Table Of ContentP E R S O N A L I T I E S O F T H E
C O U N C I L O F F L O R E N C E
and other Essays.
by
J o s e p h G i l l , S . J .
(Professor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome)
O X F O R D
B A S I L B L A C K W E L L
19 64
© Basil Blackwell 1964
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY A. T. BROOME AND SON, 18 ST. CLEMENTS' , OXFORD
AND BOUND BY THE KEMP HALL BINDERY, OXFORD
PREFACE
A general history of the Council of Florence was provided by
my The Council of Florence} which, if I may believe my critics
(and I must admit that I am very pleased to do so), was an excellent
account, fully documented and well balanced. But one book does
not exhaust a subject. A history rests on a foundation of documents
which need careful examination and comparison before the author
can assess their worth, and his judgement of their value will decide
his choice of sources and govern the story he will tell. The actors
in the historical drama, even the leading characters, tend to be
seen only piecemeal in a lengthy narrative. Others do not occupy
the stage long enough to make themselves really known. Yet all
were men whose lives helped to shape the destinies of nations and
who merit to be studied for their own sakes. Questions raised in
debate are spread out over many pages or involve consequences
that the documents do not record but which interest the student.
They all deserve a closer examination either to trace more concisely
a line of argument or to define more exactly the extent of agree-
ment or disagreement between the contending parties.
Each of these topics can form the subject of an interesting
essay, and in the course of the last fifteen years or so I have
written on many of them. My object in some of those studies was
to explore the ground before embarking on the edition of the
Greek Acts of the Council of Florence that I published in 1953,
and to assess the historical value of that primary source of know-
ledge by comparing it with other similar documents of the same
period. My judgement on that question determined which should
be my chief instrument for the general history of the council that
I wrote later. Others of the essays had the purpose of bringing into
relief certain theological or historical questions that are subjects of
controversy to-day. The rest are 'lives' of eight of the chief
'personalities of the Council of Florence', written without much
parade of learning, because most of them were first printed in a
periodical of a popular, rather than of a highly scholarly, appeal,
but neglecting none of the latest findings of scholarship, supple-
mented by some little research of my own.
1
Cambridge University Press, 1959: second impression 1961.
IV PREFACE
These studies, historical and theological, are presented to the
reader in this volume. Most of them have appeared in print before.
Three of them are new, written for this occasion, but on topics
that would sooner or later have called forth an article, since they
needed comment or elucidation. Inevitably, since these studies
and The Council of Florence deal largely with the same facts, there
will be a certain amount of repetition between them and the book,
but the minimum repetition of events only, not of treatment; or
perhaps the history contains in a paragraph or two the conclusions
arrived at in a reasoned and documented essay of fifteen or twenty
pages (e.g. The Cost of the Council of Florence, in O.C.P. XXII
(1956), pp. 299-318, provided the conclusions summarized in one
and a half pages (pp. 174-6) of the history). A similar kind of
repetition will be found between some of the studies, but rarely,
because these for the most part deal with separate and distinct
subjects.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to the editors of the various
periodicals who have so generously given me permission to repro-
duce articles that they had published—of The Month for no. 1; of
Orient alia Christiana Periodica for nos. 2, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 18; of
Unitas (English edition) for nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; of Studi
bizantini e neoellenici for no. 9; of The Journal of Ecclesiastical
History for no. 15; of Byzantinische Zeitschrift for no. 17; of The
Heythrop Journal for no. 20; and to the general editor of the
volume of essays, Le Concile et les Conciles (Chevetogne-Paris,
1960) for no. 19. Nos. 13, 16, 21 and the appendix added to no. 20
are new and appear for the first time here.
Joseph Gill, S J .
