How Difficulties in Transmitting the Texts of Basil’s Adversus Eunomium 3.1 and Maximus’ Letter to Marinus Led to the Rise and Fall of Ferrara-Florence

How Difficulties in Transmitting the Texts of Basil’s Adversus Eunomium 3.1 and Maximus’ Letter to Marinus Led to the Rise and Fall of Ferrara-Florence

Jacob N. Van Sickle

Introduction

The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how issues of textual transmission stymied productive discussion at Ferrara-Florence on the doctrine of the filioque and led to a schism within the Greek delegation, which resulted in the signing of a formula of reunion destined to fail. Were it not for the inability of those at the council to assess properly the texts in question due to the state of their transmission, there would likely have been no union, and thus the aftermath of the council—a divisive controversy in the East and a sense of betrayal and embitterment in the West—might have been avoided. The essay will conclude by demonstrating how recent discoveries in the field of textual criticism have put us in a position to reengage the issue more productively than the churches have been able in the past.

In the middle of the fifteenth century, the last great effort to reconcile the churches of East and West was made in Florence, Italy. A council was called at the behest of the eastern Roman Emperor John VIII Paleologos. Pope Eugene IV agreed to host a delegation of approximately 700 Greeks¹ in what would have been, by the East’s reckoning, the eighth ecumenical council, and was for the West its seventeenth. The two sides met for nine months in Ferrara before an outbreak of plague forced them to move the council to Florence where they continued for another five.² Jaroslav Pelikan has said of the council, “At no time before or since have the doctrinal differences between the East and the West been discussed as thoroughly as they were in the debates … surrounding the Council of Florence.”³

Issues discussed included the teaching of purgatory, the use of leavened versus unleavened bread at the Lord’s Supper, the papal monarchy, and most especially the Latin doctrine of the filioque. The principal Greek theologians at the council were Mark Eugenicus, bishop of Ephesus and official legate of the Patriarch of Alexandria, and Basil Bessarion, Metropolitan of Nicaea and eventual Latin Patriarch of Constantinople.⁴ On the Latin side were John of Montenero, Lombard provincial of the Dominican order and principal exponent of the filioque, and Cardinal Julian Cesarini, leader of the Latin commission.

Though considerable time was spent debating the meaning of words and constructing syllogistic arguments, ultimately these endeavors yielded little fruit. The one issue on which a (not quite complete) agreement was reached was decided mainly by appeal to the weight of patristic authority. The holy fathers, it was believed by both parties (though the Greeks held to this more exclusively than did the Latins), were the undisputed interpreters of divine truth, directed as they were by the Holy Spirit. If a consensus patrum could be established, the matter was deemed settled.⁵ Early in the filioque discussions, a course was plotted toward establishing just such a consensus. Complicating any use of the fathers, however, then as now, are the difficulties in establishing a reliable text. In the course of the discussions and ultimate resolution of the Council of Florence, textual problems surrounding two crucial texts—St. Basil of Caesarea’s Adversus Eunomius, book 3 and St. Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus—served to create a false consensus patrum and contributed to a bitter end to the council despite its apparent initial success.

¹ Including Russian and other Slavic Orthodox representatives.

² The Latins had officially convened the council in Ferrara before the arrival of the Greeks in order to take care of matters internal to the Church of Rome.

³ Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 2, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 280.

⁴ Another leading “unionist” who does not feature highly in this account but was integral to the council nonetheless was George Scholarius, a lay advisor to the emperor who later in life came to oppose union and became Patriarch of Constantinople, taking the name Gennadius.

⁵ So one Greek representative, after a long session of disputation, remarked, “Why Aristotle, Aristotle? Aristotle is no good….What is good? St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Chrysostom—not Aristotle, Aristotle!” Sylvester Syropoulous, Memoirs, ed. V. Laurent, Les mémoires du grand ecclésiarque de l’Église de Constantinople Sylvestre Syropoulos sur le Concile de Florence (1438-1439), Concilium Florentinum documenta et scriptores, ser. B, vol. 9 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1971), 464; cited as Memoirs.

