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)
