MACARIUS, ma-ca'ri-us: A name of frequent occurrence in the history of the early Church (cf. the DCB, s.v., and Stadler and Heim, Heiligenlexicon, iv. 2-10, where more than forty of the name are mentioned). The most noteworthy are:

1. Macarius The Egyptian, called also The Elder or The Great: Head of the monks of the Scetic

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/> desert; b. in Upper Egypt about 300; d. in the Scetic desert, 391. He was won to the religious life at an early age by St. Anthony and when thirty years old became a monk. Ten years later he was ordained priest, and for the remainder of his life presided over the monastic community in the Scetic desert, except for a brief period during which he was banished, with other adherents of the Nicene Creed, to an island in the Nile by the Emperor Valens. The day appointed for his feast in the Eastern Church is Jan. 19, while the Western Church celebrates it four days earlier. Certain monasteries of the Libyan desert still bear the name of Macarius, and the neighborhood is called the Desert of Macarius and seems to be identical with the ancient Scetic district. The ruins of numerous monasteries in this region almost confirm the local tradition that the cloisters of Macarius were equal in number to the days of the year. Although Gennadius recognizes as the only work of Macarius a letter addressed to the younger monks, there seems to be no reason to deny the genuineness of the fifty homilies ascribed to him. The Apophthegmata edited with the homilies may also be genuine, but the seven so-called Opuscula ascetica edited under his name by P. Possinus (Paris, 1683) are merely later compilations from the homilies, made by Simeon the Logothete, who is probably identical with Simeon Metaphrastes (d. 950). Macarius likewise seems to have been the author of several minor writings, including an Epistola ad filios Dei, and a number of other letters and prayers. The teachings of Macarius are characterized by a mystical and spiritual mode of thought which has endeared him to Christian mystics of all ages, although, on the other hand, in his anthropology and soteriology he frequently approximates the standpoint of St. Augustine. Certain passages of his homilies assert the entire depravity of man, while others postulate free will, even after the fall of Adam, and presuppose a tendency toward virtue, or, in semi-Pelagian fashion, ascribe to man the power to attain a degree of readiness to receive salvation.

2. Macarius The Younger, or Macarius of Alexandria: A somewhat younger contemporary of the preceding, was a monk in the Nitric desert, where he died c. 406. He was an extreme ascetic, and numerous miracles were ascribed to him. He presided over the 5,000 Nitric monks with the same success as had the elder Macarius in the Scetic desert. According to oriental tradition, he died on Jan. 2, but he is also commemorated on the same days as Macarius the Egyptian, with whom he is often confused. In addition to a monastic rule and three brief apothegms, a homily "On the End of the Souls of the Righteous and of Sinners" is ascribed to him, although excellent Vienna manuscripts assign the latter to a monk named Alexander. Palladius and Sozomen also mention a Macarius the Younger of Lower Egypt, who lived in a cell for more than twenty three years to atone for a murder which he had committed.