ll, and conformity to the humors of their husbands and others, where
the divine law did not interpose: in a spirit of recollection they
sanctified all their actions by {161} ardent ejaculations, by which they
strove to praise God, and most fervently to consecrate to the divine
glory all the powers of their soul and body.[12]

A subtle heretic of the sect of the Hieracites, called so from Hierax,
who in the reign of Dioclesian denied the resurrection of the dead, had,
by his sophisms, caused some to stagger in their faith. St. Macarius, to
confirm them in the truth, raised a dead man to life, as Socrates,
Sozomen, Palladius, and Rufinus relate. Cassian says, that he only made
a dead corpse to speak for that purpose; then bade it rest till the
resurrection. Lucius, the Arian usurper of the see of Alexandria, who
had expelled Peter, the successor of St. Athanasius, in 376 sent troops
into the deserts to disperse the zealous monks, several of whom sealed
their faith with their blood: the chiefs, namely, the two Macariuses,
Isidore, Pambo, and some others, by the authority of the emperor Valens,
were banished into a little isle of Egypt, surrounded with great
marshes. The inhabitants, who were Pagans, were all converted to the
faith by the confessors.[13] The public indignation of the whole empire,
obliged Lucius to suffer them to return to their cells. Our saint,
knowing that his end drew near, made a visit to the monks of Nitria, and
exhorted them to compunction and tears so pathetically, that they all
fell weeping at his feet. "Let us weep, brethren," said he, "and let our
eyes pour forth floods of tears before we go hence, lest we fall into
that place where tears will only increase the flames in which we shall
burn."[14] He went to receive the reward of his labors in the year 390,
and of his age the ninetieth, having spent sixty years in the desert of
Scete.[15]

He seems to have been the first anchoret who inhabited this vast
wilderness; and this Cassian affirms.[16] Some style him a disciple of
St. Antony; but that quality rather suits St. Macarius of Alexandria;
for, by the history of our saint's life, it appears that he could not
have lived under the direction of St. Antony before he retired into the
desert of Scete. But he afterwards paid a visit, if not several, to that
holy patriarch of monks, whose dwelling was fifteen days' journey
distant.[17] This glorious saint is honored in the Roman Martyrology on
the 15th