On this day, March 10th, A.D. 2012, the Catholic Church celebrates the 1677th Anniversary of St. Macarius of Jerusalem's passage into his heavenly reward. As St. Paul taught us, we celebrate the lives of "so great a cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1), the Saints Triumphant, so that we might "[b]e imitators of [them], as [they are] of Christ" (I Cor. 11:1). St. Macarius' example is one of steadfastness in Truth. When his episcopacy began, in A.D. 312, Christianity was still illegal in the Roman Empire. As a priest and before that a deacon, he constantly lived under the threat of imprisonment and death merely for believing in Christ, and no doubt witnessed not a few of his friends and acquaintances seized and slaughtered for the faith. It was only Divine Providence that preserved him from the same fate. Nevertheless, the gruesomeness of the Diocletianic Persecution was Macarius' daily life for a full decade, from A.D. 303 to 313.
Thus, when Macarius became Archbishop of Jerusalem, he probably expected to be martyred for the Faith, yet he accepted the appointment and remained faithful to the Apostolic Teaching and to the local church in Jerusalem, as had the first Christians before him (cf. Acts 2:42). Then, a year later, the Emperors Constantine and Licinius together promulgated the Edict of Milan, once and for all making Christianity licit in the Roman Empire; there was no longer any threat of death simply for being Christian. Nevertheless, a new threat was growing: the Arian heresy. Though eventually nearly all the bishops of the East succumbed to Arius' demonic twisting of the Gospel─claiming that Jesus Christ was not co-eternal with the Father, but rather a created person, higher than us but lower than God─Macarius and only two others remained faithful to the eternal Truth passed down from the Apostles. Arius dared even to attempt to convince the Pope, Alexander, that Jesus was not "God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God," as the Nicene Council would later clarify, but of course he failed, because, as St. Cyprian of Carthage would later say when other heretics tried the same thing, this was "the throne of Peter, ... the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source; and [they did not] consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access" (Epistle 54, §14). On returning to the East in defeat, the heresyarch wrote to his fellow Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia, complaining of his treatment:
"[T]he bishop [of Rome, Pope Alexander I,] greatly wastes and persecutes us, and leaves no stone unturned against us. He has driven us out of the city as atheists, because we do not concur in what he publicly preaches, namely, 'God always, the Son always; as the Father so the Son; the Son co-exists unbegotten with God; He is everlasting; neither by thought nor by any interval does God precede the Son; always God, always Son; he is begotten of the unbegotten; the Son is of God Himself.' Eusebius, your brother bishop of Cæsarea, Theodotus, Paulinus, Athanasius, Gregorius, Aetius, and all the bishops of the East, have been condemned because they say that God had an existence prior to that of His Son; except Philogonius, Hellanicus, and Macarius, who are unlearned men, and who have embraced heretical opinions."
-Arius the Heresyarch (quoted by Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, I, §4)
Theodoret confirms that the Macarius whom Arius says has "embraced heretical opinions" (i.e. has held to the very same orthodox, Apostolic "opinions" taught since the time of Christ, confirmed by Pope Alexander and later the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, and which we all still hold to today) was St. Macarius of Jerusalem. St. Macarius, trained for firmness of faith by the Roman persecutions that preceded his episcopacy, withstood the "wind of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14) that carried off so many of his fellow bishops. Though only three out of all the Eastern bishops withstood Arianism at first, the Creed written by Macarius and the other Council Fathers at Nicaea eventually stemmed the tide of the heresy and the Truth of the Apostles won out. But the question we must ask ourselves is, how did he do it? What grounded him in the Truth? What made him faithful when all around him became faithless?
