Robert M. Grant - Melito of Sardis on Baptism (article)

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Melito of Sardis on Baptism Author(s): Robert M. Grant Source: Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan., 1950), pp. 33-36Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1582311Accessed: 02-03-2015 18:53 UTC

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MELITO OF SARDIS ON BAPTISM

BY

ROBERT M. GRANT

Melito of Sardis not only possessed an elegans et declamatorium

ingenium (Tertullian in Jerome, De viris inlustr. 24), but also was concerned with philosophical topics. In his apology he spoke of Christianity as ,,our philosophy" (Eusebius, H. E. iv. 26. 7), and the titles of several of his lost works reveal his use of

philosophical language. He wrote On the Subjection of the Senses to Faith, On the Unity of Soul and Body, 1 On Truth, On Faith, On Hospitality, and On the Corporeal God (Eusebius, I. E. iv. 26. 2). Some of these topics may take their texts from the epistle to the Hebrews (5.14 on the exercise of the senses, 13. 2 on hospitality, 12.29 God a fire). The first and the last, however, reflect con-

temporary Stoic thought, according to which the senses served the principal part of the soul, where tad-rtg, a "firm comprehen- sion", took place (SVF III 548; cf. II 823-62), and according to which God was corporeal (SVF II 1028-48). In the Stoic- Jewish IV Maccabees 2.22, it is the mind which controls the senses. 2

The most recent text of a fragment of Melito's treatise On Baptism was printed by Harnack in his Marcion: das Evangelium vom fremden Gott (ed. 2, Leipzig, 1924), pp. 421*-23*. For Harnack its importance lay in the last sentence. "If the sun with the stars and moon is washed in the Ocean, why is not Christ also washed in the Jordan?" This he regarded as proving that the treatise was intended to refute Marcion, whose gospel

1 We may conjecturally emend the corrupt text (cf. the apparatus of Schwartz, p. 382) to read zseel pvX; xai oowitazo; dv6OTo;; the separation of soul from body is discussed by Melito in his Homily on the Passion 54-56.

2 Cf. also J. H. Waszink, Tertulliani De Anima (Amsterdam, 1947), 219-67. We may compare the title of the ninth Hermetic tractate: Iseoi ooeasco; xa aiaO,orsos. Faith is discussed in C. H. ix. 10, p. 100

Nock-Festugiere. Melito also wrote q xlEsti, the same title as C. H. x.

3


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R. M. GRANT

omits any account of Jesus' baptism. We may compare another

passage in Melito which shows that the baptism of Jesus had

great theological significance for him. This is a fragment from his work on the Incarnation (frag. 6 Otto, p. 415), in which he explains that Jesus' deity was evident from the miracles of his three years' ministry after the baptism, and his humanity from the thirty years' concealment before that time.

Harnack observes that "das ganz rhetorische und daher echt kleinasiatische Fragment hat sein Akumen in der Verteidigung der Taufe Jesu im Jordan". A decade ago the recovery of Melito's

Homily on the Passion (edited by Campbell Bonner) confirmed the accuracy of Harnack's remark on rhetoric (cf. the important study of A. Wifstrand in Vig. Chr. 2 [1948], 201-23, with Bonner's remarks, 3 [1949], 184f.). The fragment On Baptism, however, is not only rhetorical but also philosophical. 3

According to Melito, water is used in smelting gold, silver, copper, and iron. The whole earth is washed by rains and rivers.

Egypt is washed by the overflow of the Nile. The air itself is washed by rain. These analogies, commonplaces of the Stoic defence of providence, are very similar to the parallels which

Theophilus of Antioch provides for the chrism associated with

baptism (Ad Autolycum i. 12). Theophilus tells us that ships, towers, houses, babies, athletes, and statues are ,,anointed", 4

and like Melito concludes with the statement that the air and the whole earth under the heaven are ,,anointed" with light and air. The idea of these analogies, if not the analogies themselves, may well come from Melito. In passing we may observe that the

analogical method as used by these apologists was later criticized. Tertullian (De bapt. 3) refuses to use it ne laudes aquae potius quam baptismi rationes videar congregasse; and Cyril of Jerusalem

(Catech. xxi. 3, PG, 1089) explicitly states that Christian chrism is not natural ointment.

