Melito of Sardis Study Archive

Who will contend against me? Who will argue with me? It is I, says Christ, who destroyed death. It is I who triumphed over the enemy, and having trod down Hades, and bound the Strong Man

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Melito of Sardis

Melito wrote before Sardis came under Roman rule, and before the destruction of unwanted writings could have taken place.  Therefore the Peri Pascha survives.

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RELEVANT WORKS:

• 0150: Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha and Its “Israel” – The battle between Christians and Jews over possession of the name “Israel” goes back to the earliest days of Christianity” “Alternatively, the past-tense verbs found in Peri Pascha 99 may indicate that the author is referring to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE” “Analogously, in the late fourth century Chrysostom, in his apologetic works on Christianity and Hellenism, again uses the Temple’s destruction as proof of Judaism’s illegitimacy.
• 0339: Eusebius of Caesarea, Life of Constantine (pdf) – In those days also Melito, bishop of the parish in Sardis, and Apolinarius, bishop of Hierapolis, enjoyed great distinction. Each of them on his own part addressed apologies in behalf of the faith to the above-mentioned emperor of the Romans who was reigning at that time.
• 1845: MSS. From Egyptian Monestaries – Of other ecclesiastical writers of the second and third centuries—-besides various fragments from their works cited by other authors,we recover in this Syriac collection an oration of Melito, bishop of Sardis, to the emperor Marcus Antoninus; which, however, does not agree with that cited by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (Book iv. chap. 26):—-the entire Dialogue on Fate by Bardesanes, of which a fragment had been preserved by Eusebius in the 10th chapter of the 6th book of his ‘Praeparatio Evangelica;’ and two or three treatises of Gregory Thaumaturgus, which appear to have been hitherto unknown.
• 1890: Ernest Renan, History of the Origins of Christianity – Book VII, Chapter XI. The Great Bishops of Greece and Asia—Melito.. Chapter XVII. The Legio Fulminata—Apologies of Apollinaris, Miltiades, and Melito.
• 1938: F.F. Bruce, The Earliest Latin Commentary on the Apocalypse (pdf)
• Early Christian Writings: Melito

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(On Symbol vs. Substance)
“For this reason a preliminary sketch is made of the future thing out of wax or clay or of wood, in order that what will soon arise taller in height, and stronger in power and beautiful in form, and rich in its construction, may be seen through a small perishable sketch.  But when that which is the model arises, that which once bore the image of the future thing is itself destroyed as growing useless having yielded to what is truly the real image of it; and what was once precious becomes worthless when what is truly precious has been revealed.” (ll 224-44)

(On Jewish Guilt for the Crucifixion)
“The one who suspended the earth is suspended, The one who fixed the heavens is fixed firm, The one who fastened the universe is fastened to the tree, The master is insulted, God is murdered, The King of Israel is killed by an Israelite right hand.” (711-16)

“… you sang songs, but he was judged; you issued the command, he was crucified; you danced, he was buried; you lay down on a soft bed, but he in a tomb and coffin.  81. O lawless Israel, why did you commit this extraordinary crime of casting your Lord into new sufferings–your master, the one who formed you, the one who called you Israel?”   (De Pascha ; Not in BiblIndex, curiously; On the Passover – Melito of Sardis – Kerux 4:1)

 

“Thou smotest thy Lord: thou also hast been smitten upon the earth. And thou indeed liest dead; but He is risen from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven.” (ANF 8:757.)

(On the Identification of Israel)
“You did not turn out to be ‘Israel’; you did not ‘see God,’ you did not recognize the Lord, You did not know, Israel, that he is the first born of God.” (588-592)

(On the Significance of A.D.30)
“The earth shook, and its foundations trembled; the sun fled away, and the elements turned back, and the day was changed into night: for they could not endure the sight of their Lord hanging on a tree. The whole creation was amazed, marvelling and saying, “What new mystery, then, is this?