In the first half of the 4th century, there was no set canon of Scripture. All of the books we all use as Scripture now, including the ones the Catholic Church retains but the Protestant traditions reject, were being used in the Christian liturgy throughout the world, but each local church used their own set of them, and many also used other books as well. The debate about which ones were authoritative wouldn't even be brought to the fore for another fifty years or so. And, even though the majority of the Scriptures were used by all throughout the Church, it was with those very Scriptures that Arius was supporting his odious doctrines. The idea of Sola Scriptura was about as effective at defending against "every wind of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14) as it is today: not very. If you read enough of the Early Church Fathers, it becomes quite evident that the real litmus test of Truth was never the private interpretation of Scripture alone, but rather whether or not any given doctrine had been taught consistently from the days of the Apostles till the present. As St. Paul wrote, it is not the Scripture but "the Church of the Living God [that is] the pillar and bulwark of the Truth" (I Tim. 3:15). This is how St. Macarius knew how to tell the Truth of God from the lie. He refused to turn away from "that which [he had] received from [the Apostles]" (II Thess. 2:15; cf. I Cor. 11:2, Gal. 1:8-9, I Thess. 2:13, II Tim. 2:2, etc.). To be certain, the Scriptures contain the Truth, but only through the constant teaching of the Apostles and their successors throughout history can we know that we are interpreting them in keeping with that eternal Truth.
From St. Macarius of Jerusalem, then, we can learn the importance of never giving in to the whims of our day. Like him, we are Christians first and foremost; the culture must never shape who we are or what we believe; on the contrary, we must hold to the Creed, to the timeless Truth of the Apostolic Teaching with such steadfast fortitude that nothing can shake our devotion to It─or rather, to Him, for Christ is the Truth (John 14:16)─so that the culture around us might rather be shaped by us. The Creed that St. Macarius and the Nicene Fathers, and after them St. Cyril of Jerusalem and the Constantinopolitan Fathers, wrote and handed down to us is like a massive Rock that stands amidst the raging river of history. The waters of time come roaring toward it with the same relentless force that has eroded mountains and devastated whole empires, but the Rock stands firm. When faced with that Rock upon which Christ built His Church, the water splits; the river is in the end shaped by the immovable force of the Rock. And this is how the Christian Faith, passed down from the 1st century to the 21st and on into eternity, shapes history. To be sure, some pieces of the Church-Rock chip off and fall into the stream, carried away by the currents of contemporary culture. But this Rock is itself build up by the Rock of Ages and even as it is eroded, God also renews and expands it, drawing more and more members into its bulk. "And I tell you, you are [Rock], and upon this Rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against It" (Matt. 16:18, emphasis added).
There are many fiendish winds of doctrine swirling about our heads in this current global culture of decadence and death, but the Truth is timeless and if we, like St. Macarius, buoy ourselves to that ancient (yet always new) Truth, to Christ and His Church, we alone shall weather the storm. But more than that, if we cast out the nets of Truth as we ourselves remain tethered to Him, telling all those around us how the timeless Teachings can bring them true joy and eternal safety, then as many as possible can be saved with us. St. Macarius too did not merely resolve to keep the Truth of Christ for himself, instead he joined all the bishops of his day to declare it in the Creed, and moreover he steadfastly passed it on to subsequent generations, following the admonition of St. Paul, "what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (II Tim. 2:2), he entrusted it among others, I'm sure, to his deacon Cyril, who became St. Cyril of Jerusalem, a universal Doctor of the Church, whose writings are still widely read today. And so, to honor St. Macarius' evangelistic spirit, I'd like to end this meditation with a beautiful benediction from St. Cyril:
"Now may He Himself, the God of all, who is Father of the Christ, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who came down, and ascended, and sits together with the Father, watch over your souls; keep unshaken and unchanged your hope in Him who rose again; raise you together with Him from your dead sins unto His heavenly gift; count you worthy to be 'caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air' (I Thess. 4:17), in His fitting time; and, until that time arrive of His glorious second advent, write all your names in the Book of the Living, and having written them, never blot them out (for the names of many, who fall away, are blotted out); and may He grant to all of you to believe in Him who rose again, and to look for Him who is gone up, and is to come again (to come, but not from the Earth; for be on your guard, O man, because of the deceivers who are to come); who sits on high, and is here present together with us, 'beholding the order of each, and the steadfastness of his faith' (Col. 2:5). For think not that because He is now absent in the flesh, He is therefore absent also in the Spirit. He is here present in the midst of us, listening to what is said of Him, and beholding your inward thoughts, 'and trying the reins and hearts'—who also is now ready to present those who are coming to baptism, and all of you, in the Holy Ghost to the Father, and to say, 'Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me':— To whom be glory for ever. Amen."
-St. Cyril of Jerusalem A.D. 347, Catechetical Lecture XIV, §30.
St. Macarius of Jerusalem, pray for us.
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