MALCHION. - According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., VII, 29, 2), he was head of the school of Greek rhetoric and grammar at Antioch. Eusebius's explicit formulation suggests that M. did not have a private school, like Libanius, but was head of a guild of rhetoricians or head of a municipal school (of the Museion?). Interesting is the fact that a Christian at this time could occupy such a prominent position at Antioch.
Alongside this profession of his, he had, according to Eusebius, been invested with the presbyteral dignity, on account of his orthodoxy. Indeed, in the discussion with Paul of Samosata he receives the designation of presbyter. Surprising, however, is the coexistence of the rhetorical profession and the presbyteral dignity (G. Bardy, [v. bibl.], pp. 279-281). And this difficulty also reveals itself in the fact that M. appears at the second Council, convoked against Paul of Samosata (268), as the principal person in the discussion with the heretic. The examples invoked by Bardy ([v. bibl.], p. 305 ff.) to explain M.'s role in the Synod do not hold up. Perhaps P. Batiffol is right, who compares the work carried out by M. to that of the adsetor (jurisconsult) among the Roman magistrates (Origines du règlement des conciles, in Etudes de liturgie et d'archéologie chrétienne, Paris 1919, p. 94); and if M. is called a "sophist," one must remember the political work that the "sophists" carried out in the service of magistrates. In any case M. was a man of Greek culture, who, by introducing Greek philosophical terminology into the dispute, knew how to convince the heretical bishop. And it is almost certain that the Malchione who subscribed to the synodal letter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII, 30, 2) is not identical with the sophist M. (so also Bardy [v. bibl.], p. 298).
Bibliography
Erik Peterson