The Use of the OT in Melito of Sardis’s Peri Pascha and Its Relationship to Hebrews
(avg. read time: 14–27 mins.)
Introduction
In the paschal homily Peri Pascha attributed to Melito of Sardis, one finds one of the earliest extant post-biblical texts that provide both practice and theoretical framework for the interpretation and use of Scripture therein, and certainly, “the only ancient discussion which could be regarded as in any sense a theoretical explanation of typology.”1 Melito’s hermeneutical theory and practice give readers today a window of insight into early Christian hermeneutical developments and how these insights were forming in the context of close, but contentious relationships with Jews. I find particularly interesting how the dimensions of Melito’s hermeneutical philosophy resemble, but also deviate from, the hermeneutical philosophy embodied in Hebrews. In other words, I argue that Melito of Sardis was a hermeneutical descendant of Hebrews and associated Jewish Christian teachers, though one whose differences with Hebrews also illustrate his character as an interpreter of Scripture.2
As far as I can tell, no scholar has examined this possible relationship in any real depth. Several scholars, especially Alistair Stewart-Sykes, have noted the potential links between Melito and the Gospel according to John (as well as the Johannine school in general), but they generally ignore this other important Jewish Christian text as a source of influence on Melito’s hermeneutics and theology.3 Whatever other implications this argument may have, here I am concerned with how it helps to understand Melito and his use of the OT. To make this argument, I lay out Melito’s use of Scripture in Peri Pascha (with special focus on his organizing theme of typology), note continuities and discontinuities with Hebrews, and conclude with reflections on what the continuities and discontinuities reveal about Melito as an interpreter of Scripture.
Melito’s Use of Scripture
Typology
The most pervasive feature of Melito’s hermeneutical method is his use of typology (3–8, 32–45, 58–69).4 After all, the exposition in general is an exercise in typology as Melito links the original Passover narrative (Exod 12) with Jesus’s passion narrative. Typology is necessary for understanding the mystery of Passover because it is a method that sees the old in the new, the temporal in the eternal, the model in the finished product, and vice versa (4–7).5 It helps one to understand each event, person, or institution in light of the other, since type and anti-type exist in a relationship of double-directedness: the type sketches in foreshadowing the anti-type while the anti-type fulfills the type and thus reveals its ultimate purpose. The language of “type” itself implies the formal similarity between the old and the new, although the new is by nature the reality to which the mark of the type points. Because there is this sense in which the old is contained in the new and the form of the new is contained in the old, Melito can justify his homiletical move in claiming that the angel of death did not turn away from the doors painted in blood because of the blood of those lambs who were slaughtered, but because in them he could see the type of the blood of the Lamb who was slaughtered (32–33).
His direct expression of his theoretical framework for typological exegesis is especially intriguing:
Beloved, no speech or event takes place without a pattern [παραβολῆς] or design [προκεντήματος]; every event and speech involves a pattern [παραβολῆς]–that which is spoken, a pattern [παραβολῆς], and that which happens, a prefiguration [προτυπώσεως]–in order that as the event is disclosed through the prefiguration [προτυπώσεως], so also the speech may be brought to expression through its outline [παραβολῆς].
Without the model [προκατασκευῆς], no work of art arises. Is not that which is to come into existence seen through the model which typifies it [τυπικῆς εἰκόνος]? For this reason a pattern [προκέντημα] of that which is to be is made either out of wax, or out of clay, or out of wood, in order that by the smallness of the model [προκεντήματος], destined to be destroyed, might be seen that thing which is to arise from it–higher than it in size, and mightier than it in power, and more beautiful than it in appearance, and more elaborate than it in ornamentation.
So whenever the thing arises for which the model [τύπος] was made, then that which carried the image [εἰκόνα] of that future thing is destroyed as no longer of use, since it has transmitted its resemblance [εἰκόνα] to that which is by nature true. Therefore, that which once was valuable, is now without value because that which is truly valuable has appeared. (35–37)6
As such, he declares that the things which once had value as a model no longer have value in the wake of that which was modeled. The fulfillment sets aside that which it has fulfilled. The exodus and the Mosaic covenant were surely wondrous, but they were always for the purpose of pointing to the new exodus and the new covenant:
For this one, who was led away as a lamb, and who was sacrificed as a sheep, by himself delivered us from servitude to the world as from the land of Egypt, and released us from bondage to the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh, and sealed our souls by his own spirit and the members of our bodies by his own blood.
