The Heretical Ignoramus
When Arius wanted to insult Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, he called him a heretical ignoramus in a letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia. He meant by heretical that Macarius rejected Arianism — the proposition that the Son of God was a creature, the first and greatest of creatures, not co-equal and co-eternal with the Father. He meant by ignoramus that Macarius was a simple man, lacking the sophisticated philosophical vocabulary that Arius and his theological allies brought to the discussion.
Athanasius — who was not in the habit of using compliments carelessly — later described Macarius, in a letter to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, as an example of the honest and simple style of apostolical men. What Arius called a deficiency, Athanasius called a virtue: the directness of a man who believed what the Church had always believed without feeling compelled to dress it in Neoplatonic subtlety.
Macarius was Bishop of Jerusalem from approximately 312 until his death around 334 or 335. He was present at the Council of Nicaea in 325 — first on the list of Palestinian bishops who signed the Council's decrees — and is believed by scholars to have played a significant role in the drafting of the Nicene Creed that we still recite at Mass. He accompanied the Empress Helena in her search for the sites of Christ's Passion. He received the letter from Emperor Constantine authorizing the construction of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. He directed the excavations that uncovered the Holy Sepulchre itself, and the tradition credits him with the role of identifying the True Cross.
He held the see of Jerusalem through the most dramatic period in its history since the destruction of the Temple: the moment when Christianity stopped being persecuted and started building.
Jerusalem in 312: The Holy City Under a New Name
When Macarius became bishop, the Holy City had been officially called Aelia Capitolina for nearly two centuries. The Emperor Hadrian had renamed it after the Jewish revolt of 132–135 AD, built a temple of Venus over what tradition identified as the site of the Resurrection, and transformed Jerusalem into a Roman provincial city deliberately designed to erase its Jewish and Christian associations.
Two hundred years of that transformation had been, paradoxically, preserving. The very act of building a pagan temple over the site of the Resurrection had marked the location. The Christian community in Jerusalem, present in the city continuously since the first century, remembered. The tradition was oral and liturgical — carried in the memory of the community, in the way the pilgrimage routes ran, in the veneration attached to specific sites — rather than inscribed on any monument the Romans would have permitted. When Macarius became bishop, the memory of where Christ had been crucified, buried, and raised was alive in the community he led.
He became bishop in the final years of the Great Persecution, the Diocletianic assault on Christianity that began in 303. By 311 Galerius had issued an edict of toleration on his deathbed. By 312 Constantine had won the Battle of Milvian Bridge under the sign of the cross. By 313 the Edict of Milan had recognized Christianity as a legal religion throughout the empire. Macarius was elected to lead the Jerusalem community into this extraordinary transformation: from a persecuted underground community to a church that the emperor himself was writing to with lavish architectural instructions.
He was, by Arius's description and Athanasius's, a simple man of apostolical faith. He was also — which is not a contradiction — a bishop of considerable diplomatic acuity, who managed the relationship between his see and the metropolitan see of Caesarea, the jurisdictional controversies of the Council of Nicaea, and the enormous imperial construction project on his doorstep with consistent effectiveness.
The Council of Nicaea, 325: First Name on the List
Macarius attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, called by Constantine to settle the Arian controversy. His name appears first among the bishops of Palestine who signed the Council's decrees — which is not simply a list in order of arrival, but a precedence statement, marking his as the leading see of the province. Eusebius of Caesarea, the metropolitan bishop who was technically Macarius's superior and who is far more famous to history, signed fifth.
The seventh canon of the Council — "As custom and ancient tradition show that the bishop of Γlia [Jerusalem] ought to be honoured, he shall have precedence; without prejudice, however, to the dignity which belongs to the Metropolis" — is so vague that the New Catholic Encyclopedia describes it as probably the result of a drawn battle between Macarius and Eusebius over the jurisdictional relationship between their sees. Macarius won something. The canon says Jerusalem should be honored. It does not say Caesarea is supreme.
On the Council's central work — the condemnation of Arianism and the formulation of the Creed — Macarius was squarely on the Nicene side. He had been in correspondence with Saint Alexander of Alexandria, who had written to warn the bishops against Arius before the Council. He had received Arius's insult in writing. The Council's outcome was what he had come to achieve, and Athanasius's later testimony — placing Macarius's name among bishops renowned for their orthodoxy even after Macarius had been dead for years — confirms the firmness of his Nicene commitments.
