TY - CHAP
T1 - Origen, Methodius, and Love's Freedom
AU - Elliott, Mark
N1 - This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by
copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions,
translations and storage and processing in electronic systems.
PY - 2024/12/1
Y1 - 2024/12/1
N2 - There seems little doubt that when it came to writing his own Symposium, Methodius had Origen in his sights even more than Plato. For all that Origen might be considered a mystic, or at least the grandfather of a Christian intellectual mysticism (and one who was given pride of place by Bernard McGinn in his multi-volume tracing of that tradition), for Methodius this intellectualism had to be supplemented by a philosophy of eros that would serve the cause of chaste love in practice.1 Also, although in Methodius’ De Autoexousia the moral centre of things accords with Origen’s goal of anti-determinism, nevertheless there is disaccord with the Alexandrian’s means of getting to that goal of “true freedom”. Evil is an accident of substance and it requires being controlled and thereby put in its place. This was not a hard “encratism,” but it did serve to reinforce a popular ideal form of Christianity verging on the encratic, as was becoming standard in Asia Minor and more universally. This paper will examine to what extent Methodius’ vision was a “biblical, Christian” one rather than an elitist, philosophical one.
AB - There seems little doubt that when it came to writing his own Symposium, Methodius had Origen in his sights even more than Plato. For all that Origen might be considered a mystic, or at least the grandfather of a Christian intellectual mysticism (and one who was given pride of place by Bernard McGinn in his multi-volume tracing of that tradition), for Methodius this intellectualism had to be supplemented by a philosophy of eros that would serve the cause of chaste love in practice.1 Also, although in Methodius’ De Autoexousia the moral centre of things accords with Origen’s goal of anti-determinism, nevertheless there is disaccord with the Alexandrian’s means of getting to that goal of “true freedom”. Evil is an accident of substance and it requires being controlled and thereby put in its place. This was not a hard “encratism,” but it did serve to reinforce a popular ideal form of Christianity verging on the encratic, as was becoming standard in Asia Minor and more universally. This paper will examine to what extent Methodius’ vision was a “biblical, Christian” one rather than an elitist, philosophical one.
U2 - 10.1628/978-3-16-163464-2
DO - 10.1628/978-3-16-163464-2
M3 - Chapter
SP - 287
EP - 298
BT - Divine and Human Love in Jewish and Christian Antiquity
A2 - Crabbe, Kylie
A2 - Lincicum, David
ER -