stephan huller

I have continued to line up what I thought were 'the three texts' (Maximus, Methodius, Adamantius) and then a new wrinkle was thrown in. There is amazing variation in the manuscripts of Methodius. Pretty notes this in his translation of Adamantius but I didn't appreciate this until I attempted to line this up. Migne's text is not Bonwetsch's. There is great difference between the Greek and the Slavonic texts of Methodius which is one of the reasons I presume why so much material related to Methodius has never been translated into English. I also think the material is older than Methodius.

stephan huller

Perhaps the most unusual thing about the Dialogue is that it "stars" Origen (= Adamantius) but the debate itself becomes a patchwork of material borrowed from his adversary Methodius. I notice for instance that starting on page 168 of Pretty's translation a new Methodian text is employed De Resurrectione and Against Proclus. Pretty notes that the heretical teaching here is identified as Origen's own. Very odd. Origen (= Adamantius) mouthing the words of Methodius pretending to attack an alleged follower of Bardaisan (= Marinus) whose views are actually identified by Methodius as Origen's own. Very odd

stephan huller

Someone has to translate and make widely available all this stuff from Methodius that survives only in Slavonic. There is literally piles of stuff that only exists in German. I have always thought Methodius is earlier than the fourth century. My guess again is something closer to the third century - despite the obvious problem of Against Proclus (= late third century). Notice that the parallel material in Adamantius is really directed against Origen raising the question of whether 'Proclus' and 'Valentinus' are later repackaging of original material directed against Origen.

stephan huller

Here is a correction of what I said earlier. There aren't two massive variations in the manuscripts of Methodius. Apparently Migne 'edited' (= censored!) the material that attacked Origen:

This work has been lost, but large extracts have been preserved by Epiphanius, Haer. 64, and by Photius, Cod. 234, see also Johan. Damasc. de Imag. Orat. 2. The text as given by Combefis and reprinted by Migne suppresses the heretical portions of the Epiphanian extracts. This work also is in the form of a Platonic dialogue, and is in refutation of Origen. The Origenist speakers deny the materiality of the resurrection body, and urge that it is enough if we believe that the same form shall rise again, beautified and glorified. In heaven our bodies will be spiritual; and so St. Paul teaches: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body"; "Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Man had been originally in Paradise, that is, in the third heaven (II. Cor. xii.), having there none but a spiritual body; having sinned he was east down to earth, where God made him "coats of skins," that is to say, for a punishment clad him in our present gross material bodies, which clog and fetter the soul and out of which spring our temptations to sin; for without the body the soul cannot sin. When we rise therefore to dwell where sin cannot be, we shall be like the angels, liberated from the flesh which has burdened us here. In reply, Methodius acutely points out the inconsistence of teaching that the soul cannot sin without the body, and at the same time that the body had been imposed on the soul as a punishment for sins previously committed; and in truth the body is an instrument for good as well as for evil. Paradise and the third heaven are not identified (II. Cor. xii.); two distinct revelations are spoken of. It is said that we shall hereafter be as the angels, that is, like them, not subject to change or decay; but not that we shall be angels or without earthly bodies. God does not make mistakes; if He had meant us to be angels He would have made us so at first. His creatures are diverse: besides angels; there are thrones, principalities, and powers. By death He does not design to turn us into something different in kind from what He at first meant us to be; but only as an artificer, when a work of his is polluted with stains which cannot otherwise be removed, melts it down, and makes it anew; so by death we shall be remade free from the pollution of sin. Similarly the world will not be destroyed, but made into a new and purer earth, fit for the risen saints. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodic...term=methodius

stephan huller

It is still incredible that the Dialogue took a treatise directed against Origen, put it in Origen's mouth to attack 'Marinus' when in reality this material was originally directed against his own person. This is key to solving the mystery of the Dialogue. Why transform anti-Marcionite material into anti-Valentinian ones? Why redirect Methegius's words (a Marcionite who holds the original beliefs of three powers in heaven) into a Marcionite dualist named Marcus who is identified as Manichaean in all texts? Why is Megethius present (and continues to 'pop into' the debate) until the very end?

I think everyone agrees that the Dialogue form is falsified. Let's suppose it was a treatise. Was the original anti-Marcionite treatise a composite of many treatises or just one principle text that was 'split' up in the name of Methodius? Don't know, don't know, don't know.

stephan huller

One way to resolve the difficulty with respect to Eusebius citing Maximus as living at the time of Irenaeus and Methodius copying Maximus is to assume that both 'Maximus' and 'Methodius' are adaptations of writings originally associated with Irenaeus. This isn't as crazy as it may seem at first blush. The first point is clearly that Maximus, Methodius and Adamantius copied some lost source which as Harris notes ultimately derived from a lost anti-Marcionite treatise where the Antitheses were cited. Lloyd Patterson, (Methodius, 7f. 224) repeatedly notes that Methodius paraphrases or quotes Irenaeus many times. In his opinion, scholars had neglected to explore these influences adequately. Moreover this comes up over and over again in the survey in Bonwetsch.

But as I am reading sections of On Free Will which survive only in Slavonic and were never translated into English I can't help see this indebtedness to Irenaeus shines even brighter then I would have realized from the translated portions in English. It is not that one can in every case trace an idea directly back to Irenaeus, but many of the things - especially the idea of the Devil not being made evil by God but straying from God and thereby becoming evil - seems to utterly Irenaean. It is an argument almost designed to counter the pre-existent notion of an antithesis - a dualism - between God and the Devil.

Irenaeus above all other early writers stresses this notion of one all powerful God and a complete unity in the godhead. The idea of how evil was created in spite of the oneness of God needs Methodius's explanation in Free Will. Even if Irenaeus is never demonstrated to have said these very same things, he had to have held the same beliefs. I know it sounds crazy but I can't think of any other way Irenaeus would have explained the origin of evil.

Sheshbazzar

'God' is the origin of, and the author of all evil.

Bad and irresponsible Bible God, turns out defective products repeatedly, knowing that they are defective because he with deliberate foreknowledge and conniving, made (and forces) them to be that way.

There are evil works, and evil men only because God wanted, 'WILLS', and creates evil, and chooses to make (force) men to do evil.



.

Iskander

This wall of literally ‘nothings’ is almost insulting.

stephan huller

Another problem I have been noticing - Lloyd Patterson seems to have written everything there is about Methodius in English. That demonstrates how under appreciated Methodius's writings are.

stephan huller

This helps clear the way for identifying the writings of Methodius either with those of Irenaeus or at least bring them back to the very same era (= Maximus as Eusebius reports):

Without the obstacle of Contra Porphyry the many clues that Methodius is much earlier than the turn of the fourth century (= turn of the third century) is much easier to argue.