The Life of Malchus the Captive Monk

At last, having crossed a great river, we arrived at the inner desert, where we were bidden, according to the custom of the tribe, to worship the mistress and her children, and we bow our necks. Here, as though shut up in prison, having changed my dress, that is, I learn to walk naked. For the harshness of the climate too allowed nothing else to be covered but what modesty required. Sheep are given to me to pasture, and, in comparison with other evils, I enjoy this consolation, that I see my masters and fellow-slaves but rarely. I seemed to myself to have something of holy Jacob; I remembered Moses, who himself too had once been a shepherd in the desert. I fed on fresh cheese and milk; I prayed continually, I sang the psalms which I had learned in the monastery. My captivity delighted me; and I gave thanks to God's judgment, that the monk whom I would have lost in my homeland, I had found again in the desert.

Oh, nothing is ever safe from the devil! Oh, his manifold and ineffable snares! Thus envy found me even hidden away. My master, seeing his flock grow, and finding in me no deceit (for I knew that the Apostle had commanded that masters should be served faithfully as though serving God), and wishing to reward me, so as to bind me more closely to himself, gave to me that fellow-captive of mine, once a prisoner like myself. And when I refused, and said that I was a Christian, and that it was not lawful for me to take the wife of a living husband (since her husband, taken captive along with us, had been carried off by another master), that master, implacable, turned to fury, and drew his sword and began to attack me. And had I not at once stretched out my arms and seized hold of the woman first, he would immediately have shed my blood. Now then the night had come, darker than usual, and to me all too soon at hand.

I lead into a half-ruined cave my new bride; and with sadness as our marriage-attendant, we both loathe one another, though we do not confess it. Then indeed I felt my captivity; and, prostrate upon the ground, I began to lament the monk that I was losing, saying: "Is it to this end, wretched man, that I have been preserved? Have my sins brought me to this, that now, with my head growing gray, I should become a husband while yet a virgin? What does it profit to have despised parents, homeland, and family property for the Lord's sake, if I do this thing, to avoid which I despised those things? Unless perhaps I suffer this precisely because I longed for my homeland. What shall we do, my soul? Do we perish, or do we conquer? Do we wait for the hand of the Lord, or are we pierced by our own blade? Turn the sword against yourself; your own death is more to be feared than that of the body.

Preserved chastity too has its own martyrdom. Let Christ's witness lie unburied in the desert; I myself will be both my persecutor and my martyr." So having spoken, I drew forth, even in the darkness, my flashing sword, and, turning its point against myself: "Farewell," I said, "unhappy woman: have me rather as a martyr than as a husband." Then she, falling at my feet, said: "I beg you, by Jesus Christ, and I adjure you by the necessity of this hour, do not shed your blood for the sake of my guilt. Or if you are resolved to die, turn the blade first against me. Let us rather be joined in this way. Even if my husband should return to me, I would keep the chastity which captivity has taught me; or I would rather perish than lose it. Why do you die, so as not to be joined to me? I would die, if you wished to be joined to me.

Have me then as a spouse of chastity; and love rather the union of souls than of bodies. Let our masters hope for a husband; let Christ know a brother. We shall easily persuade them of our marriage, when they see us love one another thus." I confess, I was astonished; and, admiring the woman's virtue, I loved my spouse the more. Yet never did I look upon her naked body; never did I touch her flesh; fearing to lose in peace what I had preserved in battle. Many days passed in such a marriage: our marriage had made us dearer to our masters. There was no suspicion of flight; sometimes I was away a whole month, a faithful shepherd of the flock through the wilderness.

After a long interval, while I sat alone in the wilderness, seeing nothing but sky and earth, I began silently to turn things over in my mind, and among many thoughts to recall also the fellowship of the monks, and above all the face of my Father, who had trained me, had held me back, had lost me. And as I was thinking thus, I catch sight of a swarm of ants seething along a narrow path. You could see burdens greater than their bodies. Some were dragging with the pincers of their mouths certain seeds of herbs; others were casting up earth from pits, and were blocking with little mounds the channels of water. These, mindful of the coming winter, cut short the carried seeds, lest the moistened earth should turn their granaries into a sprouting field; those, with much mourning, were carrying off the bodies of the dead.

And what is more remarkable, in so great a company, one going out did not hinder one coming in; rather, if they saw any fallen under her load and burden, they helped her, putting their own shoulders beneath. What more? That day afforded me a beautiful spectacle. Whence, remembering Solomon, who sends us to the diligence of the ants, and rouses sluggish minds by such an example, I began to weary of my captivity, and to seek again the little cells of the monastery, and to long for the likeness of those ants, where labor is shared in common, and, since nothing belongs to anyone as his own, all things belong to all.

