St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople

of physicians and many friends, so that he might be saved from death, and from that once-for-all event; but he achieved nothing ^A. For when God is angry, who can help him? For when God does not act, every labor of physicians is useless and vain. Then the wretch died a bitter and grievous death, knowing precisely that others would inherit the goods gathered by him with injustice, oath, and greed, and would enjoy them thanklessly; while he himself goes forth naked and dejected, having only his sins, and suffering the unbearable torments of unceasing pains—a miserable and restless state—for ages. ^B XVII. Therefore I beseech you all, beloved, at every time and place, and every hour and day, to turn to our man-loving God through repentance, tears, confession, and abundant alms, so that our errors may be forgiven us, and we may attain eternal goods; by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power unto the ages of ages. Amen.

OF THE SAME CHRISTOPHORUS, EPISTLE TO THE EMPEROR THEOPHILUS ON THE HOLY AND VENERABLE IMAGES.

ANNO DOMINI DCCCXLVII.

SAINT METHODIUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

NOTITIA.

Following Methodius the martyr and bishop is another Methodius, patriarch and confessor, very celebrated for his doctrine and published works, and almost equal to the martyr. For he endured most bitter tortures, most atrocious imprisonments, and manifest calumnies from the Iconoclasts and others who could not bear his most holy character, in order to defend piety. He is venerated among the saints both by the Latins and by the Greeks, and among the Greeks his solemnity is celebrated with a special office in his honor. He was a Syracusan by birth. I have from an uncertain eulogy on the same: "Methodius, chosen by God, having Syracuse as his country, born of noble and wealthy parents, was instructed in his country from his childhood in the entire art of grammar and in the method of writing correctly and rapidly. When he emerged from youth, he sailed to the royal city carrying much money with him, inflamed by a desire for imperial dignities and most covetous of worldly glory. But having, by God’s providence, fallen in with an ascetic, and being asked the reason which had led him to exchange western affairs for eastern ones, etc." Before his patriarchate, he was sent to Constantinople by the Roman Pontiff Leo III, in which role of legate he performed…

^A his duties with such distinction that he was deservedly honored by all as a saint, on account of his confession and the struggle of his labors. The Greeks in the Menaion say: *Methodius, being the lamp of the Church,* *Leaving behind the lower things, travels toward the city on high.* This holy man, having utterly overthrown the error of the heresies and the Iconoclasts with wise proofs and citations from Scripture, and having pulled them down, and having bestowed the orthodox faith upon the Churches of God, and having suffered many hardships from the heretics in the veneration of the holy and venerable icons, rested eternally, seeking for us the release from our miseries. His assembly is celebrated in the most holy house in which his precious relic lies, which is indeed within the Great Church of the holy and all-praised Apostles. *Methodius, being the lamp of the Church,* *Leaving behind the lower things, travels toward the city on high.* This holy man, having utterly overthrown the error of the heresies and the Iconoclasts with wise proofs and citations from Scripture, and having pulled them down, and having bestowed the orthodox faith upon the Churches of God, and having suffered many hardships from the heretics in the veneration of the holy and venerable icons, rested eternally, seeking for us the release from our miseries. His assembly is celebrated in the most holy house in which his precious relic lies, which is indeed within the Great Church of the holy and all-praised Apostles. *Methodius, being the lamp of the Church,* *The dark cloud of death quenches.* This holy and great Methodius was from Sicily, a monk by profession, and having attained virtue through various exercises. He arrived at Constantinople, and because of the impending storm of the Churches (for the ^B Iconoclast heresy was rampant), he built a monastery in the region of Chios and sat there, having utterly overturned the error of the Iconoclast heresy with wise proofs and citations from Scripture, and having pulled it down, and having bestowed the orthodox faith upon the Churches of God, and having suffered many hardships from the heretics in the veneration of the holy icons. When Theophilus the emperor came to the end of his life, and the orthodox faith began to shine forth, the great Methodius was summoned by the Empress Theodora and her son Michael, according to the prediction of Joannicius the Great the wonderworker, and was ordained patriarch of Constantinople; and having presided for four years and three months, he rested in peace eternally. His assembly is celebrated in his own holy house, which is indeed within the Great Church of the holy and all-praised Apostles, in which also his precious relic lies. *Methodius, light of the Church,* *A sad cloud of death extinguishes.* This holy and great Methodius had his origin in Sicily. Having become a monk, and having pursued virtue through a various class of exercises, he arrived at Byzantium, and on account of the storm invading the Churches (for the heresy of the Iconoclasts was indeed rampant in that region), he built a monastery in the place which took its name from Chios, and there established his seat, overthrowing and refuting in various ways the error of the Iconoclast heresy by learned demonstrations and testimonies taken from Scripture, and restoring the orthodox faith to the Churches of God. Furthermore, having suffered many hardships from the heretics because he honored and venerated the holy images, when the Emperor Theophilus reached the end of his life and the orthodox faith shone forth, he was summoned by the Empress Theodora and her son Michael, just as the great and wonderworker Joannicius had predicted, and was created Patriarch of Constantinople. And having presided over the patriarchate in peace for four years and three months, he attained eternal rest. His feast day is conducted in his own sacred house within the temple of the great holy Apostles, where his venerable relics repose. Regarding his other legation from Constantinople to Rome, his election, his struggles, his death, and other matters, see Cedrenus on the Emperor Michael, Glycas on Theophilus, Theophanes in the panegyric of the holy Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, and the Acts of the holy Joannicius, ^C as well as the anonymous work in his panegyric, which we have provided in a Latin translation for Constantino Cajetano of Syracuse. Someone or other noted in the margin of Vatican codex 825, page 4, that a rather long oration on this person had been written. *Search also for the great discourse of Gregory, Archbishop of Sicily, on Saint Methodius.* I also seek the long oration of Gregory, Archbishop of Sicily, on Saint Methodius. And I have no doubt that it is a discourse concerning the Constantinopolitan, since this note is at the beginning of an anonymous panegyric on the Constantinopolitan. This oration, although I have searched for it anxiously, has not reached my hands to this day. And I truly grieve that a record of such a great Father has been lost—if indeed it is lost. John of Ephesus in his *Treatise on the Schism* calls the same man "The Great Confessor of the truth, and the foundation of piety." Since the Greek words from the Greek Menaion and the MS Barberini set forth above indicate that he had written much against the Iconoclasts, there is, so far as I know, nothing of these remaining to us. I transcribed for the same, from the Vallicellana Library, an oration on the holy martyr Agatha, but it was mutilated; I also rendered it into Latin when asked by friends, and handed it over to the aforementioned Constantino. Leonard Pate, from the Alumnus of the Greek College, the primary Professor of Greek literature at the university of Messina, had it from I know not where and rendered it into Latin. If only he would share the Greek with us at some time. Its beginning is: "Since the wonder urged me to speak." There is a sentence in it of the greatest note concerning divine aid and grace; because it is not in everyone's hands, I shall append it: "All things are manifest to God. For, says the holy Scripture, all things are naked and laid open to his eyes, toward whom our word is directed. But not all things are predetermined by the One who knows. For indeed, foreknowledge introduces the knowledge of the Creator concerning all things, which also contains the reasons for his forbearance, and bears the seeds of the choice of those things which have been created together with free will. But predetermination does not introduce a reason for ^D permissive falling away together with human choice, but introduces the good pleasure of the Creator toward him who is being predetermined. Thus, our most blessed all-holy Lady, the Virgin and Theotokos, was chosen from all generations by the Word who dwelt in her and created her. And thus, her daughter and handmaid, who is now praised by us, and who through herself brings to God the praise and the now-offered thanksgiving, was predetermined for a witness and chosen, having been prepared by choice, just as the Lady had been settled [in that state]. So, all things are manifest to God, since holy Scripture says, 'All things are naked and open to the eyes of him,' toward whom our discourse is directed. But not all things are predetermined by the Knower. For indeed, foreknowledge itself implies the knowledge of the Creator God concerning individual things, which also [partakes] of that...

indulgence and the rationale of election, and retains the seeds of those who are freely created by Him. Predetermination, however, is not of a permissive fall, but introduces the good pleasure of the Creator into the very person who is predetermined, along with the free choice of man. Thus, she who was preached by all as the most blessed and most holy our Lady, the Virgin and Mother of God, from the divine Word who dwelt in her and created her, was chosen out of all nations: and in no other way was she his daughter and handmaid, who is now adorned by us with auspicious acclamations, and who through the same bears our praises and our thanksgiving to God, was she predetermined to be a martyr, and chosen, prepared by a free proposal, just as the Lady was [once] inhabited.

While he was still a presbyter, he composed a history of the deeds of Dionysius the Areopagite. These were published in Greek and Latin under the editorship of Peter Lenssel, both in Paris and in Antwerp among the Works of Dionysius the Areopagite. Recent writers praise them under the name of Methodius, although they are claimed by others for I know not whom, Metrodorus; these same [works], compiled by Abbot Hilduin at the command of Louis the Pious from Greek and Latin sources placed together, were pursued in a historical style and named the *Areopagitica*. Then also Michael the Syncellus of Jerusalem wrote an encomiastic oration concerning the same Dionysius, published with Dionysius in Greek and Latin, under the editorship of Basil Millanius, a monk of Monte Cassino. ^B

It is also in doubt at what time or with what intention, and whether from Latin sources or truly from Greek ones, both Michael the Syncellus and Methodius committed the history to writing, while there is a dispute concerning two Dionysii. For by their authority, many, along with Hilduin, refer the patron of the Parisii, Dionysius, to the times of the apostles, for those who wrote about the deeds of divine Dionysius make him the same Dionysius who was bishop of Athens, the bishop of the Parisii. They confirm this by the authority of Anastasius the Librarian, who writes to the Emperor Charles the Bald: "The text of this passion was edited as a few excerpts concerning the preceding [events] by the blessed Methodius, who, having been sent to the apostolic see as a presbyter of Constantinople—for he himself afterwards was patriarch of Constantinople—held the pontificate, and from that time is truly venerated and worshiped by all among the saints on account of his contest for the pious use of sacred images." This Anastasius says that Methodius was sent to the apostolic see as a presbyter from Constantinople, and it is certain from the Curopalates and the epistle of Theodore the Studite to Epiphanius that Methodius was sent by Patriarch Nicephorus when he was being attacked by false slanders from his adversaries to the pope, who was Paschal I. Nevertheless, it is read in Surius that he was sent as a presbyter to Constantinople from the apostolic see. Others note that these [accounts] can be reconciled if one says that Methodius, after he had finished his embassy for his patriarch to the pope, was sent back by him to Constantinople with some injunction from the apostolic see.

Among learned men, however, it is debated whether what Methodius and Syncellus wrote about Dionysius they fashioned from their own genius, or whether they edited excerpts from more expansive monuments of the ancient Greeks and published them, contracted into an epitome, at Rome. For some relate that Hilduin was deceived and deluded by Greek prelates and legates, who were artfully courting his favor; and that with the loss of Greek affairs, since they were petitioning for aid from the Frankish kings, it was done by the Greek genius so that they might applaud of their own accord the Areopagitic dignity and the doctrine of the Apostle Paul ^C, then first affixed to the monks of Saint Dionysius, with whom the greatest part of Gaul and its affairs resided; and that the whole matter was confirmed by true or fictitious monuments. Jacob Sirmond, concerning the two Dionysii: "When [the matters] began to resound and echo everywhere with the name of the Areopagite, so that color and strength might be added to the plausible fable, they were born suddenly, and snatched from the shadows along with Aristarchus and Virbius, the Syncellus and Methodius, who seemed to give their suffrage." And from the words of Hincmar writing to Charles the Bald: "I have recognized that those things which are written there (in the Life of Dionysius written by Methodius) agree with those things which I read in my youth, namely through whom and in what manner the deeds of the martyrdom of divine Dionysius and his companions reached the knowledge of the Romans, and thence to the knowledge of the Greeks." They conclude that the deeds of the passion of Dionysius reached the knowledge of the Romans first from Gaul, and then to the knowledge of the Greeks, in which case who does not easily conceive that Methodius composed the history of Dionysius from the commentaries of the Gauls? But whoever the Gauls were, whether Hilduin or others, it is the same as if we were to say that Methodius wrote the entire life of Dionysius not from his own, but from foreign monuments. And they prove this first, because Hilduin, in order to construct more certain faith in the *Areopagitica*, had to praise Methodius, unless perhaps he was ashamed to praise those monuments which he had entrusted to Methodius returning from the Gallic embassy. Second, because in *Areopagitica* number 10, he asserts: "Concerning the death of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Greeks wrote nothing, because on account of the distance of the lands his passing was entirely unknown to them." Third, because when Hilduin had summoned an old martyrology from Constantinople, it would have been easy for him to give him the booklet in which Methodius had recently written the life of Dionysius. Fourth, because from the mutual collation of the life of Dionysius published by Hilduin and Methodius, it appears that Methodius published the life of Dionysius from the writings of Hilduin or his associates, and they prove this by adducing many passages ^D both from Hilduin and from Methodius. From this, two things are manifestly said to be gathered: one is that from the mutual collation of each author it happens entirely that Methodius received his writing material from Hilduin, or Hilduin from Methodius—since, however, no one says that Hilduin received it from Methodius, or Methodius from older Greeks, who in the judgment of Hilduin himself wrote nothing concerning the death of Dionysius the Areopagite: the other is that a Greek man was deceived by a Gaul through ignorance.

And these are those who deny that there are two Dionysii: but those who assert that Saint Methodius, while he was acting as Apocrisiarius for the Patriarch of Constantinople Nicephorus with Pope Paschal, pursued the deeds of the martyr Dionysius in a historical style, and condensed and contracted whatever the older Greek authors had written about the same, and left his epitome written at Rome—which Anastasius the Librarian testifies he saw while he was still at a young age, in his epistle to Charles the Great: wherefore those who write that he fashioned it from his own genius are foolishly asserting [this], and Baronius did not proceed in a straight line when he judged that at the same time at which Hilduin composed his *Areopagitica* in the West, Michael and Methodius [did so] in the East, and so with Hilduin urging this, who certainly was not yet the abbot of Saint Dionysius, when Methodius was existing at Rome as Apocrisiarius of Constantinople, he composed the booklet concerning the deeds of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite from the more expansive commentaries of ancient authors, namely under Pope Paschal, in whose second year, which was the year 818 of Christ, Baronius himself makes mention of that same embassy of Methodius to the apostolic see, at which time Fredulf was abbot of the Dionysian monastery, which is evident from very certain indications. And thus it could not have been that Hilduin concurred with them in the collation of their *Areopagitica*. Since from the sacred [order] of Louis the Pious to Hilduin himself concerning the undertaking of the investigation of these things, it is manifest that it was destroyed after the restoration of Louis himself, which at length was done in the year 854, as Sigebert narrates in his Chronicle. Wherefore Methodius and Michael wrote under Paschal the first [of that name] as pope, Hilduin under Gregory IV, and therefore with his pontificate long protracted, namely not before the year 858, they conclude that Hilduin drew [his material] from those writings, which he himself had sampled from the ancient sources of his own nation. And those who say that Methodius was deluded, [they themselves] are deluded.

^A Rather, not a little ignorance of the history of this time stems from this. For they say the condition of the world at that time was such that the Greeks did not seek the aid of the Franks, and still less did they court the favor of the Abbot of St. Denis—who was then pleasing to Emperor Louis, though soon after he fell into his grave indignation—as a means to ward off the insults cast against them. On the contrary, the afflicted state of the West compelled both the Pope and the Emperor, because of the formidable descent into Sicily of the Saracens and Moors, their growing power through Spain, and their looming incursion into Gaul, to send an embassy to the Byzantine Emperor Michael, who was enjoying peace at the time, to beg for aid. This is easily proven from synchronous authors and more serious writers who have observed the events of this time with precise calculations. For what Hilduin wrote concerning the books of St. Dionysius the Areopagite sent by the Byzantine Emperor Michael to Louis, the Augustus of the West, via solemn embassy, does not prove what is intended—that Hilduin had been deluded by the artifice of the Greeks, who were courting his favor, in which he held sway with Louis the Pious; indeed, it reveals far more openly that such an occasion was fabricated. For Michael did not send to Louis, but rather sent back, having been anticipated by Louis’s desire and request for friendship and the establishing of a confederation. Indeed, at the beginning of the year 838, after a conventicle was held with Pope Gregory IV, Halitgar of Cambrai and Anfred, Abbot of Nonantola, were sent to the Constantinopolitan Caesar. The sum of the embassy was that Michael, having been beseeched by the Pope and the Roman princes, should undertake a common war against the Saracens with them. Adelin the Benedictine, the anonymous [author] published by Pithou, and Aimoini in his *De gestis Francorum*—whose footsteps more recent writers have followed—mention this embassy in that same year.

^B And these things—and many more—are for the moderns to either add or subtract from the credibility of Methodius and Syncellus. But whether Methodius and Syncellus drew their material from Gallic sources, or the Gauls from Methodius and Syncellus, who had published what they had collected from Greek sources, this is a matter of another business, which the Gauls themselves, when it pleases God, will ultimately define. To us it seems dire that such great Fathers, and especially Methodius—who is venerated and worshiped truly even by the Latin Church on account of his confession and struggle, to use the words of Anastasius the Librarian—should have been deluded, and should have yielded so much to human favor as to have handed down in writing, as true and genuine, stories and narratives about the martyrdom of the saints and their deeds which were either feigned by themselves or fabricated by others. For the sake of the truth, they suffered atrocities; they were tortured with constant labors and various kinds of torments and were at last worn out, and are finally being worn out [even now], when they hear that they were deluded by the favor of princes and—what is worse—that they betrayed the truth. The constant spirit of Methodius and the noble purpose of Syncellus in ecclesiastical matters would have abhorred such impostures just as much as a ferocious snake. But they were "deluded by a man of Gaul." This is truly less believable. We attribute the vices of vain men to the prudent. They examined their own [sources] beforehand—for they surveyed the Greek monuments no less considerately than they did those that were Gallic—and then subsequently published what was more probable, as befits a sacred writer. This is gathered from Methodius himself, who confesses that he did not compose the acts of the said saints from vain and uncaring knowledge, but from ancient narratives, and certain and firm antiquity, and also from hearsay handed down through the ages by tradition. "For it was not from our own habits, which we possess, or our own pre-knowledge that it was brought forth to us, but from ancient accounts; and what few things we could grasp from the firm and ancient [sources] in part, and what we have heard from long ago, we have handed down in writing, not having acted willfully regarding the exposition, as has been said, but as we learned about the deeds of the great teachers, fearing God."

^C For it was not from our own customs, nor from our own pre-knowledge, that this was accomplished by us, but it was perfected from ancient narrative; and those few things which we have heard from certain and firm antiquity and from long ages, we have committed to letters, not having embarked upon an exposition of our own accord and rashly, but as we obtained the narratives of the great doctors of the deeds done, fearing God. If someone who writes is most distinguished by known virtue and proven faith, as Methodius is, and is pre-celebrated for holiness, I would never say that he had been deluded, and had yielded so much to human favor as to have handed down in writing, as true and genuine, narratives about the martyrdom of the saints and their deeds which were feigned by him or fabricated by others. I do not dare so much. But we leave this matter to be considered more deeply by the inquisitors of these things. Furthermore, one must note the supine error of Franciscus Bivarius in his work on Flavius Dexter, in the year of Christ 91, who calls a writer of the Middle Ages a most ancient writer.

There is in my possession a manuscript letter of the same [Methodius] written to the Patriarch of Constantinople, in which he deposes the priests who had rebelled. The beginning is: "The hand extended from the honorable supremacy of the Word..." When, therefore, after the death of Theodore the Studite, those who were of the Studite [monastery] were separated from the Byzantine Church and its president Methodius—defending what the living Theodore, moved by the zeal of piety, had written against Nicephorus and Tarasius—and were holding such great Fathers in mockery, and condemning them as guilty of countless crimes, Methodius, not bearing this, admonished them often to cease from contention. When they would not repent, he struck them with anathema and cast them out of the Church. It seemed to some that the followers of Theodore were condemned unjustly; hence, to protect his own position, Methodius wrote various letters to different people excusing himself and setting forth what he had done—namely, that he had condemned the writings which Theodore had written against Nicephorus and Tarasius, and not Theodore [himself]. This is most evident from the opinion of the same [Methodius] regarding the Studites, which John, Metropolitan of Ephesus, inserted in his book *On the Schism*.