This is the one who covered death with shame and who plunged the devil into mourning as Moses did Pharaoh. This is the one who smote lawlessness and deprived injustice of its offspring, as Moses deprived Egypt. This is the one who delivered us from slavery into freedom, from darkness into light, from death into life, from tyranny into an eternal kingdom, and who made us a new priesthood, and a special people forever. (67–68)
Even if that which is old is less significant than that which it modeled and signified, it still helps one to comprehend the mystery of Christ that it foreshadowed. What Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection was nothing less than the new exodus, the event for which the original exodus was only the architectural sketch and sculptor’s model. Jesus confronted that which was greater than Pharaoh (the devil), struck that which was greater than Egypt (injustice) by claiming its would-be offspring as his own, and delivered his people from the greater slavery into the greater freedom, from the eternal darkness into the eternal light, from death beyond the mere consequence of mortality into life beyond the mere continuance of mortality, from the more powerful tyranny into a kingdom more lasting than the dominion of the promised land. And in the end, he declares those who belong to him as a kingdom of priests forever, superior in blessedness and duration to the priesthood and people that had come before them. Now that the fullness of what the types hinted at has come, the types/models/sketches can be set aside.
Of course, it is important to consider the significance of the fate for the features of the old covenant. What did this “setting aside” consist of? It is not entirely clear because this text is a liturgical text, a typically high-context discourse in which the speaker could refer to such ideas generally or in code and the audience would be expected to fill in the rest. For those—like present-day readers—who do not have direct access to that context, it would be irresponsible to try to fill in too much of the code without the requisite knowledge. At the least, the things set aside include the law as binding on believers, membership in Israel as a requirement for the covenant people, the sacrificial system, the temple, and any focus on the earthly Jerusalem as opposed to the heavenly one. One old feature that presumably could not be set aside was Scripture. Even as the scriptures were fulfilled and apparently rendered less important than the Christ event, the scriptures could not themselves be neglected because they were God’s words spoken to and through others in testimony to Jesus, testimony greater than any Christian could offer. They also enabled understanding of the mystery of Christ and the grand story of which he is the center (58). Though the Scripture may be old, it contains the mystery of Christ and his working in the world, which, in the words of Dragos-Andrei Giulea, “remains to be forever new in every process of being rediscovered.”7 Scripture, as the bearer of revelation for the continuity of salvation history in which Christ is always present and active, can never be set aside. On the contrary, because Christ has come, people can now properly understand Scripture as pointing to Christ and therefore understand the true value of Scripture.8
Also of interest here are the scriptures to which Melito applies his typological reading. Obviously, his main argument concerns the Passover narrative in Exod 12 as a type in which Christ was already at work to foreshadow the fuller redemptive reality of the passion narrative. In Melito’s view, the Passover has no value apart from its revelation of the mystery of Christ. The lamb, the people, the deliverance from Egypt, the law that came as a consequence, all of these features of the Passover narrative derive their value from the adumbrated presence of Christ (7, 39–44, 58–60, 67–68).
Apart from the original Passover story in Exodus, Melito also explicitly invokes the stories of Abel, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, and David (59, 69). Naturally, given the focus of his exposition, Melito does not express these typological connections in any detail. Instead, he finds a common axis of analogy in each story that links it to the story of Jesus. Abel was murdered, Isaac was bound as a sacrifice, Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers, Moses was exposed, and David was hunted down. What unites these stories typologically, at least in this context, is their suffering. Christ was in all of them and this truth was most clearly revealed in their suffering, which in turn foreshadowed Jesus’s own passion.