“The Judge is judged, and holds his peace; the Invisible One is seen, and is not ashamed; the Incomprehensible is laid hold upon, and is not indignant; the Illimitable is circumscribed, and doth not resist; the Impossible suffereth, and doth not avenge; the Immortal dieth, and answereth not a word; the Celestial is laid in the grave, and endureth! What new mystery is this? “The whole creation, I say, was astonished; but, when our Lord arose from the place of the dead, and trampled death under foot, and bound the strong one, and set man free, then did the whole creation see clearly that for man’s sake the Judge was condemned, and the Invisible was seen, and the Illimitable was circumscribed, and the Impassible suffered, and the Immortal died, and the Celestial was laid in the gave. For our Lord, when He was born man, was condemned in order that He might Show mercy, was bound in order that He might loose, was seized in order that He might release, suffered in order that He might feel compassion, died in order that He might give life, was laid in the grave that He might raise from the dead.” (Discourse on Soul and Body, 40-43)

(On the Death of Death in the Christ’s Death)
“Who will contend against me? Let him stand before me. It is I who delivered the condemned. It is I who gave life to the dead. It is I who raised up the buried. Who will argue with me? It is I, says Christ, who destroyed death. It is I who triumphed over the enemy, and having trod down Hades, and bound the Strong Man, and have snatched mankind up to the heights of heaven.

…I am your resurrection. I am your light, I am your salvation, I am your King.”

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Firmin Abauzit
“Before Irenaeus I ought to have name Melito, among whose works there was a treatise, entitled, Concerning the Devil in the Apocalypse, as Eusebius [Hist lib. iv. Cap. 26,] relates. As the work is lost, we know no more of it, and are ignorant whether he there spoke well or ill of the Apocalypse. It was in effect attacked in books written on purpose by some of the ancients, which Dionysius of Alexandria cites without naming them. Perhaps Melito was of this number, perhaps he was not. It is a question, like many others, which probably can never be cleared up.” (A Historical Discourse on the Apocalypse)

Henry Cowles
“Melito, bishop of Sardis one of those seven churches), who flourished in the third quarter of the second century, “wrote a treatise on the Apocalypse of John.” (The Book of Revelation)

Todd D. Dennis
“By finding “end times” and redemptive fulfillment linked to the first century Advent of Christ, Kurt is not attacking Christianity or its historical understanding of the Bible – only the recent growth of doctrines that place total prophetic fulfillment in the future.  That the Church was not destroyed by Rome or “Israel after the flesh” has been seen throughout Christianity’s literary history as the paramount sign of God’s acceptance of Jesus’ blood sacrifice, His disavowal of the Mosaic system, and the resurrection of His true people, the “Israel of God.”   Bishop Melito of Sardis, writing in the second century, presented a remarkably fulfilled eschatology along these lines.  In the Homily of the Pascha, he wrote, “It is I, says Christ, who destroyed death. It is I who triumphed over the enemy, and have trod down Hades, and bound the Strong Man, and have snatched mankind up to the heights of heaven,” and “Who will contend against me? Let him stand before me. It is I who delivered the condemned. It is I who gave life to the dead. It is I who raised up the buried.”  Consistent with the above statements of Melito, the body of Christian literature presents the fall of Jerusalem in A.D.70 as the clearest proof of the Lord’s supremacy and the faith’s veracity.” (Consummation of the Ages)

E. De Pressence
“Melito must have written a commentary on the Revelation. The allusions to this book are plain in the letter of the Church of Lyons to the Churches of Asia Minor. Eusebius, “Hist. Eccles.,” v, 1. The testimony of Irenæus, (“Contr. Hæres.,” iv, 20;) of Clement of Alexandria, (“Stromat.,” vi, 66;) of Tertullian, (“Adv. Marc.,” iii, 14;) and of Origen, (see Eusebius, “Hist. Eccles.,” vi, 25,) is, without any sort of hesitation, in favor of the authenticity of the Apocalypse.”

