Pseudo-Methodius used pseudonymous prophetic authority to predict Christian victory over Muslims

Evidence

In this vision, the Muslim invasions become both the punishment God metes out to sinful Christians and the “testing furnace” meant to try the true Christians before the ultimate Christian victory. By attributing the Apocalypse to the respected church father Methodius and by placing it in the fourth century, the anonymous author passes off his descriptions of the Muslim invasions as authoritative, divinely inspired predictions of the invasions and hopes in turn to lend credibility to his predictions of imminent Christian victory over the “pagan” Ishmaelites. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 318

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pseudo-epigraphic technique: the author backdates a text to lend false prophetic authority to current events — a recurring tactic across religious polemic.
• XREF: This fictive-prophetic backdating parallels other apocalypses (Book of Daniel, Book of Revelation) and modern works that present post-dated history as foresight.