St. Macarius the Elder

From. Rufinua, chap. 28. Pa'ladius, chap. 19, 20, and other ancient Records.

The lustre of the sanctity and miracles of this Saint shine forth in an extraordinary manner in the history of the primitive religious of the deserts of Egypt, Besides one of the same name who attended on St Antony the last fifteen years of his mortal life, supposed o be one of the two disciples that buried him, of whom we know few other particulars, there were also two others greatly celebrated by antiquity for their sanctity and miracles, each of them cotemporaries with, if not also disciples of St. Antony, and both honored with the priestly character: the elder, by some authors sirnamed the Egyptian and the younger, the Alexandrian, from the former being a native of Egypt, and the latter of Alexandria.

Macarius the Elder, or the Egyptian, was born about the year 300. Being as yet a youth, he retired into a cell near his village, where he began to serve God with such perfection as to be held in the highest estimation by the whole neighborhood, and thought worthy to be promoted by his bishop to the minor orders. But his humility, seeking to decline the office and ministry of a clerk, induced him to retire to a distant solitude, where he might be at liberty, without let or hinderance, to practice an anchoretical life; working with his hands for his subsistence, whilst his heart was in the mean time conversing with God. Here a certain secular, of a religious disposition, observing the penitential life he led, came in order to minister to him, and assist him in selling his baskets. But as great trials, in one shape or other, are commonly the attendants or forerunr.ers of the most eminent sanctity, Macarius met with a very severe one, upon the following occasion.

A. young woman in the neighboring village was un happily seduced and corrupted by a fellow of the neighborhood. On being found with child by her parents and friends, and interrogated concerning the person that had corrupted her, she by the suggestion of /he devil, said it was by that hermit who passed for a Saint, meaning Macarius. Upon this the whole town Avas in an uproar, and going out, they dragged the servant of God out of his cell into the village, where, hanging pots and pans about his neck, they led him through all the highways, crying aloud to all they met: " This hermit is the villain that has seduced our girl;" beating him at the same time in so unmerciful a manner, that it was expected he would have died under their hands; nor did they desist, till at the re monstrances of an old man whom they met, they con-Dented to let him go, provided any responsible person would become a surety for his maintaining the girl and her child. His friend who had followed him all the way, and been insulted on his account, for having given testimony before to his sanctity, undertook to be responsible for him; and having delivered him out of their hands, brought him back to his cell, where he was now obliged to redouble his labors night and day in making baskets, in order to have wherewithal not only to procure food for himself, but also to furnish a maintenance for the unhappy woman by whom he had been thus basely calumniated. He bore this heavy cross with wonderful cheerfulness till the time the young woman fell in labor, and suffered such extraordinary pains for several days, without being able to be deliv ered, as brought her to a sense of her crime, when she acknowledged the wrong to Macarius, and declared who was the real father of the child. This gladsome news having presently come to the ears of the good man, the friend of the Saint, he ran with great joy to announce to him the joyful tidings, adding, that all the people were coming out to beg his pardon for the wrong they had done him. Macarius, on hearing this, being more afraid of honor than of humiliations and disgrace, would not wait for their coming, but presently withdrew himself into the desert of Scete, or Scithi, being then about thirty years of age.

This desert, in which no man had dwelt before, was of a vast extent, but so destitute of all the necessaries of life, that it was hard to meet with even a drop of water among the burning sands, and the little that could be found, was of so very disagreeable a taste and smell, as to render it unfit for use. Hither Macarius went, by divine inspiration, to seek a solitude, to which no way nor path conducted; and here he began to lay the foundation of that sublime perfection to which God afterwards raised him, and to which many rthera were raised by his means, who, in process of time, followed him into this frightful wilderness, and put themselves under his discfoline, whose number, in a short time, became very consideraUe, and amongst whom were several eminent saints; for such was the general character of the solitaries of Scete, for the austerity and sanctity of their lives, that they were Wked upon by all the rest as models of religious perection. Macarius had been -about ten years in this desert, when the number of the brethren increasing, it was thought necessary that a priest should be or dained for them, to feed them both with the word of God and the holy sacraments; on which occasion the Saint was obliged to accept of the priestly order and to execute its functions amongst his religious; being already so far favored by divine grace, as to have received from God the power of casting out evil spirits, and of working other wonderful miracles, together with the spirit of prophecy, and a foreknowledge of future events.

