Formerly it was thought that Christian rhetoric did not begin until the fourth and fifth centuries. The discovery, however, of a sermon by Melito, bishop of Sardis, known as “On the Passover” suggests that a tradition of skilled rhetoric and sermon construction had begun earlier. Melito’s sermon carefully blends typology, analogy, and parallelism. Scholars now believe that two distinctive styles of preaching existed in the second century: the unstructured, informal homily of the lay person and the highly developed oration typified in “On the Passover.”
The Importance of the Sermon
The sermon of Melito “On the Passover” is the work of the famous and influential bishop of Sardis who is known to have written voluminously but whose literary productions have been almost entirely lost. The discoveries have identified not only the sermon but have also enabled scholars to correctly assign authorship to other ancient fragments wrongly assigned until now. It is an important discovery because it sheds new light on the content and style of Christian preaching in the second century and causes previously accepted theories on the subject to be reconsidered.
The Content of the Homily
The theme of the sermon is immediately announced to be the Passover as a prefiguration of the passion of Christ. The Passover in ancient Egypt was a temporal event, establishing the chosen people under the law. But it was also a timeless event because it was the prototype of the sacrifice of the True Lamb, establishing the church under grace. This dual nature of the Passover is a reflection of the dual nature of Christ, who suffered and died as a man but was raised as God, being by nature both God and man.
The sermon moves next to an elaborate and highly imaginative account of the story of the Passover; the destruction of the firstborn and the desolation of Egypt are related in vivid detail. Israel is protected from the death angel by the blood on the doors, which, in Melito’s thorough typology, is not the blood of the sheep but the spirit of the slain Christ.
This typology continues: in an elaborate analogy the old dispensation under the law is likened to a poorly constructed and temporary pattern from which an artisan works; the finished work of beauty and perfection is the new dispensation under grace through the passion of Christ. The pattern rendered useless by the emergence of the finished perfection is discarded and replaced by the reality. Thus, the law is valueless, replaced by the gospel which it prefigured; the people of Israel are supplanted, replaced by the church they prefigured; the Passover with the sacrifice of the sheep, now useless, is replaced by the blood of Christ’s passion which it prefigured. Old Jerusalem is replaced by eternal Jerusalem; the Passover lamb is replaced by the Lamb of God.
Turning then to humanity, Melito rehearses humankind’s fall to depravity and the pervasive need for the sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice is seen to be foreshadowed in the heroes of Israel, who in their actions were really prefigurations of Christ. He moves on to an elaborate denunciation of the Jews for their treatment of Jesus and concludes with a peroration in which Christ himself enumerates the details of his saving actions on behalf of humanity. A doxology to Christ closes the sermon.
Implications for Preaching
The homily brings to light a new episode in the struggle of Christian preaching to use rhetoric without being captured by it. A question asked by Yngve Brillioth in Predikans Historia is quite appropriate: “Was biblical realism to be submerged by this flood of rhetorical craftsmanship which, however exquisite in its kind, was surely … alien to the spirit of the gospels … ?” During the Middle Ages, particularly in sermons aimed more toward the clergy than the laity, the battle was lost. Using all the cruel text-twisting of allegorical interpretation and all the elaborately detailed and intricately embellished ornamentation of scholastic rhetoric, the sermon’s subject was of so little importance and the real intent of Scripture so ill-considered by the preacher that sermons were nothing at all save literary fabrications.
Historians have long maintained that the flirtation with rhetoric did not affect Christian preaching seriously until the time of Hippolytus; he has been stigmatized as the first to succumb and use Greek rhetoric with abandon in preaching. The third and fourth centuries have been characterized as the “oratorical period,” and some tried to explain why the sermon remained largely unadorned until the Cappadocian Fathers, crowned by John Chrysostom, accomplished a proper wedding of the old “prophesying” and Asian rhetoric.
Melito’s sermon sweeps away all such notions that preaching in the second century was still as simple and unstructured as 2 Clement has led us to believe. The question must seriously be faced whether elaborate rhetoric was in use, not only by Melito but by others, a generation earlier than we had thought. Not all of Melito’s devices of rhetoric are noted here. His elaborate use of typology, analogy, and parallelism are, however, only pale reflections of what must be called an elegant and profuse application of rhetorical devices. One author even calls it “artificial.” Melito was certainly—what some have said was not to be found until the third century—a “conscious orator,” and in him, the oratorical period may have been born quite early in Christian history. Melito’s sermon “On the Passover” warrants his inclusion in works on the Fathers, perhaps as the earliest known Christian orator.
It may be possible to distinguish two kinds of preaching in the second century: the unstructured, unlearned, moralizing sermon that 2 Clement represents; and the kind of address later defined as “an oration delivered from the pulpit with full development and rhetorical effect.” Melito represents the latter and may thus be the earliest known preacher of a “sermon.” His theology is a gospel of grace, whereas 2 Clement promotes legalistic obedience.