METHODIUS
OF OLYMPUS
While eikonic soteriology is
not part of Origen’s paschal speculations. I would like to include here
another pre-Nicene thinker, who, like Tertullian, developed a vision analogous
to the Pauline “eikonic soteriology of recreation.”
In his treatise on resurrection,
Methodius describes the essence of the human being as an accurate imitation of
God’s Only-begotten Image. Thus, God offered to the human being,
with the highest accuracy, everything
belonging to the theomorphic and god-like Prototype (το θεοειδες και θεοεικελον . . . πρωτοτυπον) and the only-begotten Image (μονογενη εικονα) of the Father. In fact, it is
said: God created man, in God’s image (κατ’ εικονα θεου) created him. (Methodius, Res.
1.35.2)
Methodius’s viewpoint on Adam’s
prelapsarian status is clearly stated in Res. 3.14.4 where he affirms
that, “before transgression, our body was a body of glory (σωμα δοξης), being glorious (ενδοξον) at that time, while now, after
transgression, is called a body of humiliation (σωμα ταπεινωσεως)” (Res. 3.14.4). The text
continues by explaining that the body of resurrection will be again a glorious
corporeality; it will be “not a different body, but this one will resurrect and
become incorruptible and glorious (σωμα αφθαρτον και ενδοξον)” (Res. 3.14.5).
Throughout his text, Methodius
articulates the way God will reshape the human resurrected body. This
explanation includes a visionary comparison in which God is depicted as an
artist who created a beautiful statue and subsequently found it corrupted.
Methodius ponders that such an artist would strongly desire to repair his
artwork, to melt it down, and reshape it according to its primary condition.
The Olympian continues:
It seems to me that God did in the
same way with us. Because finding his most beautiful work—the human being—spoiled
by malicious plots of envy and loving humankind, he could not tolerate to
abandon him in this condition, lest not remain forever with an immortal guilt
in himself. To the contrary [God] dissolved him into its primary matter, so
that, by refashioning (δια της αναπλασεως) him, all his blames could be
consumed and disappear. In fact, the melting down of the status symbolizes the
death and dissolution of the body, while the re-formation (αναμορφοποιηθηναι την υλην) and the new configuration (ανακοσμηθηναι) of matter signifies the resurrection.
(Res. 1.43.3-4)
Likewise, another remarkable
Methodian theory distinguishes between the eschatological status of angels and
human beings, apparently in spite of Matt 22:30 (“In the resurrection men and
women do not marry: they are like angels in heaven”). Methodius argues
extensively in Rest. 1.49-51 that God created the various creatures that
populate the universe according to their specific category and nature. God is
not a mediocre artisan who regretted his creation of humans as humans (.e.,
with their unique and imperfect nature), and then changed his mind desiring a
better work and humans changed into angels. God, Methodius insists, designed
humans to be humans from the beginning to the end on the authenticity of their
species. In this regard, Methodius comments on Matt 22:30 and asserts that the
small particle “like” actually shows difference rather than identity:
humans will not replace angels or possess the same ‘nature,’ ut preserve their
own nature and improve their status to the point of acquiring a glorious body.
Thus, the phrase “like angels” actually refers to incorruptibility and the
crown of glory and honour which humans will enjoy in the eschaton (Res.
1.51.2) (Dragoş Andrei Giulea, Pre-Nicene Christology in Paschal Contexts:
The Case of the Divine Noetic Anthropos [Supplements to Vigiliae
Christianae Texts and Studies of Early Christian Life and Language 123; Leiden:
Brill, 2014], 136-37)
