This article adds to our understanding of late medieval women's religious writing by examining the role of the Virgin Mary in Mechthild of Magdeburg's thirteenth-century mystical text The Flowing Light of the Godhead (Das fließende Licht der Gottheit). The Virgin Mary was ubiquitous in late medieval religious writing, but she played different roles and modeled different ways of life, reflecting the particular aims of individual authors. In Mechthild's text, Mary is depicted as a spiritual teacher who actively draws the narrator into higher forms of the mystical life. Mechthild also portrays the Virgin in several traditional roles, adapting each of these roles to support her particular vision of the mystical life. Mary thus functions as a model for religious experience in The Flowing Light, while also authorizing and sanctioning Mechthild's contemplative ideals.

这篇文章通过考察圣母玛利亚在马格德堡 13 世纪神秘文本《神性的流动之光》（Das fließende Licht der Gottheit）中的作用，增加了我们对中世纪晚期女性宗教写作的理解。圣母玛利亚在中世纪晚期的宗教著作中无处不在，但她扮演了不同的角色，塑造了不同的生活方式，反映了各个作者的特定目标。在 Mechthild 的文本中，玛丽被描绘成一位精神导师，她积极地将叙述者吸引到更高形式的神秘生活中。Mechthild 还以几个传统角色描绘了圣母，调整了这些角色中的每一个，以支持她对神秘生活的特殊看法。因此，玛丽充当了宗教经验的典范流光，同时也授权和认可 Mechthild 的沉思理想。