MELITO of SARDIS. — Polycrates of Ephesus, in a letter to Pope Victor, names M. among “the great luminaries” of the Church in Asia Minor; he calls him a “eunuch,” full of the Holy Spirit, who awaits the resurrection of the dead (probably presupposed here is the old idea, also widespread among the Encratites, of a relationship between virginal life and the resurrection: Eusebius, Hist. eccl., V, 24, 25). Tertullian speaks of M.’s “elegans et declamatorium ingenium,” but he knows that in ecclesiastical circles he was regarded as a “prophet” (Tertullian, in Jerome, De vir. ill., 24). It is known that he was bishop of Sardis in Lydia in the time of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius and that he had been to Jerusalem to learn about ecclesiastical tradition (v. B. Kötting, Peregrinatio religiosa, Münster 1950, p. 85). He died before 190.
He was the author of a brief apology in defense of Christian “philosophy” (a form of life), addressed to Marcus Aurelius (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 26, 1), noteworthy for its author’s Roman patriotism. Another work dealt with Easter, in which the tradition of the Quartodecimans was defended; another, On the proper manner of life and the prophets (cf. St. Jerome, On the life of the prophets), was not necessarily anti-Montanist, since nothing is known of any anti-Montanist activity on M.’s part. Other titles of writings include, for example, On hospitality, On Sunday, On the corporeality of God, the latter work being attacked by Origen (v. also Gennadius, De Eccles. dogmat., 4). The title of the book, De oboedientia fidei sensuum, becomes intelligible on reading Pseudo-Cyprian, Adversus Iudaeos, 1. A Greek fragment of the book De laxacro has been preserved (v. ADE. Harnack, Marcion, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1924, p. 421 ff). Fragments of M. in Syriac are found in the Florilegium Edessenum anonymum (syriace ante 562), published by J. Rucker (1933). The most important surviving portion of M.’s works is the homily “On the Passion,” preserved in a papyrus text and published by C. Bonner (The Homily on the Passion by Melito (Studies and documents, 12), London 1940). This text demonstrates not only the author’s theology, but also helps explain the origin of the great official rhetoric of the Byzantine Church.
Other writings are wrongly attributed to M.: an apology
in Syriac; a Clavis scripturae in Latin (edited by G. B. Pitra, in Anal. sacra, II, Tivoli 1884); and the already mentioned Adversus Iudaeos. This writing, which in the fourth century was attributed to St. Cyprian (Mommsen’s List), cannot, on the other hand, be his work: it is a sermon which, from the first to the last chapter, reveals M.’s theology and language. If the homily is not a Latin translation of one of M.’s homilies, it is certainly the work of someone who knew him thoroughly. The attribution of Adversus Iudaeos to Novatian is impossible: it probably dates from the third century and was not written in Africa.