^D The same [Methodius], for the variety and age of those who lapsed and abjured the faith, promulgated various canons, which have been published often in Greek and Latin. Harmenopulus mentions this in his epitome of the Canons, section 4: "The regulation of Patriarch Methodius regarding those who fell and returned: those infants who were taken captive, and those who were cowed by fear or ignorance, he deems worthy of forgiveness, anointing them only with holy chrism. But those who were of full age and who were cowed by necessity, he also deems worthy of forgiveness, anointing them with holy chrism, but nonetheless commands them to fast for two forty-day periods, abstaining from meats, and to perform intense prayers and genuflections as much as they are able. Those who defected by their own choice, he commands to fast for two years, similarly to those declared above, and to perform one hundred or two hundred genuflections each day, and only then to be anointed with holy chrism." The sanction of Patriarch Methodius deems the lapsed and converted—children who were abducted into captivity and who were subdued by fear or ignorance—worthy of pardon, anointing them solely with sacred oil, but those adults who were subdued by coercion he also deems worthy of pardon, anointing them with sacred oil; but he commands them to fast for two forty-day periods, abstaining from meats, and to perform immense prayers and prostrations according to their strength. But those who, knowingly and prudently, defected from the Christians to them, he commands to fast for two years, just as indicated above, and to perform one hundred or two hundred prostrations daily, and thus to be anointed with sacred oil. Arcudius, in *De concordia*, lib. 11, cap. 18, writes that, since there are two patriarchs of this name—one who was immediately before Saint Ignatius around the year of our Lord 840, and another without doubt a schismatic around the year 1240—it is uncertain whose those prayers are. But whoever this Methodius was, he is not of such authority as to decree against Holy Scripture, which the Church of the Orient has not had in use for eight hundred or one thousand two hundred years and more. And supposing that such a manner of receiving those who deny Christ was instituted at the beginning...

safe, as it exists now in the Euchologion, that is, with the form of the Sacrament of Confirmation, it is certain that the author of it cannot be Methodius the First; for it does not seem likely that he would have failed to observe the passage of Paul in Hebrews 6, and its expositors Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Oecumenius, and others who affirm that baptism and the ^A laying on of hands, and participation in the Spirit, the seal—that is, confirmation—can be conferred only once. It is likewise probable that those rubrics concerning anointing and washing after those prayers were added in the form of an appendix by later Greeks, because many manuscript copies do not have all these things, especially that appendix; of which matter both the alumni of the Greek college and Johannes Matthaeus Caryophilus can be witnesses, because they have seen and read them. And in the patriarchal manuscript Euchologion of the monastery of Grottaferrata, nothing of this form is found, whereas in the same book the 7th Canon of the Synod is found, and it is read with them: "The priest anoints him with myrrh just as [he does] the newly illumined, performing the same proclamation over him as well." He anoints him with ointment just as [he does] the recently illumined, reciting the same ^B words over him, that is, pronouncing the same form. From this it is gathered that either at one time no ointment was used, except for heretics not [yet] confirmed, or it was used materially and outside the sacrament, and that a similar custom existed at some time; Suarez explains this most copiously in Part 3, question 72, article 11, disputation 36, section 1, explaining the canon of the Council of Orange. And thus Arcudius maintains that this author, if indeed he was orthodox, should be understood. Jacobus Goar, in his Notes on the Euchologion, acknowledges without any controversy that there is no other author of it besides Methodius the First, the confessor of Christ, who, as Baronius writes in the year 842, labored wondrously to recall those who had lapsed into the Church, and who, for the salvation of all, promulgated an edict of this kind. He attained the throne in the year 843, and ^C in the year 847 he departed from this life, having sat for four years. The second [Methodius] in the year 1240 held the Constantinopolitan see for only three months, during which time it is recorded that he produced nothing worthy of memory. I could here reply much to Arcudius, and this in particular: that I attribute more to the holiness of life and the learning of Methodius the patriarch than to the conjecture of Arcudius. But lest I behave too vehemently and bitterly towards an ingenuous man speaking from zeal for the faith and the truth, and especially because this is not the place for such disputes, I remit the reader to Goar, who examines the arguments of Arcudius proposed in that place and solidly refutes them. In the Library of the Escorial, as is noted in the manuscript index, there are [works] of Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople: *On those who turn away*, etc., *Oration on the Hypapante*, and *Compunctory Canons*. *On those who have denied and return*. The oration on the Hypapante and the compunctory canones. Regarding the first and its author, enough has been said above. As for the oration on the Hypapante, an oration of Methodius of Patara on that solemnity has been published in Greek and Latin. Is it the very same one, and did the author of the index suffer from blindness? I do not deny, however, that the patriarch could also have written an oration on the same Hypapante, and perhaps he did write it, since he also wrote for other solemn days. The compunctory canones. It is more likely that they belong to the patriarch, since at that time the custom of writing ^D similar things had become widespread, having spread through the Greek Church from the Studite monastery, as we noted elsewhere. And if anyone should contend that the canones of these are to be ascribed to the other Methodius the patriarch, in a matter so obscure, since they are shut up in the darkest of prisons, I shall not be so tiresome as to wish to contend with words alone; I shall acquiesce when someone produces surer evidence about a matter uncertain to me. Possevinus notes in the catalogue of the library of Santa Maria in Vallicella: *Poetic history of Methodius the patriarch on Gregory Nazianzen*. Who does not see the monster? It must, nevertheless, be investigated. Besides these canones de Lipsis, of the method of reconciling them to the Church, which are found in the Barberini manuscript codex 87, p. 111, and codex 95, p. 83, there are read in the same, under the name of the same Methodius the Patriarch of Constantinople: *Order to be observed in betrothals*, codex 93, p. 17. *Order in the blessing of nuptials*, in the same place p. 31, and codex 87, p. 102, and codex 101, p. 146, and codex 102, page 52. *Order in the blessing of the bigamous*, codex 101, page 295, codex 91, p. 89.

ANOTHER NOTICE

Methodius [born in Sicily], confessor (1) and patriarch from A.D. (2) 842 [at] Constantinople, died 14 June A.D. 846, a champion of images (3), whose Life, written by an anonymous author in Greek with Allatius' translation and Henschenius' Analecta, is read in the *Acta Sanctorum*, vol. II, June, p. 960ff. See also Baronius on the *Roman Martyrology*, 14 June, where he wrongly distinguishes Methodius of Patara from the Tyrian one. Goar shows his likeness, p. 126, in the *Euchologion*. Regarding his writings, Cave is to be consulted, to which you may add in turn *Spicilegium*, that the *Encomium of S. Agatha, virgin*, was edited in Latin from the translation of Leonhardus Pontus by Combefis in *Bibl. concionatoria* and by Bollandus at 5 Feb., and the Greek original exists in ms. in the Venetian library of S. Marco, shelf 29, codex π, log. 5, and it begins: "Since the miracle stirred me to speak." The author of the Life of Theophanes the abbot and confessor, in Henschenius in the *Acta Sanctorum* at 12 March, testifies that the life of the wife of saint Theophanes was written by Methodius. The Canon or constitution and *diatypōsis* of penance for those who have denied, through different ways and ages [Greek in c. Galei no. 5843. Cat. II, p. 185; Greek in codex Vindobon. 247, 3. V. Lamb. V, p. 251, in codex Medic. 81, n. 40, plut. 9. V. Bandini Cat. codd. Gr. I, p. 400. (1) He receives the name of confessor because he in no way allowed himself to be induced to abandon the cause of images, and preferred to allow himself to be cast into chains by the emperor, Michael the Stammerer, rather than cease from defending the cult of them. Who indeed afterwards arrived at such a degree of fortune that he was adorned with the dignity of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate. SIXT. V Comm. p. 248. HARL.] (3) And of Methodius Patriarch of Constantinople (in the index), but in the text: *An oration of the Archbishop of Constantinople the confessor concerning the holy images* is read in the *Collection of Sacred Orations* in the Moscow codex. V. cl. Matthaei *Notitia codd. Gr. bibl. Mosquensis*, p. 6. Under Emperor Michael, Methodius the patriarch, a Synod of CP. is celebrated where the decree of the Nicene Synod was confirmed. V. Montfauc. *Bibl. Coisl.* p. 102; add. p. 86. HARL.]

1241 NOTITIA. 1242

[Text from codices in the Paris public library, nos. 1336 and 1362. In Codex Baroccianus 101, and in London in the Sion Library, no. 4, 468, there is an Order for the reception of those who have apostatized in various ways and at various ages, and a double prayer for those who return to the Church; in the Coislin codices 271 and 112. Montfaucon, Bibl. HARL. 1, exists in Latin from Hervetus’ version in the Appendix to Balsamon, p. 88 seqq., and in the Bibliotheca Patrum, Paris 1515, 1589, 1654: and in Baronius ad a. C. 842, n. 21; it exists in Greek and Latin in Goar’s Euchologium, p. 876, who attributes it to this Methodius and added notes, p. 886, seq. In the same Appendix of Balsamon, p. 96, there also occurs in Latin the Canon, or Constitution of Methodius concerning the separations of the Studite monks. — [From the Aphorisms of Methodius, patriarch of the Studite ascetics, there is a fragment in a certain Collection of ascetic commonplaces, etc.; in Codex Vindobonensis 251, see Lambecius, Comm. V, p. 324 seqq., 327 sq., a fragment in the Collection of Nicon, see Montfaucon, Bibl. Coisl. p. 198, and more often. See Index. HARL.] A Homily on those who say: "What did the crucified Son of God profit?" and to those who are ashamed of the cross of Christ, or rather two fragments from them, which Gretser edited in Greek and Latin in his work De cruce; they also exist in Latin in the Bibliotheca Patrum Coloniensis, Vol. XV, a. 1622; and in the Parisian Supplement, a. 1639, Vol. I, p. 835. You have the third with Allatius, p. 349; an Encomium on Dionysius the Areopagite by Methodius. Certain codices wrongly attribute it to I know not whom, to Metrodorus; for Anastasius the Librarian claims it for Methodius in his epistle to Charles the Bald, which is appended to Hilduinus’ Areopagitica in Surius ad 9 October, and Flodoardus III, 18, where it is among the writings of Hincmar. Concerning the Passion of St. Dionysius dictated in Greek by Methodius CPol., and written in Latin by Anastasius of the Roman See. That encomium does not seem to have been repeated for the most part from older monuments, but rather from Hilduinus. Petrus Franciscus Chifletius also inserted it into his Dissertation on Dionysius the Areopagite, Paris 1676. 8. It first saw the light with the Latin version of Petrus Lansselius in the Lansselian edition of the works of Dionysius, Paris 1675, fol. In Hottinger’s manuscript there was: *Toû ἁγίου Μεθοδίου πατριάρχου περὶ τῶν ἀπὸ συστάσεως κόσμου συμβάντων καὶ τῶν μελλόντων συμβαίνειν εἰς τὸ ἑξῆς*. Those are therefore mistaken who attribute either the Chronicle or the Revelations to Methodius of Tyre. Confer Hottinger’s Bibliothecarium quadripartitum, p. 98, 99, and what I noted above on the writings of Methodius the Patarean or Tyrian. FABR. [There are those who would have this Methodius be the author of an oration on the meeting of Simeon and Anna and on the Mother of God and on Palm Sunday. SIXT.] — More concerning that Methodius, the Syracusan, his fates, often sad, and his writings, as well those mentioned by Fabricius as those omitted, has been collected by Mongitor in Bibliotheca Sicula, Vol. II, p. 66-69. HARL.]

ON ST. METHODIUS THE CONFESSOR, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. HIS CULTUS AMONG THE GREEKS AND LATINS AND THE ACTS OF HIS LIFE.

^A Inter among the prominent men under the Iconoclast emperors, Leo the Armenian, Michael Balbus, and his son Theophilus, the holy Methodius shone forth as an athlete of the orthodox faith, preeminent for his erudition, his piety toward God, his chastity, his zeal for the Catholic religion, his frequent endurance of inflicted scourging, and his suffering of exile and extreme hardships; and at last, after the death of the impious emperors, as Patriarch of Constantinople, the glorious restorer of the orthodox faith; who, about to receive the reward of his merits, migrated to eternal life in the year 847, on this 14th of June. On this day his memory is honored with a very famous solemnity among the Greeks, both in the Typicon and in the manuscript Synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople, and in other Menaea written by hand and printed in type; and his ecclesiastical office is found to be very illustrious, joined mixedly with the office of the prophet Elisha (4).

If we had found that the beginnings of the individual strophes corresponded to the acrostic which is placed before them, we would have given others of a similar kind below. But since these are entirely different from what the acrostic promises, and the interpreter has written some things about Methodius that should have been left to Elisha, it did not seem worth the effort to present such badly arranged material, when songs ordered much better can be had in the Menaea for so many other saints. Receive therefore only the acrostic.

*Ἀρχιερήα Θεοῖο Μεθόδιον ᾆσμασι μέλπω.* I praise in song the Arch-priest of God, Methodius.

5. At vespers, among other things, is placed a *Sticheron* or Versicle, to be sung to the melodies of the third tone, as a poem of Patriarch Photius: ^B "Joyfully today the Church of God is adorned, exulting and crying out: My beauty has been brightened more than any city; for behold, the great treasure of the arch-priests, the glorious Methodius, has made his journey toward heaven. Come then, lovers of the feast, the assembly of the orthodox, having joined the dance at the same time..."

the divine reliquary and, receiving a flood of healings from it, let us beseech him to ask Christ our God to deliver the inhabited world from all heresy. Festive today, the Church of God is adorned, and exultant she cries out: My beauty is illuminated above every city; for behold, the brilliant gem of the arch-priests, the glorious Methodius, has held his path to the heavens. Come, therefore, you who love this feast, you assemblies of the orthodox, and lead your choruses at once around the ark, receiving the grace of healings abounding from it; but let us pray that he may entreat Christ our God, so that He may deliver the whole world from every heresy. A holy prayer, which I wish the author himself had not rendered void by introducing a most pernicious schism! Meanwhile, we learn from it that the brightness of miracles did not fail the saint after his death.

4. In the morning office, between the seventh and eighth ode of the canon, there is placed an historical encomium of the same saint, with a distich of this kind prefixed:

Methodius, being the lamp of the Church, Leaving terrestrial things, he institutes a journey to the pole.

The encomium is also recorded in the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion in these words: ^B Memory of our holy Father Methodius, Archbishop of Constantinople and Confessor. Regarding the Church of the Great Apostles, the most celebrated of all basilicas after Hagia Sophia, and constructed by the great Constantine for the burial of himself and his successor emperors, Du Cange treats at length in his book *Constantinopolis Christiana*, ch. 5; where he teaches how Justinian restored it from the foundations, and made it greater and more beautiful, and adorned it.

3. The acts of his deeds are held in Greek in the Vatican library, signed with the numbers 685 and 1667, which we have taken care to have described for ourselves, and which we provide twice, rendered into Latin by Leo Allatius, custodian of the Vatican library while we were at Rome, a man most widely known for books partly donated to the Latin tongue from the Greek, and partly written by his own genius: who in his *Diatriba de Simeonum scriptis*, page 121, sets forth the beginning of the *Life*; and although he is ignorant of the author (whom we deem clearly ancient and almost contemporary), he does not judge it to have been composed or adorned by the aforesaid Simeon Metaphrastes. The title in the manuscripts is this: *Memoir of the God-pleasing conversation of our Holy Father Methodius, Archbishop of Constantinople.* To these we append Analecta, from the principal Greek writers who flourished in the same or near centuries and are all historians; such as Georgius Cedrenus, Joannes Scylitza, Joannes Zonaras, Constantinus Manasses, Michael Glycas; to whom are added Theophanes the presbyter in the *Life of St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople*, the contemporary author in the *Life of St. Nicholas the Studite*, Sabas the monk, Peter the monk and Metaphrastes in the ^C *Life of St. Joannicius*. We append some things concerning certain of his writings, among which are also some Lives of the saints.

LIFE

BY A CONTEMPORARY AUTHOR, TRANSLATED BY LEO ALLATIUS

CHAPTER I

Birth, studies, monasticism, torments endured, exile in a cave.

1. That an hierarch, and an ascetic at once, and a martyr of Christ, could be praised worthily only by angels or by the archangels of God, who adorn the first and divine hierarchy, and initiate worthy hierarchs, and provide strength and zeal to those exercising themselves and struggling; and if this were to be granted to men, it would be given not except to those who are of the same order and dignity: so that the hierarchy might praise the hierarch, the toil might praise the training, and the victor of the contest might praise the crowned one. What then, if none of such men ^D up to the present day [is able to praise] the all-lauded Methodius in such a way...

who is worthy of universal praise, acclaim, and eternal remembrance, because all are deterred by the veneration of a man so preeminent, and therefore treat his deeds with silence and awe; shall we, for that reason, abstain from speaking of such a hero, and—despicable though we be—pass over such virtue, nor recount the benefits bestowed upon the whole world through him by God? And when, indeed, shall we more fittingly fulfill the commandment to honor one's father, giving thanks to Him who, in every generation, causes His servants to arise like luminaries and dispels the darkness of souls? Yet we are not so filled with madness or intoxication as to profess that we are capable of celebrating the righteous man with praise worthy of him; but just as those who are just beginning their studies under teachers imitate the archetypal forms of the letters, though they do not attain their precise likeness so that all things are perfectly similar to them, so too will this discourse of ours, offering thoughts unpolished by any art, perhaps stammer, yet it will none the less speak the truth with such brevity as it can.

^B 2. The chosen of God, Methodius, had Syracuse as his homeland, having been born to noble and wealthy parents. There, having mastered from his childhood all the art of grammar and history, as well as orthography and the art of swift writing, when he had already reached manhood, he arrived at the Queen of Cities, bringing with him great wealth, desiring to obtain royal honors and to become illustrious in his way of life. Having met, however, by the providence of God, with a certain ascetic, and being asked the reason for which he had migrated from the West to the East, he had explained his own purpose. That wise man says to him: "And if you are so possessed by a desire for glory, O young man, why do you not rather acquire for yourself that stable and divine glory instead of that which is fleeting and quickly taken away, distributing your wealth to the needy, taking up the cross of Christ, and following in the footprints of the Master, which are truly royal? Or have you not heard the Christ announcing in the Gospels that you shall receive a hundredfold of these things in this world, and also inherit eternal life? So if you would now be persuaded by my words, you will make yourself poor and inglorious, and you will sit with the powerful of the people and inherit the throne of glory."

^C 3. Straightway, therefore, that good heart, like fertile soil receiving the seed, accomplished all things with zeal. He was tonsured, then, in the monastery of Chenolacus, and there he finished the ascetic arena, striving not even to overstep the rule by the slightest amount, nor to neglect it, clearly knowing that a turning aside to either side is a falling away from the whole.

4. And thus did he live as a philosopher, until at last the deep and dark night of the heresy of [the Iconoclasts]...

^A of those who hate and deny the Word of God, and who overturn and insult His economy, seized the whole world which obeys the royal city. The most holy patriarch Nicephorus was driven from his throne and condemned to exile, and all those of the right doctrine became wanderers, fugitives, and vagabonds, being shut up in mountains and caves and the fissures of the earth. For then, at last, leaving the monastery, he made his way to Rome, as it was outside the dominion of the evil; and there he applied himself even more diligently to action and contemplation, so that he might be strengthened from both sides, and, as it were, receive power from on high. Seeing the tyranny of evil raging more fiercely, and the burning of sacred heirlooms, the flights of the faithful, the bonds, the exiles, the brandings, the unbearable lashes, the prisons, the famine, the slanders, and all things similar to these, he wept and prayed ^B to God to rebuke the storm and bring it to a breeze.

5. Not long after, the savage Leo was taken off by destruction under the altar which he had insulted, and Michael took the empire. Then indeed, no longer able to bear seeing the truth gagged and condemned to speechlessness, while injustice cried out loudly—so that its cry was heard even to heaven—and finding no one to silence or refute it, he took dogmatic tomes, or rather, definitions of orthodox faith, from the Roman pontiff, and went up to the successor of Leo, hoping to lead him to the orthodox faith and restore the holy Nicephorus to his own throne. But he, having received the tomes, made light of them as if they were spiderwebs; and as for Methodius, who was clearly, freely, and intrepidly championing the right faith, he—alleging him to be a cause of sedition and scandals—had him hung up and struck ^C with nearly seven hundred lashes. Thus, half-dead and already gasping his last, he first threw him into prison, and then enclosed him in a tomb on the island of the Apostle Andrew, in which tomb another man was also enclosed, paying the penalty for attempted tyranny; so that from all sides he was pressed by deep despondency, from the ^D

incurability of the situation, from the company of that condemned and boorish man, from the narrowness of the tomb, and—what is worst of all—from the lightless darkness. ^A There is, therefore, no longer any need for us now to recount the sorrows that followed these things, for you already know the nature of the torture; indeed, everyone knows human weakness and that wretched and sickly vessel of clay, and what pains it causes the soul to endure in such conditions. For in truth he was laid there while still alive, unprovided for, in the lowest pit, in dark places and in the shadow of death. This was the first struggle of the blessed Methodius for Christ—for what followed will be told later; this was the vehement and intense martyrdom of the truly great athlete of Christ.

