ON ST. METHODIUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR, AT CHALCIS IN GREECE,
Perhaps under Diocletian.
SYLLOGE.
Methodius, bishop and martyr, at Chalcis in Greece. (S.)
BY J. S.
§ I. The place of his episcopate and of his martyrdom liable to various doubts, as is nearly everything else pertaining to the Saint.
[ ] Concerning St. Methodius the bishop, though famous both for his writings and for his martyrdom, we have more things liable to doubt than things to be related with certainty.
St. Jerome celebrated St. Methodius with an elogium among the ecclesiastical Writers. The Saint's memory in the Latin Martyrologies on this day And from this the Latin martyrologists seem to have inserted him into their calendars, the most ancient of whom is, so far as we know, the author of the Little Roman Martyrology published by Rosweyde. For he has thus on the eighteenth of September: Of Methodius, bishop of Olympus
of Lycia, and afterwards of Tyre, who under Diocletian was crowned with martyrdom. Ado repeated these things, adding only the place of the martyrdom in these words: At Chalcis in Greece he was crowned with martyrdom. Usuard gives Ado's words, only observing further whence they were taken, when he adds: As St. Jerome writes. Baronius took more from Jerome, commemorating Methodius in the Roman Martyrology thus: The birthday of saint Methodius, bishop of Olympus in Lycia and afterwards of Tyre, most illustrious for the elegance of his speech and for his learning, who at the end of the last persecution (as saint Jerome writes) was crowned with martyrdom at Chalcis in Greece. Notker does not disagree with these; but in him, by a scribal error, Ebacis is read for Chalcis. Wandelbert gives such an elogium:
A Bishop in speech and faith, and by miracles and blood a martyr, Methodius, to be celebrated, honors the fourteenth.
Understand the fourteenth Kalends of October, that is, the eighteenth day of September. I pass over the Martyrologies more recent than these. But in the Martyrologies of Jerome, Bede, Florus, and Rabanus the memory of Methodius is not found.
[2] Saint Jerome in his Catalogue of ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 83, praises Methodius in this way: [from St. Jerome, who celebrates him with an elogium, as bishop of Olympus and of Tyre:] Methodius, bishop of Olympus in Lycia, and afterwards of Tyre, of polished and well-ordered speech, composed books against Porphyry; and the Symposium of the ten virgins; on the Resurrection an outstanding Work against Origen, and against the same on the Woman with a Familiar Spirit; and on αὐτεξουσίου (that is, on Free Will;) Commentaries also on Genesis and on the Song of Songs, and many other things which are commonly read. And at the end of the last persecution, or, as others affirm, under Decius and Valerian, he was crowned with martyrdom at Chalcis in Greece. So far St. Jerome. Socrates, who flourished in the same fifth century in which St. Jerome died, and was nearly his contemporary, mentions Methodius as the first assailant of Origen, censuring him thus in book 6, chapter 13: With this disease (of writing against Origen) Methodius, bishop of the city of Olympus in Lycia, first labored. So Socrates, a defender of many heretics, so that it is to be counted as nothing that he carps at St. Methodius for having attacked Origen. Meanwhile I observe this, that he is called by Socrates bishop of Olympus, but not of Tyre. There is added St. Maximus, who likewise calls St. Methodius bishop of the city of Olympus in Lycia, no mention being made of the episcopate of Tyre. The words were given in St. Methodius of Patara on the twentieth of June.
[3] others praise among the writers Methodius bishop of Patara. But other doubts arise about the episcopal see of St. Methodius. For Leontius of Byzantium, who flourished toward the end of the sixth century or the beginning of the seventh, and wrote a History of the Sects, in this little Work, Act 3, page 431, enumerates the doctors who flourished after the times of the Apostles up to the reign of Constantine the Great, and among them Methodius is praised in these words: Methodius, bishop of Patara, in Greek Πατάρων, of the Patarans. There was assuredly a city of this name in Lycia, but far distant from Olympus. For both indeed were near the sea, but Olympus was situated toward Pamphylia, while Patara was toward Caria, and midway between the two was the city of Myra, the ecclesiastical metropolis of Lycia, and famous for the episcopate of St. Nicholas. And so it cannot be said that Patara and Olympus are the same city. In vain are cited the words of Suidas, who says under Methodius: Μεθόδιος Ολύμπου Λυκίας ἥτοι Πατάρων, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Τύρου ἐπίσκοπος. Methodius, bishop of Olympus in Lycia or of Patara, and thereafter of Tyre. For these words do not signify that Olympus and Patara are the same city, as Combefis said too hastily; but they intimate Suidas's doubt about Methodius's first episcopate, whether it was of Olympus or of Patara. The reason for doubting was that St. Jerome and others called him bishop of Olympus; but Leontius and others after him called him bishop of Patara. For by St. John Damascene too, in book 3 on Images, at the end, is praised the Work of St. Methodius, bishop of Patara, on the Resurrection. Lastly the Menologies and Menaea of the Greeks celebrate Methodius of Patara on the twentieth of June, and from these calendars our Henschen treated of St. Methodius of Patara on the twentieth of June.
