4TH CENTURY, YEAR 390.
LIST OF THE AUTHORS AND WORKS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME XXXIV,
BOTH SAINTS MACARIUS, THE EGYPTIAN AND THE ALEXANDRIAN. Critical and historical questions concerning the lives of Saints Macarius the Egyptian and the Alexandrian, written by Heinrich Joseph Floss, with a double Appendix.
WORKS OF ST. MACARIUS THE EGYPTIAN. Apophthegmata. Epistles. Prayers. Homilies. On the custody of the heart. On perfection in the spirit. On prayer. On patience and discernment. On the elevation of the mind. On charity. On the liberty of the mind.
WORKS OF ST. MACARIUS THE ALEXANDRIAN. Apophthegmata. Sermon on the departure of the soul of the righteous and the sinners.
APPENDIX TO THE WORKS OF MACARIUS. The Lausiac History of Palladius, Bishop of Helenopolis. (In order to redeem the promise we made regarding Palladius, Bishop of Helenopolis (vol. LXV of this Patrology), the *Lausiac History* is produced from the Ducæan and Cotelerian edition with the translation of Rosweyde.)
NOTICE. We have been asked from all parts of the Catholic world why Volume XXXIV of our Complete Course of Graeco-Latin Patrology, begun in the first month of 1858, was not completed by 1860, while almost all the subsequent volumes had been finished for some time. We would much prefer not to answer so natural and universal a question; but, however painful it may be for us to do so, we are forced to state at least the portion of the truth necessary for our justification.
Accordingly, we reply that this is due to the fault of the collaborator who had taken it upon himself to annotate the Macarian works. By an explicit agreement dating from 1856 and renewed in 1857, the learned doctor was to have delivered the entire copy of his volume to us within a few months; but, under perpetually recurring pretexts, the manuscript was delivered to us only late and in small sections, only to be thereafter withheld entirely. We can truly say that in the 28 years of our career as a major Catholic publisher, none of the thousands of authors or translators with whom we have had dealings has ever kept us in suspense in this way. Yet, to carry patience to its absolute limits, we waited for him until the very last volume of our Patrology; and only when we reached that point, forced to see—despite more than 50 prepaid letters from our part—that there was nothing more to expect, did we set to work, weary of the struggle, or rather by force majeure, to edit the volume that had been gaping for 3 years. God only knows the pains and the expenses of all kinds that we have had to undergo for a single tome missing from so vast a collection! A mass of buyers in France and especially abroad never wished to support a publication so truncated. Others refused to pay for volumes received previously and subsequently for the sole fear of never receiving the 34th. And, throughout the course of the edition, seeing it never come off the press, everyone congratulated themselves on their prudence in not wanting to subscribe or pay.
We repeat: it is extremely painful for us to unveil these small internal miseries; but could we remain under the pressure of such repeated complaints or reproaches? Moreover, this pain, we believe, is softened before God as before men in that, despite losses proportional to the extent of the greatest work ever published in the world, we have had the Christian courage not to name the author of so many expenses and so many concerns.
Be that as it may, we hope that the readers will lose nothing of what they had a right to expect. We have made every effort to continue the abandoned work without too much inequality; so that, if some interests are harmed, they are only our own.
THE EDITORS.
Col. 495, D 2, μετάστασις read διάστασις. Col. 520 A 14, συνέθειαν read συνήθειαν. Col. 532 B 2, την read της. Col. 566 C 2, non read nunc. Col. 570 C 1, et ignis æterni read et ab igne æterno. Ibid. 2, constituit read constituit nos. Col. 617 C 1, Iva read Ira. Col. 758 C 3, est read es. Col. 741 B 12, read . Col. 747 C 6, ob read ab. Col. 768 A 15, C pxetat read ἄρχεται. Col. 822 in Monito lin. 2, Georgio Pretio read Pritio. Ibid lin. 6, read Vindobonensis. Col. 823 A 12, insectis read infectis.
C the desert is commonly called in both ancient and our own times—those, namely, whom Evagrius, Cassian, and others describe, you would believe were before your eyes. The monasteries themselves are even now square or rectangular in shape, and surrounded by walls, within which a small garden is cultivated. If you could see there a certain blind old man circling the altar three times and chanting the Alleluia with a youthful voice, or that one who is one hundred and twenty years old, coming out of his cell and blessing you as you go, you would, no doubt, be filled with an ineffable sense of veneration, just as Tischendorf was. Around the things I have mentioned, the four monasteries and the mountains of Nitria, which, rising slightly, enclose those marshes situated in a wide valley, within sandy and immense solitudes, very many walls are seen from here and there, testifying to how great a number of monasteries once existed there.
§ 2. That Macarius, by whose name the desert and the monasteries are called to this day—his image, in which he is seen leaning upon a staff, is very common in those parts—was, if I am not mistaken in all things, Macarius the Egyptian, the first inhabitant of the Scetic desert, illustrious in virtues, an excellent and invincible athlete of God. And the nearby walls, which stand very thick in the midst of those deserts, are relics of the venerable antiquity of the monasteries which flourished in great numbers around Nitria and in the Cellia from the fourth century, nor do the brothers of the Macarian monastery unjustly contend from tradition that their monastery was founded fifteen hundred years ago; this, although it cannot be stated with certainty regarding the walls which are now seen, can yet be said regarding the first foundation of the monastery. Nor does that beautiful tradition seem to be passed over in silence, by which, past the third century, the abbot of the Macarian monastery affirmed to one traveling in those regions that there had once existed as many monasteries in Scete and in the Nitrian mountains as the year counts days; and this, if you look at the reality and not merely the words, agrees exceedingly well with the various narrations of the fourth and fifth centuries. Ludolf as well, rector of the parish church in Suchem, in the diocese of Paderborn, in the book *De itinere terrae sanctae*, which he composed circa 1350, handed down these things concerning those monasteries: "Item, in Egypt there still stand very many intact cloisters and monasteries, churches and hermitages, but they are nonetheless deserted, and best depicted, but the paintings have been defaced in various ways by the Saracens. Item, in the deserts of Egypt there still stand so many cells and hermitages of the holy Fathers that in some places, I believe, for two or three miles, one could shoot from one to the other, and in very many of them still dwell Nubian Indians and Syrians, conducting themselves according to the order of Saint Antony and Macarius. In these deserts, God has performed many wonders through the holy Fathers, and especially in the place called Stichi [let it be read: Scithi, Scete], through Saint Antony and Macarius, as is contained in the *Lives of the Fathers*. In this desert there is a place under a very high and very narrow crag, where Saint Antony dwelt, and out of that crag a little spring flows to a distance of a half-stone's throw, running into the sand, so that the fluid water enters the snow [sic/sand] and appears no more. The same place is visited by many for the sake of devotion and delight, and even through the grace of God and the honor of Saint Antony, many infirmities are healed and driven away by that very spring. For it is believed that the little spring flowed out from the crag through his special prayers, which is also clearly evident, because it does not seem to have flowed for more than the small amount of his dwelling-place, and to have irrigated his small garden."
The monastery of Macarius the Egyptian in Scete was situated "a journey of a day and a night" from Nitria, as the author of the second book of the *Lives of the Fathers*, which Rosweyde edited, reports; Saint Ammon had founded the monasteries of the Nitrian mountains, he who died his final day while Saint Antony was still alive, and therefore, as will appear below, he preceded our Macarii by some small amount in time. That place, however, where the other Macarius, called the Alexandrian, who was contemporary
VITA E
A it was Egypt, it sat; owing to the multitude of Persians there, it was called Cellia or the Cells, which, by that same author, were said to have been distant nearly ten miles from Nitria in the inner desert. Whence it is gathered that the habitation of the Alexandrian, although Nitria was situated in the middle of both, was certainly not very far removed from the monasteries of the Egyptian. Such, however, was the fame of the two Macarii among the brothers of that region, that certain fathers in the Cells would relate to that same author that two Macarii had shone in those places like two lights of heaven, and Palladius, who had lived for three years in the Cells together with Macarius the Alexandrian, relating their praises, thought that he stood in need of a singular introduction, lest, in telling such great things, he should appear to be lying. The severity of life at that time flourished as almost incredible in the innumerable monasteries of Egypt, to which must be referred the frequent and long fasts, the abstinence from almost all flesh, the vigils, the dwelling in cells in which the body could scarcely be moved, and other things which were accustomed to be practiced more harshly in the monasteries. From the monks living in the monasteries must be distinguished the hermits, who, for the sake of greater spiritual perfection, with the consent of the abbot, betook themselves into the inner solitude, where, inhabiting a small cell, they received every day water sent from the monastery along with bread; but sometimes they themselves would choose a watery place where they might sow and prepare bread with their own hand. But the eremitic life B was very frequently used even by the abbots or the elders of the monasteries, so much so that they would betake themselves into a cell near the monastery, which indeed we read was related of St. Anthony, Macarius the Egyptian, and others. Finally, the anchorites used to surpass by far the severity of the hermits, for they—frequently spending almost their whole life in the inner solitude without any help of man, often for fifty years and more—would see no man’s face, feeding on roots, fruits, and herbs. And they bore the burning fire of the sun, the heat of thirst, and the lack of water, not without joy, in honor of Christ. Sometimes a traveler, journeying through the desert, would happen upon them before their death, as if sent by God, who would refresh them in their last hour and bury them in an honorable tomb. But that the brothers in the monasteries always walked with bare feet and leaning on staves, had their head covered with a cowl and their shoulders with a scapular, their body girt with a belt, and, moreover, wore a melote—that is, a sheepskin—is narrated most copiously by Evagrius, Cassian, and in the *Vitas Patrum* of the Rosweydian edition.
§ 3. To describe more fully in this place the solitary life in Egypt of the fourth century and how it spread thence far and wide into Syria and Palestine is foreign to our purpose. Although we have thought those few things should be added. The father of the monastic institution in Egypt was St. Anthony the Great; for C not yet [before him] were there such frequent monasteries in Egypt, nor did anyone at all know of the wild solitude, but he who...
and the solitary life of the fourth century as a continued martyrdom, one might say, a new kind of martyrdom, which, that God might the more deign to lead their will to its end, they imposed upon themselves, and chose for themselves as a more perfect and secure way, by no means despising the secular life, a fact you should well note. B Yet it is explained only by that interior desire for holiness, which the fervent spirit works, and by the example proposed for imitation by the holy elders, that almost all of Egypt followed those seven into the desert, C and most willingly bore with them the harshest toils of life, so that after six or seven decades the vastest wildernesses were so filled with monasteries and holy men that, as it is said, "as many peoples as were held in the cities, almost as great a multitude of monks were held in the deserts." This is why Arsenius hastened from the palace to the horrible places of Scetis, why youths of tender age hastened from soft dwellings to labors they could hardly endure, why Mount Nitria abounded with five thousand, Scetis with a great number of monks, the Cells with countless cells, why the regions pertaining to Memphis and Babylon flowed with a huge multitude of monks, why most numerous monasteries were seen around the Nile, why Serapion ruled nearly ten thousand monks, why at Tabenna Pachomius kept a very large company of brothers under a rule, and why the city of Oxyrhynchus in the Thebaid was filled and surrounded inside and out by monks, its public buildings and also the temples of ancient superstition inhabited by monks...
