The anthropological foundations of the concept of resurrection

according to Methodius of Olympus

Mirosław Mejzner, Warsaw (UKSW), Poland

Abstract:
De resurrectione (The Resurrection), a work by Methodius of Olympus, written shortly
before the alleged martyrdom of the Author (probably in 311), was the first to present in a
profound and organic fashion the orthodox response to a number of eschatological positions
of Origen and his followers, which were based on a common Platonic philosophical
background. The value of this dialogue consists above all in a new way of reasoning that will
continue and be developed in successive centuries.
The task of this research is to outline the fundamental anthropological categories used by
Methodius to defend the reasonableness of faith regarding the resurrection of the flesh.
Particular attention will be placed on the argument which is based on Scriptures as well as
that based on the natural sciences of the time (cosmology, medicine). By referring to them,
the Olympian tried to prove the existence of elements that, beginning with the prenatal
development of each person, shape the human body in an unrepeatable way. According to
him, the individual elements of the body, unlike the humoral mass, are ‘personal’ and
therefore the resurrection, implicating physical categories, is possible, just and worthy of God.
This concept allows Methodius to maintain the material and formal identity between the
earthly body and the risen one. The Author juxtaposes this concept to that of the
ἶ ς ό used by Origen, which he considers imprecise, insufficient and
incongruous. According to him, the glorious transformation and spiritualization of the risen
body does not imply an abandonment of matter, or material qualities, but rather the gain of
incorruptibility, immortality and impassibility in full communion with the Holy Spirit.

1. Introduction
The concept of the resurrection of Methodius, said to be of Olympus, at first sight, does
not seem very original. He defends the formula ἀ ά ς ῆς ός (resurrectio carnis),
nd
which already in the 2 century had become the flag of orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the
peculiarity of his De resurrectione1 consists in the fact that he was the first to undertake, in a
profound way, the dispute on some of the thesis of Origen, especially that of the
ἶ ς ό , which seemed to him to be too close to the heterodox solutions. The
polemical context pushed Methodius to develop a new reasoning, which will be followed and
deepened in later centuries2, and even to share with his readers some private meditations.
Some of these one can follow until our days…

1
The De resurrectione of Methodius has reached us completely only in the Paleoslavic
version (the Russian manuscript Q.I.265, 43a-168b). A large part, in Greek, (I,20-II,8) was
cited by Epiphanius in the Panarion LXIV. The critical edition was published by Gottlieb
Nathanael Bonwetsch, Methodius, GCS 27 (Leipzig, 1917), 217-44 (the Paleoslavic part was
translated in German). The Italian translation of the work: La risurrezione, ed. Mirosław
Mejzner, Maria Benedetta Zorzi, TP 216 (Roma, 2010).
2
The ideas of Methodius exercised a notable influence on the later major theological
figures. Its successive marginalization was, perhaps, due to its subordinationist Christology
1
 In 2008, during the journey through Turkey, I visited a place known as Olympus. Today it
is a rudimentary archaeological park, not a very popular tourist destination, however with
many interesting sights to visit. A few kilometres away runs a tourist trail, which takes you to
the mountain called Yanartas in Turkish, the Flaming Rock. The name originates from the
astonishing phenomenon, where flames come out from beneath the earth’s surface. Greek
mythology explained this was Chimera’s breath, the monster ravaging the land of Lycia,
which was finally to be defeated by Bellerofont. Today we know that this phenomenon is just
nothing else but the spontaneous combustion of methanol coming from beneath the earth’s
surface.
Methodius describes this phenomenon in chapter 23 part 2 of his dialogue De
resurrectione. He is astonished by the fact that lush green willows grow there as if there was
no fire beneath the earth surface, but life-giving spring. ‘What does this paradox mean?’ – ask
Methodius. He intends only to provide a theological answer to illustrate, by this natural
phenomenon, the incorruptibility of the risen body. ‘God gives it us, like a sign and a promise
of what is to come, for us to know certainly that when the universe is ravaged by the falling
fire, only the bodies of pure and righteous will be walking on it, as if on cooling water,
without feeling any pain’3.
This Methodius’ meditation, written down 1700 years ago, not only did I recall while
standing on the Flaming Rock but, in a way, I could also ‘touch’ it: under my feet the flames
were dancing, around me I could see the green trees and, in the distance, the azure of the
Anatolian bay. At that moment I re-discovered him as a man, who was trying to combine the
exegesis of the Bible and principles of philosophy with the understanding of human nature
and the universe so as to encourage the hope of the resurrection among the Christians during
Diocletian’s persecution.
The scope of this essay is to outline the anthropological foundations4 of Methodius’
concept of the resurrection. This field of his reflection is undoubtedly the most original and
reflects the theological sensibilities of the time in which he lived. In fact, following the
controversies with the pagan philosophers and the Gnostics, who were despising the value of
matter and of the flesh and, therefore, the sense of the resurrection, among Christian authors
there was a growing interest regarding the problem of the fate of the individual after death and
the questions that derive from it. The discussion was concentrated around the dilemma of how
the re-composition of the very same flesh is possible and in what consists the identity between
the earthly flesh and the resurrected one. The apologetic intent was also proper of Methodius,
who sought to demonstrate the reasonableness of the eschatological expectation and to
describe, as much as possible, the modalities of the resurrection. The author sustained that the
glorification of the flesh does not destroy its earthly nature and underlined that it remains
always material, even though it has become immortal, incorruptible, incapable of suffering
and spiritual.

