MELITO, bishop of Sardes, a Christian writer of the 2d century, is mentioned by Eusebius (7/. E., iv. 21) along with Hegesippus, Dionysius of Corinth, Apollinaria of Hierapolis, Irenaeus, and others, his contemporaries, as a champion of orthodoxy and upholder of apostolic tradition. Of his personal history nothing is known, and of· his numerous works (which are enumerated by Eusebius) only a few fragments are now extant. They included an Apologia addressed to Aurelius some time between 169 and 180 A.D., two books relating to the paschal controversy, and a work entitled Έκλογαί (selections from the Old Testament), which contained the well-known catalogue of “the books of the Old Covenant.” The fragments have been edited with valuable notes by Routh (Reliquiae Sacrae, vol. i., 1814). It seems more than doubtful whether the Apologia of Melito “the Philosopher,” discovered in a Syriac translation by Tattam, and subsequently edited by Cureton and Renan, ought to be attributed to this writer and not rather to another of the same name.