Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian

The persons to whom they are addressed are all monks Macarius can, indeed, contemplate the possibility of people in the world being saved. Saints of God, he says, may be found sitting in the theatres, apparently looking on at the performance, while their hearts are holding intercourse with God (XV. 8, cp. XXIX. 1). It is part of Christian perfection to pass no judgment upon those who remain in the world, not even upon those whose lives are notoriously bad (XVIII. 8, cp. XLII. 2). But to Macarius and those to whom he speaks it is the obvious and only natural thing, that when a man hears the word of God, he should forsake the world as they themselves had done, and withdraw to the wilderness. The call of the Gospel can scarcely take any other form (XI. 6 ff.). Christian and monk are almost convertible terms (XXXVIII. 1). For a system of social ethics a man must go to some other teacher than Macarius. God and the soul, the soul and God—this is his topic.

Even about God Macarius does not give much direct teaching. He rather assumes that his hearers know the truth, and only need to apply it. “God is infinite and incomprehensible” (XVI. 5), and is therefore even “in” hell, “in” Satan: to exclude Him would be to limit Him. Macarius labours to explain, when questioned, how this can be. His doctrine of the relation between the Divine Persons is wholly that of Athanasius, though it is implied rather than taught. Once the great key-word is used, in passing, in an ascription: “Glory to the consubstantial Trinity for ever” (XVII. 15). That the Son is all that this word implies is seen from the way in which Macarius passes from the one Person to the other, so that sometimes it is not easy to say at once which he is speaking of. He dwells with delight upon the Incarnation, which brought God within man’s reach. “The infinite, inaccessible, uncreated God, through His infinite and inconceivable kindness, embodied Himself, and, if I may say so, diminished Himself from His inaccessible glory, to make it possible for Him to be united with His visible creatures” (IV. 9 ff.). It was the outcome of a charity and a compassion which extends to all mankind. The Lord wills to beget all men anew of the seed of His Godhead, and is grieved if they will not come to the new birth, after all that He suffered for them (XXX. 2 ff.). “God and the holy angels are in tears” over such souls (I. 11).

The mode of the Incarnation was full of significance: “instead of bringing with Him a body from heaven, the Lord made a new thing from the Ever-Virgin Mary, and put this on” (XI. 9). In it He endured unlimited humiliation: “the Lord Himself, who is the Way, and is God, when He came for thy sake, not for His own … see to what humiliation He came.… When they spat in His face, and put on Him the crown of thorns … God for thy sake humbled Himself” (XXVI. 25 ff.). His manhood was no fiction. If at one time Macarius seems to attribute Christ’s overthrow of Satan to His divine immunity to evil (XXVI. 15), at another he takes a deeper view: as the serpent overcame Adam by pride and self-esteem, so “Christ took upon Him the form of a servant and conquered the devil by humility” (XXVII. 5). Macarius makes no attempt to formulate a doctrine of the Atonement. It is enough for him that Christ’s death is a conquest of death, because death had no claim upon Him, as it has upon us (XI. 10); that we are saved by it like the bird in the Law which was dipped in the blood of its fellow (XLVII. 2), or the Israelites whose houses were sealed by the blood of the Passover (XLVII. 8). There is no salvation except in Christ. This is everywhere the doctrine of Macarius: with true evangelical fervour he returns again and again to the cry, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (e.g. XXVIII. 6). Yet it is not to what Christ once did for us that Macarius most characteristically turns, but to what He is, to what He is now.

He exhausts the power of language to set this forth: “Himself in thee made all things—Paradise, Tree of Life, pearl, crown, builder, husbandman, sufferer, incapable of suffering, man, God, wine and living water, lamb, bridegroom, warrior, armour, Christ all in all” (XXXI. 4). His teaching of the person and work of the Spirit is rich and abundant, but presents no novelty. Once there appears a trace of the primitive (but not scriptural) identification of the Holy Spirit with the as yet not incarnate Word (XII. 6. ff). Frequently, like the New Testament itself, Macarius passes from the action of the Spirit to that of Christ, or from the action of Christ to that of the Spirit, without noting the transition. It is not that he is unaware of the difference; but for the moment the mode of the divine operation does not concern him. What the Spirit does, God does.