^B 6. Being asked in various ways whether he would be willing to heap insults upon the image of Christ and be released from prison, he said that he would prefer to undergo such deaths, and many more than these, than even to conceive an impious thought against the image of Christ our God. Having been locked up there for nine years, when the lawless emperor, acting on his dying breath, ordered the release of all who were held in chains, he too was set free, filled with the Holy Spirit. He bore upon his own body the pledges of immortal life—the stigmata, I mean, of the sufferings of Christ. He was entirely bald on his head and differed in no way from the dead, preserving the human form and his former appearance only by his bones and skin. Thus, having established himself in seclusion (for there was no monastery ^C immune from the plague of the heresy), he conversed with those who were zealous in the same way as he, with ascetics and martyrs of Christ, who had just been released from chains and exile. He also conversed with those who were in high office and of the senate, provided they held the right opinions about the faith. He was also with those who had drunk the poison of the heresy, so that he might propose saving doctrines to them and deliver them from the danger that pressed upon their souls. For he was a man of great understanding, sweet and profound, naturally fitting together and presenting the words of the divine Scriptures in such a way that his own speech flowed into the ears of his listeners like cold and sweet water poured into a thirsty throat.

7. When therefore the "lover of the nation" rather than the "lover of God"—who had succeeded his father in the empire and had drained the cup of that infamous heresy to the point of drunkenness—had begun to reign, the orthodox were again persecuted, exiled, cast down from their offices, and despoiled of their property and homes. There was no form of hardship that they did not endure. Then, therefore, the athlete and martyr of Christ, Methodius, was denounced to that serpent, for he openly refuted the heresy and had endured great tortures for the sake of the orthodox faith. Having been summoned, therefore, the emperor said to him: "Will you not cease,

Methodius, through your inopportune and stubborn zeal for contention, to disturb the arrangement of those who rule? And this for a most worthless cause, namely, an image, on account of which you have filled the world with so many tumults, to the extent of compelling the Roman Pontiff to write volumes to my father?" Then Methodius: "If the account ^A of the image is held in such low esteem by you, and is considered worthy of no regard, for what reason do you, who hold the Roman empire in your hands, not overturn and abolish your own [authority] along with the image of Christ, so that you might attain glory just as Christ does, but instead multiply and exalt it daily? Is not this cause, even if we are silent, clear and manifest?"

8. He, however, not bearing the insult of the refutation, turned his exhortation into fury, and ordering him to be stretched with thongs, with shoulders and chest bared, inflicted six hundred or more lashes. And thus, half-dead and stained on all sides with blood, he ordered him to be cast down into a subterranean cave, which was in the palace, through a certain opening. When night had come, he was taken out by some pious men, and after receiving timely treatment, he recovered well; but the house dear to God that had provided him medicine was confiscated by the impious and infuriated tyrant. This was the blessed champion's second struggle for Christ, and his victory with Christ. ^B

9. But that deceitful serpent, seeing that the soldier of Christ, as one who possessed a spirit patient in labor and sufficient strength, was not one to yield to bodily torments, turned himself to opposite methods, thinking he could overcome the man with flatteries and the hope of greater glory, and win him over to himself. Therefore, summoning him, he conversed with him sweetly and gently, and professed that he would gladly accept the answers to questions taken from Scripture; and finally, he wished for him to remain within the palace with his most trusted servants. Yet the man of God, by this method also, conquered more than he was conquered. For he instructed in the true faith all those whom the emperor used most familiarly; and the anger of the emperor himself, and his impulse and fury toward everything sacrilegious, he transposed into a certain moderate sobriety and ambiguity, so that he was neither carried away against the orthodox with his accustomed boldness, nor did he trust in his own opinion as if it were irreproachable. ^C

CAPUT II. Patriarchate of Constantinople: matters transacted therein, disease, death.

10. While the saintly man was being examined in these things, the Lord brought death upon the emperor, which even in his ^D [final end]...

resulted in the death of the heresy. For when his son Michael had assumed the empire along with his mother, the orthodox Church of Christ attained its freedom, and the counterfeit of the heresy, as something sown and maintained by human power, was refuted, and those who wished to speak or hear about these matters were hampered. When, therefore, John—a wizardly man and a hydromancer—who stood at the head of the aforementioned heresy and who had been brought together with the throne of Constantinople, had been canonically cast out along with his entire clergy, the search then began for one worthy to be supported on the throne, who was adorned by deed and contemplation of human things, exercised in deep experience of divine matters, and powerful in word and deed according to the divine Scripture. When, therefore, many great and holy men were set forward, the victot-bearing Methodius alone was chosen and established, surpassing everyone in asceticism, in experience of the Scriptures, in elegance of delivery, in endurance of struggles, ^B in moderation of mind, and in a most graceful manner of life and association.

11. Since we have made mention of the asceticism and natural aptitude of the man, having spoken of one of his achievements, we shall leave it to you to form your own judgment regarding the rest. The wise Methodius used to write out seven full Psalters, completing one in each week of the Fast, being devoid of food and drink; for he would not even taste water (if you except the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day). Such, to speak briefly, was the practice of the holy man; such, among many others, was the athlete’s testimony; these were the first seats of his high-priesthood. ^C

12. The exhortation, or public address, which he then made to the whole people of the Church, standing upon the steps—to put it, as it were, into a pattern—was of this kind: "A common thanksgiving, then, O fathers and brothers, I and all of you owe to Christ our God, the giver of good things, in that he has at last granted us freedom, after we had been oppressed for nearly thirty whole years by the heaviest yoke of heresy. For he has truly made strength with his arm again, and has cast down tyrants from their thrones and exalted the humble, even as he spoke to his ^D holy disciples and friends: 'In this world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.' You all suppose that I have a common joy with you, and in this you do not at all wander from the truth; for how could I not exult with joy, seeing the darkness driven from souls and the light of Christ shining everywhere? Yet there is a certain sorrow mixed with my joy—not because of the good things already mentioned (for it is the sign of an envious person to be tortured by good things), but because you have placed me under the cares of this presidency, which, as much as it is higher and more glorious, is so much the more laborious and exposed to envy. But not refusing, I have been commanded to be cast out, as is set forth in more detail in the Life of the said Saint Theodora. He, according to Cedrenus, was accustomed to predict the future by means of bowl-divination and jugglery.

I make my soul more precious than myself, provided only that I rightly handle the evangelical teaching. For truly the virtue of virtues and the mother of all is right faith in God, as it appeared to the great Paul when he said: "It is impossible without faith to please God." ^A

13. It is necessary, therefore, that we who have preserved the blameless Orthodox faith, even if we have endured many punishments and afflictions from the miserable slaves to heresy, should always be mindful of the Lord’s voice: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ^B Nay, rather, if you who are more fervent wish to retaliate against them, then, by obeying me, you will root out the heresy inherent in their souls, which is what spurred them to arm themselves against you. This is the most powerful victory against enemies: to extirpate the cause that defiles them and to lead their mind to the opposite, toward the proper state. For him who has suffered something in the body to avenge himself in the body against the one who harmed him is the mark of swine and of similar irrational beasts. But let us not use our liberty as an occasion for the flesh, nor, having become fat and expanded like that ancient Israel which was newly delivered from the works of clay and brick, let us—what cannot be spoken of without infamy—let silence cover it. Nay, rather, let us exchange the time of our distress for a time of thanksgiving and placability, remembering our past vexation. For you know that it does not take a long time to lose even life itself, much less all things that surround us; but the contraries of these, since they require much time and labor to acquire, are not easily gained. You yourselves, who yesterday were preparing for violence more against yourselves than against us, do not grieve because you are prohibited from exercising tyranny; but rejoice that you have put an end to sin, and the worst of all sins. For what sin is more atrocious than to treat divine things with contumely and to afflict the pious with punishment? Have you seen the greatness of God’s kindness? Have you seen the counsel of his all-wise Providence? Behold, with one plaster He healed both, both the persecutors and the persecuted, freeing the former from the ills of the body and the latter from the ills of the soul. ^C

14. Therefore, it is no less the duty of those who have always acted piously and those who once embraced impiety to render thanks to God; only do not stop your ears like an adder, attempting to shun the dogmas of the Orthodox faith as if they were incantations—but vomit from your souls the poison of the Manichaeans, and thus, with pure thoughts, believe that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, so that you too might become partakers with those who heard: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me have. Such things, or rather even more than these ^D

having been spoken, the great bishop of God, Methodius, dismissed the assembly; but let us proceed to what followed.

^A 15. Having thus been entrusted with the care of the Church and the world, he immediately raised up the sacred institution and the laws which had fallen. He was a father to orphans, a protector of widows, and the swiftest help to those who were wronged. Above all, he did not give sleep to his eyes or rest to his temples until he had driven the heresy out of the entire flock like a plague and had established the sound and orthodox faith in the souls of all. Consequently, he made frequent ordinations, wishing to establish the bishoprics; and his zeal drew him on, and he gave grace to those coming for ordination, provided only that they were known to have been orthodox from of old. Among these, many were conquered by the glory of the rank and cast themselves upon the thrones even against their own consciences; but he, not knowing this (for he was not Peter), judged from the mouths of those presenting themselves and entrusted the Lord’s talent to them. But since he was laden with so many and such great accomplishments and good deeds, was he not destined to be attacked by the shaft of envy? But David and Peter, as Scripture reports concerning them, were attacked by the darts of the wicked one, although they nevertheless arose and conquered the one who struck them. As for Methodius, was he to remain in every way unassailed to gain his glory? Or was he to be tempted indeed, yet not shaken, or shaken but not prostrated? On the contrary: he both struck down and prostrated the one who wounded him.

^B 16. Observe from whence the evil and airy dart of the enemy was cast; the sophist used subtle and truly apt weapons for malice. He suggested to the patriarch that he make ordinations with immoderate zeal, under the pretext, of course, of abolishing the heresy; while to some of the bishops and abbots he suggested, inflaming them beyond their proper measure, to say that it was not right for ordinations to be made without any examination, especially regarding those who had published their own faults through public confession. And this became the pretext for sedition and discord in the Church of Christ; for since the demon who desires war had been overcome in the heretics, he stirred up the orthodox against one another. But let no one be alarmed, seeing Paul, inflamed by the fire of Christ, even rebuking Peter, and Barnabas being separated from Paul for this very same thing ^C for which the Holy Spirit had joined them; for both were pleading for the sake of Christ, but neither was setting himself up—which is what has happened here. Nevertheless, the counsel and judgment of the patriarch, who was granted this by the dignity of his office, and likewise with the royal hand supporting the judgment, far prevailed; and those bishops and abbots were deposed and vanished, and the schism became greater.

17. What then of the great labors and toils— ^D for it is necessary, it seems, to preserve peace in all things.

and to have the heart’s contraction from God, who writes down the deeds of that great man—was more pleasing than any other action or meditation? ^A He inflicts a disease upon the prelate, which physicians call dropsy; for it was fitting that he who had suffered many harsh things in body and soul should endure this torment also, so that in all things he might be revealed as a victorious and crowned athlete. Since, however, the wise man prevailed by the keenness of his intellect, he recognized the cause of the discipline: that he had exceeded the measures of zeal and had dealt with severity toward his subjects. Having therefore crushed his heart in a spirit of humility, and having confessed the whole matter to God, the knower of hearts, he forgave the debts of those who had offended against him, and relaxed their punishments; he did, nevertheless, ^B impose certain penances upon some, on account of their appearing to have acted too insolently against the supreme priesthood, while wishing to bridle the mouths of the more ardent as if with some rein. Thus, by humility and gentleness, subduing the demon of empty self-esteem and boldness, which grows upon men who are wealthy in virtue, he added to his other accomplishments the victory over these destructive passions. Henceforth, therefore, he makes his step toward the blessed, eternal, and better abodes, being enrolled as a martyr among the martyrs of Christ, as patriarch among patriarchs, as one perfect in all things among the just and the ascetics; in the end, being positioned before the face of Christ, for whom he had exhausted infinite and great labors, he is a participant in His beauty and sweetness, instead of the bitter and painful experience of torments.

18. But, O divine chariot, carrying God who holds your reins, through whom the phalanxes of the Christ-hating heresy were put to flight! ^C O mouth, which heralded divine things like a trumpet, more sonorous than the trumpets of Joshua the son of Nun, through which the sacrilegious fortification of the enemies of Christ was cast down, and the ancestral and right faith, as another land of promise, was distributed as a lot to all the new Israel of God! O emulator and successor of Davidic valor! For just as he struck Goliath with a stone, so you too have cast down the champion of heresy, who defamed the images of the incarnate Word, with the corner-stone, that is, with the true body of Christ. O imitator and heir of the zeal and leadership of Moses! For did not you yourself, like him, before you entered upon your rule, fulfill the things that belong to governance, visiting the vexed and groaning people of God, and laying down your soul for the whole Church, having first, like him, been turned to flight, but afterwards having returned by divine oracle, and having been adorned with the headship of the Lord’s flock? ^D O you who have offered to God a sacrifice more sacred than Elijah’s, and did not, like him, slay two hundred or four hundred priests of confusion, but twenty thousand and more priests worthy of true confusion have you hindered and restrained from performing sacred rites in accordance with their godless—

embrace the true humanity of the divine Word, through which the human race has been renewed; it is opportune to call to mind the saying of that wise proverb: "The sacrifices of the ungodly are an abomination to the Lord," for indeed they offer them lawlessly. For such men are truly lawless, taking as a sacrifice a body that is merely a type of a body that they have falsified. ^A O worshipper of the sepulcher of Saint Peter, and treasurer of the sanctity that emanates from thence! O you who breathe Paul more than even the air itself! O tongue of all divine and prophetic Scripture! O book of evangelical interpretation and grace, fellow-theologian and tent-mate of Gregory, Basil, and the other theologians their peers! O possessor of a poverty not easily attained! For, wielding such great wealth and authority, you passed through life stripped of all material possessions, having nowhere to lay your head under the shelter of attachment; you joined in the penury of the needy and went into exile with the stranger, both by the sharing of necessary things and by the freedom of your soul, which was attached to nothing.

^B O Patriarch, who honored orthodox Confessors—both those living and those who have departed and died—as fathers, whence good things have come to you! O treasury or lodging-place of every good work and word! Stand even now, as is your custom, before your flock; pour out supplicatory voices to Christ our God, to check the incursions of the barbarian nations, to deliver his Church from the most pernicious wars, to eradicate the scandals of the wicked demon, to grant order and prosperity to the Christ-named people, ^C to grant victory to the Emperors, to preserve the honor of the orthodox faith unscathed, to grant a tranquil life to all the faithful, and, beyond all these things, to deem all worthy of eternal salvation, in Christ himself, the only-begotten Son of God and God, with whom, to the Father without beginning, together with the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, be glory, honor, and thanksgiving, now and always, and unto the unending ages of ages. Amen.

ANALECTA FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

CHAPTER FIRST.

Castimonia. Aerumnae in spelunca. Acta in aula Theophili. Calumniae depulsae.

1. That Saint Methodius, ^D by nation a Sicilian, born and educated at Syracuse, and instructed in various sciences and the most pious customs, and then led a monastic life at Constantinople, is evident from the Acts already provided. In the same place we also gather that he was held among the leading men, from the compendium of the histories of George Cedrenus, in which on page 558 (for we use the Louvre edition) it is said regarding the accusations brought against Nicephorus that he was sent to the Pope. Saint Nicephorus had been ordained patriarch on Easter Sunday in the year 806; but until the year 811 he was prevented by the Emperor Nicephorus from sending synodical letters to Rome, which he did after the aforementioned emperor had departed this life, in the first year of his successor, Michael. Whether he then carried the said synodical letters to Pope Leo III and none, who thus err, offer to God a sacrifice in the true sense of the word.

^A Saint Methodius; whether he was afterwards sent, during the intensification of the Iconoclast heresy under Leo the Armenian and Patriarch Nicephorus, is not indicated in the Acts; it is only said that he went to Rome. Leo the Armenian assumed the empire in the year 813, from which year, in the following one, Saint Nicephorus the Patriarch was deported into exile.

2. Now, Cedrenus continues to narrate what happened to Saint Methodius in Rome: "He was, namely, vexed by an evil spirit, fond of the flesh, titillating him without cessation day and night, and exciting an appetite for sexual matters: therefore, burning with this desire and nearly succumbing to it, he decided to surrender himself to Peter, the prince of the apostles; and after many prayers to him, that he might be freed from that lust, he stood by him at night, and grasping his private parts with his right hand, scorched them: and at the same time said that there was nothing for him to fear in the future regarding that concupiscence of pleasure." These are the words of Cedrenus: which are not touched upon in the Acts.

3. At Rome, he had Saint Peter as his patron of chastity, and he was so pleasing to Saint Pope Paschal, his successor, that he sent him to Michael Balbus in the year 821, entrusting him with Tomoi discussing the faith, to be given to the emperor. Saint Methodius, an intrepid champion of the faith, offered them to him; but instead of the reward due to him for his courtesy, it is said in the Acts that he "received seven hundred lashes, and was enclosed in a carceral sepulcher:" indeed, even under Theophilus, the son of Michael, succeeding in the year 829, he again received six hundred lashes for the same cause, and was enclosed in prison. Truly, those things which are attributed to the father in the Acts are ascribed by others to the son, and are narrated by Constantine Manasses in his Chronicle Compendium as follows: "The emperor Theophilus, having relegated the most excellent man Methodius to a certain island, enclosed him cave-like, as a cadaver, like a pearl in a shell, a rose among thorns." Furthermore, he joined two thieves to him; when one of them died, and was even rotting from a certain natural necessity, the athlete endured that foul odor and pestilential air with a most composed mind, which not even adamant could have sustained. The other thief, granted liberty, did not wish to leave, but remaining inside that dark cave and having become an emulator of the divine way of living, shed the rays of religious life like the sun. These are the words of Manasses, to which Zonaras has similar ones, through the words which we provided on the 6th of February for the Life of Saint Empress Theodora, wife of Theophilus, § VI.

4. Now we proceed with Manasses, and first we refer to the mutual rescript of the holy brothers Theophanis and Theodore (concerning whom there will be an account on December 27th) and of Saint Methodius. "While," he says, "Methodius was still detained in this prison, those men, skilled in divine matters, whom we said had been defiled with marks on their faces, forced by necessity alone, having found a fisherman, wrote very brief letters to the man in iambic verse, which thinking to save them from ruin, I have desired to subjoin in this place:"

^B To the living-dead, and to the life-bringing dead, Dwelling on earth, and treading upon the heavens, The branded write to the branded.

Vivo perempto, vivificoque mortuo. Terram incolenti, ac pariter calcanti polum, Scripsere vincto vincti, et inscripti notis.

To these he responded, writing back in these words: To those inscribed with the books of the heavens, And chastely branded upon their brows, The branded one spoke as to fellow-prisoners.

Libri vicissim descriptos cœlestibus, Faciesque non sine laude compunctos notis Salutat, ut convinctos vivus infossus.

Those golden verses of the desert men truly distill a certain divine nectar’s juice. Similar things were written by Michael Glycas in the same 12th century, and by Joannes Zonaras with the phrase somewhat altered. ^C

5. Manasses says the same. But the illustrious champion Methodius, since he had conducted himself with tolerance in that sad prison, had lost his teeth, had bruised jaws, and had been tortured by impious men with every kind of extreme inhumanity, just as hammers pound an iron anvil, in the end emerged from there, like the rising sun, God willing—as is fitting—who perceives the abysses, and sits above the Cherubim and Seraphim, to place this distinguished man, as a fortified city, on a high mountain, lest so great a virtue, like a lamp under a bushel, lay hidden in a sad and dark cave. For it happened that the emperor Theophilus, always occupied with reading books, from which he drew the nourishment of knowledge, just as a diligent bee from the flowers of the meadows, encountered things similar to griffins and labyrinths, so that no one was able to properly peel back these hard things and illuminate the obscure, even though there were six hundred men with him famous for the fame of their doctrine. When, therefore, this matter proved very troublesome to the emperor, and vexed his mind; some one of the nobles and chamberlains approaching, praises Methodius, pointing out his gifts: the magnitude of his doctrine, his ready abundance of knowledge, and how he touched the very heaven with the summit of his prudence and wisdom; whether moved divinely to do this, or nourishing a secret love toward a man heavenly in mind, and filled with divine numen. The emperor, hearing these things, leads Methodius out of the cave, like a pearl from a shell, a star from a cloud, a man refulgent with most clear rays, and dispersing the shadows and darkness of ignorance, he recalls and invites him to himself. And when he had perceived the taste of Methodius' tongue, he assigns the illustrious man a dwelling in the palace; and, placing him as a thing of great value, a gem splendid, rutilant, and clear, in his countless and inaccessible treasures, and sitting frequently with that gold-flowing Nile, he drank deeply and liberally from his most clear waters.

drawing from the clearest waters. This is what Manasses reports, and he adds that the gold was found to be hidden in his own house in a certain chest full of grain; and a certain satellite having been sent there, brought back the gold at once, and the whole affair was uncovered. The calumniators would therefore have paid the penalties worthy of their crime, had not Methodius, in his characteristic patience, requested only this one vengeance: that it be permitted for him, at the annual solemn assembly of the Orthodox, to go from the most holy temple of the Mother of God at Blachernae to the temple of Holy Wisdom with torches lit, and to proclaim their condemnation in their very ears; and this was done throughout their entire lifetime.