As an instance of his prophetic spirit, Palladius re lates how he often forewarned his disciple John against the spirit of covetousness, telling him, that if he did not mortify his unhappy inclination to worldly pelf, as he labored under the vice of Giezi, so he should incur the punishment of Giezi. Which happened acsordingly, when fifteen or twenty years after the Saint's death, appropriating to himself what should have been given to the poor, he was struck with the leprosy in so terrible a manner, that there was not one Kwn.1 place to be discovered in his body. The same author relates also several instances of bis power over evil spirits, in casting them out, and destroying their magical operations by bis prayers, as in the case of a woman that was bewitched in so strange a manner as to appear to herself and friends metamorphosed into a mare, but was delivered by the Saint's pouring upon her head some holy water which he had blessed. The Saint, on sending her home, admonished her never to neglect the public worship of the church, nor the frequentation of the sacraments; for that the enemy could not have had this power over her, had she not. for five weeks, kept away from the sacred mysteries. Many were the miracles whereby God evinced the sancity of his servant Macarius, and some of them of the first magnitude. It happened that a murder was committed in one of the places bordering upon the wilderness wherein the man of God dwelt, and that an innocent man was accused thereof, who fled for refuge to the cell of the Saint. The people having pur sued him, and found him, were for binding him, and carrying him off, in order to deliver him up to justice. The man strongly pleaded his own innocence, protest ing by all that was sacred, that he knew nothing of the murder; whilst they, on the contrary, insisted upon taking him away, alledging, that they should be called to an account themselves if they let him escape, Macarius having enquired where they had buried the murdered man, accompanied them to the place, when fcaeeling down by the grave, and invoking the name of Jesus Christ, he said to the standers by; " The Lord will now show whether this man be guilty or not." Then raising his voice, he called on the dead man by his name, and conjured him, in the name of Christ, to tell whether this was the man that had mur dered him; when Behold, a tremendous loud voice was heard to issue from the grave, declaring that he was not the man. Upon this all the by-standers, struck with dread and astonishment, fell prostrate on the ground, at the feet of the man of God, earnestly requesting that he would put one question more to the deceased, to learn from him by whom it was that he had been murdered. "No," replied the Saint, "it is enough for me to clear the innocent; it is not my business to detect the guilty; for who knows, if he be suffered to live longer, but he may have the grace to do penance for his crime? "

A certain heretic of the sect called Hieracites, a branch of the Manichean heresy, coming into the wilderness, endeavored not only to corrupt the brethren, with his captious arguments, but had the temerity also to attack Macarius upon the score of his faith in the presence of many of the religious, and to oppose to the solidity of the Saint's reasonings from m« Scripture, delivered with his usual meekness ana simplicity, a number of such frothy words and soDhisma as are but too apt to impose upon the weak and ignr* rant. Wherefore the man of God, apprehending lest the faith of the by-standers should be endangered on this occasion, proposed instead of contend not in words, for it is to no profit, but to the subversion of the hearers, 2 Tim. ii. 14. that they should ^o out to the burying place of the religious, and j-iU the cause upon this issue,, viz. «that he who covld raise a dead man to life should be acknowledged to be the teacher of God's truth, and consequently tlrvt his faith should be followed. This proposal beirg universally applauded, the heretic consented, provided that Macarius should be first to make the trial. When therefore they had arrived at the cemetery the Saint prostrating himself on one of the graves, employed some time in silent prayer; and then lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said: " Be pleased, 0 Lord, to make it manifest to all here present, which of us twc holds the right faith, by restoring this dead man tc life." With this having called the brother that had been last buried by name, he presently answered; and upon opening the grave, by removing all the earth that was laid upon him, was taken out alive anc* presented to the man of God, to the great astonishment as well as confusion to the heretic, who immediately fled away, and never durst show his face any more in Scete.