When I returned to my dwelling, my wife met me: I could not conceal the sadness of my mind by my countenance. She asks why I am so downcast. She hears the reasons: I urge her to flight: she does not refuse. I ask for silence: she gives her word; and by continual whispering we waver between hope and fear. I had in my flock two he-goats of remarkable size; having killed them, I make wineskins, and prepare their flesh as provisions for the journey.

And at the first evening, while our masters thought we were lying secretly at rest, we set out on our journey, carrying the skins and portions of meat. And when we had come to the river—for it was ten miles away—having inflated and mounted the skins, we entrust ourselves to the waters, paddling gently with our feet, so that, the river carrying us downstream, and setting us down on the other bank much farther off than where we had entered, those who might follow our tracks would lose them. But meanwhile the meat, soaked and partly fallen away, promised scarcely three days' food. We drank until we were satisfied, preparing ourselves for the thirst to come. We run, always looking behind us; and we advance more by night than by day, both because of the ambushes of the far-ranging Saracens, and because of the excessive heat of the sun. Even now, wretched man, I shudder as I tell it; and though wholly secure in mind, yet in my whole body I still tremble with horror.

But after the third day, with uncertain sight, we saw from afar two men coming swiftly, seated upon camels. And straightway my mind, foreboding evil, began to think that our master was contemplating death, to see the sun grow dark. And while we feared, and understood that we had been betrayed by our footprints in the sand, there appeared on our right a cave penetrating far under the earth. Therefore, fearing venomous creatures (for vipers, basilisks, scorpions, and other such things are wont, avoiding the heat of the sun, to seek the shade), we entered the cave indeed; but at once, right at the entrance, we entrusted ourselves to the pit on the left, going no further, lest while fleeing death we should run into death; and reflecting within ourselves that if the Lord aids the wretched, we have salvation; if He despises sinners, we have a sepulcher.

What do you suppose was our state of mind, what terror, when before the cave, not far off, master and fellow-slave were standing, and had already, by the tracks that betrayed us, come to our hiding-place? O how much heavier is death awaited than death inflicted! Again with labor and fear my tongue stammered; and as though the master were shouting, I dare not murmur. He sends his servant to drag us out of the cave: he himself holds the camels, and with drawn sword awaits our coming forth. Meanwhile, when the servant had gone in about three or four cubits, while we, hidden, watched his back (for it is the nature of eyes of this sort that, after the sun, entering into shadows, everything is blind to them), a voice sounds through the cave: “Come out, gallows-birds; come out, you who are about to die: why do you stand? Why do you delay?

Come out, the master calls, he waits patiently.” He was still speaking, when behold, through the darkness we saw a lioness had seized the man, and, his throat crushed, was dragging him bloody within. Good Jesus, what terror was ours then, what joy! We watched, unknown to our master, our enemy perishing. Who, when he saw that the man was delaying, suspected that the two of us were resisting one man. But, unable to restrain his anger, sword in hand as he was, he came to the cave; and, rebuking with a raving shout the sluggishness of his servant, he was seized by the beast before he reached our hiding-place. Who would ever have believed this, that before our very eyes a beast should fight on our behalf? But when that fear was removed, a like death still hovered before our eyes; except that it was better to endure the fury of a lion than the wrath of a man.

We trembled within, and, not daring even to stir, we awaited the outcome of the affair, hedged about amid such great dangers only by the consciousness of chastity as by a wall. The lioness, wary of ambush, and perceiving that she had been seen, seized her cub in her jaws and carried it off in the morning, and yielded the lodging to us. Yet not trusting fully even then, we did not burst forth at once; but waiting a long while, and thinking to go out, we kept picturing to ourselves an encounter with her.

The horror at last subsided, and that day having passed, we went out toward evening; and we saw the camels—which, because of their excessive swiftness, are called dromedaries—rolling in their mouths the food they had eaten before, and drawing it back again from their bellies. Having mounted these, and refreshed with new provisions, that is, food, we came at last on the tenth day through the desert to the Roman camp. And being brought before the tribune, we set forth the matter in order; from there we were sent on to Sabianus, the duke of Mesopotamia, and received the price of the camels. And since that abbot of mine had already fallen asleep in the Lord, I, brought to this place, gave myself back to the monks, and gave her to the virgins, loving her as a sister, yet not trusting myself to her as to a sister. This the old man Malchus related to me when I was a young man.

This I, now an old man, have told to you; to the chaste I have set forth a history of chastity. I exhort virgins to guard their chastity. Tell it to those who come after, that they may know that amid swords, amid deserts and beasts, chastity is never made captive; and that a man devoted to Christ can die, but cannot be overcome.