A, and there were far more monasteries through that whole city than houses, so that the entire city appeared to be one single church, and the bishop of the place affirmed that twenty thousand virgins and ten thousand monks dwelt therein. From the internal sense of martyrdom alone, which inflamed all of Egypt, from the sight of the dissolute life of a few pagans, from the desire to correct one’s previous life through a more rigorous discipline, and from the constancy, patience, virtues, and miracles performed by the aid of God by the elder hermits, that great concourse to the monasteries and the severity of life—which to anyone judging by the common custom and way of the world might seem excessive—can be understood; and it brought it about that, at the end of the fourth century, Egypt held forth the torch of religion to all lands. St. Jerome from Dalmatia, Rufinus from Italy, Sulpicius Severus from Marseille, Evagrius from Pontus, Palladius from Constantinople, Cassian and others from Palestine, noble men and women from Rome, sought Egypt, so that by the sight and familiar association of the elders they might gather for themselves the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Even to the Franks and the Indians did the fame of the healings which God performed through the elders penetrate. Egypt appeared to be one single monastery, whose daughters were Syria and Palestine. Indeed, such discipline flourished among all the monks, and the example of the elders was so wondrously drawing to everyone, that two youths, having been ordered to take some figs to a sick hermit, having wandered from the road, were found dead from hunger in the desert, after a few days, with the figs intact which they were to have delivered to the sick man. B 9 That in such obedience some exceeded the measure of severity can hardly be denied; but on the other hand, the measure of license and sloth much more frequently is exceeded. And extraordinary times must not be judged by ordinary standards. That Simeon Stylites, who stood upon a column for almost the entire time of his life, and with one knee rotting away and worms boiling out of his body, insisted on the other, sound one, alone for many entire years; who, when his mother cried out: "Your father has died, consumed by grief for you," and shed most bitter tears, so that, as the disciple who wrote his life testifies, all who were present wept, he indeed "hearing the voice of his mother placed his face in his hands and wept bitterly," but from his purpose, which exceeded human strength, he could not be moved: he, I say, Simeon Stylites, what did he not accomplish by the example of his severity! How many uncouth pagans did he win for Christ by this unheard-of spectacle! What fame of his name, spreading through the whole East, shocked the infidels and inflamed the Christians! And how rich the fruits were that redounded to the Church from that wondrous flight from the East to the angelic life, is shown both by the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, who, nourished by the holy study of that time, were elevated to that greatest clarity of sanctity and greatness, and is shown by the other centuries that follow, in which the monastic life reached the western regions also. No one denies that into these, from the monastic life, especially from the time of St. Benedict, very abundant fruits redounded. C
§ 4. But it must also be admitted that inconveniences sometimes flowed from the indiscreet and superabundant zeal of some. 10 What, since the founders themselves and the first authors of that life, when a huge multitude of people of every age and every condition of life and every nation D
flowed to them, complained that they could not reach the goal which they had set for themselves in the beginning! In the year that Saint Anthony was dying, Saint Hilarion, who had established monasteries in the deserts of Syria, when he saw the great building and the multitude of those living with him, and the mobs of those who were brought to him occupied with diverse ailments and unclean spirits, so that the whole wilderness was filled with every kind of person, wept daily, mourning and saying that he had returned again to the world, and that by name of a monastery he had the goods and equipment of a farm for the maintenance of the brothers; for which reason, later in the persecution of Julian the Apostate, when he himself was absent, he refused to restore the buildings that had been torn down, but withdrew into the wastes A. Nor do I deny that the unworthy sometimes fled to the monasteries, of which fact we find examples among the writers, although very many impious men were at last made pious by the gentleness of the elders; indeed, that the heresies themselves sometimes proceeded from the blind zeal of some. But nevertheless, those times promoted the salvation of the Church as much as possible. What the martyrs were in the first three centuries, that the anchorites, hermits, and monks of the East 11 were in the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, constituting a kind of new and countless army of martyrs. For just as the faith and life of the Christians kindled a torch for themselves by the tortures of the martyrs, so by the severity of those who completely scorned the world, the will of the other faithful was ignited. As the constancy of the martyrs broke the force of paganism, so the example of the solitary ones destroyed the final temples. As from the countenance of the martyrs, when they proceeded to the most cruel torments, the cheerfulness and joy of heaven shone forth, so in the fervor and zeal with which the monks imposed upon themselves all the torments of the flesh, the virtue of the Christian religion was revealed. As the three previous centuries cannot be understood without the history of the martyrdom of those who had devoted themselves to Christ, so the history of the fourth and fifth century Church is most closely connected with this new monastic martyrdom, from which it receives its rightful light. But to our Macarii it is owed that, after Anthony, they were almost the first authors and promoters of that great religious inflammation of souls in the fourth-century Egypt; and in what category they excelled, that living tradition, which has carried the name of Macarius for fifteen centuries—down to the present day—above all others who once lived in those wastes of Libya B, clearly demonstrates. But the signs and prodigies performed by these elders, although they are frequently narrated by the writers of that time beyond the bounds of verisimilitude, I nevertheless, can hardly interpret always psychologically, as some have done, or in some other natural way. Whoever is not unworthy of the Christian name is prepared to profess that in great times the hand of God has done great things among men. And why this should not be asserted here, when we least deny that the same was done among the apostles and the Fathers of the Church, I do not understand. If, however, you are frequently offended by the fabulous form of the narratives, know that it coheres intimately both with the character of the Egyptian race and with the singular manner of life of the elders and the very nature of the times C; for which reason I would say that a certain poetry is contained in those books written about the fathers of the desert, derived from the deeds and prodigies of the elders, but wonderfully refined and adorned by the fame and the poetic character of the race and the age.
§ 5. But these things concerning the beginnings of the monastic life are sufficient. Now, before we begin to arrange what is read concerning the Macarii, we must briefly offer a warning about the sources. I name Evagrius, Rufinus, Saint Jerome, 12
A nymum, Palladium, Cassianum. Of these, if you consider the Macarii, the most copious and most trustworthy witness is Palladius, who reached the port of Alexandria in the second year of the reign of Theodosius the Great. After spending thirty-six months in the monasteries that were around Alexandria, he withdrew to Mount Nitria, and in the Cells, where he spent nine years, he lived for three years together with Macarius of Alexandria. The Egyptian Macarius, however, had died one year before Palladius departed into the wilderness. Thus, you may easily understand that the authority of Palladius is to be valued most highly, and all the more so since he shows himself to be a faithful observer, and over a long series of years, from the virtues practiced by the holy men and women in the wilderness of Egypt and in Libya and the Thebaid and Syene and Tabennisi, and then in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Syria, and in the regions of the West and Rome and in Campania, and in those parts which are around these, he learned of them by traveling himself. The book which Palladius published concerning the monks was dedicated to a certain prefect Lausus, whence it drew the name *Lausiac History*, or simply *Lausiaca* (in Greek ἱστορία πρὸς Λαῦσον).
There exist three Latin versions of this work, which differ greatly from one another. Of these, the one which is much more complete than the other two, translated by Gentianus Hervetus, comprises 151 chapters B. Another, which is read just like the others in Rosweyde, consists of twenty chapters, translated by an unknown ancient interpreter. Finally, a third, likewise by an unknown ancient interpreter, appeared in 58 chapters under this title: "The Paradise of Heraclides," which title is indeed false, since it should be read "The Paradise of Palladius," as it is in a very ancient codex of the same version written at the beginning of the 9th century, which I consulted at Rome in the library of the monastery of *Santa Croce in Gerusalemme*. The *Paradise of Heraclides* appears to be a completely different book, the codices of which are preserved at Rome in the library of Queen Christina.
But in addition to those three versions C of the *Lausiac History*, there also exists a triple edition of the Greek text, none of which agrees with the versions. The primary Greek edition appeared from a codex of the Palatine Library by the care of Meursius in 103 chapters, and it differs not a little from the version of Hervetus, and entirely from the other versions. A text far more complete than this Meursian one, from the Royal codices together with the version of Hervetus, was edited in 151 chapters by Fronton du Duc. Finally, Cotelier published some chapters missing in this and the other editions as if they were a new supplement to that edition. You have, therefore, the edition enlarged by these additions of both du Duc and Cotelier in the collection D known as the *Bibliotheca Graeca*.
A of the works of Meursius from the recension of Joannes Lami. I take care, since even in the library of Isaac Vossius, according to the evidence, a copy of the *Lausiac History* was found that was double the size of the published ones. But of all these editions that exist, none is so arranged that it presents the appearance of a genuine text. You see, therefore, that a very great difficulty arises for us here. But it happens conveniently that in the Imperial Library at Vienna I have found—or so it seems to me—a genuine *Lausiac History*, hitherto unknown, in two manuscripts; in both of which it is contained in its entirety, one on parchment and very old, the other on paper. And I vindicate the mark of authenticity for this unpublished text, both because of the nexus of the events, where nothing is missed, and because of the simplicity of the diction and the excellent arrangement of the entire book. If you compare the published copies of the *Lausiac History* with the text of these codices, they appear wondrously interpolated and afflicted with a sort of Babylonian confusion, such that what ought to be read in the middle of the book is read at the end, and what pertains to the end occupies the middle place. Wherefore we shall use, first, the genuine text of the *Lausiac History* concerning the Macarii, which I have transcribed from the codices and which we shall use below; then we shall compare the published copies. Those varieties in the copies seem to have arisen from the fact that sometimes more, sometimes fewer things were translated into the *Lausiac History* from other writings on the life of the desert fathers, and were mixed in with it in ancient times. Of which number B I especially consider that *Paradise* of Heraclides to have been, which seems to have been dedicated to the same Lausus, the prefect to whom Palladius inscribed the *Lausiac History*. Thus, from the two prefaces of the *Lausiac History* which the Meursian edition offers, I would for my part attribute the former, which begins with the words "In this book, etc.," C to Heraclides. For you would hardly believe that Palladius, in inscribing the dedicatory epistles that are read there to his own work, would omit the former and immediately begin with the other, which starts: "I count blessed, etc." Furthermore, the published copies of the *Lausiac History* have received no small increments from the Greek and Latin text of the book of the *Patres* (the *Vitae Patrum*), which is second in order in the collection of Rosweyd. And as we shall soon see, Rufinus translated this very book from Greek into the Latin tongue, a version that St. Jerome already knew well. But Palladius himself, as will be plain, made use of the Greek exemplar in writing his *Lausiac History*. From which it is gathered that those things which are found in the published copies of the *Lausiac History*—besides that which the Vienna codex will provide—flowed from a sufficiently ancient source, and are also most worthy of observation. But as for the singular connection that seems to exist between that *Paradise* of Heraclides, this second book, and the *Lausiac History* of Palladius, we shall discuss it.
