J Armitage Robinson on the Parallel Sections in Adamantius, Maximus and Methodius [Part One]

THE EUSEBIAN EXTRACT.

Chapter xxiv. of the Philocalia has the following heading pre-fixed to it: Περὶ ὕλη, ὅτι οὐκ ἀγένητο οὐδὲ κακῶν αἰτία. ἐκ τῆ Εὐσεβίου τοῦ Παλαι τιναίου εὐαγγελικῆ προπαρα σκευῆ , λόγου ζʹ. The meaning of this is that although Gregory and Basil believed, as we shall see, that the section was the work of Origen himself, yet they found it convenient to copy it from Eusebius.

When we turn to Euseb. Praep. Ev. vii. 22 we find the passage immediately after a quotation from Philo on a similar topic. But its authorship is ascribed to Maximus.  Καὶ τὰ μὲν τοῦ Φίλωνος τοῦτον ἐχέτω τὸν τρόπον . Μαξίμῳ δὲ τῆς Χριστοῦ διατριβῆς οὐκ ἀσήμῳ ἀνδρὶ καὶ λόγος οἰκεῖος συγγέγραπται ὁ Περὶ τῆς ὕλης . ἐξ οὗ μοι δοκῶ μέτρια χρησίμως παραθήσεσθαι εἰς ἀκριβῆ τοῦ προβλήματος ἔλεγχον, then follows the whole section as given in the Philocalia. 

But we also find the first quarter of the section, with what is evidently its immediately preceding context, in the fragment of the Dialogue of S. Methodius on Free Will, first published by John Meursius ( Var, Div, Liber Leyden, 1619). Moreover in the epitome of Methodius on Free Will given by Photius cod. 236 we have the whole of the section, slightly abbreviated here and there, together with summaries of what preceded and followed it in the work of Methodius.

I. Maximus or Methodius?

A difficult question is thus presented to us, and upon our answer to it must depend the principle on which we are to proceed in constructing our text. If Eusebius is right in assigning it to Maximus, we must suppose that Methodius took it from his Dialogue and inserted it without acknowledgment into his own; and in that case Eusebius is our principal authority, and we may regard the slight variations in Methodius as intentional modifications. But if Methodius be the true author, then we must look to him first of all and endeavour by critical processes to ascertain what he originally wrote.

But apart from our present object the question is of great interest, and it deserves a more accurate investigation than it has yet received. I may say at once that I have been led to the conclusion that Methodius is the original writer of the passage by the following considerations.

(1) We have no ground for supposing that an author of such power as Methodius would have cared to borrow without acknowledgment and without modification the main portion of a Dialogue by an earlier writer.

It is true that in the Dialogue on the Resurrection he makes one of his interlocutors quote at great length from Origen: but he is careful to give the exact reference, and to tell us that he has somewhat abbreviated the passage. Similarly he quotes by name from Athenagoras and from Justin Martyr; and we may reasonably suppose that he would have treated Maximus in the same way if he had had occasion to make use of his writings.

(2) The generally Platonic flavour of the passage is entirely in keeping with all the known writings of Methodius. The admirable work of Albert Jahn, entitled S, Methodius Platomzans enables the reader at a glance to appreciate the force of this argument. Not only is the passage in Dialogue form, but it treats a Platonic topic in a thoroughly Platonic spirit and in Platonic language, and shews the same facile handling of Plato's phrases which is so conspicuous, for example, in the Dialogue on the Resurrection. If Maximus were its author, then we should have in this otherwise unknown person another brilliant writer, at once a careful student and a conspicuously successful imitator of Plato. This argu- ment, together with the preceding one, has sufficed to convince Jahn, the most critical editor of the writings of Methodius, that Eusebius must have made a mistake in assigning the section to Maximus.

(3) A still more decisive argument is to be found in the examination of the context; and as this has not yet been fully drawn out I shall attempt to do it here.

The main part of the Dialogue has been reconstructed by Jahn from the fragment of Meursius and the epitome in Photius, together with portions of the so-called Adamantian Dialogue and fragments preserved elsewhere.

The Dialogue opens with a contrast between the deadly song of the Sirens and the harmonious hymns of the choir of Prophets and the choir of Apostles. We too in our day must learn to raise our hymn of praise. This we may do by a truth-loving discussion of divine mysteries. Then a speaker to whose words is prefixed ΟΥAΛ. (that is, probably, Valentinianus) describes how on the previous afternoon he had observed the beauties of nature in sea and sun and moon, and had been led to praise their Maker. On his way home he had been startled by witnessing the most fearful crimes, robbery, bloodshed and adultery ; and had been led to ask whether God could possibly be the Maker of these as well. He then announces his conclusion that Matter is eternally coexistent with God, that the choicer parts of it were ordered by God in the Creation of the world, while the dregs which remained became the source of evil.

