Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Dragoş Andrei Giulea on Melito of Sardis' Anthropomorphic Concept of God and Eikonic Soteriology

  

Although Melito’s Christ preserves several old attributes of the anthropomorphic Yahweh—such as a glorious nature and a gigantic extension, in addition to the demiurgic and salvific functions and the capacity to work wonders in the history of humankind—he does not seem to have anthropomorphic delineations in the Greek extant manuscripts. Nevertheless, there are certain documents indicating Melito as an anthropomorphist. One of the documents ascribed to Origen reveals Melito’s belief in God’s corporeality; therefore, in his heavenly human-like figure. In Selecta in Genesim 25, while commenting on Gen 1:26, Origen affirms that Melito was among the literal interpreters of the Bible in terms of anthropomorphism, and that for Melito the image (εικων) of God in the human being is located in the body (εν σωματι), which is logical for a corporeal understanding of the image. This idea would be, in fact, another common conception with Irenaeus of Lyons. Furthermore, according to Origen, the Bishop of Sardis even wrote about the fact that God had a body (περι του ενσωματον ειναι τον Θεον) (Origen, Sel. Gen. 25 [PG 12.93.11-13].

 

As Griffin and Paulsen evince, the idea that Melito was an anthropomorphist reoccurs in some heresiological literature (Carl W. Griffin and David L. Paulsen, “Augustine and the Corporeality of God,” HTR 95 [2002]: 102, n. 27: “Even though it is not apparent in any of Melito’s extant writings, the charge against him of anthropomorphism persisted in the heresioloigcal literature). Griffin and Paulsen continue their argument supposing that

 

Origen’s assertion about Melito’s συγγραμματα περι του ενσωματον ειναι τον Θεον actually refers to Melito’s lost ο περι ενσωματου θεου λογος (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.26.2). If so, Origen was probably acquainted with the title only and has misunderstood what was certainly a treatise on the incarnation to be a treatise on the corporeal/anthropomorphic nature of God. (Ibid.)

 

Nevertheless, this last assertion is quite implausible, since Jean Daniélou proves that Origen was not only acquainted with the work of the Sadisian bishop but also quoted him a few times (E.g., Comm. Pss. 3.1, Comm. Gen. 1.26, or Comm. Matt. 10.9-11; see Daniélou, “Figure et événment chez Meliton,” in Neotestamentica et patristica: Eine Freundesgabe, Herrn Professor Dr. Oscar Cullman zu seinem 60. Gerburtstag überreicht, SNT 6 [Leiden: Brill, 1962], 290-292.). Consequently, it is very plausible that Origen’s assertion was an accurate description of Melito’s ideas, and the Sardisean was indeed an anthropomorphist.

 

In the same writing, Origen also presents an argument of the Anthropomorphite party; namely, that God has to have a form (μορφη) because he showed himself to Abraham and Moses, and a vision is possible only through the mediation of a form (Origen, Sel. Gen. 25. Two Syriac fragments ascribed [among others] to Melito—namely, Fr. 13.2 [H. 80] and Fr. 14.3 [H. 81]—associate the attribute “immaterial” with the Son. However, Hall deems as questionable the attribution of these fragments to Melito [Hall, Melito of Sardis, xxxiv-vii], which may be an effort of ranking the famous bishop in line with post-Nicene Christology.). . . . In Selecta in Genesim, therefore, Origen describes a system with a large amount of elements usually employed by the defenders of a Divine Form of God. . . . In search of Melito’s genuine, or original, thinking, one has to remove another element which the ancient editors added to his theological thinking; namely, his defense of an incorporeal God. Several fragments of lost Melitonian works describe the Son as incorporeal seem to be spurious. As Stuart Hall observes, fragments 13.2, 14., and the new fragment II 4.34 in which the term “incorporeal” is predicted of the heavenly Son, are also ascribed in other manuscripts to Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Epiphanius, or John Chrysostom (Hall, Melito, 81, n. 56. For the manuscripts preserving these fragments, see Hall, Melito, xxxiii-xxxix.). At the same time, there are no anthropomorphic elements in Peri Pascha (apart from the mention of μορφη θεου). Thus, it may be presumed either that a later editor made some “corrections” to the Melitonian text, or that the Melitonian understanding of μορφη θεου was actually less material than the Orienian text suggests.  (Dragoş Andrei Giulea, Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts: The Case of the Divine Noetic Anthropos [Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae Texts and Studies of Early Christian Life and Language 123; Leiden: Brill, 2014], 27-29)