[4] [And so it is doubtful whether he is the same, and at once of Olympus and of Patara,] Another doubt now arises from these things. For it is disputed whether he is the same Methodius who is called by some bishop of Olympus, by others bishop of Patara. Baronius, in his Annotations on the Roman Martyrology on the fourteenth day of June, believed them distinct. Our Henschen inclines to the same opinion when he discussed St. Methodius of Patara on the twentieth of June; yet so that he doubted whether they were to be distinguished or confused, and referred the examination of this matter to this day. Leo Allatius, in his Diatribe on the writings of the Methodii, believes both to be the same, saying that he was bishop of both cities. Most others have followed this opinion, among whom most recently Lequien in his Oriens Christianus. But I find no argument by which either opinion is made sufficiently certain. For not distinguishing two Methodii, who wrote before the reign of Constantine the Great, or rather before the persecutions of the heathen emperors were ended, it can be alleged that St. Jerome acknowledges only one Methodius, that Leontius of Byzantium and other writers who have enumerated ecclesiastical authors reckon only one. But it may be replied that others too are omitted by them, so that it would not be surprising if of two Methodii they had omitted one, especially if anyone should contend that the Patarene wrote few things only, or wrote nothing at all, but that another's writings were attributed to him by mistake. Certainly I shall not readily admit as certain that Methodius was at once bishop of Olympus and of Patara, as Allatius and Lequien contend. For since the city of Myra, according to Lequien, volume 1, column 965, had a bishop from the first century of Christ, and lies midway between Olympus and Patara, it is in no way likely that the churches of Olympus and of Patara were administered in the third or fourth century by the same bishop.
[5] To me indeed it appears more likely that the later Greeks, or bishop of one place only; or whether they are two different men. who attributed the episcopate of Patara to St. Methodius the doctor, went astray from the truth. For the first who is known to have called him bishop of Patara is Leontius of Byzantium, nearly three centuries later than Methodius. But if we should wish to investigate the cause of the error by conjecture, none will be more likely than if we conjecture that some bishop Methodius was also illustrious at Patara, and flourished before the bishop of Olympus, in the third century. For thus we shall understand how it could come about that already in the time of St. Jerome there was a twofold opinion about the time of St. Methodius's martyrdom, and that some would have it that he was crowned at the end of the last persecution, others earlier, about the middle of the century, under Decius and Valerian. I do indeed wonder that St. Jerome, who was writing those things before the end of the fourth century, could not know for certain whether a man so famous as Methodius was crowned in that same century, or rather about the middle of the third. But that doubt could easily arise if some bishop Methodius suffered under Decius or Valerian, and another about the end of Diocletian's persecution. Besides, St. Jerome makes his Methodius bishop of Tyre thereafter, which no one has said of the Patarene. Lastly, St. Jerome says that Methodius suffered at Chalcis. But the Greeks never asserted that the Patarene suffered outside his own church. Wherefore there is no lack of reasons which persuade that Methodius, bishop of Olympus and thereafter of Tyre, is not the same as Methodius of Patara. But I do not find arguments by which I can make the matter certain, and therefore I leave it doubtful.
[6] Tillemont, who discussed St. Methodius in volume 5 of his Ecclesiastical Memoirs, Certainly the place of his episcopate is quite doubtful. speaks no less ambiguously about his episcopal see, and raises besides other difficulties in note 1. First he doubts whether Methodius was really bishop of Tyre, because a translation from the episcopate of Olympus to that of Tyre is not very likely on account of the diversity of the provinces, far distant from each other, for Olympus is in Lycia, Tyre in Phoenicia. The difficulty is increased because about the time when Methodius the martyr died, the episcopate of Tyre seems to have been held by others. Certainly our Henschen, in volume III of February, page 172, fixes from Eusebius the martyrdom of St. Tyrannio, bishop of Tyre, in the year 310, so that St. Methodius could scarcely have succeeded him and then have been crowned in the same persecution, especially if he suffered in Greece, as St. Jerome writes. Besides, no slight difficulty arises from the Letter of John, patriarch of Antioch, to St. Proclus of Constantinople, written in the year 431 and published in the New Collection of the Councils in Baluze, column 893, where the chief doctors of the Church are enumerated who flourished up to the beginning of the fourth century in various provinces, and concerning Methodius it is said: But in Hellas and Illyricum, Methodius and other fathers, who were illustrious for piety. I do not grasp why the patriarch of Antioch should assign Methodius to Hellas or to Illyricum, if he was bishop of Tyre, or even of Olympus in Lycia. We might indeed suspect that John of Antioch is speaking of another Methodius; but that other has not become known; and Jerome too fixes the martyrdom of St. Methodius the doctor in Greece, which is remarkable if he was bishop of Olympus and of Tyre. So many paradoxes suggest the suspicion that there were several Methodii, from whose confusion these difficulties have arisen.
