CHAPTER IX. MELITO OF SARDIS--CLAUDIUS APOLLINARIS--ATHENAGORAS--THE EPISTLE OF VIENNE AND LYONS.
We might here altogether have passed over Melito, Bishop of Sardis in Lydia, had it not been for the use of certain fragments of his writings made by Canon Westcott. Melito, naturally, is not cited by Tischendorf at all, but the English Apologist, with greater zeal, we think, than critical discretion, forces him into service as evidence for the Gospels and a New Testament Canon. The date of Melito, it is generally agreed, falls after a.d. 176, a phrase in his apology presented to Marcus Antoninus preserved in Eusebius(l) [------] indicating that Commodus had already been admitted to a share of the Government.(3)
Canon Westcott affirms that, in a fragment preserved by Eusebius, Melito speaks of the books of the New Testament in a collected form. He says: "The words of Melito on the other hand are simple and casual, and yet their meaning can scarcely be mistaken. He writes to Onesimus, a fellow-Christian who had urged him 'to
make selections for him from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Saviour and the faith generally, and furthermore desired to learn the accurate account of the Old [------] Books;' 'having gone therefore to the East,' Melito says, 'and reached the spot where [each thing] was preached and done, and having learned accurately the Books of the Old Testament, I have sent a list of them.' The mention of 'the Old Books'--'the Books of the Old Testament,' naturally implies a definite New Testament, a written antitype to the Old; and the form of language implies a familiar recognition of its contents."(1) This is truly astonishing! The "form of language" can only refer to the words: "concerning the Saviour and the faith generally," which must have an amazing fulness of meaning to convey to Canon West-cott the implication of a "familiar recognition" of the contents of a supposed already collected New Testament, seeing that a simple Christian, not to say a Bishop, might at least know of a Saviour and the faith generally from the oral preaching of the Gospel, from a single Epistle of Paul, or from any of the [------] of Luke. This reasoning forms a worthy pendant to his argument that because Melito speaks of the books of the Old Testament he implies the existence of a definite collected New Testament. Such an assertion is calculated to mislead a large class of readers.(2)