He also finds texts in Deuteronomy (28:66), the Psalms (2:1–2), Jeremiah (11:19), and Isaiah (53:7–8) that justify this typological reading (61–64). In this case, he appeals to Scripture as direct prophecy in order to support reading it typologically. These texts evoke imagery from the Passover and/or from the passion. Due to Melito’s framing of the link between passion and Passover before and after this section, this conflation is justified in his mind.9 Once again, these texts are linked to the passion event in terms of suffering, opposition, and lamb imagery (though one should note that Melito sees the passion narrative from the perspective of its conclusion in the resurrection: 3–4, 8–9, 70–71, 100–105). These texts fit in the context of Melito’s Passover exposition, but it is notable that when these texts appear in the first two centuries after the New Testament, two or more of them often appear together in quotation or allusion. Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Cyprian all cite some of these texts and other similar ones (Justin, Dial. 72; Tertullian, Marc. 4.39–40; Cyprian, Test. 2.15; cf. Tertullian, Res. 20). Such collocations seem to support the existence of testimonia featuring these texts and, at Melito’s stage at least, of derivative-biblical tradition that does not precisely match any other version.10 Thus, in subtle ways and even at the level of the text itself, Melito is a traditional interpreter of his time and place, even though no one else in that context applies typology as extensively as he does.
But of course the first and foremost justification for typological reading is Jesus himself, the one who unites type and anti-type in his own being, for all of salvation history is contained within him (which is the basic message of 9, for all of its problematic imprecision by later theological standards). As such, the knowledge of Jesus’s presence in the Scripture illuminated the Scripture and the earlier Scripture illuminates the later reality that it modeled. Whatever discontinuity there may be between old and new, it is fundamentally at the service of the underlying continuity of salvation history. As Giulea states, “there is only one mystery developed in different grades and stages.”11 The old and new are mutually interpretive precisely because the mystery of Christ resides in both.
And because Jesus reveals the typological nature of the Passover, he also reveals the typological nature of realities attendant to the Passover. The law was revealed as a type for the gospel (according to 39, it pre-proclaimed [προεκηρύχθη] the gospel), the Israelite people were revealed to be a type of preliminary sketch (τύποςπροκεντήματος; 40) for the Christian people, the salvific effects of blood were revealed as a type for the Spirit of the Lord, the earthly temple was revealed as a type for the heavenly Christ, the holy city of Jerusalem on earth was revealed as a type for the Jerusalem coming from above (39–45). In other words, for Melito typology is not simply a means of reading certain parts of Scripture as foreshadowing Christ; it is a means of understanding all of Scripture and all of the reality it shapes.
Melito’s Other Uses of Scripture
Although typology is Melito’s chief means of interacting with the OT, it is not his only means. His main argument in terms of the Passover as the type for Jesus and the Christ event actually begins with a straightforward paraphrase of the Passover regulations in regard to the lamb and its blood (11–15), though by this point the tradition had developed that an angel carried out the judgment on God’s behalf, which differs from what the biblical text itself says.12 His overarching stress on the connection between Passover and passion also shapes what he cites and highlights from these regulations. What follows that invocation prior to his typological argument is a series of haggadic expansions on the story of the death of the Egyptian firstborn (16–29). Such expansions are not surprising for a paschal exposition as Melito adds some vivid verve to the Egyptian side of the story where the biblical narrative gives a laconic summary that leaves the details to the imagination: “there was a loud cry in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead” (Exod 12:30). Thus he adds new dimensions to a story that the audience had surely heard many times before, helping them become increasingly engrossed in it.
Another use of Scripture (46–56) consists of his reference to the story of Adam and Eve as the explanation for why Passover came to be. Specifically, he points to the command in Gen 2:16–17 and its violation. This story is the origin of suffering on the universal scale of humanity because of what the submission to temptation and expulsion from the garden entailed in terms of being shaped by the tempting spirit rather than the will of God (Melito includes in this list of consequences unchastity, corruptibility, dishonor, slavery, tyranny, death, and destruction). It also provides the origin of Jesus’s suffering as that suffering became necessary for the redemption of humanity. But until the fullness of time came, Christ worked throughout salvation history by means of types to prepare for the full reality of redemption through his passion (57–60). Once again, this link between the suffering caused by Adam and Eve and the suffering of Jesus undergirds Melito’s typological reading of Scripture and history.