The section in dispute is the beginning of the answer to this statement, and it is headed OPΘO∆. in Meursius's fragment. After its close our knowledge of the Dialogue is unhappily more scanty: but we can see that the question of the origin of evil among men is especially dealt with ; and this necessitates the discussion of Free Will which follows, and which has given its name to the whole Dialogue. The general harmony of the section with these surroundings will be obvious to every reader of it as it stands in our text (pp. 212 ff). We must now look into details, and these may best be presented side by side under three main heads

- SECTION FOLLOWS (not reproduced here) -

The above instances, especially if considered in their contexts, sufficiently establish the close relation between all the extant parts of the Dialogue. We have in it a carefully planned and quite consistent piece; nor are there any traces whatever of compilation. The whole is the work of one writer, and a comparison of his other works makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that the writer is Methodius.

But if this be so, how are we to account for the express state- ment of Eusebius prefixed to the extract and quoted above?

(a) His only other mention of this Maximus carries us no further. It is in H. E. v. 27, where, after mentioning the works of Irenaeus, he gives a list of authors, τῶν τότε σῴζεται παλαιῶν καὶ ἐκκλησιαστικῶν ἀνδρῶν, Heraclitus, Candidus, Apion, Arabianus and others, whose writings he knows, but of whom he tells us that he has no means of ascertaining and recording either their dates or any other information about them. Among these he mentions : καὶ τὰ Μαξίμου περὶ τοῦ πολυθρυλήτου παρὰ τοῖς αἱρεσιώταις ζητήματος τοῦ πόθεν ἡ κακία , καὶ περὶ τοῦ γενητὴν ὑπάρχειν τὴν ὕλην, This is little more than an echo of the heading he has prefixed to the extract. We may perhaps conclude that Eusebius knew nothing more of Maximus than that he was, as he supposed, the author of the Dialogue in question, which he could not date, but which he referred to a period when the topic of the origin of evil was much discussed.

(b) But if Eusebius knew practically nothing of Maximus, he cannot have been equally ignorant of Methodius. It is true that he does not mention him in his Ecclesiastical History, although according to Jerome (Catal. 83) he was a martyr at the close of the Diocletian persecution. But in his Defence of Origen he speaks of him as a contemporary, and asks: Quomodo ausus est Methodius nunc contra Origenem scribere, qui haec et haec de Origenis locutus est dogmatibus?' These words were written about 308A.D., and refer no doubt in part to the Dialogue on the Resurrection, in which the views of Origen are quoted and severely attacked. It is possible that Methodius apart from his writings did not play an important part in the events of his time, and that Eusebius may have been tempted to omit him altogether on account of his attack on Origen. Socrates (H. E, vi. 13) depreciates him on this ground, and classes him with Eustathius, Apolinarius and Theophilus, whom he terms εὐτελεῖς, who, unable to gain a reputation on their merits, sought one by attacking their betters.

(c) The date of the Dialogue on Free Will is a not unimportant factor in the question. The speaker who holds the eternity of matter is represented as coming to his view quite independently from his own observation of the evils around him, and as being quite ready to exchange his tentative theory for a better if it can be found. The exponent of the true view, too, says that he is not at all surprised at the other's conclusion. The same experiences have led other minds in the same direction : καὶ γὰρ πρὸ σοῦ τε καὶ ἐμοῦ πολλοί τίνες ἄνδρες ἱκανοὶ περί τούτου τὴν μεγίστης ζήτησιν ἐποιήσαντο. καὶ οί μέν όμοίως διετέθησαν σοί κ.τ.λ.. Here the view of Origen, though differing in some important points from the Valentinian view, may perhaps be included ; but no harsh word is spoken : nor indeed is there any trace of bitterness against any one in the whole discussion, the temper of which is quite ideal. If we contrast with this the tone of the Dialogue on the Resurrection, in which Origen is accused of specious arguments and deceitfulness and is even compared to the Sirens, we shall feel convinced that the Dialogue on Free Will must belong to a much earlier period. It might perhaps be put back even as far as 270A.D.; in which case it would be forty years old when Eusebius quoted from it; and so his error might be the more explicable.

(d) Bandini in his Laurentian Catalogue (1. 430), after mentioning a fragment of Methodius of the xth century, beginning and ending as in the edition of Meursius, says:  In codice uero in duas partes diuisum : cuius secundae, quae incipit a uerbis, ὅτι μέν ὑπάρχειν ἀδύνατον titulus est: περί θεοῦ καὶ ὕλης. This rubric is not given by Meursius : but we may well believe that if it pre- ceded the extract in the copy which Eusebius used it may have facilitated his mistake. Meursius divides the speeches of the interlocutors by the words ΟΥAΛ. and OPΘO∆. Now it is contrary to the manner of Metho- dius not to give names of his own invention to his speakers, and ορθόδοξος can hardly be a proper name. One is tempted to suggest that the name of the orthodox speaker was Maximus in which case that name might have stood at the head of the Eusebian extract which is now headed OPΘO∆. in Meursius, and indeed the whole Dialogue would probably have been known as Μαξίμος ἣ περὶ τοῦ αὑτεξουσἰου. If this were the case the error of Eusebius would be satisfactorily explained. [Robinson, Philocalia  - xl - xlvi]
 

This is hardly a compelling explanation. Once again, this is only the most superficial of explanations which deliberately postpones dealing with Adamantius in order to posit Methodius as the ultimate source.   Luckily for us Harris already disposes of Robinson's misrepresentation of the state of things here.  Harris's arguments dispose of these claims.