But let us pass from the miracles of Macarius to bis virtues. We find the eminent sanctity for which

8T. MACARIU5 THE ELDER. I'Jfif he has been so justly admired by all succeeding ages. was built upon its true foundation, viz. a knowledge and contempt of himself, united with a profound humility, which was always apparent by his ever joyfully embracing humiliations, and flying from honors and applause. Those were always his most welcome guests who abused or ridiculed him most; to such he more freely opened himself, whereas he was ever silent. and reserved with those who came, as many did, to hear him speak of the things of God, or showed him any particular marks of honor or esteem: this was so generally known and observed that at length such as came with a desire to hear his heavenly lessons, would on purpose, begin their conversation, by telling him the many ridiculous or wicked things of which they had heard him to have been guilty in his youth, and then they were sure to please him best. The devil himself was obliged to acknowledge that it was the humility of the Saint, and not his extraordinary aus terities, that had kept him hitherto out of his reach. Having appeared to him one day, as he was returning to his cell, laden with palm-leaves for his work he en deavored, but was not able, to strike him with a sharp scythe which he held in his hand. Upon which he cried out: " It is a hard case, 0 Macarius, that i should suffer so much from thee, and yet not be able to hurt thee: whereas in point of fasting and watching1, I do a great ieal mo.-e than thou dost; fa though thou fastest and watchest often, yet sometimes thou eatest and sleepest; but as to me, I never eat, nor close my eyes to sleep. Nevertheless, I acknowled^e there is one thing in which thou overcomest me." " What is it?" said the Saint, "Thy humility," replied the devil: " Oh! there is nothing else conquers me." Whereupon the Saint, having stretch ed forth his hand to heaven in prayer, the enemy presently vanished.

The humility of the Saint was ever accompanied with an extraordinary meekness: as these two sister-virtues generally walk hand in hand. By this his extraordinary meekness he wrought greater wonders, in conducting souls to God, than by any of his other miracles. An instance hereof appears in the case of a pagan priest, who having been incited to fury, by the contemptuous treatment he had met with from one of the religious, was not only appeased, but gain ed over on the spot to Jesus Christ, by the mildness and sweetness wherewith he was treated by St. Macarius: insomuch, that he immediately quitted the world to become a religious man, and gave occasion, by his example, to the conversion of many other pagans.

The humility of Macarius was also accompanied with a wholesome fear of the divine justice, together with a deep sense of, arid an extraordinary compunction for his sins, which continued with him even to the end of his life. In proof whereof, we read, that shortly before his death, when the monks of Nitria invited him to corne over to their mountain that they might receive his blessing before he departed to tho Lord, declaring, that otherwise they would all come in a body to visit him; he complied indeed with their request; but when the multitude of the brethren were assembled about him, expecting to hear the word of God from his mouth, instead of a sermon, he en tertained them with a flood of tears, saying: " Let ua weep, rny brethren, let us weep whilst we have time. Let torrents of tears flow from our eyes to wash away the stains of our sins, before we depart hence into another world, where our tears will come too late, and only serve to nourish the flames of our torments." At these words, accompanied by the tears of the Saint, all the congregation wept, and cast themselves down on the ground, to beg the assistance of hk prayers.

A certain brother desiring to know from the Saint how he might secure the salvation of his soul: " Fly," said the man of God, " from the company of men — keep cl^e to thy cell, and there weep continually for thy sins t and as the best penance for them, be equally careful to <nortify thy tongue by keeping silence, as thy belly, by fasting and abstinence." To the like effect he s"vld one day to the brethren as they were coming out of church after mass: " Fly, my brethren, fly." " Whither, 0 father," said one of them, " wouldst thou have us fly? can we go farther from the world than we are at present in this vast solitude? " The Saint put his finger to his tongue, and said, I mean that we should fly from this; and saying no more, he entered into his cell, and there remained in silence and recollection.