C § 6. Having cleared away this difficulty, we approach a new one, no less troublesome, which Rufinus presents. He lived under the empire of Valens, when, after St. Athanasius had died, Lucius, a supporter of Arius, had intruded himself—through the window, as they say—into the episcopate of Alexandria, and he was living in the desert with the elders and enduring the dire persecutions of Lucius. For he himself, describing these disturbances, says: "During this same time, the fathers of the monastic life and antiquity, by merit Macarius and Isidorus and another Macarius and Heraclides and Pambus, the disciples of Antony, were considered men throughout Egypt and especially in the regions of the Nitrian desert, who were believed to have a fellowship of life and deeds not with other mortals, but with the heavenly angels; I speak of things I saw in person, and I recount their deeds, of whom
A a multitude reported. In this letter, since Rufinus appears to have arrived in Egypt while St. Athanasius was still alive—for St. Athanasius bestowed upon Melania, whom Rufinus accompanied on her journey, a sheepskin that he himself had received as a gift from Abbot Macarius. And so B Melania, after she had sold her possessions in Alexandria, entered the mountain of Nitria and spent nearly half a year with the holy fathers. She then followed those who had been relegated by the prefect of Alexandria to the region of Palestine situated near Diocaesarea, and she diligently assisted them with both her resources and her own hands. Indeed, St. Jerome had heard that Rufinus had arrived in Palestine together with Melania, for he writes to Florentius: "And because brother Rufinus, who is said to have come from Egypt to Jerusalem with holy Melania..." St. Jerome had attached a letter to be delivered to the same Rufinus in his correspondence to Florentius, in which we read: "I hear that you are penetrating the secrets of Egypt, visiting the choirs of monks, and circumnavigating the heavenly family on earth;" then: "For it is reported that Rufinus is in Nitria and has traveled to the blessed Macarius, with the frequent coming and going of travelers..."
C ...a multitude of the elders of Egypt "confessors and already martyrs by will," the time of that persecution which Lucius was stirring up is clearly signified. That report, indeed, that Rufinus had arrived in Jerusalem with Melania, had been vain; for Rufinus had not yet come there: nevertheless, this other letter proves that Rufinus had visited the elders of Egypt at that time. And this same man, in his *Apology* [Invectiva] II, regarding Nitria and Macarius, whom he had visited, says: "I," he says, "who spent six years there for the sake of God, and again after some interval another two [Ed. Bened: after an interval some other days], where Didymus... and that I may come to the masters of the desert, on whom we were attending more attentively and frequently, where Macarius the disciple of Antony, and the other Macarius, and Isidorus, and Pambus..." It cannot be doubted that those six years of which he speaks preceded his migration from Egypt to Palestine. Those two years also [or some days], because Palladius narrates that Rufinus, having left Egypt, had dwelt in Jerusalem together with Melania, D into another 19 [brief] certain...
was both catholic and holy—so that by his means he might introduce the other heretics, whom he had placed there, into the Church. That by these words of St. Jerome the book is indicated which Rosweydus inscribed as the "Second Book of the Lives of the Fathers," in which many things are read concerning John in the first place, then concerning Ammonius, Evagrius, Or, Isidore, and others, cannot be doubted. I admit that nothing is held concerning Eusebius and Euthymius in that second book of the Rosweydan collection; but it is consistent that St. Jerome confuses those names with Eulogius and Didymus, who are read in the book, or that a corruption has crept into the codices themselves of either the book or St. Jerome's letter through a long series of ages.
Therefore, by those words St. Jerome signifies that Rufinus is the writer of that book, not Evagrius, as some have contended, which anyone who has read the passage of St. Jerome attentively will easily persuade himself. It is added that several handwritten codices, among which is one ancient one that Rosweydus used in editing the lives, openly profess the name of Rufinus. Hence a sufficiently great difficulty now arises. For if you inquire more accurately into the second book, it appears clearer than light that Rufinus cannot be the author. For, in the first place, the author of the second book does not rashly B put one John into the book itself.
Palladius is most easily explained from the fact that Rufinus lived in Jerusalem together with Melania, who was in Jerusalem for twenty-seven years. (Hist. Laus. cap. 117.) It was necessary that she should have been instructed; she came to Jerusalem in the tenth year of the Emperor Valens, i.e., in the year 374. (Hieron. Chronicon.) Paulinus of Nola (Opp. ed. Lebrun ep. 29) does not deny what Palladius (Hist. Laus. cap. 117) indicates. Paulinus (l.l.) says that Melania returned to Rome "after five lustra," using a full number, which is not to be pressed, but is to be explained by the more accurate total of Palladius. But from the fact that the published text of Palladius (cap. 119) holds that Melania had entertained guests for thirty-seven years, you should by no means, with Tillemont, conclude that she also remained in Egypt for ten years, since we detect here an open error of the scribe, who for *κζ'* (i.e., twenty-seven) has placed *λζ'* (i.e., thirty-seven). We have noted these things about Melania because we have found that Tillemont (Mémoires ed. Paris. T. X p. 396 sqq. 821 sqq.), Rosweydus (Rufini et Melaniae peregrinatio VV. PP. p. 425 sqq.), and Stilting (Vita S. Hieron., AA. SS. Boll. Sept. T. VIII p. 552 sqq.), although they themselves differ much among themselves, have erred gravely in this chapter. It remains that we should note C that Rufinus, when old, also had been in Mesopotamia, in Edessa and in the region of Carrhae; he had seen this (Rufin. Hist. Eccl. lib. II c. 8 Opp. ed. Vallarsi p. 279, Migne Patrol. T. XXI p. 517), which journey he seems to have undertaken after he came to Jerusalem.
A at the end of the year 394, and that he had as his companion Palladius, who wrote the Lausiac History, on his journey from Nitria to John in Lycopolis.
That Palladius, specifically, was the companion of the author of the second book on his journey, another passage of this same book also confirms. For we read that Apollonius had predicted to his monks, three days before the author of the second book arrived with his companions to see him: "After three days, three brothers will arrive coming from Jerusalem." But the same Palladius also narrates in the Lausiac History, in the very same words, that this had been predicted by Apollonius three days before his own B arrival. Let this not offend you, that Palladius is said to have come from Jerusalem. For although Palladius had fixed his ordinary residence in the Cells for nine years, at this very time he nevertheless wandered abroad from time to time. Around the year 394 he was present in Jerusalem. This is indicated by the letter which St. Jerome translated into Latin in the year 394, written a little earlier by St. Epiphanius to the bishop of Jerusalem. At the end of which St. Epiphanius says: "As for Palladius," he says, "a Galatian, who was once dear to us, and now stands in need of the mercy of God, beware, because he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen, lest by chance he lead some of the people entrusted to you into the perversity of his C error." At the end of the year 394, Palladius visited John in Lycopolis, and his six companions openly admit that they had come from Jerusalem; for they said to John: "For the benefit of our souls we have come to you from Jerusalem, that we might see with our eyes what we had heard by report." From these things it becomes clear when Palladius was in Jerusalem and when he returned from there. Indeed, in that same return from Jerusalem, it is necessary that Palladius, together with two companions, also visited Apollonius. For on another journey undertaken to Palestine for the sake of health, three years after he had visited John in Lycopolis, he did not return to Egypt, but came to Bithynia, D where he was ordained bishop.
23 It is certain, therefore, that the author of the second book
A of those who narrate the same things concerning the 24 elders of the Thebaid in the very same way, how did it arise?
The matter can indeed be explained in only two ways. Either one writer himself compiled his book from those chapters of the other concerning the elders of the Thebaid, or a third party inserted those spurious portions. The latter cannot be maintained. For the *Lausiac History* of the Viennese codices is so constituted that you cannot at all conceive of so many spurious chapters; if you were to remove those chapters from the *Lausiac History* as spurious, you would lack an entire part of the book. But if those chapters concerning the elders of the Thebaid were to be removed from the second book as spurious, it would scarcely retain the name of a book.
It is therefore most difficult to believe that those chapters in one or the other book, or in both, are spurious. Yet many reasons advise us to conclude that Palladius himself borrowed them from the second book and interwove them into his own *Lausiac History*.
For, first, Palladius published the *Lausiac History* long after the second book had been edited. For the *Lausiac History* appeared when Palladius was in his thirty-third year of living with the brethren and of the solitary life, and in his twentieth year of the episcopate, and in his fifty-third year of his whole life. C And Palladius came to the brethren at «twenty years of age, in the second consulship of Theodosius the Great,» i.e., in the year of Christ 388. Wherefore the *Lausiac History* was not edited before the year 421. St. Jerome, however, who knew the second book, died in the year 420, and Rufinus, whom we shall prove to be the interpreter of the second book, already died in the year 410. Whence it follows that the second book is much earlier in time than the *Lausiac History*.
If this stands, it is very easily understood that Palladius at least compiled the chapter of the second book concerning John in Lycopolis. For the entire chapter of the book concerning John in Lycopolis exists also in the *Lausiac History* almost D word for word. But one place, where the second book records that seven brothers came together to John, the writer of this *Lausiac* chapter has corrected: he
A first went to six of them, and afterwards to John, and that various things concerning his future lot were predicted for him by John. These predictions are valid for Palladius. From this it is clear that Palladius himself borrowed that chapter of the second book, but added his own details that explain more accurately and fully the visit to John. For St. Jerome also testifies that the chapter of the second book concerning John in Lyco is genuine. But if Palladius transferred one rather long chapter of the second book into his *Lausiac History*, what hinders us from saying that the other chapters, which are common to both books, were inserted into the *Lausiac History* by the same man, especially since Palladius, as is undoubtedly clear at least from the chapter on John, was a companion on the journey of the writer of the second book, with whom he had come to Jerusalem?
Therefore, it is probable that when Palladius was writing the *Lausiac History*, he transferred those chapters about the elders of the Thebaid from the second book into it. Now, as we saw above, if we posit a third person as a compiler of the chapters, this relationship cannot be justly explained. Why, then, it only remains for us to posit that these chapters were inserted into the *Lausiac* collection by Palladius himself. This indeed cannot be explained more correctly than by believing that Palladius visited not only John in Lyco and Apollonius, about whom it is now certain, but also all the other elders of the Thebaid together with the author of the second book, and experienced these same things together with him. Therefore, he later received into his own book what his companion had well explained; but the things he himself had come to know better through a longer stay than his companion [had]—namely, those things that concern the elders living around Alexandria and in Nitria and its environs—he described by his own efforts. 26 If we contend this, this relationship can no longer offend you.
