Text and refutation of the false legend known as: “The Dream of the Virgin Mary.”
Prayer. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. The Dream of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. Yes, that is. prayer, otherwise called a legend or sheet about a dream of the Virgin Mary. Let us first of all see whether it is rightly called prayer. Prayer is our appeal to God with petition, thanksgiving or praise. Depending on the content, our prayers are either petitionary, or grateful, or laudatory. What type of prayer does “The Dream of the Virgin Mary” belong to? It expresses neither petition, nor thanksgiving, nor praise to God; therefore it is not a prayer. Consequently, it cannot be read (as the common people do) neither together or alongside prayers, nor instead of the prayers established by the Orthodox Church.
In order to show all the absurdity and incongruity of the “Dream of the Virgin Mary,” we will now write out its text in parts, accompanying the content of the “Dream” with explanations and refutations.
This is what we read after the title:
“The Most Holy Theotokos rested in the holy city of Bethlehem of Judea, in the month of March, on the thirtieth day, in a holy shrine, in a holy mountain, in a den above the holy river, above Erdania.”
Every word is nonsense or a contradiction! First of all, there was no need for anything to be revealed to the Most Holy Theotokos in a dream about the sufferings of the Savior on the Cross, which were clearly predicted long before the Nativity of Christ by the Old Testament prophets, and by Christ Himself, as St. Gospel, He spoke about this to His disciples, before His solemn entry into Jerusalem: Behold, we are entering Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the high priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and hand Him over to the pagans to be mocked and beaten and crucified, and on the third day He will rise again (Matthew 20:18-19). And on the very day of the Savior’s resurrection, when the myrrh-bearing women came to the tomb, looking for the body of Jesus. What did the angel say to them to expose their lack of faith? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here: He has risen; Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and rise on the third day (Luke 24:5-7).
Further: for a long time and among all peoples (Jews, Arabs, Turks and Christians), exclusively Jerusalem, and not Bethlehem, has been called the holy city. Then the legend indicates the thirtieth day of March, but does not say what year. Meanwhile, look in the historical books of the Holy Scriptures, in the works of the holy fathers, in the writings of historians of the Christian Church, and you will always see the exact designation of the year of each event that took place. What kind of “holy shrine” is this, in which the Most Holy Theotokos supposedly “rested”? And here is the answer: the Mother of God rested in the holy mountain, in a den, above the holy river, above “Erdania”. According to the legend, it turns out that the Mother of God slept in a mountain cave in Bethlehem, which, according to the will of the composer of the legend, seemed to hang in the air above the Jordan River. Meanwhile, Bethlehem, if you count the distance in a straight line, is located approximately 35 miles from the mouth of the Jordan River, which flows into the Dead Sea. Of course, any of the pilgrims who have visited the Holy Land knows this.
And in Rus' we have more than one or two such people; there are many of them, and each of them can tell others who have not been to Palestine and assure them that the words of the “Dream” are an invention, not based on anything and only proving the absurdity of this fictitious legend, which the dark people, our simple people, believe only out of their ignorance.
“The Lady went to bed and rested. The Lady slept little and saw little.” The figures of speech are not reverent, similar to the speech of fairy tales and proverbs of folk or comic works of folk art, and are in no way characteristic of the nature of legends about sacred events of the Old Testament or New Testament.
“The great man saw a terrible and menacing and wonderful dream about His beloved Son, about Jesus Christ Himself, the King of Heaven, His Savior, as it were, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was quickly captured and brought to a Jew, tied up and handed over to a Jew for desecration, our Lord Jesus Christ by his first disciple, Judas Scariota, at the price of thirty silver coins And the Jews brought our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in hand to the Pontian Pilate hegemon to be crucified on the third day on a cross, on three trees, a cedar and a cypress and on a tree, between two thieves on Mount Golgotha; He nailed it in his hand and nose with nails and pierced his side with a spear, shedding holy blood: the sun darkened, the moon gave itself over to blood, the sky and earth shook, the church curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, the stone disintegrated, the coffins were opened, and many dead bodies rose. And I saw our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with gall on the head, with a reed on the head of the head, with a crown on the head, with a crown of thorns on the head.
I saw the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, being dragged by his feet and his body mocked by everyone and beaten in his holy face, spit upon by the lawless and wicked Jews, redeemed and laid in a tomb and buried in the ground. And again on the third day, according to the description, Christ rose from the grave. I saw the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with angels, cherubim and seraphim, Christ is risen. I saw our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ on the high throne, Christ is risen.”
The brief retelling of the circumstances of the sufferings on the cross and the death of the Savior is, of course, correct in its main features, although the order of the suffering itself is confused. But the speech, again, is far from the majestic simplicity and sacred importance of the gospel narrative about these events, which became the cornerstone of the redemption of the human race. There are so many irregularities here, irreverent, common expressions, historical and grammatical inaccuracies. Read carefully, with meaning, and you will clearly see how far the language of this fake is from the true gospel of St. apostles, men abundantly blessed and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Who is this “quickly caught, quickly brought”, etc.? If this is said about our Lord, as can be seen from the meaning of the legend, then why insert the unnecessary and ignorant “was” here? Further, was the traitor Judas Iscariot the first disciple of the Lord? It was St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called.
Finally, pay attention to the following rhyme, reminiscent of verses, carols, gospel songs and other poetic works, South Russian in origin, with spiritual content: “given in, cracked, irritated, disintegrated” and a little further: “drunk, beaten, knocked down, laid down.” This place is important for determining the time when the “Dream of the Virgin Mary” was first compiled and put into use by a dexterous literate and scribe. The indicated features of the “Dream”, which bring it closer to South Russian verses, make it possible to establish the time of its composition in the 16th or 17th centuries, and not earlier. And, indeed, such Little Russian and Polish “Dreams” have reached us and were published in scientific works, regarding which the exact time of their origin has been attested. This is the “Dream of the Mother of God” in Polish: Sen przenajsоietszt’j panny, published in the “Chronicle of Jerlich”, Warsaw, 1853, p. 45, at the end of which we find the postscript: “Рisano ten Sen albo list pod rokiem 1546, miesiaca Augusta 25 dnia”, i.e. This dream or sheet was written in 1546, on August 25.
At the end of the above excerpt from the Slavic-Russian “Dream” we see three sentences ending with the words “Christ is risen,” which could be borrowed, for example, from the catechetical word of St. John Chrysostom, read at Easter Matins, therefore, was included here from the Orthodox Easter service, and not from the Gospel narrative, in which such a threefold repetition of the words “Christ is risen” is not found, which is entirely appropriate only in a church sermon, which is the catechetical word of Chrysostom. This once again proves the later origin and composition of the “Dream of the Virgin Mary,” which we are now discussing: