The Mariology of Methodius of Olympus (d. 311)

We have little biographical information about Methodius of Olympus, probably a bishop in Lycia in Asia Minor: we know that he died a martyr in 311. He wrote many works, among which the Convivium of the Ten Virgins, or Dialogue on Virginity, modeled on Plato’s Symposium, is deservedly famous and the only one that has come down to us in its entirety in the original language. In it, ten virgins take turns extolling the merits of virginity. The Dialogue ends with a hymn to Christ the Bridegroom and to the Church, His bride. Christ restores fallen and corrupt man, bringing him back to his origins and to God. The place where this remolding takes place is the womb of the Virgin, a place of purity, with the power of the Spirit. A procession of virgins and chaste souls converges on Christ, from the slain Abel to John the Baptist: a procession of fidelity and martyrdom. Mary, the Virgin, is the nuptial bed between God and man. She is the incorrupt and pure Mother of Life, who goes out to meet the Bridegroom with the whole Church, affirming her unconditional fidelity.
N.B. When the author states that Jesus is the most ancient of the archangels, we must bear in mind that the Word is often identified, by numerous writers of the first centuries, with the Wisdom of which the sacred books of the Old Testament speak. In language that has a Gnostic flavor but is orthodox, Methodius calls Him the most ancient of the aeons and the first of the archangels, not to place Him on a level with creatures, but to say that He is more ancient than they are and therefore the most powerful.

Dialogue on Virginity
the remolding of man in Christ

It was fitting that the firstborn of God, the firstborn and only-begotten, that is, Wisdom, should become incarnate by uniting Himself to the first-formed, to the first and firstborn of men. For this is Christ: a man filled with pure and perfect divinity, and God contained in man. It was appropriate that the most ancient of the aeons and the first of the archangels, having to unite Himself with men, should dwell in the most ancient and first of men, Adam. In this way God, remolding all things from the beginning and renewing them, brought forth that same one (Christ) from the Virgin and the Spirit: from the beginning, when the earth was still virgin and untilled, God took clay and with it formed, without seed, the most rational being…
Adam, being so to speak still soft and moist, formed from clay, and not yet having acquired, like a vessel, hardness through immortality, melted away through sin, flowing like water drop by drop. For this reason God, once again sprinkling him from above and molding him in the virginal womb, first made him solid and compact. Then, uniting and mixing him with the Logos, very hard and unbreakable, He brought him to life, so that, flooded by the external waves of corruption, he would not produce decay and disintegrate once again.

(Convivium, III, 4-5)

The Virgin in the Procession of Virgins

Ant.: I keep myself chaste for You, and holding shining torches I come to meet You, O Bridegroom!
Psalm (18): She who bore You and Life, untouched Grace, unsprinkled, when she bore Your immaculate seed in the unsown womb, gave the appearance of having betrayed the bridal bed, the Virgin!
But, being with child, she said, O Blessed One:
Ant.: I keep myself chaste for You, and holding shining torches I come to meet You, O Bridegroom!

(Convivium, XI, 18)

To study patristic Mariology more deeply, consult John Paul II’s encyclical Redemptoris Mater, which sheds light on Mary’s role in the theological tradition of the Church.

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