The prayers of St. Macarius were in a manner incessant, particularly in the mental and contemplative way. He is said to have been often almost in an ecstasy, ravished as it were out of himself, and for tho greatest part of his time entertaining himself with God in so absolute a state of insensibility, as to forget every created object. That he might apply himself with more freedom to God in prayer, he had made a passage under ground from his cell, to a certain cave at about half a furlong distance, to which he frequently retired, and there kept himself concealed from all other company, to the end he might be alone with God, free from the interruption of the visits of the many strangers who resorted to him on account of the great reputation of his sanctity. He had, during five years, been pressed by frequent thoughts to proceed further iuto the desert to try what he should there discover; but as it was his maxim to do nothing rashly, he ex amined well these suggestions, lest they should prove to be temptations. The inclination, however, still con tinuing, he concluded it to be God's holy will, and ac-

ST. MACARIUS THE ELDER. 1S3 tordingly following the call, he penetrated into the re mote parts of the wilderness, where he found a lake of water, and in it a small island, inhabited by two solitaries, who had dwelt there for the space of forty years, quite secluded from the conversation of mortals, and in so great a state of perfection, that Macarius, after having seen and conversed with them, according to his humble way of thinking of himself, professed to the religious of Nitria, who had some time after re quested he would deliver a discourse of edification in the monastery of Abbot Pambo, " that for his part he was not worthy to be called a monk, but that he had seen monks indeed: and that the lesson he had learnt of them was, that to be a monk indeed, a man must absolutely renounce every thing in this world, and that if he thought himself too weak to practice this renunciation, in the manner they did, he should return back to his cell, there to sit and bewail his sins."

The zeal that Macarius had for his own spiritual advancement, carried him also another time a fifteen days' journey from the desert of Scete, to visit St. An tony, then residing on his mountain. When he ar rived with his strength quite exhausted by the fatigue of his long travelling through those burning sands, IIP, knocked at the door of the Saint's cell: Antony coming forth, asked him who he was? and upon his an swering that he was Macarius, he went in again, and abut the door; for although he had a great desire fol

A long time to see him, knowing his extraordinary sanctity, yet he was willing to make this trial of his patience and humility. Macarius remained at tho door till Antony, thinking he had now sufficiently put his patience to a trial, opened it to him; and having lovingly embraced him, entertained him with the best that his cell could afford. In the evening, Antony prepared a certain quantity of the leaves of palm-trees for himself to work on at making of mats; MacariiiS) was ever a lover of manual labor, and hated idleness, desired to be employed in the same manner; and thus having sat down together, whilst they worked with their hands, they entertained each other with heavenly discourses and the praises of their great Master. In the morning Antony was surprised to behold the quantity of matting that Macarius had made during the night; and taking his hands he kissed them, affirming, that there was much virtue in them. I know not whether it -was upon this, or some other occasion, that he saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Ma carius; for I find it recorded of St. Antony, that he himself declared he had seen the Holy Ghost descend upon three eminent servants of God, who in their lives appeared to be in an extraordinary manner replenished with his graces, and that these three were, St, Athauasius, St. Pachomius, and St. Macarius.

As to the penitential exercises practised by St. Ma carius and his disciples the solitaries of Scete, they aj> pear more the objects of our admiration than of our imitation, especially in the point of fasting; for we read in some ancient writers, that it was their custom to eat but once in the week; but as to St. Macarius himself, he told his disciple Evargius upon occasion of his complaining of a violent thirst which he felt in the excessive noonday heat of the Egyptian climate, that for his own part he had never for twenty years satisfied, himself either in point of eating, or drinking, or sleeping; — that he always weighed out the small quantity of bread he eat; — that he always drank his water by measure; and instead of lying down, leaned always against a wall, when he stole, as it were, the little sleep which he could not absolutely dispense with.

But if he was so perfectly mortified in his eating, drinking and sleeping, we may truly say he was as much, or more so with respect, not only to his passions, but his whole interior, and that he himself prac tised diligently the excellent lessons he had so often taught his disciples. He used frequently to say, that he only was a true monk, who overcame himself in all things: that the way to escape the death of the soul fey sin, was to receive and embrace contempt like praise, poverty like riches, and hunger and ivant, like plenty and feasting. A young man having once ad dressed himself to our Saint, desiring to learn of him the practice of religious perfection, he sent him to * place where there were a great many dead bodies, and bid him treat them with reviling, scornful language, and such other like affronts and injuries, and even to pelt them with stones to try if he could provoke them to passion. Having done as he was ordered, when he returned back, the Saint asked him how the dead had received all those outrages, and what they had said? He answered that they had said nothing. On the day following he sent him again, and bid him treat them with honor, with fine speeches and commendations, and then see how they would behave; and as they still remained equally insensible both to his good and mal-treatment, the Saint told him, that if he would be a perfect religious man, he must follow their ex ample, and neither suffer himself to be provoked to anger or resentment by ill treatment, nor to be puffed up with the esteem or praises of men, but always to have his eye on Jesus Christ, and seek to please him only.

