MELETIUS (Melitius) of Antioch, Saint. - Bishop of Antioch, b. at Melitene, in Lesser Armenia, at the beginning of the 4th century, d. at Constantinople in May 381. His name is bound up with the history of the troubles, the confusion of ideas and the personal situations that the Arian reaction against Nicene orthodoxy unleashed at Antioch between 330 and 378. Two points in M.'s life raise no easy questions: that of the evolution of his personal opinions on the Trinitarian matter, on which the ancient sources themselves are uncertain and divided; and that of the doctrinal nuances and terminological differences that appear in the same matter among the various orthodox parties, which clashed in the history of his life.
The explanation of Loofs must be set aside, because it lacks foundation; it is based on the hypothesis of the existence among the bishops of the second half of the 4th century of a party called "neo-Nicene," of which M., together with the great Cappadocians, would be a representative and which would have interpreted the homoousios, contrary to the original meaning still held by the Alexandrians and the Westerners, in the sense of a merely specific and not numerical unity among the divine persons in God; this, by a roundabout way, would have introduced a true tritheism into the Eastern Church and would have first fomented suspicions and misunderstandings between the two parties (M., the Meletians, the Cappadocians; Rome, Alexandria, the Eustathians of Antioch), and then finally an understanding based on the equivocation of a common word, homoousios, interpreted differently. There remains, however, the reality of an evolution in M.'s own Trinitarian ideas, who began as suspected of Homoeanism (v. ARIANISM) and only later reached clear orthodoxy through Homoeousian formulas; there remains especially the diversity of formulas between the two parties mentioned above for expressing a substantially identical doctrine; there remain finally the complicated questions of persons. Here, in this sense, is how the principal features of the eventful vicissitudes of M.'s life present themselves. He appears in history from 358, the year in which he was elected as successor to the deposed bishop Eustathius of Sebaste. In 360, through the work of Acacius of Caesarea, head of the Arian faction of the Homoeans, he was elevated to the see of Antioch, a sign that M. had until then held a doctrinal attitude that could seem to the Homoeans a sufficient guarantee.
St. Epiphanius considered him a Homoean of the party of Acacius (Haer., 73, 23: PG 42, 445 A) in struggle against the Arian Homoeousian faction led by Basil of Ancyra and by Eustathius of Sebaste. Epiphanius himself seems to say that M. assisted at the Homoean Council of Seleucia (359; ibid., 445, 448 B), while Socrates and Philostorgius say expressly that he signed the formulary of that Synod (Hist. eccl., II, 44: PG 67, 356-57; Hist. eccl., V, 1, ed. J. Bidez [CB, 21], p. 67).
In any case, having arrived at Antioch, M. so thoroughly disappointed the hopes of the Homoeans and gave such an impulse to the anti-Arian movement that the party of Acacius, barely a month after his arrival, obtained from the Emperor Constantius that he be sent into exile (360-62). The motive was certainly substantially doctrinal, without which the Homoeans would certainly not have insisted on certain pretexts of canonical irregularities in M.'s conduct. Orthodox tradition has seen a profession of Nicene faith and the true cause of the exile in the discourse delivered by M. before the Emperor on the text then so much discussed in the Arian struggles of Prov. 8, 22, a discourse preserved by Epiphanius (Haer., 73, 29-33: PG 42, 457-65). In any case Constantius had M. replaced by a friend of Arius, Euzoius.
But the mass of the anti-Arians remained faithful to M. and, led by Flavian, the future successor of M., formed a community called that of the Meletians. This was separated not only from the Arians of Euzoius, but also from that group of believers, strict Nicene orthodox, who since 330 had remained faithful to the deposed orthodox bishop Eustathius of Antioch, had never recognized other bishops and, directed by the priest Paulinus, were called Eustathians. The cause of this separation of the orthodox into two factions was essentially a question of Trinitarian terminology. The Meletians accepted the formula that there is in God one substance or ousia (οὐσία) in three hypostases in the sense of persons, a formula which, by explicitly expressing the real distinction of the persons in God, seemed to them necessary to remove from the Nicene doctrine every suspicion of Sabellianism; the Eustathians, on the other hand, held this formula in suspicion of Arianism and, adhering, together with the Alexandrians and the Westerners, to the ancient terminology that identified ousia and hypostasis, said that there is in God a single ousia or hypostasis, and three prosopa, a formula that the Meletians suspected of Sabellianism.
