Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 167:668 (Oct 2010)
Article: Preaching and Melito’s Use of Greco-Roman Rhetoric
Author: Frankie J. Melton, Jr.

BSac 167:668 (October-December 2010) p. 460

Preaching and Melito’s Use of Greco-Roman Rhetoric

Frankie J. Melton Jr.

Frankie J. Melton Jr. is Pastor, Heath Springs Baptist Church, Heath Springs, South Carolina.

The word “rhetoric” is often viewed pejoratively and as mere grandiloquent speech-making. However, rhetoric and Christian preaching have had a long relationship. Melito’s paschal homily demonstrates that this relationship began much earlier than first thought. The discovery of Melito’s Peri Pascha in the late 1930s is opening new vistas for the study of preaching in the early church. The wedding of Christian preaching and Greco-Roman rhetoric leaps from every line of this second-century homily.

Before the emergence of Peri Pascha, Second Clement was considered the lodestar of preaching in the early church. White declares, “Prior to the discovery of that work [i.e., Peri Pascha], it was usual to assume that early preaching after the apostles was (as indicated by so-called Second Clement) rather poor, loosely organized, rustic and quite unpolished, probably mostly extempore, certainly innocent of the skills and conventions of rhetoric until such men as Hippolytus and Origen, two generations later than Melito. We had thought that, as one historian puts it, ‘the age of eloquence began in the third century.’ “1 Homileticians and historians viewed Hippolytus as the first Christian preacher to use “an elegant and profuse application of rhetorical devices.”2 However, even a casual reader of Melito’s homily would be impressed by the elaborate style and ornate rhetorical constructions he employed. The purpose of

BSac 167:668 (October-December 2010) p. 461

this article is to analyze Melito’s Peri Pascha as sermonic material in his use of Scripture and his use of classical rhetoric.

The Life Of Melito

Melito was the bishop of Sardis in the last quarter of the second century. Information about his life is scanty. The date of his birth and its location cannot be determined. However, as White avers, there is no reason to believe he was anything other than a native of Sardis.3 Knowledge of Melito’s life comes from two sources, Eusebius and Tertullian. Eusebius stated, “About this time flourished Hegesippus, whom we quoted above. Also Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, and Pinytus bishop of Crete. Moreover, Philip and Apollinaris and Melito.”4 More importantly Eusebius preserved a letter written about A.D. 200 by Poly...