Chapter II.

9. Although the events mentioned in the previous chapter took place after Methodius had already been ordained to the place of the deposed John, I preferred to prefix them to his ordination, so that what he did in that highest rank might be collected more methodically into this second chapter. Therefore, before those things are read in Cedrenus, one encounters in the same author how the holy Empress Theodora brought the holy and divine Methodius into the place of the deposed John (for thus the impious man was called by the pious), who still bore in his flesh the marks of his confession and of the punishment endured for it; while all the pious—priests, laymen, and monks, and even those who practiced asceticism in the mountains—approved of his appointment with the greatest joy, and hastily coming into the city, with one voice condemned the heresy of the Iconoclasts with an eternal anathema. This noble deed, says Cedrenus, was performed by the illustrious Theodora and her son at the beginning of their reign. Thus, the holy Methodius was appointed patriarch in the year 842. What signs of his confession the holy Methodius bore in his body, Glycas explains in these words: “Because they had been badly injured and loosened by being struck by Theophilus, who, after the seventh synod, was renewing the destruction of images, he was compelled to bind them with a certain thin linen band. Whence, in my opinion, the custom has grown, and remains to this day, that the pontiffs have linen bands tied on the front part.”

10. At that time, the illustrious abbots and monks of the monastery of the Studites were flourishing, from the order of the Acoemetae, most of whom were sent into exile for their veneration of the holy images, or ended their lives there in holiness, as did Saint Theodore; or returned from there, as did Saints Nicholas and Naucratius, of whom these things are read on February 4th in the *Life of Saint Nicholas* by a contemporary author, in chapter VI, number… and the heresy having been in like manner deservedly confined to a single tomb; and Christ’s loving wife Theodora, with her son Michael, who was still quite young, having taken up the citadel of the Roman Empire; and the great Methodius obtaining the helm of the Church; div…

divinely inspired Fathers coming together, the celebration of Orthodoxy had its beginning, while the ends of the world already enjoyed serenity, and the confessors of Christ, like certain stars, adorned the entire firmament of the Church more brightly. Then, too, our common Father and servant of Christ, Naucratius, returning from exile, came to Byzantium; and because of the merit of his struggles, he was received with great honor by the Empress and the Patriarch himself. The illustrious man, at their request, undertook the rule of the sacred brotherhood, which had then gathered together in the most venerable Studite Monastery—a rule which the great Theodore, having nurtured and increased it with many labors in recent times, had brought to the number of one thousand. And once more, that flock of Christ, vegetating with new vigor, like a kind of paradise, offered many roses of virtue and the fragrance of the Spirit to those wishing to behold it. We have spoken concerning Saint Naucratius on June 8th; we shall have to speak of Saint Theodore on November 12th.

11. But those things which are set forth above ^A regarding the Fathers coming together divinely inspired, are explained most excellently in the Oration of Theophanes the priest and superior, concerning the exile of Saint Nicephorus the Patriarch and the translation of his relics, which we have highlighted for the 13th of March. There is described the solicitude of the holy Empress Theodora for concord and the sincerity of the faith, as she gathered the ecclesiastical assembly; from this, when John the Iconoclast had been deposed from the patriarchal see, Methodius—a man well tested in life and doctrine, and who had endured many struggles and a long exile for the sake of truth and religion, and having returned, having long been tortured with blows and imprisonment—was elected, with all those in dignity approving, to obtain the sacred see of the Queen of Cities. Then the holy ecumenical council, divinely instructed at Nicaea, which was celebrated through the efforts of the Empress Irene—who bore a name meaning "peace"—and of Tarasius the greatest and most blessed Patriarch, deservedly obtained firm authority and strength, since all that had been decreed therein by God’s inspiration, they confirmed. Then all the churches everywhere recovered their own proper beauty, and were illustrated by the splendor of the venerable images, and those who nefariously persecuted them having been cast out, priests and leaders who were studious of the true doctrine were established. ^B In the Life of Tarasius, highlighted for 25 February, the said Council is discussed more broadly, and the memory of the holy Empress Irene is recalled on 13 August: the heresy of the Iconoclasts, however, which had arisen under Leo the Isaurian and had been revived under Leo the Armenian, was at last entirely dissipated after one hundred and twenty years, and the feast of Orthodoxy was instituted, by which the restoration of the sacred images is celebrated annually on the first Sunday of Lent, with a procession being led with burning torches from the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae to the most august temple of Hagia Sophia.

12. During this time of religious restoration, it is read in the cited Life of Saint Nicholas the Studite, number 37, that the translation of the Confessor and our holy Father Theodore, from the island of Principos to our monastery here, took place, provided by the most pious Empress and the great pontiff, Methodius, who was previously indicated, and the whole assembly of the Church concurring; and he was gloriously deposited on the twenty-sixth of January, alongside his illustrious and divinely inspired uncle Plato, and the saint was entombed together with his brother and bishop Joseph, on the right side toward the eastern part of the Saint Precursor, to whose honor, indeed, the said Studite monastery was founded. This Joseph was bishop of Thessalonica, and he is venerated by the Greeks on the 14th and 15th of July.

13. In the year 846, the translation of Saint Nicephorus the Patriarch took place, described by the aforementioned Theophanes the priest in these words: "Four years later, the most holy Methodius, ^C moved by a clearly divine spirit, opportunely and wisely admonished the divine Empress Theodora that the illustrious Nicephorus—who for the sake of the glorious defense of the sincere faith had been deposed from the see, and had died in long exile—should not be neglected; but that it should be cared for with all zeal that his divine body be brought back to the city. Otherwise, he said, we shall not avoid the defect of ungratefulness if, even after his death, we leave him in exile as if condemned by right; especially since we do not ignore those who were of the line of Joseph, who placed his bones in the portion of blessing, so that after almost forty years they might carry the father’s bones out of Egypt into the land of Canaan. If this be so, shall we, who are children of piety, suffer our Father to be any longer deprived of his presence, he by whose divine teachings we have been nourished? This city, indeed, most excellent of all cities that the sun beholds, and the royal city, desires the sacred relics of its holy leader and shepherd, that it may piously preserve and cherish them. Let the Church, his most beloved, enjoy the presence of her spouse again: and let her embrace the body of the dead, by the consent of the studious Empress-Pastress, of which she was robbed by the most unjust hand of the Emperor while he was living. Do you see how this people, which rests securely through you in the true religion, desires with incredible zeal to hear his voice in the spirit even after death? And if, upon seeing his tabernacle merely brought back to them, they will think that they have received into their midst the very man himself, breathing, and will store and guard him like some most precious treasure?" ^D To these prayers and exhortations, the illustrious Empress consented most quickly and willingly: "For it is clear," she said, "that this will be an honor to me and my children before all posterity."

14. Then the bishop of the city, with the priests and monks and the whole people, approached the temple of Saint Theodore: in which the Relics full of grace lay, and embracing them with veneration and tears, he addressed the saint as if he were alive, thus: "O most blessed man, who through the same labors and tribulations, by which Saint John Chrysostom...

were afflicted, thou also with the same religious zeal and freedom of speech didst excel; and who, likewise deprived of thy see, and punished with exile, didst spend a space of thirty-three years as an outcast both living and dead; restore thyself now to us, who love thee most, and departing from this place return to thine own, so that now, as the people once did, thy people who are most devoted to thee may welcome thee back with joy. An emperor alien to God opposed thee while thou didst live, and inconsiderately cast thee out from the Church; but he paid the penalties deserved by his fury, and by a miserable end was deprived of both empire and life, receiving the rewards due to his audacity. Today the emperors, most dear to God on account of their piety, restore the Church to thee dead; which, having been made sons through the Gospel, they constitute with me; not having spot or wrinkle, but such as thou didst leave it, adorned and strengthened by thy precepts. Look, and see thy gathered sons, who have come from nearby, while the rest are waiting for thy return to them from afar; do not, like orphans, leave these mourning for thy absence. May thy city have, in place of a most precious gift, thy most blessed tabernacle, by which, more than by the grandeur of the empire, it is adorned, and may it glory and rejoice." ^B 45 The most sacred patriarch Methodius, performing the nocturnal chanting of the Psalms and the mystical sacrifice with the faithful people, uncovered the illustrious body from the tomb, which for the space of nineteen years had remained entirely whole and pure; and having placed it in an ark, and it being taken up by the hands of priests, it was brought with lights and frequent chanting of Psalms into a ship prepared for this purpose. But when it had crossed the strait and approached the shore of the city, by the care of God, the young emperor Michael, and men distinguished by most ample dignities, and patricians, and the remaining citizens, joyful and holding torches in their hands, went out to meet it: and that precious ark, with faith and veneration, placing it upon their own shoulders, they carried to the great church, from which, despoiled of his pontifical dignity, he had been cast out. ^C 46 Then again, using in turn the festal Psalms, and carrying him through the middle of the city with every kind of light, they placed him in the temple of the Holy Apostles. But so great was the multitude of the concurring people, both men and women, and of every age, that it could not be numbered. For they were pressed in the intersections of the streets and in the porticoes; and everywhere they were making a way for themselves by force, so that, although there have been many celebrations at various times on account of emperors and priests, none yet could be compared with this. Some also in the way, vexed by unclean spirits, as they were pressed by others, uttered miserable and blasphemous cries; a certain number of whom were cured by him. Therefore, the rush of the people having been with difficulty avoided, the holy body of the excellent patriarch was laid in the most celebrated temple of the Apostles, the sacred mysteries having been finished to God, in a tomb recently constructed, by the hands of Methodius himself, ^D on the fourteenth day of March, on which very day he had also been cast into exile, so that he is memorable in both respects. 17 Later in this same period there was an athlete, the holy abbot Joannicius in Bithynia, whose illustrious deeds and contests Sabas and Peter the monks have described—works which we have in Greek, each very long, acquired at Rome and Paris, and to be elucidated on the 4th day of November. We have another also, attributed to Metaphrastes, which, having been rendered into Latin by Gentianus Hervetus, Lipomanus published in volume V, and Surius at the said 4th of November, from which number 51 it pleases to extract the following: "Theophilus departs from this life; but Michael and Theodora receive the empire. Methodius, however, a man truly sacrosanct and a man of God, is placed in the sacred seat. But (to say it at once) when all things had been led by him to the orthodox faith, and every surge had been calmed, and the tempest stilled, and affairs were quiet, a certain other sedition was stirred up by the pious, and the affairs of the Church were again divided and reduced to two opinions. For some indeed wished to retain in their ministry those who had received the dignity of priesthood from the Iconomachs, inasmuch as this would not hinder piety; others, however, thought that to hand forward holy things to profane hands was totally impious, and by no means pleasing to God nor to be admitted. Methodius, who lived truly for God, endured this with difficulty, and was anguished and torn in heart; for he thought he heard the great Paul sounding in his ears, saying almost these words: 'I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brothers according to the flesh,' if only you would stand with us, and we should commonly glorify the Trinity. And he indeed was in this state; but the friend of God, Joannicius, falling into affairs so turbulent... was refreshing the now-faltering mind of Archbishop Methodius... He was writing to Methodius that he should rather retain about the divine sacrifice those whom he knew to agree with him in the dogma of Orthodoxy... When these letters had come, the divine Methodius indeed committed to memory those things which had been written." These things are there; but many heretics are said to have been converted by the holy Joannicius; then at number 57 those things about Saint Methodius are held. 18 In the fifth year of the reign of Michael, which Methodius was governing, when he had foreseen that the passing of the great Joannicius to the Lord was drawing near, he came to him and asked for his final prayers. And he, making much of being visited by Methodius, after he had prolonged his discourse with him for a long time, and then had persuaded the sacred assembly and the newly elected flock what things were of piety, saying that they should remain immovable in the orthodox faith, and not be overturned by the profane voices of heretics, and should preserve concord among themselves, and not stir up blasphemy and a malicious voice against the pontiff; he added that Methodius would not live for much time after his own passing. In which matter he was not false; for on the third day after he had said these things, Joannicius, in spirit indeed, migrates to those things which he loved, conducted by a choir of angels. . . . Methodius, however, who among the patriarchs...

shone forth most clearly; he, too, eight months after the latter's passing, departed this life on the fourteenth of June.

19. Baronius in the year 842, no. 20 says: "Who, therefore, after so many shipwrecks of the Constantinopolitan Church, took up the helm, torn from the hands of the heretics, to guide it, patriarch Methodius; and he laboured to recall those who had fallen back to the Church. But because these were found to be of varying age and diverse condition, lest ecclesiastical discipline should lose its value, he willed that all of them, in different ways, should be subject to ecclesiastical censure." This constitution, along with various prayers and rites, exists in Greek and Latin, edited by Jacques Goar in the *Euchologion* or *Ritual of the Greeks*, page 676 and the ten following, under this title: *Of Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, concerning those who have denied [the faith], according to their different persons and ages, and who are returning to the orthodox and true faith.* A portion of this exists also in Theodore Balsamon, and from him in Baronius at the place cited above.

20. We have published, on the fifth day of February, an Oratory of the same Saint Methodius on Saint Agatha, divided by us into five chapters; we have also published, on the 12th of March, a twofold Life of Saint Theophanes, hegumen and confessor, the first by the author Saint Theodore the Studite or another monk contemporary with him; the second by the author, as it seems, Metaphrastes, who in number 11 excuses himself for having omitted the struggles and miracles of the wife of Saint Theophanes, who had already taken the monastic habit, because, as he says, "The part of the events was clearly published for the utility of the readers by the most holy patriarch who composed her life." This writing has not been seen thus far. There exists also, among the works attributed to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, in Petrus Lansellius and Balthasar Corderius, his *Martyrdom*, by the author Methodius, or (as others hold) Metrodorus. Anastasius the Librarian, in his letter to Charles the Bald, and Flodoardus in Book III of his *History of Reims*, chapter 18, where he reviews the writings of Bishop Hincmar, add: "On the passion of Saint Dionysius, dictated in Greek by Methodius of Constantinople, and written in Latin by Anastasius of the Roman See." But these matters must be examined on the 9th day of October. Finally, James Gretser, in the second volume on the Cross, among the Homilies on the Holy Cross, published one by Methodius the bishop, addressed to those who say: "What did the Son of God profit us by being crucified on earth, and becoming man? And why did He endure to suffer in the figure of the cross, and not by some other punishment? And what is the utility of the cross?" Item, another of the same Methodius, to those who are ashamed of the cross of Christ. There exists also, in the aforementioned Balsamon, a *Canon on segregations*, or excommunications, and indeed monastic ones, as it seems may be gathered from the title. Nor do we doubt that various monuments of his still lie hidden in different libraries: some may even have appeared under the name of Saint Methodius, bishop and martyr in Lycia of the II century, which in truth belong to this Constantinopolitan author; and primarily that which I cited on the 2nd of February from Combefis, concerning Simeon and Anna; which also Casimir Oudin, in his *Supplement to Ecclesiastical Writers*, rightly adjudges away from that earlier [Methodius].

OF SAINT METHODIUS HOMILY ON THE CROSS AND THE PASSION OF CHRIST.

OF SAINT METHODIUS PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ORATION ON SAINT AGATHA,

1. Since admiration itself urges me to speak; but against that, the desire itself excites me; since the will also [urges me] to desire me convinces me that I most wish to all of you

^A (Brethren and fellow-brethren, whoever are present here together, and stand near me), so that I may break forth from my silence into speech, moved by admiration, and find a release from the bonds of my desire and silence on this memorable day consecrated to the tortures of Saint Agatha; that which renders you astonished, this I for my part will speak of with admiration, from my own inability to speak. For there are—there are indeed some things entirely beyond expectation, which are admirable, and which, just as they sometimes bring forth silence, so also do they sometimes suggest eloquence: both of which are brought about by the greatness of a miracle, and the very magnitude of the subject itself. This public and unusual spectacle, to which even the eyes themselves bear witness (since it was indeed far beyond expectation long ago), I shall strive to explain by bringing forward arguments. For it is as in composed speeches, the seed of fruitful wisdom is the observation of the precepts themselves, so the manifestation of miracles emanates from martyrdom for the sake of God, and from the virginity and purity of the mind, which are true imitations of divine virtues. What, therefore, looks to the effect of miracles, I shall explain to you toward the end. But now, that I may make a beginning of my narration, I shall commend the martyr herself; who, as I said, is the fountain and source of miracles; and I will explain clearly first where, and for what reason, we have gathered together.

2. The anniversary commemoration of the holy martyr gathers us all into one place, as you know, my listeners, for she is indeed an ancient and primary martyr by virtue of her distinguished contest, but she is also recent, seeing that she conquers as if by struggling even now through the divine miracles with which she is daily crowned and beautifully adorned. A martyr who, at the proper time, showed the ardor of her love toward God, and in continuous storms holds in her hand the authority and efficacy of miracles for a just reward; since both the readiness of the strong mind with which she was endowed, and her body, thoroughly beloved for the sake of God, are declared, so that whatever she might receive, she would return. She gives, indeed, her body and the firm purpose of her free will, and this being strengthened by God according to divine election, she receives the brightness of her name and a royal crown, having become more illustrious than if she had borne sons or daughters, and thus, having despised all the defiling pleasure of offspring, she is more sublime.

^C And since I remember those things which pertain to the begetting of children, and I have made mention of the royal crown, I shall now begin to speak. A woman indeed by nature only, not by election, just as the rest of the race of women; whose habit—as if foreseeing the future—even in girlish games, devotes effort to raising and nurturing children: but a virgin, who seemed never even in playing to feign girlish frivolities. A woman, I said, but I added, a virgin. A woman indeed, because from the beginning by the wise Adam (for he was then truly wise, since he had not yet fallen into sin) this name was imposed. For Moses, writing, also gave the interpretation of the name which Adam added, indicating it, saying: "She shall be called woman [virago], because she was taken out of man"; but a virgin, because she was born of the immortal Word of God (who even for my sake tasted death in His own flesh) and of the indivisible Son of God, as the theologian John speaks: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the children of God," etc. A woman therefore, a virgin, who invited you to our religious feast, is she who is a woman well betrothed to one husband, Christ, to use the words of the apostle Paul concerning the conjunction of the bridal chamber; a virgin, to whom not even the herald of the marriage himself struck fear, as to whether she might be deceived, as Satan did to our ancestress Eve of old through the insidious serpent. A woman, who bears not even the mark of the laceration inflicted upon her by Decius; a virgin, who, affected by wounds by Quintianus, dissembles it. A woman, who did not submit herself to the weight of tyrannical edicts; a virgin, who did not yield to the rabid fury of princes stung by a gadfly. A woman, who in the tempest of imperial waves did not suffer shipwreck at all; a virgin, who did not fall into the nets of those holding power. A woman, who bears the laws of justice; a virgin, who does not fear to write her own institution with her own hand. A woman, who subdued the swollen pride of haughtiness; a virgin, who strenuously completed the course of a martyr. A woman, who did not allow herself to falsify the form of her own face with purple, with painted shadows, and with veils, nor to infect her garments and the lineaments of her hands with medicaments made of quicksilver; but a virgin, who adorned her lips and cheeks and tongue with the light of conscience and the color of the blood of the true and divine Lamb: and also [she adorned] the continuous contemplation of her mind.

^A For preparing a free and ready resolution, just as our Virgin Lady became the dwelling place of God. For from this same and unique Lady and virgin Mother of God, and mother Virgin, this disciple and handmaid, (if I may say so) daughter of the Mother of God, learned to deliver herself as a bride to her own Lord and God, and Creator of all things.

4. Therefore this [woman], truly good, since she was a part of the supreme Good, and again [is] joined to us by the communion of the good, by which she refers the force and meaning of her name, Agatha ^A (named from God, the fountain of goodness herself, and given as a gift), is rightly called so. But what is more beneficial than the supreme Good? And what could anyone find more worthy to be celebrated with the praises of panegyrics than Agatha? Agatha, whose goodness squares with her name, and with the thing itself; Agatha, who bears a good name for deeds well performed and in the very name demonstrates the things well done by her; Agatha, who even by her name entices all to run to her as much as possible: she who also teaches by her own example that all should strive with her without delay toward the true Good, who is God alone. Agatha, who raised up a standard of what had been decreed concerning her, and brought forth into the light that which had been decreed by grace; Agatha, foretold by prophecy to her parents ^B and foreknown by God from eternity. Agatha, who does not even refute those who imposed this name upon her: and to those who invoke this name she is present, and she responds readily.