“The Church had cunning adversaries who knew how to malign her artfully, and who, observing the absence of all outward display in her worship, brought against her the charge of atheism. When we remember that through Poppæa the Jews of Rome had at this time the favor and the ear of Nero, we shall wonder the less at the success of their intrigues. One of the most ancient writers of the Church, Melito of Sardis, undoubtedly had these underhand practices in view when he said: “Nero and Domitian, incited by the councils of certain malicious persons, have endeavored to bring reproach on our religion. They have bequeathed to their successors these false accusations against us. (Ὑπὸ τίνων βασκάι ων ἀνθρώπων ἀναπέισθεντες. (Routh, “Reliquiæ Sacræ,” i, p. 117.)” (Early Years of Christianity)

Editor of Ad Nationes
“Melito connected the rise of Christianity with the development of the Roman Empire, and asserted that only the bad emperors Nero and Domitian had persecuted Christians. Tertullian borrowed the idea and coined the phrase ‘institutum Neronianum’ to stigmatize persecution.”

“Persecution of the Christians goes back to the time of Nero who was notorious for his character defects. And to this day, 200 years after its origin, Christianity is still subject to persecution. Let us consider the reliability of these two Christian enemies — Nero and rumor. Tongue in cheek, Tertullian raises the question of whether Nero was just and pure. The response of Nero’s contemporaries and historians ever after has been a resounding “no.” (Ad Nationes and Nero – I,7,8)

Paul Maier
“Early on, Christians in Jerusalem recognized the importance of the sites where biblical events took place. The early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c. 100-c.165) was born of pagan parents in Nablus, Samaria, and after his conversion to Christianity knew the cave or grotto where Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Melito, bishop of Sardis, visited there in the 160s. The mightiest mind in early Christendom, Origen of Alexandria, spent the last part of his life (230-254) in Caesarea and regularly visited the sacred sites, including Bethlehem.” (Not One Stone Left Upon Another)

C.C. Torrey
“He remarks, more than once, that this curious list of holy books could not hold its place among the “authentic” lists sure to be in circulation from the late second century onward. He conjectures, acutely, that confusion of this sort is suggested in a certain letter of Melito of Sardis (see pp. 143 f.). He remarks in concluding: “Does not all this suggest that at the time of Onesimus and Melito, in several churches of Asia Minor, lists were in circulation like that of our Jerusalem MS.?”

It certainly does. M. Audet did not know what was fully demonstrated, completely proven, in 1941 and must soon become common knowledge: that the letters to the Seven Churches of Asia were written and published in Aramaic. That was in the year 68.” (The Apocalypse of John)

Voltaire
“Camus, Bishop of Bellay, printed, in the last century, a large book against the monks, which an unfrocked monk abridged. It was entitled Apocalypse, because in it he exposed the dangers and defects of the monastic life, and Melito’s Apocalypse (Apocalypse de Meliton), because Melito, bishop of Sardis, in the second century, had passed for a prophet. This bishop’s work has none of the obscurities of St. John’s Apocalypse. Nothing was ever clearer. The bishop is like a magistrate saying to an attorney, “You are a forger, and a cheat—do you comprehend me” (A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 1, Apocalypse)

Christopher Wordsworth
“We pass next to the evidence of Melito. He was Bishop of one of the Seven Churches, Sardis, in the second century; a successor, therefore, of one of the Seven Angels addressed in the Apocalypse. The witness of Sardis and its Bishop cannot be suspected of partiality; for Sardis, again, is one of the Churches which is rebuked with great severity in the Apocalypse. Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art deadf. And the character of Melito stands preeminently high both for piety and learning. He is, therefore, a very credible witness. It is a very pleasing reflection, that the reproofs of the Apocalypse were not without their fruits: and probably the pious vigilance of Melito, the Bishop of Sardis, was quickened by them. He laboured diligently for the souls committed to his care; especially in establishing their faith in the Word of God. He showed a most laudable zeal with regard to the Canon of the Old Testament. In order to assure himself and his Church of Sardis concerning the Books of the Ancient Scriptures, as received by the Churches of Palestine, he visited that country in person, and he has given the result of his critical inquiries in a very in teresting and valuable Epistle *. And it cannot be supposed that he who, we see, was so diligent and circumspect in his inquiries concerning the Old Testament, would have been less careful respecting the New, and especially concerning that particular Book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse, which contains an address to his own predecessor, and to his own Church; and to which, on other grounds, his best consideration must have been given, for he wrote a Commentary f upon the Apocalypse.

