CHAPTER VII UNION: THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 17 April and 10 June, after recapitulating briefly the arguments of both sides on the question of Dia and Ek and adverting to the frequent Latin use of syllogisms, continues: ‘I say with regret that they have rather deepened the schism and have made the disagree- ment greater and stronger.’’ It is a sad judgement on all the fervent discourses of Montenero and an insight into the Greek mind. There is no doubt that the Greeks distrusted reasoning of that kind on theological questions. Scholarius addressing the oriental Synod in Florence noted their fear in these words: ‘I know that you, O Greeks, in matters of this sort have no confidence in proofs from reason but consider them suspect and misleading; much more then will you both keep clear of syllogising per impossibile and be on your guard against others who do that.’* Even Bessarion wrote: ‘The words [of the Fathers] by themselves alone are enough to solve every doubt and to persuade every soul. It was not syllogisms or probabilities or arguments that convinced me, but the bare words [of the Fathers].’3 And Syropoulus records the impression made on one of the Georgian envoys when Montenero appealed to the authority of Aristotle: ‘He said: “ What about Aristotle, Aristotle? A fig for your fine Aristotle.” And when I by word and gesture asked: “What is fine?”, the Georgian replied: “‘St Peter, St Paul, St Basil, Gregory the Theo- logian; a fig for your Aristotle, Aristotle.”’+ The Georgian put into words what probably most of the Greek prelates were thinking. Their approach to theology, and particularly the theology of the Blessed Trinity, was on purely patristic lines and [ese of Kiev, in a speech he wrote some time between * Cod, Vat. Gr. 706, 121-221. * Means to Obtain Religious Pear, Schol.1,p. 355- 3 Letter to Alex. Lascars, P.G. 161, 3608. #Syr. x, 12, +270. 227 15-2THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE that in the simplest way. It is noteworthy that even Mark Eugenicus ‘was content for the most part with quoting the words of his authorities, adding only the barest commentary, and he was one of the best theologians among them. The rest of them, with very few exceptions, had little theological formation apart from the general tradition of the faith which they had imbibed from childhood. John VIII twice excused the want of precision of the Greek prelates on the ground of their lack of learning.’ One of the things he threw in the face of Antony of Heraclea when he got angry with him was his ignorance: “Do you not know your own limitations and the extent of your knowledge? But because you are uneducated and a rustic you put yourself forward to say such things... . Because you are ignorant and uneducated and vulgar and a rustic and don’t know or realise what you are saying.”? A little later Heraclea, urged to give his opinion in writing, replied not without irony: ‘Even if I am ignorant I will obey your injunction, and I shall not deem it a catastrophe if I make solecisms or barbarisms.’3 Scholarius, writing in 1451, said much the same about the Patriarch’s scholarship: ‘...as if did meant, as the late futile Patriarch said, “‘cause”’, and having said it without further ado he died. For he had no right to go on living after philosophising so brilliantly about the preposition and cause, and arrogating to himself pre-eminence in three sciences, namely gram- mat, philosophy and this quintessence of theology, about which he never hoped even in his dreams to have the courage to make any prov nouncement.’+ Indeed, in his address of April 1439 to the Greek synod in Florence Scholarius went so far as to taunt his hearers with their ignorance, calling them ‘men of no great capacity to vie with the Latins in theology and philosophy, owing to the sad state of our affairs, because of which those in the highest positions attain to just so much of theology and philosophy as merely not to seem utterly uneducated, since institutions of learning are lacking, ambition for study and letters is quenched and everything is done under the pres sure of need and necessity’.5 Syropoulus once replied to the Patriarch with words no less scathing: 1 AG, pp. 418, 421. 2 Syr. vit, 5, p. 224. 3 Ibid. vint, 15, p. 239. 4 Letter to Notaras, Schol. 111, p. 142 5 On the Need of Aiding Constantinople, Schol. 1, p. 299. 228THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT I know the prelates and, with one or two exceptions, the rest—what are they worth? Or do you bid me follow the one who said: ‘I affirm the Filloque provided that the Holy Trinity be preserved unharmed’, and, being interrogated three times, three times he repeated the same unchanged and made everybody laugh, having fallen into opposition with his chorusleader. No, I said, it is not for me to follow prelates whose theology is of that standard? Gregory, the procurator of Alexandria, in a letter to Philotheus the Patriarch, just after the end of the sessions wrote: ‘But though we all agreed, as has been said, still two prelates dissented from us, the Metropolitan of Ephesus, assuredly a man of learning, and the Bishop of Stauropolis, a man entirely devoid of education, to whom nothing is certain.” These testimonies (and more could be adduced) are not exag- gerated calumnies of the Latins, but the judgements of Greeks about Greeks, and are therefore in their general sense true. Why else were Mark Eugenicus, Bessarion and Dionysius consecrated on the eve of the Council ‘to be present as champions in the Synod’,3 if not because the rest of the hierarchy was not conspicuous for learning? And why did the Emperor think it necessary to bring the aged, neo-pagan Gemistus, the probably religiously-sceptical Amiroutzest and the judge Scholarius as advisers except because they had a reputa- tion as philosophers which the prelates lacked? The six orators of the Greeks at the sessions included none of the older prelates but three of those lately consecrated, Eugenicus, Bessarion and Isidore, with two Staurophoroi and the lay-philosopher Gemistus. So Montenero’s display of metaphysical niceties, his disquisitions on substantia prima and secunda and the philosophy of generation and the rest, far from clarifying the thoughts of most of his Greek hearers (and perhaps of nota few of the Latins too), would have served only to mystify them the more and to make them cleave the more tenaciously to their sheet-anchor in trinitarian theology—‘from the Father alone’—feeling that Latin thought on the Blessed Trinity was far removed from the simple tradition they had inherited. * Syr. 1x, 14, P. 274. > G. Hofmann, Orientalium documenta minora (Roma, 1953) P- 44+ 8 Syr. 1, 15, p. $9. 4 CEN. B. Tomadakis: “Eroupxevoev 8 Pecopyios “Auipourgns;’, in E.E.B.5. XVIII (1948), pp. 140-1. 229THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE But the Lombard Provincial had done two things that had ime pressed them. He had roundly affirmed western belief in there being but one cause of the Holy Spirit and, particularly in the last two sessions, he had produced an array of Fathers both Latin and Greek to support his assertions. There he was approaching the ground that the orientals were more familiar with. They too believed that there was but one cause of the Holy Spirit. They too based their belief on the authority of the Fathers. The works of Montenero’s Latin Fathers, it is true, they did not know, but names like Leo, Hilary, Jerome, Damasus, Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory Dialogus could not be disregarded. The Greek Fathers were their own spiritual ancestors and even if they were familiar more with catenae of passages as found in the writings of Cabasilas and such-like authors rather than with the originals, still they could not reject John’s quotations, because they had all been recited in the original Greek and chapter and verse specified, It was probably a shock to many of them that so large a number of the Greek Fathers spoke of ‘ proceeding’ or ‘issuing from both’, of ‘ proceeding through the Son’ or even of ‘being from the Son’, and that no Father was produced even by Eugenicus who had bluntly said ‘from the Father only’. But they were as yet by no means convinced. The Scriptures declared ‘proceedeth from the Father’ and said nothing about the Son. John’s many Greek authori- ties had made them feel uneasy, but as yet had not persuaded them to abandon what they thought was the tradition of their Church, and they probably experienced the feeling that simpler folk commonly have when faced with a display of erudition, that did they but know a little more about the subject they could readily find an answer. All the same a seed had been sown that could bear fruit. The Saints of both Churches had written at length on the doctrine of the Trinity. The Latin Saints, it is true, used a phraseology that was suspect to the Greek mind, for they wrote ‘From the Father and the Son’. The Greek Saints were less emphatic, but they spoke of the Spirit being produced ‘from both’ and ‘through the Son’. No Saint could err in matters of faith, for they all—this was taken almost as a definition of sanctity—were inspired by the one Holy Spirit. So what they said about the Holy Spirit, no matter how different it might seem to be, could not in actual fact be different. The divergence 230THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT must be only apparent: it could not be real. If, therefore, the Latin Saints really did say ‘From the Son’ and the Greek Saints ‘Through the Son’, then these two expressions must mean the same thing and no obstacle could remain to prevent union between East and West at least as regards the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity. Amiroutzes in a written judgement he presented at a Greek meeting early in June sums up this attitude of mind: On the basis of these two suppositions I do not see how the Holy Spirit is not from the Father and the Son. For if we must submit to the Saints in everything they say and they really declare that the Holy Spirit is and proceeds ftom the Father and the Son and that the Father and the Son are the one cause of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is not from the Father and the Son, it would be a miracle. For I consider that this necessarily follows. Therefore... .* It is important to appreciate this conviction of the Greeks, that the Saints could not err in the faith and therefore must agree, for it is both the explanation and the justification of their accepting union (which they did accept) without being open to a true charge of insincerity and of inexcusable moral cowardice. It was for them an axiom and it was accepted by all without exception. It was the reason why they so often put forward the words of St Maximus to the Latins as a basis of agreement. Bessarion delivered a long speech before the Greek synod exclusively to prove the harmony of the Saints.? Scholarius wrote two long treatises with the same object.3 Isidore without meeting with any opposition propounded it at a public meeting as a self-evident truth.t Dorotheus of Mitylene proclaimed the same.5 Mark Eugenicus accepted the principle as much as any one else.