Melito goes on to provide another example, this time from

3 We may compare the similar interests of Irenaeus; cf. Harv. Theol. Rev. 42 (1949), 41-51.

4 Ships are calked, houses whitewashed, babies and athletes anointed, and statues waxed and polished.

34



MELITO OF SARDIS ON BAPTISM

mythology. ,,There is washed even the blossoming mother of rains, Iris, whenever, invoked by a water-bringing spirit [or wind], she fills the rivers at the time of downpourings". It seems strange to us that the rainbow precedes the rain, but M. Mayer (in Roscher's Auslfuhrliches Lexicon ii. 321) gives examples from many writers near Melito's time (e.g. Ovid, Metam. i. 270; "some ancient

poet" quoted by Tzetzes on Iliad xv. 83). 5

Finally he turns to describe the "washing" of the heavenly bodies in the Ocean. This is "a new sight". 6

The sun, accomplishing the day's course with his fiery steeds, becomes fiery in the whirling of his course and is lighted like a lamp, burning up the middle zone of his course. As he appears near with ten lightning rays he beats the earth and goes importunate into the ocean.

As a copper globe, full of fire within, flashing much light, is washed in cold water, with a great noise, but the fire within is not quenched but again flashes fierily - so the sun, burning like lightning, is washed wholly but not extinguished in cold water, having its fire unquenched; washed in a mystic baptism he rejoices exceedingly, having the water for nourishment; for remaining one and the same he rises as a new sun to men, made strong from the deep, purified from the baptism, driving out the darkness of night, he begat the light of day.

On this course also the movement of the stars and of the moon by nature operates; for they are washed at the baptistery of the sun, like good disciples; for the stars with the moon follow in the path of the sun, having pure light. 7

Except for the obviously Christian elements which bind this

passage to baptism, every item in it is derived from Stoic exegesis of Homer. The most important parallel we possess is a section of Macrobius (Sat. i. 23), which as K. Reinhardt has observed

(Kosmos und Sympathie [Munich, 1926], 353-65) is derived from Posidonius. It is exegesis of Iliad i. 423-25.

In Macrobius we find the winged chariot of the sun, a reference to the torrid zone, to the stars which follow the sun and are nourished by the same moisture from the Ocean - all from

5 Cf. H. Diels, Poetarum philosophorum fragmenta (Berlin, 1901), 127. 6 Similarly Theophilus, Ad. Autol. i. 13, stresses the importance of a

celestial parallel. 7 This translation is taken from my Second Century Christianity (London,

1946), 74, with two slight alterations.

35



Posidonius. We also know that Posidonius divided the earth into five zones, the middle one being the torrid (Diogenes Laertius vii. 156, Strabo 94). The washing of the sun in a warm bath is described in a fragment of Aeschylus (192 Nauck) preserved in a Homeric discussion of Strabo 33 (from Posidonius), and the

flashing flame of the sun is mentioned, as well as the stables of his horses, in a fragment of Euripides (771 Nauck) found in the same place. The ,,striking" of the sun's rays is emphasized by Cleanthes (SVF I 502), whose ideas of the importance of the sun

strongly influenced Posidonius. Thus in composing his De Baptismo Melito has relied on Stoic

exegesis of Homer, presumably from Posidonius or his school. Edwin Hatch 8 long ago pointed out the Homeric exegesis present in the Cohortatio of Pseudo-Justin and in Clement of Alexandria. There are a good many Homeric quotations and allusions in

Theophilus of Antioch, and several in Justin and Tatian. But Melito is the first Christian writer in whom we find Stoic exegetical theology newly baptized for Christian use.

Sewanee (Tennessee), University of the South

8 E. Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (London, 1901), 69f.

Another example of Melito's Hellenism may be found in his Homily on the Passion 96-97 (p. 157 Bonner). Not only in form but also in content it resembles the conclusion of the panegyric on Julius Caesar ascribed to Marcus Antonius by Dio Cassius (Hist. XLIV, 49).

I am grateful to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the University of the South for assistance in the studies of which this paper forms a part.

36 R. M. GRANT



Article Contentsp. [33]p. 34p. 35p. 36

Issue Table of ContentsVigiliae Christianae, Vol. 4, No. 1, Jan., 1950Volume InformationFront MatterQuelques observations sur l'evolution stylistique du Canon de la messe romain [pp. 1 - 19]La traduction primitive de dans les anciens psautiers latins [pp. 20 - 32]Melito of Sardis on Baptism [pp. 33 - 36]Augustinus und Julius Africanus: Eine Quellenkritische Untersuchung [pp. 37 - 45]Influssi Lucreziani in Prudenzio: un suo Poema Lucreziano e Antiepicureo: I [pp. 46 - 60]Gynaeconitis: A Centre of Christian Propaganda [pp. 61 - 64]

Robert M. Grant - Melito of Sardis on Baptism (article)

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