Saint’s Stories! #7

SAINT MOSES THE BLACK

Living 330-405 AD, Moses the Black has one of those testimonies that gets paraded in church mission weeks.

Think Mr. T. minus the silly hair and gold chains, and you’ve got Moses the Black!

He was a slave, up until the point that his master got rid of him for theft and suspected murder! He gathered a gang of bandits around him who went around on a reign of terror thieving and carrying out acts of violence. His most well-known crime was where he got busted on a planned robbery by some guy’s dog barking at him and so swearing vengeance on that man he swam across the Nile with a knife in his mouth to kill him. The man had heard him coming and had hid so Moses slaughtered four of his rams. He sold their skins for wine skins, had a feast and then walked the 50 miles back to his gang’s hideout!

Somehow (sources differ) he ended up in a monastery. He may have been looking for God or he may have been looking to avoid the cops! Either way he was impressed by the monks and allowed them to share the gospel with him, which he accepted and was baptised.

Moses’ sanctification process was of course a long one! At one time a band of robbers who attacked him and rather than killing or even harming them he overpowered, them citizen arrest style, and dragged them back to the monastery to ask the other monks what to do. The bandits, impressed by their not being killed, hung around, heard the gospel and were also converted! With regards to his sanctification, his Abbot told him, “Only slowly do the rays of the sun drive away the night and usher in a new day, and thus, only slowly does one become a perfect contemplative.”

His background was used by God in his formation as a follower of Christ. Moses quickly became a spiritual leader in the church in contrast to his leadership of hoodlums. He also wasn’t judgemental in other people’s sins, probably because he knew he’d done worse. There’s a story of him being asked to judge what to do with a sinful monk and he walked in carrying a basket of sand that had a hole in it and was spilling onto the floor behind him. When asked what he was doing he said, “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another.” Needless to say the others too quickly forgave the sinner.

At age 75, a large band of raiders attacked his monastery. Rather than defend themselves (as some of the monks wanted to), Moses encouraged them to flee if they would. He said, “Whoever wants to escape, let him escape.” He helped 70 of them to get out before the raiders came. Moses stayed behind with seven others and there was martyred.

Sanctification is a lifelong process, not just a crisis point or ‘zap’ moment! It’s also something we participate in, as we use the strength God has given us and teach ourselves the gospel to bring it about. As with Moses, so sanctification for all of us isn’t begun with a blank canvas, but God even uses what we were before in our sanctification.