B Let us now come to a most serious matter, asking whether this companion of Palladius and author of the second book was Rufinus, or not. This, indeed, cannot have been the case. For we showed above that Rufinus was no longer in Egypt after the year 385. Nor is anything to be found in the books of Rufinus, nor in that dissension that Rufinus had with St. Jerome, about a journey that he might have undertaken to Egypt at the end of the year 394 or generally after the year 385. Finally, if Rufinus had been his companion on the journey, Palladius would certainly have written about him in the *Lausiac History* in a different way than he did. Hence it seems sufficiently clear that that Rufinus is not the companion of Palladius and author of the second book. This is proven by another very firm argument. We read in the second book: "Indeed, some of the fathers who were there [in the Cells] told us that two Macarii had shone forth in those places like two lights of heaven." Therefore, the writer of the book did not himself know the Macarii, with whom Rufinus, as he himself taught us above, was present in Nitria. Whence it follows that Rufinus cannot be the author of the second book. Nor is it permitted to consider Evagrius the author of that book, which someone might perhaps wish to conclude from the words of St. Jerome cited above. For Evagrius himself also testifies that he had conversed with the Macarii C.
Thus, with the relationship existing between the second book of the Rosweydian collection and the *Lausiac History* of Palladius justly explained, the conclusion—that the authors of these books were companions of the journey in the Thebaid at the end of the year 394—is not overturned, but greatly confirmed. D It appears, as we have proven, that Rufinus did not compose the second book. But unless St. Jerome and the ancient codices have erred entirely, it is necessary that he is at least the translator of the book. 27 And if you compare the fragments of the Greek text published by Cotelier or the fragments preserved in the *Lausiac History* of the Meursian edition, you will easily persuade yourself that this book, which exists in Latin in the Rosweydian collection, was originally written in Greek. Therefore, let us now examine accurately regarding the translator, whether he is Rufinus or not.
And first of all, because in the second book Macarius the Alexandrian, who lived in the Cells as Palladius testifies as an eyewitness, is said to have lived in Scete, let no one be led to state that Rufinus is not the translator, for if he had been,
A he would have corrected such an error, because he himself had lived with the Macarii. For there is no error in that account, since Macarius of Alexandria, on the testimony of the same Palladius, lived not only in the Cells, but sometimes in Scete as well, where he had a cell. Furthermore, Rufinus, although he is accustomed to operate with the greatest freedom when translating books, rarely exercised his critical art to such an extent that he would amend a writer. Wherefore, if a writer had made a mistake, it could scarcely be expected that it would have been corrected by Rufinus. Finally, one may well doubt whether Rufinus, who in that great confusion of affairs, when Lucius was persecuting the monks of the desert, met the Macarii in Nitria, was so accurately informed concerning the dwelling-place of each of them. Hence, nothing stands in the way of our saying that Rufinus is the translator of the second book.
Now, furthermore, hear what confirms that Rufinus is the translator, beyond the words of St. Jerome and the testimony of the manuscripts. In the second book, at the end of the narratives concerning the Macarii, you will read a passage which could have been written by no one but Rufinus. B This passage 28 is: "But also many other, as we have said, miracles concerning the works of the holy Macarius of Alexandria are related, some of which are inserted in the eleventh book of the Ecclesiastical History; he who seeks will find." Behold a plain reference to the Continuation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, which Rufinus had written. Nor should this sort of parenthesis, added to the text by Rufinus the translator, cause offense, since Rufinus is accustomed to exercise the greatest freedom in translating books. He appeals to this Continuation, in which he had written concerning Macarius and had added these words: "But if we wish to pursue the deeds [namely, those belonging to Macarius] of the individual miracles, we are excluded by the brevity we have proposed, especially since these deserve their own narration in a proper work." There can be no doubt, therefore, that that passage of the second book refers to those words. Nor, when he wrote, "as we have said," is there any occasion left for doubt that Rufinus is the author of that passage of the second book, just as he was of the Continuation; or if not the author of the second book itself, he is at least its translator.
D What we have debated concerning the translator of this book, the preface of the book (5) also seems to confirm, at least to some extent. It exists twice in Greek: in the "Paradise," of which Cotelerius published fragments (6), and in the earlier proem of the Meursian edition of the Lausiac History (7). And the published fragments of the Paradise, among which is the preface, agree sufficiently accurately with the second book. On the other hand, the preface of the Paradise and of the second book differs from that proem of the Meursian edition in these serious chapters. For where the writer of the proem says that he wrote it at the request of Lausus the prefect, that preface declares that the writer was writing "for the sake of the brothers living on the Mount of Olives." Again, the writer of the proem adds that he will also speak of women—a topic which the preface omits; nor is anything contained in the second book concerning women. However, it is manifest that there is an intimate connection between the preface and that proem. What, then? Did that proem exist before that preface, or did the preface of the Paradise or of the second book exist first?
This matter will scarcely be brought to light unless it is decided at some point by the manuscripts. But if conjecture is permitted, you would say that the proem is earlier in age. For hardly anyone would substitute a dedication to Lausus in place of the words "the book was written for the sake of the monks living on the Mount of Olives," or falsely add that the book would also recount [stories] about women, unless it were to result in a new preface, to be prefixed to some other book. Now, the Lausiac History already has a genuine proem, in which the book is dedicated to Lausus. Wherefore, no one could have been compelled to fabricate and add one to the other with a dedication to Lausus. Nor is any other book known to which the preface of the second book could have been thus depravedly prefixed. Hence it is by no means likely that this preface is earlier in age than that proem.
For this reason, I would conjecture this: Since many things indicate that the book was dedicated to Lausus and that it was the book of Heraclides (8), what if that proem, which we showed above does not pertain to the Lausiac History, in fact pertains to the book of Heraclides? This is proven both by the Vatican manuscripts, which we reviewed above, and by the fact that at the end of both the book published by Rosweyd under the name of Heraclides and of the Lausiac History published by Meurs, there exists an epilogue to Lausus, which, as the Vienna manuscripts testify, does not pertain to the Lausiac History. Cf.
A a preamble; but are we to say that the book which belongs to Heraclides is the one on which the second book and the Lausiac History rest? If you posit this, all difficulties are easily explained. For Heraclides, Rufinus, and Palladius were friends and leaders of the Origenists. Rufinus, having a cell on the Mount of Olives, presided over the congregation of monks just as Melania did over the assembly of virgins. Asked by them to compose a book about the elders, he compiled from the book of his friend Heraclides whatever was of use to him and published it in the Latin tongue. The short work, which was born in this way, he dedicated to the monks of Olives, and because monks do not concern themselves with matters of women, he omitted what Heraclides had on that subject. From the elders, he especially brought forward the Origenists, for which reason he incurred the accusation of St. Jerome, who was able with some justice to call Rufinus the author, as the book appeared as if it were a new one. And indeed, the second book seems to exhibit to some degree the traces of such a composition. B In this way, therefore, the difficulties are easily solved. But if you assume those things, you will maintain that Rufinus’s book existed in Latin just as it did in Greek. This is demanded by the fragments of Cotelier, and the narrative of the second book concerning Abbot Or seems to confirm it. For thus Palladius wrote of him: C “The entire brotherhood, and especially the handmaid of God Melania, who entered this mountain before me, attributed virtue to this holy man on the basis of their own testimony. For I did not find him alive.” Therefore, Abbot Or was dead before Palladius visited the elders of the Thebaid. But the second book uses a long narrative, which begins: “We saw another in the Thebaid, a venerable man named Hor.” 31 Therefore, the writer of this chapter of the second book saw the abbot, whom Palladius saw no longer, although we showed above that he visited the elders of the Thebaid together with that writer. I confess that various kinds of explanations for this difficulty can certainly be conceived. But because Melania approached Abbot Or, of whom she told remarkable things to Palladius, the most probable explanation seems to be that Rufinus had traveled to Abbot Or along with Melania, and that in composing the second book she had added those things regarding this elder on her own initiative. Now, this same narrative about the abbot, which exists in Latin in the second book, is also preserved in Greek among certain fragments published by Cotelier and in the Meursian edition of the Lausiaca. Hence, since other Greek fragments of the second book are also found, you will deem that this book existed both in Latin and in Greek so that it could serve the use of both Latin and Greek monks. The name *Paradise* given to the Greek example is explained by the fact that the book of Heraclides, of which it was a part, was inscribed *Paradise*. And this estimation of ours—that the second book of Rosweyde’s collection of *Vitae Patrum* also existed in Greek—is splendidly proven by the faith of the codices. For recently, while unfolding the Coislinian library of Montfaucon (Paris, 1715, fol.), on page 138 I found the index of a Greek book, which is contained in the codex LXXXIII from roughly the tenth century, inscribed: D *Ieronumou he kat' Aigypton ton monachon historia* [History of the Monks in Egypt by Jerome], whose chapters so completely harmonize with the second book that all doubt is removed. That this will be plain to one who examines the matter more accurately, I need not say much more. That this book is falsely attributed to St. Jerome, I need not say at greater length.
A I believe, therefore, that by this conjecture the difficulties are very well resolved; difficulties which I should scarcely have believed could be resolved so easily by any other means. But if our conjectures are true—that Rufinus was the translator of the second book, and may to a certain extent be called its author—this is understood anew. Let us put aside conjectures, however, and from those things which we have discussed concerning the second book, let us compile what is certain; indeed, they come to this. The Greek writer of the events read in the second book is not certainly known. Furthermore, not only the second book, but also the Greek book from which it was drawn, predate Palladius's *Lausiac History* by a great deal. Next, from the second book, or, what is more probable, from the same source that he was using, Palladius transferred into his *Lausiac History* those things which pertain to the elders of the Thebaid and several other matters. Finally, the Latin translator of the second book is Rufinus, who reduced the book to the form which it now holds. B This conjecture perhaps admits that it was the book of Heraclidus, from which the writer of the second book and Palladius drew their materials. How much to be desired, however, is it that the individual lives of the desert fathers not yet published, of which we have seen many Greek codices in libraries, as well as the *Paradise* of Heraclidus, the *Lausiac History* of Palladius, and the Greek copy of our second book, might be published or edited according to copies of better reliability, from which a new light might arise on this question, it easily appears.
The question concerning the second book now being settled, it only remains for us to offer a warning regarding Rufinus: that another source of histories concerning the Macarii was left by him in that *Continuation* of the work of Eusebius, which we have just praised. C § 7. And these things, then, concerning Rufinus. Now let us pass on to Evagrius, who left behind various writings on the elders, in which he speaks only three times about Macarius. He was older than Palladius; for the latter is called a disciple of the former in Socrates, yet in such a way that a little after his death... D [The text here breaks off.]
year 378, they both flourished. Evagrius himself led a solitary life in the deserts of Egypt, and, as Palladius bears witness, breathed his last in the solitude at the age of fifty-four. He was one of seven companions, among whom were Palladius and the author of the second book, who traveled from Nitria to John in Lycopolis. This writer did indeed see Evagrius in the Cells; Evagrius himself, in the books written to his friend Anatolius, professes to reside in Scete. Since Evagrius speaks of the Macarii in only three places, and does not add everywhere which Macarius he is speaking of—although he is senior to the others in age, and lived in those regions at the same time as the Macarii—it seems reasonable that he should be heard as a witness after Palladius and Rufinus.