The aloofness of these Homilies extends even to the church and its ordinances. Not that Macarius despises them. In one place he speaks of Peter as having succeeded Moses and Aaron—and Caiaphas—as trustee of “Christ’s new church and the true priesthood”; but it is in order to show that even such an one, so long as he is in the flesh, has reason to fear lest he should fail (XXVI. 23). Once he refers to resorting “to the place of prayer”; but it is to insist that the Christian ought to “have the remembrance of God” quite as much with him when walking, or eating, or talking (XLIII. 3). That he valued the reception of the holy eucharist is certain from the story told by Palladius of the woman who had laid herself open to bewitchment by going for five weeks without it (p. vii). When asked to explain what it was that eye had not seen, nor ear heard, till Christianity came, he answers among other things that the Old Testament saints never knew “that in the church bread and wine should be offered, the symbol of [the Redeemer’s] flesh and blood, and that those who partake of the visible bread eat spiritually the flesh of the Lord” (XXVII. 17). But there is nothing in these Homilies like the wonderful Fourth Book of the Imitatio Christi. In general, when Macarius speaks of Christ as the bread of life, the reference is mystical, not sacramental. “The Lord,” he says, “embodies Himself even in meat and drink”; but He makes Himself “meat” for the refreshment of the faithful in the same sense as He becomes a well of water springing up within them (IV. 12).

Baptism, like the eucharist, is one of the peculiar glories of Christianity; but it is the “baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost” (XXVII. 17), of which the sacrament of baptism—no doubt through the fault of the recipients—often falls deplorably short. Here is the appeal to facts. “If you say … that after baptism evil is no more at liberty to argue in the heart, do you not know that from the advent of the Lord to this day all that have been baptized have had bad thoughts at times?… All the worldly people dwelling within the pale of the church, are their hearts spotless and pure?” (XV. 14). The seal, the unction, which form a part of the initiatory sacrament of the church, are represented in these Homilies only by their spiritual counterparts. We must seek “to have the brand and seal of the Lord upon us” (XII. 13). If the anointing oil under the Old Testament made men kings, how much more profit is there in the only unction for which Macarius seems to care, the unction of the inner man with the Holy Ghost the Comforter (XVII. 1, cp. XV. 35). It has been well pointed out by a modern teacher of the religion of experience that St. Paul nowhere appeals “to the man already in Christ to seek the baptism of the Spirit.” But this is what Macarius does again and again. To find the new birth, to become a Christian, to be made a child of God, to receive the gift of the Spirit, this is the object of every effort.

It is not the equipment with which a man under the gospel starts on his career towards perfection; it is the crowning grace which perfects him after he has passed faithfully through a thousand temptations and years of self-mastery (e.g. IX. 10, 13; XI. 6), to be sought by incessant prayer.

In a life such as Macarius contemplates, Holy Scripture naturally occupies an important place. He is not himself one of the great interpreters of Scripture, but he has a wide range of acquaintance with it. “Reading” is one of the normal occupations of those whom he addresses; it is of course the reading of the Bible (III. 1, 2; cp. XXIX. 6). The Bible is given us by God, as a king may send a letter to inform his subjects of privileges to be had on application. It is ill for those who know the offer and will not avail themselves of it (XXXIX. 1). Macarius uses the promises with all the literal earnestness of a Bunyan or a John Newton. When Satan seeks to depress us by reminding us of our sins, we are to answer, “I have the testimonies of the Lord in writing, that say, I desire not the death of the sinner” (XI. 15). But the true Christian will not rest his assurance only upon the written word, but will seek the impression of the Spirit upon his inner consciousness (XV. 20). It is a natural and holy impulse which makes a believer wish to impart to others the word which has proved helpful to himself; and Macarius draws an unfavourable picture of the man who is so intoxicated with the revelations made to him that he is unable to think of the needs of others or to minister the word to them (VIII. 4). But he has heart-searching things to say about those who attempt to edify others by “words borrowed from various parts of the Bible” without having themselves the experience of their spiritual force (XVIII. 5).