The best scholarly reconstruction suggests that Macarius, together with Eustathius of Antioch, had a significant hand in the initial drafting of the Creed — that the language expressing the consubstantiality of the Father and Son drew on the catechetical tradition of Jerusalem and Antioch, the two sees whose theological idiom is most visible in the final text. We pray the Creed at every Sunday Mass. Its drafting owed something to the simple apostolic man who signed the list of Palestinian bishops first.
Helena, the Excavations, and the True Cross
After the Council of Nicaea, Constantine wrote to Macarius — the Vita Constantini of Eusebius preserves the letter — with the instruction to build a church over the site of the Resurrection. The letter is remarkable in its tone: Constantine describes the Holy Sepulchre with a kind of wonder at the fact that the site had been hidden and was now recovered. He tells Macarius that whatever materials — marble, columns, gold — are needed for a church worthy of the most splendid place in the world, Macarius is to send word and it will be provided.
This presupposes that the site had already been identified. The excavations that uncovered it — the digging down through the fill of the Hadrianic construction to find the rock of Golgotha and the tomb beneath — were directed by Macarius. The Vita Constantini places the discovery at Constantine's instruction after the Council. Saint Theophanes's Chronography specifically attributes to Constantine the instruction, at the end of the Council of Nicaea, that Macarius search for the sites of the Resurrection and the Passion and the True Cross.
The Empress Helena arrived in Jerusalem around 325–326. With her presence, imperial authority and material resources came to support what Macarius had already set in motion. The tradition that Helena found the crosses — three of them, at least — and that Macarius suggested the method of identifying the True Cross is attested in the sources: Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380) records the story of the three crosses and the identification through the miraculous healing of a seriously ill woman when touched with the third cross. Rufinus of Aquileia records it. Theodoret records it. The method — touch the dying woman with each cross in turn, and the one that heals identifies itself — was, the tradition says, Macarius's suggestion.
He received the construction directive from Constantine and oversaw the building of the great basilica complex — the Anastasis (Resurrection rotunda) and the Martyrion (the basilica proper) — that was consecrated on September 14, 335, the day on which the universal Church now observes the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Macarius did not live to see the consecration. His death came sometime before the Council of Tyre in 335, at which his successor Maximus was present.
The Legacy: The Bishop Who Cleared the Ground
The Roman Martyrology's entry for Macarius is concise and exact: "The commemoration of Saint Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, on whose exhortation the holy places were brought to light by Constantine the Great and his mother, Saint Helena, and ennobled with the construction of the Sacred Basilicas." It names what he did: on his exhortation, and under his direction, the ground that had been covered by a temple of Venus was cleared, and the Tomb of the Resurrection was uncovered, and a church was built over it.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre still stands, rebuilt and modified across the centuries, on the site that Macarius cleared. The Nicene Creed that Macarius helped draft is still recited every Sunday throughout the world. The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14 commemorates the consecration of the churches he built. His name is in the Martyrology. His work is in the Mass and in the pilgrimages.
He is described most accurately by the man who opposed everything he stood for: a heretical ignoramus, by which Arius meant a bishop who believed the faith of the apostles without complication and defended it without compromise.
| Born | Late 3rd century — Jerusalem (exact date unknown) |
| Died | c. 334–335 — Jerusalem; natural death before the Council of Tyre (335) |
| Feast Day | March 10 |
| Order / Vocation | Bishop of Jerusalem, c. 312 – c. 334 |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation — listed in the Roman Martyrology; venerated in both Catholic and Eastern traditions |
| Patron of | Diocese of Jerusalem · Archaeologists and those who uncover sacred sites · Builders of churches · Defenders of orthodox Christology |
| Known as | Macarius I of Jerusalem · The Simple Apostolical Man (Athanasius) · Heretical Ignoramus (Arius — meaning he refused Arianism and was proud to do so) |
| Key historical role | Attended Council of Nicaea (325) — first among Palestinian bishops to sign; contributed to drafting of the Nicene Creed · Directed excavations revealing the Holy Sepulchre · Assisted Saint Helena in identifying the True Cross · Received Constantine's building commission for the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre |
| Relics | Skull and other relics enshrined at Saint Anthony's Chapel, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Primary sources | Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent) — "Saint Macarius" · New Catholic Encyclopedia — "Macarius of Jerusalem, St." · Eusebius of Caesarea, Vita Constantini · Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History · Roman Martyrology, March 10 |
| Their words | (No verified direct quotation survives; known through the testimony of Athanasius, Arius, Eusebius, and the Council records) |
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