§ 8. We come to St. Jerome. He speaks of the Macarii only when the opportunity arises and only in passing, but he presents us with one difficulty concerning a certain Macarius, which we shall resolve in its proper place. That he spent much time in Egypt, I can hardly believe. For that can be gathered from Rufinus’s *Apologia (Invectiva) II*, where it is read: “But this man [St. Jerome], who in all his life did not stay for a full thirty days in Alexandria, where Didymus was, boasts far and wide throughout almost all his books that B he was a disciple of Didymus the Blind, and that is to say, a teacher, [and] that he had Didymus in the holy Scriptures. And all this boasting was acquired in one month.” Although, however, St. Jerome dwelt at Alexandria for only a short time to hear Didymus, he nevertheless traversed the monasteries of Egypt before he returned to Palestine. For he himself writes: “I hastened to Egypt, I traversed the monasteries of Nitria, and I perceived that asps lurked among the choirs of the Saints,” meaning the Origenists, whom Rufinus favored. Therefore, we shall judge the individual points scattered throughout the works of St. Jerome concerning the Macarii after the passages of Evagrius.
§ 9. The last to offer himself to us is Cassianus. He, at the end of the fourth century, when he was a young man, C [followed by a list of contents of the *Lausiac History* involving St. Pachomius, the virgin who feigned madness, Piteroum, Didymus the Blind, Paphnutius, a second Paphnutius, Apollo, Kopres, Paternmuthius, Melania the Elder, and the younger Melania, Pinianus, and the virgin who received Athanasius, ending with the account of Hippolytus, a familiar of the apostles]. Thus, this work is understood to be not so much akin to the second book of the Rosweydian collection, but rather composed from the individual chapters of the *Lausiac History*. D
A Thus, it appears he came into Egypt from the Bethlehemitic monastery, and completed seven years in the desert of Thebaid alone; from which one may gather that he spent no small space of time on the remainder of his travels—for he traveled extensively. He did not find either of the Macarii surviving, but what he reports concerning them in the *Conferences of the Fathers*, he received from the mouth of the elder Serapion and Nesteros, a most ancient anchorite. Nonetheless, the books of Cassian are of great value for knowing the character and discipline of the solitaries of that time, both because of the integrity of the writer and because of the prudent judgment in which I consider him to excel.
B § 10. Having mentioned the authors who lived with the Macarii, or were instructed about them by their contemporaries, it remains that we inquire about other sources whose authors and date we do not know. Among these are to be counted the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh books of the Vitae Patrum of the Rosweydian collection, and the book of the sayings of the Egyptian fathers. We do not know to which Greek writers—for they were originally composed in Greek—these books owe their origin, and only the names of the Latin translators are known, from whom it also appears that these were written in those most ancient times. Yet, it is so far from the case that they contain a description of the times and the elders particular to them, such as the books of Palladius, Rufinus, and others provide, that they appear to be nothing but a collection of reports and sayings gathered from various writings concerning the life and discipline of the elders, whether lost or still lurking in the dust, or already published. He who compiled them saw nothing himself, perceived nothing himself, experienced nothing himself. Beginning from some little story, he adds another and a third, which individually concern individual elders, and very often in the very words of some author whom we know, so that you discover a compilation that is manifest everywhere. Yet, provided we sharply examine what they have confounded, those books are to be esteemed, since they report many things that are not read in the authors, and perhaps are taken from writings that concern the age of the Macarii. The fourth book of the Rosweydian collection was not mentioned above, because it consists of nothing but excerpts from the places of Sulpitius Severus and Cassian, which are read better in their complete books and belong to the class of the aforementioned writers. Nor does Sulpitius Severus speak explicitly of the Macarii anywhere. The ninth and tenth books of the VV. PP. of the Rosweydian collection contain nothing about the Macarii. Now, as to the third and seventh books, it should be noted that all the passages which are read in the seventh concerning Macarius, if the same narrative is also found in the third, agree almost word-for-word with the report of this book. From which it follows that one of the translators, in writing the book, had at hand not only the same Greek text but also the version of the other. Indeed, there exists such a similarity between the third and fifth books that, in the narratives concerning the Macarii which are read in both, it must be concluded that the compilers used the same Greek text. The same holds true for the connection between the sixth and third books, with this only difference, that one little narrative about the Macarii is rendered in both in the same words. Finally, the sayings of the Egyptian fathers published by Rosweyde at the end of the collection will provide only a very few things for our purpose.
C § 11. But to the sources published by Rosweyde others are added. Among these, in the first place, must be named those *Apophthegmata Patrum* (Sayings of the Fathers), which are found in Cotelier, *Eccl. Graec. Mon.*, Vol. I, p. 338 sqq., arranged in alphabetical order. That short work, of which I find the first mention made in the XII century, is so composed that the narratives which were circulated about each of the fathers are joined to their names. I have examined two manuscripts in Vienna, one on parchment and very old, the other on paper. These codices, indeed, D do not…
in no places to differ, and indeed they seemed to be richer, so that they are highly worthy of being compared with the published text of Cotelerius. It must be noted, however, that the compiler of that little work entitled *Apophthegmata* speaks at the end of the preface about a certain appendix added by himself, in which he collected the sayings of the elders whose names are not mentioned. I believe, therefore, that this appendix, which we see nowhere published, is contained in that other paper manuscript from folio 80 to folio 163, as a collection of B narratives about the fathers follows immediately after the *Apophthegmata* without a heading; but the beginning seems to be missing. Furthermore, these narratives deal only with anonymous elders up to folio 145, from which point some other narratives about elders whose names have been added follow, and among them are three concerning the Macarii, which we shall append in their proper place, having copied them from the codex. Nor should we omit that in the other codex, that ancient parchment one, certain narratives follow immediately after the *Apophthegmata* from folio 141, 2 to folio 158, inscribed: *Narrative from the life of Abba Daniel. There was a certain elder in Scetis...* Thus, we have a second appendix to the *Apophthegmata*, which, however, seeing that the names of the elders of whom it treats are inscribed, cannot be that same one which the preface of the *Apophthegmata* mentions. There is nothing about the Macarii in this second appendix of the parchment codex.
Now, besides those *Apophthegmata* and what is coherent with them, we wish to share with the reader some other *Apophthegmata* which Possinus published previously, and then Pritius published (3), and not only those, but also those C which we have here and there in the lives of the Saints published by the Bollandists (4). Furthermore, we shall not omit what is repeated from Rufinus, Socrates, and Sozomen concerning the exile of the elders during the time of that persecution incited by Lucius, and finally, we shall examine a passage from the life of St. Posthumius, by which the dispute shall be settled as to whether Macarius, the disciple of St. Anthony, was one of our two Macarii or not (5). Nor, indeed, did it seem to us necessary to present in the middle [of our work] passages and accounts from those ecclesiastical historians who rely upon those primary sources and from whom they drew matters and words—from whose number Socrates, Sozomen, then Suidas, and Nicephorus Callistus come—since we could profit little from them. Yet I thought it not irrelevant to review them briefly.
Let us now, however, set out eagerly on the leveled path, composing into one [account] the individual [details] about the Macarii and, as much as we are able, painting a clear and fitting portrait of them. But let us first hear the witness Palladius.
CHAPTER II
PALLADIUS CONCERNING SAINT MACARIUS THE EGYPTIAN.
§ 12. The *Lausiac History* of Palladius, which is contained in the Vienna codices, begins concerning the two Macarii in this way: “The contests of the holy and immortal fathers, Macarius the Egyptian and D Macarius the Alexandrian, those distinguished and invincible athletes, 38 whose life was honorable, which are many and great, I fear to speak of and to describe...” [They] appear to look to the terms written by the same hand on a paper leaf glued to the front of the codex: the *Apophthegmata*, however, which are read in the codex from folio 1 to 141, are marked with this title written by an ancient hand: *A Book containing the Apophthegmata and acts of the holy fathers, gathered together by various holy and wise men.* A book containing the *Apophthegmata and acts of the holy fathers* are distinguished.
[The *Syntagma* of eighteen treatises...] formerly written by Greek fathers on ascetic matters. They now appear for the first time, unearthed from most ancient manuscript codices, by the collector and translator Petrus Possinus, S.J., Paris, 1684. Some short works and *apophthegmata* of the Egyptian Macarius, ed. Jo. Georgius Pritius, Leipzig, 1699. The *Apophthegmata* exist on p. 243 ff. And these we have repeated in print below in the second Appendix to these questions under II.