[7] The place of the martyrdom also doubtful, Again the place of the martyrdom is ambiguous. Jerome names Chalcis in Greece. Tillemont and Henschen explain this of the Chalcis which is in the island of Euboea in Greece, although there is also another Chalcis in Aetolia, likewise a province of Greece. Sophronius, who made the Greek version of St. Jerome's Catalogue, writes that St. Methodius was crowned ἐν Χαλκίδι τῆς Ανατολῆς, at Chalcis of the East, designating no doubt the Chalcis of Syria, which gives its name to the province of Chalcidene, of which it is the capital. This place of martyrdom coheres better with the episcopate of Tyre, and therefore would be more likely, did not the authority of St. Jerome stand in the way. Allatius acknowledges that Sophronius has at Chalcis of the East, but, swiftly cutting the knot, he says that this is read corruptly in Sophronius, since it ought to be read whole so as to agree with Jerome's words. I shall readily admit that the passage was rendered into Greek by Sophronius no otherwise than it had been expressed in Latin by Jerome. But I do not see why some error could not creep by the fault of copyists into Jerome's Latin text as well as into Sophronius's Greek. Suidas certainly has it as Sophronius does, not as Jerome. And so I cannot say with Allatius that Jerome's passage is whole, but Sophronius's text corrupt, unless I should wish to sell doubtful things for certain. Nay rather I should incline more to Sophronius's passage, as confirmed by Suidas, and to the Chalcis of Syria, as nearer to Tyre, did not the words of John of Antioch just alleged again stand in the way, by which Methodius is numbered among the doctors of Greece or Illyricum, not of Syria or Asia. But these words not only are against a martyrdom undergone in Syria; but
they seem equally contrary to the episcopate asserted in Lycia and thereafter in Phoenicia.
[8] indeed the time also, The time of the martyrdom, which is set by Baronius, Allatius, Tillemont, and others about the end of Diocletian's persecution, and by Tillemont in particular in Note 2 about the year 311 or 312, appears scarcely more certain than the other things already sifted. St. Jerome, as we have already seen, says that he suffered either at the end of the last persecution, or under Decius and Valerian. This doubt about the age of Methodius shows that St. Jerome was not best informed about what pertains to Methodius, whose writings indeed he had seen, but whose deeds he did not know equally well. Sophronius rendered Jerome's passage into Greek with the same doubt. Suidas perhaps wished to say the same thing, but expressed something rather different. For his words, exactly rendered into Latin, run thus: Who about the last times of the persecution of Decius and Valerian, etc. Leontius of Byzantium, in Act 3, numbers Methodius of Patara among those doctors who flourished after the times of the Apostles and before Constantine the Great, naming Methodius before St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. All these things are very ambiguous; for since St. Jerome extends the doubt from Decius almost to the end of the last persecution, who now would believe that it was sufficiently established for Jerome that Methodius did not suffer at some intermediate time, namely under Aurelian, or at the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, or under some other emperor? Besides, who can define with certainty in what year St. Jerome meant to set the end of the last persecution, whether in 312, in which, by the action of Constantine and Licinius, Maximin made an end of persecuting the Christians; or rather in the year 323, in which Licinius was compelled by his own defeat and death to end the persecution he had again revived?
[9] Tillemont in Note 2 on Methodius alleges several reasons which Tillemont's reasonings to show that St. Methodius's martyrdom happened in the year 311 or 312. First he observes that the Saint did not suffer under Valerian, and therefore still less under Decius, because he wrote against Porphyry, who in the year 263, that is, three years after the end of Valerian's persecution, numbered only thirty years. This reasoning is solid: for it is sufficiently established that Porphyry did not begin so soon to write against the Christians, and that Methodius consequently did not answer him until long after the end of Valerian's persecution. Secondly, Tillemont alleges from St. Jerome, book 1 against Rufinus, these words of Eusebius, writing an Apology for Origen: How has Methodius dared now to write against Origen, who has said this and that about Origen's teachings? Then he argues thus: These words imply that Methodius was not yet dead when Eusebius spoke of him so. Now Eusebius certainly did not write that Apology before the year 309. And so in that year Methodius was living. From these things he further infers that his martyrdom is to be set toward the end of Diocletian's persecution, in the year 311 or 312. I should not deny that this reasoning appears subtle and probable. Yet it does not seem certain that Methodius was living when Eusebius was writing those things: and consequently no certain conclusion can be drawn from the observation given.
[10] Nay rather, others will perhaps contend to prove from the passage of Jerome alleged do not make altogether certain, that Methodius was already dead and a Martyr when Eusebius objected the aforesaid to him. For St. Jerome says that the same thing which was objected to himself by Rufinus was objected by Eusebius to Methodius, bishop and martyr. And presently he says that the same thing is objected by an Arian to a most illustrious and most eloquent Martyr. For they will be able to say that Eusebius would not have objected those things to a Martyr, if Methodius was living, and was only afterwards crowned with martyrdom. But this inference will be equally uncertain: nor does Eusebius's Work survive, from which it might appear more clearly whether he spoke of Methodius living or dead. Besides, even if it were certainly established that St. Methodius was living in the year 309, from that it could not certainly be gathered that he was crowned in the year 311 or 312; since he might also have suffered in Licinius's persecution about the year 320. From what has been disputed thus far it is abundantly clear that most things pertaining to the person of St. Methodius are uncertain, namely whether he was the same as Methodius of Patara, whether he was first bishop of Olympus and afterwards of Tyre, whether he wrote in Asia or Syria, or in Greece, whether he died a martyr in the third century or the fourth, whether in the persecution of Diocletian, or earlier, or even later; and lastly whether he attained the crown of martyrdom in Greece or in Syria. For St. Jerome's doubt about the time of the martyrdom, since it extends over easily sixty years, altogether intimates that the things pertaining to St. Methodius were not sufficiently ascertained by Jerome; and for that cause we can adhere less firmly to what he affirms about his twofold episcopate and the place of his martyrdom.
[11] To so many doubts another can be added, namely whether St. Methodius was called by another name Eubulius, as Allatius and others assert from St. Epiphanius. For he, in heresy 64, number 63, Methodius does not seem to have had the name Eubulius. where he had alleged a very ample passage of St. Methodius against the Origenists, adds that these are τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ μακαρίτου Μεθοδίου, τοῦ καὶ Ευβουλίου, from the arguments of the Blessed Methodius, who is also Eubulius. From this passage they gather that the name Eubulius also belonged to St. Methodius, as Petau too observed in his Annotations on the passage alleged. But this does not seem to have been St. Epiphanius's meaning. He did not wish to say, I think, that St. Methodius had another name, Eubulius, but that under that name he disputed against Origen. For St. Methodius's Work against Origen on the Resurrection, from which St. Epiphanius adduced very many things, was a Dialogue with at least four speakers, namely Proclus and Aglaophon, arguing in some sort for Origen, and Eubulius and Auxentius, who disputed against Origen and refuted his errors. Of these the chief disputant was Eubulius, as is clear from Epiphanius, number 43, at the end. Wherefore St. Epiphanius seems to say nothing in the passage alleged, except that he had given what Methodius had argued under the name of Eubulius. And so Eubulius was not a name of Methodius, but the name which in that Dialogue he had given to the chief disputant whose reasonings Epiphanius had alleged. Thus St. Methodius likewise named the chief character in his Symposium or Banquet of Virgins Eubulius. The Saint's fictitious name therefore vanishes, born of a misunderstood Epiphanius, and unknown to all others.
§ II. The writings of St. Methodius, a great part of which is lost, are enumerated.
[ ] St. Methodius a writer of great name, Although it is not certainly established in what place and time St. Methodius flourished, held his episcopate, wrote, and shed his blood for Christ, as we have already seen; yet it is certain that he was a bishop and a martyr, and published many writings, toward the end of the third century, or in the fourth, before Constantine the Great reigned alone. It is equally certain that he was a writer of great name, and celebrated by the elogia of many. St. Jerome, already praised at number 2, says that he was a writer of polished and well-ordered speech. The same again at number 10 calls him a most illustrious and most eloquent Martyr. The same Methodius is called by St. Epiphanius, heresy 64, number 63, A man exceedingly learned, and a most keen Patron of the truth. John of Antioch, in his Letter to St. Proclus given in the year 431, reckons St. Methodius among the most illustrious bishops and doctors whose faith was approved, and names him alone of those who flourished in Hellas, or Greece, and in Illyricum, as I have already said at number 6. Leontius of Byzantium, on the Sects, Action 3, reckoning up the most excellent doctors who flourished after the times of the Apostles up to Constantine, reckons only nine, and among them numbers Methodius of Patara, who either is our Methodius, or is numbered among them because he is confused with ours. Besides, the authority of St. Methodius is praised by many ancient Fathers with an elogium, as may be seen in Allatius's Diatribe on the writings of the Methodii, from which I here transfer a few things briefly. By John, bishop of Thessalonica, in the same place at number 16, he is called The great Methodius; by St. Anastasius of Sinai, Most renowned for wisdom; by Andrew of Caesarea again, The great; by St. Maximus and many others, the holy martyr. But, omitting the rest, I shall weave a catalogue of the Saint's writings, taking my beginning from the works praised by St. Jerome.