The evidence, therefore, of Melito is very important. He also received the Apocalypse as the work of St. John.” (Lectures on the Apocalypse)

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EASTER HYMN BY MELITO

When the Lord had clothed himself with humanity, and had suffered for the sake of the sufferer, and had been bound for the sake of the imprisoned, and had been judged for the sake of the condemned, and buried for the sake of the one who was buried, he rose from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: “Who is the one who contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I have set the condemned man free; I have given the dead man life; I have raised up the one who had been entombed. Who is my opponent? ‘I’, he says, ‘am the Christ’. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven’. ‘I’, he says, ‘am the Christ’.

“Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness. I am the Passover of your salvation, I am your light, I am your savior, I am your resurrection, I am your king. I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by my right hand”.

This is the one who made the heaven and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and the prophets, who became human through the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, from the beginning of the world to the end of the age.

This is the alpha and the omega, this is the beginning and the end — an indescribable beginning, and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father, to whom be the glory and the power for ever. Amen.

EASTER PRAISE

We should understand, beloved, that the paschal mystery is at once old and new, transitory and eternal, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal. In terms of the Law it is old, in terms of the Word it is new. In its figure it is passing, in its grace it is eternal. It is corruptible in the sacrifice of the lamb incorruptible in the eternal life of the Lord. It is mortal in is burial in the earth, immortal in his resurrection from the dead.

The Law indeed is old, but the Word is new. The type is transitory, but grace is eternal. The lamb was corruptible, but the Lord is incorruptible. He was slain as a lamb; he rose again as God. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, yet he was not a sheep. He was silent as a lamb, yet he was not a lamb. The type has passed away; the reality has come. The lamb gives place to God, the sheep gives place to a man, and the man is Christ, who fills the whole of creation. The sacrifice of the lamb, the celebration of the Passover, and the prescriptions of the Law have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Under the old Law, and still more under the new dispensation, everything pointed toward him.

Both the Law and the Word came forth from Zion and Jerusalem, but now the Law has given place to the Word, the old to the new. The commandment has become grace, the type a reality. The lamb has become a Son, the sheep a man, and man, God.

The Lord, though he was God, became man. He suffered for the sake of those who suffer, he was bound for those in bonds, condemned for the guilty, buried for those who lie in the grave; but he rose from the dead, and cried aloud: who will contend with me? Let him confront me. I have freed the condemned, brought the dead back to life, raised men from their graves. Who has anything to say against me? I, he said, am the Christ; I have destroyed death, triumphed over the enemy, trampled hell underfoot, bound the strong one, and taken men up to the heights of heaven: I am the Christ.

Come, then, all you nations of men, receive forgiveness for the sins that defile you. I am your forgiveness. I am the Passover that brings salvation. I am the lamb who was immolated for you. I am your ransom, your life, your resurrection, your light, I am your salvation and your king. I will bring you to the heights of heaven. With my own right hand I will raise you up, and I will show you the eternal Father.

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• 2010: James Swan, Melito and the Old Testament Canon

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Date: 15 Sep 2004
Time: 07:38:06

I understand Melito wrote the first recorded accusation of deicide against the Jews. Is this correct? If so, where can this be found in his writings?

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Date: 24 Dec 2004
Time: 08:27:46

If everone has been raised from the dead, where are all the people? The earth could not hold everyone.