Saint Methodius of Olympus

d. c. 311 · 4th c. · 8 works

Methodius of Olympus (died c. 311) was a Christian bishop, theologian, and martyr active at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century. He is counted among the Church Fathers and is best known as an early critic of Origen, opposing certain of his teachings while still acknowledging his services to ecclesiastical learning. His own thought shows a strong debt to Platonic philosophy.

According to Jerome he was bishop of Olympus in Lycia, and afterward of Tyre; the latter claim is regarded as unreliable. Eastern tradition associates him with Patara in Lycia. Little is firmly known of his life, and the details that survive present difficulties.

His principal works include the Symposium (or Banquet of the Ten Virgins), a dialogue in praise of chastity modeled on Plato's Symposium, which alone survives complete in Greek. He also wrote On the Resurrection, against Origen's view of the risen body, and On Free Will, against Gnostic fatalism, both preserved chiefly in Slavonic and in Greek fragments.

He is traditionally held to have suffered martyrdom at the close of the persecutions, about 311. He is venerated as a saint, and his Orthodox commemoration is 20 June.

Sources: Orthodox Church in America — Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patara · Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent) — St. Methodius of Olympus