S. Methodius I. + A.D. 846. S. Methodius I., a native of Syracuse, embraced the monastic life at Constantinople. Sent as legate from Pope Paschal to Michael the Stammerer, he was imprisoned by that prince in a close cell, and there passed nine years, on account of his resolute defence of Icons. Having been scourged for the same cause, by the Emperor Theophilus, he made his escape from prison; and when peace was restored to the Church was raised to the throne of Constantinople. His first care was to assemble a Synod for the restoration of Icons; and it is, properly speaking, that Synod which the Greeks celebrate on Orthodoxy Sunday. With this Council the Iconoclast troubles ceased. S. Methodius died November 4, 846. His compositions are very few, and are chiefly confined to Idiomela. That which follows seems to me the prettiest. It is for a Sunday of the Fourth Tone. εἰ καὶ τὰ παρόντα. Are thy toils and woes increasing? Gaze with eyes unshrouded, Dost thou fear that strictest trial? Tremblest thou at CHRIST'S denial? Never rest without it, Clasp thine arms about it, Diabolic legions press thee? Thoughts and works of sin distress thee? It shall chase all terror, It shall right all error, Draw'st thou nigh to Jordan's river? Should'st thou tremble? quiver? No! if by it lying, No! if on it dying,— On the Cross! Need'st thou Say then,-Master, while I cherish That sweet hope, I cannot perish! Give Thou me the glory S. Joseph of the Studium. The third period of Greek Hymnology opens with its most voluminous writer, S. Joseph of the Studium. A Sicilian by birth, he left his native country on its occupation by the Mahometans in 830, and went to Thessalonica, where he embraced the monastic life. Thence he removed to Constantinople, but, in the second Iconoclastic persecution, he seems to have felt no vocation for confessorship, and went to Rome. Taken by pirates, he was for some years a slave in Crete, where he converted many to the faith; and having obtained his liberty, and returned to the Imperial City, he stood high in the favour, first of S. Ignatius, then of Photius, whom he accompanied into exile. On the death of that great man he was recalled, and gave himself up entirely to Hymnology. A legend, connected with his death, is sometimes represented on the walls of the churches in the Levant. A citizen of Constantinople betook himself to the church of S. Theodore in the hope of obtaining some benefit from the intercessions of that martyr. He waited three days in vain; then, just as he was about to leave the church in despair, S. Theodore appeared. "I," said the vision, "and the other Saints, whom the poet Joseph has celebrated in his Canons, have been attending his soul to Paradise: hence my absence from my church." The Eastern Communion celebrates him on the 3rd of April. But of the innumerable compositions of this most laborious writer it would be impossible to find one which, to Western taste, gives the least sanction to the position which he holds in the East. The insufferable tediousness consequent on the necessity of filling eight Odes with the praises of a Saint of whom |