5. For all things are manifest to God, as the sacred Scripture says: "All things are naked and open to the eyes of him, to whom our speech is directed," but all things are predetermined by him who knows: for the very foreknowledge of the Creator God concerns each thing, which indeed has both the reason of divine counsel, and concurrence, and furthermore the mode of free will of those who, created solely by divine good pleasure, proceed freely into action. Predestination, however, does not permit their final fall, but contributes to him who is predestined the good and ready will of God the Creator together with free human choice: and just as in every way the most blessed among all, and our most holy Lady the Queen, the Virgin and Mother of God, was chosen from all nations by the divine Word, who dwelt in her and fashioned her; so also this daughter and handmaid of the same Mother of God (who is now adorned by us with auspicious acclamations, and who offers our praises and our thanksgivings to God through the Virgin Mother of God) had been predestined to be a martyr and chosen, and by divine ^C and free purpose prepared, just as our Virgin Lady became the effect of God's dwelling.

6. Agatha therefore [is] truly good, and by the best right a friend most pleasing to God. She bore indeed that she was a woman, and not inept for the procreation of children; but she desired with the highest vows to keep her virginity, and decreed [it] entirely. When therefore she heard a certain written decree of the Emperor Decius being spread everywhere throughout the Roman dominion, Agatha mocked it: and as if she had barred a door against the winds of human consensus, she set posts against nature itself; and she cast an infinite inclination of [her] soul, and body; as if in the midst of the Jerusalem temple she interposed the veil of a wise mind, which might ward off consensus; and she herself, joined by the contemplation of her mind to the Seraphic spirits, used to supplicate her thrice-holy Deity alone to obtain mercy, using words of free and noble thanksgiving before God of this kind: "You indeed, O Lord, have deigned that I, having long since waged war against the enemy of my body, and having used the very members of my body like a horse, and utilizing nature itself against nature, should subdue and trample [it] underfoot; do you likewise even now, O lover of men, who know well my unceasing love for you, be my helper in this struggle; and receive from my inmost heart the fountain of tears, and grant me glorious victory over the enemy himself, O lover of souls and the human race; [you] who also deigned in your own hand to ascribe and grant to us the most victorious struggle [waged] against our same enemy: for which cause also, O sinless Lord, you took on our flesh assumed for us."

7. Indeed Agatha also used to pray for this, not that she might avoid the struggle, but that forces might be sufficient for her for martyrdom. For Agatha had heard a certain woman, addicted to the worst arts, communicating with Quintianus about herself, and therefore, being very prepared, she fell with her face to the earth, and with hatred against the persecutor, and against sin itself, also with a burning desire of love toward God aroused, she is rolled to the untouched feet of the Lord, just as that woman with an issue of blood long ago [clung] to the hem of his garment; and she did not indeed inhibit the flow (for she was not suffering this; but rather [as John the virgin— ^D

^A received, as it were, ripples of tears, so that they might flow more abundantly. She rises therefore after the satiety of prayers, just as if she had received the token of divine aid, with her heart, and with certain hope she promises herself victory through faith; and therefore she speaks thus: "Behold, now the hostile power, through the virtue of Christ, has been reduced to ashes, trampled upon, and extinguished by my chastity: what remains, I will hasten toward the stadium with a confident and lively spirit."

8. Therefore, with the greatest constancy of mind, she proceeds to the tyrant, joyful among the lictors, while she remembered nothing at all of the nobility of her own kind, or of the many and great riches of circumstances, and not even a word was uttered which pertained to her own affairs, but with a simple and quick gait she outpaced those who were leading her, so that the spectators saw that they were dragged by Agatha rather than that Agatha was dragged by them, for they could not even follow her speed with the gaze of their eyes. And these men, who ought to have been instructed by the readiness of a virginal spirit and incited to a prudent boldness to suffer death for the sake of virtue, nevertheless, on the contrary, because of their innate inconstancy, deeply harboring a trembling of the heart like stags, in their misery abandoned the blessed virgin with a swift retreat. But she, while she walked, pouring forth tears abundantly, thus turned to prayers within herself and spoke, and inflamed herself to greater constancy: "First indeed, I have struggled for virginal chastity for the sake of Christ my spouse, detesting the delights as an abominable thing, so that I might not be suddenly conquered by allurements. Do thou even now also, attend to the liveliness of my spirit, O my sweetest candidate, who alone effects and canst do all things: show this humble mind of mine to be more sublime than all terrible things; so that I may count them as nothing in my mind, and may deem them as nothing more than a light song and noise, even if there be ten thousand who threaten me with death."

9. Under these things, as if she were looking at her enemy with her eyes (for she was surely contemplating him in her mind), she rebuked him as if he were present: "Do you not see, she said, my zeal, O enemy of truth, and you who are alien from it, at which the whole multitude of the angels and the just run to gaze, rejoicing?" ^B and, as is fitting, rejoicing together? But you, O veteran, do not notice me, sleeping under the shadow of my lover, and struggling manfully under Christ, the arbiter of the contest and of the prizes, and therefore practicing those things which my Master has taught, and hoping to fulfill them in reality with all my strength. For I kept my Lord always in my sight, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be moved. 7

10. By her saying such things, it came to pass that during the very haste of the run, the strap of her sandal was loosened. But she showed a manly diligence even when she wished to tie it, and having turned around, and having looked at no one at all of those who accompanied her, she poured out prayers to the God who helps: "Almighty Lord, who dost not forsake those who love thee and place their hopes in thee, be my helper in another contest, which I now see being prepared for me, and for which I am girding myself, with the help of thy grace: but to these, who have maintained me for so long, while it was permitted for me to act in quiet here, and to keep myself far from my home and my father's house, so that I might not even hear with my ears the marriage messages of Quintianus, render a worthy requital, and cause that my words, which I have spoken privately about thee, to the true God, and about thy only-begotten Son, and about chastity, and about judgment, may persevere in their hearts. But since I fear that their memory of them may fade (for behold, they have all secretly abandoned me), show, I beseech thee, some great miracle to the inhabitants of this city." And when the virgin had prayed these things, immediately a sterile olive tree sprang up, which marked with public ignominy those who had led her away under the appearance of honor, and had timidly fled.

11. But the strenuous virgin, animated even more by that miracle (since she had now felt that her prayers were heard, that the divine Numen was present with her, and his angels who guarded her from the injuries of the lictors), gave herself to the road with an intrepid heart. But when she was approaching Catania, a great number of her fellow citizens came out to meet her; and some women indeed grieved for her fate, and others also, to whom the Christian heart tasted more pleasantly, whispered among themselves to praise the constancy of the virgin, because she had not even deigned to listen to the marriage offered by the ^C proconsul; and therefore she had wisely decided to change her ground. But the matrons of the primary city, to whom, on account of ^D nobility, wealth and riches, a place…

had been assigned by the satellites, approaching to greet Agatha, received her with a holy kiss; and with their return they congratulate her, making her spirit firm, that she might finish her course worthy of virtue: and she who so constantly in the first contest ran for the sake of preserving her virginity for her Spouse, and by fleeing conquered the enemy; now, in another struggle, by fighting bravely even unto death for the confession of the faith, might overcome Quintianus, and by dying might at last triumph gloriously. "My hope," she says, "I have placed in God; His Son will supply me with strength." Trusting in His aids, I hope and desire to overcome the tyrant's threats, blows, torments, tortures, and finally death itself.

12. But the governor, when he learned that Agatha was coming to the city, or rather that she might soothe the perturbed city for a little while, and especially the spirits of her kinsfolk, orders her to turn aside to the house of Aphrodisia, a noble woman, but of ill repute, and to be received most honorably, taking care that no one of her relatives should be allowed to be introduced there. What frame of mind did you have then, most chaste Virgin, when you saw yourself shut up in that house of Aphrodisia, the mother of nine harlots, a brothel—or rather, a brothel of sirens—than a home for noble women? What were you meditating in your virginal soul in that filthy, muddy den of infamous Sirens—or rather, than a remote and worthy gynaeceum for virgins? I do not fear that you did not stop your honest ears to their profane incantations, but I am certainly eager to know, if it were permitted, on what divine meditations you fixed your most holy mind during those thirty days and nights. But since it is not permitted for us mortals to hear these things, which ought to be kept most secret, about you who dwell in heaven, let me at least now compare you to holy men who have fallen into calamities of this kind.

13. For why should I not judge you very similar to the holy David, who, fleeing from the fury of King Saul, indeed hid himself in the dens of wild beasts, but there conversing with God, seemed to himself to be prostrate before the divine altar in a majestic and religious temple; where he poured out prayers and tears, where he implored divine aid, where he offered himself and his life as a victim to God? You, indeed, in Aphrodisia’s... offered these and other things with much greater ardor to Christ, who did not defraud you of your desires. Nay, even there enslaved, you were imitating Daniel, that man of desires, who in the stinking lion’s den kindled the fragrant incense of prayer to the supreme Deity; and finally deserved on the seventh day to escape unharmed from the jaws of the seven lions. But you, when for thirty days, most pure virgin, you had contended against ten lionesses in a domestic lair in preserving your virginity for God, deserved to escape much more purely. Nor were you forgetting Jonah, who, cast into the deep, in the very belly of the fish, as if using the Jerusalem temple, was pouring out praises and prayers to God; which, being heard by God, the virus was ejected from the mouth of the fish onto the land, and, publicly preaching, he consulted for the safety of the great city. But you, Agatha, truly a good virgin for yourself, since you gave a specimen of Christian virtues to those beholding and admiring your constancy in such great hardships; so that neither by promises of riches, nor by the amusements of proposed delights, nor indeed by threats and dangers of torments, nor truly by the Emperor Decius’s decree of undergoing final tortures, could you be moved from your purpose of preserving your virginity and the profession of the Christian faith. For you were as a firm rock in the sea, which scorns rather than fears the blasts of winds, the sinking of encroaching rains, the impacts of roaring waves, and constrains itself more strongly than it yields to them.

14. When all that rabble of women wondered at Agatha's virtues, Aphrodisia goes to Quintianus, and announces that she and her daughters had wasted their effort; and that it was easier for the rocks of Aetna to be turned into wax than for Agatha’s heart, hardened in the obstinacy of preserving her virginity for Christ, to be softened in the least. Then he orders the virgin to be summoned to his tribunal; who, after he had for a long time suppressed the revanent flames of his former lust and anger, like Aetna, which they say does not always vomit fire from its horrific jaws, but after certain intervals of time has passed, when it has restrained the flames boiling within, it immediately ejects larger ignited rivers and balls of fire. And, "I know," he says, "that you were born of noble and opulent stock; and your kinsfolk, whose work I have employed more than once in great affairs of the empire, attest to the splendor of your blood: what reason is there, then, that, neglecting our gods, you should live the humble life of the Christians in the manner of maidservants, in obscurity?" And she: "You rightly deem me a maidservant; for I am a maidservant of Christ my God, whom all created things, whether they wish it or not, serve. But this condition does not obscure the innate nobility of my family, but rather illustrates it: nor would I proclaim myself noble and free-born if I did not serve with chastity and piety the one and true God, and his only-begotten Son; but would be subject to the vices and pleasures of life, and to your gods, who are not truly gods."

15. As she was speaking quite intrepidly to the proconsul, immediately a satellite with a sacrilegious hand strikes a blow into her face, so that the virgin of Christ, truly a good disciple of a good Master, might imitate the beginning of the martyrdom with similar beginnings, and the bride might appear similar to her Bridegroom. Oh, how beautifully the beloved virgin then showed her rouged cheeks to her Beloved! How piously she lifted to heaven her countenance, adorned with maidenly blushing and decent bruises, and directed her eyes, sprinkled with tears and blood, to Christ, so that she might, on account of their assistence, have given a slap to the ministers... 1 Cor. XVIII, 22.

^A so that his divine love might wound her wounded breast, and entice and inflame her pierced heart with a still greater love for Himself.

16. Quintianus, having inflicted multiple threats upon Agatha, ordered her to be thrust into a dark prison. But she proceeded with great joy of soul and cheerfulness of face, and as if invited to a bridal feast, she hastened toward the dungeon that was sunk into the ground. While the guards were trying to thrust her down into it with great force, it happened by divine intervention that the hard stone yielded to the virgin's feet as if in reverence, keeping Agatha immovable; her footprints, impressed there, are venerated by all mortals with great religious observance; so that through this miracle, too, Christ might declare Agatha to be like Himself as He cheerfully ascended into heaven and triumphed over the earth, even if she were descending into prison; for by walking gloriously to that place, she seemed to be celebrating a most joyful triumph over the defeated Aphrodisia before both angels and men.

17. Therefore, wishing and willing, the virgin is shut up in prison, where, spending a sleepless night, she applies herself to the contemplation of divine things with tears, and prays that Christ may provide her with heavenly strength in the struggle of her torments. Scarcely had it dawned when the virgin is again brought before the tribunal of Quintianus; where, when she had boldly professed that she preferred to die for the sake of the faith of Christ and the preservation of her virginity, she is immediately bound hand and foot and stretched upon the rack prepared for her. Torches are readied, the virginal body is beaten with scourges, and then her sides are furrowed with iron claws and ropes; then she is burned with glowing plates; finally, her breasts, which had scarcely developed, are tormented and cruelly torn with dentated pincers: in which torment the magnanimous virgin upbraids Quintianus for his insolent cruelty: "Truly," she says, "you are impious and cruel, an enemy of human nature; for you are not ashamed to have the breasts of a virgin cruelly amputated, which as an infant you gently sucked at your mother’s breast. But although you have cut off these perishable ones, you shall by no means be able to tear away the others, which I keep hidden in my soul, consecrated to my Christ from infancy."

18. Quintianus, when he did not yet receive from the intimidated girl the intrepid voices proceeding from a manly breast, and so that he might not confess himself defeated, orders Agatha to be led back to prison, and proclaims to the guards that they must keep watch continuously, lest any of her relatives should send a surgeon, or lest they dare to secretly provide food or drink. There the virgin, enclosed and intent on sacred prayers, addressed Christ with these words: "O Thou who canst in truth now be called the Spouse of Blood, ^B I give Thee immortal thanks, because through Thy power Thou hast made me superior to my torments. Receive, I beseech Thee, these torments of my breast for the praise and honor of Thy name, and for the glory of ^C Thy Church." And behold, in the silence of the middle of the night, amid the shadows of that dark prison, a man of venerable appearance (whom a boy preceded, carrying a lamp) appeared; he affirmed that he was skilled in surgery, and promised that her severed breasts could be healed. Then she said: "Indeed, venerable elder, I have never displayed medicines to my body; but I have my Lord Jesus Christ, who, by a single nod, if He wills, will heal me." "And I," said the elder, "am His apostle; and in His name I have come that you may be healed."

19. Now the theater of Catania has long been calling me and all of you with its rising flames, and commands us to stand present in spirit at the spectacle being exhibited there, where the most tender body of the virgin is placed upon flaming coals and ignited fragments of earthen tiles. And now this manner of bedding seems to me to be the one which the Spouse described and commended by flowers, to whom are lacking neither the purple roses of the glowing fire, nor the lilies of the virginal body. Let the rosy fires, therefore, embrace, and rather lick than burn the virginal lily; let them embrace, I say, yet not tear it with their thorns: let the fire burn, as it pleases, in the thorns, just as in the Mosaic bush ^D; and if it loves to consume, let it consume its own thorns, but let it spare the lily of most white virginity. For Agatha lies there and is surrounded by flames, like a lily among thorns. The vow of virginity, dedicated to God from infancy and preserved in spotless purity, merits the prerogative of this reward.

20. When, therefore, Agatha had touched the fires, behold, the native earth, pitying the lot of her daughter, trembled to its depths; and as if it were endowed with maternal feeling, having opened its jaws in more than one place, it cried out with a myriad of mouths, and clearly testified how vehemently it grieved, and how justly it detested that unworthy and cruel spectacle; in the same manner exactly as, when God the Creator of all things was fixed to the cross, the entire element of the earth trembled, unable to bear the monstrous crime of the Jews and the impious wickedness. It might perhaps be permitted to affirm that the land of Catania at that time exulted as if in play, and led dances, because in that fiery bed, as if in a bridal chamber, it saw its daughter Agatha now placed as the spouse of Christ, hoping from the blood of the virgin, with her martyrdom bravely completed, for a most abundant crop of grandchildren to be born to the evangelical light. For truly he was unwillingly confessing that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians. But I believe much more certainly that the same trembling of the earth was not caused by air violently trapped in its bowels, nor by waters breaking through the same vitals, but truly by angels descending from heaven, to whom it is familiar to...

terrify the impious from committing evils by their arrival, and to confirm pious minds in diligent actions. We read that this occurred at the sepulcher of Christ shortly after He, having come back to life, triumphed over the underworld; for when an angel descended, a great earthquake occurred, and having opened the sepulcher, he drove the soldiers guarding it into flight, being struck lifeless with fear, while he shook off all fear from the pious women.

21. Who, therefore, could doubt that angels brought [it], and that they sprinkled those fires and flames with heavenly dew? Had not this virgin of ours, divinely illuminated, pledged to herself the saving rain of this dew when she was speaking to Quintianus? If, she said, you apply fire to my body, the angels will minister to me a saving dew from heaven. Yet could the angels, and Christ himself, the King of angels, have had Agatha’s hopes placed in them in vain, so that Quintianus might judge the Virgin’s words to be empty and weak? Or could the soul of this Virgin, which had always abhorred the lethal fires of lust—having taken care to extinguish them entirely and having remained deeply fixed on God—now see her body, which she had submitted to be thrown onto burning coals and sharp, flaming shards for the sake of the faith of preserved virginity, suffer even a slight injury beyond the hope she had conceived? Or would that Son of man, whose glory is as the Only-Begotten of God, who willed to be present as the fourth with the three children in the Babylonian furnace, so that the fire did not harm them at all, abandon Agatha, who lay there for His sake in a bed of fire, and who was betrothed to Him, seeing she had clung to Him from infancy and had been made one spirit with Him, to be consumed? He was present—Agatha’s Bridegroom was present—He who through His own spirits made the earth tremble, having brought forth winds from the secret place of His treasures; and He made that fire laid beneath Agatha like a soft breeze of dew, so that the fire dared neither to touch her virginal body, nor to sadden her soul, nor to bring to it any molestation. Christ, I say, was present, and with Him a noble host of angels, in a spectacle so noble and worthy to be beheld by heavenly eyes, that Agatha could rightly and deservedly cry out: Thou hast seen, Lord, and beheld my contest, how I fought in the stadium, and because I willed to keep the faith of my virginity, I was commanded not only to be suspended on the rack and tormented in my breasts and over my whole body, but also to be placed in the fire: but the fervor of Thy divine love suffices for me, O good Bridegroom, and supports me amidst these flames, as with the flowers of roses, [13 Cant. II, 5.] and crowns me with the fragrant incense of coals as if with apples and aromatics; so that I endure these cruel torments of the executioners and these ignited coals joyfully, and embrace them lovingly, not as torturing fires, but as spring flowers and purple crowns beckoning to me; and I allow myself to be adorned with them as with precious carbuncles that I may rejoice, [with] precious necklaces and jewelry, [with] the whole bridal world and the garment of martyrdom, so that decked in these ornaments He may admit me to the heavenly bridal chambers.

22. Meanwhile, Quintianus, shaken with fear by the collapse of the walls before his eyes due to the slaughter of those who had oppressed his friends, and especially disturbed by the tumult of the people and the outcry arising from the Catanians, who were wishing to preserve the virgin unharmed, was struck lifeless and immediately ordered Agatha to be led back to prison: she, surrounded by an army of heavenly citizens and throngs of the people, and triumphing over the already defeated Quintianus and all the torments, enters the venerable—shall I call it prison, or a royal palace, or rather the sacrosanct vestibule of the celestial temple? There, the virgin, standing with eyes lifted to heaven, and her virginal arms spread in the likeness of a cross, loosens her tongue in prayer with these words: Lord Jesus Christ, good master, I give thanks to Thee who hast deemed me worthy of this honor, that I might struggle for Thy name; who hast taken from me the love of mortal life, and hast supplied me with heavenly strength that I might endure torments; do Thou, the same Lord God, hear my prayers, and deem Thy handmaid worthy to leave this earth, and, adorned with the purple mantle of triumphal martyrdom and covered with a virginal bridal veil, to arrive happily at the unfading crown of eternal glory. These prayers being finished, she immediately delivered her immaculate spirit to God.