[13] First, on Jerome's testimony, Against Porphyry he composed books. he is the first to refute Porphyry, who wrote against the Christians; Porphyry was a heathen philosopher, exceedingly hostile to the Christians, who read the sacred Scriptures in order to attack the Christians more sharply and subtly. Now he wrote against them a great Work divided into fifteen books, concerning which Tillemont may be consulted more fully in volume 4 of the Emperors, under Diocletian, article 31, where he observes that Porphyry came into Sicily in the year 267, and remained there a long time, and wrote against the Christians. And so St. Methodius could reply to Porphyry's writings not long after the year 270; and much later too, if he lived until the year 311 or 312. Certainly he was the first who began to refute Porphyry, as St. Jerome testifies in various places. In his Letter to Magnus the Orator he has thus: Celsus and Porphyry have written against us (Christians). To the former Origen, to the latter Methodius, Eusebius, and Apollinaris most bravely replied. Of whom Origen wrote eight books: Methodius runs to as many as ten thousand lines, etc. He reckons the same assailants of Porphyry in his Apology for the books against Jovinian. But in the Preface to his Commentaries on Daniel he implies that Methodius's Work against Porphyry was not finished. For when he had said that Eusebius and Apollinaris had answered Porphyry most skillfully, he adds: And before these, in part, Methodius. Wherefore it is not incredible that St. Methodius died over this Work, and perhaps obtained the crown as the reward of martyrdom. For the rest, this Work of the Saint has perished, except for a very few Excerpts, which Combefis gave from Damascene and others in the Works of St. Methodius, page 442 and following.
[14] There follows in Jerome: The Symposium of the ten virgins. he writes the Symposium of virgins, which by the Arians It is a Dialogue on Virginity, which was first published by Leo Allatius at Rome in the year 1656, then reprinted by Peter Poussines, and lastly by Combefis (who before had published only Excerpts of that Work with the remaining fragments of Methodius); the same Symposium was reprinted in the most recent Auctarium, page 64 and following. Further, Photius gives Excerpts of this Work in codex 237, and at column 963 observes the following about it: It is to be observed that this Dialogue, which is entitled Symposium, or on chastity, has been for a great part adulterated. For you will meet in it interpolated and vain Arian opinions, and other fables of men of bad belief. Combefis subjoins this censure of Photius after the Dialogue, page 142; but presently at page 143 he sets out his own opinion on the matter in these words: Photius's censure is that among the remains of Methodius this lucubration above all has been corrupted by heretics and contains Arian expressions. I should think that Methodius, according to the simplicity of his age, certain
things were sprinkled in by him not sufficiently refined nor according to the ecclesiastical rule; as almost all the earlier Fathers were not wholly accurate. Nor do I see how some may here detect nothing truly amiss: for there are some things which scarcely make a Catholic sense, however much one may soften them, and unless one does downright violence to the words.
[15] Allatius in his Diatribe, number 12, denies that Arian opinions are found in Methodius's Symposium some believe it corrupted, others think it pure, such as it now exists. For after he had observed that some writings of the Fathers were corrupted by heretics, and that certain things are also found in many ancient Fathers which are neither accurate nor admitted by later ages, he continues thus: Whatever, however, may be the case, in this copy of the Symposium which is in hand no such fables of heretics, and above all no Arian ones, have been sprinkled in: nor is there anything which cannot be expounded in a Catholic sense to Catholic ears. He adds that the Fathers now and then in the heat of disputation put forth some things less to be approved, and in some measure favoring heresies that arose afterwards. Which things, although they be true, he says, have nevertheless no place in the Symposium of Methodius which we now publish, since there is nothing in it which establishes the Arian heresy. Nay, if each particular be rightly examined, there are not a few things which refute and utterly destroy it. You see, I think, studious reader, how different are the opinions of the two editors. I would not interpose my own judgment about all the things which are read in the Symposium, since leisure is not available to me, on account of other business, for weighing each particular so accurately. Yet I would venture candidly to declare that Combefis's criticism seems too harsh toward St. Methodius. For if some things scarcely make a Catholic sense, as he pronounces, and they were written by Methodius himself, how shall we say it came about that the Arians did not allege St. Methodius's words in support of their heresy? For in the time of the Arians Methodius's little Works were very well known, and the Saint's name so famous that the Greeks before the Arian heresy seem hardly to have had any doctor more celebrated or more approved. Besides, Photius read four different Works of Methodius; and complains of the corruption of this one only. But if Methodius had used certain modes of speaking which seemed to favor the Arians, such would probably have been found in his other Works too, and thus Photius would not have complained of the corruption of the Symposium alone. It seems therefore that we must say either that Allatius's opinion is true, and that all Methodius's words can easily be expounded in a Catholic sense, or that Photius rightly said that the Work had been corrupted by the Arians. Perhaps too Photius had a corrupted codex, and Allatius a pure one.
