M

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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September 18 · Bishop, Martyr

St. Methodius

St. Methodius

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

September 18
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop
Martyr

Their story

Adapted in modern English from Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints · little is known

Methodius was first bishop of Olympus in Lycia, as St Jerome says, and was later moved to the see of Tyre. Jerome says he was martyred at Chalcis in Greece towards the end of the last great persecution. Butler gives this as about 311 or 312; Baring-Gould dates him about 304. The sources differ.

Jerome calls him 'the most eloquent Methodius'. He wrote against Origen on the resurrection of the body and against the Valentinians on free will. His Banquet of the Ten Virgins survives complete. Modelled on Plato's Symposium, it has ten virgins each speak in praise of virginity, while also teaching that marriage is good and instituted by God.

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on September 18 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: The Martyrologium Parvum, Ado, Notker, Usuardus, &c. Modern Roman Martyrology. Authorities: — S. Jerome in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers.] S. Methodius, Bishop of Olympus in Lycia, afterwards of Tyre, wrote a treatise on the Resurrection against Origen, another against Porphyry, and some other works. He suffered at Chalcis in Greece.

Feast days

Feast: September 18

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Methodius's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on September 18
F

St. Ferreolus

September 18 · Martyr
St. Eustorgius of Milan

St. Eustorgius of Milan

September 18 · Bishop
St. Joseph of Cupertino

St. Joseph of Cupertino

September 18 · Confessor
← All 1727 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Story sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.