MELITO OF SARDIS ON BAPTISM BY

ROBERT M. GRANT

Melito of Sardis not only possessed an elegans et declamatorium ingenium ( in , De viris inlustr. 24), but also was concerned with philosophical topics. In his apology he spoke of Christianity as "our philosophy" (, 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 1 to Faith, On the Unity of Soul and Body, On Truth, On Faith, On Hospitality, and On the Corporeal God (Eusebius, H. 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 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 f remden 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 34 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 Pczssion (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], 184 f.). The fragment On Baptism, 3 however, is not only rhetorical but also philosophical. 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 provides for the chrism associated with baptism (Ad Autolycusn 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 poti?us quam baptismi rationes videar congregasse; and (Catecla. xxi. 3, PG, 1089) explicitly states that Christian chrism is not natural ointment. Melito goes on to provide another example, this time from