which could resemble that of Arius, see: Lloyd George Patterson, Methodius of Olympus.
Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom, and Life in Christ (Washington, 1997), 23-4.
3
De res. II,23,5: ὖ
ἵ ό

ὐ ὲ ἀ ό ὐ , in GCS 27,378,9-13.
4
On the anthropology of Methodius, see: Katharina Bracht, Vollkommenheit und
Vollendung. Zur Anthropologie des Methodius von Olympus, Studien und Texte zu Antike
und Christentum 2 (Tübingen, 1999).
2
2. The Polemical context of the De resurrectione
Methodius wrote the De resurrectione in the form of a dialogue, introducing the two
heterodox (Aglaophon and Proclus) and the two orthodox protagonists (Eubulius = Methodius
and Memianus). A particular interlocutor was Origen, of whom the idea
ἶ ς ό was incorporated into the discourse of Proclus5. And it is particularly this
innovative idea that constitutes the principal object of the controversy carried out by
Methodius in the De resurrectione.
What was the ἶ ς ό devised by Origen? For him it did not designate the form
( ή) or the external structure ( χῆ ) of the human body, as the very term could suggest6,
but a corporal principle of each being which assures the identity of the body. Philosophically,
this concept was based on a hypothesis of the Stoic background of the material substance
understood as an amorphous substratum determined by the qualities which can be differently
modified7, the hypothesis integrated with a Platonic background vision of two substances
( ὐ ί ). The whole set of material elements which, being assimilated from the outside,
temporarily form the body, Origen calls it the material substratum instead
( ὸὑ ό ὑ ί )8 or the first substratum ( ὸ ῶ ὑ ί )9. He explained
that such substratum does not remain the same even for two days10; therefore, the nature of the
body proves to be fluid11. The Alexandrian retained that the traditional interpretation of the
dogma, considered as the opinion of the simple, was impossible and unworthy of God. He
especially criticized the concept of the recovery of the material elements, as well as the
accentuation of the importance of the human members in the world of the resurrected. He,
nevertheless, tried to express himself in the categories of the transformation and greatly
underlined the incomparable superiority of the risen body with respect to the earthly one, due
to its adaptation to the kingdom of God.
The concept appears fascinating, especially if left on the elevated plain of abstraction.
Problems begin to emerge, for Origen himself, when one tends to concretize and exemplify
the nature and the manifestations of the ἶ ς. Even Methodius found it difficult to interpret
the ἶ ς, according to the intention of its inventor and, showing in this way an Aristotelic
forma mentis, tended to assimilate it to a quality of matter12. For him, the form is a quality of

