Venerable Macarius the Great, of Egypt

Macarius was born c. 300 in an Egyptian village near the Nitrian desert, the son of a priest. As a young man he carried saltpetre from Nitria by camel. Becoming a hermit near a village, he was falsely accused of having seduced a girl; instead of defending himself he wove baskets and sent the money to support her, until, as his Life tells, she confessed the truth during a hard labour.

On the advice of Anthony the Great he went into the desert of Scetis, where he was ordained priest and became the father of a great colony of monks. Under the Emperor Valens, the Arian bishop Lucius of Alexandria had him and other desert fathers taken by night and exiled to a distant island; they later returned. Macarius died c. 390–391 at about ninety. Many of his sayings survive, and homilies under his name were widely read.