The Successors of Justin.

Melito of Sardis.

        The Lydian city of Sardis, in Asia, was the seat of a Christian church before the end of the first century, as the Revelation shows (3:1-6), and in the time of Marcus Aurelius its bishop was one of the ablest and most prolific writers of his day-Melito of Sardis. He is credited with having written eighteen and perhaps twenty works, chiefly on the evidence of Eusebius, who in Church History iv. 26. 2 gives this list: On the Passover (two books), On the Conduct of Life and the Prophets, On the Church, On the Lord's Day, On the Faith of Man, On His Creation, On the Obedience of Faith, On the Senses, On the Soul and Body, On Baptist, On Truth, On the Creation and Generation of Christ, On Prophecy, On Hospitality, A Key (to the scriptures), On the Devil and the Revelation of John, and finally, the Apology. He later mentions the Extracts (iv. 26. 13), or Selections from the Old Testament, of which Jerome says there were six books. Eusebius preserves the opening paragraph of this work. It was addressed to a brother Onesimus and gives the list of the Hebrew scriptures as current in Palestine.

        The Apology was written probably between A.D. 169 and 176, certainly by z 80. Three passages from it, making about a page in all, are quoted by Eusebius (Church History iv. 26- S-m). Another small fragment-a part of a sentence-is preserved in the Paschal Chronicle. Melito points out to the emperor that the church had proved a benefit to the empire and should be regarded as a bulwark and ally of it, not as a hostile force. Even these are enough to show that Melito's Apology influenced Tertullian's.

        Small fragments of at least six other works have been recovered from various sources, the longest, of little more than a page, from the work On Baptism. One is preserved in Origen and two in Anastasius of Sinai, altogether a meager record of so copious a writer.[47]

        Anastasius of Sinai, in the seventh century, credits Melito with a work On the Incarnation of Christ in three or more books. He also mentions a work On the Passion, from which he quotes a single line: “God suffered under an Israelitish hand.” It is an extraordinary thing that this homily of Melito should have gone unmentioned until the seventh century and in 1940 should have come to light, almost entire, in Greek. For among the papyri obtained from Egypt by A. Chester Beatty and the University of Michigan is one written in the fourth century and preserving no less than seventeen pages of its text, mostly in good condition, and headed with the name of Melito. In it we find almost the very words quoted by Anastasius (sec. 96): “God has been murdered! The king of Israel has been slain by an Israelitish hand!”[48]

        This extraordinary discovery at last provided one substantial work of Melito, and it was buttressed by the detection of three additional fragments of the same homily, one in Greek (Oxyrhynchus Papyri xiii. 1600, a fifth-century leaf, covering sets. 57-63), one in Coptic (fourth century, now m the British Museum, covering sets. 12-14), and two in Syriac in the British Museum.

        In 1958 another copy of Mehto's homily-actually On the Passover, not On the Passion-was published by Michel Testuz from a third-century papyrus in the Bodmer collection. In addition, there are Latin paraphrases of the homily,[49] and a Coptic version which belongs to the University of Mississippi.

        It has been maintained that Hippolytus and Origen were the first orthodox Christian preachers to make full use of Greek rhetorical techniques in their sermons, but that distinction must now go to Melito.[50] He revels in the ornate artificialities of Greek rhetoric-exclamation, apostrophe, antithesis, rhetorical questions, startling forms of statement, dramatic impersonations, beginning sentence after sentence in the same way, etc. These overconscioushabits of style weary the modern reader, and yet the earnestness and power of the preacher can still be felt, after all these centuries of oblivion. And, as a matter of fact, these same traits appear in the familiar fragment, a page long, from the work On Baptism, which has long been included among Melito's literary remains.[51]

        The homily interprets the Passover, in the usual early Christian way, from Paul down (I Cor. 5:7), as symbolic of the redemptive death of Christ. Melito relates the slaying of the firstborn in Egypt and the preservation of the Hebrews; explains the Jewish Law as simply a temporary sketch or model for Christianity, which is the true and enduring work of the Great Artist; finds the sufferings of Christ foreshadowed in those of many Old Testament worthies; and bitterly condemns the Jews for their responsibility for his death.

        Like most Asian bishops, Melito was a Quartodeciman; he celebrated the Passover on the fourteenth of Nisan,whatever the day of the week, so that this would be comparable to a Good Friday sermon today. His work On the Passover was evidently a contribution to the debate over the date of Easter, which so divided the church. It was written, as its opening lines indicate (they are quoted by Eusebius' Church History iv. 26. 3), in A.D. r67-68. Polycrates of Ephesus, writing to Victor of Rome when the controversy was resumed about A.D. r9o, speaks of Melito as no longer living (Church History v. 24. 5, 6), so that his literary work as far as we can trace it fell between A.D. 167 and 190.

        The new use of Greek rhetoric made by Melito in introducing it into non-schismatic Christian preaching (the Gnostics were already using it in theirs) was soon taken up by Hippolytus and Origen, and Bonner has traced the influence of this particular homily upon the work of Melito's contemporary Apollinaris of Hierapolis On the Passover, and upon the work of Hippolytus On the Passover, recently identified by Charles Martin in a sermon long erroneously ascribed to Chrysostom.[52] Clement seems to have written his work On the Passover (now lost) in reply to Melito's. Jerome says that Tertullian derided the declamatory elegance of Melito's style, although Tertullian was even more addicted to that sort of thing himself and should have recognized a kindred spirit in Melito. We have noted the influence of Melito's Apology upon Tertullian. That he influenced such men as Tertullian, Clement, and Hippolytus is sufficient proof of Melito's powers.

        It is very evident that if the discovery of one fairly complete work of Melito can so alter the picture of one phase of early Christian literature, the finding of the whole library of his writings might change it a good deal more. But, as yet, probably nineteentwentieths of his work remains lost.