Fifty Spiritual Homilies
Ὁμιλίαι πνευματικαί
These fifty homilies, transmitted under the name of Macarius the Great of Egypt (c. 300–391) but most likely composed by a Syrian monastic writer — probably from the Mesopotamia region — in the late 4th or early 5th century, are a foundational text of the Eastern Christian tradition of prayer of the heart. They describe the Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart as divine fire and light, the possibility of the conscious experience of grace, and the transformation of the whole person through prayer; a proposed connection with Messalianism has been vigorously contested in recent scholarship, and most scholars now treat the author as a distinct figure called Pseudo-Macarius or Symeon of Mesopotamia. Multiple Slavonic recensions circulated in Balkan and Russian monasteries from the medieval period, carrying the Macarian warmth about experienced grace into the hesychast milieu. Seraphim of Sarov and other modern Orthodox saints drew on these homilies as formative reading.