MACARIUS. - Graecized name of Giovanni L'Heureux, archaeologist, philologist, Hellenist, b. in 1540 or 1551 at Gravelines on the Channel, d. at Aire (Artois) on 11 June 1614. After philosophical studies at Louvain, he traveled widely, including in Greece, bringing back many excavated objects, which he later left in Rome, where he resided for twenty years, in contact with the most cultivated scholars of Christian antiquity: such as A. Chacon (v.), A. Bosio (v.), F. de Winghe, intending to combat the Protestant heresy with documentation derived from ancient Christian monuments. He occupied himself with patristics and philology, taking up teaching in order to live. Having returned to his homeland, he held a canonry in the city of Aire, where he died, leaving various manuscripts to the trilingual college of Louvain.
His works are all posthumous: Disquisition antiquaria de gemmis basilidianis, cui titulus Abraxas seu Apistopistus, published by G. Chiflet (Antwerp 1657); Commentarius de picturis et sculpturis sacris antiquioribus, praesertim quae Romae reperiuntur cui titulus Hagioglipta, published by R. Garrucci (v.; Paris 1856); De antiqua scribensi ratione; De natura verbi medii, ac fere de tota natura verborum graecorum; Inscriptiones graecas, Macario interprete, cum notis; Emendatio bibliorum romana; other writings deal with scriptural and patristic subjects.
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Carlo Carletti