All four Gospels tell of how the High Priest’s servant got his ear cut off when Jesus was arrested. The synoptics don’t mention names and it is sensibly surmised that this is because Peter would have been in even more trouble if they had openly named him.
John however names both Peter and the servant, Malchus. John was a relative of Caiaphas and Annas so he was probably in the know as to the names, but there is something about the deliberate way John says “The servant’s name was Malchus” that struck me yesterday when the Gospel was being read.
John understood the Jewish view of the power of names-of course. Malchus means counsellor or king. Oh the irony. While John is the only one of the writers to call Malchus by name (and name Peter as the sword swinger) so Luke the Greek physician is the only one to record that Jesus healed the sliced ear.
Outside of the Gospels though I don’t think we hear of Malchus again. There doesn’t appear to be a St Malchus and yet he seems like someone who would have become Christian in the end. He has heard both sides of the story. On the one side is the High Priest and the Temple who having waiting all this time for a Messiah don’t want the one on offer, and on the other side if the Gospel message Jesus brings. Malchus gets to choose his High Priest.
Jesus seems to make it remarkably easy for him.
The men arrive with Judas and Jesus asks them who they are looking for. “Jesus the Nazerene,” they say and He says “I AMHe.” At this John tells us they stepped back and fell to the ground. The implication is the power of the Word the “I AM” caused this. So Malchus ends up on the ground because of the Name of God.
After this Malchus gets his ear cut off and Jesus heals it back.
None of this makes any difference and Jesus is arrested and hauled off to the High Priest.
Caiaphas is in an interesting position. He is High Priest sitting on the seat of Moses and therefore God speaks through him in a way. I suspect-but I haven’t read anything on this, that just as the Pope is infallible (through Peter’s seat)-that is protected from teaching error in faith and morals, so was the High Priest. He has said “One man must die for the people”
Jesus is crucified and then there is the Sabbath when all is silent.
The apostles went back to the Upper room to hide out and feel sorry. NOT ONE of them went off with the women on Sunday morning to see if He had risen. They didn’t seem to believe He would.
Interestingly though Caiaphas had been listening and understood Jesus promise to rise all too well and wanted to make sure it didn’t happen. He sent guards to the tomb to make sure no one stole the body.
So what happens to Malchus? Who does he listen to once that ear is healed? We are not told and the silence on it bothers me. There are no legends from long ago, that I can find, that tell us Malchus was baptised.
Was he at the foot of the cross making sure the deed was done? Did he see the darkened sky, and feel the earthquake. Surely he saw the huge lintel above the Holy of Holys broken in two, ripping the great curtain from top to bottom.
But none of this appears to have moved him.
It seems that despite hearing what Jesus had to say, despite seeing up close and personal the spite and fear of Caiaphas; despite the miracles he witnessed and even received, Malchus never believed.
Thinking Love, No Twaddle 
Insightful post. I too have wondered what happened to Malchus. He surely knew that his ear was stuck pack on by miracle and not via superglue!
Also, yes i too reflect as to the faith of these women who loved Jesus so much that they KNEW that Jesus was a man and a God of his word.
What little faith the apostles showed. It took a women of faith (Mary) to be the means through which Jesus’ birth would come to fruition…it was a woman who would bring news of the Risen Lord.
I completely accept and believe in the male priesthood, but i also believe that there are many women who cement the building of the Church.
Have you heard of Blessed Catherine Anne Emerich? The visionary on whose visions Mel Gibson based The Passion of the Christ?
Well she sees that scene in the garden and she mentions
malchus. She says he converted to Christiany soon after Jesus’ death and he and his family helped the disciples. Then generations of his family remained Christian and very holy and devout Christians at that.
God Bless
xxx
Perhaps Malchus’ ear being cut off was sybolic of one thing. Malchus’ name means “Counselor, King”. We know that for the Lord to be crucified that His Father had to turn His back on Him as Jesus became sin for us, that He would in His perfect sacrafice make a once for all payment for sin. I wonder if the Father may have forsaken Jesus at the moment He was handed over to the guards. Perhaps at the moment Peter made his attack and Jesus was being handed over, the ear to The King was cut off and no longer would Jesus have a line of communication to the Father until after the resurrection. Imagine that, the line went dead. Our Lord had to endure separation with the Father to purchase the rights to us in making us those that can speak now into the very ear of The King.
