The action of Life takes place in the VI century. and unfolds in Egypt, Jerusalem, in a monastery on the Jordan and the Jordanian desert. The most likely author is Jerusalem Patriarch Sofroniy.
The noble elder Zosima spent his whole life from infancy (at the beginning of the Life he is fifty years old), has worked in one of the Palestinian monasteries and undergoes all the feats of fasting. Zosima is distinguished by his understanding of the Divine Word, and his main business is to sing to God and learn His Word.
One day, Zosima is tempted - it seems to him that he has achieved everything in his field, he no longer needs instructions, and who could teach him anything now? The thoughts of Zosima are interrupted by the appearance of an angel who predicts a feat greater than the previous one, but so far not known Zosima. An angel commands the old man to go on a journey to find out that there are many ways to salvation.
Zosima comes to the monastery on the Jordan, as the angel indicates to him, and obeys the routine of a new monastery for him. During Great Lent, all the monks of the monastery, with the exception of two remaining to look after the monastery church, are sent to the desert, where everyone fasts alone. Crosses the Jordan and Zosima.He is heading to the “inner desert”, hoping to see some kind of fasting fasting there.
This is what happens. Zosima sees a naked man who runs away from him. Zosima, "having forgotten old age", rushes after him. When he finally persuades a man to stop, he admits that she is a woman and asks for clothes. The woman's name - Maria - Zosima learns only after her death. Zosima gives her part of her clothes and asks to tell about herself, by understanding her individual answers that she met on the way is an unusual woman who is much closer to God than he is, since she has the gift of insight (Mary, who had never known Zosima, calls him by name). However, Zosima has a reason to doubt: when Mary prays, he sees that the ascetic is no longer on the ground, but in the air. Then he decides that he is facing a ghost. But Mary, guessing his thoughts, reassures him.
Maria tells her story: she was born in Egypt, and at the age of twelve she fled to Alexandria and indulged in fornication, not because of money, but subject to the desire of the flesh. Once she saw pilgrims boarding a ship to go to Jerusalem on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Maria boarded the ship with the pilgrims, seduced by a large number of men and promising to pay for the passage with her body.
In Jerusalem, mixed with a crowd of pilgrims, she wanted to enter the temple together with everyone, but an unknown force repelled her every time, as soon as she approached the entrance. And then Mary realized that she was in the way; so the road to salvation first opened before her.Mary offered a prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos and promised that she would no longer defile herself. After prayer, the path to the temple opened for her.
Going inside, Mary saw the Cross, and then she understood the most important thing - God is ready to accept anyone who repents. Mary heard a voice that proclaimed to her: "If you cross the Jordan, you will find peace." She bought three breads for alms, prayed at the monastery of John the Baptist, near Jordan, took communion, moved on a Jordan boat, and for forty-seven years now she has been in the desert, where she served three breads and desert herbs.
Out of forty-seven years, seventeen Mary was persecuted by various temptations with which she selflessly fought; the cold, the heat, the carnal desires bothered her, but one of the strongest temptations was for her worldly songs that she remembered and which she wanted to sing.
To the surprise of Zosima, Mary often quotes Scripture, although, in her confession, she "never learned books." “I eat and become covered with the voice of God,” she says.
Mary asks Zosima to come to the Jordan in a year, but not to cross it. The saint herself crosses the Jordan on the water like Christ; Zosima communes her, and Maria tells him to come back to the place where he first met her a year later.
When Zosima arrives there a year later, he sees that the saint has passed away, and an inscription is written on her head on the head in which Mary asks her to be buried in a Christian way. From this inscription, Zosima finally finds out the name of the one that so impressed him with the sanctity of her life. After reading the inscription and remembering that Mary did not know the letter, Zosima understands that the Divine Word itself teaches a person living by this Word.Unbeknownst to a lion, Zosima helps to dig a grave, and then the monk and the beast diverge in different directions.