Chapter II
...so that I might not appear to those who concern themselves little with such things to be a liar on account of the immense magnitude of exercises exceeding the powers of nature. But also for the sake of those who, adorned with the virtues of the Spirit, have experienced the divine gifts distributed to the worthy, I shall recount the virtues of the holy Macarii, who possessed names also worthy of their holy struggles of asceticism. » A With this singular and unusual introduction, Palladius greatly praises the Macarii, indeed above the other elders whose deeds he has narrated. And he continues to narrate thus: « In the first place, I shall put forth the virtues of Macarius the Egyptian, who lived for ninety full years. He went up into the solitude at thirty years of age, in which he spent sixty years. He bore the labors of his exercise with such constancy that, after ten years, he was thought worthy of a certain distinguished title and was called *paidariogeron* [boy-elder], because he had progressed in virtues more quickly than his age would suggest. For at forty years of age, he received the power of casting out demons, the grace of healing, and the spirit of prophecy, and he was also deemed worthy of the honorable priesthood. Two disciples lived with him in the inner solitude, which is called Scete. Of these, one was always near him for the sake of those who came to be healed; the other sat apart in his own cell. But as time went on, the holy man, foreseeing with a perceptive eye regarding him who served him, by the name of John, who afterwards became a priest in his stead: "Listen, brother," he said, "to my admonition, since the spirit of greed is tempting you. For I have indeed seen, nor am I ignorant, that if you bear my exhortation with a calm mind, you will reach fulfillment in the work of God in this place, and you will be glorious, and the scourge will not approach your tent. But if you do not listen to me, the end of Gehazi will come upon you, from whose disease you also suffer." These things were said five years before the holy man died. And fifteen years after the death of Macarius, when John had diverted the goods of the poor, he suffered from elephantiasis to such a degree B that no sound spot could be found on his body where one might place a finger. Thus, in him who had not obeyed, the prophecy of the holy man was fulfilled. As for food and drink, it is superfluous to narrate, since not even among the more slothful monks of the monasteries that are outside [the desert] could gluttony be found, or any other kind of freedom of living different from the custom of those who dwell in these places, both on account of the scarcity of necessary things and on account of the zeal for God among those who dwell there, each of them always striving to surpass his neighbor in various ways of life. But as regards another exercise of this man, he himself was said to be constantly in ecstasy, and for the greater part of the time to be occupied more with God than with earthly things. Nor are few miracles recounted as having been performed by him. C "A certain lecherous man, an Egyptian by birth, had been caught by the love of a certain chaste woman who had married a husband. Since he was frustrated in his desire, he approached a magician, to whom he said: 'Use your art, I pray, either so that she may love me, or so that her husband may cast her out.' The magician, having tested what he could do—since he could not move her chaste soul—caused it to be that she seemed a mare to those who looked at her. Her husband, therefore, when he came outside and caught sight of her in the form of a mare, groaned and wept over the things that had happened. Then, having called the priests of the village, he showed her to them, but not even they understood the matter. Since, therefore, she had eaten nothing at all for three days, finally God, intending to glorify his saint, put the thought into the husband's mind to go with her to the holy man in the solitude; wherefore he led her, tied with a halter as a mare, to where the man of God dwelt. To him as he approached, the brothers said: 'Why have you brought a mare here?' He replied: 'That she might obtain mercy through the prayer of the just man.' But they said: 'What evil, pray, does she have?' He replied: 'This, which you see as a mare, was my dear wife, and what has happened to her, I do not know.' But all things that the woman was suffering D had been revealed to the saint, and he was praying to God for her. When they heard these things, they reported them to Christ's servant Macarius, saying: 'Someone has brought a mare here.' To whom he said: 'You,' he said, 'are the horses, who have the eyes of horses; but she is a woman, as she was created, and she is so transformed only to the eyes of those who are deceived.' Then he sprinkled with blessed water the naked woman whom they had brought, and when he had prayed over her head, immediately, as all looked on, she appeared as a woman. And the man of God ordered food to be placed before her. Then he warned her, saying: 'Never fail to appear in the church of God and at the communion of the mysteries of Christ; for these things happened to you because you have not approached the immaculate mysteries of Christ for five weeks.' Thus he dismissed her, healed in body and spirit. Further, it was said that in the later time of his life, he had dug a subterranean tunnel for the space of half a stadium and had added a cave. If, therefore, many were troublesome to him at any time,
A he would secretly leave his cell and go into the cave, so that no one might find him. And going through the tunnel, he would recite twenty-four prayers until he reached the cave, and returning he would do the same. « There is a report also about him that he raised a dead man, in order to convince a heretic who did not profess the resurrection of the body. This report indeed was constant in the desert. « At another time, a mother brought to him an adolescent who was vexed by a demon, and who was held on both sides by two young men. The demon exerted such power over him that he would eat three measures of bread and drink the water of a Cilician amphora. The food he subsequently vomited up, and he resolved it into vapor, as if it were consumed by fire. For there is a certain order of demons, which is called fiery; and these do not differ in essence, but, as is found among men, they differ rather in mind. This adolescent, therefore, if enough was not provided to him by his mother, would often eat his own dung and drink his urine. While the mother was weeping and lamenting and earnestly beseeching the saint, the saint received him and, as a suppliant for him, prayed to God. And after two days the demon released the miserable man from his torment. Then he said to his mother: How much do you want him to eat? When she indicated ten pounds, he rebuked her B because she had said too much; and again, having prayed over the adolescent with a seven-day fast, he expelled from him the demon of gluttony and set his food at three pounds of bread, which he should eat if he were working. Thus he restored him to his mother, healed by the power of divine grace. « Such are the stupendous miracles God performed through his beloved Macarius, whose immortal soul is now with the angels. I did not meet the holy man himself; for he had died a year before I entered the desert. » § 13. These things are contained in what the Lausiac History of the Viennese codices has concerning Macarius the Egyptian. If you compare them individually, you will recognize that the text of Meursius in this chapter barely differs in its facts, but overflows with corruptions. To those things, however, which we have commemorated, these points seem to us worth noting. First, indeed, from the words by which he writes that two dis- C ciples lived together with Macarius in Scete—one in the cell of Macarius, the other in his own cell—no one will conclude that other solitaries did not live there together with Macarius. For we have taught above that the elders, preeminent in abstinence and virtues, were accustomed to establish for themselves a cell at some distance from the monasteries over which they presided. Thus, St. Anthony is read to have had two disciples with him until his death, while other monks who lived under his discipline resided in the vicinity. But that solitaries lived with Macarius in Scete, beyond those two, is already evident from the fact that Macarius was a presbyter of Scete. The narrative, which follows, concerning the woman changed into a mare, is also found in the second book, but nowhere else. Nor is the narrative of the second book as richly developed as that of Palladius, nor is she a woman, but a virgin, the daughter of the head of a household in a neighboring town, who, to use the very words, « through magical fantasies appeared to men to have been turned into an equine animal, D so that she was thought to be a mare, and not a girl. They brought her to him [Macarius the Egyptian]. Then he questioned them, as to what they wanted? Her parents say: This mare, which your eyes see, was a virgin girl and our daughter, but the worst men changed her by magical arts into this animal which you see. We ask, therefore, that you pray to the Lord, that you may change her into what she was. But he said: I see this girl, whom you show to me, and I see nothing of a beast in her; this, however, which you say, is not in her body, but in the eyes of those who look at her. For these are the fantasies of demons, not the truth of things. And when he had introduced her with her parents into his cell, he began to pray to the Lord with knees bent, and at the same time he asked the parents to supplicate the Lord with him; and after this, anointing her with oil in the name of the Lord, with every deception of sight expelled, he caused the virgin to be seen by all, just as she also appeared to herself. » It is probable that both the narrative of the Lausiac History and that of the second book flowed from the same source. Which is the more easily believed, since it is evident from those things which we have argued above, that Palladius, who wrote the Lausiac, made use of either the second book or, what has seemed to us more probable, the Greek text, from which that book flowed.
C
And you would consider the same man—who in the year after the death of Macarius entered the mountain of Nitria, where he spent nearly ten years living in the solitude near Scetis—to be a more accurate reporter of fame, especially since it is well known that Rufinus is a treacherous interpreter.
As far as the fable itself is concerned, there is no need for me to say that magic arts have been in use among the Egyptians since the most ancient times. We read, moreover, that when Commodus was emperor, Philippus, the administrator of Egypt, “put an end to all those who were involved in magical curiosity.” In the fourth century, the emperors enacted laws against magicians, one of which proscribes their knowledge, if they are discovered to be girded with magical arts or to be plotting against the life of men, or to have turned chaste souls toward lust. A youth from the region of the city of Gaza—of whom it is narrated in the life of St. Hilarion († 372)—was taught by magicians to bury certain spells and portentous figures engraved on a Cyprian copper plate under the threshold of the house of a maiden he loved; upon which being done, the maiden began to go insane, to call out the name of the adolescent, and to be turned into a frenzy out of love, from which she was liberated by St. Hilarion. In our fable, the magician does not so change the woman, to whom he cannot inflict lewd love, so that she *is* a mare, but only so that she *appears* to be one. Among the ancient pagan nations, we read that certain men were turned into animals in such a way that they were considered to be animals in reality, while retaining their minds completely intact. This is what the companions of Ulysses, Actaeon, Io, and others experienced, having been changed into animals by Circe, Diana, Jove, or other gods. But the magicians of the Middle Ages themselves, indeed, take on the form and nature of animals—examples of which are not lacking among the ancients—yet they are not said to have been able to turn others into animals. Wherefore, one must properly distinguish our modern understanding—and that of these medieval mutations—from those ancient ones, namely that which, brought about by magical illusions, existed not in the body of the woman, but in the eyes of those looking on. B St. Lactantius, Tertullian, and Minucius Felix attribute this power, by which the eyes of men are deceived, to magicians. Of these, St. Lactantius says: “The art of magicians,” says he, “and all their power consists in the aspirations of these [demons], by whom they are invoked; they deceive the sight of men with blinding illusions, so that they do not see those things which are, and think they see those things which are not.” Minucius Felix says: “Magicians,” says he, “not only summon demons, but also perform whatever miracle they play at through demons; as they inspire and instill illusions, they cause things either not to be seen where they are not, or not to be seen where they are.” But regarding the examples of magicians having caused a man to be seen as an animal by illusions, I would scarcely believe that many are to be found. Although other deceits C of the eyes, D “we,” he says, “when we were in Italy, used to hear such things about a certain region of those parts, where they said that innkeeping women, steeped in these evil arts, were accustomed to give to whichever travelers they wished or were able, [something] in their cheese, from which they were immediately turned into beasts of burden, and would carry whatever was necessary, and after their work was finished would return to themselves again; nor indeed did their mind become bestial in them, but remained rational and human, just as Apuleius indicated or invented, in the books which he inscribed with the title *The Golden Ass*, that such a thing happened to himself—that upon receiving the poison, while his human mind remained, he became an ass.” St. Augustine adds: “These things are either false, or so unusual that they are deservedly not believed.” Trithemius says: “It happened around these times under the Emperor Henry, a wondrous deed. A certain youth was changed by the witchcraft of two old women into the form of an ass, so that to all who saw him he appeared as an ass—which to many who do not understand it seems impossible, because… [God] can delude the eyes of men with wondrous mockings.”
often narrated in the Middle Ages to have been performed by mages. A Faust, to mention only one, is seen swallowing a wagon loaded with hay and afterwards vomiting it forth; he draws the wines that revelers desire from a table, and makes it happen that each person mistakes the noses of the others for grapes. Nor are we taught by Palladius and the second book whether the Egyptian mage had suggested the appearance of a mare to the woman by the aid of a demon. In the apocryphal life of St. Basil—written, in my opinion, in the eighth or ninth century—it is told of a lover who, at the persuasion of a mage, approaches the devil himself, before whom he renounces Christ by a letter; but once the marriage is performed, he turns to repentance.
B Now, mark how Macarius releases the woman from the mage’s illusions! Having offered prayers to God, he wets the unfortunate woman with holy water from the very top of her head, as Palladius narrates, and anoints her with holy oil, as the second book testifies. Indeed, both of these—both the oil and the holy water—were in use among the elders of Egypt to overthrow the deceptions of mages. The use of oil seems to have been more frequent for healing the infirm, and the use of holy water for dissolving the incantations of mages. Holy water and…
C …there are many hidden things, but none are unjust. Nor, indeed, do demons create natures if they perform any such thing as that concerning which this question turns; but they change things that are created by the true God only in semblance, so that they appear to be what they are not. Therefore, I would by no means believe that not only the soul, but not even the body, can be truly converted into bestial limbs and features by the art or power of demons, but rather the phantasm of a man, which is also varied by thinking or dreaming through innumerable kinds of things; and since it is not a body, it yet takes on forms similar to bodies with wonderful speed, when the bodily senses of a man are lulled to sleep or suppressed, so that by some ineffable manner it can be brought to the perception of others as a corporeal figure, in such a way that the bodies of the men themselves lie elsewhere, living indeed, but with their senses closed much more heavily and vehemently than in sleep; but that phantasm, as though embodied, appears to the senses of others in the form of some animal, and the man also appears as such to himself, just as he could seem so to himself in dreams, and carry burdens; which burdens, if they are actual bodies, are carried by demons in order to mock men, who see partly the true bodies of the burdens, and partly the false ones of the beasts of burden.
