Melito of Sardis

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Saint Melito of Sardis (died c.180) was the bishop of Sardis, near Smyrna in Asia Minor, and a great authority: Jerome, speaking of the Old Testament canon established by Melito, quotes Tertullian to the effect that he was esteemed a prophet by many of the faithful. His feast is celebrated on April 1.

Aside from a homily "Concerning the Passover" in the Bodmer Papyri, only fragments of his works survive. Melito was a prolific early Christian writer, judging from lists of them preserved by Eusebius and Jerome. He wrote a celebrated Apology for Christianity which he sent to Marcus Aurelius.

Melito provides us with what is probably the earliest known Christian canon of the Old Testament (accounting for the uncertainty with regards to the precise date of the Muratorian fragment). The Catholic Encyclopedia states that "Melito's Canon consists exclusively of the protocanonicals minus Esther". However, Melito includes Wisdom, which is part of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Deuterocanon.

Melito's Peri Pascha ("Concerning the Passover") is a text that was assembled from surviving fragments in the 1930s, and translated into English in the 1940s. Prior to the recovery of the full text less the opening folio among the Bodmer Papyri the order in which the fragments had been assembled was a possible reconstruction.^[1] It is clear from Eusebius that Melito celebrates Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan, rather than the Sunday following (Eusebius Historia Ecclesiastica 5.24), hence he was a Quartodeciman.

In this homily, Melito formulated the charge of deicide, namely that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. He proclaimed that "God has been murdered; the king of Israel has been slain by an Israelite hand." His preaching would later inspire pogroms against the Jews.^[2]

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia Melito believed in a Millennial reign of Christ on Earth. He wrote against idolatry or relying on teachings of fathers to condone it (Melito's Apology addressed to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus). He presented elaborated parallels between the Old Testament, the form or mold, and the New Testament, as the truth that broke the mold, in a series of Eklogai, six books of extracts from the Law and the Prophets presaging Christ and the Christian faith; a passage cited by Eusebius contains Melito's famous canon of the Old Testament.

Origen, in a brief note, relates that Melito ascribed corporeality to God, and believed that the likeness of God is preserved in the human body. The note is too brief to tell exactly what Melito might have meant by this.

A letter of Polycrates of Ephesus to Pope Victor about 194, mentioned by Eusebius, (H.E. 5.24) states that "Melito the eunuch" was interred at Sardis.

Melito's reputation as a writer remained strong into the Middle Ages: numerous works were pseudepigraphically ascribed to him.

[edit] Notes

^ Floyd V. Filson, "More Bodmer Papyri" The Biblical Archaeologist 25.2 (May 1962, pp. 50-57) p 5
^ Perry, Marvin and Schweitzer, Frederick (2002), Anti-Semitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present, p. 18. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-16561-7

[edit] References

Hansen, Adolf, and Melito. 1990. The "Sitz im Leben" of the paschal homily of Melito of Sardis with special reference to the paschal festival in early Christianity. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northwestern University, 1968.

Melito, and Bernhard Lohse. 1958. Die Passa-Homilie des Bischofs Meliton von Sardes. Textus minores, 24. Leiden: E.J. Brill.[1]

Melito, J. B. Pitra, and Pier Giorgio Di Domenico. 2001. Clavis Scripturae. Visibile parlare, 4. Città del Vaticano: Libreria editrice vaticana. [2]

Melito, J. B. Pitra, and Jean Pierre Laurant. 1988. Symbolisme et Ecriture: le cardinal Pitra et la "Clef" de Méliton de Sardes. Paris: Editions du Cerf. [3]

Melito, and Josef Blank. 1963. Vom Passa: die älteste christliche Osterpredigt. Sophia, Quellen östlicher Theologie, Bd. 3. Freiburg im Breisgau: Lambertus-Verlag. [4]

Melito, and Othmar Perler. 1966. Sur la Pâque et fragments. Sources Chrétiennes, 123. Paris: Éditions du Cerf. [5]

Melito, and Richard C. White. 1976. Sermon "On the Passover.". Lexington Theological Seminary Library. Occasional studies. Lexington, Ky: Lexington Theological Seminary Library. [6]

Melito, and Stuart George Hall. 1979. On Pascha and fragments. Oxford early Christian texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [7]

Waal, C. van der, and Melito. 1973. Het Pascha der verlossing: de schriftverklaring in de homilie van Melito als weerspiegeling van de confrontatie tussen kerk en synagoge. Thesis--Universiteit van Suid-Afrika. [8]

Waal, C. van der, and Melito. 1979. Het Pascha van onze verlossing: de Schriftverklaring in de paaspreek van Melito van Sardes als weerspiegeling van de confrontatie tussen kerk en synagoge in de tweede eeuw. Johannesburg: De Jong. [9]