St. Macarius had now arrived at the age of seventy-six, when a violent persecution was raised against all the religious by Lucius the Arian, who, after the death of St. Athanasius, had usurped the see of Alexandria, by the fav\x of the emperor Valens. This unhappy man, finding the monks in general averse to his wicked tenets, and the people very much influenced by their example, to adhere to the catholic faith, led out a multitude of soldiers into the deserts, in order ta oblige these servants of God, by all manner of cruel ties, to renounce the ancient faith. A great number of the solitaries of mount Nitria were martyred on this occasion, and a vast multitude of other religious, to gether with many bishops, priests, and deacons, were Bent into banishment. Amongst these were Macarius, and his name-sake, the other St. Macarius, of Alexan dria, St. Isidore, of Scete, and St. Pambo, the holy abbot of Nitria; who, by the orders of Lucius, were taken out of their cells privately in the night, and carried away into a certain island in E^ypt, which was inhabited only by pagans, to the end that they might have no opportunity of exercising their priestly functions, nor meet with any comfort or support from any one. There was in this island an ancient temple of the devils, for which the inhabitants had so great a veneration, that it was this that kept them in their idolatry. But behold the wonders of God! as soon as the boat that brought the saints thither drew near the land, the devils who inhabited the temple were all in an uproar, and one of them presently entered into the daughter of the priest of the temple, whom the people venerated almost as much as their god, and caused in her strange and violent agitations and con tortions, accompanied with such loud shrieks and cries as reached the very heavens, and drew all the people about her. In this condition she ran about amongst the people, falling down sometimes and rolling herseli on the ground, foaming and gnashing with her teeth, till all of a sudden she was lifted up into the air, and carried to the place where the saints by this time were set on shore, the people all following to see what would become of her. Here she fell down at the feet of Macarius and his companions, and cried out (the devil speaking by her mouth, as he did heretofore by the girl at Philippi, Acts xvi.) " Ah! ye servants of Jesus Christ, how terrible is your power! ye servants of the great God, why do you come to drive us away from a place of which we have so long kept possession! Here have we hidden ourselves, after we were expelled from the rest of the land; for you have banished us from the towns and villages, from the mountains and hills, and even from the places where none before you durst inhabit. We expected to be quiet at least in this little island, in the midst of bogs and marshes, and now you come to deprive us of our last refuge," &c. Whilst the devil was uttering these and other similar words, by the mouth of the girl, the Saints, on their part, made use of the power their Lord had con ferred on them, and commanded the devil, by the sacred and awful name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to depart out from her; whilst he, unable to resist, was immediately constrained to obey, and left the girl stretched out OL the ground as if dead. The Sainta prayed for her, and lifting her up from the ground, oresented her to her father in perfect health, both 01 mind and body. Then taking occasion from what had passed, they began to preach Jesus Christ to the people, already disposed, by the miracl.3 they had seen, to hearken to their words; and so great was the blessing God gave to their preaching, that instantly both the priest himself, with his daughter, and all his kindred, cast themselves down at the feet of these new apostles, desiring to learn of them what they must do to be saved. All the people of the island, by their example, were immediately converted to Jesus Christ, and embraced the faith with so much fervor, that they presently demolished their temple which they had be fore so much revered — built up a church in its place, and after proper instructions received baptism. Thus the expulsion of these servants of God contributed to the propagation and illustration of the faith for which they were banished, and to the confusion of their enemies and persecutors, who, upon receiving the news of what had passed, gave orders to have them removed again out of the island, and privately conveyed back to their former solitudes.

St. Macarius outlived this persecution many years; and after having attained the age of ninety, sixty of which he spent in the wilderness, he passed to the enjoyment of his God about the year 390 or 391. His name is recorded among the Saints in the Eoman Martyrology on the fifteenth of January.

There are extant in the Bibliotlieca SS.

fifty homilies, or discourses of piety, which St. Macarius made to his religious on several occasions, truly worthy of his spirit and sanctity.