Melas

ON ST. MELAS, OR MELANES, BISHOP OF RHINOCOLURA, CONFESSOR.

Beginning of the V. Century.

Melas, Bishop of Rhinocolura in Egypt (St.)

[1] Rhinocolura, or Rhinocorura, according to Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology for this day, is twofold: one in Egypt where St. Melas was Bishop, and another in Syria. For Ortelius (whose opinion we rather follow) it is one and the same; Where Rhinocolura is situated, and because it is situated on the borders of Syria and Egypt, it is attributed to either by various writers. It lies upon a river dividing the region of the Saracens from Palestine, of which Genesis 15:18 says: To your seed I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. This river is commonly called in the sacred books the river, the torrent, or the brook of Egypt: in Amos 6, final verse, the Torrent of the desert, because from its left bank toward the Red Sea extends the desert of Kedar, inhabited by the Ishmaelites, or Saracens: by the Seventy Interpreters, Isaiah 27:12, Rhinocorura, taking its name from the city which it flows past; unless they preferred to set the very city, not the small stream, as the boundary of Judea. St. Jerome on that passage: For the torrent of Egypt, the Seventy translated Rhinocorura, which is a town on the border of Egypt and Palestine, expressing not so much the words of Scripture as the sense of the words. It is assigned to the tribe of Simeon in the tables of Adrichomius.

[2] The city received its name from the cutting off of noses, because those convicted of theft or robbery were relegated there with their noses amputated, whence it is named, by the king of the Ethiopians, Actisanes, as Diodorus Siculus, book 1 of the Bibliotheca Historica, and Strabo, book 16 of the Geography, write, or by the King of Persia, as Seneca, book 3, On Anger, number 20. For the Greeks call ῥίνα the nose, and κόλουρον curtailed. St. Epiphanius in the Panarion, book 2, volume 2, heresy 66, against the Manichaeans, number 83, teaches that Rhinocolura was also called Neel, from lots, because it was there that Noah divided the earth by lot among his three sons. The same author in the Ancoratus, number 114, places it between Egypt and Palestine, but opposite the Red Sea, ἀνὰ μέσον Αιγύπτου καὶ Παλαισίνης, ἀντικρὺ τῆς Ἐρυθρᾶς θαλάσσης. Is perhaps the Mediterranean Sea intended, that is, should we read "in sight of the great sea"?

[3] In this city St. Melas was Bishop, as Sozomen writes, book 6, chapter 31, where he indicates that he was known to him. Here Bishop Melas. Cassiodorus in his Tripartite History, book 8, chapter 2, Nicephorus Callistus, book 11, chapter 38, and Peter Halloix, of our Society, in volume 1 on the holy writers of the East, in the life of St. Polycarp, chapter 14, section 5, also mention the same St. Melas, or Melanes. The interpreter of Sozomen calls him Niger — which is what the Greek word means — in the chapter heading.

[4] His feast is assigned to the 16th day of January by Peter de Natalis, book 2, chapter 90, and following him, the Cologne Carthusians in their Additions to Usuard, His feast, and Canisius in the German Martyrology; they call him Melantius and write that he was banished into exile under Hunneric — erroneously. Galesini likewise, following a manuscript Martyrology: At Rhinocorura, St. Melantius the Bishop, who, for the Catholic faith, amid the peril of exile and manifold struggle, having conducted himself piously and bravely, renowned for the praise of episcopal virtues and above all of humility, rested in the Lord. More briefly, the Roman Martyrology: At Rhinocolura in Egypt, St. Melas the Bishop, who, under Valens, having suffered exile and other grievous things for the Catholic faith, rested in peace.

ACTS FROM SOZOMEN, book 6, chapter 31.

Melas, Bishop of Rhinocolura in Egypt (St.)

From various sources.

[1] The Bishops of Rhinocolura chosen from monks. Rhinocorura after that time flourished with pious men, not foreigners, but born in that very city. Of whom I learned that the best had dedicated themselves to the monastic life: I also knew Melas himself, Bishop of that Church, and Dionysius, who had a monastery on the northern side of the city: I also knew Solon, the brother of Melas and his successor in the episcopate.

[2] It is reported moreover that at the time when it had been decreed that Bishops of every city who opposed the Arian doctrine should be driven from their sees, those who had come to expel Melas St. Melas the Bishop prepares lamps: found him as if he were the lowliest servant, preparing the lamps of the church, with his belt, by which his cloak was girded, soiled with oil, and inserting wicks into the lamps: when they asked him about the Bishop, he answered that he was there and that he would point him out to them. He immediately led the men, weary from their journey, into the episcopal house, set out a table, and received them with such food as happened to be available. After they had eaten, he washed their hands he receives his persecutors with a feast: (for he had served them during the meal), and thus revealed himself to them. They, admiring the man, confessed why they had come; but, moved by reverence toward him, they gave him leave to flee. He then said he voluntarily goes into exile that he was so far from refusing to undergo the same kind of punishment that the Bishops who agreed with him in the doctrine of the faith were undergoing, that he would even gladly embrace the same himself. Having been trained from boyhood in such practices of discipline, he attained perfection in the monastic virtue.

[3] Solon, moreover, having become a monk from a merchant, himself also derived no small benefit therefrom. For using his brother Melas and the monks Solon, his brother and disciple, who there diligently cultivated that pious way of life as his instructors, he both devoted himself with the greatest eagerness to the worship of God and was exceedingly kind toward his neighbors. For this reason the Church of Rhinocolura, having obtained such Bishops from the beginning, from that time to our own age has not ceased to follow their precepts and to produce good and pious men. Indeed, the Clergy of that Church also have common dwellings, a common table, and all other things in common.