Life of Methodius
The Slavonic life of Methodius, archbishop in Moravia and Pannonia, written by a disciple after his death in 885. It preserves, in Slavonic, a letter of Pope Hadrian II approving the Slavonic liturgy.
The author speaks of Methodius as “our teacher” and writes as one of the community he left behind. The Life is short and partisan. It tells of the mission from Constantinople, the approval of the Slavonic books at Rome, Methodius’s trial and imprisonment by the Frankish bishops, his vindication, his translation of the Scriptures and his death on 6 April in the third indiction, AD 885. The Slavonic text gives the year from creation as 6393; the Latin translation linked here prints it, by a slip, as the 1393rd.
Chapter 8 gives the text of a letter of Hadrian II permitting the liturgy in Slavonic. No Latin text of the letter survives; Ginzel, who printed the Latin version cited here, marked it as spurious, and its wording cannot be checked against a Roman copy. Chapter 6 credits to Pope Nicholas what Life of Constantine the Philosopher (Cyril) credits to Hadrian.
Cited in
- AD 863 to AD 885, estimated date