they replied to their question with zeal,
‘O women, why do you weep?
Whom are you looking for here?
This is the place of the departed, whereas your Master is the
Resurrection.
16 ‘Why is the living One enquired for
among the dead?
Why should the Luminary be sought out in the place of
darkness?
The Word, he who resurrects, is not
here;
he has visited the dead and returned to His Father’s house.
O Mary, do not weep over the Living One who resurrect all’.
17 The Lord of Paradise has arisen
from the tomb,
and she who saw Him likened Him to a gardener.
He is the Gardener who planted the (two) Trees
and surrounded Paradise with a sword.
It was appropriate, Mary, that you should have thought that He
was the gardener! (“’al hwo la-shyul,” Ibid., 272, 274)