While I appreciate you inquiry about Malchus and am reading this site because I found myself wondering the same thing. There are a few things you say that concern me. I should preface this with the mention that I am not Catholic and don’t fully understand your doctrine or beliefs surrounding the pope or sainthood.
I find it interesting that you believe in the Pope’s infallibility in terms of teaching. Indeed, many popes throughout time have reversed each others stances. And our God does not change, which would seem to indicate that one of the pope’s must have been incorrect. It also concerns me that you project this belief onto the high priest when Jesus was never shy about lambasting the religious leaders of His day.
One more note, and please know that my intent is not to argue, but to promote discussion. When the women went early in the morning to the tomb, it wasn’t to see if Jesus had risen, it was to finish preparing burying Him. Luke 23:55-24:4 makes it clear that, because of the short time between Jesus death and the beginning of the Sabbath, there was not time to adequately prepare the body for burial. The women took embalming spices with them.
I think all of Jesus followers were left a little shell shocked after His death. I don’t think they were prepared for a spiritual kingdom despite all the things Jesus had told them. What He was saying would have been so radical at the time that understanding His kingdom in terms of the spiritual realm would have been very difficult. I don’t think we should judge them too harshly.
Jessica, hi.
You caught me on the going to the tomb sentence! I should pay closer attention. Yes, you are quite right the women didn’t go to see if Jesus had risen they went to finish off laying Him out. What I was trying to say, and said so badly, was that while the High Priest seemed to have understood Jesus’ promise of the Resurrection, none of His apostles or disciples had done. (There is a tradition that Our Lady had understood and He had already been to see His mum that morning-hence she wasn’t with the women going to the tomb).
On infallibility; I think I’ll have to write a proper post with links on this one. Christ promised the Church that her popes-those who came from Peter’s priestly line, when teaching on matters of faith and morals would not teach error. He lkindly protected His Church from that. I believe very much in His Word. No pope no matter how dreadful has ever managed to teach error in these areas. Even someone like Alexander VI never taught that adultery, lies and fornication were ok-even though he got up to plenty of it.
There is a story of one pope-can’t rememnber who; will have to look it up- who wrote an official document that would have contradicted the Faith (can’t remember how either). He was a very proud man and was determined to promolgate this awful thing. He died in the night before he could do so. God protects His Chrurch.
Popes can be terrible sinners, they can be weak and a bit too quiet when they shouldn’t be. They can have erroneous opinions of their own on all sorts of stuff. However when they speak as Pope with the bishops to the Church on matters of Faith and Morals they are protected from teaching error. In 2000 years of teaching no pope has ever contradicted another in this area. Hence murder, adultery, fornication, gossiping, contraception etc etc are still sins just as they were when the Didache was written. The matters of faith and doctrine from the Didache through the Creeds and to now may have been fleshed out as a child grows and matures in understanding- but have never changed.
I don’t know how you feel about heavy duty tomes- but Kelly’s history of Doctrine is really good and he isn’t Catholic so you (hopefully) wont feel it has a point to prove.
If you would like I will try and get around to a better post on this? I can’t promise much; not well right now and term starts soon- but I think you ask good questions.
Also I would love to get around to further exploration of whether Caiaphas as High Priest had the same protection as the Church today; I suspect he did, hence his prophecy and also the fact that he told Pilate Jesus was claiming to be king of the Jews. That was a matter of faith so perhaps he had to at least tell some of the truth; he couldn’t (perhaps) say Jesus was a false messiah and rabble rouser. I don’t know — but I would love to study it more and find out.
btw I am not judging the apostles harshly on their lack of understanding. I don’t judge them at all on it. After all they gave us the Faith; can’t ask for more than that. But I am fascinated by the fact they hadn’t understood while the High Priest apparently had; again I wonder if this was to do with his office. It is interesting to me.
