Melito.
Melito.
§ 77. From the church of Laodicea in the region of Phrygia of Asia Minor we go on to the churches of Judea in Asia Major, from whom the Word of God came (1 Cor. 14:36). There is extant in Eusebius (Hist. eccles., bk. 4, c. 25) a letter of Bishop Melito of Sardis to Onesimus. In it he mentions that he had gone to the churches of Judea to learn something definite about the integrity of the canon. He lists absolutely the same number of canonical books as do our churches. Onesimus had asked Melito to prescribe a definite summary of the sacred books—how many there were and in what order they were arranged. So Melito, among other things, wrote the following back to him:
I acted diligently in this in order to perform it for you because I am aware of your concern for faithfulness, diligence, and zeal concerning doctrine, [and] that you should consider these things more carefully, as much as possible in accord with the desire by which you are affected toward God and with the love of eternal salvation for which you are struggling. I went back to the East, therefore, and stayed at that place where those things were said and done. I have diligently examined the books of the Old Testament and have arranged them in order. I have sent them to you, and here are their names, etc.
And in this list Melito omits those about which we and the Papists have controversies.
Melito was bishop of Sardis (or, as the translator of Eusebius renders it, Sard). The Church of Sardis, however, was one of the seven churches of Asia to which John wrote by Christ’s command (Rev. 3:1). Therefore the Church of Sardis was an apostolic church. That is, it was founded by the apostles and its bishop was Melito, who was in office around AD 170. He was able to listen to those old men who, as youths, had heard the evangelist John as an old man. Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus makes this claim about him: “In all things he was led by the grace of the Holy Spirit” (Eusebius, Hist., bk. 5, around the middle of c. 22). Tertullian (in Jerome, Catal. eccles. script.) says, “Many of our people call him a prophet.” Melito himself says that he went to the East, that is, to the churches of Palestine, Pisidia, Pamphylia, Cilicia, Phoenicia, in fact, “all the way to that place where those things were said and done,” that is, into the provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. He wandered about these places, and, to strengthen both himself and others in this question, he asked for the judgments about the canon from those men who at that time were in charge of those churches. The harmonious witness of the bishops concerning the canon becomes clear both from the narrative of Melito as well as from his subsequent specific enumeration. Therefore we must make much of Melito’s testimony. The Papists do not have anything to turn against it, except that “among the canonical books he numbers the Book of Wisdom,” which our churches do not acknowledge as canonical. We shall explain later, however, what conclusion must be drawn about this point.