Methodius of Olympus

In his own words on Isaiah

• Isaiah 44:4

  For everywhere the divine writings take the willow as the type of chastity, because when its flower is steeped in water, if it is drunk, it extinguishes whatever kindles sensual desires and passions within us, until it renders completely barren and makes every inclination to the begetting of children without effect, as also Homer indicated, for this reason calling the willows destructive of fruit.… For as it is the nature of this tree to bud and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so it is the nature of virginity to blossom and grow to maturity when enriched by words, so that one can hang one's body on it.If, then, the rivers of Babylon are the streams of voluptuousness, as wise people say, which confuse and disturb the soul, then the willows must be chastity, to which we may suspend and draw up the organs of lust that overbalance and weigh down the mind, so that they may not be borne down by the torrents of incontinence and be drawn like worms to impurity and corruption.

  SYMPOSIUM OR BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 4:3-4

• Isaiah 45:18

  For in reality God did not establish the universe in vain or to no purpose but destruction, as those weak-minded people say, but to exist and be inhabited and continue. Therefore the earth and the heaven must exist again after the conflagration and shaking of all things.

  ON THE RESURRECTION 1:8

• Isaiah 51:6

  But if our opponents say, How then is it, if the universe is not destroyed, that the Lord says that "heaven and earth shall pass away," and the prophet, that "the heaven shall perish as smoke" and "the earth shall grow old as a garment"; we answer, because it is usual for the Scriptures to call the change of the world from its present condition to a better and more glorious one destruction, as its earlier form is lost in the change of all things to a state of greater splendor, for there is neither contradiction nor absurdity in the Scriptures. For not "the world" but "the fashion of this world" passes away, it is said. So it is usual for the Scriptures to call the change from an earlier form to a better and more comely state "destruction"; just as when one calls by the name of "destruction" the change from a childish form into a perfect adult, as the stature of the child is turned into mature size and beauty.

  ON THE RESURRECTION 1:9

• Isaiah 52:2

  The creation, then, after being restored to a better and more fitting state, remains, rejoicing and exulting over the children of God at the resurrection. For their sake the creation now groans and travails, waiting itself also for our redemption from the corruption of the body, that, when we have risen and shaken off the mortality of the flesh, according to that which is written, "shake off the dust, and arise and sit down, O Jerusalem," and have been set free from sin, it also shall be freed from corruption and be subject no longer to vanity but to righteousness.

  ON THE RESURRECTION 1:8

• Isaiah 60:1

  Hail, thou heaven upon earth, Sion, the city that is for ever faithful unto the Lord. Hail, and shine thou Jerusalem, for thy light is come, the Light Eternal, the Light for ever enduring, the Light Supreme, the Light Immaterial, the Light of one substance with God and the Father, the Light which is in the Spirit, and in which is the Father; the Light which illumines the ages; the Light which gives light to mundane and supramundane things, Christ our very God. Hail, city sacred and elect of the Lord. Joyfully keep thy festal days, for they will not multiply so as to wax old and pass away.

  ORATION CONCERNING SIMEON AND ANNA 13

• Isaiah 60:3

  It is the church whose children shall come to it with all speed after the resurrection, running to it from all quarters. [The church] rejoices, receiving the light that never goes down and clothed with the brightness of the Word as with a robe. For with what other more precious or honorable ornament was it becoming that the queen should be adorned, to be led as a bride to the Lord, when she had received a garment of light and therefore was called by the Father? Come then, let us go forward in our discourse and look on this marvelous woman as on virgins prepared for a marriage, pure and undefiled, perfect and radiating a permanent beauty, lacking nothing of the brightness of light; and instead of a dress, clothed with light itself; and instead of precious stones, her head adorned with shining stars.

  SYMPOSIUM OR BANQUET OF THE TEN VIRGINS 8:5

• Isaiah 66:7

  Now that that parturition was polluted, and stood not in need of expiatory victims, Isaiah is our witness, who proclaims distinctly to the whole earth under the sun: "Before she travailed," he says, "she brought forth before her pains came, she escaped, and brought forth a man-child." Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? The most holy virgin mother, therefore, escaped entirely the manner of women even before she brought forth: doubtless, in order that the Holy Spirit, betrothing her unto Himself, and sanctifying her, she might conceive without intercourse with man. She hath brought forth her first-born Son, even the only-begotten Son of God, Him, I say, who in the heavens above shone forth as the only-begotten, without mother, from out His Father's substance, and preserved the virginity of His natural unity undivided and inseparable; and who on earth, in the virgin's nuptial chamber, joined to Himself the nature of Adam, like a bridegroom, by an inalienable union, and preserved His mother's purity uncorrupt and uninjured—Him, in short, who in heaven was begotten without corruption, and on earth brought forth in a manner quite unspeakable.

  ORATION CONCERNING SIMEON AND ANNA 3