Christian heretics, in the 4th century; followers of Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople.

Macedonius was an Arian, and governed the church in a very tyrannical manner. He translated the body of the emperor Constantine from the church of the Apostles to that of Acacius the martyr; which raised great tumults, and many were killed in the fray. He was deposed by the council of Constantinople in 359.

Resentment, it was thought, at being deposed, occasioned his forming a new heresy, which consisted in denying the divinity of the Holy Ghost; for which reason his followers were likewise called Pneumatomachi; that is, enemies of the Holy Ghost. They taught that the Holy Ghost was a mere creature, but superior in excellence to the angels.

The Macedonians make extraordinary professions of austerity; which induced great numbers to embrace their doctrine. Most of the malecontent bishops subscribed to it, and the Arians in general greedily swallowed it. Maratonus, bishop of Nicomedia, a very rich man, contributed greatly by his wealth and authority to spread it far and wide; whence the Macedonians were sometimes called Maratonians.

Athanasius, who at that time lay concealed in the desert, was the first who wrote against this heresy, and confuted it; after which, the councils by their decrees, and the emperors by their edicts, prosecuted it with great vigour.