It is in dealing with human nature and its strivings after perfection that Macarius is seen at his greatest, though even here we are not to look for a logical system, or an exact science. A few broad principles are postulated; and the rest is the result of experience. The nomenclature is not, as a rule, the nomenclature of the schools of philosophy. It is tentative, a little wavering, the outcome of the noble experiment, still new, of the solitudes of the desert.

And first, Macarius insists upon the greatness of the human soul. It is no part of Christian humility to think meanly of what we are by nature. Quite the contrary. “The soul in itself is neither of the nature of the Godhead, nor of the nature of the darkness of wickedness, but is a creature intellectual, beauteous, great, and wonderful, a fair likeness and image of God” (I. 7). However wonderful God’s other creations are, God does not find in them satisfaction and “rest,” as He does in the soul of man—no, not even in Michael and Gabriel (XV. 22). This is a point to which Macarius returns so frequently that it seems to be taken from an authority like that of Scripture (see e.g. XVI. 7, XXVI. 1, XLV. 5). The worth of the soul can only be measured by the price which God was prepared to pay for it (XV. 43 ff.). It is akin to God, though with a folly which the animals do not share it does not recognise its kindred (XLV. 5, 6). Its “subtilty” is so great that earthly wisdom fails to comprehend it (XLIX. 4). It is capable of infinite distention under the power of the Spirit (XLVI. 5). Even without the help of grace, it moves at large throughout all creation, annihilating space in its fleetness and nimbleness (XLVI. 4; cp. XII. 12). This belief must be borne in mind when we find Macarius elsewhere asserting that souls, like the angels, or the devils, have a “body” of their own. (IV. 9; cp. VII. 7).

From the current psychology of the schools Macarius borrows the word which describes the intelligence as the guiding or ruling principle of the soul (ἡγεμονικόν XXV. 3; cp. XL. 5). But he has hardly made the definition his own. He loves rather to dwell upon the complexity of man’s inner constitution. “The soul has many members, intelligence, conscience, will, thoughts accusing and excusing; but all these are dependent upon one factor (εἰς ἔνα λογισμόν).” This “factor” is what we should call the personality, or ego. Macarius calls it the soul. “They are members of the soul, and the soul is one, the inward man” (VII. 8): the mind is “the eye of the soul” (ibid.). Elsewhere Macarius gives a different enumeration. The soul s ruling, or “more kingly,” factors “are the will, the conscience, the intelligence, and the faculty of love” (I. 3). Elsewhere again he speaks of “the five rational (or spiritual) senses of the soul,” corresponding to the physical senses of the body (IV. 7), but without specifying them. In one place he seems to make conscience the supreme governing power of the soul; or perhaps he identifies it with the intelligence when the intelligence is brought to bear upon the moral aspects of conduct. “The heart has a captain in the intelligence, the conscience which is ever judging us.… It is the intelligence and conscience that chides and guides the heart, and calls from sleep the natural faculties.… For the soul has many members, though it is but one” (XV. 33, 34). Macarius never tires of impressing this unity of the soul in its multiplicity of “members” (e.g.

Such is the constitution of the soul; but as things are, it is all plunged into disorder. No one has ever taken more seriously the doctrine of the Fall than Macarius does. It would be scarcely an exaggeration to say that there is some reference to it on every page. To “the transgression of the commandment” all our disasters and our difficulties are traced. It has vitiated our moral nature. “One thing foreign to our nature, the disaster of the passions, we have received into ourselves through the first man’s disobedience, and it has taken its place as almost a part of our nature by long custom and propensity” (IV. 8). “From the time that Adam transgressed the commandment the serpent entered in and made himself master of the house, and became like a second soul beside the soul” (XV. 35). Through man, the mischief penetrated to all creation. “When the evil word came to Adam … he first received it by the outward hearing, then it penetrated through his heart, and took possession of all his being. When he was thus seized, creation, which served him and ministered to him, was seized with him. Through him, death reigned over every soul, and defaced every image of Adam” (XI. 5). The taint has become hereditary. Macarius knows of some “who say that evil is not born and bred in man” (XV. 21), but they are mistaken. “We all are his sons of that dark race; … the malady from which he suffered, we all who are of Adam’s seed suffer from the same” (XXX. 8, cp. XXIV. 2). It rendered man liable to bodily disease, (XLVIII. 5).

