Márá, a native of a highland village to the north of Amid, was a huge
man of great bodily strength. Although holding some inferior
ecclesiastical office he was still a layman, and when about thirty years
of age his parents wished him to marry. But after everything had been
prepared for the wedding the spirit came upon him, and constrained him
to make his escape by night.[101] He went to a wonder-working hermit
named Paul, who lived near Hisn Ziyat (Kharput), in a cave which was
reputed a haunt of evil spirits. Márá remained five years with Paul as
his disciple in prayer, fasting, and other ascetic exercises, and is
alleged to have slept for only one or two hours of the twenty-four. In
the severest cold of winter he went with bare and bleeding feet through
deep mountain snow for firewood. His master vainly urged him not to
overdo his self-mortifications. In order to be thoroughly free of his
family and their worldly tendencies, he betook himself to Egypt, the
chief school of asceticism, where he visited various penitents, and
himself lived as one for fifteen years.
At this period Justinian’s Government was making its attempt to force
the Egyptians, decided Monophysites, to accept the decrees of Chalcedon.
For this end here, as in Mesopotamia, it particularly sought to win over
the monks and hermits, the most powerful authorities with the masses,
and if they proved obstinate to scatter and drive them away. Thus Márá,
as a firm Monophysite, was driven from his cell. But instead of simply
withdrawing farther into the desert, he took ship for Constantinople.
There, where the majority were thoroughly “Orthodox,” the foreign
Monophysites were tolerated by Government as harmless, and the Empress
Theodora was so much their declared protectress that we must presume her
to have acted with her husband’s approval. Justinian may have had his
own reasons for not pressing this powerful party too hard. Sheltered
under Theodora’s wing, many of the Monophysites were not slow to flatter
that clever lady, whose questionable past was in their eyes fully atoned
for by her soundness in the faith. But our hermit was not of that sort.
John of Ephesus declines to repeat the terms of reproach hurled in the
faces of the imperial pair by Márá when he presented himself before them
in his tattered garb; it would not be fitting to do so, he tells us;
and, besides, he would not be believed. All this was in execrable taste;
yet it is a real pleasure to see that there still were some people
capable of confronting the servile “Byzantinism” of the day in a way
that was manly and independent. Neither emperor nor empress was in a
condition to meet this holy zeal with violence, if only because they
themselves felt a superstitious awe in the presence of such a man.
Theodora even sought to keep Márá near herself; perhaps she saw in the
rough-tongued saint the confessor her long-borne burden of sin required.
She even attempted to win him with a hundred pounds of gold, but he
hurled the bag from him with one hand, and said: “To hell with thyself,
and with the money wherewith thou wouldst tempt me!” Court and city were
astounded at the bodily strength he showed in this, and still more at
his contempt for Mammon,—a rare sight in Constantinople.
Márá next retired to the hills immediately to the north of
Constantinople, and there lived as a hermit. The empress sent her
courtiers to tell him that she would be glad to supply whatever he
wished. They had great difficulty in finding him, as he had no fixed
dwelling. By way of expressing his thanks, he sent back the message that
she need not suppose herself to possess aught that servants of God could
use, unless it were the fear of God, if she possessed such a thing as
that. With all his rudeness he still maintained relations with the
court. He earned his bread by making mats and baskets of palm leaves,
but his principal nourishment consisted of wild fruits and herbs.
Against winter he erected for himself some kind of a hut in the
mountains. Being reputed a saint he had many visitors.
It, of course, came to be well known that Márá was frequently visited by
messengers from the empress, and this naturally gave rise to the idea
that the hermit’s hovel must contain imperial gifts. One night,
accordingly, he received a visit from a robber band. But the saint
wrested from one of them the club with which he had attacked him, seized
him by the hair, and threw him to the ground; three others he disposed
of in the same way, whereupon the six who were left took to flight.
Three of these also he succeeded in overtaking, and after binding them
all he triumphed over them at his leisure. Next morning the visitors who
came saw what had happened; naturally they wished to hand the robbers
over to the authorities, but Márá, retaining only their swords and
clubs, dismissed them with a vigorous allocution. The affair became
known, and a chamberlain carried the weapons to the emperor and empress,
thus giving ocular demonstration of what can be done by the power of
prayer when conjoined with strength of arm. There may be some
exaggeration in this story, but the substance of it as related by John
of Ephesus, who was resident in Constantinople at the time, and knew
Márá personally, is doubtless correct.
After a sojourn of some years among the mountains, Márá allowed an
official of the court to purchase for him a small villa near the city,
where he lived for five years, earning what was required for the
sustenance of himself and his devout and needy guests by gardening. He
often sent salutary exhortations to the emperor and empress. On the
outbreak of a great plague in 542, he got workpeople sent from the court
to set up a cemetery with vaults and chapel for poor strangers and for
himself. Hardly had they completed their task when he died. His funeral
was attended by many bishops and inferior clergy, as well as monks,
courtiers, and high officers of State.
Of Márá, whose vigorous and somewhat humorous figure presents a welcome
variety amid the mass of ordinary ascetics, no miracles are recorded.