23. When the people standing around the prison learned this, with great devotion and reverence, they placed the body of the noble martyr in an honorable monument. Yet would Christ, the Bridegroom of Agatha, who is glorious and wonderful in His holy martyrs, not soon render this beloved bride of His, and the eminent queen of the Sicilian martyrs, whom He had previously honored with miracles while she lived on earth, far more glorious in heaven, triumphing with Him? And whose virgin tongue Christ had made a clear witness of His divinity, and whose chaste love and bridal faith He had commanded to be confessed publicly, would He soon allow her body, tortured for these causes, to rest ingloriously in dark marble? Christ, indeed, did make a glorious sepulcher for this most worthy Bride of His—not through one or two angels sent from heaven and visible to only a few women, as He had for His own tomb where the Bridegroom Himself had lain outside Jerusalem; but by a hundred heavenly spirits clothed in the beauty of youth; who, while the virginal body was being honorably placed by the Christian citizens, were visible to all and chanted a celestial melody. But a certain youth among them, far more beautiful than the rest, approached the tomb—not yet sealed—and placed upon the head of the Virgin a marble tablet brought from heaven, upon which her praises were briefly inscribed: A holy mind, spontaneous, honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland...

^A 24. Why does this one mouth of mine, and my mortal tongue, dare to celebrate the praises of Agatha any further, which not even the mouths of a hundred angels, nor as many celestial tongues, could attain with words that fly? But that angel, greater than the others—who was recently the guardian of the virgin—wrote them down at God’s dictation with celestial fingers in great silence; and, marveling at her angelic and almost divine virtues, he immediately departed from there. Certainly, he did so that he might himself also be present and become a participant in the celestial delights with which the entire celestial city was being flooded for the triumph of the martyr, so magnanimous in all things, and might by his own right be the paranymph at the entry of the most beautiful bride of Christ into the bridal chamber prepared for her by the Mother of virgins, the Virgin Mother of God: and also so that this same guardian angel, who had always been present at the contests of Agatha’s arguments and torments, having perceived—like a witness who has seen and heard—that she was equally above the capacity and strength of a girl, and having looked upon every detail with wonder, might presently sing the virginal offerings throughout the whole heaven, and invite the blessed hosts of the celestial militia to praise the Son of God and the Virgin Mother of God, because He had wrought such a victory in a fragile virgin.

25. But perhaps it is truer that the angel departed because, when he had publicly testified of Agatha’s most pure holiness of mind, the most ardent love and desire of the spontaneous martyr, and the excellence of the honor exhibited to Christ the Spouse in the midst of the most intense torments of her tender body, he blushed almost to stand beside so noble a body, because he knew that Agatha had wrought deeds upon the earth far brighter than those which he himself, a pure and unmixed spirit, had performed in heaven against the dragon; and therefore he hastened to put off the airy appearance of a human body, having confessed that he was far surpassed by the mortal young girl; and he vanished into the air in the very manner in which the patriarch Jacob, ^B with whom a similar angel was struggling and could not overcome him, sought his dismissal as the dawn was ascending. And because the soul of the most joyful Agatha, like a celestial and rose-colored dawn, was ascending to the celestial height and the throne of glory, and had already laid aside its mortal body, it seemed unbecoming to the angel to linger on earth and still exhibit himself to be seen by mortal eyes. Or, indeed, to this angel and his celestial century, it happened at Agatha’s sepulcher what long ago happened to the two Seraphim, who, while they were singing that angelic Trisagion to the divine Word about to assume mortal flesh, and were proclaiming that the divine holiness belonged to Him most fittingly, covered themselves entirely with their wings, unable to contemplate the majesty and glory of the One seated. For the angel of this our virgin, when he had made manifest the holy mind of Agatha on account of her most integral virginity, and likewise her holy will, on account of the most bitter torments cheerfully endured—through which Christ God wonderfully glorified her throughout heaven and earth—perceiving that the angelic mind was being dazzled by the wondrous splendors of Agatha’s holiness, he deemed it best to consult for himself with his invisible wings, and so he vanished on high.

26. But I beseech you, O celestial century of angels, accommodate to me, for at least a brief space of time, an angelic tongue and hand, so that I may bring to light the celestial epithalamium which you have stored away with Agatha’s little body in the obscure marble of the tomb; and may it be permitted to me to explain your few words (as is your custom) written therein and enveloped in recondite mysteries. And indeed, in an excellent matter, you began to celebrate the praises of Agatha from the holiness of her virginal mind. For this virgin, when she was still an infant, with no mortal teacher instructing her, but with the Holy Spirit inwardly persuading her, consecrated her virginity to God, and busied herself to cultivate it throughout the whole course of her life in such a way that she did not stain it with any worldly cares or nuptial conversations; nay more, unmindful of all created things, and free for divine contemplation, she rendered it the purer; and for that reason she flew up to the excellence of divine love; and she most greatly longed to arrive at the contest of torments in order to protect the faith of her Spouse. On account of which things it came to pass that God consented to her ardent desires, which were scintillating from a pure and avid mind; and eternal, glorious, and immortal honor sprang up for her; and the Church herself began to appear both white and red to mortal and celestial eyes.

27. Today, therefore, let the Christian Church adorn herself, since she has now dipped her glorious purple in the most pure blood of the martyr Agatha; and let her therefore rejoice and exult, and let her sing her victories and triumphs, and proclaim the fatherland of Catania worthy of the glorying; and let her fill the whole world with the fame of Agatha and of the name of Christ. For indeed, what created thing could show forth the more admirable power of God, what more proclaimable wisdom, what more lovable goodness, than to gaze upon masculine spirits and heroic virtues in the fragile body of women? But among women, what could you find more illustrious than tender virgins consecrated to God by a vow of integrity? And among virgins, after the Virgin Mother of God, what acts more delightfully in wonder, what more admirably delights the Church of Christ, than this singular virgin Agatha? Who indeed, having obeyed the counsel of the wise King, decided that God should be honored not only by the first-fruits of her body, but also with her entire substance. For since she was born of most noble parentage in the city of the Catanians, most beautiful in body, wealthy in riches, admirable in eloquence and the charm of her speech, conspicuous in the virtue of prudence, and endowed with singular strength of mind, these and other ornaments of body and soul she determined to dedicate singly to Christ God, and to His honor and glo-

glory he enslaved—nay, rather she also held herself as of no account for the sake of Christ’s love; and she rendered worthy honors to her Lord until the end of her life. The whole of this is attested by a brief epithalamium and an angelic oracle, which was divinely described ^A not for the sake of useless ornamentation of words, nor for specious eulogies, but that it might commit to eternal monuments the true virtues of Agatha.

28. But let us not be too hasty in our consideration of the celestial oracle; for there is another part of that which I proposed at the beginning. Indeed, when martyrs suffer torments and tortures for Christ, they not only weave a crown of glory for themselves and render praise to the Church and honor to God, but also, by provoking their fellow citizens ^B to imitate the example of their virtues, they merit for them the same heavenly favors, not with the price of gold and silver, but with the treasure of poured-out blood. Nor are the bodies of the holy virgins slaughtered for Christ, lying in wretched marble, less useful to their kinsmen, their fellow citizens, and their fatherland where they were brought into mortal life, than the armies of most brave men fighting for their country. For who could have achieved such a sudden and easy victory over the most cruel Quintianus and his henchmen, ^C save for Agatha’s merit before God and her power against the enemies? To be sure, her fellow citizens had rioted against Quintianus and turned him to flight, and in their fear were able to drive him from the city; but he, because he escaped safely from their hands, became more ferocious and began to ponder how, by murder and by tortures, he might sate his rabid soul against the kinsmen of Agatha, whom he had rendered exiles, and bring their rich property, along with Agatha’s patrimony, into the emperor’s treasury. The impious man plotted these things, yet he did not avoid the vengeance of the most pious Virgin. For as Quintianus sat in a boat, ^D while he was crossing the Simeto river near Catania, two horses, becoming fierce—partly by biting at his face, partly by kicking his body—cast him into the flowing water, half-dead: whom his servants were soon able to find neither alive nor dead, having searched for him for a long time. Immediately, an army of evil demons found him, and they snatched that wicked soul of his, which was struggling to depart, from the abyss and brought it to the nearby flames of Etna, destined for torment forever.

29. For just as God, for the sake of His saints, finally suffocated Pharaoh—who was pursuing the Israelite tribes by land and sea—in the Red Sea, wrapped up together with his chariots and horsemen; so too did He drown Quintianus, who was panting for murder and plunder, by dragging him through the fluvial and marine waters by those same horses. O how beautifully the chorus of the women of Catania utilized the hymn of Mary, saying: *Let us sing unto Agatha, for she is gloriously magnified; through the horses, she cast the horseman into the sea. My strength and my praise is Agatha, and she has become my salvation. She is my sister; I will glorify her. Agatha is my glory, and I will exalt her. The enemy said: I will pursue and I will overtake; I will divide the spoils; my soul shall be satisfied. The fury of the horses blew, and he was submerged in the vehement waters.* Who is like thee among the strong, Agatha, magnificent in holiness, terrible and praiseworthy, and doing wonders? Thou art truly the glory of the Catanian city, thou the honor of our people; and because thou didst love virginity, the Lord delivered Quintianus into thy hand, and thou shalt be blessed forever.

30. Come now, auditors, and from the waters let us proceed to the fires of Etna. Most of you, I believe, have read the name of Etna in the ancient histories of our writers, which we still possess; or at least you have heard of the fame of that mountain, which is celebrated across the whole world. But perhaps there are some here to whom the name of Etna is still unknown. Etna, then, is a mountain—lofty, indeed, and far surpassing the clouds—that overhangs the city of Catania. Those of our people who have landed at the port of Catania bear witness that its ridges are whitened with perpetual snows, and they report that its slopes are inhabited by frequent villages and farmsteads. They also testify that the craters on the summit of Etna (11) smoke perpetually, and that by belching forth fiery vapors and sulfurous ashes, they scatter them all around, with great [index: entries preserved]

damage to fields, woods, and livestock. It came to pass, ^A however, on the very Kalends of February of the following year, the martyrdom of the blessed Agatha, that, the sides of Etna having been split open, the Tartarean and foul fire, effervescing more vehemently than usual, erupted, and raging like a swift and expansive torrent, devastated everything in its path, and directed its course against the villages of Catania and the city itself.

31. Do you think that the pagan race, terrified by such frequent earthquakes and explosions, stunned by the horror of the flowing fire, and nearly lifeless, had been overtaken? In so fearful a situation, by the will of the Divine, there came to mind for them the angelic oracle deposited at the head of Agatha, concerning the liberation of their fatherland promised to them. Taking courage, therefore: Let us hasten, they said, to the sepulcher of our Virgin, ^B whose aid we now for the first time publicly implore. For the promise concerning the liberation of the fatherland inscribed upon her heavenly epitaph is certain, and there should be no doubting either the efficacy of the merits of so great a martyr before God, or the propensity of our virgin toward her fatherland. But if at one time the natural piety of two brothers (12), our fellow citizens, toward their parents had the power to delay the fires of Etna so that they would not consume them, and because they carried them away upon their pious shoulders, for the memory of which pious deed our ancestors bestowed sacred honors upon them (13); what is it fitting to do for our fellow citizen Agatha, who, so that she would not abandon our God and the parent of all things, suffered herself to be thrown into living fires and glowing tiles, and who, so that she would not break the faith of chastity once given to Christ, willingly desired to pour out her mortal life? ^C But if the executioners did not dare to approach with their fires the still mortal Agatha, who was longing to be burned for Christ, will these flowing fires dare to overwhelm her—she who is unwilling, who now stands near Christ, endowed with immortality—her native soil, the city and citizens, and the palace of her birth, and the sacrosanct monuments of the martyr? For this fiery torrent will by no means reach the land of Catania, which, still sprinkled with the recent blood of the virgin, cries out more powerfully before God than the blood of Abel: therefore, we must not despair at all, with the recent merits of so good a citizen, Agatha, acting as our advocate.

52. They, conferring with one another and hurrying to the sepulcher of the holy martyr, pour forth prayers and tears, extract the veil that covered her virginal body, and raise it upon a rod into the air: thus armed and confident, they go out to meet the advancing fires. A wonder to behold: at once those precipitous fiery torrents, as if having revered the power of the present Virgin and the majesty of the martyr, stay their course, lay aside their rage, and extinguish their heat. What shall I proclaim here ^D [about] the scarlet cord hung from the window of Rahab, which, by the very sight of it, because the life of only two Israelites was saved, deserved to keep her whole house safe? For it would be shameful to compare the ribbon of this wicked little woman of old with the venerable veil of a virginal head. It would also be unseemly to adorn the thrice-excellent Agatha with foreign ornaments and bought pigments, when she excels sufficiently and more than enough by her own praises and merits. However, let it be permitted to compare this veil of the Virgin with the holy censer of the priest Aaron, which, when he had filled it with fire and incense and held it out against the fire, and had stood between the dead and the living, the plague immediately ceased. For this veil, having absorbed into itself certain holy odors from the touch of Agatha, and having kept both itself and its mistress lying in the fires safe and unharmed, merited such a prerogative of power against fire, that at its appearance and scent all fires tremble and are immediately lulled, without the destruction of any mortal.

53. Be it permitted also to propose before your eyes the Mosaic ark, which, when carried upon the shoulders of the priests it entered the riverbed of the Jordan, the waters stood in wonder and swelled like a mountain, nor dared they approach it, having indeed revered the presence and majesty of the Divine Being in the way that they were able. Have you watched the Ark dividing the waters of the Jordan and delaying their course? I ask you now, perceive with the eyes of your mind the fires of Etna, running like a torrent of liquefied metals, and dissolving everything in its path, even stone and mountains, like wax: whose heat and course neither great springs nor rivers coming from melted snows could extinguish or even mitigate. But what can springs and rivers avail against such a great fiery deluge, when that Ionian sea itself has carried its waters to be burned like oil, and for that reason has yielded its place within its own wet and deep gulfs, and, fleeing, has had to change its ancient shores and shrink back afar? Since, therefore, neither the mountains of hardest stone, nor huge crags, nor even the hostile element of the sea could do anything against the Etnean fires and blunt their force; the small ^D veil of the virgin Agatha, truly raised on high by her citizens and exposed to the winds (a wonder to relate), immediately both extinguished the fires and repressed their rapid course. In memory of which manifest deed, those foul fires have been turned into high mountains of horrid stones and burnt-out crags, [alt-version omitted] and stand erected as an eternal trophy of the virginal victory, and prove the truth of the oracle concerning the liberation of the fatherland, brought down from heaven by angels. For which reason also that veil, as if Agatha...

the standard of the triumphant flame with the joyful applause of the people, it was enclosed in the ark wherein the leader of victory herself rested, so that it might be kept with greater veneration and piety for the adverse affairs of the fatherland. ^A

54. O hundred times and thousand times truly good virgin and martyr! Good, I say, to you and to your spouse Christ; good also to the fatherland and to your fellow citizens, whom you preserved unscathed by such an evident miracle! Truly there is no other city which has experienced its holy citizens so propitious to it, as the Catanian region has Agatha. Nor indeed did so good a virgin have a biased will only toward her own, but she poured out her benefits with full hands even upon outsiders. Moved by the fame of these, Lucy, a maiden most noble among the Syracusans, persuaded Eutychia, her parent suffering from an issue of blood, that they should go together to Catan to the temple and tomb of the holy virgin Agatha. And when she had already mingled the bloodless sacrifice for her mother ^B with tears, while embracing the tomb of Agatha and kissing it piously, she fell into a light sleep. And she seemed to see the blessed Agatha clearly shining in heaven among the choirs of angels and virgins, in a form more majestic than all, and to hear her producing these words for her: "Lucy, virgin, whose integrity invites me to call you sister, why do you entreat health for thy mother from me, the spouse of us both, Christ? You yourself have obtained it for her on account of the unblemished flower of your virginity, and behold, she has already recovered. But I also declare what things are to come to you; for after the crown of martyrdom, which you will soon put on, you will enter the heavenly bridal chamber with me, as a spouse of Christ; and just as the city of the Catanians is illustrated by Christ through me, so is the Syracusan [city] adorned through you." And having spoken these things she departed on high, and Lucy, having been awakened, found her parent healthy.

MARTYRDOM OF THE BLESSED DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, BY THE SAME SAINT METHODIUS

EPISTLE OF THE SAME METHODIUS

^C Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, epistle sent to the Patriarch of Jerusalem concerning the deposition of apostate priests.

We have received, as very grateful and orthodox, the hand of speech extended by your venerable sublimity to us, through our most religious brother Silvanus, presbyter and monk, [relating to] all the synods from of old down to us: and we have listened gladly to your fraternal piety, of which we wished to be reminded, in its rightly and unswervingly balanced judgment; namely, that we used the help of God to attain the true concord which has befallen us; just as, indeed, we, being in doubt, asked you, and you answered with full assent: that is to say, [concerning] those who, having been constituted priests by Tarasius and Nicephorus, our blessed and orthodox Fathers and brothers, but afterwards having fallen away from the truth and wandered from the straight path, if they have repented with their whole soul and condemned their own thoughtlessness ^D and demonstrated, by a change of life, a repentance worthy of being undertaken with the whole mind, and [repudiated] the heresies

^A authors, since they have renounced and anathematized the abominable cacodoxy of these men, promising that they will stand by the definitions of the true religion, and publicly professing orthodoxy, and promising to keep it henceforth until death (nay, even ready to suffer death with joy for the sake of the truth) until the day of Christ, so that they may obtain eternal and unceasing life; these men, I say, ought to be received and restored to their own sees, and, as proper members, fitted to the body and placed with all the rest of the clergy, in the second rank, however, so that we may meanwhile observe whether they conduct themselves appropriately: with the sole exception of the last-named, or rather the ultimate and foremost enemy of the truth, John, who never appeared as a Christian at all, nor held any place in the clergy, nor exercised any office whatsoever. These things having been rightly and very well set forth by your fraternal reverence in a few words, lo, today the third year has elapsed, and the fourth has begun, and we have not known, nor has there been signified in any way, any fruit of repentance from him, either through humble speech, or through the hardship of life, or voluntary solitude, etc.

Methodius continues to declaim against the heretics, and especially against the aforementioned John the Iconoclast, against whom Nicephorus inveighs in his *Antirrheticus* III, see above col. 351.

OF THE SAME METHODIUS, EPISTOLA CONTRA STUDITAS.

There follows in codex 225, f. 45, a tract, not so small, of the last testament in which that confessor, Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, famous about the year 842 for his Catholic strength, wrote against the Studite monks who were little reverent toward the patriarchal dignity; which sentiment he also expressed in a homily, long since lost: “But also in another homily again concerning the same, he says: Do not eat with them, nor say ‘Greetings’ to them, for if you participate in their works, you will necessarily also be partakers in the anathema; and this also we shall remind you, that if ever they should repent, they must also anathematize those things which were written evilly, not so much against the patriarchs, as against the Church, for those men were the Church who also supported her; a time for repentance is granted to them, but not for performing sacred offices.” In another homily concerning the same Studites he says: Do not eat with any of them, nor say 'Greetings' to them; for if you share in their acts, you shall necessarily be partakers of the anathema. Nevertheless, we also advise this, that if indeed they come to their senses, and curse those wicked writings not so much against the patriarchs, as against the Church—for they who supported her constituted the Church—a time for repenting is allowed them, though not for officiating in sacred matters. Indeed, the letter of the blessed Methodius against the Studites is presented in codex 225, f. 22, which I have recited elsewhere, though only abridged and in a great part of it curtailed from the codex (which I have already said above p. xvii is more abridged than the other), *Script. vet.* t. III, p. 256. It is, however, worth the effort to transcribe it here now in its entirety, yet with no Latin translation added for the sake of brevity. That which the monk Methodius says in the aforementioned place, that this letter of Patriarch Methodius should be read in Nicon, stands correctly; for it appears from the Arabic codex Vat. 176, in our *Script. vet.* t. IV, p. 168, that it was received into the typicon of Nicon. And as John of Ephesus recites it:

^C Unless you anathematize those things which were written against the holy Nicephorus and blessed Tarasius, either today in the presence of the brethren and fellow ministers, or on a defined day, as they [the writers] come to you and hear—

the decree contained in them—to burn them and to anathematize them, as we have written in our defense regarding the administration of the Church—know, brethren, that we shall not merely anathematize you and those who are included with you, but we shall condemn you with a more shameful anathema. ^B For your blessed hegumen and teacher, who performed the sacred rites with us until the end of his life, rendered his own writings void by his actions; since he would never have remained with us if the things he wrote against us had still possessed his soul. Now indeed, we have written these things not for the sake of defamation, nor do we desire or wish that it should ever come to pass; but because we judged it just and necessary that the things we conceived in our mind should come to the knowledge of all, we have divulged all these, that at least you might understand how much we are your superiors. Even now, if we only wished, most copious arguments and most apt reasons for refuting you are at hand; yet, lest we should kindle greater wrath in you, and because the matters are many and require a more extensive demonstration, we have chosen to pass over them in silence. We invoke, however, the most benevolent Lord Jesus Christ, and shall ever supplicate Him, that, all those writings being completely removed from the midst, He may impart His peace and concord and understanding and probity of mind to you and to us. ^C And again in another place he says this: To the Studites, however, we say this: If they do not strike with anathema the things written by their Father against the most holy patriarchs of Constantinople, Nicephorus and Tarasius, you teach them by your deeds to remain unsubmissive.

