Melito was a prolific early Christian writer, although only fragments of his works survive, judging from lists of them preserved by Eusebius and Jerome. He wrote a celebrated Apology for Christianity which he sent to Marcus Aurelius. He lists the first Christian canon of the Old Testament; his canon excludes the books of Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and also excludes all of the Greek Apocrypha.
Origen, in a brief note, relates that Melito ascribed corporeality to God, and believed that the likeness of God is preserved in the human body. The note is too brief to tell exactly what Melito might have meant by this.