Its primary effect upon the soul, from which all flows, is to “darken” it. By this Macarius means that the Fall has dulled all man’s perceptions, especially with regard to moral truth. Man has so lost this perception as to be unconscious of the loss. “The world that you see round you, from the king to the beggar, are all in confusion and disorder and battle, and none of them knows the reason, or that it is the manifestation of the evil which crept in through Adam’s disobedience, the sting of death.… The sin that crept in works upon the inner man without being detected.… Men are not aware that they are doing these things at the instigation of a foreign force. They think it all to be natural, and that they do these things of their own determination, while [Christians] know very well the source of these movements. The world is subject to the lust of evil, and knows it not” (XV. 48 ff.). Macarius does not admit that the evil which has invaded us is actually a substantive thing (ἐνυπόστατον): those who so affirm know nothing. “To God there is no substantive evil … but in us it works with full force and makes itself felt, suggesting all foul concupiscence” (XVI. 1). It is “a kind of invisible power of Satan, and a reality (οὐσία)” (XV. 49). “To us evil is a real thing, because it dwells and works in the heart, suggesting wicked and defiling thoughts, and not allowing us to pray purely, but bringing our mind into captivity to this world.

It has clothed itself with our souls, and touched even our bones and members” (XVI. 6), It is like a kind of evil leaven which has grown and increased with the increase of the race “to such an extent that they have come to think that there is no God, and to worship inanimate stones, and to be unable so much as to take in the notion of a God” (XXIV. 2).

The case was desperate; but Macarius says that not all was lost. That could not be, so long as man “lives, and discerns, and has the power of will” (XXVI. 1). The contest which gathers round the names of Augustine and Pelagius had not begun; but Macarius had already heard of some who went too far in their depreciation of fallen nature. “It is not as some say, who are led astray by wrong teachings, that man is dead once for all, and cannot accomplish anything good whatever” (XLVI. 3). What Macarius thought that man could still do we shall see presently; but meanwhile the utmost that he could do could not avail to restore or save him. No evangelical Christian of modern times can be more emphatic on the point than he. “Only the appearing of Christ is able to cleanse soul and body” (XLV. 3). “If thou hadst been able to do it, what need was there of the coming of the Lord? As the eye cannot see without light, as a man cannot speak without a tongue, or hear without ears … so he cannot be saved without Jesus, nor enter into the kingdom of heaven” (III. 4). “If any one takes his stand upon his own righteousness and redemption, not looking for the righteousness of God, which is the Lord (as the apostle says, ‘Who is made to us righteousness and redemption’) he labours in vain and to no purpose. All the dream of a righteousness of his own is at the last day manifested as nothing but filthy rags” (XX. 3).

Man “was so sore wounded that none could cure him, but the Lord only” (ibid. 5), “Moses came, but he could not bestow a complete cure.… Every righteousness of the soul [under the law] was unavailing to heal man, until the Saviour came, the true Physician, who cures without cost, who gave Himself a ransom for mankind” (ibid. 6; cp. XXX. 8).