5
See: De res. I,20-24. Emanuela Prinzivalli advances the interesting hypothesis that this
passage, in which the doctrine of the ἶ ς is exposed with the greatest care possible, might
have circulated in Origenian circles of the time, being fruit of the growing defining need,
designed to specify what rises again, see: Magister Ecclesiae. Il dibattito su Origene fra III e
IV secolo, SEA 82 (Roma, 2002), 90. 100.
6
The conceptual confusion present in the original Greek of the De resurrectione of
Methodius, is greatly highlighted in the Paleoslavic translation, as much as all three terms are
rendered with the same word wbrazq [obraz].
7
See: Origenes, De principiis II,1,4; III,6,7; IV,4,5; Contra Celsum III,41; IV,57;
Commentarii in Iohannem XIII,21. 61.
8
See: De res. I,22,2. It is to be observed that Origen did not always attribute the meaning
of matter to the term ὑ ί which, continuously changing, forms a body. When he
spoke of the material substance in general, it is properly the word ὑ ί that expresses
the identity and which signifies the amorphous material capable of receiving all the qualities
that will determine it, see: Origenes, Com. Io. XIII,61; C. Cels. IV,56-57.
9
See : De res. I,23,1.
10
See: De res. I,22,3; 23,1.
11
See: De res. I,22,3.
12
See: De res. III,6,1.
3
the body and as such cannot be separated from it and given to the soul13. Besides, it is very
probable that many followers of Origen, of whom Proclus can be taken as a prototype14, had
understood the term ἶ ς exactly according to that popular meaning, slipped towards the
semantic equivalence of the term ή. Such understanding tended to moderate the
controversial Origenian idea of the total submission of the corporeity to the changes of the
spiritual condition of rational beings. But, at the same time, this simplification deprived the
concept of ἶ ς of its original sense, rendering it contradictory and exposing it to successive
criticisms, of which the first and most important witness was exactly the De resurrectione of
Methodius15.

3. The Vision of man in Methodius

In the anthropological reflections of Methodius one can identify three fundamental
categories: 1) the creation of man with the direct involvement of God, 2) in His image and
likeness, 3) for immortality. The first two are based first of all on a unitarian exegesis of Gen
1:26-7 and Gen 2:7. The reading of the action of God who, with His very hands16 formed man,
puts a strong accent on the corporeal element, as formed from the dust of the earth. The
author rejects the conception of the pre-existence of souls and that of the post-Fall character
of the human body17.
The true novelty of Methodius is constituted by the idea of the natural immortality of
man, which he confirms by making recourse in a particular way to the passage of Wis 2:23:
‘For God formed man to be imperishable; the image of his own nature He made him’. Man, as
a work of Immortality, formed in function of the image resembling the Logos, is immortal18,
though the tragedy of the transgression temporarily signed his existence with the death of the
body. Nevertheless, the expulsion from paradise is not a mere punishment, but a purifying
grace, which serves to remove from the body, through its decomposition, the mortifying sin

