Moses the Black

Moses the Black, also known as Moses the Ethiopian, Moses the Strong, and Moses the Robber, was a fourth-century Desert Father of the monastic settlements of Scetis in the Nitrian Desert of Egypt, the region now called Wadi El Natrun. Ancient Christian sources, above all Palladius of Galatia in the Lausiac History and the alphabetical collection of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, describe him as an Ethiopian by race and of great physical size and strength. Later tradition places his birth around 330. He is said to have been a slave in the household of an Egyptian official and to have been dismissed for theft and suspected murder. Thereafter he became the leader of a gang of bandits in the Nile Valley. Hagiographical narratives of this period stress his violence and daring. One widely repeated story tells that, seeking revenge on a shepherd who had opposed him, he swam the Nile with a sword in his mouth, killed rams from the flock, ate the best of the meat, and swam back.

His conversion is linked to his taking shelter among the monks of Scetis, either while fleeing the civil authorities or after a change of heart. He was received, baptized, and trained in the monastic life by elders of the desert, among whom the sources name Abba Isidore and, in some traditions, Macarius the Great. The literature dwells on the severity of his early struggles: memories of bloodshed and strong bodily passions recurred, and he practiced extreme fasting, night vigils, and manual labor. A group of stories recounts that robbers later attacked his cell; he overpowered them, bound them, and brought them to the church, asking the brethren what ought to be done, an episode said to have led to the conversion of the attackers themselves. In due course he was ordained priest. Some recensions include a humiliating remark about his dark skin at the time of ordination, which he is said to have accepted without protest, a detail later readers treated as a lesson in humility.

As a spiritual father Moses became one of the most frequently quoted of the Desert Fathers. The Apophthegmata Patrum preserve sayings attributed to him on repentance, hospitality, the refusal to judge, and the mastery of anger. Later accounts speak of a circle of disciples, sometimes numbered at seventy or seventy-five. A celebrated anecdote relates that when monks gathered to sit in judgment on a brother who had fallen, Moses arrived carrying a leaking basket or a sack of sand on his back and explained that his own sins ran out behind him, so that he could not condemn another. Such stories fixed his reputation as a man whose former violence had been transfigured into gentleness and as a teacher of non-judgment.

In the early fifth century, traditionally dated to 405, Berber raiders, often identified as Mazices, attacked the monasteries of Scetis. According to the hagiographical accounts, Moses would not allow armed resistance and refused to flee. He is reported to have cited the Gospel warning that those who take the sword will perish by the sword and to have said that he had long awaited this day. He remained with a small group of companions and was killed. He has been venerated as a monastic saint and martyr in the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. The Byzantine and Latin calendars keep his feast on 28 August; the Coptic Church commemorates him on 24 Paoni. In later devotion he has been invoked as a patron of Africa and as an example of conversion from a life of violence. Memory of him remains closely tied to the monastic landscape of Wadi El Natrun in Egypt.