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 MELCHERS, (JULIUS) GARI (1860–), American artist, was born at Detroit, Michigan, on the 11th of August 1860. The son of a sculptor, at seventeen he was sent to Düsseldorf to study art under von Gebhardt, and after three years went to Paris, where he worked at the Académie Julien and the École des Beaux Arts. Attracted by the pictorial side of Holland, he settled at Egmond. His first important Dutch picture, “The Sermon,” brought him honourable mention at the Paris Salon of 1886. He became a member of the National Academy of Design, New York; the Royal Academy of Berlin; Société Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris; International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, London, and the Secession Society, Munich; and, besides receiving a number of medals, his decorations include the Legion of Honour, France; the order of the Red Eagle, Germany; and knight of the Order of St Michael, Bavaria. Besides portraits, his chief works are: “The Supper at Emmaus,” in the Krupp collection at Essen; “The Family,” National Gallery, Berlin; “Mother and Child,” Luxembourg; and the decoration, at the Congressional Library, Washington, “Peace and War.”

MELCHIADES, or (other forms of the name being Meltiades, Melciades, Milciades and Miltides), pope from the 2nd of July 310, to the 11th January 314. He appears to have been an African by birth, but of his personal history nothing is known. The toleration edicts of Galerius and of Constantine and Licinius were published during his pontificate, which was also marked by the holding of the Lateran synod in Rome (313) at which Caecilianus, bishop of Carthage, was acquitted of the charges brought against him and Donatus condemned. Melchiades was preceded and followed by Eusebius and Silvester I. respectively. MELCHITES (lit. Royalists, from Syriac melcha, a king), the name given in the 5th century to those Christians who adhered to the creed supported by the authority of the Byzantine emperor. The Melchites therefore are those who accept the decrees of Ephesus and Chalcedon as distinguished from the and (qq.v.). They follow the Orthodox Eastern liturgy, ceremonial and calendar, but acknowledge the papal and doctrinal authority of Rome. They number about 80,000, are found in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and are under the immediate rule of the patriarch of Damascus and twelve bishops.

 MELCHIZEDEK (Heb. for “king of righteousness”; or, since Ṣedeḳ is probably the name of a god, “Ṣedeḳ is my king”), king of Salem and priest of “supreme El” (El ʽelyon), in the Bible. He brought forth bread and wine to Abraham on his return from the expedition against Chedorlaomer, and blessed him in the name of the supreme God, possessor (or maker) of heaven and earth; and Abraham gave him tithes of all his booty (Gen. xiv. 18–20). Biblical tradition tells us nothing more about Melchizedek (cf. Heb. vii. 3); but the majestic figure of the king-priest, prior to the priesthood of the law, to whom even the father of all Israel paid tithes (cf. Jacob at Bethel, Gen. xxviii. 22), suggested a figurative or typical application, first in Psalm cx. to the vicegerent of Yahweh, seated on the throne of Zion, the king of Israel who is also priest after the order of Melchizedek, and then, after the Gospel had ensured the Messianic interpretation of the Psalm (Matt. xxii. 42 seq.), to the kingly priesthood of Jesus, as that idea is worked out at length in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The theological interest which attaches to the idea of the pre-Aaronic king-priest in these typical applications is practically independent of the historical questions suggested by the narrative of Gen. xiv. The episode of Melchizedek, though connected with the main narrative by the epithets given to Yahweh in Gen. xiv. 22, breaks the natural connexion of verses 17 and 21, and may perhaps have come originally from a separate source. As the narrative now stands Salem must be sought in the vicinity of “the king’s dale,” which from 2 Sam. xviii. 18, probably, but not necessarily, lay near Jerusalem. That Salem is Jerusalem, as in Psalm lxxvi. 2,

is the ancient and common view; but even in the 15th century Jerusalem was known as Uru-salim. Jerome and others have identified Salim with one or other of the various places which bear that name, e.g. the  of John iii. 23, 8 m. south of Bethshean. In a genuine record of extreme antiquity the union of king and priest in one person, the worship of El as the supreme deity by a Canaanite, and the widespread practice of the consecration of a tithe of booty can present no difficulty; but, if the historical character of the narrative is denied, the date of the conception must be placed as late as the rise of the temporal authority of the high priests after the exile. So far no evidence has been found in the cuneiform inscriptions or elsewhere in support either of the genuineness of the episode in its present form, or of the antiquity which is attributed to it (see further, J. Skinner, Genesis, pp. 269 sqq.). An ancient legend identifies Melchizedek with Shem (Palestinian Targum, Jerome on Isa. xli., Ephraem Syrus in loco).

See further the literature on Gen. xiv., and the articles , .

MELCOMBE, GEORGE BUBB DODDINGTON, (1691–1762), English politician. His father’s name was Bubb, but the son took the name of Doddington on inheriting a large property by the death of an uncle of that name (1720). He was educated at Oxford. In 1715 he was returned to parliament as member for Winchelsea, and was sent as envoy extraordinary to Spain. He carried on a scandalous traffic in the five or six parliamentary votes which he controlled, his tergiversation and venality furnishing food for the political satirists and caricaturists of the day. His most estimable political action was his defence of Admiral Byng in the House of Commons (1757). From 1722 to 1754 he sat in parliament for Bridgewater; from 1724 to 1740 was a lord of the treasury; and, in 1744, became treasurer of the navy under Henry Pelham, and, again in 1755, under Newcastle and Fox. In April 1761 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis in Dorsetshire. He died at La Trappe, his Hammersmith house, on the 28th of July 1762. His wife, acknowledged only after the death of another lady to whom he had given a bond that he would marry no one else, died without issue. He was a wit and a friend of wits, a good scholar, and something of a Maecenas; Thomson’s “Summer” was dedicated to him, Fielding addressed to him an epistle and Edward Young a satire. He was a leading spirit of the “Hell-fire” Club, whose members, called “Franciscans,” from their founder Sir Francis Dashwood (d. 1781), held their revels in the ruined Cistercian abbey of Medmenham, Bucks.

MELEAGER (Gk.  ), in Greek legend, the son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althaea. His father having neglected to sacrifice to Artemis, she sent a wild boar to ravage the land, which was eventually slain by Meleager. A war broke out between the Calydonians and Curetes (led by Althaea’s brothers) about the disposal of the head and skin, which Meleager awarded as a prize to Atalanta, who had inflicted the first wound; the brothers of Althaea lay in wait for Atalanta and robbed her of the spoils, but were slain by Meleager. When Althaea heard this, she cursed Meleager, who withdrew, and refused to fight until the Curetes were on the point of capturing the city of Calydon. Then, yielding to his wife’s entreaties, he sallied forth and defeated the enemy, but was never seen again, having been carried off by the Erinyes, who had heard his mother’s curse (or he was slain by Apollo in battle). According to a later tradition, not known to Homer, the Moerae appeared to Althaea when Meleager was seven days old, and announced that the child would only live as long as the log blazing on the hearth remained unconsumed. Althaea thereupon seized the log, extinguished the flames, and hid it in a box. But, after her brothers' death, she relighted the log, and let it burn away until Meleager died. Then, horrified at what she had done, she hanged herself, or died of grief. The sisters of Meleager were