A Macarius of Alexandria heals those possessed by demons with holy oil. That water by which Saint Hilarion wards off the incantations of magicians from the stable of the Italians, and by which Macedonius delivers a woman from a demonic gluttonous spirit, also heals the insane; Aphraates cures the emperor’s horse; and it prevents locusts. Water blessed by the elders is called a "health-giving remedy," by which both diseases are warded off and demons are compelled to flee. I have not, however, found that exorcisms were employed by the ancients for expelling a demon.
Furthermore, Macarius indicates the reason why the magician was able to harm the woman: because for five weeks she had not approached the immaculate mysteries of Christ. You will scarcely be able to doubt that by these words the Eucharist is understood. And it is very frequently read that by the Eucharist the illusions of demons are warded off or, if they have been applied, that they are destroyed. Cassianus, to provide one example out of many, relates that a young man, having taken the heavenly bread, was freed from a lewd demonic illusion. And Delrio has gathered other examples, by which we are taught that the deceits of demons are dissolved by the Eucharist; to his book we refer the reader. But if through intimate fellowship with Christ and frequent access to His mysteries the fallacies of demons are erased, how much more will the deceits of men, to whom the demon provides the power to do harm, be dissolved!
§ 14. But let us pass on to other things which Palladius has reported concerning Macarius the Egyptian. We read only in Palladius of the tunnel made by Macarius, through which he would retreat into a cave if any were troublesome to him. Concerning the dead man, however, whom he raised in order to convince a heretic of the resurrection of the bodies, the second book, Cassianus, and also the appendix to the Apophthegmata, which have not yet been published in print, narrate the matter at length. Nesteros the most ancient anchorite, indeed, explained the matter to Cassianus, in order to show that the fathers performed signs only when compelled by extreme and inevitable necessity. And Nesteros called the heretic a follower of Eunomius; but the second book calls him a Hieracite, because that kind of heresy is found in Egypt. And it is more probable that he was a Hieracite, because he denied the resurrection of the flesh—for the Eunomians, as followers of the Arians, were in error concerning the Trinity. The heretic, having used dialectical art, was attempting to subvert the sincerity of the catholic faith and "had already deceived a great multitude of men," as Cassianus says, "through much art of speaking, he had disturbed very many of the brothers who dwelt in the desert," as the second book reports. Macarius, therefore, asked by catholic men who were most gravely moved by the ruin of such a great subversion, came, in order to free the simple souls of all Egypt from the shipwreck of infidelity; in his presence the heretic dared to assert his perverse faith again. Then the saint, B not hindered by "Aristotelian thorns," since he saw that simple words were being undercut by cunning arguments and that the faith of the brothers was in danger, putting an end to the heretic's wordiness with apostolic brevity, said: What need is there, he asked, that we contend with words for the subversion of those who listen? Let us go out to the sepulchers and invoke the name of the Lord over whichever dead person is found first, and let everyone know, whoever of us the Lord permits to raise the dead, that his faith is approved by God. This speech pleased all the brothers who were present.
Now, however, the narrative of Cassianus differs. For in the second book, Macarius treats with the Hieracite immediately, as the future resurrection of bodies, namely those very ones which have been dissolved, together with their own members and parts, with nothing missing or changed from those things C which composed each person's body while he lived.
A And he finally obtained from Saint Anthony, who considered that dust should be returned to dust. Furthermore, that mummy, after it had spoken, slept again, to be resurrected by the Lord at the end of time; but the brother in the second book, once the earth was removed, rises, comes forth, and we do not read that he returned to the tomb. Furthermore, the fact that the heretic secretly fled in Cassian, but was convicted and driven out by Macarius in the second book, is a difference of lighter moment.
But far more copious than the accounts in the second book and in Cassian is the one which exists in this appendix of Apothegms, not yet published in print. Although it is long and amplified, yet since it contains certain things worthy of remembrance, I have decided to set it down here in full, translated into Latin:
«A certain elder told of Abbot Macarius. In the land of Arsenoita a certain monk was sitting, who for many years had led the life of the saints. To him, because he was desirous of glory, there fell—on account of his proud exaltation and rashness—the spirit of a python, which first drove him from the true faith, and then led him to the teaching of those who are called Hieracites. And these deny that the Savior assumed human flesh, or that our body, in which we are clothed, can be resurrected. The same people say there are three principles: God, matter, and evil, from which each person is constructed; and they deny that God the Word was made man and assumed a perfect man, nor do they believe that the Cause of all things can be saved at all. Thus, indeed, he himself, perverse, seduced five hundred souls. This he achieved by speaking many things to many people in completely various ways, namely concerning destruction, inventions, and contempt for death. It was also reported that he cast out demons, according to that which is in the Gospels: "They shall show signs and wonders, so as to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect." For the princes of the demons are greatly powerful in this kind of thing, which is, of course, to abolish them; for they willingly consent to the destruction of souls. Therefore, the bishop of the region approached the man of God, Abbot Macarius, with his clergy; and when he had greeted him with the highest reverence, he said: "If you are willing, come and assist us. For if we do not purge our neighborhood while you are alive, they will all cling to him, and it will very easily come to pass that even more than have so far been subjected to error will be seduced." To him he replied: "Behold, I am a plebeian man; what can I do against him?" But the bishop persisted in his reverence and said: "Thus, I trust, if you come, God will pacify His Church; for often..." B C D
I had proposed to set out to you, but the clergy hindered me, lest I become a laughingstock to worldly men. A But now, no longer enduring the corruption of the people and even of God, who says: 'I will require his blood at your hand,' fearing condemnation, I have come to you, sent by God." Then he rose and followed him to the seducer. When he saw him, he said to the bishop: "This one, he says, has a prince of spirits, and know that it is not my work to cast him out; for against these spirits I have not yet contended at all. For the saints say there are two hosts of demons: one of those who infuse desires into the body, the other of those who bring in spiritual errors. This second kind is indeed difficult to subdue. B For Satan sends these more to seducers, heresiarchs, sorcerers, and others of that kind." But the bishop said: "What, then, shall we do?" The elder answered: "There is need of prayer; for speech does not avail." Therefore, they ordered the seducer to come forward, and he went out to them. The bishop immediately addressed him in [the] tongue: "Why," he said, "during so long a space of time have you not communicated with us?" He said: "Because you think not rightly." Then the holy Macarius said: "Do you, then, think rightly?" "Certainly," he replies. Macarius: "What indeed is it that you think?" He: "Is it rightly believed that flesh and bones are raised?" The saint answers: "If we speak from ourselves, you speak well. But if the truth has desired this, why do you speak against it? But lest we waste many words, I will tell you what we believe; if you consent to these, you do well; if not, you oppose God, whose dogmas you despise." But he: "I," he says, "will first set forth my faith." Then Macarius: "Let not a perverse faith be named, but let us call it the catholic faith of the Church." And he immediately signaled to the bishop to profess it. He, with the people standing around, begins to set forth the faith thus: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty, and in His coessential Word, through whom He made the ages, which in the consummation of times appeared in the flesh for the abolition of sin, which He had taken from the holy Virgin Mary, which was crucified, dead, and buried, and rose on the third day, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and is to come again in the future time to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, coessential with the Father and His Word; I believe also in the resurrection of body and soul, as the Apostle says: C 'It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body,' and again: 'For this corruptible must put on incorruptibility.'" After these things, Macarius [said] to the heretic: "See," he says, "what he says." But he replies: "From his words, do not demand faith from me, but let us go to the tombs; if you raise one of those lying there, I will know that you think rightly; I myself will bring a soul without a body." The holy Macarius, turning to the bishop, said: "It is indeed a great impiety to tempt God, and I do not trust that He will deign to perform such a sign for the sake of one demoniac." The bishop answers: "Not at all, father, yet for the sake of the whole neighborhood." Then they went to the tombs. The Hieracite begins to invoke the demon, but he could in no way call forth a soul [that was] tenuous and nude. Since, therefore, he had accomplished nothing—for the Holy Spirit was truly resisting him—he said to them: "On account of your incredulity, I cannot call forth a soul." Immediately Macarius, indignant, bows his knees, though he had promised nothing; and when he had persevered in prayer for one hour, he arose in the sight of all, and having struck the tomb with his palm—for the staves which the monks of that region use are palm branches—he raises a man not buried in the ground, recently dead, but one from among those of old. Then the Hieracite, having been called, said: "Ask from this one whether the body is raised." He, being struck with dread at such a sign, as soon as the demon departed from him, fell prostrate at the feet of the saint with all the people. But when they sought to kill him, Macarius restrained them, and led him away into the desert. Having been raised, however, when questioned as to whether he professed Christ, he is said to have replied that he had not even heard of Him in his life. For he said that he had died in the time of King Pharaoh, and therefore lived before the advent of Christ. When Macarius had baptized him, he kept him with him for three years, after [which] he slept the true sleep, so that the word of the Lord is fitting for him: "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents, but that the glory of God might be revealed." The bishop asked the holy Macarius whether glory had not ascended into his heart, with so many prostrating themselves before him because of such a sign. He answers him: "Whoever has a heart [that is] at leisure to regard the glory of men, such a one has not yet known God. For whatever he does, he does for men. But whoever is held worthy of the breath of God, he is engaged in much struggle, as if he stood on a razor's edge, fearing lest he fall. Such a one has only one desire, namely, to depart D from the body. But as for glory, this does not even enter his mind." And he gave this doctrine to him: "Bring to me,"
A I say, someone walking on the sea and fixing his eyes toward heaven in the sun, whose rays are pulling him along; to whom someone might give the command: If you look at the place where you are walking, you will sink into the sea; what will happen to him if he is disobedient? Just so, he who fixes his eyes on the glory of God tramples underfoot the glory that comes from men. But if he looks back at this, he falls from the former. And if he has fallen from it, he is agitated by many other emotions. But the rest of this saint’s life, how merciful and brotherly he was, and how much discretion he had in his works, I shall for now leave unsaid.
This narrative, therefore, differs from those two which we cited above from the second book and from Cassian, principally in that it teaches that the one raised up by Macarius was baptized and, after three years spent in the desert, died again—a fact which the second book does not contain and which Cassian explicitly denies. When or by whom the narrative was written is not sufficiently clear, neither from the text itself nor from other sources. The faith which the bishop sets forth calls the Holy Spirit B *consubstantial* (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father and the Son. The synod of Constantinople and the creeds of the faith do not use this term regarding the Holy Spirit. But Saint Athanasius already calls the Spirit *consubstantial* (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father and the Son. Hence it is probable that this term had been received into common use in the Egyptian formulas of faith. But because, from the words which the Constantinopolitan Creed uses to speak of the Holy Spirit, one might easily believe that the entire formula and the report into which it is inserted are sufficiently ancient, C one might also consider this. Saint Epiphanius teaches that the Hieracites denied the resurrection of bodies, and he set forth their doctrine at length. Indeed, neither Saint Epiphanius nor Saint Hilary, nor any other who I have found, has reported that the Hieracites acknowledged three principles of things, or that they denied that God the Word became man, and that the causative power of all things is preserved. Hence, by these things we are taught something new about the Hieracites, by which the foundations of the doctrine they professed are more clearly understood.
