SAINT MALCHUS THE CAPTIVE

On April 8, the Church commemorates Saint Malchus of Syria. Since the key episode in his biography was his capture, life in captivity, escape from captivity, and reflection on everything that had happened, this saint is called Malchus the Captive. The name Malchus, related to the Arabic “Malik,” meaning “King,” is a remarkable predestination. “Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus. But Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its place; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given Me?” - says the Gospel of Suffering (John 18:10-11). The life of Saint Malchus is a grand attempt not to drink from the cup that he himself once prepared. It is also the hermeneutics of monasticism, prepared by the Church Father Jerome as a cup that a person chooses for himself voluntarily.

We know about the life of Saint Malchus thanks to the great translator of the Bible, Saint Jerome (347–420), who, in addition to his numerous works on the exegesis of sacred texts and dogmatic treatises, went down in history as a great hagiographer. In addition to the life of Malchus, Jerome also wrote the lives of St. Paul of Thebes and Hilarion the Great. While much is known about Hilarion from other sources, Jerome literally saved Paul and Malchus from historical oblivion.

Malchus was the only son of wealthy parents. Despite their pleas, he ran away from home and went to live in the desert. When news of his father’s death reached the monastery where he had become a monk, Malchus, this time against the abbot’s will, as he had once done against his parents’ will, set out in search of his inheritance. To ensure the safety of his journey, he joined a large caravan, but this is precisely what attracted pirates. He was captured and enslaved. There he tended cattle, grew accustomed to it, and even realized that such a life not only did not interfere with his prayers and contemplation, but, on the contrary, helped him to pray constantly. Unfortunately, in gratitude for his faithful service, his master decided to marry him off to another captive woman who was already married, but whose husband had also been sold into slavery. An adulterous marriage was inevitable. The ascetic was terrified. He was taken to a cave with his future wife to consummate the marriage. He confessed to her that in order to avoid an adulterous marriage and not lose his virginity, which he had preserved, he would kill himself. But the woman stopped him. It turned out that her intentions were exactly the same. She was faithful to her lost husband and was very pious. Malchus and his new wife decided to live in a fictitious marriage, in complete purity, but hid all this from their master. Having gained his trust, after a while they ran away. Before fleeing, they dried some goat meat to eat on the road. This is a relevant detail, which, incidentally, shows that in ancient times ascetics may not have avoided meat and did not consider it a source of passion when it was eaten. But apparently, it was the smell of food that helped the former master not only discover their escape route, but also practically catch up with them.

The patronage of the capricious lord, as if in gratitude for the loyalty of Malсhus and his companion, turned into hatred for the escaped prisoners. Here, Jerome tells the story like an excellent storyteller and connoisseur of human passions. The fugitives, in despair, hid in the first cave they came across, where their pursuers, shouting curses, followed them one by one. It turned out that the cave was the refuge of a lioness and her cubs. What may seem like literary fiction to rational researchers looks different to specialists in asceticism. The emaciated bodies of the ascetics did not radiate animal energy and did not attract the attention of the beast. However, the master and his servant were immediately killed by the lioness because they literally radiated satisfaction, passion, and anger.“ Beasts are tamed and obey me because, although they are not rational creatures, they know how to fear God and honor His servants,” says the life one of the great saints of the glorious era of martyrs, Mammes of Cappadocia (+275), who, incidentally, is considered the patron saint of the famous Athletic Bilbao football club.. At the end of all these vicissitudes, Malchus and his companion “passed through that desert and approached the Greek-Roman regiments.” “Returning to his homeland, Malchus gave that blessed woman, his spiritual sister, to a convent,” Jerome concludes his narrative. For us, living almost in the third millennium of church history, such circumstances are, in a sense, very familiar. Cases of such marriages are known from hagiography. It is very important to understand that at the time when Jerome was writing, the Christian worldview was just taking shape, which is why he is one of the creators of this and other important archetypes for all subsequent civilization of holiness.

Around 375, Jerome settled in the village of Maronia, in a deserted place not far from Antioch, on the estate of his spiritual friend Evagrius. It was here that he met the ascetic Malchus, who told him the story of his wanderings. Around 390-391, Jerome recounted what he had heard in a hagiographic narrative. His writing is vivid and dramatic. If he had lived in our era, he could well have been an excellent postmodern author. Throughout his life, he engaged in a hidden polemic against the enlightened Christian circles of Rome. Therefore, researchers constantly ask themselves what in Jerome’s works refers to historical events and the statements of his characters, and what is due to the polemic with the corrupt church circles of the ancient capital on the Tiber River, as perceived by the great translator of the Bible. The harmfulness of wealth, the tragedy of self-will, the benefits of asceticism in all circumstances, and the omnipotence of grace, which leads man to salvation contrary to his own intentions and the plans of the rulers and spiritual teachers —these are the most important ideas in his lives of the saints.