1. Identification and Early Citations
now extant, with the exception of the
"Ascetic Chapters." Marcus was
identified by Bellarmine with a monk
of the same name, who about 900
prophesied ten additional years of life
to the wounded Emperor Leo VI., and the same
scholar also advanced the hypothesis that the wri
tings ascribed to the
Eremite had been fabricated
or corrupted by the heretics of his time. Although
this theory was later refuted, Marcus attracted little
attention until his treatise against the Nestorians,
previously unknown, was published by Papadopu
los Kerameos (St. Petersburg, 1891), and since that
time it has been shown that all the writings as-
2. Ascetic and Polemic Treatises
law of the spirit
(
Rom. vii. 14).
The
underlying thought is monastic re
Treatises. nunciation of the world, and the con
ception is characterized by a combination
of a mystic
concept of grace with ascetic zeal,
the object of all human activity being the removal
of obstacles through grace. The treatise of Mar
cus "On Repentance" is an exposition of penitence
required by the commandment of God. Essentially
a matter of the heart and the conscience, it need
not be manifested openly since it consists in morti
fication of desires, continual prayer, and bearing of
sorrow. It is requisite for all the descendants of
Adam, though in itself it can not win the kingdom
of heaven.
The treatise "On Baptism," devoted to the
efficacy of baptism with respect to regeneration
and the new moral life of the Christian, is the most
valuable source for Marcus' doctrine of salvation.
He holds that baptism is perfectly efficacious for
the destruction of sin, but all good works are merely
an outworking of the perfect gift of grace conferred
through it, according to man's fulfilment of the
commandments, so that God and not man is re
sponsible for all good, while the individual and not
Adam is to answer for all sin.
The "Salutary Admonitions to Nicholas" are
addressed to a young monk who had asked for
counsel in his struggle against anger and fleshly
lusts, while the "Disputation with a Lawyer" is
a dialogue of "an aged ascetic" (the author him
self) with a lawyer concerning the two monastic re
quirements not to invoke the law and to refrain
from works of the flesh. The " Colloquy of the
Mind
with the Soul " is an apostrophe in which the
author's mind accuses itself and the soul of ascribing
the responsibility of the sins which they them
selves commit to Adam, Satan, or mankind in gen-
eral. In the treatise "On Fasting," Marcus seeks
the ethical mean for monastic fasts, so they may
actually serve to correct the heart and not to make
it proud. In contradistinction to these ascetic
treatises, the tractate "On Melehizedek" is exegetic and dogmatic in character, and is a polemic
against a heretical view prevailing in the author's
time, despite episcopal anathemas. Those who
maintained these false teachings, while orthodox
in the main, even in their Christology, held that
they might teach "deeper mysteries than the apostles" with reference to the account of Melchizedek
in Heb. vii. They regarded him as essentially divine and as a true son of God in the sense that he
was a theophany of the "non-incarnate Logos."
To these treatises must be added the recently discovered polemic against the Nestorians, which is
indubitably genuine. In a somewhat obscure
fashion Marcus seeks to prove that the Scriptures
regard
the incarnate Logos invariably as a single
Christ, the God-Man being neither mere God nor
mere man, but both in virtue of "essential unity."
Internal evidence dates this polemic in the beginning of 430 or 431.
Four treatises are incorrectly ascribed to Marcus
Eremita. These are a
Paraenesis,
which is identical
with the fifth homily of Macarius (q.v., 1); "On
Paradise and the Spiritual
Law," closely similar to
the thirty-seventh homily of Macarius, but with a
long preface which is lacking in the edition of
Macarius; a fragment of the so-called second letter
of Marcus which corresponds to a pas
3. Spurious sage in Macarius; and the incomplete
Writings. "Ascetic Chapters," the greater part of
which is contained in the ascetic
Cen
turies
of Maximus Confessor, while the remainder
are repeated almost word for word in Macarius.
The
ascription of these writings of Macarius to
Marcus is doubtless due in great measure to the
similarity of the names. That these treatises were
not composed by Marcus is shown both by'the fact
that Photius does not mention them and also by their
partial or complete identity with the works of other
authors, this correspondence being nowhere found
in the eremite's genuine treatises. The " Ascetic
Chapters " seem to be excerpts of some late author.
The writings of Marcus Eremit, render it evident
that he was a monk of authority and that he composed all his ascetic tractates for monks or ascetics.
It may be inferred, moreover, from his "Salutary
Admonitions to Nicholas," that before he went to
the desert Marcus bad been the abbot of a monastery
in Ancyra. The Colloquy implies that he became
an anchorite late in life, although it is not known
what desert he chose. Since, how-
