St. Macarius (4th c.)

MARCUS PLESTED

This anonymous author (also known as Macarius-Symeon or pseudo-Macarius) stands as a principal source of Orthodox mystical and ascetic theology. He flourished in Syro-Mesopotamia between ca. 370 and ca. 390. His writings were variously ascribed to a Macarius (of both Egypt and Alexandria) or, later, Symeon – hence the many names of this elusive theologian.

The direct experience of God forms the cornerstone of the Macarian vision. He speaks with astonishing precision and poetry of the operation of the Spirit. Bestriding Greek and Syriac thought-worlds, Macarius was able to combine the philosophical reflection of the Greek fathers with the vivid symbolism of the Syriac tradition. His writings call every Christian to directly experience the triune God, an experience described as the vision of uncreated light, a formulation of great import for later Orthodox teaching.

The tone of Macarius’ call to perfection is compelling and encouraging. The writings use an exuberant abundance ofimagery and metaphor to convey the progressive deifica­tion of the Christian, setting out a dizzying vision of the mutual indwelling of man and God. Macarius is a key witness to the patristic doctrine of deification, insisting on the perfect union of man and God without ever compromising their ontological dis­continuity and hypostatic distinctness.

His is a heart-centered anthropology. The heart is the point at which soul and body meet and the dwelling-place of the intellect. It is the deep self, the battleground between good and evil. In and through the struggle of the heart Christ restores man to the primal state of Adam and grants him in addition the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through coopera­tion (synergeia) with divine grace the perfect grace of baptism is manifested and revealed.

His legacy began to take shape with Gregory ofNyssa’s reworking of the Macarian Great Letter (Epistola Magna) as his own De Instituto Christiano. Works of Macarius rapidly appeared under an array of illustri­ous names and in numerous translations. Many of the authors of the Philokalia stand in the Macarian tradition, most obviously

Sts. Mark the Monk, Diadochus of Photice, Maximos the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas. Macarius himself is also included in that seminal publication and went on to play a major role in the Hesychast revival of late-imperial Russia.

Much was made in the early 20th century of the apparent connection with the condemned propositions of the Messalian heresy, an ascetic tendency that allegedly held prayer, and not the sacraments, to be the only sure vehicle of grace. Recent researches have established Macarius as a reformer of the nascent Messalian tendency, not an adherent. The way is now clear for further explorations of the impact and importance of this most blessed of spiritual masters.

SEE ALSO: Jesus Prayer; St. Isaac the Syrian (7th c.)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Dorries, H. (1978) Die Theologie des Makarios- Symeon. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Plested, M. (2004) The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, C. (1991) “Working the Earth oftheHeart”: The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts and Language to ad 431. Oxford: Clarendon Press.