Listed 41 sub titles with search on: Religious figures biography for destination: "EGYPT Country MIDDLE EAST".
St. Macarios the anchorite from Egypt and St. Macarios the city-resident from Alexandria.
Holy Father
d. forth century, Feastday: January 17
d. fourth century, feastday: October 21
d. 1st century, feastday: April 28
d.c. 450, feastday: July 19
Feastday : June 6th (Orthodox), June 17th (Catholic)
d. 5th century, feastday: June 6
d.c. 380, feastday: June 15
d.c. 7th century, feastday: December 8 (Catholic). A seventh century hermit. He was originally from Egypt but journeyed to Constantinople where he lived as a hermit. Patapius is especially revered in the Eastern Churches.
d.c. 339, feastday: March 7
d.c. 450, feastday: August 27
Hesychius, Aegyptius. An Egyptian bishop, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution under Diocletian and his successors in the East, perhaps about A. D. 310 or 311. It is not clear whether he was executed at Alexandria or elsewhere. Hody and others regard him as identical with the Hesychius who revised the Septuagint, and whose revision was commonly used in Egypt and the adjacent churches. Fabricius, who thinks this identity probable, is also disposed to regard the martyr Hesychius as the same person as Hesychius of Alexandria, the author of the Lexicon; but Thorschmidius regards the author of the Lexicon as a distinct person. (Euseb. H. E. viii. 13; Hieronym. Praef in Paralipom. and Praefat. in Quattuor Evang.; Opera, vol. i. col. 1023, 1429, ed. Benedictin; Hody, De Biblior. Textibus Original., fol. Oxford, 1705; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vol. vii. 547; Thorschmidius, De Hesych. Miles. Illustr. Christian. Commentat. sect. i. apud Orellium, Hesychii Opusc.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Macarius Aegyptius, the Egyptian. There were in the fourth century in Egypt two
eminent ascetics and contemporaries, though probably not disciples of St. Antony,
as is asserted by Rufinus, and perhaps by Theodoret. Of these the subject of the
present article is generally distinguished as the EGYPTIAN, sometimes as MAGNUS,
the GREAT, or as MAJOR or SENIOR, the ELDER; while the other is described as Macarius
of Alexandria.
Macarius the Egyptian was the elder of the two, and was born, according
to Socrates, in Upper Egypt. At the age of thirty he betook himself to a solitary
life. His place of retreat was the wilderness of Scete or Scetis, a part of the
great Lybian desert, which D'Anville places about 60 miles, but Tillemont as much
as 120 miles S. of Alexandria, a wretched spot, but on that account well suited
to the purpose of the ascetics who occupied it. Here Macarius, though yet a young
man, gave himself up to such austerities as to acquire the title of paidariogeron,"the
aged youth." At forty years of age he was ordained a priest, and is said to have
received power to cast out evil spirits and to heal diseases, as well as the gift
of prophecy; and many marvellous stories are related by his biographers, Palladius
and Rufinus, of his employment of these supernatural qualifications. It was even
reported that he had raised the dead in order to convince an obstinate heretic,
a Hieracite, with whom he had a disputation: but this miracle was too great to
be received implicitly even by the credulity of Rufinus and Palladius, who have
recorded it only as a report.
During the persecution which the orthodox suffered from Lucius, the
Arian patriarch of Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Valens, Macarius
was banished, together with his namesake of Alexandria and other Egyptian solitaries,
to an island surrounded by marshes and inhabited only by heathens. He died at
the age of ninety; and as critics are generally agreed in placing his death in
A. D. 390 or 391, he must have been born about the beginning of the fourth century,
and have retired to the wilderness about A. D. 330. He is canonized both by the
Greek and Latin churches; his memory is celebrated by the former on the 19th,
by the latter on the 15th January. (Socrat. H. E. iv. 23, 24; Sozomen, H. E. iii.
14, vi. 20; Theodoret, H. E. iv. 21; Rufin. H. E. ii. 4; and apud Heribert Rosweyd,
De Vita et Verbis Senior. ii. 28; Apophthegmata Patrum, apud Coteler. Eccles.
Graec. Monum. vol. i. p. 524, &c.; Pallad. Histor. Lausiac. c. 19; Bolland, Acta
Sanctor. a. d. 15 Januar.; Tillemont, MΓ©moires, vol. viii. p. 574, &c.; Ceillier,
Auteurs Sucres, vol. vii. p. 709. &c.)
The writings of Macarius have been the subject of much discussion.
Gennadius of Marseilles, our earliest authority, says (De Viris Illustrib. c.
10) that he wrote only a single Epistola or letter to his juniors in the ascetic
life, in which he pointed out to them the way of attaining Christian perfection.
