The Two Macarii

The single most necessary distinction in the dossier of St. Macarius the Great: he must be told apart from his younger contemporary, Macarius of Alexandria. Two great ascetics of the same name, of the same Lower-Egyptian desert, both priests, both exiled together under the Arians — and merged so often in the later tradition that Palladius himself, writing within a generation, opens his account by warning the reader which Macarius is which.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

Why the Distinction Matters

Two of the most famous monks of fourth-century Egypt were both named Macarius. They lived at the same time, in the same network of desert settlements in the Nitrian region of Lower Egypt, were both ordained priests, were both renowned for ascetic feats and charismatic gifts, and were exiled together to the same island under the same Arian persecution. The result, predictably, is that the sayings, miracles, and sayings-attributions of the two have been confused for sixteen centuries — by copyists, by hagiographers, and by readers ever since. Any serious use of the Macarian material has to begin by sorting the two, and the discipline of this collection is to keep them apart throughout. Palladius, the earliest connected source, felt the same need: he treats them in two adjacent chapters of the Lausiac History and signals from the outset that he is describing “the two famous Macarii,” one Egyptian, one Alexandrian (Palladius, Lausiac History 17–18; trans. Meyer, ACW 34).

Macarius the Great (the Egyptian, of Scetis)

This is the subject of the present collection.

Origin: born in a village of the Nile Delta (Lower Egypt) around 300; a layman who worked as a camel-driver carrying natron (see Lower Egypt and the Call).
Settlement: he went deep into the desert and founded the settlement of Scetis (Coptic Shiêt; Arabic Wadi al-Natrun), the southernmost and most remote of the great Nitrian-region desert colonies, around the 330s (see Founding of Scetis).
Office: ordained priest for the community of Scetis, where he served as its presiding elder.
Epithets: “the Great,” “the Egyptian,” and — in the Coptic tradition — “the Spiritbearer” (pneumatophoros); sometimes “the Elder.”
Source-chapter: Palladius treats him in chapter 17 of the Lausiac History; his sayings stand under “Macarius the Great” in the alphabetical Apophthegmata.
Lifespan: c. 300 – 391 (the death-year traditional; see Veneration for the dating).

Macarius of Alexandria (of Kellia)

The near-twin, and the chief source of confusion.

Origin: a citizen of Alexandria, by trade a former seller of sweetmeats (a confectioner) before he took up the ascetic life (Palladius, Lausiac History 18).
Settlement: he lived not at Scetis but in the region of Nitria and Kellia (the Cells), the colonies nearer the Delta; he was a priest associated with Kellia.
Reputation: remembered above all for extraordinary, almost competitive feats of asceticism — Palladius’s chapter 18 is a catalogue of them: standing motionless for days, exposing himself to the mosquitoes of the marshes, surpassing every austerity he heard of in another monk. Where the Egyptian Macarius is remembered for depth of humility and discernment, the Alexandrian is remembered for athletic severity.
Source-chapter: Palladius treats him in chapter 18 of the Lausiac History; he too has a (much smaller) entry in the alphabetical Apophthegmata under “Macarius the Citizen” / “Macarius of Alexandria.”

A Third and a Fourth Macarius

The confusion does not stop at two. The Egyptian desert and the Coptic tradition knew at least a third prominent Macarius — Macarius, Bishop of Tkow (Tkoou), a fifth-century Coptic hierarch and saint whose relics are, by the Coptic tradition, enshrined together with those of the two desert Macarii at Deir Abu Maqar, so that the monastery speaks of the “three Macarii” (see The Monastic Centre). And the literary corpus adds a fourth layer entirely, “Macarius-Symeon,” discussed below. The proliferation of saints and writings named Macarius — a name that simply means “blessed” and was therefore common — is precisely why the careful sorting of the dossier is a real scholarly task and not a pedantic one. This file fixes the two who matter for the desert history; the bishop of Tkow concerns the relic-tradition, and the literary Macarius the authorship problem.

The Shared Episode That Fuses Them

The two Macarii are most tightly bound together — and most easily confused — by the one episode in which they genuinely appear side by side: the Arian exile of c. 374. Under the Emperor Valens, the Arian patriarch Lucius of Alexandria moved against the Nicene monks of the desert, and the two Macarii, as the most eminent of the desert priests, were arrested together and deported to a pagan island in the Delta. The earliest connected report is Socrates Scholasticus, who names the pair explicitly: Lucius “advised the military commander to send the fathers of the monks into exile … these were the Egyptian Macarius and his namesake of Alexandria” (Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 4.24; NPNF II/2; cf. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History 6.20; Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History 2.4). Because the two were exiled “together” and worked the conversion of the island “together,” later tellings of the story slide easily from one Macarius to the other, and the miracle of the island is variously assigned (see Attested Accounts).

How the Scholarship Sorts Them

The sorting rests on a few stable markers that the careful sources preserve:

Geography: the Egyptian belongs to Scetis; the Alexandrian to Nitria/Kellia. A saying or miracle set “in Scetis” attaches to the Great; one set “at the Cells” attaches to the Alexandrian.
The Palladian division: Palladius’s deliberate separation into chapters 17 (Egyptian) and 18 (Alexandrian) is the standard anchor, and his stated reason for distinguishing them is precisely that they were being confused (Palladius, Lausiac History 17–18; Meyer, ACW 34). [Disputed: some recensions and editions of Palladius renumber these chapters — e.g., one Greek recension carries them as 19 and 20 — so a citation should specify the edition; the conventional reference is 17 = Egyptian, 18 = Alexandrian.]
The epithet: “the Great” and “the Egyptian” mark the founder of Scetis; “of Alexandria,” “the Citizen,” or “the Younger” mark the ascetic of Kellia.

A third Macarius-confusion lies entirely outside this pair and is taken up later in the collection: the great corpus of Spiritual Homilies transmitted under the name of Macarius the Egyptian, which modern scholarship attributes not to either desert Macarius but to an unknown Syro-Mesopotamian author, “Macarius-Symeon” (see The Symeon Authorship Question). The present file concerns only the two historical Macarii of the Egyptian desert; the literary “Macarius” is a separate problem, and conflating it with either desert father is the deepest of the three confusions.

References

Palladius. The Lausiac History 17 (Macarius the Egyptian) and 18 (Macarius of Alexandria). Trans. R. T. Meyer. Ancient Christian Writers 34. New York: Newman Press, 1964.
Socrates Scholasticus. Ecclesiastical History 4.24. NPNF II/2. (The two Macarii exiled together under Lucius.)
Sozomen. Ecclesiastical History 6.20. NPNF II/2.
Rufinus of Aquileia. Ecclesiastical History 2.4. (On the desert monks under the Arian persecution.)
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Trans. Benedicta Ward. Rev. ed. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984. (The separate entries for Macarius the Great and Macarius of Alexandria.)
Vivian, Tim, trans. St. Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004. (The Coptic identification of Macarius the Great as the Spiritbearer of Scetis.)