Methodius of Olympus

For martyrdom is so admirable and desirable, that the Lord, the Son of God Himself, honouring it, testified, "He thought it not robbery to be equal with God"

Being in the image of God, [humanity] still needed to receive the likeness. The Word, having been sent into the world to perfect this, first of all took on our own form, even though in history it has been stained by many sins, so that we for our part, on whose account he bore it, should be once again capable of partaking in his divine nature. Hence it is now possible for us to receive God’s likeness. Think of a skilled painter painting a likeness of himself on a surface. So we may now imitate the same characteristics that God himself has displayed in his becoming a human being. We hold these characteristics before us as we go in discipleship along the path he set out. His purpose in consenting to put on human flesh when he was God was this: that we, upon seeing the divine image in this tablet, so to speak, might imitate this incomparable artist.

Now the numbers into which it is divided, when put together, make seven, and one is wanting to its completion, not being in all points harmonious with itself, like six, which has reference to the Son of God, who came from tile fulness of the Godhead into a human life. For having emptied Himself,

Might escape from the darts of the destroyer; and that Christ having thus suffered in the flesh, and having risen again the third day, might, with equal honour and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be by all created things equally adored; for to Him every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth,

For thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. "Now these promises, it is evident to every one, will be fulfilled after the resurrection.

The transformation, he says, is the restoration into an impassible and glorious state. For now the body is a body of desire and of humiliation,