It must be remembered that the aim of Macarius is strictly practical, that he is not setting forth a scheme of Christian doctrine, but appealing to companies of men whose temptation is to think that they have done all that is required of them in renouncing the world, and to become indolent and secure. This may be a reason why he does not make much of the ideas of predestination and election and vocation, and of the initial grace which starts the Christian on his distinguishing career. Such thoughts lead naturally to complacency. His view is that all men would like to be good (XVII. 15), though they will not take the trouble to become so. Mere wishing will not do it. A man may wish to fly, but he cannot. “So the will is present with a man to be pure and blameless and without spot; but he has not the power” (II. 3). Some men, indeed, are bad because they choose to be bad; but others are bad in spite of themselves. They fight against it and resent it, but do not succeed in overcoming it. “These are far nobler and more honourable in God’s eyes than the other” (XXVII. 2), and no doubt receive a better lot hereafter from a righteous Judge, whose awards in heaven and hell admit of infinite gradations (XL. 3 ff.). Even among those who hear the call of the gospel, not all respond to it. “If merely hearing made a man to belong without more ado to the good, then all the theatre-people and the whoremongers will go into the kingdom and the life” (XXVII. 20). The call, then, goes out universally, but only particular souls benefit by it, namely those who choose to accept it.

The freedom of the will is a main article in the creed of Macarius. Nothing takes it away. God Himself respects it. He will do nothing to force it. The apostles would have been glad to heal all the sick in the places that they came to; but they were not allowed, for if they had done so, faith would have been extorted from everybody. “Men and their free will would have been planted in God’s service by compulsory force” (XXVI. 6). If Christians did not die, like others, “the whole world would come over by a kind of compulsion, not by a voluntary decision.” Providence orders things thus, “that the freedom of will which God gave man at the beginning might abide” (XV. 39 ff.). “If it were possible to succeed without effort, Christianity would no longer be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. There would be no faith and unbelief. You would make man a creature of necessity,” like the sun and the earth, for which there can be no praise or blame, reward or punishment (XXVII. 21, cp. XV. 22). From the outset to the finish, all depends upon man’s free will.

Macarius accordingly represents God as waiting upon the movement of man’s will. God and the devil both desire to gain him. “The soul is in the middle between the two subsistences, and to whichever side the will of the soul inclines, of that side it becomes a possession and a son” (XXVI. 24). It is like a babe on the floor, which cannot get up and go to its mother, but has just the power to roll towards her and cry to her, and when God sees that movement of the soul, He comes to it and takes it up (XLVI. 3). Man cannot do a great deal, but what he can do, he must. “It is not possible or within a man’s competence to root out sin by his own power, [but] to wrestle against it, to fight against it, to give and receive blows, is thine; to uproot is God’s” (III. 4, cp. XXVII. 22). “That the war comes upon you is not your doing; but to hate it is; and then the Lord, seeing your mind, that you are striving … parts death from your soul” (XXVI. 18). “What is man’s working? To renounce, to go out of the world, to pray when it is hard, to be on the watch, to love God and the brethren—this is his own doing,” though he needs much in addition (ibid., 19, cp. XLVI. 2). God therefore meets man’s natural efforts with a corresponding grace. “The things which you do yourself are all very well, and acceptable to God, but they are not quite pure. For instance, you love God, but not perfectly. The Lord comes and gives a love which is unchangeable, the heavenly love. You pray in the natural manner, with wandering and doubt.

God gives you the pure prayer, in spirit and in truth” (XXVI. 21). “The man to whom He gives help is the one who turns away from material pleasures and from his former habits, who drags his mind at all times to the Lord, whether it will or no, who denies himself, and seeks the Lord only. This is the man whom He keeps under His care” (IV. 5). Again and again Macarius speaks of help coming “when the Lord sees” that the soul is in earnest, but He holds His hand till then.

