Macarius the Great was a fourth-century Egyptian monastic and priest, numbered among the foremost of the Desert Fathers and remembered as a foundational figure of the monastic settlement at Scetis (the Wadi Natrun) in Lower Egypt. Born around the year 300 in the village of Ptinapor (also given as Shabsheer or Shanshour), he married at his parents' urging, was widowed early, and after their deaths withdrew to the desert, where he became a disciple of Anthony the Great and eventually the recognized head of the monks of Scetis.
He is venerated as an ascetic and wonderworker, and a substantial body of spiritual writing—chief among it the Fifty Spiritual Homilies—was transmitted under his name and has remained influential in both Eastern and Western Christian spirituality. His feast is kept on January 19.
Timeline 6 moments
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c. 300Birth in Lower EgyptBorn in the village of Ptinapor (variously recorded as Shabsheer or Shanshour) in Lower Egypt. Accounts describe a humble early life, including tending cattle as a boy.
Early adulthoodMarriage and widowhoodAt his parents' wish he entered marriage but was soon widowed. After the deaths of his wife and parents he distributed his wealth to the poor and took up the ascetic life under an experienced desert elder, who taught him watchfulness, fasting, prayer, and the weaving of baskets.
Before age 40Discipleship under Anthony the GreatAfter a period in desert solitude he sought out Anthony the Great and became his follower. According to the tradition, Anthony recognized his unusual spiritual maturity, which earned Macarius epithets such as the 'young elder' or 'aged youth.'
c. age 40Ordination and leadership at ScetisSettling in the desert of Scetis in the northwest of Egypt, he was ordained to the priesthood around the age of forty and was made head of the monks living there, organizing a semi-eremitical community whose members gathered for common worship chiefly on Saturdays and Sundays.
During the reign of Valens (364–378)Exile under Arian persecutionUnder the Arian-leaning emperor Valens, Macarius of Egypt and Macarius of Alexandria were exiled to an island in the Nile Delta for their adherence to the Nicene faith. By tradition they were permitted to return after events on the island moved the local population, and the synaxarion relates that they were welcomed back by a great multitude of monks.
391Repose at ScetisHe reposed in Scetis at an advanced age, the sources giving his lifespan as around ninety years, much of it spent in the wilderness.
Contributions & Legacy
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Asceticism and Monastic Life
The accounts of Macarius emphasize an extreme austerity. By tradition he passed seven years eating only pulse and raw herbs, and a further period subsisting on a few ounces of bread a day and a single vessel of oil across a year. He is remembered above all for humility, watchfulness, and unceasing prayer, and is credited with the counsel that prayer need not be wordy.
As head of the Scetis community he shaped a way of life in which monks lived in cells close to one another yet largely in solitude, assembling for the divine services on the weekend. The synaxarion relates that his reputation drew many seekers, and that he dug underground retreats to preserve solitude for prayer. Tradition also numbers many healings among his works.
Writings
A corpus of spiritual writing has been transmitted under the name of Macarius, the best known being the collection called the Fifty Spiritual Homilies, together with ascetic treatises. These texts are devotional and spiritual in character rather than dogmatic or controversial, centering on the union of the soul with God and presenting salvation as a cooperation of divine grace and human effort.
The Macarian homilies have had a wide and lasting reception. They were valued across the Christian East and West and have been noted as an influence in later Western spirituality. Modern scholarship has debated the authorship and precise origin of the collection, but it has long circulated under Macarius's name and is closely associated with his memory.
Relics & Shrines
Macarius's body was, by tradition, hidden by his disciples and later moved among several locations over the centuries before coming to rest at the Coptic Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great in the Wadi Natrun, the community that bears his name. A separate tradition associates relics of Macarius with Amalfi in Italy.
