Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Methodius/Oration on the Palms/Elucidations

by Methodius

Elucidations.

————————————

The candid Dupin^[1] says that we owe this to Père Combefis,^[2] on the authority of a ms. in the Royal Library of Paris. It appeared in Sir Henry Savile’s edition of Chrysostom ascribed to that Father. Dupin doubts as to parts of this homily, if not as to the whole. He adds, “The style of Methodius is Asiatic, diffuse, swelling, and abounding in epithet. His expressions are figurative, and the turn of his sentences artificial. He is full of similitudes and far-fetched allegories. His thoughts are mysterious, and he uses many words to say a few things.” His doctrine, apart from these faults, is sound, and free from some errors common to the ancients: such faults as I have frequently apologized for in Origen, whom Methodius so generally condemns.

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastical Writers, vol. i. p. 161.
2. He was a Dominican, and learned in Greek. Died 1679.