Although it is not so much a distinctive method of using Scripture, Melito also appeals to Scripture to blame Israel for Jesus’s death (72–99). To this end, he cites fragments of texts from the Psalms (34:4, 12; 40:8 [LXX]) and Isaiah (3:10 [LXX]) as direct prophecy. He then goes on at length to note the tragic irony of it all, that Israel should kill the one who came to save it, who had done so many miracles for the Israelites. While the scriptures may have foretold his passion and while the theme of divine necessity is prominent in New Testament explanations of Jesus’s death, Melito says that this necessity is no excuse for Israel’s iniquity. Jesus needed to suffer, be condemned, and die, but Israel did not need to be the one to do it. To deepen this shameful irony, Melito sets up Pilate as an example of the foreigners who treated the Lord better and glorified him (92).13 For him, it does not matter that the Romans were ultimately his crucifiers; it was the Jews who killed Jesus. As a result, it is Israel who is now in the position of Egypt, sentenced to death and wailing for their dead while another people has taken the place of Israel in the story (94–99). This dimension of Melito’s typological reading lacks the exactness of parallelism in his earlier argument, but it nevertheless demonstrates the flexibility of his typology for the purposes of his rhetoric. Still, this reading of salvation history poignantly presents a surprising reversal in the typological schema. According to Melito, when Israel committed deicide against the one who constituted them as a people—which election and deliverance they commemorate annually in the Passover—they likewise rebelled against their own constitution as God’s people and became the enemies in the paschal narrative. Israel turned out to be a type for another people while Egypt turned out to be a type for Israel.
Melito’s anti-Judaism has, understandably, inspired much discussion over the last several decades.14 Some scholars have offered speculations on Melito’s historical and social context to attempt to explain the extremeness of Melito’s rhetoric, but attempts thus far have been inconclusive at best and misguided at worst.15 The most one can reasonably say is that if Melito was indeed among the Quartodeciman leaders—and thus had substantial similarity with Jewish praxis around the time of Easter/Passover—the extreme rhetoric could have the functions of differentiating and distancing.16 As S. G. Wilson suggests, “The historical relationship between the two traditions made this inevitable, and the attempt to occupy common ground—as with the scriptures, or festivals like Passover—intensified the conflict.”17 Naturally, this point raises the question of theological motivation, which is poignantly related to his typological schema. In other words, what role does Melito’s typology play in his conflict with the Jews? Typology is clearly central to his approach to Scripture and theology, so much so that it is problematic to claim that his typology is simply a consequence of his anti-Judaism, otherwise one would need to argue that the entire structure of his thought on display in this text is anti-Jewish. His more extreme rhetoric later in this text supports his typological claims rather than the other way around (given the placement of the former in the peroratio).18
But what most starkly highlights Melito’s perception of the egregious depth of Israel’s sins is how he reads the passion in the context of salvation history. This use of Scripture works from the aforementioned point that Melito regards Jesus as the unifier of salvation history. Melito’s Christology in relation to theology proper and pneumatology is imprecise by later standards, to the point where some have thought of him as a modalist.19 More likely, Melito is so emphatic in asserting the orthodox position that Jesus is God that clear distinctions between the persons of the Trinity is not his concern so much as it is to reaffirm that position.20 This christocentrism is especially clear in how Melito brings salvation history to bear on how terribly Israel has sinned. That is, he reads salvation history as the action of Jesus in, to, and for the world and especially in, to, and for Israel (81–88). He follows the precedent of many historical reviews/summaries in Scripture (Deut 6:20–25; 11:1–7; Josh 24:2–15; Judg 11:14–27; 1 Sam 12:6–17; 2 Kgs 17; Ezra 9:6–15; Pss 78; 105–106; 135–136; Ezek 16; 20:5–44; 23; Dan 2:31–45; 7; 9:4–19) and brings this history—which he traces from creation—to bear on the narrative present (in this case, the passion), though he offers further specificity in saying that the actions of God in this history are the actions of Christ in this history. At least in this homily, this interpretation of salvation history is the result of a simple equation: Jesus=God, therefore whenever scripture references “God” or “the Lord” one should read “Jesus” or “Christ”.
Melito in Light of Hebrews
Continuity
Typically, scholars link Melito to the Johannine school of thought. Indeed, there are many such connections in terms of hermeneutics, theology, relations to Jews, and even certain key concepts and terms. Although I agree with this proposed connection, I think that elements of the text also evince connections with Hebrews. I demonstrate this continuity by examining typology in Hebrews (specifically focusing on 8:1–10:18) through terminological, schematic, and theological links. I also illustrate the discontinuity between these two texts by considering the relationship with Jews who do not believe in Jesus in both texts, the scope of typology in each, the greater versatility of interaction with the OT in Hebrews, and the eschatological orientation of Hebrews as opposed to Peri Pascha.