Deinde ita pergit Ephesii codex.

We must not be ignorant that the disciples of the Studite, after his holy death, since they wished not to be subject to the Catholic Church of Christ, as is fitting, but rather to be led by their own will, taking his former condemnation as a pretext, and also inventing other reasons among themselves, once again broke away and separated themselves from the common Church of Christ. Against these, therefore, the holy Methodius, the illustrious patriarch, moved in the manner of a synod, pronounced an anathema. Among other things by which that great patriarch admonished them ^D more than once, he argued in this manner: “At no time has the doctrine of the Catholic Church been twofold or divided, nor will it be; nor has it ever appeared, nor will it appear, lacking a governor and a head, so as to be deprived of a ruler and a leader. For the head of the whole earth is, according to the Apostle, man; but when man is divided into male and female, the man is the head of the woman; and of the man, Christ; and of the undivided Christ, or rather of the mystery, God. The whole body of the Church, therefore, joined together from Christ and into Christ, increases with the increase of Christ. From this Church, you are indeed entirely alien; and since you lack a head and a leader, you cannot call yourselves participants or members of the Church of Christ. For whoever lacks a head cannot be the head of others; and you who seek the submission of others, while you yourselves are devoid of submission, cannot have them subject to you. For while you wish to submit them with words, by your deeds you teach them to do the contrary.”

^A nor that man himself—far be it—but the writings, just as Theodoret did with his own, and others have done with things said or written by them through being carried away. If, therefore, as we have said, they do not anathematize those things which have been concocted against the aforementioned saints, may they too be anathema and under a curse ^B from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And not they alone, but all who agree with them and are carried away and join with them in friendly conversation or assembly, let these also be under a curse from them, and anathema from Christ to the devil. For by treading upon them, or rather by stepping upon them—that is, by relying upon their judgment—those who obey them would step upon their condemnation unto anathema. Nor is it any wonder that we have subjected to anathema those who have become the authors of the destruction of those who obey them; rather, it is right to believe that we have done this according to a divine and apostolic decree, judging, determining, and designating [them] in accordance with the excess of sin or the cause of the sin; hence, thanks be to Christ.

^B You are a monk, and it is not permitted for you to examine the affairs of priests, but it is necessary for you to be subject, and not to subject them nor to examine them. If he had spoken and written everything against the holy patriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus, we would not have received him into communion. Nisi enim vester beatus Pater Theodorus cuncta improbasset, quæ in sanctos patriarchas dicto scriptove jecerat, Tarasium atque Nicephorum, nunquam eum ad communionem recepissernus.

OF METHODIUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, ON THOSE WHO HAVE DENIED THE FAITH ACCORDING TO THEIR VARIOUS PERSONS AND AGES, AND WHO ARE RETURNING TO THE ORTHODOX AND TRUE FAITH.

(Goar, Ritual. Graec., p. 876.)

If a child has been caught and denied the faith, whether from fear, or ignorance, and lack of instruction, let such a one receive propitiatory prayers for seven days, and on the eighth day let him be washed, and girded with a linen cloth from the bath, let him be anointed with chrism, as are accustomed to be anointed those who are baptized, and let him wear new garments, according to the rule of ^A those who are newly enlightened. If there should be youths ^B or older persons, or old men, who are perfect...

VARIOUS READINGS AND NOTES

(1) Methodius. The Cryptoferratensis codex of Bessarion reads: *Ordinance of the most holy Patriarch Methodius concerning those returning in different ways and of different ages.* The third Barberini exemplar: *Ordinance of Methodius, Archbishop of Constantinople, concerning those returning from denial.* Two Royal exemplars: *Ordinance of the most holy Patriarch Methodius concerning the different ways and ages of those returning. An order made for Christians led away into pagan defilement by the error of the nations, but who have voluntarily turned back to God. Of Patriarch Methodius. Penances for the fallen.* (2) "According to different persons." So that there may not be one accounting of persons, nor of crimes: but Armenopulus distinctly explains the penalties imposed unevenly upon them, in section 4 of the *Epitome of the Holy Canons*, under the fourth title, which is of this sort: *On the fallen.* (7) If they are male children. The Barberini [codex], if the children are in the plural, whence also the verb constructed everywhere is placed in the number of the multitude, [reads] *let them receive, let them be washed.* The high priest bids him fast for seven days on meat, and to perform one hundred prostrations each day, and each day he says this prayer: *Lord God Almighty, Lord God Almighty.* The Allatius [codex] reads: *Outside of this prayer, and one other at the end, nothing else is found there pertaining to this office; and thus that Allatius codex does not exhibit the canon of Methodius.* Armenopulus, in the place just mentioned, says: *The sanction of Patriarch Methodius deems worthy of pardon children who have fallen and returned, having been taken into captivity, and subjected [to denial] by fear or ignorance, anointing them only with holy chrism.* (5) *Let them be clothed.* Two Royal [codices]. The Barberini [codex]: *Let them put on new garments, and follow the order, as those recently enlightened are accustomed.*

If they are young men, or elders, or perfect in age, if indeed they have denied ^A the faith due to torments, let them meet with kindness; however, let them fast for two quadragesimas, devoting themselves to prayers, and performing genuflections and earnest supplications. ^B And as the completion of the two quadragesimas draws near, for eight days let them receive propitiatory prayers, and let them say daily the "Lord, have mercy," one hundred times. And after this, let them wash and be anointed with the myron, according to what was said beforehand.

VARIOUS READINGS AND NOTES

(6) *Young men.* The Barberini [codex]: *young men.* (7) *Elders [presbyteroi], or old men.* The Royal [codex]: *two, or elders.* The Barberini simply: *or old men.* (8) *Perfect in age.* *Those being,* is missing in the Royal [codices]. The Barberini reads: *and of most perfect age.* (9) *From torments.* The Barberini: *by torments.* (10) *To prayers.* The Royal [codex]: *to the prayer.* (11) *And earnest supplications.* These are missing in the Barberini [codex], in place of which in the preceding is added: *daily two hundred, and the "Lord, have mercy," one hundred.* (12) *And as drawing near.* The Barberini reads otherwise: *before the eight days of the two quadragesimas, let them take propitiatory prayers, on the eighth day.* (13) *Eight days.* The Crypta Ferrata codex: *on the eighth day.* (14) *Propitiatory prayers.* *Let them be washed*, for the next reconciliations, for those, indeed, who were subject to the submission [imposition] to be done. (15) *And let them say,* etc. These are missing in the Barberini. (16) *And after this let them wash.* The Barberini reads nakedly: *let them wash.* — Arcudius, occasionally more severe than is fitting, for his own part, first condemns this bodily washing in a bath, not as a cleansing of the soul, but only of the skin from filth before reconciliation, as having the mark of superstition and the observance of the Mosaic law: soon, having become more peaceful, he attempts to excuse it. And rightly indeed, if with Arcudius himself and his adversary [*name missing in text*] we contemplate that bodily washing, not as a repeated collation of baptism, or a Judaically prescribed ablution, but as a remembrance of the purity first attained in the baptismal bath, and afterward lost by apostasy, we contemplate it. Hence we have seen those to be reconciled placed near the baptismal font to receive propitiatory prayers, so that they may both weep there for the sin of infidelity, and strive to repair in themselves the faith first professed there, and promulgated in the sight of the Church, and restore it to its former fervor. Since, therefore, the greatest similarity exists between baptism and penance, whence just as baptism is the first penance for sins, this is likewise recognized to be a second baptism: it is no wonder if the rites and ceremonies of both are not unlike, which the memorable Albaspinaeus discusses most learnedly in many places of his observations, especially indeed 1 and 24, lib 2. I am surprised that the doctor of the Roman Church, before Arcudius, had observed these words: I am amazed that after Arcudius no one interpreted them kindly; I can truly scarcely bring it to mind, unless I err, that Arcudius himself, who otherwise deserved well of both the Latin and Greek Church for his excellent and sound doctrine, for the sake of these same words, should have treated his Greeks, perhaps innocent, so severely and rigidly.

^C The custom of the present Greece, he writes (cap. 18, lib. 2), is that those who have deserted from the faith, and similarly heretics, all heretics I say, whether born and educated in heresy or fallen into it, if they convert, are to be signed with chrism. So much for the beginning of the cited place. But in the end he concludes the whole chapter thus: In the way that things now stand, they contain an error regarding heretics that is clearly not to be tolerated, as set forth in the printed Euchologion regarding this ceremony of the form of confirmation to be recited. So he. But that form to be spoken vocally, or pronounced with the mouth, and the present rite of confirmation itself, used and frequented in the reconciliation of the lapsed, if it deserves any authority or tolerance in the Greek Church, offers itself to be examined more painstakingly (for this difficulty has remained intact, as far as I know, until now).

I say therefore first, that those who among the heretics had not been confirmed, but only baptized, when converted to the faith, have truly received the sacrament of confirmation in the Church. This is brought into doubt by no one. For thus can the canon of the first Constantinopolitan council be understood: *Signing and anointing first with the holy myron, then the forehead, and the eyes, and the nostrils, and the mouth, and the ears. And signing them we say: "The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit."* And those who [are baptized] by us, they do not offer the all-holy chrism: therefore the most praised Fathers ordered those who were being joined from this heresy to the body of the Church to be anointed, (the one turning back) just as those being baptized.

I say second, that heretics converted to the faith were formerly reconciled with the Church with some anointing of sacred chrism applied. That indeed is proven by the words of the holy Methodius which we illustrate: *Let him be anointed [chrismated] with the holy oil of chrism, the one to be reconciled, when he returns to the faith, in the manner of those baptized.* That is also demonstrated by the words of the Council of Epaon, celebrated under Symmachus, in the year 509: *To a priest,* he says (cap. 16), *on account of the salvation of souls which we desire in all, if desperate men, on their beds, if heretics, should seek sudden conversion, we permit aid with chrism: which all who are going to convert, if they are healthy, should know must be sought from the bishop.* He dares

^A to say something further regarding Maldonatus' claim that the confirmation of heretics must be repeated: and whether it should be repeated was an ancient question. In the Council of Tarragona, he adds, canon 6, it was decreed that it should not be repeated: although here I think a distinction must be made. For it was always certain that a confirmation which had been given by Catholic bishops ought not to be repeated, and all the canons of the councils which deal with this matter are understood of that; yet whether a confirmation given by heretical bishops ought to be repeated was not so certain in the Catholic Church: nay, I think it was repeated throughout the entire ancient Church, because it was not considered to be a true Confirmation. This I infer from all the ancient writers who teach it absolutely without any distinction. And yet they were not unaware that many had not only been baptized among heretics, but also confirmed: especially since it was the custom then that confirmation should be given immediately after baptism. Thus Siricius, ep. 1, d. cap. 4, and Leo, ep. 33, cap. 2 and 37, and perhaps Augustine meant this when he said in lib. *Contra Donatistas* cap. 16: "The laying on of hands, as is the case with baptism, cannot be repeated." And Gregory, lib. IX, ep. 61, teaches that there were three accustomed ways in which those who had been baptized among heretics were admitted to the Catholic Church. By confirmation: which the Western Church did. By unction, that is, by the application of chrism, which Catholics thought to be profane among heretics, which the Eastern Church did. By profession of the true faith, which was in use in some places. So much for him.

I say thirdly, that for those who had lapsed from the faith and returned to the Church, an unction was sometimes used together with the pronunciation of the words that are accustomed to be used in confirmation, and that the aforementioned unction was sometimes the true matter of the sacrament of confirmation, when it was performed with the words pronounced as the true form of the same sacrament, that is, over those not confirmed; ^D but sometimes it was purely reconciliatory and ceremonial, when it served with the same words pronounced over those already confirmed. The authority of Saint Methodius provides credence to the truth of this third assertion; he, having published the present canon, declared the method by which everyone who had turned away from the faith—according to his age and strength—was to be restored to the Church; and he willed that all, like those being baptized, should be anointed again with the sacred ointment. Observing this authority, Arcudius sometimes tries to imply that this canon is not the genuine work of that author and Saint Methodius, but an adulterine offspring of another schismatic Methodius: sometimes that the discussion is about heretics who were not confirmed: now that a corruption has crept into the canon: and finally, whoever the author Methodius may have been, he dares to assert that it was of little authority, as if it introduced a rite to be entirely condemned, and one by which it appears the sacrament of confirmation is repeated in the Church. But first, since six hundred years [have passed], and such things are without any doubt older than the younger schismatic Methodius, and since authors among both the Latins and the Greeks, not excluding the most holy and learned Methodius, ^A confess that he switched sides of his own accord, because he is held unworthy of the mysteries, he holds a place among those standing together; otherwise, if he denies the faith out of weakness, he is deemed worthy of the holy things, receives the communion of the sacraments, and becomes one of the number of those participating. And then, as if the grace of baptism were recovered, he performs the works of the newly illuminated.

^B ...such work, if they ascribe it, there is no reason why Arcudius should wish to detract from it in vain. And not to mention those who proclaim him the author of this canon in their Libraries, Possevin and Gesner, surely Baronius writes about him as if by the voice of the writers of the Church in the year 842, num. 20: "Methodius laboured wonderfully for the recalling of the lapsed into the Church. But because they were found to be of various ages and different conditions, so that ecclesiastical discipline would not be cheapened, he wanted all of them to be subject to ecclesiastical censure in a different way. Wherefore, for the salvation of all, he promulgated an edict of this kind, to which this title is found inscribed: *Of the most holy patriarch of Constantinople Methodius, concerning those who have denied through various modes and ages.*" And presently he sets forth the whole canon according to the reading of the ancient exemplars, exactly, word for word, as if confirming the faith of the canon and its author. And indeed Cedrenus himself narrates that a certain heresy, extinguished as soon as it was born by the labours and industry of Methodius, and presently its authors and followers, were recalled to favour with the Church, having been anointed with holy chrism, in these words: "There was at that time a certain heresy called that of the Zilici, which, together with its leader Zilicus, who was among the secret ones, was abolished and dissipated; both he and those following him were moved to piety, and were anointed and perfected with the divine myrrh." Under this time a certain heresy by the name of Zilicum arose, and at the same time, with its leader Zilicus who was *a secretis*, it was extinguished and dissipated, he and his followers having converted to the true religion, and having been anointed and perfected with holy chrism. By which words, *anointed and perfected*, he insinuates, besides the unction applied to the aforementioned heretics, also the words of confirmation pronounced over them according to the aforementioned canon of Methodius. For they were called perfected by the sacred ointment, not only those to whom the unction alone was applied, but moreover those over whom the aforementioned words were pronounced as a perfection and complement. Although I would contend that neither these words, nor indeed any part of the aforementioned Methodian ceremony, obtain the virtue of a sacrament. ^D Perhaps someone will say that it is not proven from Cedrenus that the aforementioned canon was of that most ancient Methodius. But since so much can be attributed either to the aforementioned most illustrious Methodius, who flourished around the year 840 and the following, or to another schismatic, who obtained the See of Constantinople around the year 1240—Cedrenus however being intermediate, around the year 1040—they cannot but speak of the former Methodius. Secondly, as to what Arcudius says, that this canon of Methodius is understood of those who had not been signed, or who had not been confirmed among the heretics, either because they had neglected that sacrament, or had rejected it entirely, as Theodoret clearly testifies regarding the Novatians, quoted in *The Fables of Heretics*, or because there were no true bishops among them, that is, truly ordained, who would administer it: that, I say, is not likely. For it is not about one or another class of heretics...

^A but those who are baptized into the Church and the liturgy for eight days. But if ^B some, out of their own volition, have defected to the denial [of the faith], such persons have a fearful canon; nevertheless, out of compassion, let them fast for two years, abstaining from meats, and from eating cheese, and from eggs, and from wine; and let them perform genuflections—if they are young and strong, one hundred each day, and let them say "Lord, have mercy" two hundred times; but if they are weak, according to their ability, let them complete the two years, and eight days before [the end], let them receive the prayers of reconciliation, and the following, as has been ordained; and let this be done for them, whether they be men or women, provided only that they have attained full age. But if they have defected to the denial of the faith by their own free will, such persons have a fearful canon, but out of compassion let them fast for two years on bread and water; and let them perform genuflections—if they are young and strong, two hundred [acts of] repentance each day; and let them say "Lord, have mercy" two hundred times. And the two years being completed, let them also receive the prayers, and the order, as we have ordained above, whether they are men or women. ^C But if they are weaker, let them submit themselves to the prayers of reconciliation eight days before the two years are completed, and let the rest be observed thereafter, as has been established, whether they be men or women, provided they have attained perfect age. The Barberini [manuscript] terminates [the passage] thus: "But if they have passed over to the denial of the faith by the movement of their own will, let such suffer a heavy and fearful penalty. Yet, through indulgence, let them fast on bread and water for two years; and let them perform genuflections—if they are young and of sound strength—two hundred prostrations, and likewise say 'Lord, have mercy' two hundred times. And when the two years have been completed, let them also receive the prayers, according to the order set forth by us above, whether they be men or women." ^D [alt-version omitted] ...the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, not otherwise than an unction purely ceremonial, [which] is not to be deemed unworthy of any excuse whatsoever: because through the intention of both the canon and the minister reconciling the heretics, the cited words, as well as the aforementioned unction, could be restricted and determined to a purely ecclesiastical rite, excluding every notion of a sacrament: namely, that by this external repetition of signs, they might become mindful either of the grace lost, which they had received in confirmation, or of that which they had never accepted on account of heresy. Furthermore, if anyone were to use this Methodian rite with the intention of repeating the Sacramental Confirmation, he could by no means escape the stain of wicked heresy. Wherefore, if any still do so with that intention, I desire that they be subject not only to the censure of Arcudius but also to the judgment of the whole Church; nor, indeed, could I readily approve that the aforementioned rite be observed by anyone at the present time, even with a right intention, lest the slightest occasion be offered to heretics for the repetition of this sacrament—heretics who might exploit what was anciently observed in a holy and simple spirit, for the sake of mockery and deception, and thus heresies would be renewed rather than extinguished. If Arcudius tempers his censure in this way, and respects the gray hairs and the zeal of Methodius, there will no longer be any matter of contention and discord between us. But what truly were the just causes that impelled the ancient Fathers to anoint heretics, and Methodius himself to do so, and when they first introduced the aforementioned custom of unction and the pronunciation of words by an edited canon, it will be worth the effort to examine. Certainly, he who would not wish to revoke the first institution of this custom to the first Council of Constantinople cannot deny that it was long in use before the completed fifth century, since Timotheus the Scevophylax bears witness to a usage of this kind; he wrote a *Little Work* around that year, which is to be found in the sixth volume of the *Bibliotheca PP.* of the Latins. And the aforementioned antiquity is attested to by the documents cited above, the Regia and Barberini manuscripts, which were written without controversy eight hundred years ago, if, however, we do not derogate anything from the illustrious de Marca and the most expert Allatius: and, moreover, that holy and sacred rite...

^A of disposition, those who have defected to denial, we accept as they return; but they do not partake of the divine mysteries, except only at the end of their life, according to the canon of the great Basil, who says: 'He who has denied Christ and transgressed the mystery of salvation, ought to mourn throughout the whole time of his life, and to confess, but at the time of death he emerges, being deemed worthy of the sanctification by faith in the philanthropy of God.'

Propitiatory prayers for one who returns to the true faith after denial.

[VARIAE LECTIONES ET NOTAE omitted]

by the authority of those teachers and his own singular confirmation, as set forth in the treatise *De primatu Lugdunensi*, p. 493 et seq. As for the actual origin and cause of the constitution, it was a common sentiment confirmed by the writings of the ancient Fathers, and accepted by all, that there is no sacrament profitable in regard to virtue if it be received with the obstacle of infidelity. Hence, when they observed that the fullness of the Holy Spirit is conferred upon the soul by the sacred anointing of chrism, and that a testimony of true faith is rendered through it; but that, on the opposite side, one who subordinates himself in the Church to a heretical pontiff—whose errors he embraces in his mind, or at least professes externally—cannot profess it, they rightly proclaimed that his anointing had brought no effect of grace, no gift of the Holy Spirit, into the soul. Hence their frequent opinions, which once resonated in the Church, that the Holy Spirit cannot be derived from heretics to others in confirmation, nor given to those who do not possess Him; and thus, having prudently driven away infidelity, they began to provoke the recipient to the study of penance, to pour forth fervent and public prayers to God for him, and by repeated ceremonies of confirmation, to supply the defect of the confirmation itself—namely, the absence of grace—to protest the faith, and to beseech more boldly the coming of the Holy Spirit for the sake of its proclamation; and finally, to speak along with the crowd of holy Doctors, to compensate for the crime of infidelity, and the ruin and destruction which it had brought with it, by the sanctifications of the divine Spirit, through anointing or the laying on of hands.