The Synod of Alexandria of 362, presided over by Athanasius, recognized the legitimacy of both formulas (Tomus ad Antiochenos: PG 25, 796-809), but nevertheless the two orthodox communities of Antioch did not come to reconciliation; indeed Paulinus, head of the Eustathians, was irregularly consecrated bishop by the fiery and intransigent Nicene Lucifer of Cagliari (v.), and shortly afterwards (363) Athanasius himself, having found no response to his offer of communion to M. (St. Basil, Ep., 189: PG 32, 472), seems to have granted it to the Eustathians alone, for which reason the Church of Alexandria subsequently used all its influence in their favor with Rome.
M. at that moment (363) seems to have engaged in a work of regrouping around a formula that explained the Nicene homoousios with the expression: "like according to essence," a formula moreover so little binding that Acacius and his like could subscribe to it (Socrates, Hist. eccl., III, 25: PG 67, 452-56; Sozomen, Hist. eccl., VI, 4: ibid., 1301). M.'s position did not then appear clear to any party; the Eustathians rejected it (v. anonymous opuscule: PG 28, 85-88); the Homoeans shortly afterwards obtained from the emperor Valens the second and third exile of M. (365-67; 371-78); the Arian Homoeousians, among whom were some friends of M. himself, seem to have ignored him when they treated (ca. 366) with Pope Liberius; Rome finally, for a good thirteen years more (366-79) held him in suspicion, giving its recognition and support to his Eustathian rival Paulinus. But St. Basil of Caesarea, who, even in his scrupulous orthodoxy, believed he had sufficient guarantees of M.'s upright sentiments and judged that a regrouping of all the orthodox in the East was possible only around his person, from 371 multiplied repeated efforts in his favor both with Alexandria and with Pope Damasus (numerous letters of the years 371-78: PG 32), not without letting slip in the course of the negotiations expressions of disappointed bitterness over the practical attitude of the latter (Ep., 215: ibid., 32, 792).
Only after the civil power, under the orthodox emperor Gratian, restoring to M., returned from his third exile, the churches taken from the Arians, had recognized him as the legitimate representative of the orthodox (378), and M. himself, together with 150 other bishops, had adhered in an Antiochene Synod of 379 to the doctrinal decisions of the Roman councils of the preceding years under Pope Damasus (v. Theodoret, Hist. eccl., V, 9: PG 82, 1216 D, and among the letters of Pope Damasus, Ep., 2, fragmenta: PL 13, 353-54), did the situation between M. and Rome become clear.
In 381 M. was present at the Council of Constantinople, of which he was elected president, a clear sign of the enormous ascendancy he now enjoyed throughout the East. He died before the end of that same Council, around the middle of the month of May, and had a triumphal funeral at which the emperor Theodosius himself wished to be present. Gregory of Nyssa, among others, delivered his funeral eulogy (PG 46, 852-64), and John Chrysostom, who had been ordained deacon by M., delivered in 386-87 a magnificent panegyric on him (ibid. 50, 515-20). He is venerated as a saint both by the Greek Church (12 February, 23 and 24 August) and by the Latin Church (12 February).
The Antiochene schism did not end with the death of M. because, despite the efforts of Rome and of Gregory of Nazianzus to ensure that all orthodox Antiochenes would henceforth gather around Paulinus, the Eastern bishops elected Flavian as M.'s successor (381), and not even the death of Paulinus (388) restored unity, because before dying he had ordained Evagrius as his successor. It is true that neither Rome nor Alexandria recognized Evagrius, but recognition of Flavian was still long delayed, since he refused to agree to submit his case to a council (v. St. Ambrose, Ep., 56: PL 16, 1220-22). Only around 394 did the Alexandrians, at the urging of St. Ambrose (Ep., 56, 6, 7: ibid., 1221-22) and in conformity with the mind of Pope Siricius, recognize Flavian in a synod at Caesarea in Palestine (v. Severus of Antioch, in E. W. Brooks, The sixth book of the select letters of Severus, English trans., II, Oxford 1903, p. 223). Around the same time Evagrius died, and Flavian was able to prevent a successor from being given to him. It is probable that the recognition of Flavian took place at Rome in this same period, although some, with Sozomen (Hist. eccl., VIII, 3: PG 67, 1520-21), wish to attribute the credit to the urgings of St. John Chrysostom in 398. The remnants of the Eustathians rejoined the great community in 413 under bishop Alexander (Theodoret, Hist. eccl., V, 35: ibid., 82, 1265).
Bibliography6 works
Cipriano Vagaggini