Although the author of Hebrews has a rich variety of appeals to the OT and various means by which he or she uses Scripture, typology is clearly important to the overall argument of the text, especially in its placement in 8:1–10:18, where the author contrasts the old and new covenants and their respective features (especially their promises, tabernacles of divine presence, and sacrifices).21 Although there is no complete terminological overlap between the terms used to signify typology in Hebrews and Peri Pascha, the two works feature several overlapping terms and senses at key points that the latter work does not share with John. In 8:5, Hebrews follows the LXX in using τύπος in terms of “pattern/model”. Hebrews is also the only text in the New Testament outside of the Synoptic Gospels to use παραβολή (9:9; 11:19), though in a sense more like Melito of “pattern” or “analogous symbol.” Finally, 10:1 is the only New Testament use of εἰκών (“image/form” or “resemblance”) in a typological sense; that is, applied to an object of the old covenant.
Even where the terms are not exactly the same, they have the same function in the typological scheme and reveal a similar theology. The author refers to the institutions of the old covenant, especially the tabernacle, as ὑπόδειγμα (“pattern”) and σκιά (“shadow”) of the heavenly things to come (8:5; 9:23; 10:1). In other words, they are the lesser realities that point to the fuller ones in their form and function. But, like in Melito’s thought, their insufficiency and imperfection are the “built-in” features of models and foreshadows, since they were never meant to be the final realities of the new covenant (8:6–13; 9:11–15; 10:1–18; cf. 6:13–20; 7:21–22, 25–28).22 The author further reinforces this contrast by drawing on Jer 31:31–34 to distinguish between “old” and “new” (8:8, 13; 9:15; cf. 10:20; 12:24).23 The typological language and the contrast between old and new illustrates the fundamental axis of contrast is historical/eschatological and the spatial/cosmological contrast is at the service of this contrast.24
William Lane’s overall evaluation of these phrases seems sound, and further connects this logic with Melito’s: “Such descriptive phrases show that the old covenant with its cultic provisions is being evaluated and is judged to have had its validity only in reference to the eschatological reality associated with Christ’s definitive sacrifice and exaltation.”25 The author further demonstrates this logic with the language of superior fulfillment and obsolescence. In fact, the term κρείττων occurs more often in Hebrews (fourteen times) than all other New Testament texts combined, six times in 7—9 (7:7, 19, 22; 8:6 [twice]; 9:23).26 Likewise, Hebrews uses the language of obsolescence or “making old” as God has acted in a new way to fulfill better promises that makes the former way obsolete (8:13; cf. 7:18; 9:26). As noted above, this obsolescence is by divine design—revealed in typological interpretation—rather than having to do with inability or refusal of the covenant signatories to obey.27 Just as the tabernacle of mediated divine presence would give way to God’s full presence among his people and access to the throne of God itself because of Jesus (cf. 4:14–16; 10:19–25), the old covenant as a whole would give way to the new covenant and all the better promises thereby entailed.
Discontinuity
For all of the terminological and theological similarities between Melito and the author of Hebrews, there is also significant discontinuity between them that also illuminates what Melito is like as an interpreter of Scripture and what informs him. The first and most striking of these differences is that Hebrews provides no polemic against Israel or the Jews quite like Melito. All references to the Jews who do not believe in Jesus are oblique at best as those who are in conflict with the new covenant community, but that is background noise at best in the world of the text. All references to Israel are historical and that is in terms of OT history rather than the recent history of the incarnate Jesus (8:8, 10; 11:22, 28). Notably, every reference to the causality of Jesus’s death highlights the promises of God in him or Jesus’s submission to God’s will (2:14–17; 5:7; 9:24–28; 10:7–10). Other human agents never come into focus. The author also never indicates that his/her community has now replaced the Jews/Israel. One of the burdens of the whole book is to demonstrate that there are two covenants, but one people of God.28 For all the features of the old covenant taken to be types, the people who adhered to the old covenant was not one of them. Both Melito and the author of Hebrews may write in conflict with the Jews, but Melito constructs his texts and interpretations in a starkly antagonistic way against the Israel of more recent history, whereas the author of Hebrews moves the present-day conflict into the background and never refers to “Israel”, as such, negatively.
