METHODIUS OF OLYMPUS, Saint. — Only this can be stated with certainty about his person and life: that he lived in Lycia and died as a bishop and martyr at the very end of the persecution, around 312 (St. Jerome, *De viris ill.*, 83; the falsity of the other report, that he suffered under Decius and Valerian, can be demonstrated with certainty). His episcopal see is commonly given as Olympus, on the authority of Jerome (*Olympi Lyciae... episcopus*) and Socrates (*Hist. eccl.*, VI, 3). But St. Jerome adds the obscure notice: *et postea Tyri episcopi*, and Bishop John of Antioch says around 435: *in Hellade vero et Illyrico Methodius* (cf. F. Diekamp, *Über den Bischofsitz des hl. Methodius*, in *Theol. Quartalschrift*, 109 [1928], pp. 285-308). The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on September 18 (*Martyrol. Roman.*, p. 404).
**Works and Doctrine:** Even the fate of St. Methodius’s works is shrouded in obscurity. St. Jerome provides a brief list, but Eusebius in the *Hist. eccl.* says nothing about them, although he knew the author, as is proven by a passage in his *Apologia Origenis* cited by St. Jerome, *Contra Ruf.*, I, 11 (PL 23, 423): *quomodo ausus est Methodius nunc contra Origenem scribere, qui haec de Origenis locutus est dogmatibus*. These words may explain his silence: he hated the opponent of Origen. But there is another difficulty. Eusebius cites in *De praeparatione evang.*, VII, 22, a passage taken from the book of Methodius, *De autexousio*, and names as its author a certain Maximus, whom his *Hist. eccl.* places in the vicinity (temporally) of Irenaeus. The problem becomes even more complicated: the same passage, greatly expanded, is found in the anonymous dialogue *De recta in Deum fide*, also called, according to its protagonist, *Dialogus Adamantii*; for this reason, the dialogue was long attributed to Origen. The *Philocalia* of Gregory Nazianzen and Basil repeats Eusebius’s citation and judges the author to be Origen. Vaillant, in his introduction to the edition of *De autexousio* (PO 22, 5, 684 ff.), attempts to explain this strange situation even by hypothesizing a Christian school around St. Methodius, where themes could be to some degree anonymous and shared. If this is true, the dialogic form of all St. Methodius’s works would be not merely a literary imitation of Plato.
1) The only work preserved in its entirety in the original Greek bears the title: *Convivium vel de castitate* [Banquet or On Chastity]. Ten maidens gathered in the garden of Arete under the "Agnos" tree (chaste tree) praise virginity in ten discourses. To introduce something of the content of this work, which is the first on this theme in Christian literature, the first three discourses are briefly analyzed here. The first discusses the development of the idea of virginity from the beginning up to Christ, who is not only *archilyrius*, *archippolita*, *archangelos* but also *archipatrhenos* (14). Through the virginity brought by Christ, man passes from the simple "imago Dei" to the "similitudo," which is *ὁράξις ἀποφυγή*. The second discourse defends marriage (Gen. 1:28), though virginity surpasses it as the moon surpasses the stars. Virginity here already anticipates the *erunt sicut angeli* of Matt. 22:30 (II, 7). The third discourse offers an allegorical exegesis of Gen. 2:23-24 based on Eph. 5:32 and develops the typical relationship between Adam and Christ, which becomes almost an identification (III, 3-4). In this passage, Christ is called: *περίσбатаτος τῶν ἀλόγων καὶ πρώτος τῶν ἀρχαγγέλων*. Christ left his Father to cling to his Bride, the Church, and to generate virtue in the faithful (III, 8). The spiritual exegesis of St. Paul makes it impossible to justify lust with the words of Genesis. The work concludes with a grand hymn on Christ, born of the Virgin, and His Bride, the Church, where Methodius displays his extensive literary erudition.
2) *De autexousio* [On Free Will] (Greek fragments and Old Slavonic version). To this title, cited by St. Jerome, the Slavonic version prefaces a *De Deo et materia* [On God and Matter]. A dialogue more philosophical than religious between an orthodox and two heretics of indistinct hue on the theme of matter and the origin of evil. The opponent sees in the existence of evil an argument against creation *ex nihilo* and proof of the eternity of matter. Methodius refutes him by showing that evil arises from free will. The polemic is objective and anonymous, directed generally against philosophy (Neoplatonic) and only secondarily against Origen (creation *ab aeterno*, cf. A. Vaillant, 650 ff.).
3) The attack on Origen becomes manifest and unrelenting in the dialogue *Aglaophon vel de resurrectione* [Aglaophon or On the Resurrection]. Aglaophon begins by interpreting the tunic of skins given to man after sin (Gen. 3:21) as the body and proving the resurrection without a body with Matt. 22:23. Origen is then cited for his view that in the spiritual bodies of the heirs of the Kingdom of God only the form of the earthly body remains. Against this, Methodius sets forth his doctrine: man was created immortal in body and soul. The true man is neither the soul without the body nor the body without the soul, but the union of both. The tunic of skins is not the body but mortality, which sin made necessary in order to be destroyed. For even in the baptized, the roots of sin remain, from which their sins grow. Only death destroys them, and man will rise again in his original integrity. The second book develops the theme philosophically, and the third resumes the polemic against Origen.
4) Other minor works, preserved only in the Slavonic collection, include: *De vita* [On Life] (moral content), *De cibi* [On Foods], *De lepra* [On Leprosy], *De sanguisuga* [On the Leech], with allegorical exegesis of passages from the Old Testament.
The great merit of St. Methodius, whom Harnack (*Dogmengeschichte*, p. 163 ff.) calls a new Irenaeus, is undoubtedly his defense of Christian realism against the dangerous tendency of Origenism toward an abstract philosophy. Methodius was well prepared for this struggle, possessing a deep knowledge of contemporary philosophy, which was more syncretistic than Platonic (Vaillant, loc. cit., 654, against A. Jahn, *Methodius platonizans*, Halle 1865. Vaillant provides examples where Methodius combats Platonic ideas with Aristotelian distinctions). In his theology, Methodius represents the stage of the development of orthodoxy on the eve of the Council of Nicaea. Certain special traits, hinted at in the exposition of his works, have not yet been traced to their source, though their general character seems to be Judeo-Semitic.
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