13
See: De res. III,6,10.
14
The hypothesis suggested by Gilles Dorival, ‘Origène et la résurrection de la chair’, in
Lothar Lies (ed.), Origeniana quarta. Die Referate des 4. Internationalen Origeneskongresses
(Innsbruck – Wien, 1987), 317-8, is also sustained by E. Prinzivalli, Magister, 113. There is
significant a certain inconsistency between the evolution of the thoughts of Origen which, in
his later works, gives preference to the concept of λόγος σπερματικός and the course of its
reception, concentrated on that of ἶ ς, see: Henri Crouzel, ‘La doctrine origénienne du corps
ressuscité’, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique 81 (1980), 247-50.
15
Crouzel sustains that in the position of Proclus is reflected an enormous and desired by
Methodius misunderstanding of the Origenian idea, see: ‘Les critiques adressées par Méthode
d’Olympe et ses contemporains à la doctrine origenienne du corps ressuscité’, Greg 53
(1972), 693-4. The opinion of Crouzel is not completely correct, because Methodius finds in
the very work of the Alexandrian some elements which lend themselves to his criticisms and
which, furthermore, could have real Origenian circles in sight, see: M. Mejzner, ‘L’ ἶ ς e lo
χῆ . La critica al concetto origeniano di risurrezione nel contesto dell’escatologia
intermedia nel De resurrectione di Metodio di Olimpo’, in Henryk Pietras and Sylwia
Kaczmarek (ed.), Origeniana Decima: Origen as Writer. Papers of the 10th International
Origen Congress, Krakow: 31.08-04.09.2009, BETL 244 (Leuven – Paris – Walpole, 2011),
907-18.
16
It is a frequent expression in Asiatic theology, particularly used by Ireneus, see: Antonio
Orbe, Antropología de san Ireneo (Madrid, 1969), 32-8.
17
See: De res. I,29-33.
18
See: De res. I,34,2.
4
rooted in him. Purified from sin, man will be recomposed in the incorruptibility which has
been only temporarily interrupted, because the orders of God are unchangeable19. The
structure, in which the accent is placed on the original plan of God, has been chosen by
Methodius to show the necessity of the resurrection of the flesh. In fact, he is perfectly
conscious that such a dogma cannot receive a just interpretation without an anthropological
concept in which the corporeity is enhanced. Methodius ascribes, in truth, to the immortal
soul a priority of honor in the human make up, but especially tries to overcome the implicit
dualism of the classical definition. Therefore, he considers man as ‘reunion of soul and body
in only one form of beauty’20 and often he underlines that the whole man is a subject of
salvation and, therefore, will not be without a body in the resurrection21. According to
Methodius, such an understanding emerges also from the assumption of the notion of the
immortality of the soul22. He insistently repeats that only what dies can rise, only what has
fallen can rise up and, therefore, the body and not the soul. The use of this argument responds
to a clear polemical intent towards those Platonizing Christians who, assuming the
immortality of the soul, retained the resurrection of the flesh superfluous23. Methodius does
not only observe that it is not logical to sustain the resurrection of the soul, given its
immortality, but also underlines that such an idea undermines the very belief of the
resurrection24.

4. Scriptural argumentation in favor of the resurrection in Methodius

The recourse to the highest authority of the Scriptures constituted, in inter-Christian
discussions, the obligatory procedure in the demonstration of the modalities of the
resurrection. The adversaries of the physical resurrection gave value to those passages of
Scriptures that put in the highest prominence the idea of the glorious change that will
overwhelm the body; the upholders of the formula of the ἀ ά ῆ ό
(resurrectio carnis) underlined rather the notion of the identity. Methodius had to offer a
counter-interpretation of the passages which Origen used (Ez 37; Mt 8:12; 10:28; 1 Cor
15:50) but, above all, to show that the expectation of the physical resurrection is based on the
promise of God who already in the Old Testament had explicitly preannounced the
vivification of the dead body, recomposed by the same parts, and who in Christ had fulfilled
it, constituting His resurrection the first fruits of the universal one25. The author strongly
underlines the physical realty of Jesus Christ from the Incarnation up to the resurrection26. His
exegesis of the passages of Lk 24:39 and Jn 20:27 highlights in the body of the risen Christ
the presence of the flesh and the bones, tangibly verified by the Apostles27.
A particularly important point of the reflections of Methodius is constituted by the
rigorous determination of the subject of the resurrection, which is the dead body. He willingly

