Melito's canon


Melito's canon is the biblical canon attributed to Melito of Sardis, one of the early Church Fathers of the 2nd century.

Earliest Christian canon of the Old Testament

Melito provides what is possibly the earliest known Christian canon of what he termed the "Old Testament", having traveled to Palestine seeking to acquire accurate information about which books should be accepted as canonical. Other candidates for earliest Christian canon include the Bryennios List and the Muratorian fragment.
The Catholic Encyclopedia states that "Melito's canon consists exclusively of the protocanonicals minus Esther".
Nehemiah and Lamentations are also not mentioned, but the former is thought to be part of Ezra, and Lamentations being part of Jeremiah. Melito's canon does not include the deuterocanonical books, except for the possible inclusion of the Book of Wisdom, which is disputed.

Eusebius' record of Melito

Melito's canon is found in Eusebius EH4.26.13–14:

Comparison with Athanasius' books

is often quoted as endorsing 39 books in his Old Testament, rejecting any apocryphal writings. However, his 39 books are different from the Protestant canon in that he rejects Esther and includes Baruch. About the Deuterocanonical books he adds:

Jewish and Protestant canon

Melito's list almost fully corresponds to the Jewish Tanakh and Protestant canon, and does not include additional books which are found in the Greek Septuagint. According to Archibald Alexander, it is thought by many to include the Book of Wisdom, which is part of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Christianity Deuterocanon, but which others dispute.