reflection will show that the two classes of writings must be considered
quite apart. When these groundless objections are set aside, the great
majority of the Greek and Syriac fragments remain untouched. Otto, the
most recent editor of Melito, takes a sensible view on the whole. I do
not agree with him on some minor points, but I am quite content to take
the fragments which he accepts, as representing the genuine Melito; and
I refer those of my readers, who are really desirous to know what this
ancient father taught and how he wrote, to this editor's collection.

We have fortunately the evidence of two writers, who lived in the next
age to Melito, and therefore before any spurious works could have been
in circulation--the one to his style, the other to his theology. On the
former point our authority is Tertullian, who in a work now lost spoke
of the 'elegans et declamatorium ingenium' of Melito [229:2]; on the
latter, a writer quoted anonymously by Eusebius but now identified with
Hippolytus, who exclaims, 'Who is ignorant of the books of Irenaeus and
Melito and the rest, which declare Christ to be God and man' [230:1].
The fragments, and more especially the Syriac fragments, accord fully
with both these descriptions. They are highly rhetorical, and their
superior elegance of language (compared with other Christian writings of
the same age) is apparent even through the medium of a Syriac version.
They also emphasize the two natures of Christ in many a pointed
antithesis.

Of the Greek fragments, not mentioned by Eusebius, the following quoted
by Anastasius of Sinai as from the third book on the Incarnation of
Christ [230:2] is important in its bearing on our subject:--

The things done by Christ after the baptism, and especially the
miracles (signs), showed his Godhead concealed in the flesh, and
assured the world of it. For being perfect God, and perfect man at
the same time, He assured us of His two essences ([Greek:
ousias])--of His Godhead by miracles in the three years after His
baptism, and of His manhood in the thirty seasons ([Greek:
chronois]) before His baptism, during which, owing to his
immaturity as regards the flesh ([Greek: dia to ateles to kata
sarka]), He concealed the signs of His Godhead, although He was
true God from eternity ([Greek: kaiper Theos alethes proaionios
huparchon]).

The genuineness of this fragment has been impugned, partly on