Melito's canon
2nd century biblical 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 (probably to the library at Caesarea Maritima) 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.
Eusebius' record of Melito
Melito's canon is found in Eusebius EH4.26.13–14:
Accordingly when I went East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned accurately the books of the Old Testament, and send them to thee as written below. Their names are as follows: Of Moses, five books: Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy; Jesus Nave, Judges, Ruth; of Kings, four books; of Chronicles, two; the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon, Wisdom also, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job; of Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah; of the twelve prophets, one book; Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras. From which also I have made the extracts, dividing them into six books.
Canon features
Melito's list almost fully corresponds to the Jewish Tanakh and Protestant canon.
Melito's canon includes a book of "Wisdom". Scholars disagree whether this is an alternate name for the Book of Proverbs, or a reference to the Book of Wisdom.
Some think the omission of the Book of Esther was accidental, but most scholars think it was intentional.
“Melito's canon” enters the record as 2nd century biblical canon. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Melito's, canon and century can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6812963. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melito's canon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.