19
See: De res. I,36-46.
20
De res. I,34,4:
, in GCS 27,272,8-9.
21
See: De res. I,50,3.
22
See: De res. I,52.
23
The opinion of the Platonizing Christians is sustained in the dialogue by Aglaophon, see:
De res. I,6-7.
24
See: De res. I,51,6.
25
See: Col 1:18; Ap 1:5.
26
See: De res. II,18,8.
27
See: De res. III,12,14.
5
appeals to the image of the raising up of the tent (Am 9:11; Lev 23:39-43; 2Cor 5:1)28 or to
that of the re-composition of the vessel of clay (Jer 18:3-6)29, to the eschatological prophecy
of Dan 12:230 and to that of the dry bones (Ez 37:1-14)31, to the sign of Jonah32 and to the
expectation of the Parousia (1Thes 4:15-17)33. The privileged source of the affirmations on the
resurrection is nevertheless constituted by the Pauline epistles. The author makes an exegesis
from it in such a way as to bring out, first of all, the notion of the physical identity between
the earthly body and the resurrected one. He tries to demonstrate that the appellations spiritual
or glorious, attributed to the body (see: 1Cor 15:44; Phil 3:21), do not designate the change of
the substance of the flesh, but the full communion with the Spirit and the obtainment of some
eschatological characteristics such as immortality, incorruptibility, impassibility, and perfect
knowledge34. Therefore, Methodius, in the trails of preceding authors of the said Asiatic
tradition35, dares to affirm – against the literal interpretation of 1Cor 15:50 – that the flesh can
inherit the kingdom of God and, i.e., to be inherited by life36.
The identity between the earthly body and the resurrected one regards not only material
composition, but also human form. Methodius underlines that the privileged character of such
a form comes from the divine Logos who, by being incarnated, assumed it and sanctified it.
Rather, He even conserved it and manifested it both in the Transfiguration and in the
resurrection37. In the world of creatures it is the only thing that could be called divine
( ής)38. Such opinion corresponds moreover to the mentality of the ancients who
considered the order of the members as the most harmonious existent reality in nature and
loaded it even with a symbolic sense. Therefore, its modification or destruction involved a
real loss of identity. The Incarnation, the Transfiguration and the resurrection of Christ,
therefore, constitute for Methodius the principal proof of the final re-composition of the same
body rendered glorious and incorruptible.

5. The dogma of the resurrection in the light of the cosmology and medicine of the time
The message of the resurrection, understood in the physical categories, entered into open
conflict with many anthropological concepts of the Greco-Roman world. Therefore, the
fundamental requirement which presents itself to the Christian writers was to demonstrate the
reasonableness of the dogma, also on the scientific level. It deals with the answer to the
accusation of the physical impossibility of the re-composition of the same body, an accusation