[16] it is a dialogue in praise of virginity. The persons who speak in the Symposium are ten virgins, and hence it is called The Banquet of the ten virgins. But with the virgins Arete, or Virtue, not seldom converses. There is added Gregorion, a woman, who narrates to Eubulius all that was done at the banquet. But concerning Eubulius, whether it is a man Eubulius, or also a woman called Eubulion, there is a dispute between Poussines and Combefis. For Poussines believes that a man is designated, because everywhere the qualifying words are masculine. For this cause he everywhere calls the person Eubulius, though sometimes also Eubulion, as he confesses the codices have. But Combefis in his Annotations thinks that Eubulion is also a woman, admitting nevertheless that her person is joined to the masculine gender. Thus at the very beginning it is said of Eubulius βουλόμενος, wishing, which of a woman ought to have been said βουλομένη; and so consistently, wherever the qualifying words can designate a man or a woman, they indicate a man. But the matter is of slighter moment, since the person is fictitious.
[17] He composes the Work on the Resurrection against Origen, After the dialogue on Virginity just praised there follow in St. Jerome two lucubrations against Origen, the first of which is named: On the Resurrection, which Jerome calls an outstanding Work against Origen. Allatius at number 13 adduces many Fathers who praised the Work on the Resurrection. Among them St. Epiphanius adduces very many things from the same Work in heresy 64 against the Origenists; namely in Petau's edition from page 534 to 590 is produced Methodius's disputation against Origen, although various persons are introduced speaking, chiefly Proclus and Eubulius, to whom Aglaophon and Auxentius briefly reply from time to time. For this Work of St. Methodius also was composed in the form of a dialogue, as is most clearly evident from Epiphanius. Now he, at page 534, before he adduces Methodius's dissertation, writes thus: But I, by no means aiming to seem superior to those very men who before me applied themselves to that labor (of refuting Origen's errors) and dissolved by the justest reasonings the man's wickedness, painted over with rhetorical allurements, … thought that I ought to be content with what the blessed Methodius argued against the same Origen in the Oration which he wrote on the Resurrection. All of which indeed I shall here transcribe word for word. Thus therefore Methodius speaks, as is written below. Then all that is argued in the name of Proclus and the others is Methodius's, as far as page 590: and there Epiphanius adds: And these things are excerpted in order from the writings of the blessed Methodius, who was also called Eubulius (in this Dialogue), which he argued in the same book on the Resurrection concerning Origen and Origen's depraved faith, entangled in sophistical cavils. Which things set forth in this place we have thought sufficient against his trifles and impious teaching… And although Methodius, that man exceedingly learned and most keen patron of the truth, disputed very many other things to the same purpose in the same book, in nearly as many lines as have been excerpted by us, nevertheless … we have judged it enough to have transferred hither thus much from his Work. So far Epiphanius. I do not indeed know what the reason was why Combefis did not give that passage entire in his Excerpts of Methodius. He published, however, some Excerpts from the book on the Resurrection, namely from Epiphanius, from Damascene, and more from Photius, which may be seen in him among the Methodiana in the first place.