This difference indicates how the scope of typology is much broader in Peri Pascha than in Hebrews. Not only does the author of Hebrews not use typology in such an all-encompassing way of interacting with the OT as Melito does, but the former also restricts what he applies typological interpretation to more than Melito. Most importantly, the author does not see the people of the old covenant as typologically related to his/her audience as a model to the thing modeled. Melito’s Christology and typology are thoroughly intertwined and in the particular text of Peri Pascha the christological expression takes its cue largely from the typological argument. For Hebrews, typology is but one tool—important though it is—to illustrate how God has acted in Christ and foretold such by means of the Holy Spirit.
The author of Hebrews is also more versatile in interacting with the OT. On the basic level, the author uses the OT by quotation, allusion, summary, reference to names/topics, recounting narratives, and echoing the LXX.29 On a more complex methodological level, I mention only two prominent features aside from typology here. One, the author does not so much provide haggadic expansions on stories as christological expansions on prophecies.30 Two, particularly with the Psalms and especially in chapter 1, the author engages in the practice of prosopological exegesis (cf. Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 36.1–2; Irenaeus, Epid., 49–50; Origen, Comm. Rom. 2.11.2).31 That is, he understands many texts as direct divine speech, with the human authors therefore conveying God’s (or sometimes Christ’s or the Spirit’s) own speech as first-person speech (1:5–14; 2:11–13; 3:7–11; 4:3, 7; 5:5–6; 7:17, 20–22; 10:5–10). This latter practice in particular, crucial to Hebrews, is without parallel in Melito’s work. Still, even if Melito shows no concern in this particular text for hearing God’s direct speech throughout history, his typology enables him to have an alternative way of envisioning God’s action throughout history (as noted above in regard to Melito’s unified view of salvation history as the history of Christ’s action).
Finally, Hebrews has an eschatological orientation that is lacking in Peri Pascha.32 This orientation results in such features as the emphasis on Jesus’s exaltation (and the kingdom theme thereby implied; 1:3, 13; 2:5–9; 7:26; 8:1; 10:12–13; 12:2, 25–29), the promise of the coming world (2:5–18), the promise of God’s rest (3:7–4:11), the anticipated city with foundations (that is, the future Zion; 11:8–16; 12:18–24; 13:10–16), and of course the belief that Jesus will appear once more, this time to consummate the salvation of those who wait for him (9:28). The author of Hebrews surely sees the Christ event as eschatologically central, the climax to which salvation history has been building, but other promises remain to be fulfilled. Though it is impossible to articulate Melito’s eschatology due to lack of evidence, the absence of a similar eschatological orientation is notable. The most that one can conclude based on his typology is that he sees in the Christ event—especially in the passion—eschatological events that have already happened. Whatever other eschatological events may come to pass—if there are any to come to pass in his view—he is simply not concerned to articulate beliefs about them, unlike the author of Hebrews.
Conclusion
Melito of Sardis, like the author of Hebrews, was a rhetorically gifted exegete of Scripture. He seems to have drawn several ideas—specifically concerning typology and the relationship of old and new covenants—from Hebrews (or at least from a common well with Hebrews). He has also deviated from that text in several ways, differences which may be attributable to the different lengths and natures of the texts in question, different historical and cultural contexts, and/or different theologies. In any case, both the continuities and discontinuities between Peri Pascha and Hebrews illustrate the following characteristics of Melito as an interpreter.
One, for all that Melito may have drawn on Hebrews for his typological foundation (both linguistically and conceptually), he has significantly expanded the scope of that typology in terms of what he applies it to and in terms of how much of his theology it shapes. This typological interpretation works mimetically in two directions in that Melito understands what is old (Passover, the old covenant institutions, and so on) in light of what is new (Christ’s passion, the new covenant, and so on) and vice versa. Even his uses of Scripture that are not typology ultimately link back conceptually to his typological method. Two, while Melito is silent about hearing the voice of God throughout history in terms of identifying texts as direct divine speech, he emphasizes seeing the action of Christ throughout history (since Christ is the unifier of salvation history). He does less in reading texts christocentrically than he does in reading scriptural events and institutions christocentrically. Three, Melito’s negativity toward the Jews of recent history is without parallel in Hebrews in how pronounced it is and in how Melito thusly polemicizes the scriptural narrative of salvation history against this rival group of people who do not believe in Jesus. Naturally, it follows that another feature without parallel in Hebrews is how he uses this antagonistic relationship to support his typology. Four, Melito’s account of salvation history primarily from the angle of connecting Passover to passion clearly has an eschatological layer to it because he is tracing this history to its climax in the full revelation of Christ in his life, death, and resurrection, but he is so focused on this typological point in this text that he does not provide any further indication of how his eschatology has been shaped (or not shaped) by interaction with the OT beyond his interpretation of Christ. His homily is more concerned with how the story has gone up to that time rather than where it is going from there. He is more concerned with remembrance and in understanding what is being remembered in the passion of Christ. In that way, from Melito’s perspective, Peri Pascha is about keeping Passover in the truest sense by remembering what God has done in that passion for which the Passover was only a preview of the coming show on the stage of salvation history.
Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1997), 193. For other second-century statements of hermeneutical principles, see Justin, Dial. 114; Irenaeus, Haer. 4.9–13. While most scholars accept the assignment of this text to Melito of Sardis, mainly on the basis of connecting this text with Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 4.26; 5.24), one should note the critical arguments of Lynn H. Cohick (The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting Purpose, and Sources, BJS 327 [Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000], 12–39). Since these arguments have not received widespread acceptance and since the acceptance of them would only change the name of the author I describe here, I am fine with referring to the author as simply “Melito” from here on.
In what follows, I use “Scripture” and “OT” interchangeably.
On Johannine connections, see Cohick, Peri Pascha, 94–95; Dragos-Andrei Giulea, “Seeing Christ Through Scriptures at the Paschal Celebration: Exegesis as Mystery Performance in the Paschal Writings of Melito, Pseudo-Hippolytus, and Origen,” OCP 74 (2008): 32–35; John Hainsworth, “The Force of the Mystery: Anamnesis and Exegesis in Melito’s Peri Pascha,” SVTQ 46 (2002): 119–20, 124, 130; Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Lamb’s High Feast: Melito, Peri Pascha and the Quatrodeciman Paschal Liturgy at Sardis, VCSup 42 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 36–42, 51–59, 96–99, 134–36; idem, “Melito’s Anti-Judaism.” JECS 5 (1997): 279–81; idem, ed., On Pascha: With the Fragments of Melito and Other Material Related to the Quartodecimans (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), passim; Thomas F. Torrance, “Dramatic Proclamation of the Gospel: Homily on the Passion by Melito of Sardis,” GOTR 37 (1992): 154–55; S. G. Wilson, “Passover, Easter, and anti-Judaism: Melito of Sardis and Others,” in ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 352.
For the purposes of this analysis, I define typology—or at least the typology of concern to Melito—as a method of interpretation that is mimetic in two directions in that it understands a person/people, event, or institution through the analogous correspondence to an earlier or later one (depending on what the interpreter is referencing). It is a theory of unification that understands the earlier type and the later fulfilling anti-type (the “true/full reality” to which the type points) in light of each other in order to place them in a singular worldview narrative. Cf. the differing views of G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 13–25; Leonhard Goppelt, Typos: The Typological Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, trans. Donald H. Madvig (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 4–18; Henry M. Knapp, “Melito’s Use of Scripture in Peri Pascha: Second-Century Typology,” VC 54 (2000): 348–52; Stewart-Sykes, On Pascha, 31–34; Torrance, “Proclamation,” 153; Young, Exegesis, 152–57, 192–200.
Stewart-Sykes (High Feast, 86–89) suggests that Melito’s rhetorical and philosophical training would have led him to look at Scripture as a riddle that hides divine wisdom and typology as the means by which to unravel it.
All translations of this text are from Melito of Sardis, “On the Passover,” Kerux 4 (1989): 5–35, URL: http://www.kerux.com/doc/0401A1.asp.
Giulea, “Seeing Christ,” 36.
Cf. Hainsworth, “Mystery,” 132–34; Knapp, “Typology,” 370–73.
In 46, Melito also supports this frame by making what was a popular etymological connection between πάσχα and πάσχειν (“to suffer”) due to the consonance of sound. For more, see Torrance, “Proclamation,” 149.
Cohick, Peri Pascha, 89–146; Knapp, “Typology,” 358–62.
Giulea, “Seeing Christ,” 32.