If it should seem that too much is thus left for man to do, Macarius answers that nothing is required of him but what lies within his power. He often uses the expression that man is a “match” for the power opposed to him. “The mind, as I have said many times, is an even match for it, and possesses a power that is well balanced against sin, to withstand and repel its suggestions. If you say that the opposing power is too strong, and that evil has complete sovereignty over man, you make God unrighteous, when He condemns man for submitting to Satan.… ‘It is as though a young man should wrestle with a little child, and the child, when he is worsted, is condemned for getting worsted. This is a great injustice.’ I tell you that the human mind is a good match for the enemy, and evenly balanced against him; and a soul of that kind, when it seeks, finds help and succour, and redemption is vouchsafed to it. The contest and struggle is not an unequal one” (III. 5). The description takes almost an epic form. The Persians and the Romans are in opposing camps, and “two winged youths of equal powers “come out and engage in a struggle between the lines: “so the opposing force and the mind are in equipoise” (XXVII. 22). Macarius repeats a former simile. “Those who say that sin is like a mighty giant, and the soul like a little child, are wrong. If things were so ill-matched … the Lawgiver would be unjust, in having given man a law to struggle against Satan” (ibid., cp. XV. 23).

Macarius holds out no great hope of the struggle being ended before death. On the one hand, Satan is remorseless and relentless in his siege; and, on the other, man always remains free to change. “You see how alterable this nature is. You find it inclining to evil, you find it again inclining to good. In both cases it is in a position to assent to such action as it likes. Nature is susceptible both of good and of evil, either of Divine grace or of the contrary power, but is under no compulsion” (XV. 25). “In the depth of wickedness and the bondage of sin a man is at liberty to turn to what is good. A man bound over to the Holy Spirit, and inebriated with heavenly things, has power to turn to evil” (ibid., 36, cp. 40). “I assure you that freedom of choice remains even in perfect Christians, who are subjugated to what is good and intoxicated with it.… You may believe me that even the apostles, perfected as they were in grace, were not hindered by that grace from doing as they desired.” Macarius gives instances of the apostles’ wrongdoing. When questioned upon the point, he answers that the apostles “could not sin”—no doubt in the sense of giving themselves up to it—“because they could not choose to sin, being in light and in such grace. I do not say that grace in them was weak. What I say is that grace permits even perfect spiritual persons to have the use of their will, and power to do what they choose, and to turn in which direction they like. And human nature, which is weak, has power to turn, even when good is present with it” (XXVII. 9 ff.).

The purpose of this continual warfare is, of course, to test the sincerity and steadfastness of man’s will. This thought recurs continually, and hardly needs illustration. “Man’s resolution in combat and strife, and his genuine worth, and his goodwill towards God, are then shown when grace withdraws and he will still be brave and cry to God” (XVI. 13). So Macarius interprets the story of Job. “So it is still with those who endure afflictions and temptations; Satan is ashamed and sorry, because he has got nothing by it. The Lord begins to reason with him: ‘Behold I suffered thee to tempt him. Wast thou able to do anything?’ ” (XXVI. 8). It seems to be God’s way to give the minimum of grace that will be effective. This is partly to check spiritual pride. “The Lord knows the man’s weakness, that he is easily lifted up. Therefore He withdraws, and permits the man to be exercised and put to trouble” (XXVII. 8). But it has a more general purpose. “In order that your free will and your liberty may be tested, which way it inclines, grace makes way for sin” (ibid., 9). “Grace purposely withdraws, for the man’s good, and he enters into training, and [eventually] becomes a Christian” (XXVII. 20). To some, “even when they have withdrawn from the world,—and pass their time in much perseverance in prayer and fasting … God does not immediately grant the grace and the refreshment and rejoicing of the Spirit, being patient with them,” in the sense of Luke 18:7, i. e., being willing to spend time over the business, instead of hurrying it on, “and reserving the gift.

