ABSTRACT
The similarities between Lament of the Virgin and ethopoiiai stem from a common background in the climate of Byzantine spirituality in the second half of the 11th, or the beginning of the 12th century. The Life of Lazarus was compiled sometime after his death in 1053, avowedly by one of his contemporaries, the powerful keeper at his monastery, Gregory the Cellarer. This chapter analyses the portion of the Virgin’s lament that best corresponds to the death chapter in the Life. The theological point of the text of Mary’s Lament is made clear from the start: it is the humanity of Christ that leads to the realization of his death, as the three gifts of the Magi celebrated not only his kingship and his divinity (incense), but also his mortality (myrrh). Therefore, when Mary speaks in the first person, lamenting the death of her Son, her words paint an image of Jesus’ body, like an ekphrasis describing him limb by limb.
