210 Macarius of Alexandria

R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of Cod (Edinburgh, 1988), 79-64.

Macarius of Alexandria (d. c. 394) One of the early hermit monks who lived in the vicinity of Antony the Great. In 355 he was ordained priest to serve the monastic communities at Kellia (see Nitria, Scete), and gained a great repu­tation for his sanctity and wisdom as an elder among the Desert Fathers. Along with Macarius the Great I (not to be con­fused with Pseudo-Macari us: see Macar­ius the Great II), he is often known as one of the "Two Macarii," symbols of the the-ology and praxis of the Desert Fathers.

E. T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History (New York, 1965), chap. 18; Λ. J. Festugiere, ed., Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Brussels, 1961), chap. 29.

Macarius the Great I (c. 300-390) The "real" Macarius the Great (as distinct from the "Pseudo-Macarius" who later took over his identity in the textual tra-dition: see Macarius the Great II) was the monastic founder of the colonies of Scete (Wadi el Natrun—see Nitria) in the Egyptian wilderness south of Alexan­dria. He was a supporter of Athanasius the Great, and a leading Desert Father who features in the collection of desert wisdom known as the Sayings of the Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum). The monastic historians Palladius and Rufi-nus speak a little about him, but basically next to nothing was recorded of his life; a fact that made him an ideal candidate for the subsequent attribution of important monastic texts that were not really his.

E. T. Meyer, trans., Palladius: The Lausiac History (New York, 1965), chap. 17; Rufinus, History of the Monks chap. 28.

Macarius the Great II (Pseudo-Macarius) (fl. late fourth century) Macarius the Great is also the pseudony­

mous name for a Syrian writer who was an important monastic leader of a circle that had earlier been criticized for certain excesses in its spiritual theology. Some have identified him as Symeon of Mesopotamia (named as the group leader by Theodoret), and he is now often known as either Macarius-Symeon or Pseudo-Macarius. The criticism of his monastic heritage begins to be dis­cernible from the 370s onwards. Sources call his adherents Messalians (a corrup­tion of the Syriac word for "people of prayer"—MshLni). In some Greek sources they were known as the Euchites, but later heresiologists add to the confu­sion by thinking they were founded by a certain Messalius (who never existed). Even the objectionable element of the movement was not clearly understood by those criticizing it, and Epiphanius, who attacked the Messalians in his Refu­tation of All Heresies in 377, can only find their "lack of discipline" as grounds for censure. Other critics claimed they held that baptism was not sufficient for a Christian life, which had to be constantly supplemented and sustained by prayer, a doctrine that could be heretical or not, depending on how it was received, by enemy or friend. The movement was con­demned at a session of the Council of Ephesus I (431), which cites passages from a key work, Asceticon. It is clear that elements of this text were taken from the homilies of Pseudo-Macarius. There are, however, certain themes that, whether "Messalian" or not (and the relationship of Pseudo-Macarius to any precise Mes­salian movement is still a dubious con­tention), do seem to be constitutive for the circle of Syrian ascetics for whom he was writing. These are the idea that sin dwells in a human heart like a serpent and the human being has a tendency to spiritual dissolution that needs to be off­set by constant prayer and inner atten-tiveness. The school also advocated the abandonment of traditional monastic ideas of hard labor as a form of ascesis, advocating instead a wandering lifestyle, that focused more on spiritual with-

Macrina 211

drawal and recollection (probably why local bishops disliked them). Another typical theme seems to be the strong stress on the sensible consciousness (aes-thesis) of the working of the Holy Spirit in the innermost heart. This monastic fam­ily taught that if a person was not deeply conscious of the Spirit's presence, then that person was clearly unregenerate. Those possessed of the Spirit could often feel the presence as a vision of light or warmth. Pseudo-Macarius himself shows signs of all these elements; indeed, the spirituality of the attentive heart and the constant invocation of penthos ("joy-making mourning") are major contribu­tions that he makes to the development of international Christian spirituality. There is little indication that he takes any of these ideas to an objectionable extreme. His work, chiefly the Great Letter and the Fifty Spiritual Homilies, influenced Greg­ory of Nyssa's ascetical theology, and went on in latzer Byzantium to be a major source of the hesychastic renewal from the eleventh century onward.

J. Gribomont, "Monasticism and Asceti­cism," in B. McGinn and J. Meyendorff, eds. Christian Spirituality: Origitis to tlie Uth Century (New York, 1993), 89-112; W. Jaeger, Two Rediscovered Works of Ancient Christian Literature (Leiden, Netherlands, 1965); C. Malortey, Ps. Macarius: The 50 Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter (CWS; New York, 1992); J. Meyendorff, "Messalianism or Anti-Messalianism: A Fresh Look at the 'Macarian' Problem," in Kyriakon. Festschrift. / Quasten. II (Munster, Germany, 1971), 585; S. Tugwell, Ways of

Imperfection (London, 1984), 47-58; idem, "Evagrius and Macarius," in C. Jones, G. Wainwright, and E. Yarnold, eds.. The Study of Spirituality (Oxford and New York, 1986), 168-75.

Macedonianism see Pneumatomachianism

Macrina (c. 327-380) Macrina was an ascetic in Cappadocia. She was the elder sister of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory

of Nyssa, and granddaughter of Mac­rina who had been the disciple of Gre­gory Thaumaturgos, the great Origenist theologian whose authority was almost "patronal" in Cappadocia. Betrothed, and soon "widowed" while only twelve years of age, she appealed to church laws that equated betrothal with a wed­ding to block her father's plans to have her married again, and instead lived as an ascetic at home, teaching her brother Gregory of Nyssa while Basil was away studying rhetoric. On her father's death Macrina transformed their coun­try estate in Pontus (Annesoi) into a familial monastery. There Basil was won over to asceticism (it has often subse­quently been attributed as his idea), and it was the site of Gregory of Nazianzus's and Basil's construction of the rule of monasticism (the Ascelicon attributed to Basil), which had great subsequent influ­ence in the Eastern churches. Macrina established a community, where it is possible she followed Eustathius of Sebaste's radical ideas about monastic life, such as invoking social equality among monastics. The men of the family do not appear to have agreed with this leveling of social ranks. Macrina may also have retained an attachment to Eustathius, who was condemned by the family because he resisted the Nicene confession of the homoousion and the deity of the Holy Spirit of God. As a result, Basil condemned his sister to a lit­erary annihilation, although Gregory of Nyssa wrote a moving Life of Macrina as a testament to her ascetical philosophy. In Letter 19 he speaks of her, and in his treatise On the Soul and the Resurrection

he presents her, like the dying Socrates, musing on the immortality of the soul from her deathbed.

V. W. Callahan, Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Macrina (FOTC 58; Washington, D.C., 1967), 161-191; idem. On the Soul and the Resurrection (FOTC 58; Washington, D.C), 195-272; S. Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 1994); J. Laporte, The Role of Women in