28
See: De res. I,51,5; 53,1; II,15-16; 21.
29
See: De res. I,43,5.
30
See: De res. I,44,3.
31
See: De res. III,9.
32
See: De res. II,25.
33
See: De res. II,21,3-4; III,21.
34
See: De res. III,12-14; 16,9.
35
By ‘Asiatic tradition’ we mean a historiographic category which designates an extensive
area of ancient Christianity based on philosophical principles different from those of the
Alexandrene tradition, see: Manlio Simonetti, ‘Modelli culturali nella cristianità orientale del
II-III secolo’, in Louis Holtz and Jean-Claude Fredouille (ed.), De Tertullien aux Mozarabes:
Mélanges offerts à Jacques Fontaine, 1: Antiquité tardive et Christianisme ancien IIIe – VIe
siècles (Paris, 1992), 381-92.
36
See: De res. I,61,3; II,17-18.
37
See: De res. III,5-7.
38
See: De res. I,35,2.
6
presented not only by pagan philosophers, but also by those Christians who, like Origen,
advanced an innovative interpretation of the dogma.
The passage from the theological argumentation to the scientific one was clearly marked
in the De resurrectione of Methodius through the introduction of the characters of Memianus,
who resorts to the cosmological and physiological notions. The orthodox interprets some
phenomena of the present world as signs of the eschatological resurrection which turns out
perfectly in accordance with the natural laws. Normally, the Scriptures so not constitute for
him the point of departure39, but are interpreted according to the chosen thesis; therefore, his
exegesis sometimes appears to be very particular40.
The demonstration of the physical possibility of the re-composition of the same body and,
that is, of the same material elements, is based on a precise cosmological conception, that of
the four fundamental substances with which he retains that the universe is composed41.
Memianus underlines their persistence, criticizing both the theory of the shapeless matter
which presumes the mutual transformation of such substances42 and the atomism of
Democritus and of Epicurus, taking it to be contrary to divine providence43. His vision of the
universe constitutes an ontological base for the physical identity and, therefore, of the bodily
resurrection, because it allows for the existence of immutable material elements. Memianus
describes the processes of decomposition and of re-composition which are continually
verified in the natural evolutions in human activities to prove the possibility of the
identification and of the separation of the single elements from the fundamental substances
and, later on, of their re-composition in the same body44.
The most spectacular argument taken from the world of nature, presented in the De res.
II,28, is that of the circulation of water in the world. Memianus illustrates with this example
how God, through the heat of the sun, separates the fresh water of the river from the salt water
of the sea, gathering it in the clouds and giving it back through the rain, after they would have
apparently been mixed in a complete manner. Later on, he extends such process of separation
to all of the four fundamental substances, interpreting in this cosmological key the verses of
Ap 20:13a: ‘And the sea gave up the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them’,
where the sea represents the substance of water, Death that of the earth, because in it the dead
are buried, and Hades symbolizes the substance of air, as the term itself would suggest45.
On this cosmological basis and on the help of the physiological theory of the humors of
Galenus, Memianus advances his most original idea, that of the ‘constitutive elements’ of the
human body. These are ‘personal’ particles which form the flesh right from the mother’s
womb and which are distinguished from the humeral mass, that is a fruit of nourishment.
Therefore, the illnesses provoked by the imbalance of the humors are curable, while the loss
of the ‘constitutive elements’ is irreversible46. Memianus, to prove his own thesis, puts
forward many examples among which the most evident is amputation. In fact, the lost parts of
the body, like the ear, a finger or the nose, cannot be reproduced with the help of food. The

39
Except De res. II,15-18.
40
For example, in De res. II,10,4-6, the four tetramorphic beings of the prophecy of
Ezekiel (see: Ez 1:5-6) are interpreted as the four fundamental elements of the universe (fire,
air, water, earth).
41
The cosmological ideas of Methodius depend probably on those of Empedocles.
42
See: De res. II,30,4-7, where the cosmological theory of Origen is criticised and its
background of Platonic vision, represented in the dialogue by Aglaophon (De res. I,9,7).
43
See: De res. II,10,1; 30,1-2.
44
See: De res. II,26-29.
45
See: De res. II,28,5.
46
See: De res. II,10-13.
7
orthodox explains also in a similar way the nature of scars: if the organism had substituted the
‘constitutive elements’, lost after a grievous wound, the flesh would not form a scar, but it
would completely reproduce itself, in a way that it becomes smooth47. These observations
should demonstrate that food is not transformed in flesh, bones or tendons, but only in a
humeral mass of the body.
The principal scope of the reasoning of Memianus is to prove the real existence of the
‘constitutive elements’ of the human flesh and their divergence from the substances
(especially, the humeral ones), which grow themselves through alimentation. ‘If someone
eliminates food, his life will become weak; but if one of the four substantial elements is taken
away, his perishes because it lacks one of the essential things’48.
Methodius sustains that the ‘constitutive elements’ of a human body cannot be used to
form another, having been already established in the embryonic state of life. Therefore, even
if they enter, like food, in the metabolic processes of another organism, they cannot be
transformed into the flesh or the bones or other constitutive parts of other beings, because
they become only humors which nourish the body, but do not form it. In this way the author
addresses at a rational level the scientific objections and responds to the ironic questions of
Origen regarding the final fate of the hair or of the blood lost through bleeding and to his
objections of the so-called ‘food chain’49.
The scientific reasoning of Memianus has a metaphysical base, founded on the passage of
Gen 2:7: the human body, since it is created by the direct involvement of God, is not
changeable or incomplete, but is well ordered and defined. ‘In fact, we do not say that
something is created unless one finds in it a certain completeness of form, which is at the
basis of the growth of the whole’50. If the body of man does not have a fixed material
constitution, but is continuously transformed, beginning from the moment of the deposition of
the male seed, one cannot affirm that it is a creature, but only a casual organism51. Memianus
sustains that the changes of the body, that are noticed in the course of the human life, cannot
deny the existence of its ‘constitutive elements’, rather, they are the ones that form an
ontological basis, on which all the quantitative transformations proceed, without erasing the