As for that statement of Macarius, that he was worth nothing against D the ruling demons, Saint Anthony himself also professed this, as witnessed by Palladius. We read in the book of Samuel that a dead person was evoked to answer. Shades of the dead are said to have been evoked in Homer’s *Nekyia*, and in Lucan, Tacitus, Pliny, Philostratus, Dio Cassius, and others. Among these, the shades, when questioned, either answer or refuse to answer; then they return to the underworld. Moses forbade the Jews by law from approaching sorcerers who practice necromancy (*nekromanteia*). Cicero shows that necromancy is superstitious. Tertullian calls those apparitions of ghosts the fallacies of demons. Which
A approximately the same opinion was held by St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and others. Nor are the images of the dead, evoked by sorcerers, read of as being any less prevalent in the following age. Thus, to cite only these examples: the shade of a son is shown to the emperor Basil by a Santabarenus monk; and by Faustus, the most beautiful woman Helena is shown to scholars. Therefore, the miracles of the holy men differ entirely from these fallacies or tricks of sorcerers. For they do not, like the sorcerers, produce mere images, but through the aid of Christ, they cause the soul to return to the body and the whole man to revive. It is read a hundred times that those who have drowned, suffocated, or died without baptism have been brought back to life by the help or prayer of the holy men. Of these, those who are resuscitated in order to receive baptism or to perform some other useful work for themselves or others are accustomed to die again immediately once that duty is fulfilled; others, however, often live for a long time. But cases of the dead being evoked to answer questions are rarely found. It is said that Macarius the Egyptian forced two other dead persons, not indeed to rise, but to answer his questions from the tomb, and also caused the skull of a certain dead person, which he found on the ground, to speak to him of the punishments of hell. Indeed, in the life of St. Patrick, it is recorded in a clearly similar manner that a dead person was resuscitated to prove the resurrection of bodies. B Because Palladius narrates that there was a constant report in the desert concerning a dead man whom Macarius had resuscitated, to prove the resurrection of the Hieracites, nor does he add at what time or on what occasion this was done; you might believe that various narratives about this miracle already existed in those times of Palladius which differed greatly among themselves. If they had not existed, Palladius would hardly have omitted the account of the miracle.
§ 15. The fact that an adolescent, who used to eat so many loaves of bread and vomit up the food he had eaten, was cured by Macarius the Egyptian, is recorded by Palladius alone. St. Antony cured an illustrious man who, occupied by a furious demon, likewise used to eat his own excrement. A certain woman, who ate thirty chickens daily and could not satisfy her hunger, was cured by St. Macedonius. A demon of gluttony, who is of the order of those called fiery, brings this malady upon that adolescent. In the life of St. Antony, where there is a lengthy discussion about demons, the order of fiery demons is not specifically distinguished. But writing of the ranks of demons, Trithemius says: "For there are many genera of demons, and they differ from one another by certain ranks, by reason of the places into which, falling from the beginning, they were thrust. The first genus of demons is indeed called fiery. Which wanders about the upper air, C and is never cast down to the lower regions before the day of judgment, but, constantly remaining below the lunar regions, has no commerce with men on earth." Which description of the fiery demons by Trithemius D Patrick approached a tomb with a chieftain and the people. When he had marked the ground with the staff of Jesus and had caused the earth to be dug up, having offered a prayer, he resuscitated the man to the astonishment of all and the confirmation of the Catholic faith. He recounts the punishments of hell, is baptized, and, having received the Eucharist, sleeps in the Lord in the same tomb. Nor did any of those who were present doubt the resurrection of the dead any longer. But, you will say, how can a man who has endured the punishments of hell be baptized, receive the Eucharist, and be saved? The same difficulty also occurs in the story concerning the skull that speaks to Macarius the Egyptian about the punishments of hell. Concerning which, see below, Chapter VI. But the miracle of Patrick is very similar to that which Macarius performed in resuscitating the dead man.
A Delrio has well noted that for the most part this is false, although he concedes that demons are therefore called fiery because they remain in the upper region of the air. But Palladius calls that demon which was agitating the young man fiery, because the food which the unhappy man vomited was consumed as if by fire; wherefore that demon is not called fiery on account of its nature, which can be compared to fire, nor on account of its dwelling in the air. The young man, bound in chains, is led to Macarius; for those possessed by demons, lest they cause harm, were accustomed to be confined with chains. B § 16. Finally, from the words of Palladius, with which he concludes his narrative concerning Macarius the Egyptian, let us determine when this Macarius died. Palladius says: "I," he says, "did not myself meet the saint; for he had died a year before I entered the desert." Therefore, it is asked when Palladius entered the desert. He himself relates that he came to Alexandria in the second consulate of Theodosius the Great. This Theodosius held [the office], as the consular fasti testify, with his colleague Fl. Cynegius, in the year of Christ 388. Palladius was handed over for training by Isidore the xenodochus to the elder Dorotheus, who lived near Alexandria, which [training] he did not endure for three full years, because he fell into a severe illness. C But after three years had been spent in the monasteries that were around Alexandria, he betook himself to Mount Nitria, where he spent an entire year. Then at last he came into the inner desert, by which the Cellia or Cells are signified. Therefore, it is asked whether a distinction should be made between Palladius's arrival at the mountain and [his arrival] at the desert. Palladius frequently speaks about his own habitation on the mountain. He relates that the elder Nathanael died fifteen years before his arrival at the D mountain. Evagrius, when he had dwelt on Mount Nitria for two years, relates that he entered the desert in the third year. Hence Palladius himself seems to distinguish between the arrival at the mountain and the arrival at the desert. What Bollandus established, Tillemont seems to leave in ambiguity. And following Bollandus are Cave, Possinus, Fabricius, de Nessel, and Pritius. But I doubt whether they have judged correctly in every respect. For it seems hardly doubtful that Palladius intended to say that Macarius the Egyptian died the year before he himself visited those regions. And Mount Nitria was closer to the desert of Scetis than the Cells; nor is it understood why Palladius would define the year of Macarius’s death from the time of his own arrival at the Cells. Furthermore, since Palladius distinguishes between the mountain of Nitria and the inner desert, it is probable that the arrival at the desert signifies the arrival at Nitria. Nor will you easily believe that Palladius intended to say that Macarius the Egyptian died the year before he himself came to the desert of Scetis—for Palladius visited the desert of Scetis twice; for that is not contained in the words of Palladius. Wherefore this opinion appears more probable, that Macarius the Egyptian died in the year before Palladius came to Mount Nitria, i.e., in the year 390 in the month of January, as the Martyrologies report. Whence he was born in the year of Christ 300, and entered the desert in the year of Christ 330. For he came into the desert thirty years old, in which he completed sixty years until his death. § 17. Thus far what was to be noted concerning Palladius’s narrative about Macarius the Egyptian. It remains that we see how those things which we have hitherto produced from the Viennese codices, in
individual editions of the Lausiac History, are presented.
Of these, the Greek edition of Meursius and the interpretation of Hervetus differ from our text of the Viennese codices only rarely and in the most trivial matters. Nor in the *Paradise*, wrongly attributed to Heraclides, is any more serious difference found. Much more complete than the others in this chapter, however, is that ancient version which exists in Rosweyd's appendix. Which, after that history about the woman changed into a mare, adds this history about the maiden:
«Another maiden was also brought to him, whose private parts had so rotted away on every side that, the flesh being consumed, the inner and more secret parts of her nature were laid bare, and an innumerable multitude of worms swarmed from them, so that no one could approach her because of the horror of the stench. When she had been brought by her parents and cast before his door, he, pitying the virgin's torments, said: "Be of calm mind, daughter; the Lord has given this to you for your salvation, not for your destruction. Hence, you must take care all the more that your health does not bring you any danger." And when he had persisted in prayers for seven continuous days, and had anointed her limbs with oil blessed in the name of the Lord, he restored her to such health that both the repaired quality of her nature and the perfect feminine appearance reappeared in her, and from then on her conversation among men existed without the obstacle of her former infirmity.» A
This narrative is also read in the second book in the same words, nor indeed have I found it elsewhere. That which the ancient version holds concerning the resuscitation of the dead, agrees word for word with the narrative of the second book. At the end of the chapter on Macarius the Egyptian, however, after it is said that he died the year before Palladius entered the desert, this ancient version adds this long history, which I find nowhere else so sketched out:
«At a certain time, when someone had come to blessed Macarius, desiring to serve Christ in the purpose of monks, and was beseeching the holy elder to instruct and teach him, and—from the fountain of saving doctrine which abounded in him through the grace of the Holy Spirit—to confirm him and to warn him how he might, with the Lord's help, escape the snares and assaults of the wicked one, the blessed Macarius answered: "If you truly desire with your whole heart B to renounce this age, my son, and to adhere to the Lord Savior, as the Prophet says in the psalm: *My soul has clung after thee, thy right hand has upheld me*—for the right hand of the Lord is prepared to uphold those who flee to Him—it is necessary that you renounce this world and cast away all its acts, as the Apostle says, writing to the Colossians: *For you have died to this world, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. For when Christ your life shall appear, then you also shall appear with Him in glory.* Hearing this, the junior said: "Believe me, most blessed father, that I have indeed alienated my mind from this world and from all things that are in it, so that I now live in this life of time as if I were dead. For I have known that all things which in this world are seen to be good are temporal and transitory and corruptible." Then the senior says to him: "Listen to me, son, and go to the tombs of the dead, and with very many injuries, many reproaches and curses, and even with stones, revile them, so that being provoked they may be irritated against you." Having heard these things, the junior immediately went to the monuments of the dead. And when, according to the command of the blessed senior, he had subjected them, as he thought, to many injuries, he returned to holy Macarius and told him what he had done: and the senior asked him if those dead had answered him nothing? And he answered, saying: "They said nothing at all, master." But again he commanded him, saying: "Go on the morrow, and with many praises laud and glorify them." The brother went again to the tombs of the dead and began to praise and glorify them with honorable words, saying: "You are great, and holy, and like to apostolic men, and great justice is in you." And when he had said very many other praises to them, he returned to the cell and said to the senior: "Behold, according to your command, master D father, I praised and glorified those dead, and they said nothing to me at all." Then the holy Macarius said to him: "Consider, son, that just as you heaped insults and contumely upon those dead 62 and they spoke nothing to you, so therefore you too, if you wish to be saved and in holy purpose to please our Savior, imitate the Lord and Savior Himself, as the blessed apostle and evangelist John says: *He who says that he remains in Christ ought himself also to walk just as He walked.* Whence also in