Basil’s Adversus Eunomium 3.1

Four whole sessions⁶ of the council were devoted to the right understanding of Basil’s Adversus Eunomium.⁷ Early in the debate it was discovered that there were significant textual variants at a crucial place in the text. In book 3, section 1, a passage appealed to by the Latins differed markedly from the version that the Greeks were using. Below are the two variants as they reach us in the manuscript tradition.⁸ I present the texts based on existing witnesses as opposed to the council record⁹ for two reasons. First, none of the manuscripts collated by modern editors agree in detail with the quotations from the council record, while four manuscripts dating from before the council have been found to agree on the “Latin” reading offered here. Three of these currently reside in Italy,¹⁰ at least one of which we know was actually present at the council.¹¹ Second, the quotations in the council record, which were likely written from memory rather than real-time dictation and were almost certainly based on a hearing of the texts as they were read in council rather than directly copied, do agree with the manuscripts on the essential points. This would have been all the precision needed for their purposes. It seems certain, therefore, that the readings upon which discussion at the council actually turned were what we have in our manuscripts. Here they are in parallel, followed by translations¹² of each. Differences are in bold.

“Latin” text:

Ἀξιώματι μὲν γὰρ δεύτερον τοῦ υἱοῦ, παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὸ εἶναι ἔχον καὶ παρ’ αὐτοῦ λαμβάνον καὶ ἀναγγέλλον ἡμῖν, καὶ ὅλως τῆς αἰτίας ἐκείνης ἐξημμένον παραδίδωσιν ὁ τῆς εὐσεβείας λόγος...

(…) οὕτω δηλονότι καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, εἰ καὶ ὑποβέβηκε τὸν υἱὸν τῇ τάξει καὶ τῷ ἀξιώματι

οὐκέτ’ ἂν εἰκότως...

The word of piety transmits that he is second to the Son in dignity, having his being from him and receiving from him and announcing to us and being completely dependent upon him as cause…

(…) Likewise, it is clear that, even if the Holy Spirit is

below the Son in both rank and dignity—let us make this supposition—it is still not likely…

below the Son in both rank and dignity,

it is still not likely…

“Greek” text:

Ἀξιώματι μὲν γὰρ δευτερεύειν τοῦ υἱοῦ

παραδίδωσιν ἴσως ὁ τῆς εὐσεβείας λόγος...

(…) οὕτω δηλονότι καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, εἰ καὶ ὑποβέβηκε τὸν υἱὸν τῇ τε τάξει καὶ τῷ ἀξιώματι—ἵνα ὅλως συγχωρήσωμεν—οὐκέτ’ ἂν εἰκότως...

Perhaps the word of piety transmits that he is second to the Son in dignity...

(…) Likewise, it is clear that, even if the Holy Spirit is

Two important issues are at play here. The one concerns whether the Holy Spirit has his being from the Son. The other is whether Basil actually agrees with Eunomius that the Spirit is “below the Son in both rank and dignity.” According to the reading of the Latins’ manuscripts, Basil clearly teaches that the Son acts as a “cause” of the Holy Spirit. The crucial word is αἰτία, which the Greeks insisted applies only to the Father and not the Son. The text of the Latins also indicates that Basil was in agreement with Eunomius on the question of dignity, while the Greeks’ text suggests the opposite.

The clarity with which the Latins’ version of the passage speaks on these issues allowed them to interpret through its lens the rest of Basil’s corpus, which as we might expect is far from precise on an issue that arose some three centuries after his death. Here is manifest the long-standing practice, dating to the classical era, of “interpreting Homer by Homer.” Passages that are less clear are understood in the terms of passages by that same author, which are more so. Therefore, by the reading of the Latins’ text, every ambiguous statement of Basil that might be turned to the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit was read in support of the filioque doctrine on the basis of this one clear statement.¹³ This line of thinking worked also in another way. Since, it was held, all the holy fathers, Greek and Latin, were inspired by one and the same Spirit, they constitute a “symphony of saints” in which harmony is guaranteed. If the Latin fathers taught explicitly the procession of the Spirit from Father and Son while the Greeks have been unclear, the Latins must be used to read the Greeks.¹⁴ The scandalous suggestion of some that the Latin fathers (who as a rule were held in high esteem in the East, if they were seldom read) might all have been in error on this point while the Greek fathers preserved the truth of the matter is disproven by the text of Basil’s Adversus Eunomius at issue—if it was accepted as genuine.