[18] The other Work of Methodius against Origen St. Jerome expresses in this manner: [and on the Woman with a Familiar Spirit: it is improbable that he retracted his writings] And against the same on the Woman with a Familiar Spirit. Of this little Work nothing seems to survive, or at least it still lies hidden in the libraries. Further, on account of these little Works against Origen, Socrates, the patron not only of the Novatians but also of Origen, carps at St. Methodius in the words given at number 2, as a slanderer, and after certain other things about the same Methodius adds: Methodius indeed, when he had long and much assailed Origen in his books, afterwards nevertheless, as if singing a palinode, in the Dialogue which he entitled Xeno, follows him with the highest admiration. Baronius, at the year 402, number 18, rightly reproves Socrates for these statements, and observes that quite the contrary was done by St. Methodius, as Eusebius has it, who, on Jerome's testimony, carped at Methodius for writing against Origen, whom he had previously praised. Tillemont is of the same opinion, and both rightly assert that Socrates is unworthy of credit in what he says about a palinode on account of the writings against Origen. The matter seems to me so well established by Baronius from the silence of Origen's defenders that I wonder Pagi could oppose these things in his Critique at the year 402, number 3. Pagi indeed had Huet for his opinion against Baronius, and from him he says: Methodius could first praise Origen, and, his errors being afterwards detected, censure him, and at last, those errors being excused, return to his former opinion. But I can believe neither Huet nor Pagi that Methodius was of such levity as to change his opinion about Origen twice, nor would Eusebius and Rufinus have been silent, if Methodius had at last excused the errors of Origen which he had once attacked.
[19] against Origen, whom he also attacks in the Work on Created Things, Allatius doubts at number 17 whether St. Methodius wrote any Dialogue called Xeno; and he believes that he finds manifest traces of the dialogue Xeno in Methodius's Work on Created Things, or on Things Begotten, from which Photius supplied Excerpts in his Bibliotheca, column 931. But it is more certain that that Work of Methodius on Created Things also was written against Origen, whom in it he calls a centaur, because he mixed sacred things with profane. The Extracts in Photius may be seen, and the same reprinted in Combefis, page 336. Nevertheless it is not improbable that St. Methodius wrote some Dialogue entitled Xeno, and that in that Dialogue Origen was praised by him: for so far I think credit is to be given to Socrates. On the contrary it appears altogether improbable that in that Dialogue Methodius sang a palinode, and changed his former opinion about Origen's errors, which not even Socrates openly says. For if he had done this, Socrates would not have written against Methodius with so bitter a spirit, nor would Eusebius have wished to carp at him for a changed opinion about Origen.
[20] yet he could have praised Origen in the Work against the Gentiles or elsewhere. Perhaps the Dialogue Xeno will be that very Work which the Saint wrote against Porphyry: for in a Work against Porphyry or the gentiles he could with just reason praise Origen as a defender of the Christians against Celsus; nay, even in such a Work he could have praised Origen for his genius and eloquence, even if he had previously written against him. Wherefore we can rightly doubt whether that Dialogue was written before the Works against Origen, or rather afterwards. For if it was written against the gentiles, without any change of his former opinion about Origen's errors, he could rightly praise his arguments against the Gentiles; and thus Socrates will not have erred, except in the manner of relating the facts, namely in that he attributed to a kind of palinode what Methodius had done with just reason. So Socrates, out of zeal for detraction, wrongly imputed it to him that Methodius had begun to attack Origen's errors.
[21] The Work on Free Will against the Valentinians, and two others. There follows in St. Jerome: And on αὐτεξουσίου, on Free Will. Photius gives fairly ample Extracts of this Work in codex 136, column 939. Combefis gave more, believing that he was publishing almost the whole little Work in three parts. The first part had been published before by Meursius, the second likewise in the Bibliotheca of Photius; the third he had from a manuscript of Sirmond, and at the end he added a small fragment from Damascene. It is a Dialogue written against the Valentinian heretics, which has as speakers an Orthodox and a Valentinian, as may be seen more fully in Combefis from page 347. Two other little Works of Methodius Jerome subjoins in this manner: Commentaries also on Genesis and on the Song of Songs; and many other things, etc. Allatius observes at number 19 that the Commentaries on Genesis were formerly praised under the name of Questions on Genesis; but he brings forward no fragments of any moment, as none are brought forward from the Commentaries on the Song of Songs.
[22] The Oration on Symeon and Anna is not by St. Methodius the martyr, Besides what has already been said, Combefis published two Orations of St. Methodius; the former, already published before, at page 396 with this title: Of Methodius, bishop of Patara and martyr, on Symeon and Anna, on the day when to the Lord
they met in the temple, and on the Holy Mother of God (in Greek εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν Θεοτόκον). The title of the other, at page 430, is: An oration of our holy father Methodius, bishop and martyr, on Palm Sunday. The former Fabricius also attributes to St. Methodius the bishop and martyr in his Greek Library, volume 5, page 257; about the other he doubts. But Tillemont in Note 6 on Methodius doubts vehemently about both, and inclines to the opinion that makes both of them later. Our Henschen, who, the matter being less examined, had praised the former in volume 1 of February, page 268, on the Hypapante of the Lord, as being this Methodius's, in the Life of St. Methodius of Constantinople, volume 2 of June, page 973, denies it altogether to our Methodius, along with Oudin. I for my part cannot doubt that both were composed some centuries after Methodius, since the author uses those modes of speaking which prevailed after the Council of Nicaea and after that of Ephesus, as anyone well versed in antiquity will easily perceive who is willing to read them attentively. Certainly the word ὁμοούσιος, which that Methodius uses several times, was not in use before the Council of Nicaea; the word Θεοτόκος, which he likewise has, not only in the title but repeatedly in the oration itself, only began to be used at the time of the Council of Ephesus. But, to be brief, let it suffice to say that many words are found in that Oration which you would not easily find among the older Greeks, and that the whole diction is far removed from the polish and purity of our Methodius, and comes so near to the style of the later Greeks that I plainly do not see how Allatius could find any similarity of style between the oration on Symeon and Anna and Methodius's Symposium on Chastity.