CONTENTS
1 The Council of Florence. A Suces that Failed 1
2 Joseph I, Patriarch of Constantinople 15
3 Pope Eugenius IV 35
4 Cardinal Besarion 45
5 Mark Eugenicus, Metropolitan of Ephesus 55
6 Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev and Al Russia 65
7 George Scholarius 79
8 Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini 95
9 John VIII Palaeologus. A Character Study 104
10 The Printed Editions of the Practica of the Council of
Florence 125
11 The Sources of the 'Acta' of the Council of Florence 131
12 The 'Acta' and the Memoirs of Syropoulus as History 144
13 Syropoulus in Venice • 178
14 The Cost of the Council of Florence 186
15 A Tractate about the Council of Florence attributed
to George Amiroutzes 204
16 The Condemnation of the Council of Florence by the
Three Oriental Patriarchs in 1443 213
VI CONTENTS
17 The Year of the Death of Mark Eugenicus 222
18 Greeks and Latins in a Common Council 233
19 Agreement on the Filioque 254
20 The Definition of the Primacy of the Pope in the
Council of Florence 264
21 Two Prejudices Dispeled 286
ABBREVIATIONS
A.C.A. Ada earnerae apostolicae et civitatum Venetiarum,
Ferrariae, Florentiae, Ianuae, de Concilio Florentino,
ed. G. HOFMANN (Romae, 1950)
A.G. Quae super stint actorum graecorum Concilii Floren-
tini, ed. J. GILL (Romae, 1953)
A.L. Andreas de Santacroce, advocatus consistorialis:
Ada latina Concilii Florentini, ed. G. HOFMANN
(Romae, 1955)
CECCONI E. CECCONI, Studi storici sul Concilio di Firenze,
vol. I (Firenze, 1896)
E.O. Echos £ Orient
E.P. Epistolae pontificiae ad Concilium Florentinum spec-
tantes, 3 vols., ed. G. HOFMANN (Romae, 1940-6)
JORGA N. Jorga, Notes et extraits pour servir a Vhistoire des
Croisades au XVe siecle, vols. I—III (Paris, 1899-
1902)
LAMBROS S. LAMBROS, FlaXaioXoyeia KCLI /7eAo7rov]^crta/<:a,
4 vols. (Athens, 1912-30)
MANSI Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio,
ed. G. D. MANSI
M.C. Monument a Conciliorum generalium saec. XV,
(Vindobonae, 1857-86)
MURATORI Raccolta degli storici italiani, ed. L. A. MURATORI
(2nd edit.)
O.C. Orient alia Christiana
O.C.P. Orientalia Christiana Periodica
PETIT, DOCS. Documents relatifs au Concile de Florence. I: La
question du Purgatoire a Ferr are; II : Oeuvres
anticonciliaires de Marc d'JEphese, ed. L. PETIT,
published in one volume from Patrologia orientalisy
XV, pp. 1-168; XVII, pp. 309-524
Vlll ABBREVIATIONS
P.G. MIGNE, Patrologia graeca
PHRANTZES G. PHRANTZES, Chronicon, ed. I. B. PAPADOPOULOS,
vol. I (Lipsiae, 1935)
P.L. MIGNE, Patrologia latina
RAYNALDUS Annales ecclesiasticae, ed. O. RAYNALDUS
R.E.B. Revue des JEtudes Byzantines
SCHOL. Oeuvres completes de Gennade Scholarios. 8 vols.
ed. L. PETIT, X. A. SIDERIDES, M. JUGIE (Paris,
1928-36)
SYR. S. SYROPOULUS, Memoirs, ed. R. CREYGHTON under
the title Vera historia unionis non verae, (Hagae-
Comitis, 1660)
TRAV. A. TRAVERSARI, Ambrosii Traversari . . . latinae
epistolae etc. ed. L. MEHUS (Firenze, 1759)
CHAPTER ONE
THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE (1438-9)
A SUCCESS THAT FAILED
The Council of Florence is memorable chiefly for the fact that
it brought to an end—unfortunately only for a short time—the
division that for several centuries had reigned between eastern and
western Christendom. Even in the earlier period of Church
history relations between the ecclesiastically-superior Old Rome
and the politically-superior New Rome (Constantinople) had often
been strained. In the latter half of the ninth century there
occurred the Photian Schism, which did not indeed last for long,
but which was a severe blow to the peace of the Church and was
never forgotten. The Cerularean Schism of the middle of the
eleventh century was another, but not yet final, shock to ecclesias-
tical unity. The break between East and West, the Great Schism,
drifted into being in the course of the next hundred years or so,
due more than anything else to mutual ignorance, contempt and
a lack of means of communication—mental more than physical.
The crusaders might have knit the two Churches together. In
fact they widened the breach, for Constantinople viewed with
alarm masses of undisciplined soldiers and hangers-on at large in
the neighbourhood and was loth to sacrifice the understanding it
had with its immediate enemy, the Turk, for the prospect of a
problematical victory of western arms. Besides, the crusading
knights had more motives than devotion to the Holy Places. They
had, too, territorial ambitions, which did not respect the areas that
Constantinople claimed as traditionally its own. Challenged by
the emperors and without the help that they believed they could
reasonably expect from the eastern Christians, the crusaders
spread abroad in the Latin world the idea that Byzantium was
both treacherous and hostile. The climax came with the fourth
crusade that, instead of attacking the infidel, attacked Constan-
tinople to replace on his throne the deposed emperor, Angelus
Comnenus, and when he could not fulfil the conditions previously
agreed to, the crusaders captured and cruelly ravaged the city
and set up a Latin empire with a Latin emperor (1204).
B