On the characteristics of Melito’s Exod 12 text, see Cohick, Peri Pascha, 102–13.
Contra Stewart-Sykes (On Pascha, 26), the Romans have not disappeared from the passion narrative in Melito’s account, even if their role is decidedly muted compared to the Jews.
Cohick, Peri Pascha, 52–87; Andrew M. Manis, “Melito of Sardis: Hermeneutic and Context,” GOTR 32 (1987): 398–400; David Satran, “Anti-Jewish Polemic in the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis: The Problem of Social Context,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics Between Christians and Jews (Tübingen: Mohr, 1996), 49–58; Stewart-Sykes, “Anti-Judaism,” passim; Wilson, “Passover,” passim.
For example, while a previous generation of scholars, as exemplified by A. T. Kraabel (“Melito the Bishop and the Synagogue at Sardis: Text and Context,” in Studies Presented to George M. A. Hanfmann, ed. David Gordon Mitten, John Griffiths Pedley, and Jane Ayer Scott [Mainz: von Zabern, 1971], 77–85), linked this rhetoric to a wildly imbalanced power relationship based on the enormous Jewish synagogue in Sardis, more recent scholarship has duly noted that this place was not a synagogue until the fourth century and thus cannot be used to make conclusions about Jewish social influence in the second century. See Judith M. Lieu, Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 199–206; Satran, “Anti-Jewish,” 49–55; Stewart-Sykes, On Pascha, 13. One could also include Cohick (Peri Pascha, passim) here, though she doubts the provenance of Sardis for this text.
Cf. Manis, “Hermeneutic,” 398; Satran, “Anti-Jewish,” 58; Stewart-Sykes, “Anti-Judaism,” 274; idem, On Pascha, 27; Wilson, “Passover,” 339–43, 349–50.
Wilson, “Passover,” 349.
For more on the rhetorical structure, see Frankie J. Melton Jr., “Preaching and Melito’s Use of Greco-Roman Rhetoric,” BSac 167 (2010): 473–80; Stewart-Sykes, On Pascha, 14–22.
E.g., Wilson, “Passover,” 352.
Cohick, Peri Pascha, 61; Stewart-Sykes, On Pascha, 29.
For overviews on the use of the OT in Hebrews, see Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NICNT (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 41–49; Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster: 1993), 37–42; George H. Guthrie, “Hebrews” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 919–23; William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, WBC 47A (Dallas: Word, 1991), cxii–cxxiv. For more detailed analyses, see Susan Docherty, The Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews, WUNT 2/260 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 144–200; Barry C. Joslin, Hebrews, Christ, and the Law: The Theology of the Mosaic Law in Hebrews 7:1-10:18 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), passim; King L. She, The Use of Exodus in Hebrews, StBibLit 142 (New York: Lang, 2011), 127–47.
Philip Church, Hebrews and the Temple: Attitudes to the Temple in Second Temple Judaism and in Hebrews, NovTSup 171 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 431; Joslin, Hebrews, 183–85, 252–55.
Ole Jakob Filtveldt, The Identity of God’s People and the Paradox of Hebrews, WUNT 2/400 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 93–94.
Church, Temple, 405–11; Cockerill, Hebrews, 28–32, 359–62, 416; Lane, Hebrews 1-8, 206–8; She, Exodus, 134–35. Contra Ellingworth, Hebrews, 491.
Lane, Hebrews 9-13, 248. Cf. Church, Temple, 410; Cockerill, Hebrews, 359–60; Joslin, Hebrews, 245–49.
While Melito does not use this adjective, he uses the contrast of τίμιος (“valuable/precious”) and ἄτιμος (“valueless/worthless”).
Filtveldt, Identity, 92. Contra Cockerill, Hebrews, 366.
Filtveldt, Identity, 121–41.
Cockerill, Hebrews, 41; Guthrie, “Hebrews,” 919; Lane, Hebrews 1-8, cxvi.
Joslin, Hebrews, 204–6.
Harold W. Attridge, Essays on John and Hebrews, WUNT 2/264 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 326–28; Matthew W. Bates, The Birth of the Trinity: Jesus, God, and Spirit in New Testament and Early Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 33–35, 140–46, 170–74; Cockerill, Hebrews, 44–46; Docherty, Use, 144–81.
For more on what follows, see Church, Temple, 274–388.