[23] They have, however, an argument which they believe unanswerable, but composed much later: those who wish to attribute that Oration to St. Methodius the martyr, namely Combefis and Allatius, to whose opinion John Albert Fabricius also subscribed in his Greek Library, volume 5, page 256. The beginning of the Oration is as follows, as it is rendered in Latin in Combefis, page 396: Since formerly, so far as brevity allowed, we have abundantly set forth what was to be said about virginity in the Symposiacs on Chastity (in Greek ἐν τοῖς περὶ ἁγνείας συμποσίοις, in the Symposia or banquets on chastity), as laying foundations, etc. Combefis and Allatius believe that the Symposium formerly written by Methodius is here clearly cited, so that there is no room for doubt, says Combefis, page 469. But that argument is not to be valued so highly as the writers praised have valued it. For the subject of chastity and virginity is such that very many of the Fathers have treated it repeatedly; nor was Methodius the martyr the only one to celebrate chastity and virginity with many praises. And the word συμπόσιον, banquet, is likewise such that it can be applied by a not at all unfitting metaphor to a sermon to the people: for Chrysostom in his Homilies frequently says that he is setting out a banquet or laying a table. Wherefore the author of that Oration says that he has already spoken briefly about virginity in various orations to the people. That his words must be explained in this way is clear, first, from the plural number which he uses, ἐν τοῖς συμποσίοις, in the banquets; for since St. Methodius the martyr wrote only one Symposium, if the author wished to indicate it he would say ἐν συμποσίῳ, in the Symposium, not in the Symposia. Secondly, the author of the Oration says that he treated of virginity briefly: but Methodius in the Symposium disputed about virginity at very great length. And so that argument is inept for ascribing that Oration to Methodius the martyr; since the Oration itself, from beginning to end, by its style, by its more recent vocabulary, and by its precise manner of speaking against the Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians, openly proclaims that it is far younger.
[24] other things also wrongly attributed to St. Methodius the martyr. Of the other Oration on Palm Sunday, which was also ascribed to Chrysostom, let it suffice to have said briefly that it does not seem to be by Methodius the martyr. Combefis published besides some Excerpts of Methodius, as Allatius too published one other fragment. But these are of slighter moment; nor are more things brought forward which can rightly be ascribed to Methodius the martyr. For a certain Apocalypse is indeed read under the name of Methodius; but it is certainly by a later writer. In the royal library of Paris there is a Homily on the Presentation ascribed to Methodius of Patara, as the Catalogue of manuscripts has in codex 1194. A homily with a similar title on the Presentation, in codex 1171, which is said to be of the tenth century, is attributed to a certain Methodius, bishop of Myra. This we have by no means seen, and perhaps it will be the same as that which in one codex is attributed to Methodius of Patara, but in the other to Methodius of Myra, of whom I have found nothing further. For the rest, if the inscriptions by which little Works in codices are attributed to certain authors strayed less frequently from the truth than they actually do stray, above all in codices which exhibit the little Works of various writers together, I should suspect that some Methodius of Patara flourished after the middle of the fifth century or in the sixth. For he could be the author of the Orations which are wrongly attributed to Methodius the martyr; and on his occasion too it could have come about that Methodius the martyr was believed by the later Greeks to be bishop of Patara. But the titles prefixed to little Works in codices so often deceive that no solid argument can be had from them. For the rest, what the Greeks said about St. Methodius of Patara in their calendars may be seen given on the twentieth of June. But whether Methodius of Olympus and of Tyre, of whom we now treat, was one man, and Methodius of Patara, of whom we treated there, another, seems to me too doubtful for me to be willing to interpose my judgment, or to contend for the distinction. Let the studious reader judge of the matter as he pleases. For I have treated only of Methodius the martyr, because not everything had been set forth on the twentieth of June. But the Orations which are not the Martyr's are probably to be attributed to Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, who flourished in the ninth century, and of whom we treated on the fourteenth of June.