All this reserve on God’s part, and laying so much upon the will of man, might seem to lead up to something like a doctrine of human merit. Nothing could be further from the teaching of Macarius. All is of God’s doing. “Never think that you have been beforehand with the Lord in your virtue; it is He that worketh in you both to will and to do” (XXXVII. 9). Is that not prevenient grace? In a noble passage Macarius speaks of the inconceivable “minuteness “of God, which goes into every particular to effect the salvation of man. He arranges for the afflictions which make a man think of giving up the world. Then He teaches him that there is an inward renuntiation to be made, as well as the outward. “And when thou deemest thyself to have done all by renouncing, the Lord taketh account with thee. ‘Why dost thou boast? Did not I create thy body and thy soul? Did not I make the gold and silver? What hast thou done?’ The soul begins to make confession, and to beseech the Lord and say, ‘All things are Thine. The house I am in is Thine. My clothes are Thine. From Thee is my food, and of Thee am I supplied for every need.’ Then the Lord begins to reply, ‘I thank thee. The goods are thine own. The goodwill is thine own; and because of thy love towards Me, since thou hast made Me thy refuge, come, I will now give thee what hitherto neither thou hast gained, nor do men have it upon earth. Take Me, thy Lord, with thine own soul, that thou mayest ever be with Me in joy and gladness’ ” (XXXII. 8).

Again, “This is the part of man, that whether he fasts, or keeps watch, or prays, or does some fine thing, he should ascribe all to the Lord and say, ‘If God had not enabled me, I could not have fasted, or prayed, or gone out of the world.’ In this way, God, seeing your intention, that you ascribe to God the things that are yours, which you do of your own nature, bestows upon you in return the things that are His, the spiritual things, the divine and heavenly things” (XXVI. 20). Although the language may not be quite that of St. Augustine or of the Council of Orange, Macarius does not differ from them in meaning. The Lord, he says, “secretly helps” the man in his striving (XXI. 5). “Whatever the soul may think fit to do of itself, whatever care and pains it may take … without the cooperation of the Spirit … it is of no use for the heavenly places” (XXIV. 5). Indeed St. Augustine’s famous saying, Fac quod iubes, is almost verbally anticipated by Macarius when he speaks of the man who comes at last to doing all the commandments with ease, and then corrects himself, “or rather, the Lord in him does His own commandments” (XIX. 2).

The result of this conception is a profound humility. The nearer a man approaches to perfection, the more he is conscious how ill he has corresponded to the divine influence, and that whatever success may have been gained is due to that influence, and not to himself. And the humility thus formed combines with an ardent longing for better and better things. “The soul that really loves God and Christ … esteems itself as having wrought nothing, by reason of its insatiable aspiration after God. Though it should exhaust the body with fastings, with watchings, its attitude towards the virtues is as if it had not yet even begun to labour for them” (X. 4). “Until a man … makes progress, he is not poor in spirit, but has some opinion of himself; but … grace itself teaches him to be poor in spirit, which means that a man, being righteous and chosen of God, does not esteem himself to be anything, but holds his soul in abasement and disregard, as if he knew nothing and had nothing, though he knows and has” (XII. 3). “The sign of Christianity is this … to say continually, ‘It is not mine; another has put this treasure in my charge. I am a poor man, and when He pleases, He takes it from me … I am not fit for this sun to shine upon me.’ This is the sign of Christianity, this humility” (XV. 37; cp. XXVI. 11, XLI. 2). “Such an one despises himself beyond all sinners, and holds this notion implanted in him as if by nature, and the further he advances in the knowledge of God, the more he considers himself an ignoramus.

It is grace which ministers this effect, and makes it like a part of nature in the soul” (XVII. 12; cp. XXVII. 5). This was Christ’s way of conquering the devil, “and howsoever thou mayest be humbled, thou wilt never do anything like thy Master” (XXVI. 26). The author of the Pilgrim’s Progress was not the first to teach that “he that is down need fear no fall.” Macarius had taught the safety of humility before him. “The humble never falls. Whence indeed could he fall, being lower than all? A proud mind is a great humiliation; a humble mind is a great exaltation and honour and dignity” (XIX. 8).

