Житие преподобного отца нашего Малха

The Monk Malchus in his youth was a farmer of the village of Maronian, which stood thirty stadia 2143 from Syrian Antioch 2144. He had one son to his parents, and therefore they, wanting him, like their branch, to be the heir of their family, forced him to marry. But to all their urgings he answered one thing: “I would rather be a monk than a layman.” As soon as Malchus was forced to marry - his father through various threats, his mother through gentle admonitions - he did not listen to his parents and, finally, secretly fled, leaving home, parents and marriage for God. He headed to the desert area located between Imma and Viriya. There he found a monastery, whose monks led a godly life. Having surrendered himself to their instructions, Malchus remained to live there and began to improve in monastic deeds, mortifying his carnal passions through labor and fasting. Many years later, an idea came to him: to go to his fatherland to console his mother, who at that time was widowed, for he heard that his father had died, and he thought of selling his inherited estate and distributing the money received for it: partly to the poor, partly to monasteries, and leaving a little for his own needs. Having learned about this intention of Malchus, the abbot began to reprimand him, convincing him that this was the devil’s temptation and the deceit of the primordial enemy of the human race, skillfully hidden under the image of a seemingly good deed. “This,” he said, “will be the same as what Scripture says: “The dog returns to his vomit” (2 Pet. 2:22). In a similar way, many monks were deceived, for the devil never clearly fights with anyone. As proof, the abbot cited Malchus with various stories from books, starting with Adam and Eve, who were seduced by the devil with the hope of receiving divine dignity and were therefore deprived of paradise. When the abbot was unable to convince him, he fell at his knees, begging him not to leave his spiritual squad, so as not to destroy himself, so that he who laid his hand on the plow would not look back (Luke 9:62). However, Malchus did not listen to the abbot at all and left the monastery. Saying goodbye to Malchus, the abbot saw him off with tears, as if he had died for burial. “I see, child,” was the abbot’s last word to Malchus, “that you have fallen under the power of Satan.” I will no longer ask about the reason for your separation from us and I will not accept your excuses. A sheep that goes outside the fence immediately becomes food for wolves 2145. Thus they parted, and Malchus went on his way. Not far from that desert lay a large national route from Viriya to Edessa 2146; on that path, travelers were often attacked by Saracens 2147. Therefore, travelers, undertaking a journey, gathered together in one crowd, in case of attack by the Saracens, in order to be able to resist them and avoid captivity; Malchus also joined the crowd of travelers, which numbered up to seventy people, among whom were several women. As they walked along that road, suddenly, to their horror, many half-naked Ishmaelites appeared, armed as if for battle. Having surrounded the travelers, they intercepted every one of them, along with Malchus, and took them captive. Then Malchus understood the vanity of his previous intentions and the seduction of the enemy and repented that he had not listened to the admonition of the abbot, separated from the spiritual community and joined the worldly society, and, together with others, was captured by foreigners. But his repentance was no longer timely: wanting to first inherit his parental property, he now himself became the property of the Saracens. When the captives were divided among the barbarians, the monk Malkhus, together with a certain woman, was given to an Arab, who, putting them both on a camel, quickly set off with them on the road. Since the camel was walking very quickly, Malchus and the woman, sitting on it, held each other tightly so as not to fall, and so they continued their journey; Their food on the way was undercooked meat and camel milk. Having made a long journey through the Arabian desert and crossed one large river, the Saracens returned to their country. Lord Malcha brought his captives to his wife and ordered them, according to Saracen custom, to bow to his wife and children. Malchus had to bow his head together with the captive and bowed to his mistress, and she assigned Malchus to household chores: carrying water, sweeping away litter and performing other very difficult tasks. This is how Malchus worked for disobeying his father, the abbot, completely changing the appearance of the monk, walking, according to the custom of that country, naked and, due to the heat of the sun, covering with clothes only those parts of the body that needed to be covered. Then he was commanded to tend sheep in the desert, and here Malchus had only one consolation and consolation in his misfortunes, that he rarely saw his masters and co-workers and, in solitude, being with the sheep, he remembered Saint Jacob (Gen. 30:36) and Moses (Ex. 3:1), who also once tended flocks in the desert. He ate cheese and milk and, while tending sheep, prayed fervently, chanting the psalms he had learned in the monastery, and in this he found consolation in his captivity, thanking God that the monastic life that he had destroyed in his fatherland, he now found again in the desert. But the deceit of the devil in every place is so sophisticated that it is impossible to imagine: for even there, with such a life, Malchus was found to be his malicious enemy. The Saracen, seeing that his servant Malchus served him diligently and faithfully in everything and that his livestock was increasing in number, pondered what reward he could give for his faithful service, and decided to give Malchus as a wife the same captive woman who had been brought along with him on the same camel. Calling Malchus, he began to tell him about her, so that he would take her as his wife. But Malchus resisted and said that he was a Christian, and according to Christian law one cannot marry a wife whose husband is alive, for that woman’s husband was taken captive by another Saracen. Then the Saracen became enraged and, drawing his sword, wanted to kill Malchus, and if he had not hastened to embrace that woman’s neck as a sign of his consent, his master would have shed his blood in