Collected Works

Collected Works - Melito of Sardis

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Melito of Sardis was a second-century church father. He was a bishop of Sardis. His apology to Marcus Aurelus is fascinating and intellectual as he distinguishes the eternal, unchanging Christian God from the worship of changing created objects by the pagans. Melito also offers an early “canon” of the Old

Testament to his “brother,” which is essentially the Tanakh, although he may include the Wisdom of Solomon.

Melito is also blamed for the “deicide” charge against the Jews. Melito does contrast the saving sacrifice of Christ with a castigation of “Israel” for standing by while “thine own Lord” was tortured and killed.

The deicide trope has played an awful role in Christian history. Melito's rhetoric may have played a role in that development, although he doesn't condemn Jews generally, but “Israel” specifically in “Jerusalem.” This actually doesn't sound much different than what we find in Acts 2:

“22. You who are Israelites, hear these words. Jesus the Nazorean was a man commended to you by God with mighty deeds, wonders, and signs, which God worked through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.j
23 This man, delivered up by the set plan and foreknowledge of God, you killed, using lawless men to crucify him.k
24 But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it.l”

Of course, the narrative goes on to explain that everyone has had their role in killing Christ by sinning and that the mercy of Christ's forgiveness is open to everyone, including the Jews who abandoned him during the crucifixion.

I was brought to read Melito via Rabbi Tovia Singer, who called Melito an evil, wicked man. I was actually surprised that his writings weren't worse. There is no general denigration of Jews. There is no resort to what we would recognize as anti-semitic tropes. If you read this text from a Christian standpoint, you wait for the points about universality of sin and redemption, which do not appear in this text, albeit these writings are fragments.

This publication is odd. It does not have a publishing house. The paperback cover is nice, but it seems to be a download printed in a just in time format based on orders received. I imagine that I could have downloaded the same thing from the internet. Nonetheless, it was nice to have a booklet I could read.