Malchus

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The arrest of Jesus, detail from the Passion Altar of the Hildesheim St. Magdalene Church : Peter with a raised sword, on the ground with a lantern Malchus, whose ear Jesus is healing

Malchus (probably Latinized from Hebrew Melech ) is a man mentioned by name in the New Testament .

Biblical event

Malchus worked as a servant to Kajaphas , the high priest of Israel .

According to the Gospel of John , he was among the soldiers and bailiffs of the Sanhedrin who were sent with Judas Iscariot to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane . Before Jesus was arrested, the disciple Simon Peter cut off Malchus' right ear with his sword ( Jn 18 : 10-11  EU ). John does not transmit anything about the further fate of Malchus.

However, John mentions Malchus indirectly in relation to a "relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off"; he declares to have seen Peter with Jesus in the garden - and thus to be a witness of the deed ( Joh 18,26  EU ).

The tradition of the severed ear can also be found in the Gospel of Luke without naming the perpetrator and victim . The description of the healing of the injured person through a touch of Jesus is added ( Lk 22.50–51  EU ).

Impact history

In the ancient church tradition of interpretation, for example with John Chrysostom , the injured and healed Malchus was equated with the servant who then hit Jesus in the face during the interrogation in front of Annas ( John 18:22  EU ). Malchus was considered particularly contemptible because he dishonored the person who had healed him. In Israel , the legend of the punishment of Malchus arose from this: He must continue an honorless and hopeless life on earth until the Last Judgment . This story became one of the sources of the myth of the Eternal Jew .

Malchus became the name of a high medieval , single-edged sword shape (see Falchion ).

Gustav Regulator published his autobiography in 1956 under the title The Ear of Malchus .

In Mel Gibson's feature film The Passion of Christ , Roberto Bestazzoni portrays Malchus. The film shows how Jesus heals Malchus.

Web links

Commons : Malchus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Pöhlmann: Ahasver, the wandering Jew. A European legend in which: 6.2 Malchus . In: Katarzyna Stokłosa, Andrea Strübind (ed.): Faith - Freedom - Dictatorship in Europe and the USA. Festschrift for Gerhard Besier for his 60th birthday . Göttingen 2007, p. 344f.
personal data
SURNAME Malchus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Person in the New Testament
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC BC or 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st century