Meletius of Lycopolis flourished in the Egyptian district of 'I'hebais in the beginning of the 4th century. He was a prelate in the Church, and the founder of the Meletian sect, or, as they termed themselves, the Clinrch of the Martijrs. During the bitter persecutions wliieh the Christians suffered under the reign of Diocletian, he and his superior, Peter, arclibisho)i of Alexandria, were thrown into prison. JMaiiy Cliristians had abjured their religiousbelief for the sake of freedom from persecution, and some of tliese. regretting their faithlessness, repaired to tlic two imjirisoned bishops, desiring to receive abso- lution, and to become reconciled with the Cbnrch. Pe- ter was in favor of granting the request of these Itip.ti, provided they would do ]ienance; but Meletius, denounc- ing them as traitors, refused to have any intercourse with tliem, until at least all persecution had ceased. A majority of the ( 'hristians then in confinement approved of his course. This gave rise to a schism, whicli gained some prominence after the release of Meletius, who be- came the leader of the rebels, and from whom they re- ceived their name. After regaining his freedom he or- dained some twenty-nine bisliops, and even encro.iched upon the diocese of Peter with ordinations and cxcom- munication.s. He was finally checked by the Council of Nice, who censured him, but allowed him to retain his title. The council .also agreed to confirm his appoint- ments, provided tliey would receive a new ordination from tiie projjcr authorities. Tiie sect to which he gave rise, sometimes called Egyptian Meletians, lasted
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for nearly a century and a half, when its members made common cause with the Arians. See Schaff, Ch. Hist, i, 451 ; Gieseler, Eccles. Hist, i, 1G6 ; Stanley, Hist, of the East. Ch. p. 256 ; Mosheim, Eccles. Hist, i, 75 ; Hase, Ch. Hist. ■p.G^O. (H.W.T.)
Mel'icu (Heh. mar g. 3Ieliku', ^Zi'O'O, text Meloki', i^ibp ; Sept. MaXovx v. r, 'i\|UaXoiiX) Vulg. Milicho; Neh. xii, 14). See Malluch.
Melissus OF Samos, a Greek philosopher, was born at Samos, and flourished in the 5th century (about 444) before Christ. It is said that he was not less distin- guished as a citizen than as a philosopher, and that he commanded the fleet of his country during its insur- rection against Athens. Melissus seems to have been the disciple of Parmenides ; he studied at least the writings of the philosophers of the Eleatic school, and adopted their doctrines in a modified form ; or, as one has it, "he took up the letter rather than the spirit of their system." He made his opinions known in a work written in Ionic prose, probably entitled Of Being and of Nature. He treated not of the infinite variety of things produced or engendered, but of eternal nature considered abstractly, apart from all concrete things, and, like Parmenides, called it being. Simplicius has pre- served some fragments of this treatise, and the author (Aristotle or Theophrastus) of the book on IMelissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias, has made its doctrines well kno;vn. IMelissus taught the same system of idealism as did the leaders of the Eleatic school, Xenophanes and Parmenides, but he is characterized by greater bold- ness in his way of stating it, and in some respects by profounder views. What really existed, he maintained, could neither be produced nor perish ; it exists with- out having either commencement or end ; infinite (dif- fering in this respect from Parmenides), and conse- quently one ; invariable, not composed of parts, and indivisible : which doctrine implies a denial of the ex- istence of bodies, and of the dimensions of space. All that our senses present to us (that is to say, the greater part of things which exist) is nothing more than an appearance relative to our senses (-6 Iv vi-iiv), and is altogether beyond the limits of real knowledge. He thus made the first though weak attempt, which was afterwards carried out by Zeno with far more acutencss and sagacity, to prove that the foiuidations of all knowl- edge derived from experience are in themselves contra- dictory, and that the reality of the actual world is in- conceivable. As for the relation between real existence and the Deity, we are ignorant of the sentiments of Me- lissus on this head; for what is reported by Diogenes Laertius (ix, 24) can be considered as relating only to the popular notions. Some important fragments of Me- lissus have been collected by Brandis in the first part of the Com»}i)it<ifi<i)iiiiii Eleaticarum, pars prima, p. 185 sq., and by ^I. Mullai li in liis excellent edition of the treatise AristotdiK fic .M(/isso, Xenophane, et Gorgia, Disputa- tiones, cum Eleaticarum philosophorum fragmentis (Ber- lin, 1846), The same editor inserts them in the Frag- menta Philosophorum Grcecorum of the Didot collection (1869, 8vo). See Diogenes Laertius, ix, 24; Plutarch, Pe7-icles, p. 26, 27 ; Simplicius, In A rist. Phys. de Ccelo ; Ritter, Gesch. der Philosophie, vol. i ; Tenneman's Man- ual of Philosophy, p. 68, 69 ; Smith, Diet, of Class, Biog. s, V. ; Hoefer, Nouv, Biog, Generale, s. v.
Mel'ita (MtX/r*/ ; probably of Phoenician etymol- ogy, and signifying refuge, otherwise clay ; but accord- ing to Hammeker, Miscell. Phcenic. p. 46, so named from its abundance of a«/i-trees), an island in the IMediterra- nean, on which the ship which was conveying the apos- tle Paul as a prisoner to Rome was wrecked, and which was the scene of the interesting circumstances recorded in Acts xxvii, 28 (see J. Ab. Ciantari Diss. apol. de Paulo in Melitam navfragio ejecto,Yen. 1738).