The Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ...it shall not hurt them" (Mark xvi. 18). We must not take the words about the "sickness" and the "deadly drug" in too literal a sense. Otherwise we shall find them contradicted by two facts. First, those who are unbelievers may likewise recover from deadly drugs, so that the recovery need not consist in whether men are believers or not, but in the power of the drug. Secondly, many unbelievers run away at the first sign of sickness, but we must not therefore argue that those who stay to tend the sick are believers in consequence. Such literal and manward tests will not do, or we shall have people boasting of their faith simply because they have some skill in nursing. So the "deadly drug" must be taken in a less literal sense, and this "death" is like that wherein S. Paul says, "We are buried with Him in baptism." Here there is a "deadly drug" which actually saves men from the tyranny of sin. For to drink this in faith means the death of the savage nature within, without any harm being received. So that which harms unbelievers does not harm the faithful. We may illustrate this by a stepping-stone, which may be either a help or a stumbling-block; or by the blessing on the world which came from the fall of the Jews (Romans x.); or by the Cross, which causes both light and darkness. "Laying hands on the sick" must have a similar spiritual explanation. Their "hands" are their practical energies, and the "sick" are changes in the seasons, which are often sick through such things as storms, or want of rain. Certainly Polycarp1 is an example of this, for while 1 Macarius, as belonging to the East himself, only gives details of Polycarp in the list of fathers he mentions, as...