ON SAINT MELES
THE HYMNOGRAPHER AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryMeles the Hymnographer, among the Greeks (S.)
G. H.
The Greek MSS. Menaea, which at Dijon in the College of the Society of Jesus with Peter Francis Chifletius we found, this Saint to us brought forth, on VIII May with these words: Τῇ ἀυτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὁ ὅσιος Μήλης ὁ Ὑμνοποιὸς ἐν εἰρήνῃ τελειοῦται. On the same day Saint Meles the Hymnographer departed in peace. Then is added this distich.
Ἐκσάντα Μήλην Ὑμνοποιὸν ἐκ βίου
Ὑμνεῖν λόγοις δικᾶιον, ὡμὸς λόγος.
Meles the Hymnographer migrating from this life,
To praise with rhythms is fitting, as is this mine.
Hymns moreover, which this Saint Meles composed, that they were of sacred and pious matters I do not at all doubt: among those however with which the Menaea of the Greeks are adorned, you will not easily find any which sets forth his name, as author. But neither among the authors of Canons and Troparia, about seventy, whom Leo Allatius names on page 81 of the first Dissertation on the Ecclesiastical books of the Greeks, is he reckoned: by which more is to be wished that another tractate of the same Leo on the Melodes of the Greeks may be found, in the Diatriba on the Georges by him himself indicated, perhaps about to give some light about this Saint so unknown to us.