Ralph Campbell: A Conversation with Melito of Sardis and Dan Brown

One of the most eloquent testimonies to the error of Dan Brown and the outrageous claims of The Da Vinci Code regarding the “creation” of the deity of Christ by Constantine is found in a sermon on the Passover preached around twenty years before the end of the second century by Melito, the pastor of the church of Sardis. Saint Melito was successor to “the angel of the Church of Sardis” to whom Jesus addressed His message to. His well-known Pascal sermon (Peri Pascha) preached approximately 145 years prior to Nicean Council, and 130 years prior to the Milvian Bridge battle gives a clear refutation of the resurgent Gnosticism of the Da Vinci Code and with powerful elegance declares the divinity of Christ. Melito’s skillful homiletic structure and Christocentric hermeneutic in what is arguably the earliest non-biblical sermon continues to provide the Church with a strong apologetic against an old enemy of the Gospel, and a model for communicating the glory of whom Jesus has become.