47
See: De res. II,13,5-6. Memianus’ thesis bears out in the passage of Mt 9:16: ‘And no
one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment’, which should illustrate that one cannot
add new flesh to the old flesh, produced by food.
48
De res. II,12,5: Aòe oãimeµ´ kµo brašna wxoãdheµ´ (ivoµq, istovyx (e èeµyre
sqsµavq, aòe koe podvigneµ´sä pogybneµq (ivoµq ne imuòemq kµomoã esµvenymq èina,
in Q.I.265,115b,21-116a,3. See: anche De res. II,13,2, where Memianus distinguishes
constitutive blood from superficial one, produced as humour by the process of digestion.
Recalling the example of a very diffused practice in Roman times by Galenus, he says that, if
this blood, grew excessively, provokes an imbalance of the humours, a doctor would have to
remove it through a bleeding process, leading the organism back to a state of krasis. But if,
because of an oversight, he were to eliminate constitutive blood, the patient would suddenly
get weak or die.
49
See: De res. I,20,3-5. The objection is known and dealt with already by Athenagoras, De
res. III-VIII; see: Bernard Pouderon, ‘La chaîne alimentaire chez Athénagore. Confrontation
de sa théorie digestive avec la science médicinal de son temps’, Orpheus 9 (1988), 209-37.
50
De res. II,11,6: aòe i ne konca priimšô wbra(enðú v vhòi ne bo pr´vhe sqzdaµi4
èesomoã gl%emq donde(e vidhµi v nemq sqvr´šenðe nhkoe wbraza na vqzdrasµhnðe vsego
le(aòago pod nim´ obraza (e oãbo, in Q.I.265,114b,17-22.
51
See: De res. II,11,3-5.
8
corporeal identity of man52. With this presupposition accepted, Memianus does not have any
difficulty in showing the absurdity of the positions of his opponents:
‘If every one of us cannot be the same, given that truly often – as they believe – substance
of the body that is at the basis is added and it goes, such that one is at the tenth day and
another one today – then our mother did not generate us or raise us, because one is born and
another one is raised and another one is today. Also, then, the word that was said by Jeremiah
[1:5] is false: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, since the one for whom this word
was pronounced is another with respect to the one created’53.
According to Memianus the negation of the existence of the ‘constitutive elements’
denies not only the identity of the body, but also that of man54. In fact, for the orthodox, it is
not only the soul, but also the body, as the material component of the human makeup, is
indispensable to define him. From here the central point of the debate of the De resurrectione
emerges, enclosed in the question in what consists the identity of the human body?
Origen, in his commentary on Ps 1:5, identified this principle of corporeal identity, both
during the earthly life and in the resurrection, in the ἶ ς ό . Apart from the
ambiguity of the term, it does not allow for the determination, in the specific sense, of the
proprium corporeum of this principle, which is ‘disincarnated’ in such a way that it does not
refer back to physical images and to be able to imprint it, once it is raised, in a substratum that
is no longer earthly, but spiritual55. It is true that not even Memianus offers a precise
description of the ‘constitutive elements’ of the body, but his position is different from that of
Origen for the fact that these elements, even though they are not specified, belong to the
material substratum. The corporeal identity, for Memianus, is not a concept that is totally
abstract. From his reasoning it ensues that the whole of the ‘constitutive elements’ of the body
is already fixed in the embryo, formed by God in the maternal womb56, and that each element
is, therefore, equipped with its proper characteristics, one can say, ‘personal’.

