MACARIUS OF JERUSALEM, ST.

Bishop from c. 312; d. Jerusalem, c. 334. Both eusebius of caesarea and Macarius attended the Council of nicaea i, whose seventh canon dealt with the jurisdictional relationship between Caesarea and jerusalem, and that condemned arius. Macarius, a stanch Nicaean, differed with his metropolitan, Eusebius, on the Arian question. When Arius was banished from Alexandria, he found hospitality with Eusebius and stigmatized Macarius as a "heretical ignoramus" (Epiphanius, Panar. 69.6.4). Macarius partly directed the erection of the architectural complex on the recently rediscovered sacred sites of Jerusalem that, in addition to churches in Bethlehem and on Mt. Olivet, constantine i commissioned c. 326 (Eusebius, Vita Const. 3.25–43). Later Macarius consecrated Maximus, an upholder of Nicaea I, to the See of Diospolis (Lydda), 25 miles from Jerusalem, but he subsequently kept Maximus as his coadjutor and successor (Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 2.20) in acquiescence to the desire of the Jerusalem flock. Later tradition ascribed to Macarius a part in the identification of the true cross (Rufinus, Hist. eccl. 10.7.8).

Feast: March 10.

Bibliography: m. le quien, Oriens Christianus, 3 v. (Paris 1740; repr. Graz 1958) 3:154–155. l. h. vincent and f. m. abel, Jérusalem nouvelle, 2 v. (Paris 1922) 201–208, 539, 903–904. Martyrologium Romanum, ed. h. delehaye (Brussels 1940); v.68 of Acta Sanctorum 92. Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca, ed. f. halkin, 3 v. (Brussels 1957) 1:3002.

[a. a. stephenson]