the same place. When night fell, the monk took that woman with him to his cave. Blessed Malchus himself subsequently related the following about what happened there between them: “Instead of joy, sorrow overwhelmed me, and instead of consolation, melancholy. We disdained each other and didn’t dare say anything to each other. Then I fully realized the full burden of my captivity and began to grieve over my monasticism, which was so unexpectedly destroyed. Is that why I got there, damned! - I said, sobbing. “Have my sins brought me to this point, so that in my old age I could destroy my virginity and become the husband of someone else’s wife?” What benefit did it bring me that I left home, and parents, and marriage - everything in my youth for the sake of God, if I do now what I despised from the very beginning? Is it because I now endure all this because, having once lived in a monastery, I wished to return to my homeland again. What will we do, O my soul? Will we die or will we win? Will we wait for the gracious hand of God or will we kill ourselves with our sword? Return your sword within yourself, soul! We should fear your death more than the death of the body; for even chaste virginity has its own martyrdom. Therefore, let me rather lie here in this desert like a martyr, dead, without burial, and be a tormentor and martyr for myself! With these words, I rose from the ground, drew a sword from its sheath, which glittered in the darkness, and, turning its sharp end to my chest, said to the woman: - Live for yourself, wife! And it’s better that I be a dead martyr for you than a living husband. She fell at my feet, exclaiming to me: “By our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this difficult hour, I conjure you and beg you not to shed your blood for the sake of my life.” If you want to die, then first turn the sword on me and thrust it into me and, having killed me first, then kill yourself, so that in this way we can unite with each other; for I have already decided in my soul, even if my husband was returned to me, to preserve until my death the purity that I learned in this captivity, and I wish to die rather than violate it. Is this why you want to die so as not to have intercourse with me? But I would also like to die if you wanted it. So, let me be for you a wife of chastity, and let there be spiritual, not physical, communication between us, so that our masters consider you my husband, and Christ will know that you are my spiritual brother. Then our masters will trust us, thinking that we are in a carnal marriage, if they see love between us. “I was horrified (said Saint Malchus) and surprised at such chastity of this woman, and I loved her, and we entered into a condition to remain together in chastity. But I never looked at her body, did not even touch her with my hand, fearing in a joint, harmonious life with her to destroy my virginity, which I observed at the very beginning of the fierce warfare that rose up against me from the side of the flesh (hitherto the words of blessed Malchus). In such a spiritual marriage, the Monk Malchus lived with that chaste woman for a long time. They gained the favor of their masters, so that they had no thought of flight. Sometimes Malchus was not in his master’s house for a whole month, like a faithful and diligent shepherd of his flock in the desert. One day, long after his captivity, the Monk Malchus was alone in the desert and, seeing no one except heaven and earth, he began in his solitude to remember his previous stay in the monastery with the monks, and especially his father, the abbot, by whom he was taught the Divine Scripture and monastic life. And he began to reflect on his words, by which he was admonished not to leave the monastery. Remembering and thinking about this, Malchus noticed a lot of ants in front of him. Moving in a small, cramped space, they carried more weight than themselves: some carried seeds; others - the earth from inside anthills, arranging for themselves some protection from the rain; Still others, preparing food for themselves for the winter, crushed grains with their stings, others carried out the corpses of their dead. And what is most surprising is that with such a great multitude of ants, when they crawled out and crawled into the anthills, they did not interfere with one another, did not delay or crowd each other; on the contrary, if they noticed that any of them was carrying too much weight, the others immediately helped him. Looking at this, Malchus remembered the words of Solomon: “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and look at his actions... he gathers his food during the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8). Moreover, it occurred to him that his life in the monastery was like an anthill, where everyone worked together and no one had anything of their own, but everything was common, and he began to greatly mourn his captivity, with heartfelt sighs, wanting to see his monastery and live in his former cell. When he returned to his master's estate and was walking towards his hut, his wife met him and, seeing him with a sad and embarrassed face, asked: Malchus told her about his thoughts. She began to persuade him to run away and at the same time asked him not to leave her, but to take her with him and then give her to some nunnery. After a long consultation about this, they began to prepare for flight, whispering to each other and wavering their thoughts between feelings of hope and fear. In the herd that Malchus tended there were two large goats. Having killed them, he made two furs from their skins and prepared dried meat for the journey, and one day, late in the evening, together with his sister, placing their hope in God, they left the house and quickly walked. Having reached a large river, nine furlongs distant from the Saracen's dwelling, they inflated the furs, tied them tightly, sat on the furs and swam along the river, steering their feet like oars, and swam across to the other side; the meat that they took on the journey, having become wet in the water, sank, and only a very little of it remained, so that it could hardly last them for three days. Having satisfied their thirst sufficiently with water from the river so as not to thirst in the flight ahead, they set off, hastening quickly, more at night than during the day, partly out of fear of the Saracens, partly because