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| Chapter III. Of a dead man raised to life by Abbot Macarius.
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Chapter III.
Of a dead man raised to life by Abbot Macarius.
As also we remember that
a dead man was raised to life by Abbot Macarius who was the first to
find a home in the desert of Scete.1946
| 1946 This was the
“Egyptian,” not the “Alexandrian” Macarius. See
the note on the Institutes, V. xli. The story is also given by Rufinus,
History of the Monks, c. xxviii.; as well as Sozomen, H.E. III. xiv.,
and by both of these writers is expressly ascribed to the Egyptian
Macarius. | For when a
certain heretic who followed the error of Eunomius was trying by
dialectic subtlety to destroy the simplicity of the Catholic faith, and
had already deceived a large number of men, the blessed Macarius was
asked by some Catholics, who were terribly disturbed by the horror of
such an upset, to set free the simple folk of all Egypt from the peril
of infidelity, and came for this purpose. And when the heretic had
approached him with his dialectic art, and wanted to drag him away in
his ignorance to the thorns of Aristotle, the blessed Macarius put a
stop to his chatter with apostolic brevity, saying: “the kingdom
of God is not in word but in power.”1947
Let us go therefore to the tombs, and
let us invoke the name of the Lord over the first dead man we find, and
let us, as it is written, “show our faith by our
works,”1948
that by His
testimony the manifest proofs of a right faith may be shown, and we may
prove the clear truth not by an empty discussion of words but by the
power of miracles and that judgment which cannot be deceived. And when
he heard this the heretic was overwhelmed with shame before the people
who were present, and pretended for the moment that he consented to the
terms proposed, and promised that he would come on the morrow, but the
next day when they were
all
in expectation who had come together with greater eagerness to the
appointed place, owing to their desire for the spectacle, he was
terrified by the consciousness of his want of faith, and fled away, and
at once escaped out of all Egypt. And when the blessed Macarius had
waited together with the people till the ninth hour, and saw that he
had owing to his guilty conscience avoided him, he took the people, who
had been perverted by him and went to the tombs determined upon. Now in
Egypt the overflow of the river Nile has introduced this custom that,
since the whole breadth of that country is covered for no small part of
the year by the regular flood of waters like a great sea so that there
is no means of getting about except by a passage in boats, the bodies
of the dead are embalmed and stored away in cells an good height up.
For the soil of that land being damp from the continual moisture
prevents them from burying them. For if it receives any bodies buried
in it, it is forced by the excessive inundations to cast them forth on
its surface. When then the blessed Macarius had taken up his position
by a most ancient corpse, he said “O man, if that heretic and son
of perdition had come hither with me, and, while he was standing by, I
had exclaimed and invoked the name of Christ my God, say in the
presence of these who were almost perverted by his fraud, whether you
would have arisen.” Then he arose and replied with words of
assent. And then Abbot Macarius asked him what he had formerly been
when he enjoyed life here, or in what age of men he had lived, or if he
had then known the name of Christ, and he replied that he had lived
under kings of most ancient date, and declared that in those days he
had never heard the name of Christ. To whom once more Abbot Macarius:
“Sleep,” said he, “in peace with the others in your
own order, to be roused again by Christ in the end.” All this
power then and grace of his which was in him would perhaps have always
been hidden, unless the needs of the whole province which was
endangered, and his entire devotion to Christ, and unfeigned love, had
forced him to perform this miracle. And certainly it was not the
ostentation of glory but the love of Christ and the good of all the
people that wrung from him the performance of it. As the passage in the
book of Kings shows us that the blessed Elijah also did, who asked that
fire might descend from heaven on the sacrifices laid on the pyre, for
this reason that he might set free the faith of the whole people which
was endangered by the tricks of the false prophets.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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