Context: Discussing Lines 732-47 of On Pascha:
It is worth noting, secondly, how
Melito’s Christology affects his assessment of Israel’s past. The typological
foreshadowing of Jesus in the scriptures is central, but Melito resorts to a
form of modalism in which Christ is seen to be not only prefigured by, but also
a participant in, the events of Israel’s past. Not only was Abel murdered,
Isaac bound, Joseph sold, Moses exposed, and David persecuted (lines 415-24),
but Christ too was murdered, bound, sold, exposed, and persecuted with them (lines
479-88). The shift from typological prefiguration to modalist participation in
Melito’s fluid Christology strengthens the claim to Israel’s tradition while it
compounds Israel’s guilt in rejecting Christ, for he was not just prefigured in
their past, he was their past. (Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers:
Jews and Christians, 70-170 C.E. [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995], 245)
