Melito as Christophany: The Word of God in the Mouth of the Prophet in his Peri PaschaFor Melito, the revelation of the Gospel is the Hebrew Passover’s true antitype, subsisting fully in the person of the suffering Christ. Early in Peri Pascha, he proclaims that what was “old with respect to law” is also “new with respect to the word” (Peri Pascha 3). He therefore prepares his hearers, or at least his readers, for the newness and vitality of the word with a dense exposition of Hebrew traditional types and their fulfillment in Christ, the Word of God. The work crescendoes into a stunning — unconventional by modern standards — prophetic outburst in which Christ speaks in the first person through Melito. What better dramatic climax for this hymn to Christ as telos and eschaton of the Law than that the Word of God should reveal himself from heaven in the speaker of the word? With its emphasis on revelation, Peri Pascha may certainly be understood as a kind of apocalypse. When Melito speaks in the first person as Christ, the apocalypse turns Christophany... Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Seán McMahon to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. A subscription gets you:
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