But subsequently, when one who has deserted the faith through a fall into heresy, or consensus with an impious sect, rejects, tramples upon, and extinguishes the faith which he had promised in all ways to preach and defend in his confirmation, and the Holy Spirit which had been given to him: that he may both renew it and recall the Holy Spirit unto himself, as if he were seeking a confirmation (which, however, cannot be repeated), he receives its signs and ceremonies. And in this way, the Eastern Church has devised a means to repair in the souls of their own the grace and effect of confirmation, previously lost. Not, however, so as to assert that this rite of itself and by its own virtue can produce a work so sublime and arduous (such as is the restoration of grace in the soul, which is usually connected to the virtue of the sacraments)—for what is more feeble than a ceremony invented and instituted by human effort for the restoration of grace? But [they hold that] it is by the prayers of the Church, or the merits of the priests, or the humility of the convert, or finally, to speak more aptly, by the penance which is always ^C joined to it, that every defect of infidelity may be repaired by power and energy, and all sanctity coming through confirmation may again be granted through its repeated rite. This, because it imitates confirmation and tends to the repair of confirmation's effect, can be asserted to pertain to it from the holy Fathers. But because it has joined to it the remission of penance and the confession of infidelity, and works toward the blotting out of the same from the mind, I profess it to be merely reconciliatory, which the following observation also manifests.

It must by no means be denied that this is the sound and safe opinion of the Greeks, where they profess themselves followers of the doctrine of Justin, and wish it to be approved and accepted by the Latins also. For when he, in his *Responses to the Orthodox*, having objected to himself (Quest. 14) that the baptism of heretics is not to be repeated as false and vain, and that the stable inauguration of the order received from them remains: as if he were rebuking the anointing of confirmation being used anew, he is silent about it in the question, but in the response concerning baptism and chrism, he strives to dispel every doubt; and he writes that the stain of baptism received from heretics is wiped away by the anointing of holy oil; but as for ordination, which is performed by the laying on of hands and is a true, perfect, and genuine *cheirotonia*, he teaches that the blemish is removed not by something less praised or held in value as inferior, but by the penance or at least ceremonial laying on of hands, *cheirothesia*: "The error of baptism is corrected by the anointing of holy oil; that of ordination by the laying on of hands; and nothing of those things which were before remains un-abolished." ^D Therefore, it remains that if nothing is abolished, baptism and confirmation which are always customarily joined to it, just as the power of order in the baptized and ordained by heretics, are found to be safe and whole. But of this *cheirotonia*, not by another *cheirotonia*, but only by *cheirothesia* (the distinction of which from the preceding we have indicated elsewhere) is it corrected: why then, if *to palai muron menei aluton*, if I say the ancient chrism and its anointing is not made void, whether it is received from a Catholic or from a heretic, could it not, with another similar anointing—merely penitential and restorative of the former, if none at all exists as we have expounded above, or renovative and reparative if a Catholic minister performs it—due to the purpose and prayers of the Church and the penance of the lapsed, be stirred up again and reduced to its former state?

^A For Thou, as a compassionate Master, knowing our destruction to be wicked, and that death, having grown strong, had swallowed us up, being moved with compassion toward us, didst see fit to save Thy creation. Taking the form of a servant and engaging with death, Thou didst recall Thine image in us, freeing us from the power of death and leading us into the way of salvation by the regeneration of Thy Holy Spirit. And having been saved by Thy grace, we hymn Thy dispensation, and we pray, and we implore, and we beseech Thee at Thy second coming, when Thou art about to judge the living and the dead and to render to each according to his works. Remember Thy mercy, which is from of old, and overlook our human failings and transgressions. Grant us, who ask Thee, propitiation, and forgive every ^B transgression, both voluntary and involuntary, in knowledge and in ignorance. For there is no man who shall live and not sin, not even if he live but one day upon the earth. For who shall boast that he has a pure heart? Or who shall claim to be pure from sin? For we have all sinned in word and in deed before Thee, and we fall short of Thy glory, hoping to be justified not by works of righteousness—for we have done no good upon the earth—but through true faith and confession of Thy name. For to know Thee is complete righteousness, and to acknowledge Thy power is the root of immortality. And we know, and we confess, and we believe that Thou art He who brought us from non-being into being, who hast pity on those who have fallen, who bearest with those who sin, and who callest back to life from the dead. We beseech Thee, Lord our God, for whatever we have sinned before Thee, as wearing flesh and dwelling in this world ^C and being encompassed by weakness—whether in deeds, or in words, or in thoughts—do Thou, as a good and man-loving and merciful Master, remit, forgive, overlook, and pardon our transgressions for those who confess, and do not hold it against us, nor enter into judgment with Thy servants, for no one living shall be justified before Thee. For Thou alone art sinless, and Thou receivest those who repent, and to Thee we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Another Prayer

^A Thou hast said, O Lord: Turn unto me, and I will turn unto you; and: I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he should return and live. Do Thou, therefore, O lover of mankind, look also upon this Thy servant, who is turning away from the path of his error and asking of Thee propitiation. Do not turn away, but visit him in mercy, and recall him in compassion. For Thou art God, the God of those who repent, and the Savior of those who turn unto Thee, and to Thee we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Another Prayer.

O Lord God, Creator and Master of all, ^B the source of goodness, the Father of all men, and especially of the faithful, who didst not despise the man who had been sunk into the depths of perdition and error by the craftiness of the devil, but didst seek him out and save him, and lead him back to Thyself through the saving incarnation of Thy only-begotten Son and our God: do Thou Thyself, O benevolent Master, look also now upon this Thy servant—a sheep of the rational fold of Thy Christ, who has been redeemed from the captivity of godless enemies, among whom, either through childish ignorance or tyrannical violence, he had adopted the habits of their error. Now, however, that Thou hast deigned to unite him to the congregation of Thy ^C people, illuminate his mind with the power and operation of Thy Holy Spirit, so that the spark of saving baptism, abiding and remaining in his soul, may be fanned into a flame again by the breeze of grace; and may the seal impressed upon him appear more clearly in his heart and in his thoughts, through the signing of the cross of Thy Christ, through hope in Thee, and through the knowledge of the truth; that he may know and worship Thee, the only true God and Father, and Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and Thy Holy Spirit. Unite him to Thy holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; wipe away from his mind every custom of pagan godlessness, and guide him to walk worthily in Thy ^D commandments and ordinances, make him worthy of the undefiled partaking of Thy saving mysteries, and show him to be a partaker of Thy heavenly kingdom in the life to come. For Thou art our God, the God of mercy and salvation, and to Thee we send up glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

VARIOUS READINGS AND NOTES.

(27) "...the seal impressed might appear more clearly." That the sentiment of Methodius concerning the character of confirmation was correct, these words show clearly enough: by heresy, of course, the seal of the unction received in baptism is not destroyed, but only obscured, and as it were partially obliterated; on account of this, the Church prays that the character might appear more clearly—that is, not merely the thing of the sacrament, but its virtue: not the impression of the first act, but the expression of the second act; that is, the public profession of an unblemished faith, made known and manifest to all.

^A

Another Prayer

O Lord God Almighty, ^B Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who willest that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, who for the sake of the lost sheep didst send thine only-begotten Son into the world as Savior and Redeemer, that he might seek out and restore thine image: we beseech thee and entreat thee, receive this thy servant who flees to thy mercies. For though he had obtained the right faith in thee from his childhood through thy holy baptism, yet he fell from it through childish folly or some other impulse; but now, having recognized his error and being led by repentance, he flees again to thy clemency. Pour out upon him the bountifulness of thy humanity, and embrace him as the prodigal who returns to thee, God and Father. Drive away from him every error and deception of the enemy, number him among the holy flock of thy rational sheep, and adorn him even now with the glory of the most holy name of thy Christ. Grant that he may be a partaker with all the faithful of thy pure sanctifications, ^C for the remission of the sins he has previously committed, but for the security of the future, and for the preservation of soul and body. Grant him at all times and in every place to flee to thee, to attend to thy churches, and to perform what is pleasing to thee, so that through the practice of good works he may appear an heir of the heavenly kingdom. Of which do thou make us also worthy with him, by the grace and mercies of thy Christ, with whom thou art blessed, with thy most holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Peace be to all. Let us bow our heads to the Lord.

Let us pray to the Lord.

O Lord our God, who didst incline the heavens ^D and descend for the salvation of the race of men, who by thy cross

^A hast delivered us from the ancestral curse, and led us back to the blessed life; who didst say that there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents: receive even now this lost rational sheep, and join it to thy flock, and drive away from it the rapacious wolves; vouchsafe that it may tread upon serpents and scorpions, being walled about by thy cross, and guarded by the glory of thy worshipful name which is invoked upon us thy servants. For thou art our God, a God of mercy and salvation, and to thee we send up glory, with thy beginningless Father, and with thy all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

When the prayer is finished, taking the holy ointment, he anoints him according to the custom of those being baptized, making the sign of the cross upon the forehead, and the eyes, and the nostrils, and the mouth, and the two ears, and the hands, and the chest, and the shoulders, and the knees, saying: The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. ^B And with the unction completed, he recites the following prayer over his head.

Let us pray to the Lord.

O Lord, God Almighty, who by the mission of thy all-holy Spirit didst fill thy disciples with grace, and who hast turned this servant of thine from the path of error, and led him back to thy faith, and hast deemed him worthy of the fragrance of thy holy Spirit through the unction of this ointment: keep him in thy sanctification, grant him to walk according to thy will, and deem him worthy to partake of thy fearful mysteries together with us; and may he, keeping the right faith in thee, be deemed worthy to attain to thy heavenly kingdom, through the grace of thy Christ, with whom glory, honor, and adoration are due to thee, with thy all-holy, and good, and life-giving Spirit, ^C now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Glory. Both now. And dismissal.

Prayer for one who has abandoned the faith from childhood, that is, who has defiled himself with paganism, and has returned to the Church.

O Lord our God, Father, etc.

Priest. Peace to all.

Deacon. Bow your heads to the Lord.

Priest. The prayer.

Thou who didst incline the heavens, and come down for the salvation of the race of men, who by thy precious cross didst deliver us from the curse and corruption, and lead us back to the eternal and blessed life: do thou thyself, O most humane Lord, who hast said that there is great joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, receive thy lost sheep, now returning to thee, our God, and seeking thy loving-kindness, and as ^D

^A thou hast snatched him from the snare of the enemy, restore and unite him to the holy flock of thy holy and rational sheep. Grant him, through the grace and visitation of thy all-holy Spirit, power and strength against the enemy, so that he may trample upon all his power, and crush it, and be walled about by the glory and grace of thy all-holy name, which is invoked upon us, thy sinful servants. For thou art our God, the God who shows mercy and saves, and to thee we send up glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

And the priest anoints him with the holy myron, and says this prayer:

^B O Lord our God, almighty, who didst send down thy holy Spirit upon thy holy apostles, and didst fill them with his power and grace, who also hast turned thy servant, N., from darkness and from error, and hast led him into thy wondrous and eternal light, and hast numbered him with thy faithful people and thy holy Church, and hast made him worthy of the fragrance of thy holy Spirit: do thou thyself, O Master, keep him in thy holiness, manifest him to be a vessel of election, and adorn him with virtues. Grant him always to walk according to thy will, and count him worthy, together with us, to become a partaker in the enjoyment of thy supercelestial and intellectual table, and to partake of the holy, immaculate, and life-giving mysteries of thy only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ; that, having fought the good fight, and finished the divine course, and having kept the faith toward thee with a right mind, he may attain the crown of glory and the eternal good things which thou, O God, hast prepared for those who love thee, by the grace of thy Christ, with whom glory, honor, and adoration are due to thee, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Thus far the Office for the reconciliation of heretics, compiled from the rules and prayers of St. Methodius, which we have examined as it was found set forth in various copies, and we have compared one copy with another with as much fidelity and diligence as we could. Yet another appears, composed in a different manner, and though very similar to the preceding, it is to be placed in this spot. Its most faithful copy, translated from the Bessarion manuscript of Grottaferrata, bears in its title the testimony that it was taken from a patriarchal Euchologion, and therefore we submit it as being highly approved, to be compared word for word immediately after with the other copies.

^D From the patriarchal Euchologion: In what manner those who return from heresies to the holy catholic and apostolic Church of God ought to be received.

We receive Arians, and Macedonians—that is to say, those who fight against the Spirit—and Sabbatians, who call themselves pure, and Tessarescaidecatites—that is to say, Quartodecimans—and Apollinarists, when they have given their libelli and anathema

^A along with their own heresy, against every other heresy that does not think as the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of God thinks. Preceding this, however, when they are to be brought 55 to the right faith, it is necessary for them to fast for ten or fifteen days, and to attend to prayers morning and evening, learning Psalms, as catechumens, and then to be deemed worthy of the orthodox faith. The priest places each one of them before the holy baptismal font, and says to them this:

"Say 'Anathema' to such-and-such [person], and to his dogmas, and to those who consent to him, and to those who think as he does; for I renounce him and every heretical dogma. And I believe in the holy and consubstantial Trinity, according to the exposition of the holy Fathers who rightly defined the word of truth."

And the one being brought back responds to each point; and finally, the priest asks him a third time: "Do you believe in the holy, consubstantial Trinity?" And he answers 55: "I believe." And as the one being brought back bows his head, the priest makes a prayer:

"O God our Savior, who willest that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth: receive this thy servant, who has lately recovered his senses from error, and longs to come to the knowledge of the truth. For thou hast said, O Lord: 'Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.' [4 Ioan. x, 16.] Shepherd him, therefore, in thy glory, into the knowledge of the truth, according to the exposition of thy holy and glorious apostles; and vouchsafe unto him the seal of thy holy ointment, and the participation of thy precious body and blood; and render him a perfect servant of thine, that he may also be numbered with thy flock, to the glory and praise of thy greatness."

Exclamatorily: "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory of the Father, etc."

And he anoints him with the ointment 36, just as [he does] the newly enlightened, making the same pronouncement over him. And after this he prays again:

"O Lord our God, who hast deigned to render this thy servant perfect ^D through the right faith in thee, and the seal of thy holy ointment: do thou, O Lord of all, preserve in him the true faith in thee, increase him in righteousness, and adorn him with all the graces flowing from thee."

^A And thus he communicates and receives the commandment not to eat meat during those seven days, nor to wash his face, but to conduct himself in every way just as those who are being baptized, and on the eighth day he is washed.

As for Nestorians and Eutychianists, it is required that they present written petitions and anathematize their own heresy, and Nestorius, and Eutyches, and Dioscorus, and those who hold their opinion, and all the previously mentioned heresies; and then he becomes a participant in the holy communion.

However, we receive the Eunomians who have been baptized by a single immersion, and the Montanists, who are called Phrygians, and the Manichaeans, and the Sabellians who teach the unity of person of the Father and the Son, and who perform other strange things, and all such heretics—those, namely, who strive to join themselves to the truth—as if they were Greeks; and we baptize them. ^B

How one ought to anathematize in writing those who come from the Manichaeans to the holy Church of God.

Anathema to Manes, that is to say the Manichaean, and to his doctrines, and to all the things set forth and written by him, and to all who obey him, and to those five books, as I mentioned before, impiously published by them. These include what he called the "Living Gospel," which serves rather to kill, and the "Treasure of Life," which is a treasure of death. I also ^C anathematize the book of the Epistles of Omada and the other book on the mysteries, which was studiously composed for the subversion of the Law and the holy prophets, and the "Treatise of All Things," and the so-called "Heptalogus of Agapius," and Agapius himself. I also abhor every book of theirs, and every prayer recited by them, or rather, sorcery.

I also anathematize and curse Sarades and Boddas, and Scythianus, who existed before the Manichaeans.

Furthermore, I anathematize Sisinnus, the successor of this same Manes, and Addas and Adimantus, whom that impious Manes himself sent into various climates of the world.

In addition to these, ^D I anathematize and curse, along with all the aforementioned, Hierax and Heraclides, and Aphthonius, the interpreters and commentators of the same wicked and profane Manes, and Thomas, and Zaruan, and Gabriadius.

Furthermore, I anathematize Marcion, and Valentinian, and Basilides, and every man who dares to blaspheme and speak against the Old and New Testament.

Furthermore, I anathematize him who does not accept Moses and the prophets, and all the things set forth, that is, written, by them.

Furthermore, I anathematize him who worships the sun, and the moon, and all the stars as gods.

ST. METHODIUS PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

^A I anathematize and detest every man who asserts that there are two principles set against each other, unbegotten, the one evil and the other good. I also anathematize those who assert that the body has sprung from the evil principle, or is evil by nature. I anathematize every man who does not confess that heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them were created by the only God. In addition to these, I anathematize him who denies that we and the first man, that is, Adam, who is like us, were fashioned from the earth by God; and furthermore, I anathematize whatever Iteules, and Scotus, and he called Saclaetes Nebrod, invent concerning different heavens and ideas. And I profess one and the same God of the Old and New Testament, and I acknowledge that those who have excelled and have been praised as saints in both are friends of God; and I acknowledge the birth of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and his saving passion, and his resurrection from the dead, which I declare to have occurred not merely in appearance or by imagination, but according to truth in reality, ^B as he who exists consubstantial with the Father and with us.

After these writings, a certain manuscript—manifesting the usage of the Greek Church in admitting and receiving those who, being Manichaean heretics, seek the faith—happened by chance to be found in the Royal Library: which we therefore add here quite willingly, so that its reading might be useful for ecclesiastical history, and so that the anathemas of that impiety, placed superiorly and found in the Euchologia, might be more easily understood from it.

Order to be observed concerning those who come from the Manichaeans to our pure and true Christian faith.

^C Coming to the true faith, the person is bound first to fast for two weeks; then to be occupied with prayers morning and evening, and to have learned by heart the prayer delivered to us by our Lord Jesus Christ in the holy Gospels, as well as the holy Creed, and some of the Psalms. Then the priest, clothed in all his priestly vestments, standing by the baptistery, with other believers who wish to be present standing by, summons the one who is to renounce [the heresy]; and he places him with his head uncovered next to the holy font and says to him: "Say: Anathema to Manes the Manichaean, who dared to call himself the Paraclete and an apostle of Jesus Christ." And upon his agreeing and uttering the same words, either by himself, or, if he does not know the Greek language, through an interpreter, or, if he is a child, through a godparent; ^D the priest again introduces the following [anathemas], and the responses are made in the same manner. And when every anathema is completed, the deacon says: "Let us pray to the Lord, Lord, have mercy"; and when the convert bows his head, the priest makes this prayer over him:

^A O God, great and glorious in name, who didst illuminate former darkness by the word of Thy mouth; who didst send Thine only-begotten Son into the world for the propitiation of our sins; who sittest upon the Cherubim and art glorified by the Seraphim; to whom every knee bows of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess. King of the ages, who gatherest the wandering sheep into the fold of our Savior Jesus Christ; who turnest the sinner from the path of his error: do Thou also turn Thy servant from the darkness of the Adversary toward the eternal light, and having recalled him from the deceit of the devil to the knowledge of God of Thine only-begotten Son, establish his heart in faith and in the love of Thy Christ. Grant him a portion and an inheritance in Thy Church; for Thou art our God, and beside Thee we know no other. We call upon Thy name, that Thou mayest be blessed always and by all, our God, and Thine only-begotten Son, and Thy Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages.

And after the Amen, the priest marks him with the sign of the cross and dismisses him; and from then on, the one who has renounced [his error] becomes a Christian. He is then reckoned as an unbaptized Christian, as is the case, for instance, with the children of Christians who are about to be baptized. ^B On the following day, he is numbered among the catechumens; for the priest leads him, stripped [of his outer garments] and barefoot, inside the doors of the temple, facing the east, and blowing upon his face and breast three times, signs him with the cross; and laying his hand upon his head, he says this prayer:

"In Thy name, O Lord."

And after the Amen, he marks him with the cross and dismisses him, and on the following day he is exorcised. For again, the priest brings him into the temple, blows three times into his face and ears, and while reciting the prayers of the exorcisms, he marks him again with the cross and dismisses him. And thus, as a catechumen or one under instruction, he obtains the right to remain in the church and to hear the Scriptures. Then, all things ordained regarding baptism being completed, he is held worthy of divine regeneration.