On Malchus- whether he ended up baptised or not interests me because he had a full on personal miracle to deal with. The fact that he doesn’t have a tradition of note (although I think someone told me he has somewhere) makes me wonder if he was a bit like that writer who refused to believe in miracles even when one happened right in front of his eyes.
Thank you….you’ve got be thinking again.
I would love to know your thoughts on this.
Malchus was instantly converted by the cure wrought upon him, and during the time of the Passion his employment was to carry messages backwards and forwards to Mary and the other friends of our Lord
Thanks Kelly. I never heard that. Do you know where the story comes from?
I know a lot of early oral tradition got written into various apocraphal books but I’ve not read one on Malchus. I’d love to find out 🙂
From the several times I’ve read each of the Gospel’s report about the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, Caiaphas was only afraid that Jesus’ body would be stolen, not that He would be reusurrected. Of course, the high priest was following God’s plan in that, indeed, one Man must die for all men, only Caiaphas was thinking small scale, trying to protect the Jews from the Romans. Little did he know his role, awful but necessary as it was.
I’m a Protestant, so I don’t put a lot of stock into “tradition” or stories that aren’t found in Scripture. It will be interesting to find out what, outside of the Bible, is true and what isn’t. I suspect a lot wasn’t written down (i.e., Jesus’ birth date and more than the one childhood story about the family going to Jerusalem) because it wasn’t important to the message of Salvation. We’re going to have a wonderful time, meeting all the saints before us and hearing about God’s grace in their lives! I read the mention of Malchus today and was curious if I’d missed any other information about him. Thank you for this discussion.
Dear Kelly,
I too love the story of Malchus. The Father of the Church, Jerome, writes, in De Viris Inlustribus 2 “The Gospel called according to the Hebrews which was recently translated by me into Greek and Latin, which Origen frequently uses, records after the resurrection of the Savior: ‘And when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went to James and appeared to him. For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he should see him risen from among them that sleep.'” quoted from The Other Gospels, Edited by Ron Cameron.
If you’ve studied the Shroud of Turin ( http://www.shroud.com ) you can piece together how Malchus, a slave of the powerful high priest, would have been devastated by his role in the execution of Jesus, discovering too late the Grace and Power of Jesus and forgiveness for himself, as demonstrated in his healing. So Jesus in his compassion, visits him post-resurrection, and intrusts him with this relic/sacred reminder. I’m sure many of the gospel writers did not consider it safe to blab the whole story in a public document in those times, but they cryptically made reference to it to remind those who knew. So great that Jerome passed on the rest!
I love, that as the good shepherd of lost sheep, Jesus most often appeared not to those who were most sanctified, but to those who needed him most.
The name Malchus also means kingdom. The fact that Peter (whose name means stone- representative of the the law (10 commandments engraved on stone) struck Malchus’ ear (representative of hearing) is symbolic of the Jews not being able to “hear” the Truth of the Word. Just as the ear is restored, one day the Truth (Yeshua- YHWH (I AM) Oshua or God who is our salvation) will be known by the Jews when they accept Jesus as the Messiah! They will understand that keeping the “law – ministry of death engraved on stones” is impossible and that only through God himself imputing His Righteousness to us, can we be saved. He that hath ears let him hear. Pun intended 🙂
Interesting Chuck, thank you.
God never lets a moment go without depth of meaning does He.
What I have personally learned from this story of Malchus is that when God’s calling gets you it doesn’t matter what kind of a person you are or you were, You know somethings God deliberately hide things for us so that we can get deeper into prayers and these things will be revealed to us. But I know after such a miracle he can never serve any other God either than our Lord Jesus Christ.
I was studying about Malchus for family worship when I came up to your enlightening comment. You would never know when a needy soul needs something in the internet, I found yours to be so handy.
Thanks from Girma Damte
I find this all very interesting although I am not religiuos at all. I found this site because my surename is Malchus and was curious.