® That is why he persisted in asserting that the quotations advanced from the Latin Fathers were falsified? (since the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, the Saints could not have said that He does, was his reasoning*), in spite of their number and in spite of the fact that they are found so widespread in Latin writings and so interwoven into the treatises that to exclude them would leave no more than blank pages (as Bessarion rejoined):9 at the least * G, Hofinann, op. cit. pp. 38-9. 2 CE below, pp. 240-1. 3 C£. below, p. 258. 4 AG, pp. 400, 426. 5 Ibid. pp. 402, 40s. 5 Confessio fidei, Petit, Docs. p. 438 7 Relatio de rebus a se gests, ibid. p. 445. 8 Ibid. p. 448. 9 AG. p. gor. 231THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE they were doubtfully authentic, since the Greeks lacked the means of checking them, so only the Greek Fathers should be followed. Syropoulus was of the same opinion and, if we are to accept all that he retails in his Memoirs, he dilated on this theme even more than Mark of Ephesus.? But it was some time before this promising line of agreement was seriously taken up and pursued. The Greek mind, immediately on the end of the public sessions, was dominated bya weariness of endless discourses and a determination to endure no more of them. There they were always outtalked and out-argued by the Latins. Half of what was said they did not understand. However much Eugenicus might strive to find answers, they felt that they had in fact no adequate reply, for the Latins could always produce new arguments and new texts. So either some other way for union must be found or else they would finish with it all and go home. And as neither side had any expedient to suggest, an atmosphere of despair reigned for two months, It is true that half-way through that period both Bessarion and Scho- larius delivered long orations precisely on this point of the concord of the Saints, but they do not seem to have made any deep impression, though they must have had some effect. It was not till nearly the end of May, more than two months after the last public session, that the possibilities for union latent in the agreement of the Saints were thoroughly investigated. Bessarion and a few others then exploited them to the full. The rest, unable to controvert the facts exposed and unwilling to deny a principle they deemed true, were led to admit the equivalence of ‘Through the Son’ and ‘From the Son’, and to subscribe to a profession of faith that embodied that acceptance. So the main obstacle that divided the Churches was overcome. That in briefis how things went with the Greeks during the months of April and May. How the Latins occupied their time in that same petiod is not known for lack of documents, but their way of guiding the Greeks towards dogmatic agreement was to present them for acceptance and discussion with successive draft statements on the * Confessio fidei, Petit, Docs. pp. 438, 4483 Syr. vin, 2, p. 218. 2 Sye. 1%, 3, pp. 252-35 1X, 14, p- 273. The words he ascribed to himself on p. 253 are an echo of what Eugenicus wrote in his Professio fdei (Petit, Docs. p. 438) including the reference to the Latin production of the Acts of the seventh Council, cf. above p. 148 232THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT various points of difference and these were finally combined to form the doctrinal part of the decree of union. These statements are pre- served for posterity in the Latin Acts (Syropoulus also records the first of them) and the same source indicates clearly enough that they were part of a method.’ On the Greek side the authorities are the Description that follows the protocol of the public sessions in the Greek Acts? and the Memoirs of Syropoulus.3 Of these the former consists of records of day-to-day events in chronological order, recounted briefly and in proportion to their actual importance. The writer was increasingly in favour of union, a fact which of course is discernible in this diary-account, but which never makes him write as an advocate or propagandist of union, for he states facts not argue ments. The Memoirs of Syropoulus are very different. Though his narrative for the most part follows the chronology of the events, it makes no mention at all of many meetings and negotiations recorded by the Acta graeca, but dilates on isolated gatherings, encounters (frequently hostile) between individuals, and certain themes, the chief one, of course, being the pressure exerted by the Emperor and the Latins on the Greeks and the insincerity and treachery of the *Latinisers’. To write the history of what really took place between April and July 1439, these two sources have to be appraised, that is, not only the bare events and the incidents described in them, but also the atmosphere, the background, the attitude and the motives of the actors. In this respect the Description offers very little material, whereas the Memoirs abound in it, and it is precisely in this regard that, in my judgement, they are most misleading, for one motive of Syropoulus in writing his Memoirs at all was unquestionably to provide an apologia for himself and others accused of betraying orthodoxy for their having signed the decree of union, and this led him, unconsciously perhaps, but nevertheless really, to select his material, to stress, per- haps to exaggerate, certainly to interpret anything that would fit in with his conviction about the iniquity of the union and to omit entirely or almost entirely what might have suggested sincerity in those who disagreed with Eugenicus and himself, because he could ' Cf. also Syr. x, 1, pp. 277-8. * A.G. pp. 399-445. 3 Syr, VIN, 3, p. 219-IX, 16, p. 276. 233THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE not believe that they could have acted from any other motive than expediency or personal advantage. In what follows I accept the chronological order of the Description in the Greek Acts and date the incidents given by Syropoulus accordingly, omitting nothing sub- stantial of this latter writer in my narrative even though I think much of it is historically unreliable or at least suspect. Other people, however, may have other opinions and I leave it to them to make their own assessment.’ Now to fill out this brief summary of the situation with some detail. The meeting in the sacristy of St Francis’s convoked by Cardinal Cesarini took place on the morning of Thursday, 26 March, when the texts of both Greek and Latin Fathers were produced for exami- nation. The result was a feeling in the minds of many of the Greeks that here at last they had found a way towards agreement. The Patriarch therefore arranged with the Pope that, as Holy Week was at hand, there should be no more discussions till Low Sunday (12 April) when the Greeks would give their answer, and he an- nounced this decision at a meeting in his palace on the Monday of Holy Week, 30 March. In the course of this gathering there was heated argument. Isidore and Bessarion had advocated union and so to return home, when Dositheus of Monembasia broke in: ‘What do you mean with your going home at the expense of the Pope? Do you want us to betray our faith? I would rather die than latinise.’ Isidore replied that, as both Greek and Latin Fathers affirmed the Filioque, union would mean nothing more than that the Greeks would be agreeing with their own Saints. Whereupon Antony of Heraclea remarked that the Fathers of the Councils and the Greek Saints together outnumbered the Latins, so the majority should be followed; and Ephesus spoke at length declaring that the Latins were not merely schismatics but heretics, though the Greek Church for motives of prudence refrained ftom calling them such, and that was the real reason of the schism. Bessarion heatedly replied: *So the Saints who taught the Filioque are heretics! The western and the eastern Saints do not disagree, for the same Spirit spoke in all the Saints. Compare their works and they will be found harmonious.’ * Cf Introduction, pp. viii-xiv. 234THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT “But’, said Ephesus, ‘who knows if the books have not been falsified by them:’ ‘If’, replied Bessarion, “we remove all such words from the books—whole homilies, commentaries on the Gospels, com plete treatises on trinitarian theology—there will be nothing left but blank pages.’ Dorotheus of Mitylene and Methodius of Lacedaemon (so says Syropoulus), even more incensed than Bessarion, angrily attacked Mark with opprobrious words and came very near to attacking him physically.? So the result of the Patriarch’s efforts to create harmony was in fact to increase the disagreement, news of which reached the Emperor’s ears. The next day he went in the rain to visit the Patriarch to try to restore concord. It was perhaps on this occasion that there occurred incidents related by Syropoulus,? though he allots them to three separate meetings all in the Emperor’s presence, when Eugenicus, in obedience to a request from the monarch, expressed his doubts about the authenticity of the Latin quotations, which, he said, should be held as dubious for lack of the means of checking them, and pro- posed the letter of Maximus to Marinus as a kind of touch-stone to test them by: ‘Those that agree with that letter I accept as genuine: those that disagree I reject.’ On the morning of the Wednesday of Holy Week there was another meeting in the apartments of the Patriarch and further alter- cation, in the course of which Mitylene said they could choose either to agree with the Saints and unite with the Latins, or to stigmatise the Saints and depart. He too proposed as a formula for agreement the words of Maximus: ‘The Holy Spirit proceeding substantially from the Father through the ineffably generated Son.’3 Bessarion took him up and produced other Greek quotations to the same effect, especially from Tarasius of Constantinople. Whereupon the Patri arch bade them write out those passages for consideration at a meeting the next day when the Emperor would be present. But the Emperor could not attend on Holy Thursday and asked that the ® This is recounted by Syropoulus much later (1x, 5, p. 256) introduced by ‘Again on another day’: it probably refers to this same incident, If it be thought that this account is too detailed for a general history of the Council, it must be borne in mind that it is just such details that are quoted by controversialists and so a certain amount of this must be recorded. 7 Syr. vin, 2, pp. 218-19. 3 P.G. 90, 672¢. 235THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE meeting should be deferred till the Saturday. On the Saturday, how- ever, the Patriarch was so ill that he was anointed and the discussion had perforce to be put off. Meanwhile among the Latins the Holy Week services had been celebrated with great solemnity. On Palm Sunday the Sovereign Pontiff himself, whose train was carried by the Capitano di Giustizia of Florence, distributed the blessed twigs of olive to the cardinals and the personages of the city. On the last three days of the week his throne was set on the loggia of S. Maria Novella overlooking the piazza, from which he gave his benediction to the crowds assembled below. The ceremonies of Holy Saturday were performed by Cardinal Cesarini, but the Solemn Mass of Easter Sunday was sung in the church of S, Maria Novella by the Pope himself, in the presence of seven cardinals and many bishops, after which he gave his benediction again from the loggia.? As the interval requested by the Patriarch for consideration was coming to a close, the Latins began to urge the Greeks to formulate their reply to Montenero’s exposition of doctrine and the general question of union. A meeting with the Emperor on the Friday of Easter Week produced only a message to the Pope affirming the reluctance of the Greeks to enter into further public discussions, which were endless; let the Latins find some other way towards union; if they could not, ‘we have said as much as we can: what we hold is the tradition of our Fathers handed on by the seven Councils and that suffices for us’. Mark of Ephesus, Isidore, Syropoulus and another of the Staurophoroi were appointed to convey this ultimatum. The next day they fulfilled their office and before Vespers recounted to the Emperor and the other prelates the answer they had received. Eugenius had begun by complaining that they had not fulfilled the obligations they had undertaken as regards the frequency of public sessions and then proposed three points for their consideration—did they accept the Latin proofs of the Filiogue and if not wherein lay their doubts so that they could be settled; had they texts from Scripture affirming the opposite; or texts from Scripture showing that their * Muratori, rst ed. x1x, p. 984, where it is stated also that the Patriarch was present —clearly a mistake. 2 The Acta graeca, p. 404, say Bessarion. 236THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT view was the better founded and the more holy. He then suggested that each prelate of both Churches should affirm on oath his own opinion, so that the majority view should be accepted. On hearing this reply the Greek assembly was at a loss, for they had no solid argument to put forward against any of the three points, and the suggestion of the oath (that, so says Syropoulus, was Mitylene’s invention) they shrank from, for no other Council had ever had recourse to such an expedient. Mitylene tried to rally them, urging that the doctrines of both Churches were holy as coming from the Scriptures and the Saints, so they should hesitate no longer but enter into union: let that be our answer to His Holiness. There was silence till the Emperor said that their answer should be to take up one of the Pope’s four points; whereupon the Protosyncellus re- marked: ‘What can we answer? We can say that some of their quotations are false and others corrupt; that we know nothing of some and reject others, which is unreasonable. What then is left? To reply with lies? That is unbefitting.” The upshot was that the next day, Sunday, the Emperor sent the same four delegates back to Eugenius to say that the four points he proposed amounted in reality to only one—to renew discussions, and that the Greeks would not do, for they were useless: the Greeks retained the Creed approved by the Councils; the Latins were not disposed to alter theirs; so what was the use of disputes and arguments? If the Pope could find a way towards union, well and good; otherwise they would go home in a spirit of friendship. The Pope’s reply was to say that he would send some of his cardinals to talk with the Greeks. In one of these private meetings among the Greeks the Emperor took the opportunity, so recounts Syropoulus, to explain the prin- ciples that animated him in regard to the Church. I am, he said, the defender of the Church, and this in the present circumstances seems to me to involve two things, the first to preserve and defend the Church’s doctrine and to assure freedom of speech for all who wish to support it and to restrain such as captiously contradict; the second to try to preserve concord amongst us. This I say to warn those who persist in pointless cavilling and who refuse to submit to a majority opinion that they will feel the weight of my imperial displeasure, ‘We must try to find a means towards union, and I suggest that if the 237THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE Latins accept the trinitarian theology of St Maximus we should unite with them. Isidore, Bessarion and the Protosyncellus immediately agreed (continues Syropoulus), but Ephesus and Heraclea and a few others dissented, Eugenicus remarking that even if the Latins accepted the words of Maximus they would read a different meaning into them, ‘That does not matter” rejoined the Emperor, and pro- ceeded forthwith to demand that all should declare their opinions on his proposal, not individually but by acclamation, and when some remained silent he asked ominously: ‘Have they lost their voices?’? There ensued a bitter argument between Isidore and Bessarion on the one side and Antony of Heraclea and Eugenicus on the other, which was ended only by the intervention of the Emperor, who spoke scathingly to Heraclea, taunting him with his ignorance and lack of culture,” The Greeks meanwhile, recounts Syropoulus, were subject to all kinds of privations. Bessarion, wishing to go for a ride outside the city for exercise, found the way barred by the Emperor’s orders. Most of them had nothing to do (despite apparently the almost daily meetings); only Isidore, Bessarion and Gregory, the Emperor’s chaplain, were for ever busy making suggestions and proposals to their sovereign. The monthly provision for their needs was not forthcoming and as April drew to a close they were in great want, especially the lower ranks among them like the Emperor’s janissaries, which gave rise to a revealing incident. These under the pressure of hunger appealed to the Protosyncellus to represent their need to the Emperor. Gregory, knowing John’s disposition, preferred to assist them with a little money of his own, and when he had no more he gave them a small part of his sacred vestments to sell. After a time, having by now pawned their weapons and most of their clothes, they returned to him but he was at the end of his resources. Instead he bade them go 1 When this incident is supposed to have taken place Syropoulus does not disclose, except that he places it early in his narrative of the events that followed immediately after the end of the public sessions (vii, 1s, pp. 221-3) and at about the time of the reception of the disquieting news from Constantinople, which certainly was in the first half of April. Itis, however, in fagrant contradiction with the dated events narrated by the Acta graeca, where the Emperor is the protagonist in warning the Pope that the Greek attitude as regards doctrine was intransigent and that unless the Latins found an acceptable way to union the Greeks wanted to return home. * CE above, p. 228. 238THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT to Mark of Ephesus and ask why he kept them in such a state of want by impeding union. A group of some twenty or so of chem, failing to find Mark at home, angrily and threateningly assailed the Great Sakellarius who, at first at a loss to know why, was enlightened when they repeated Gregory’s words. He wanted to have the Prota- syncellus brought before the holy synod for judgement but was testrained by his friends. A few days later Gregory in the course of aconversation about the lack of means quietly remarked: ‘It is who have held back and retained the maintenance allowances.’! What- ever the truth of this story, the Greeks were really living in strait- ened circumstances. The ecclesiastics complained time and again to the Patriarch who finally sent the Bishop Damianus with Syro- poulus and another of the Staurophoroi to declare to the Emperor in his name and their own that they could bear it no longer but should return home. They got little consolation ftom him, however. All he did was to say that, if they were idle, he was not, and that it was all very well to talk of breaking off discussions and going home—that would have to be done by stages and it was the Church’s business to do it, not his, as he did not want to incur all the oppro- brium for failure that would follow on such a step. At about this time, too, disquieting news came from Constan- tinople with an urgent request for two papal ships to forestall a * ‘This highly improbable story is in keeping with the bitter hostility that Syropoulus shows for Gregory throughout the whale of his book. Highly improbable because: (1) itis completely out of harmony with the machinery for paying the Grecksin Florence and contradicted by the documents, cf. J. Gill, “The Cost of the Council of Florence’, in O.C.P. xxm (1956), pp. 314-16; (2) it runs counter to Syropoulus’ own thesis that it was the Latins who consistently kept back the money so as to force the Grecks to one concession after another; (3) a litle later Syropoulus mentions a payment on 22 May with no reference, even by the Latins in selfdefence, tothis incident—a payment for two months beginning 15 February; (4) such an action on the part of Gregory, far fiom helping the cause of union (which according to Syropoulus he pushed by fair means and foul), could have done nothing but hinder it—and Gregory was no fool; (s) it is out of keeping with the character Syropoulus paints of Gregory that he should so tamely and unnecessarily have confessed. Ie will, however, have some basis in fact. Gregory may have made some remark to someone, possibly one of the Emperor’s dependents, suggesting that Ephesus’ tactics were prolonging their misery, possibly when he was giving an alms; but that he could have received and kept the money, ot if €yé kertéoTmacr Kal Expérrmoa: 7 ormpéoiov (not easy to translate) does not mean that but only that in some other way he caused it to be withheld, is more than highly improbable. 239THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE possible attack. John was confident that he would get them and indeed that in a fortnight he would sail with them himself. But when. he approached the Pope, appealing to the provision in the agreement between them whereby His Holiness had bound himself to send help in extraordinary danger and even suggesting that the 10,000 fl. owed by the papal exchequer for the upkeep of the ships and bowmen already in Constantinople should be used to arm new vessels in Italy, he met with a blank refusal. ‘ Such was the help for his country in its pressing needs that the Emperor found from the Latins’, comments Syropoulus. The cardinals, whom the Pope on 12 April had promised to send, did not come till three days later. In the interval Bessarion delivered his Oratio dogmatica to the assembled Greeks." It is a work of erudition and sober argument. After a brief introduction he referred to the discussions in Ferrara on the Addition: ‘For they (i.e. the Latins) already have given an account of what they say and believe and we have replied to the best of our power...to some of their arguments by complete silence, to others with no answer worthy of the name.’ However, till there was a general Council there was an excuse for the division between the Churches, but now there is such no longer. The Councils have always relied on the words of the Doctors who went before. All Doctors are inspired by the same Holy Spirit; they must, therefore, all be in agreement among themselves and there can be no real opposition between them, so that if there is any apparent contradiction we must try to conciliate their different statements. It is logical that the words of those who spoke more obscurely should be interpreted by the clearer utterances of others, which in the present case means to explain the Greek Fathers by the Latins. Still for Easterns the eastern Fathers have most weight, so the task is to prove from these that they agree with the western Saints. The preposition Dia (through) always has the force of a mediating cause. When used in connection with the Holy Spirit it is an efficient cause, for there is no place for any other kind, and always refers back to the * P.G. x61, $43-612. It is given in fall at this point in the MSS. of the Acta graeca which include the Descriptin, though I suspect that it was the scribe Plousiadenus who put it there, not che original author. Syropoulus says no word at all of this speech nor of that of Scholarius that followed it. 240THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Father, The Greek Doctors (who are quoted at length) who used the preposition ‘through’ of the production of the Holy Spirit are many—Athanasius, Basil, Maximus, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Damascene, the seventh Council and Tarasius. St Maximus and St John Damascene, though they admit of the use of the word ‘through’, seem to some to deny that the Son is also the cause of the Holy Spirit, but that denial is only apparent, for in those passages they intend by the preposition Ek (from) the principal cause. St Cyril, quoted so much by both Montenero and Eugenicus, has a whole section to himself and appears again immediately after- wards where the speaker goes on to treat of the Doctors who employed “From the Son’ and ‘From both’, to show that they were referring to the ‘going forth’ and the ‘flowing forth’ of the Person of the Holy Spirit, not merely to his action among men by grace, and Cyril is discussed still again in regard to his relation with Theodoretus, another point on which Montenero and Eugenicus had disagreed. The western Saints say the same as the eastern. The quotations from them made in the sessions and later delivered to the Greeks in writing so that they could be read at leisure and studied prove that. The doctrine of the Filioque is universal among the Latin Doctors, so it is clear that these agree among themselves and agree too with the eastern Saints. Whatever was the case before, now at any rate there is no excuse for division. Three courses are possible—not to accept the Filiogue, to accept it, to declare that the Latin books are falsified. The first of these courses is absurd; the third unworthy and impossible, for the doctrine of the Filiogue is found in so many and such ancient Latin books and the Greeks have no early Latin codices to check them by. There remains therefore the second choice. The alternative would be dishonour for the nation and calamity both temporal and spiritual for their people. Union with the Latins is their only hope of salvation. Yet Bessarion declared that he himself, unless he were completely convinced that the Latin faith was sound, would not have exhorted his hearers to union: he would have preferred death first. But as the Latin Doctors and the Greek Fathers agree there is no reason left for disunion. In the course of these same few days while they were waiting for the promised visit of the cardinals, Scholarius also delivered an 16 241 ocrTHE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE address to his compatriots.’ His discourse, usually called: On the Need of Aiding Constantinople, is of another temper altogether. Whereas Bessarion’s had been the calm, persuasive, reasoned exposition of a theologian, Scholarius, obviously in a high state of nervous tension, due partly perhaps to ill health? but mainly to his anxiety for Con- stantinople in view of the news lately received, harangued his hearers and at times came very near to invective.} The Greeks at large, he said, were ignorant of Latin skill in dialectic and theological learning; but even those not unacquainted with Latin scholarship came to Italy confident that they would easily convict them of ignorance and error, and so effect the union they desired—that perhaps would have been the happiest issue. What actually has happened is that the Latins have defended their faith brilliantly, invoking in their favour the six most renowned Doctors of the Church with apt and sober comment, Greek Doctors, too, in like manner, and have replied learnedly and truthfully to our arguments. We have no Saint who clearly contradicts them and, if there were such, he should be inter- preted to conform with the majority.# The contradictions we deem the Latins liable to do not necessarily follow from their doctrine. They affirm that they believe like us. They harmonise the words ot the Saints and make no Saint clash with any other. They do not demand from us the profession of the truth—that they leave to our consciences. They seck neither their own glory nor our confusion. Words perhaps we can oppose, but not of any great moment. The Saints we may not deny, or say that they are mutually opposed— that would be to confuse and reject the whole of the faith, while to say that the Latins have falsified them is the height of stupidity.5 ¥ The Description here says that Scholarius delivered three exhortations to the Greek synod which will be found by the reader at the end of the Practica. That notice was assuredly not in the original: it was inserted by Plousiadenus the copyist—and it is mistaken. Scholarius at this time made only one speech or delivered one written exhortation (from Scholarius’ own words it is not quite clear which) because (1) in his written judgement delivered on 30 May he himself says so distinctly (4.G., p. 428), and (2) the other two speeches (always edited as 3) were presented in writing on the same occasion (jbid.). The present discourse is to be found in Schol. 1, pp 296-306; P.G, 160, 385-437- ? He had been ill just before leaving Ferrara: cf. his lewer to Traversari begging a comer in his monastery during his stay in Florence, Schol. 1v, pp. 440-1. 3 Cf. eg, the quotation given above, p. 228. 4 CEE the quotation on pp. 225-6. SCE the quotation on p, 226, 242THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Tf we object certain apparent differences among the Doctors, the Latins will dissolve them in a moment—they have indeed already done so. We could do that for ourselves without recourse to them— even I could do it within a couple of hours for you. There is no time now to sit idle and at ease exchanging empty words and striving for victory. Scholarship amongst us is at a very low ebb.* Words and words again lead not to peace but to further dissension, so omit further words, and embrace peace and with it return home, for there is no obstacle to this since the Latins have shown their orthodoxy with so many witnesses that we may join them and that with no innovation in our Creed. You all know the particular reason why we longed for union of the Churches, to bring relief in the danger that threatens us. Since then with honour we can achieve that, we must do so; if we do not, our case will be worse. Give no credence to them who urge that even after union no help will be forthcoming because of the divisions among the western secular powers and the uncertain position of the Pope. No great force will be required. The enemy fears our union. Latins and barbarians know that the chief cause of union is our hope of help and that if we fail all hope is gone. Remember the gravity of the situation, the strength of the enemy, the weakness of our defences, the length of wall to be manned, the size of our population halved by the plague. So, leaving everything else aside, we should consider whether we can honourably, that is conformably with the sacred Scriptures and the Doctors, join with the Latins, and if so we should straightway renew our friendship with them, prepare ships partly at their expense, partly at our own, selling our very bodies if necessary and striving night and day. So, union immediately and then away. Remember wives, families, dependants, and what conquest by the infidel will mean for them who look to us as their saviours, We are the advance-guard of Christianity. The Latins will think we have hearts of stone if after the reception of such news from home we sit idle with no Saint to oppose theirs and no other answer but ‘corrupt’. God helps them who help themselves. The present danger forces us to union. The Latins, I say, should be received and communion with them welcomed, for they err in no point of the faith. They exhibit the Doctors in harmony: it is we * CE the quotation on p. 228. 243 16-2THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE who put discord among them, as I will show if asked. So we should receive them and recite the Creed as before. Ships should be got ready and, leaving behind three or four of ours to settle what questions still remain, the rest of us should depart and reach home within seventy days. But if you will not unite, you will not be ill-disposed to the Latins as before. The alternative before us is either to unite and then return or to send help, or if there is no hope of union at least not to sit idle but to render help to Constantinople as best we can— any other course will deservedly lead to our shame and the just reproach of treachery to our own. The Cardinals came to the Greeks in the palace of the Patriarch on Wednesday, 15 April, Cesarini, Condulmaro the Treasurer and Domenico de Capranica (Firmanus) with some ten bishops and a few doctors of theology and others. Cesarini was spokesman. He began by recalling to their minds the long delays they had caused first in Constantinople, then in Venice, later in Ferrara. They had three times formally agreed to a fixed number of sessions per week not to be omitted on any account, and each time had failed to keep their word. The Pope had fulfilled and more than fulfilled his obligations. The Latins had proved their faith amply, so the Greeks should either accept the necessary conclusion or if they still had doubts get them solved in public discussion. The Emperor replied flatly rejecting any further discussions. A remedy for a disease is used only till the disease is cured, then it is discontinued. So it was with discussions, It was now time to find another method. We, rejoined Cesarini, have clarified the doctrine with the words of the Saints. Your reply is neither yes nor no. The cure for the disease is discussion; the schism still remains, so the remedy is still to be applied. We, said the Emperor, will join in no more discussions. Discussion will lead us nowhere. You drown us in words and then claim victory. “So Your Highness is a prophet’, replied Cesarini. ‘He who lacks for an answer seems to give consent as when the Metropolitan of Ephesus abandoned the debate, for he has not made any answer yet. Discussion should go on till the truth is established.’ But Cesarini could not convince the Emperor. Instead John pro- posed that ten representatives from each side should meet in eight conferences to see if any result could be obtained that way, and the 244THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Latin delegates had to be content with that. On the following Friday he visited the Pope and won his consent to the expedient, after which he spoke to the Greeks gathered together in the Patriarch’s apartments to explain the procedure, that he with the interpreter would accompany the ten delegates to a hall in the papal palace and there on alternate days a Greek and a Latin would develop some suggestion that promised a lead to union, not as an official proposal but as his own idea independently of the views of others, and that what was there said should be communicated afterwards each day to those who were not present. For this purpose he appointed Antony of Heraclea, Mark of Ephesus, Isidore of Russia, Dositheus of Monembasia, Dorotheus of Trebizond, Metrophanes of Cyzicus and Bessarion of Nicaea, with three other prelates. Syropoulus remarks that what went on in these conferences was never divulged, though some information was forthcoming by hear- say. The Description is rather more detailed in its account, recording too that after two meetings the Greeks were disinclined for more, but under pressure they attended another three, Both authorities agree that at the first meeting it was urged on the Greek side (by Bessarion, according to Syropoulus) that the text of Maximus should be mutu- ally accepted as a formula of union, but the Latins objected that, though they too did not hold the Son to be the primary cause of the Holy Spirit, they did teach that with the Father he was the cause of the Spirit. The second conference, on the following day, discussed the profession of faith of Tarasius of Constantinople with its ‘ Through the Son’. This suggestion may have come from Isidore. At any rate he wrote a paper about this time that proposes a solution of the pro- blem along these lines.t But the Latins could not agree. They inquired if ‘through’ and ‘from’ were the same in Greek, and as they were not, they rejected ‘through’ lest it be interpreted merely as an instru, ment, like a pipe for water. At another of the conferences, according to Syropoulus, Ephesus bluntly proposed the excision of the Filioque from the Creed, since the Greeks would never accept it. A further suggestion put forward was perhaps that each Church should retain * Cf. above, p. 227. However, he ends the treatise with warm words of exhortation not only to the Pope and the Emperor, but also to the Patriarch and to the body of clerics and laymen, who were not present; Cod. Vat. Gr. 706, 121-221, 245THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE its own profession and interpretation of the faith.! These last two expedients, as is obvious, were unacceptable to the Latins. So the private conferences failed in their purpose. But they proved in the event to have been a step in the right direction, for as a result of them the Latins sent to the Greeks at their request? a statement for their acceptance which was ultimately approved and incorporated into the final decree of union. Here, however, there is a difference of some factual importance between the two Greek authorities. The Description recounts that at the end of the conferences the Western Church transmitted in writing a short profession of faith affirming its belief that there is only one principle and cause of the Holy Spirit, namely the Father primarily but not so as to exclude the Son, and that the addition to the Creed was made to preclude error in regard to the divinity of the Son, which those who deny the Filioque are assuredly liable to. On Wednesday, 26 April, the Greeks, Patriarch included, met in the palace of the Emperor, who was ill, to consider their answer, but they could not agree. Two days later they received another statement from the Latins to the same effect as the first though phrased differently. There followed two days of consultation with the Patriarch which with difficulty produced a reply based on St Cyril and St Basil, describing the Spirit as ‘gushing forth’, ‘springing forth’, ‘flowing from’, ‘being sent forth from’ the Son. This did not satisfy the Latins who demanded to know what precise meaning the Greeks attributed to such phrases: did they refer them only to the second and temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, though the words themselves, as the Saints understood them, clearly indicated the one eternal mission and declared that the Spirit receives being from the Son.3 Syropoulus, on the other hand, records only one formula of union from the Latins, that was discussed on some unspecified date by the Greeks, in the presence of the Patriarch, before the Emperor who was ill and in bed. The text he gives of that statement tallies with the text found in the Latin Acts (neither of them is quite accurate) and with the relevant part of the decree of union, and is verbally so different from the two Latin documents included in the Description that it is unlikely that either of these is meant as an outline * Sermon of Cesarini 27 June 1439 to the Latin synod: A.L. pp. 253-6, esp. p- 254. 2 AG. p. 423. 3 Ibid. pp. 413-16. 246THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT of the western formula. Quite what place these hold in the course of events is obscure. They may have been memoranda presented by the Latins at some time during the private conferences, confused by the author of the Description with the more official statement.’ As the meeting in the Emperor’s palace took place on 29 April,?the cedula must have been presented some few days before, since John excused his receiving the prelates in such conditions on the grounds that the Latins were impatient at the delay. He bade them consider it so as to accept it, to amend it, or to reject it, and in the last case to draw up themselves a statement that would satisfy both parties. The Latin statement read as follows: Since in this sacred Oecumenical Council, by the grace of Almighty God, we Latins and Greeks have met to effect holy union conjointly, we have in common been at great pains that that article about the Procession of the Holy Spirit should be discussed with great care and assiduous investigation; after, then, the production of texts from the divine Scriptures and very many quotations of the holy Doctors both eastern and western (some indeed saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, some however fiom the Father through the Son, and after perceiving that all bore the same meaning though expressed differently), ‘We Grecks declared that what we say, namely that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, we do not say with the intention of exchiding the Son [ftom Whom we do not deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally and has his essence as from the Father,] but, because we thought that the Latins say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and two spirations, we reffained from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; We Latins, however, assert that what we say, namely that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, we do not say with the intention of excluding the Father fom being the source and principle of the whole of divinity, of the Son namely and of the Holy Spirit, nor by declaring that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, that the Son has not this from the Father, nor thereby do we assert that there are two principles or spirations, but we assert * Sothe account that here follows ofthe Latin cedula and the Greek reply to itis drawn, from Syr. VIII, 13, p. 235-16, p. 247 and A.L. pp. 224, 254. For the dectee of union cf. A.G. pp. 461-2. Cf. G. Hofmann, ‘Formulae praeviae ad definitionemn Concilii Florentini de Processione Spiritus Sancti’, in .A.A.V. xt (1937), pp. 81-105, 237-60. 2 This gave occasion to Syropoulus to write one of the few kind things about John to befoundin his Memoirs: ‘He was so ill as not to be able to lift his head from his pillow and he who was always repeating that he was well then only said: “‘I am ill and I do not know if I can manage to express what I want to say”? (vini, 13, p. 235). 247THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE that there is only one principle and a single spiration of the Holy Spirit, as we have asserted hitherto.” Tn the name, therefore, of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, nally in this holy union, pleasing to God, with the same sense, the same soul, the same mind we Latins and Greeks agree and accept that this truth of the faith should be believed and received by all Christians and so we profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son* and proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and a single spiration; (declaring that what the holy Doctors and Fathers say, namely that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son is directed to this sense that by it is meant that the Son like the Father is according to the Greeks the cause, but according to the Latins the principle, of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit,) and since all that is the Father’s the Father himself in generating gave to the only-begotten Son except to be the Father, this too, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the Son Himself has eternally fiom the Father from Whom also he was eternally generated.3 When this statement had been read out the hearers (continues Syropoulus) were immediately divided into two patties, Isidore, Bessarion, Dorotheus of Mitylene, Gregory, Methodius of Lace- daemon willing to accept, the rest led by Mark of Ephesus entirely opposed. Soon the Patriarch, being unwell, retired to the room of Philanthropinus, but the Emperor followed with close attention as Isidore and his associates contended for the equivalence of ‘through’ and ‘from’, which Eugenicus flatly denied. John bade everyone speak freely, but to state the reasons for his assertions as well as his opinion, which would be recorded in writing. To Heraclea objecting thatthis wasan innovation inthe procedure of Oecumenical Councils, he replied: ‘It is my will, so that afterwards people may not change.’ So the morning passed. The prelates returned in the afternoon with 1 The decree adds here: ‘And since from all these one and the same understanding of the truth emerges, finally they unanimously agreed with the same sense and the same mind to the following holy union, pleasing to God’, because it replaces the similar sentence of the cedula by ‘We define’. * The decree adds here: ‘and has his essence and his subsistent being ftom the Father and the Son together.” 3 The square brackets signify that the words contained in them are to be found in the decree and the Acta Lat. but are omitted in Syropoulus; the round brackets contain words found in Syropoulus but neither in the decree nor in the Acta Lat. The decree therefore repeated the cedula with the two small additions noted above, a few other very slight variations of words and the changing of the first person plural of the verbs of the cedula into the third person plural. 248THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT the three lay philosophers, Scholarius, Gemistus and Amiroutzes and the secretaries of the Patriarch (who was still in the bedroom of Philanthropinus), and the argument began afresh, with A miroutzes an ardent supporter of Bessarion. Eugenicus quoted St Maximus and St John Damascene as denying the Filioque, and Bessarion’s only answer was that the letter to Marinus was incomplete and so in- admissible, and that the Damascene’s was but an isolated voice.’ Evening found them still arguing. Next morning, at the Emperor’s command, they all assembled again, with the same results, Ephesus quoting the Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa,” to prove that they used of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son both the pre- positions ‘through’ and ‘with’. Bessarion, frustrated, tried to turn the tables by declaring that Mark had already conceded the doctrine to the Latins. Syropoulus demanded to know when and, Bessarion replying that it had been in the private conferences, Ephesus rebutted the charge by explaining the obvious intention that had underlain his words—he had agreed to unite with the Latins if they removed the Filiogue from the Creed, knowing that, if they did that, they denied the whole basis of their doctrine, admitted themselves in error and embraced the Greek faith, which he had not for one instant expected they would do. The Emperor, then, reminded them that they were there to compose an answer to the Latin statement. Whereupon Isidore produced a treatise written by Beccus3? and began to read out some of the patristic quotations it contained. Bidden by John to select a few as a basis of an answer for the Latins, they chose a quotation from the Council of Nicaeat and a phrase ftom Cyril of Alexandria’ showing that the Greek Saints agreed * Yet Bessarion had treated of these two authorities at length in his discourse of a few days before, and explained their apparent opposition to the Filloque doctrine—but Syropoulus in his Memoirs ignores that speech. ? P.G. 45, 3694. 3 The Patriarch of Constantinople who later favoured the union made under Michael VIII at the Council of Lyons (1274), deposed, imprisoned and several times tied by the Synod after Michael’s death. Beccus was an acute theologian whose patristic arguments neither then nor since have been refuted by his opponents. At the time of the Council of Florence he was held in execration by the non-unionists. 4 ‘The Spirit will be found proceeding from the Father, proper to the Son and gushing forth from Him’ (Mansi, 2, 868cD and in the Epigraphae of Beccus, P.G. I4I, 616C). 5°" The Spirit flowing forth substantially from both, that is from the Father through the Son’ (P.G, 68, 148A and in the Epigraphae of Beccus, P.G. 141, 6173). 249THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE with the Latins and as a sufficient ground for union. All were asked if they accepted this solution and the special secretary (hypo- mnematograpbos) was told to write down their answers, yes or no. The first three or four to reply having spoken at length, the rest were bidden to be brief as time was passing. Syropoulus insisted on a more lengthy reply and, on being cut short, gave his answer as No. Sophronius of Anchialus, he says, and Damianus of Moldo- Wallachia with George Cappadox the Protekdikus and the best of the superiors of the monasteries agreed with him, but the majority was of a contrary opinion. Isidore, Bessarion, Michael Balsamon the Chartophylax, Gemistus and Scholarius were commissioned to frame the Greek statement, but when the last-named produced an answer he had composed already, Isidore and Bessarion accepted it without further ado, though the other two demurred. Scholarius’ draft-statement was a very clever piece of work. It was modelled on the Latin cedwla, much of which it repeated almost verbally, inverting, however, the order in which the Latin and the Greek positions are outlined and modifying only the résumé of Greek theology there given, to read as follows: We, however, the Greeks, confess and believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, is proper to the Som and gushes forth from him,! and we affirm and believe that he Aows forth substantially from both, namely ftom the Father through the Son:? and now we unite with each other and are conjoined in a way pleasing to God. Having given proof to each other each of his own faith and confession, we decree that for the future neither will hold aloof from union and communion with the other, but once again we are brought together and are of one mind and are all re-established by the grace of God into one Church. It was hardly to be expected that this would please everyone and it did not.3 When the Emperor numbered the votes there were twelve against and, counting in also the secretaries included at Mity- lene’s suggestion, twenty-four in favour. The Patriarch also gave his vote from the other room in favour. Two metropolitans with the " Cf p.249 0. 4. * CE p. 249. 5. 3 "What was done was a very big step and, besides, contrary to the opinion of three of our procurators [of the eastern Patriarchs}. For Heraclea and Ephesus and Monem- basia and Anchialus did not give their approval for the statement of faith that was sent and, besides, from the clerics the Great Chartophylax and the Protekdikus’ (4.G. Pp. 416-17). 250THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Skevophylax and the Sakellarius were commissioned to take it to the Pope. The Latins, however, were not satisfied, which is not surprising, for even Mark Eugenicus later described it as deliberately equivocal, ‘as holding a middle ground and capable of being taken according to both doctrines, like an actor’s boot’.’ The Latins knew that the Greeks commonly interpreted words like those found in their draft-statement as referring to the mission of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of the faithful and, therefore, as in no way clarifying the eternal relationship of the Spirit to the Son.? So their reply, after two pointed paragraphs inquiring if the Greeks besides repeating the Latin outline of trinitarian theology also accepted it, contained ten other questions framed to clicit a precise statement of what the Greeks meant by this formula of union. An ambiguous formula, they wrote, is useless, for one of the two interpretations allowed by it is false. Union of body without union of mind is no union at all. So let the Greeks make a plain statement of their faith in unambiguous words, or else accept the Latin cedula. This answer from the Latins was never communicated to the Greek synod. The Emperor held it back.3 While all these negotiations were taking place, time was passing and now it was well on into May. In the meantime Traversari had written a letter full of joy to Cesarit Our friend Bessarion today in a public meeting of the Grecks before the Em- peror and all the bishops burst out into words of confession and praise, saying openly to all that the holy Roman Church believes correctly in the mystery of the faith and that the addition to the Creed was most rightly made and that this belief, this profession, which he was now proclaiming he was ready to give in writing; declaring that when they went away from this place he would separate himself from them and endure every hardship if that should be necessary... . The Confessor of che Emperor acceded to his opinion and very many were in tears.4 * Relato de rebus a se gestis, Petit, Docs. p. 447. 2 CEA. p. 416. 3 This would hardly seem to be true. The A.G. p. 416 and Eugenicus (Relatio, atc. p. 447) both show a knowledge of it with no suggestion of its having been concealed. 4 Letter dated 2 April: Trav. no. 2. What the occasion of this declaration of Bessarion was, which from the date coincides roughly with the period of the private conferences, it is impossible to determine. Were it not for the date it could be a re- lection of the conclusion of Bessarion’s Oratio dogmatic, but the Acta graeca are quite positive in assigning that to the days immediately preceding the Wednesday of the week of St Thomas, viz. 15 April. 251THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE Another event of the time was the solemn translation on Sunday, 26 April, of the bodies of St Zenobius, a former bishop of Florence and patron of the diocese, to whom the citizens had a great devotion, and of St Eugenius and St Crescentius ftom the crypt to a specially prepared chapel. Pope Eugenius himself officiated and six cardinals and a great number of archbishops and bishops, both Greek and Latin, assisted him. Demetrius, the Emperor’s brother, was present with the envoys of the various princes and communities, proto- notaries of the Latin Church and Greek nobles and no small number of the populace.* The Latin rejection of their formula for union threw the Greeks into despondency, so that their only thought was to finish with it all. If things went on like that, they would be in Italy al! the autumn and the winter. Three of the Staurophoroi, the Chartophylax, the Protek- dikus and Syropoulus, as he himself relates, independently of each other besought the Patriarch to let them return home, but the only result was a severe reprimand from the Emperor. No maintenance allowances had been paid since their arrival in Florence and repeated requests had moved, not the Latins to give, but the Emperor to wrath.? The clerics poured out their laments to the Patriarch and the Emperor, who on Sunday, 10 May, promised that he would shortly visit the Pope to make some definite arrangement, a thing he had lately been prevented from doing because of his illness. So on Wednesday, 13 May, the eve of the feast of the Ascension, he went to Eugenius, but without result. The Pope’s reply was that he wanted time till the following Friday to consider. On the Friday, then, the Emperor returned. Cardinal Cesarini spoke for the Pope—the Greeks refused to take part in public discussions and now, after an exchange of written statements, were unwilling to explain theirs. In such circumstances what could be done? John answered that he had no wish to force union on his people: they had spontaneously formulated their statement and it was adequate since ‘gush forth’, ‘pour forth’, and the rest attribute cause to the Son, ‘even if they * Domenico di Lionardo Boninsegni, Storia della ctté di Firenze dall’anno 1410 al 1460 scritta nelli stessi tempi che accaddono (Firenze, 1637), p. 69; L. G. Cerracchini, Crono- logia sacra de’ vescovi e atcivescovi di Firenze (Firenze, 1716), p. 143. * Syt. 1X, 1, pp- 248-503 rest from A.G. 252THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (ie. the writers) do not state it clearly owing to the ignorance of individuals’: you profess that the Son is cause of the Spirit; we do not deny it; what else do you want? But Cesarini was not satisfied, because the Greeks attributed these phrases to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit whereas the Latins wanted an unequivocal state- ment of their trinitarian doctrine. So no concord was reached. On 17 May the prelates met in the Patriarch’s palace (for Joseph was again ill) at the Emperor’s behest, but at the last minute John himself could not come as he was expecting a visit from some cary dinals. The Patriarch told them of what had gone on between the Emperor and the papal court and dissipated their gloom as best he could, counselling them to patience and confidence in their sovereign’s efforts. These, however, were not producing very encouraging results. On 21 May John went again to the Pope and later received in audience three cardinals who insisted once more on the necessity of a clear reply from the Greeks to their queries about the statement of union, but in vain, for the answer they got from John was: ‘We neither write nor say anything else, except that if you accept what we have given you we will unite; if not, we shall go home.’ The next day the cardinals came back again and on the same day, 22 May, the Patriarch received 1208 fl. as the allowance for two months for the ecclesiastics." Two days later, Whitsunday, the Pope invited the Emperor to visit him. John went after Vespers. Eugenius, however, had nothing new to say and only expressed his disappointment at the vacillation of the Greeks and their refusal to define their position more clearly. The Emperor explained the reasons: ‘What Your Holiness says is very just; we ought to make our statement clear. But the Orientals are not all of one mind about this. The majority of them have doubts about what you demand, either from ignorance of the subjects being discussed ot from inability suddenly to give up their traditional belief, for our fathers thought that the Latins asserted two subsistent causes of the Holy Spirit, and so they do not all easily accept this union because of the expression ‘From the Son’. So perforce we do as much as we find them disposed to. I am not the master of the Greek synod, nor do I want to use my authority to force it to any statement. So I cannot be of any help in what Your Holiness enjoins. At this the Pope asked John’s consent to address the Greek synod, and this was arranged for the following Wednesday. * Syt.y 1X, 25 p. 25%. 253THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE The meeting was a solemn occasion. Nine cardinals were present with the rest of the Latin Fathers, the whole of the Greek Church in Florence apart from the Patriarch, and larger numbers than usual of Latin notaries summoned especially by the Pope. The Emperor was not there.t His Holiness began by recounting his high hopes of a successful issue of this Council of union when he had noted the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of the Greeks, who had endured so many sacrifices to be present at it, then his growing disappointment as delay followed delay in Ferrara and as in Florence the discussions were abandoned, despite the exact provisions of the formal agree- ments. The Latins had deferred to the Greek desire for private meetings; these had been given up: they had even condescended to present a profession of their faith in writing; the Greeks had returned an ambiguous answer, which they were unwilling to clarify. ‘What am Ito say? I see division everywhere before my eyes and I wonder what use to you division will be. Still ifit shall be, how are the western princes going to look on it? And what grief will you yourselves have; indeed how are you going to return home? Union however once achieved, both the western princes and all of us will be greatly rejoiced and will provide generous help for you. And our aid will be a source of great alleviation to the Christians dwelling in the East and to those in the power of the infidel. I exhort you then, brethren, following the precept of Our Lord Jesus Christ, let there not be division in the Church of God, but be urgent, be vigilant, let us give glory to God together. Our union will produce abundant help to the soul; our union will give great honour to the body; our union will bring dismay to our enemies both corporeal and incorporeal; our union will cause rejoicing among the Saints and angels and gladness in heaven and on earth. The Pope’s words moved his hearers deeply. For the Greeks Isidore of Russia replied with a few words thanking him and pleading that as the issue was of the very highest importance time was needed for consideration, The Greeks, he said, had never been inactive in their efforts for union, but in discussions either public or private had been sttiving for it; it demanded time, however, and deep thought. After this meeting with the Latins the Greek prelates gave a full * J am taking the papal speech recorded in the A.L. p. 223 to refer to this same occasion, even though Andrew da S. Croce specifies the date as x June. Syr. (X, 1, p- 279) gives the gist of a discourse of the Pope in the midst of his account of the discussions on the Eucharist which took place a month or so later: J think he is con- fusing it with this speech of 27 May. 254THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT report to the Patriarch. He sent four of them, Isidore, Bessarion, Methodius of Lacedaemon and Dorotheus of Mitylene, to the Em- peror, who not only recounted to him the Pope’s speech but urged him strongly to action, going so far as to say that whether or not he wanted union they would unite with the Latins. John was rather overawed by their firm stand (which was the real beginning of the movement that ended in union) and as a result summoned a meeting of the Greek synod.' On Thursday of Whitweek therefore the prelates and clerics gathered in the Patriarch’s apartments. The Emperor spoke to them recalling that the whole purpose of their long journey to Italy had been to unite the Churches, yet after fifteen months there was no result. In this regard there were two possible disasters—to unite, but unrightfully; or to be divided, yet unjustly. They should remember too the plight of Constantinople and give such votes as would harm neither soul nor body, but beware lest they let slip an opportunity of achieving so great a good: whoever should impede this holy union would be execrated more than Judas the Traitor. When he had finished speaking he found that all approved of union in principle, but, says, Syropoulus, there was soon acrimonious argument on the value of ‘through’ and ‘from’, Ephesus being the centre of a stormy debate. Whereupon the Emperor imposed silence and limited the question at issue to the one point: Are the quotations from the Latin Fathers put forward by the Westerns genuine or spurious? Those, he said, who declare them spurious could speak their minds freely, but they should give a proof of their statements and produce the books in support. Isidore of Kiev (as the Greek Acts recount) spoke after the Emperor, arguing that the books of the Saints of the Latin Church should be read and harmonised because they are in fact harmonious, since the Saints always write in agrees ment with each other, seeing that the Holy Spirit speaks in them. This principle met with general consent and Bessarion, taking the cue, £ The account that follows is an attempt to combine the narratives of the Acta graeca, pp. 426-45 and of the Memoirs, 1x, 2, p. 251-16, p. 276—a hopeless undertaking really both because they differ so widely in spirit and because Syropoulus spreads over two weeks what the Acta bring within the compass of three days—in such a manner that the reader may know what part each authority contributes. What is not indicated as taken from Syropoulus should be attributed to the Acta. 255THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE proceeded to recite passages from some of the works of Cyril and Epiphanius where these Saints declared the Holy Spirit to be from. Father and Son, or from both, or to have his being from the Son, or to flow forth from him. Mitylene followed with quotations from Latin Fathers where they state clearly that the Father and the Son constitute one cause of the Holy Spirit and he proceeds from both. ‘Till now’, declared the Greeks, ‘we never knew the Latin Saints nor read them: now however we have come to know them, have read them and approve them.’ When the Emperor, therefore, bade them declare their opinions there was general agreement to accept the Latin Saints and their writings as genuine. Hardly (continues Syropoulus) had the pro-unionists finished deafening the audience with quotations than, without leaving time for consideration, demand was made that all should give their votes. After the first four or five had spoken the rest were bidden be concise, but Syropoulus, when his turn came, despite the Emperor’s im- patience embarked on a lengthy disquisition about the difficulty of finding criteria to judge of the authenticity even of well-known writings, let alone of works utterly unfamiliar. So, rendered dis- trustful by the episode of the interpolated copy of the Acts of the seventh Council that the Latins had put forward in Ferrara, he would accept only those Latin writings as genuine that were in agreement with the letter of St Maximus and the words of St Cyril, the rest he rejected as spurious. The general result was that all except four or five of the prelates accepted the genuineness of the Latin quotations while most of those who followed Syropoulus in the order of voting adhered to his opinion. That did not suit the Emperor’s book, so three days later he had recourse to a stratagem to close the mouths of the recalcitrant Staurophoroi. He announced in a meeting of the Greeks that for the future only those should vote in their assemblies who had the right of signing a decree of a Council. To settle who those were, though everyone already knew, the farce was enacted of consulting the Acts of the former Councils. Only bishops and 1 A. Warschauer, Ueber die Quellen 2ur Geschichte des Florentiner Concils (Paderborn, 1891), p. 11, accuses the Acta graeca of deliberate falsification in its account of the voting inthe private Greek sessions. Cf. J. Gill, “The “Acta” and the Memoirs of Syropoulus as History’, in O.C.P. x1v (1948), pp. 319f. for an examination of the charge. 256THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT atchimandrites subscribed to the Acts, so only bishops and archi- mandrites should give their opinions in the meetings. Thereupon the question of ‘through’ and ‘from’ was ventilated again, and when Antony of Heraclea wished to read out some passages touching on the topic, Gregory, the Emperor’s chaplain, bade him first anathema- tise Cabasilas and in this way silenced him with his sarcastic com ments. Two days later! there was another general meeting and another on the following day when all the old quarrels were renewed; two days afterwards there was still another when the Patriarch demanded to hear the words of the early Fathers, so on the following day Bessarion read out cunningly edited passages from St Cyril and Epiphanius after which the Empetor addressed the clerics.> Two days later there was still another gathering when all were asked to vote on the Filioque question. The Patriarch, pressed to speak first, murmured something so indistinct that he was thought to reject the doctrine. Of the bishops and the heads of monasteries ten were in favour and seventeen against. The Emperor was for having the senators vote, but the Patriarch opposed him. Then followed two days of canvassing, the Patriarch cajoling Ignatius of Tirnovo, Joasaph of Amasia, and Damianus of Moldo-Wallachia that in loyalty to himself who consecrated them they should vote with him (he failed, however, in a like attempt with Ephesus), Isidore winning Matthew of Melenicus, Dositheus of Drama,3 Callistus of Dristra with the blandishments of a good dinner, and the Emperor following similar tactics with other prelates and the envoys of Trebizond and of Moldo-Wallachia. In this fashion the way was prepared for a final vote which, says Syropoulus, took place on 2 June.* Syropoulus recounts that before the meeting there was a casual gathering in the Patriarch’s lodgings: J think that this refers to the incidents of 30 March; cf. above, Pe This speech is so like an earlier one of the Emperor that I think that it must be referred to the meeting after the sixth session on 19 March; cf. above, p. 212. 3 It was Drama who, reports Syropoulus elsewhere, accepted the Filloque ‘ provided the Holy Trinity remained unharmed”, <# The voting that Syropoulus puts on 2 June took place according to the Acta _gratca on. 30 May, supplemented on 3 June. Syropoulus, who very rately specifies a date, will have had some reason for stating this one. Probably some of the votes on this vital question were to be found in the archives at Constantinople, perhaps among them the Patriarch’s (Scholarius says it was preserved: Schol. 1, p. 194) which may have bome the date 2 June, That would not disprove the chronology of the Acta, for the "7 287 ocrTHE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE This long series of meetings, all connected with the question of the Latin texts, which culminated in the voting of 2 June, must, if Syropoulus’ chronology, vague though it be, is anything like correct, have started about the middle of May. That is not very likely because the narrative of the Acta, where the events are attached to a clearly stated and closely integrated series of days, dates and liturgical feasts, portrays the atmosphere of mid-May as one of despondency and discouragement with regard to union, with no gleam of hope to relieve it till after the Pope’s speech of 27 May. Then, according to the Acta, things moved quickly. On 28 May, as has been said, a general agreement was reached on the genuineness of the Latin writings. Friday the 29th was passed, both morning and afternoon, examining still further the doctrine of the Fathers, especially the oriental Fathers. On Saturday there was another meeting in the Patriarch’s palace when George Scholarius read out his judgement on the Filiogue.' It began by recalling that he had already in the exhortation he had delivered earlier to the Greek synod disclosed his opinion on the question:? that opinion he had since amplified in two carefully worked out treatises which he now offered for their perusal, the first a consideration of the nature of union and other kindred topics, the second a proof of the agreement of the Teachers based not on human argumentation buton the Scriptures and their own words,3 Patriarch’s vote could have been dated, after it was read out, later either by the Patriarch himself, or delivered later to the secretary, who added a date. The vote of Boullotes is extant, dated 3 June. V. Laurent, “La profession de foi de Manuel Tarchaniotés Boullotés au Coneile de Florence’, in Revue des Etudes Byzantines, x (1952), pp. 60-9. * Scholarius after Eugenicus’ death became the leader of the antivunionists in Con- stantinople and the first patriarch after the capture of that city by the Tucks. > CE pp. 242-4. 3 These two treatises are always printed as three under the headings: (1) On the Character of Religious Peace, that it should be 2 Dogmatic Union nota Peace of Expediency; (2) The Solving of the Difficukies that impede such a Peace; and (3) The Factors that will make for such a Peace (Schol. 1, pp. 306-723 P.G. 160, 405-524). Of these (1) and (2) go together to form the first treatise as Scholarius presented it. They are too long to recapitulate here: this is how Scholarius himself summed them up: ‘I advised you not even to take into consideration the method of expediency that some have in view, but I declared that it was essential to effect true union and community of doctrine, which I said was to accept a single opinion about the questions in dispute and to profess this also in the symbol of the faith, either by adding or by taking away according as the grace of God should indicate. Further, the reason for which some are disturbed and pessimistic about this union I showed to 258THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT which he was sure would convince any unprejudiced reader. Then, after submitting his judgement to the decision of the Greek synod, or rather to the Oecumenical Council then sitting, and protesting that as a layman he had no wish to usurp the functions of the clergy by speaking publicly on a doctrinal question—he did it only, he said, from respect for the Emperor’s wish—he solemnly declared that, as the Saints agreed in accepting the twofold Procession of the Holy Spirit yet as from one principle and without either making the Father and the Son two principles or confusing their Persons, so he professed and believed the same.? When he finished he went out and his hearers fell once again to studying the eastern Saints. The next written vote to be recorded is that of the Patriarch: Since we have heard the words of the Holy Fathers both western and castern, the former saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, the latter from the Father through the Son, even though ‘Through the Son’ is the same as ‘From the Son’ and ‘From the Son’ the same as ‘Through the Son’, still we, not using ‘From the Son’, say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son eternally and substantially, as from one principle and cause, the ‘Through? in that phrase meaning cause in this matter of the Procession of the Holy Spirits and he added to this acceptance of the Latin Fathers the proviso that the Greeks should not introduce the Filioque into their Creed, but would unite retaining all their ancient customs.” The Patriarch was followed by the Emperor who, as a layman, abstained from pronouncing on the dogmatic question. He confined his decision to a declaration that he accepted the present Council as Oecumenical no less than any of those that had gone before and that he considered that his position as Emperor imposed on him the duty of defending whatsoever should be sanctioned by it or its majority, since the Church cannot err in doctrine without rendering void the promise Our Lord made to St Peter.3 But as that is absurd, ‘there fore the Church of God must be infallible and we must follow its be utterly weak and reasonably conducive to anything but hindering you from union. Then Laddedehe factors that make for it, without dilating on them but for the most part just mentioning them, and these are, in a word, the union of the holy Scripeures and the Teachers of the Church’ (Schol. 1, pp. 371-2). * Text in A.G. pp. 428-31; Schol. 1, pp. 372-4. Syropoulus does not even mention that Scholarius gave any opinion at all. 2 Text in A.G. p. 4325 Syr. 1X, 9, p. 262 3 Cf Mare, xvi. 18. 259 12THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE decision, I especially who by God’s grace bear the imperial insignia, and hold and defend it, it being understood that the Latins do not compel us to make any addition to the holy Creed, or to change any of the customs of our Church’. Isidore spoke next approving of the Latin Saints and the doctrine of the Procession from Father and Son. Bessarion agreed, adding that that doctrine was necessary to salvation. Antony of Heraclea, Mark of Ephesus, Dositheus of Monembasia and Sophronius of Anchialus were all opposed: Dorotheus of Mitylene approved.? When all the prelates had delivered their judgements it appeared that in addition to Isidore, Bessarion, and Dorotheus, also Methodius of Lacedaemon, Nathanael of Rhodes, Callistus of Dristra, Gen- nadius of Ganos, Dositheus of Drama, Matthew of Melenicus, Gregory the procurator of Alexandria and the monk Pachomius were in favour of the Latin doctrine. ‘Later’, continues the narrative of the Greek Acts, ‘there were added to us Cyzicus (Metrophanes), Trebizond (Dorotheus) and Monembasia (Dositheus) the pro- curator of Jerusalem.’ Tuesday 2 June (so recount the Greek Acts) passed and on Wednesday, 3 June, there was another meeting in the apartments of the sick Patriarch, this time with the imperial courtiers, the philosophers, the Staurophoroi, the superiors of monasteries— and, in a word, with all the Greeks present. The Emperor addressed them. Most, he said, on the occasion when he had given his judge- ment after the Patriarch, and those the more notable, had pro- nounced in favour of the Latins and the equivalence of ‘through’ and ‘from’, and all had accepted the words of the Latin Fathers. As most had already delivered their decisions in writing, it was fitting now that the rest should declare their minds and that the voice of the majority should prevail. The Patriarch spoke first: I will never change or vary the doctrine handed down from our fathers but will abide in it till my last breath. But since the Latins, not of themselves but fiom the holy Scriptures, explain the Procession of the Holy Spirit as being also fiom the Son, I agree with them and I give my judgement that this ‘Through’ gives to the Son to be cause of the Holy Spirit. I both unite with them and am in communion with them. * Text in A.G. pp. 432-43 Syt. 1X, 10, pp. 264-5. 2 Text in A.G. pp. 434-6. 260THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT When the Patriarch finished speaking there was general accord that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son as from one principle and one substance, that he proceeds through the Son as of like nature and substance, that he proceeds from Father and Son as from one spiration and procession. It was on this day, 3 June, that the senator Boullotes gave his written vote: “After all the bishops and the Patriarch and, besides, the procurators ofthe other Patriarchs had accepted it (i.e. the Filioque, because the Saints equiparate “Through” and “From” and “Through” indicates cause), the senatorial courtiers were asked their views on this and on whether it was expedient that there should be union of the Churches.’ On the doctrinal question, however, he refused to speak; but on the political aspect of it he favoured union, thereby agreeing with the Emperor.’ George Amiroutzes probably on this same day also delivered a written vote thar recapitulates very briefly the Latin arguments, asserts that all the Greeks accepted the Latin writings as genuine, enunciates the principle that all the Saints must agree and concludes to the inevitability of the Latin doctrine? Mark Eugenicus in his brief account of his action in the Synod narrates that the Greeks on being interrogated about the Latin wtitings and the causality of the Son ‘replied that they had no doubt but that the writings were genuinely of the Fathers since the letter of Maximus assured them of this, but the majority utterly refused to attribute the cause of the Spirit to the Son’. However, he continues, the more audacious did not hesitate to call the Son cause and the Patriarch agreed. ‘But J, though I had with me my judgement and profession in writing,...when I saw them now rushing feverishly towards union and those who earlier had supported me now falling into their arms, as they forgot about the written judgements, I kept mine back so as not to provoke them....’3 His judgement is, hows ever, preserved and is, of course, a refusal to accept either the Latin texts or the Latin doctrine.* + So there is no doubt that the Greek Acts do not exaggerate in * V. Laurent, op. cit. Text and translation pp. 68-9. * Text in G. Hofmann, Orientalivm opera minora, pp. 36-93 cf. quotation above . 231. 3 Relatio de rebus a se gestis, in Petit, Docs. p. 448. + Confessio fidei, ibid. pp. 435-42. 261