6. Conclusions
The polemical context of the De resurrectione and the form of the dialogue, chosen by
Methodius, allowed him to safeguard a certain doctrinal polyphony, to carry out the
discussion on various registers and to offer his argument with different shades of meaning.
His most beautiful, most solid and most founded reflections belong to the field of theological
anthropology and are based on Scriptures. The necessity to defend the dogma of the

52
Gregory of Nyssa seemed to have been inspired by this vision, which he attempted to
bring close to the position of Origen, see: De hominis opificio XXVII.
53
De res. II,13,8-9: aòe ko(do nasq µo(e byµi ne mo(eµ´ ch i bqxmo èasto åko(e
mnäµ´ podle(aòemoã esµvu pribyvaúòoã i oãbyvaúòô µhlhsnomoã åko(e inomu byµi
desätem´ dne i inomoã nn›h. µhm(e n4h n4a i mµ0i rodila ni vqskromila inq bh
rodivyisä i inq vqskorqmlenyi i inq paky nnhšnði. l(a (e i gl0anoe kq ieremii slovo:
drhvle sqdanða µvoego oãvhdhxµä. Inq bo bh podrugq sqzdanago onq kq nemoã (e by
slovo, in Q.I.265,118b,4-16.
54
In the De res. II,13,10, Memianus draws the extreme conclusions of his reasoning: if the
body changes completely, it means that with it man also disappears and, therefore, neither
baptism nor penitence have any sense. The reasoning of Memianus constitutes a confutation
of the ideas of Aglaophon, exposed in the De res. I,9.
55
See: E. Prinzivalli, ‘La risurrezione nei Padri’, DSBP 45 (Roma, 2007), 222.
56
Methodius underlines that the development of the embryo, that is, the passage from
sperm to the formed and animated body is the work of divine power, see: De res. II,20; also
Symposium II,6.
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resurrection on the rational plain pushed him, moreover, to have recourse to scientific
reasoning (especially cosmological and medical). From his vision of the universe, composed
of four fundamental substances (fire, air, water, earth), depends that of the body, understood
as a microcosm, that is, a harmonious mixture of determined quantities of the four elements,
made by God. Such a blend, already beginning from the embryonic life, acquires a sort of
personal identity, such that ‘constitutive elements’ of every human body are well determined57.
The effort of Methodius was to reconcile, as much as possible, the data of faith with the
intellectual needs and, that is, to rationally explain the dogma of the resurrection and to
enlighten reason with the Christian message. The author is aware of the human limits and,
therefore, sometimes recalls the argument of the extrema ratio of the omnipotence of God,
Creator and Lord of the universe58. But, such supreme principle is not a foolish escape, but a
seal and an extreme guarantee of the resurrection. The recourse to such principle is much
more justified as God has already displayed His omnipotence in the creation of matter and of
the world ex nihilo, and He still shows this in the formation of every man. The divine power
that will be manifested in the resurrection of the flesh, therefore, does not contradict the laws
of the universe, but exceeds them such that, truly, ‘what is impossible with men is possible
with God’59.

57
It is important that the International Theological Commission in the document ‘Some
Current Problems on Eschatology’ declared its position on this problem in very generic terms,
underlining that ‘the Church has never taught that the very same matter is required for the
body to be said to be the same’, but admitting also – in the context of the cult of relics – ‘that
the resurrection cannot be explained independently of the body that once lived’ (n. I,2.5),
Enchiridion Vaticanum XIII (Bologna, 1995), 283.
58
See: De res. II,29.
59
Lk 18:27.
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