 

Some elements of eikonic soteriology occur in Melito’s Peri Pascha. While offering his perspective on Genesis 1 and 2 in PP 47-56, Melito narrates in dark nuances Adam’s fall and the disastrous consequences which followed it. He continues by unveiling to his audience the mysterious works and prophetic arrangements of the Logos-Christ in the patriarchs and prophets, as preparations for the great mystery of his incarnation. Likewise, PP 47-56 recounts the creation of the human being first according to Gen 2:7. Although Melito changes the biblical notion of “breath” given from God for the human “soul,” this anthropology will remain emblematic for his vision. In his conception, the human being seems to be the unity of the would and body, as the following passage confirms:

 

At these things [i.e., human crimes] sin (αμαρτια) rejoiced, who in the capacity of death’s fellow worker (του θανατου συνεργος) journeys ahead into the souls (ψυχας) of men, and prepares as food for him the bodies (σωματα) of the dead. In every soul sin made a mark and those in whom he made it were bound to die. So all flesh (σαρξ) began to fall under sin, and every body under death, and every would was driven out of its fleshly dwelling (εκ του σαρκικου οικου εξηλαυνετο). And what was taken form earth was to earth dissolved, and what was given from God was confined in Hades (εις αδη κατεκλειτο); and there was separation (λυσις) of what fitted beautifully (της καλης αρμογης), and the beautiful body (το καλον σωμα) was split apart (διεχωριζετα). (PP 54-55.379-390)

 

The next passage continues the account of the tragedy of the fall in the horizon of a divided and fragmented being, and it finally inserts the concept of an image. In this way, the two passages for together a synthesis of the terrestrial anthropology of Gen 2:7 and the eikonic anthropology of Gen 1:26-27:

 

For man (ανθρωπος) was being divided (μεριζομενος) by death; for a strange disaster and captivity were enclosing (περιειχεν) him, and he was dragged off a prisoner (ειλκετο αιχμαλωντος) under the shadows of death, and desolate (ερημος) lay the Father’s image (η του πατρος εικων). (Hall also confirmes this doctrine: “IF it is true that Melito believed God to be corporeal, the reference is to man as a psychosomatic unity, and the image would not be merely the soul or season” [Hall, Melito, 31, n. 20]. While three particular manuscripts [BCG] preserve the expression του πατρος εικων [Father’s icon], papyrus Chester Beatty has Spirit [ΠΝΣ]).

 

The imagery reflected in such terminology as περιεχω (to encompass, embrace, surround), ειλκετο αιχμαλωντος (was dragged off a prisoner), and ερημος (desolate, lonely, solitary) creates the scenario of a captive or exiled person in a tenebrous realm. This is the post-lapsarian residence of the souls. Related to this, the aforementioned εκ του σαρκικου οικου εχηλαυνετο (was driven out of its fleshly dwelling) reflects the same narrative of the human soul having been taken out of its own flesh, or from its own home.

 

Contrary to what Origen affirms about the theological vision of the Sardisean, Melito seems to identify, at least within this text, the image of God with the human soul imprisoned in Hades, i.e., in the kingdom of death. The image of God does not appear, therefore, to be lost from the unfortunate human being, but rather imprisoned, mutilated, and its flesh amputated. And yet, it is the soul that resides in Hades, and it is the soul that actually constitutes the only remains of the human being: “what was given from God was confined in Hades.” (PP 55.389) (Ibid., 128-30)