ABSTRACT
The late twentieth century produced much scholarly debate about the identity of Pseudo-Macarius, or Macarius Symeon as he is also known. He sees the human person as an integrated whole, not separated into body and soul; the two parts of the human person work cooperatively and even swap modes of being through synaesthesia. The difficulty in defining and identifying Messalianism has been amply explored by Plested, who summarises: People know that Messalianism was; we do not know what it was Plested, Macarian. As so often with heresiological matters which hold sway in syncretistic societies, it is not easy to establish quite how problematic the 'heresy' was at the time. At the centre of the issue of Messalianism is whether prayer should be heart-centred, and what this might mean. Messalians claimed this as authentic to their approach, but it is also fundamental to the spiritual teachings of orthodox Syrians.
