Venerable Máel Dub, Hermit of Malmesbury

Malmesbury Abbey

The second of October in the Holy Orthodox Church is the feast day of Saint Máel Dub, one of the great Celtic hermits who tutored the English nation in the ways of Christ. A tutor to the scholarly Saint Aldhelm, Máel Dub combined eremitical, missionary and scholarly pursuits into a single vocation. He founded Malmesbury as a centre of learning, and it would later, under his pupil Aldhelm’s guidance, become a centre of Benedictine spiritual and social witness.

What is known about Máel Dub is that he was born and raised somewhere in Ireland and established his hermitage in Malmesbury in his adulthood. He lived in Wessex for some while as a hermit, but, lacking means to support himself there, took students and began to teach them in exchange for the necessities of life. Máel Dub taught several illustrious students, among whom are the aforementioned Aldhelm, and also Bishop Daniel of Winchester, an intimate friend of Saint Boniface who was one of Saint Bede’s primary sources for his History of the English Church and People.

Not much is known about Saint Máel Dub’s life, except what is told about him in Bede’s History and the witness of his students at Malmesbury. But if Saint Aldhelm’s life is any indication, we can begin to understand the kind of holiness that was taught and lived by Máel Dub. Aldhelm was a scholar. He was also friendly and approachable by common and armly folk: so too we may justly imagine Máel Dub to have been. Likewise, Aldhelm practised the radical hospitality and ferocious generosity of the early Benedictines. Although Máel Dub was not Benedictine himself, belonging instead to the Celtic eremitical tradition, we may consider that Aldhelm’s predisposition to such hospitality was engendered by his having been tutored by this saint.

It seems to me therefore meet and appropriate to commemorate this teacher of saints, whose own holiness is shown not in his own glory but in the achievements of his pupils like Aldhelm and Daniel. No teacher in whatever age could ask for better witness. Holy Máel Dub, hermit and tutor of holy monks, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!