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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Among the many problems which confront the historian of Christian thought and life in the early centuries one of the most complex and difficult is that of the relations, practical as well as theoretical, between Christianity and asceticism. Since the age of the Reformation there has been incessant controversy over the question whether the anthropological assumptions which underlie ascetic morals—the dualistic conception of the constitution of human nature and the conviction that there is an irreconcilable opposition between body and spirit—are really identical with the principles of Christian anthropology so that there can be no experience of the gospel message apart from a radically pessimistic estimate of the possibilities of good inherent in human nature, and without the acceptance of a scale of ethical values based upon the progressive stages of an ascetic discipline.
After centuries of acrimonious theological controversy fomented by prejudices on both sides, we are now perhaps for the first time in a position to consider objectively the historical relations between the development of ascetic ideas and the propagation of the Christian piety, and consequently to solve satisfactorily the problem of the interaction between asceticism and Christianity.
1 Weingarten, Der Ursprung des Mönchtums. Gotha, 1877. — Strathmann, Geschichte der frühchristlichen Askese bis zur Entstehung des Mönchtums. I. Die Askese in der Umgebung des werdenden Christentums. Leipzig, 1914. — Bickel, ‘Das asketische Ideal bei Ambrosius, Hieronymus und Augustin,’ Neue Jahrbücher für das klassiche Altertum, 1916. — Reitzenstein, Historia Monachorum und Historia Lausiaca. Eine Studie zur Geschichte des Mönchtums und der frühchristlichen Begrifle Gnostiker und Pneumatiker. Göttingen, 1916.
2 Bonwetsch, Methodius. Leipzig, 1917. Bonwetsch devoted many years while teaching at the University of Dorpat to the works of Methodius. In 1891 he published a German translation of the Paleoslavic Corpus Methodianum, and subsequently published a study on Methodius's theology (Die Theologie des Methodius. Berlin, 1903) in which the problem examined in the present article received somewhat scant attention. See also Bonwetsch's article on Methodius in the Real-Encyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche. Third edition, s. v.
3 The rhythm of this poem has been analyzed by Meyer, W., Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellatein. Rhythmik. ii (1905).Google Scholar
4 The reference is, of course, to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins whose lamps did or did not give light. — Ed.
5 Accepting Meyer's emendation. — Ed.
6 The imagery here changes to that of Psalm 45, 11 ff. — Ed.
7 The reference is to Rev. 5, 9 and Psalm 45. — Ed.
8 Symposium xi. ed Bonwetsch, pp. 131–133, 136.
9 Of the περὶ ἀναστάσεως we have only the excerpts of the original Greek text in Epiphanius and Adamantius, but we possess the whole dialogue in a Paleoslavic version, a German translation of which was published by Bonwetsch in his edition of Methodius's Works, pp. 217–424.
10 In the Symposium, Methodius' eschatological doctrine is less prominent because the argument itself, that is to say the over-valuation of virginity, did not permit emphasis on an optimistic view of the bodily nature of man. This may explain why, besides its literary excellence, the Symposium was the only work of Methodius which became very popular and exerted a wide influence on Christian literature. It has been remarked (Piana, G. La, Le Rappresentazioni sacre nella letteratura Bizantina. Rome, 1912, pp. 167 f.)Google Scholar that the whole Christian literary tradition (poetical, homiletical and theological) dealing with the theories and the practice of Christian virginity in general, and with the Virgin Mary as the typical example of this exalted state, has borrowed from Methodius not only a great deal of its content and of its biblical exegesis on this virtue, but even of its terminology. In a large number of sermons to which La Piana gave the title of Dramatic Homilies, under which they are now classified in the history of Christian literature, the influence of Methodius's Symposium is evident almost in every line; cf. the Hymn to Virginity reconstructed by La Piana from the Ἐγκώμιον εἰς τὴν Θεοτόκον attributed to Proclus of Constantinople, which is merely a poetical summary of the ten speeches of the virgins in Methodius's Symposium. (Op. cit., pp. 236–241 and 166–169.)
11 De Besurrectione i, 43, 3; Bonwetsch, p. 291.
12 Ibid., i, 47, 1–2.
13 It seems more probable that the text should be μενεῖ rather than μένει — Ed.
14 Ibid., i, 47, 3–6; Bonwetsch, pp. 297–299.
15 Ibid., i, 48, 1–2.
16 Ibid., i, 50.
17 Demonstratio Evangelica, i, 8.
