Macarius of Alexandria

c.320-c.404. Desert Father. He is also surnamed “Politicus” (i.e. “of the city”) or “Junior” to distinguish him from Macarius of Egypt, his older contemporary and rival in asceticism, prophecy, and healing, with whom he was banished to a Nilotic island by Lucius, Arian patriarch of Alexandria, during Valens's persecution of orthodoxy (364-78). An extant monastic rule containing thirty regulations for his 5,000 monks of the Nitrian desert and a sermon on the eschatology of souls are among the writings ascribed to him.