Miraeus endeavours to identify this Epistola with the monastic rule, ascribed
to one of the Macarii, and given in the Codex Regularum of St. Benedict of Anagni;
but which, with the letter which follows it, is rather to be ascribed to Macarius
of Alexandria. The subject would lead us to identify the Epistola mentioned by
Gennadius with the Opuscula mentioned below, especially as a cursory citation
by Michael Glycas in his Annales (Pars i. p. 105, ed. Paris, p. 81, ed. Venice,
p. 199, ed. Bonn) from "the Epistles (en epistoais) of Macarius the Great" is
found to bear some resemblance to a passage in the fourth Opusculum, c. 2. The
writings published under the name of Macarius of Egypt are these: I. Homiliai
pneumatiakai, Homiliae Spirituales. These homilies, so called, are fifty in number,
of unequal length, and possibly interpolated by a later hand. They are ascribed
to our Macarius on the authority of MSS. by Picus, Fabricius, Pritius, Tillemont,
and Galland; but his authorship is denied by Possin, Dupin, Oudin, and Ceillier,
though these are not agreed to whom to ascribe them. Cave hesitates between our
Macarius and his namesake of Alexandria; but on the whole is inclined to prefer
the latter. The Homiliae were first published by Joannes Picus, or Pic, 8vo. Paris,
1559; a Latin version by the editor was separately published in the same or the
next year. The Greek text, with a Latin version by Palthenius, was again published
at Frankfort, 8vo. 1594; and the text and version were reprinted from Picus with
the works of Gregory Thaumaturgus and Basil of Seleuceia, fol. Paris, 1621. A
revised edition of the Greek text, with the version of Palthenius, also revised,
was published by Jo. Georg. Pritius, 8vo. Leipzig, 1698, and again in 1714, and
may be regarded as the standard edition. A Latin version is given in the Bibliotheca
Patrum, vol. ii. ed. Paris, 1589; vol. iv. ed. Cologn. 1618; vol. iv. ed. Lyon,
1677. An English version, with learned and valuable notes, by " a presbyter of
the church of England" (Fabricius calls him Thomas Haywood), was published 8vo.
London, 1721. Some other homilies of Macarius are extant in MS. II. Opuscula.
The collection so termed comprehends seven treatises, all short: Peri phulakes
kardias, De Custodia Cordis; 2. Peri teleiotos en pneumati, De Perfectione in
Spiritu; 3. Peri proseuches, De Oratione; 4. Peri hupomones kai diakriseos, De
Patientia et Discretione; 5. Peri hupsoseos tou noos, De Eleratione Mentis; 6.
Peri agapes, De Charitate; 7. Peri eleutherias noos, De Libertate Mentis. These
Opuscula were first published, with a Latin version, in the Thesaurus Ascetiicus
of Possin, 4to. Paris, 1684; a more correct edition both of the text and version
was published by J. G. Pritius, 8vo. Leipzig, 1699; and again in 1714; and may
be regarded as the best edition. III. Apophthegmata. These were published partly
by Possin in his Thesaurus Asceticus, and partly by Cotelerius in his Ecclesiae
Graecae Monumenta, vol. i. (4to. Paris, 1677), among the Apophthegmata Patrum;
and were subjoined by Pritius to the Opuscula. An English version of the Opuscula
and of some of the Apophthegmata (those of Possin) was published by Mr. Granville
Penn, 12mo. London, 1816, under the title of Institutes of Christian Perfection.
All the works of Macarius, with a Latin version, are given in the Bibliotheca
Patrum of Galland, vol. vii. fol. Venice, 1770. A monastic rule to the compilation
of which our Macarius contributed is noticed below in No. 2. A Latin version of
some fragments of other pieces is given in the Bibliotheca Concionatoria of Combefis;
and perhaps some pieces remain in MS. beside the homilies already mentioned. (Tillemont
and Ceillier, ll. cc.; Pritius, Praefat. in Macarii Opuscula; Galland, Bibl. Putrum
Proleg. ad vol. vii.; Oudin, De Scriptorib. Eccles. vol. i. col. 474, seq.; Cave,
Hist. Litt. ad ann. 373, vol. i. p. 256, ed. Oxford, 1740-1742; Fabric. Bibl.
Graec. vol. viii. p. 361, &c.; Penn, Pref to the Institutes of Macarius.)
Macarius the Egyptian (or "Macarius the Elder")
One of the most famous of the early Christian solitaries, born about A.D. 300;
died 390. He was a disciple of St. Anthony and founder of a monastic community
in the Scetic desert. Through the influence of St. Anthony he abandoned the world
at the age of thirty, and ten years later was ordained a priest. The fame of his
sanctity drew many followers, and his monastic settlement at his death numbered
thousands. The community, which took up its residence in the Nitrian and Scetic
deserts, was of the semi-eremitical type. The monks were not bound by any fixed
rule; their cells were close together, and they met for Divine worship only on
Saturdays or Sundays. The principle which held them together was one of mutual
helpfulness, and the authority of the elders was recognized not as that of monastic
superiors in the strict sense of the word but rather as that of guides and models
of perfection. In a community whose members were striving to excel in mortification
and renunciation the pre-eminence of Macarius was generally recognized. Several
monasteries in the Libyan desert still bear the name of Macarius. Fifty homilies
have been preserved which bear his name, but these and an "Epistle to the monks",
with other dubious pieces, cannot be ascribed to him with absolute certainty.
[Note: Saint Macarius the Younger (the Alexandrian) is named in the Roman Martyrology
on 2 January, Saint Macarius the Elder (the Egyptian) on 15 January; in Byzantine
liturgical calendars, both Saints are commemorated on 19 January.]
PATRICK J. HEALY, ed.
Transcribed by: Herman F. Holbrook
This text is cited Oct 2006 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
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