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Remains of the Second and Third Centuries · VI. He that bore up the earth was borne up on a tree. The Lord was subjected to ignominy with naked body—God put to death, the King of Israel slain!

Fragments

Page 1,416 of 1,440

I.

From the Work on the Passover.3604

When Servilius Paulus was proconsul of Asia, at the time that Sagaris3605 suffered martyrdom, there arose a great controversy at Laodicea concerning the time of the celebration of the Passover, which on that occasion had happened to fall at the proper season;3606 and this treatise was then written.3607

Notes

  1. 3602

    By the holy Melito, bishop of the city of Ittica. [For Melito, in Lightfoot's Apost. Fathers, consult part ii. vol. i. pp. 133, 328, 428, 443-446, 468-469, 494. See Lardner, Credib., vol. ii. 157, etc.; Westcott, Canon, p. 246. See Polycrates, infra; on which consult Schaff, History, etc., vol. ii. p. 736. Above all, see Routh, R. S., tom. i. pp. 113-153.]

  2. 3603

    The following Fragments of Melito are translated from the Greek, except No. IX., which is taken from the Latin.

  3. 3604

    In Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 26. [Melito wrote two books on the Paschal and one On the Lord's Day (ho peri kuriakes logos), according to Eusebius. But is this On the Lord's Day other than one of the books on the Paschal? It may be doubted. Routh refers us to Barnabas. See vol. i. cap. 15, note 7, p. 147, this series. See also Dionysius of Corinth, infra.]

  4. 3605

    He was bishop of Laodicea, and suffered martyrdom during the persecution under M. Aurelius Antonius.—Migne.

  5. 3606

    The churches of Asia Minor kept Easter on the fourteenth day from the new moon, whatever day of the week that might be; and hence were called Quartodecimans. Other churches, chiefly those of the West, kept it on the Sunday following the day of the Jewish passover. In the case here referred to, the 14th of the month occurred on the Sunday in question.

  6. 3607

    Migne, not so naturally, punctuates otherwise, and renders, "which had happened then to fall at the proper season, and on that occasion this treatise was written."

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe (1885–96). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.