of the heat of the sun, which was very scorching there; but sometimes they walked during the day, although they were scorched by the heat, and often looked back, fearing that their master would chase them. On the third day, when Malchus and his named wife turned back on the way, they saw from a distance two Saracens who were quickly chasing them on two camels, and they immediately realized that it was their master who was chasing them along the tracks they had left in the sand, and they fell into great fear and died, expecting that they would be killed by the Saracen. At this time, by the providence of God, they noticed a deep cave to their right and ran into it and stood to the left at the entrance, but without going deep into the cave itself, because they were afraid, having avoided death, to be exposed to it again, for wild animals or snakes, scorpions and other poisonous reptiles usually lived in such caves. And so, fearing death on both sides: both from the master chasing them and from those hiding in the cave, they stood in fear, as if already dead; but at the same time they also thought: “If God helps us, the poor, then we will get rid of death, and if God does not condescend to us, sinners, then this cave will be our grave.” Meanwhile, the Saracen and his slave reached the cave. Having tied the camels one to the other, he stopped at the entrance to the cave with a drawn sword, and sent his slave to lead Malchus and his companion out of the cave, because he himself wanted to kill them. When the slave entered the cave at a distance of three or four lacs 2148, he passed by them, for it was impossible for the one who entered into the shadow from the sunlight to see those standing nearby, and they saw that slave in the back. The slave exclaimed loudly with strong threats: - Come out, villains, come out to be killed! Why are you delaying? Come out, the gentleman is waiting for you. While he was exclaiming this, a lioness suddenly ran out from the depths of the cave, grabbed him by the throat and, killing him, dragged him into her lair. O good Lord! How great is Thy Providence for Thy servants and how quick is Thy help in extreme distress! Malchus and his wife noticed this, and they were in great joy instead of fear because they saw one of their enemies dead, for they did not know about the other who threatened them at the entrance to the cave. The Saracen, seeing that the slave had slowed down in the cave, and no longer hearing his voice, thought that two were resisting him alone and, being unable to wait any longer from rage, rushed into the cave, as he stood, with a drawn sword, roaring fiercely with anger, like a beast. But the lioness, hearing his voice, ran out to meet him and, when he reached the fugitives, rushed at him and killed him, dragging him past them into her lair. Seeing such miraculous and unexpected help and intercession from God, the Monk Malchus and that blessed woman thanked God for His great mercy. But even after this joyful circumstance, fear did not leave them, for they thought that the lioness would kill them too, but they wanted to die from the beast rather than fall into the hands of inhuman people. The lioness, taking her cub in her teeth, left the cave. Malchus and his named wife stood in silence for a long time, but when they saw that the lioness was not returning, they left the cave when the day was already approaching sunset. Seeing camels standing near the cave with a supply of food and water, they began to eat and drink; then, having had their fill and refreshed themselves, they mounted the camels and joyfully set off, thanking God. After ten days they passed through that desert and approached the Greco-Roman regiments. They told everything about themselves to the commander of the regiment, and he sent them to the Mesopotamian governor Savin. The voivode, having bought camels from them and gave them a warm farewell, sent them off to their homeland. Returning to his homeland, Malchus gave that blessed woman and his spiritual sister to a nunnery, and he himself returned to his monastery, from which he had once left. He no longer found the abbot and his spiritual mentor alive. Then he told the brethren everything that had happened to him and settled in the monastery without hope, admonishing the other monks never to disobey the abbot and not to leave the monastery. Having lived the rest of his life pleasingly to God, Malchus reposed in the Lord, leaving behind himself an example of chastity, so that subsequent generations would know that virgin purity is not conquered either by the sword, or by the desert, or by beasts; for he who has given himself to Christ may die in body, but cannot be overcome in spirit, strengthened by Christ God Himself, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Stages are a measure of distance, ranging between 73–88 fathoms. Syrian Antioch is one of the ancient and richest cities of Syria, its capital city, lies near the river. Oronte, 10 versts from its confluence with the Mediterranean Sea, between the mountain ranges of Lebanon and Taurus; founded 300 years BC by Seleucus Nicator and named after Antiochus, his father. For the Christian Church, Antioch is of particular importance as the second great center of Christianity after Jerusalem and as the mother of pagan Christian churches. The famous Church of Antioch was originally planted by St. ap. Paul and Barnabas, and subsequently approved by the apostle. Peter. In Antioch there were many remarkable councils of the pastors of the church during the heretical (Arian and Nestorian) strife. Since ancient times, the Church of Antioch enjoyed special advantages, along with the churches of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople and Rome; its bishops had the title and privilege of patriarch. Currently, Antioch is under Turkish rule and is a small and poor town with up to 10,000 inhabitants. See the Lord's parable about the good shepherd: John 10:1–5. Edessa is a city in Mesopotamia, 10 miles from the left bank of the Euphrates River. Saracens are inhabitants of Arabia. Initially, this name was used to refer to a nomadic bandit tribe, and then Christian writers transferred this name to all Arabs and Muslims in general. Lakot – elbow, a measure from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. The biblical lakot ranges between 10.5 and 13 vershoks. You might be interested in: