about the sixth century. See his life in Bollandus, p. 45.

SAINT MOCHUA OF BELLA,

OTHERWISE CALLED CRONAN,

WAS contemporary to S. Congal, and founded the monastery (now a town)
named Balla, in Connaught. He departed to our Lord in the fifty-sixth
year of his age. See Bollandus, p. 49.

{073}

JANUARY II.

S. MACARIUS OF ALEXANDRIA,

ANCHORET.

From Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, who had been his disciple, c. 20.
Rufin, Socrates, and others in Rosweide, D'Andilly, Cotelier, and
Bollandus, p. 85 See Tillemont, t. 8, p. 626. Bulteau, Hist. Mon.
d'Orient, l. 1, c. 9, p. 128.

A.D. 394.

ST. MACARIUS the younger, a citizen of Alexandria, followed the business
of a confectioner. Desirous to serve God with his whole heart, he
forsook the world in the flower of his age, and spent upwards of sixty
years in the deserts in the exercise of fervent penance and
contemplation. He first retired into Thebais, or Upper Egypt, about the
year 335.[1] Having learned the maxims, and being versed in the practice
of the most perfect virtue, under masters renowned for their sanctity;
still aiming, if possible, at greater perfection, he quitted the Upper
Egypt, and came to the Lower, before the year 373. In this part were
three deserts almost adjoining to each other; that of Scete, so called
from a town of the same name on the borders of Lybia; that of the Cells,
contiguous to the former, this name being given to it on account of the
multitude of hermit-cells with which it abounded; and a third, which
reached to the western branch of the Nile, called, from a great
mountain, the desert of Nitria. St. Macarius had a cell in each of these
deserts. When he dwelt in that of Nitria, it was his custom to give
advice to strangers, but his chief residence was in that of the Cells.
Each anchoret had here his separate cell, which he made his continued
abode, except on Saturday and Sunday, when all assembled in one church
to celebrate the divine mysteries, and partake of the holy communion. If
any one was absent, he was concluded to be sick, and was visited by the
rest. When a stranger came to live among them, every one offered him his
cell, and was ready to build another for himself. Their cells were not
within sight of each other. Their manual labor, which was that of making
baskets or mats, did not interrupt the prayer of the heart. A profound
silence reigned throughout the whole desert. Our saint received here the
dignity of priest