of Olympus, in Lycia; probably martyred by Maxi
minus, 311. The only one of his works preserved
entire in Greek is the " Symposium," which, as its
name implies, forms a counterpart to Plato's " Sym
posium." Ten maidens, invited to the " garden of
virtue," are the speakers, their themes being the
following: (1) the praise of virginity as the essence
of the likeness to God brought by
Works. Christ; (2) the divine ordinance of
marriage; (3) virginity preferable to
the married state; (4) virginity the best medica
ment to immortality; (5) virginity the great vow;
(6) virgins keep themselves undefiled for the mar
riage with the Logos; (7) they are equal to the
martyrs and are meant by Cant. ii. 2, iv. 9 sqq., vi.
7 aqq.; (8) the woman of Rev. xii. 1 sqq. is the
Church, and the human will is free; (9) with her
we must adorn ourselves for the Feast of Taber
nacles, which is the Resurrection; (10) perfect
righteousness (cf. Judges ix. 8 sqq.) first came into
the world through Christ. The maidens close with
a hymn to the heavenly bridegroom. The De Au
texusio is preserved independently in Greek only
in the portion i.-vii. 5, but considerable fragments
are given by Eusebius, but under the name of Max
imus (Prwparatio evangelica, vii. 22; Eng. transl.,
ii. 366 aqq., 2 vols., Oxford, 1903), Photius (Babho
theca, 236), the Sacra Parallels; while it is fully re
produced in an Old Church Slavic translation of the
eleventh century. Its theme is the origin of evil,
which arose from Satan's disobedience to God. In
his Peri geneton, of which only a few fragments
have been preserved by Photius (Bibliotheca, 235),
Methodius assails Origen's doctrine of an eternal cre-