The Homilies contain some wonderful passages about “the measures of perfection,” which Macarius and his hearers were endeavouring to reach. The Eighth Homily is given up to the subject. Macarius appears to be about to describe the various stages in the spiritual progress. But if that was his intention he does not carry it into effect. He leaves the “measures” undefined, but gives glimpses of spiritual experience which surpass “measurement.” Yet he avows that he has never seen “a perfect Christian, one completely free” (VIII. 5). A daring disciple ventures to ask Macarius in what “measures” he is himself. The reply can only be read with awe. There are other places, however, where Macarius defines the highest point as the attainment of “charity” or “love.” By it he means an absolute and entire love of God for God’s own sake. It is characteristic of him to regard it as a thing not of degrees or of progressive attainment, but marking a positive and well-ascertained position. Other gifts “serve only as inducements” to attain it. “Those who are contented with them are but children, though in the light. Many of the brethren have come to such measures, and had gifts of healing and revelation and prophecy, and because they did not reach the perfect charity, wherein lies the bond of perfectness, war came upon them … and they fell. But if any one reaches the perfect love, that man is from thenceforth fast bound, and is the captive of grace” (XXVI. 16; cp. XXVII. 14).

As a bride is not satisfied with her bridegroom’s gifts, but craves for the bridegroom himself, “so the soul … receives as an earnest from the Spirit gifts of healings, it may be, or of knowledge, or of revelation, but it is not satisfied with these, until it attains the complete union, namely charity, which can never change nor fail, and which sets those who have longed for it free from passion and from agitation” (XLV. 7).

Hard though it is to attain these “perfect measures,” Macarius will not let us be daunted by the difficulties. A more encouraging teacher it would not be easy to find. “Every day a man should have the hope and the joy and the expectation of the coming kingdom and deliverance, and to say, ‘If to-day I have not been delivered, I shall to-morrow.’ … If a man does not keep before his eyes the joy and the hope … he cannot endure” (XXVI. 11). One great element of evangelical comfort is, indeed, scarcely mentioned by name in the Homilies—the forgiveness of sins. But the substance of it is always there, implied in the patient kindness and helpfulness of God towards the striving soul. The striving is everything. We must “not disbelieve that the grace of God has pleasure even in sinners when they repent; for that which is bestowed according to grace is not measured by comparison with previous infirmity; otherwise grace is no more grace” (XXXVII. 7). By an anticipation of some of the most encouraging passages of Robert Browning, Macarius bids us think that the virtuous soul is accepted “not because of what it has done, but because of what it has desired” (ibid., 9).

It has been said above that Macarius in these Homilies is not much concerned with what man owes to man. His main preoccupation is with the struggle of the solitary soul to find God and to love Him aright. But Macarius discloses, if but incidentally, the Christian’s concern for other men. His hearers, cut off from parents and kinsfolk, whom the Homilies treat unsympathetically, as only so many encumbrances to be shaken off, live in some kind of community, sometimes thirty together under a governor (III. 1). He encourages them to seek the judgment of a spiritual man upon their state (XLVIII. 2). It is their duty to be considerate for each other—for instance, not to pray in such a manner as to disturb the brethren around them (VI. 3). To have an eye to the spiritual advantage of the brethren is better than to be wholly wrapped up in the pursuit of one’s own (ibid., 4; cp. VIII. 4). Instead of judging or envying others, we ought to feel that all are contributing to the welfare of all, whatever the work assigned to us and to them may be (III.). “Though grace works after a different manner in each individual Christian … yet all are of one city, of the same mind, of the same tongue, recognising one another” (XII. 4). This fellowship extends beyond the visible world. As a merchant abroad sends word home to prepare for his return, so “if any are making the heavenly wealth their merchandise, their fellow citizens, the spirits of saints and angels, are aware of it, and say with admiration, ‘Our brethren on the earth have come into great wealth.’

So they … come with mighty rejoicing to those above, and those who belong to the Lord receive them, having prepared for them there houses, and gardens, and clothes, all bright and costly” (XVI. 8). But it cannot be said that the relation of the Christian to his fellow creatures occupies a prominent part in the teaching of these Homilies. Macarius is even jealous that it should not become too prominent. “Even the much-loved brethren, whom such a soul has under its eye, if they hinder it from that love [of God], it turns from them, in a sense.” Here speaks that aloofness of spirit which allowed two “little strangers” to live for three years within a bowshot without once interfering in their inward concerns.