St. Macarius, who established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West, was a confectioner of Alexandria, who, carried away by religious enthusiasm, became an anchorite in the Thebaid of Upper Egypt, about 335. In 373 he came to Lower Egypt, and lived in the Desert of the Cells, so called from the great multitude of its hermit-cells. He had also hermitages in the deserts of Scetè and Nitria; and in these several places he passed upwards of sixty years in holy contemplation, saying to his soul, “Having taken up thine abode in heaven, where thou hast God and his holy angels to converse with, see that thou descend not thence; regard not earthly things.”

Among other anecdotes of St. Macarius, Butler, Lives of the Saints , I 50, relates the following:⁠—