Fifty Spiritual Homilies of Saint Macarius the Egyptian

Enough has been said about the nature of the teaching of these Homilies. They leave upon the reader an impression of the tremendous reality of the contest in which the Christian is engaged. Macarius insists frequently that these things are not to be regarded as matters of words, or doctrines, or systems, but as practical truths of which the force ought to be felt in experience (I. 10, 11). It is of comparatively little account to have right theories on religious subjects. “It is one thing to give descriptive accounts with a certain head-knowledge and correct notions, and another, in substance and reality, in full experience, and in the inward man, and in the mind, to possess the treasure and the grace and the taste and the effectual working of the Holy Ghost” (XXVII. 12). As Bishop Gore has said, these Homilies “constitute one of the best guides to the spiritual life that the church possesses.”

The fifty Homilies were first printed at Paris in 1559, by Morel, from a MS. in the French King’s library. In 1562 a Latin translation by Picus was added; and in 1699 J. G. Pritius published at Leipzig an edition of the works of Macarius then known, or attributed to him, containing, amongst other pieces, the fifty Homilies. This was the standard edition, till 1850, when H. J. Floss published at Köln a new and improved edition, reprinted with further improvements and enrichments in Migne’s Patrologia Græca, vol. xxxiv.

The text as given in Migne has been taken as the basis of the present translation. But the translator has employed in addition the two MSS. now to be found in English libraries. The first of these is in the Bodleian Library (Cod. Baroccianus, 213). The second is at Holkham, and belongs to the Earl of Leicester, who kindly allowed the translator to collate it. The Holkham MS. is a direct transcript of the Bodleian, and only varies from it in a few places. Where these MSS. differ from Floss’s text, their reading has generally been found superior, and has been followed accordingly. As the translator has wished the book to be rather a book of spiritual edification for the general reader than an aid to the critical student, he has usually refrained from calling attention to textual points. Those who have Migne’s text before them will kindly remember this when the translation silently parts company with that text.

The work of Macarius has received but scanty attention from English scholars and divines. The article upon him and his Alexandrian namesake in the Dictionary of Christian Biography is little short of a scandal. Even so admirable and judicious a book as Dr. Swete’s Patristic Study makes no reference to him. No edition of any text of his had appeared by an English hand till Mr. G. L. Marriott in 1918 published from the Harvard University Press the seven additional Homilies contained in the Bodleian and Holkham MSS. The one happy exception to this conspiracy of neglect is the translation of the fifty Homilies “by a Presbyter of the Church of England,” published in 1721. The “Presbyter” was Thomas Haywood, and he used the Bodleian MS. as the basis of his translation. His book, entitled Primitive Morality, or, The Spiritual Homilies of St. Macarius the Egyptian, is now not often found. The copy which the present translator is fortunate enough to possess was given to him by the late Bishop of Gibraltar, William Edward Collins, who picked it up on a bookstall. As long ago as 1893 the translator had remarked, in his book on The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism, that “it seems strange that his Homilies have never been brought to the knowledge of the modern church as a companion volume to the Imitation of Christ.” He did not then know the work of Haywood. When he began the present translation he was in hopes that he would not find it necessary to do more than modernise, with some corrections, the translation of his predecessor.

Perhaps some apology is needed for a certain freedom in the translation. No attempt has been made to represent the same Greek word by the same English one throughout. Certain words recur again and again, such as ἀναπαύεσθαι or ἐπαναπαύεσθαι, εὐδοκία, πληροφορία, νοῦς, πάθη, λογισμός. They bear various shades of meaning, according to the context, and it has been felt useless, to aim at a rigid uniformity of rendering. The translator has wished to make the meaning and spirit of the saint felt through the English sentences, rather than to secure a pedantic and tiresome literalness.

God grant that those who read may be moved to that “insatiable” desire after Him which breathes in all the Homilies. “If you believe that these things are true, as indeed they are, take heed to yourself, whether your soul has found the light to guide it, and the true meat and drink, which is the Lord. If you have not, seek night and day, that you may receive” (XXXIII. 4).

Since this book was set in type, two French scholars, Dom Ville-court and Dom Wilmart, have endeavoured to prove that these Homilies are in fact a manual of the sect of the Massalians or Euchites, who were condemned by various councils of the fourth and fifth centuries. Their history may be seen in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, under the name Euchites. The work of these two scholars is noticed, and accepted as convincing, by the Rev. G. L. Marriott in the Journal of Theological Studies for April, 1921.

That certain propositions taken from these Homilies, and from the seven others referred to on p. xviii, were used by the Euchites, and (as used by them) condemned, is certain. St. John Damascene, in his de Haeresibus (vol. I, p. 95 in Le Quien’s edition of his works), gives eighteen propositions of the Massalians “collected from a book of theirs.” He does not name the author of the book. It would seem likely that it was the book called Asceticus, from which extracts were read at the Council of Ephesus in 431. If so, the Asceticus must have been largely based on these Homilies.

The second of the propositions, for instance, is “that Satan and the devils have hold of the mind of men, and the nature of men is capable of communion with the spirits of wickedness.” The first half of this sentence, severed from its context, is taken from Hom. XXVII, 19; the second half occurs a few lines lower down in the same section. The eighteenth proposition is based upon Hom. VIII, 3: it runs, “That the Saviour may be manifested to those at prayer in light, and that a man was found at a certain time standing by the altar and that three loaves were offered to him, kneaded with oil.” Parallels to most of the other propositions could be found in the Homilies.

Not all of them, however, are taken from the Homilies, so that the Homilies cannot themselves be the Euchite book from which St. John’s propositions are extracted. The origin of the Euchites, as known to history, was in Mesopotamia. Our Homilies were not composed in that country. The words of the title quoted on p. xviii, “Epistle … to the Abbot Symeon of Mesopotamia in Syria,” are sufficient proof that they came from elsewhere. A certain Symeon, according to Theodoret, was among the founders of the sect. It was a common name in the East, but the Symeon to whom the Homilies were sent may well have made a harmful use of them, in a heretical direction. Because they lent themselves to such treatment is not a sufficient reason for doubting the authorship of Macarius, nor for ceasing, as Dom Wilmart regretfully does, to regard the author as a doctor of the Catholic Church.

A great difference between Christians and the men of this world. Those who have the spirit of the world are in heart and mind bound in earthly bonds, but the others long after the love of the heavenly Father, having Him only before their eyes with much desire

Those who desire to please God, ought to offer their prayers in peace and quietness, in gentleness and wisdom, and not to give scandal to others by the use of loud outcries. The Homily also contains two questions, whether the thrones and crowns are actual created things, and concerning the twelve thrones of Israel