To this question we now turn. It is a somewhat misleading convention of scholarship to refer to the two conflicting variants as the “Greek” and the “Latin” texts. First, this language leaves the impression that the issue was with a translated Latin version, which as we have seen was not the case. Both readings were found in Greek manuscripts at the council. Moreover, it is not the case that the “Latin” text was found exclusively in manuscripts brought to the council by the Latins while the Greek text was the version brought by the Greeks. This is the impression one is left with when reading the Greek Acts, which give no detailed account of the individual codices at the council and suggest that the lone manuscript of the Latins bore the whole weight of their reading. They also record Mark of Ephesus’ response to the discrepancy: there are, to his knowledge, a handful of manuscripts in Constantinople that agree with the text that the Latins have brought forth, but there are “thousands” more, the oldest included, which do not.¹⁵ He ventures that the copy of the Latins has been tampered with in order to substantiate the filioque. However, one biased source must be balanced by another. Writing less than a decade after the council, the Greek representative Bessarion (now a Roman Catholic Cardinal) recounts that

At first, in the course of the conciliar deliberations were presented five, rather six books, four of which were made of parchment and were very old, while two were made of paper. Three of them belonged to the archbishop of Mitylene while the fourth belonged to the Latins. As for the paper ones, the first belonged to our mighty emperor and the second to the holy patriarch… Of these six, five contained the [pro-filioque reading]… Only one manuscript—that is the one that belonged to the Patriarch—was different.¹⁶

Given such lopsided testimony, it is no wonder that virtually all of the Greek representatives eventually capitulated and signed off on the Latin statement of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Only the bishop of Ephesus withheld his mark. The weight of the external evidence was pressing: five manuscripts, some of which were centuries old, against one.17 However, Mark of Ephesus was not deterred. He rested his case upon the internal evidence. He was able to produce a slew of passages from Basil that he argued were at odds with the “Latin” reading of the contested passage. It is not possible, he determined, that Basil could have written those words.¹⁸ So confident was Mark of Ephesus in his knowledge of the fathers that, when pressed to state positively which writings he accepted (for there were several others he contested), he declared: “I receive as authentic only those texts that are in accord with the letter of the divine Maximus and the writings of St. Cyril. All those that are contrary I reject as false.”¹⁹ He here staked out what he considered the “clear” texts of the fathers by which the others were to be interpreted.

Such an argument from internal evidence did not fall on deaf ears. Indeed, the venerable but expiring Patriarch Joseph, present at the council and desirous of seeing the fruition of his efforts before he died, is reported to have held private conferences with each of the Greek representatives, after all arguments had been exhausted, in order to make a similar appeal. “Why do you not listen to me?” he pleads, “Why did you not second my opinion? Think you, then, that you can judge better than others about dogmas? I know as well as anybody else what the fathers taught.”²⁰ The issue, of course, was authority. All agreed that authority rested with the holy fathers, but by what authority was it determined what the fathers had actually written, given the uncertainty of textual transmission? Mark of Ephesus’ answer and, it would seem, Joseph’s is whoever knows them best.²¹

Mark has been vindicated in his assessment of the controversial variant of Basil by modern scholarship, though his charge that the Latins were responsible for the addition was off.²² They were acting in good faith. The pro-filioque reading is known to be a very early and well-attested interpolation from, of all things, a Eunomian source.²³ The addition was accomplished by a Greek hand probably in the seventh century,²⁴ well before the outbreak of the filioque controversy of the ninth century, but during the age of Maximus when, as we will see, the issue was just beginning to crop up.

⁶ March 7, 10, 11, and 14 of 1439. A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 156.

⁷ Adversus Eunomium was completed in 364/365; it is a refutation of Enomius’ Liber Apologeticus, wherein Eunomius defends his Heteroousian theology (holding that the Son and the Spirit are not of the same essence as the Father). For more on this work and its historical setting, see the very helpful introduction in Mark DelCogliano and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, trans., St. Basil of Caesarea: Against Eunomius, FC 122 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 3–78.

⁸ I am following the reproduction of M. G. de Durand, O. P., “Un passage du IIIe livre Contre Eunome de S Basile dans la tradition manuscrite,” Irénikon 54, no. 1 (1981): 37. The texts may also be reconstructed on the basis of the critical edition: Bernard Sesboüé, S. J. et al., eds., Basile de Césarée: Contre Eunome: suivi de Eunome Apologie, vol. 2, SC 305 (Paris: du Cerf, 1983), 146, where E, L, M, and N are representatives of the “Latin” text, and the “Greek” reading is substantially that presented by the editors as the authentic text of Basil.

⁹ This was done by Joseph Gill, ed. and trans., Quae supersunt actorum Graecorum Concilii Florentini: Res Florentiae gestae, Concilium Florentinum documenta et scriptores ser. B, vol. 5 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1953), 262. Cited as Acta Graeca.

¹⁰ See Paul J. Fedwick, Bibliotheca Basiliana Universalis: A Study of the Manuscript Tradition of the Works of Basil of Caesarea, vol. 3 (Brepols: Turnhout, 1997), 629.

¹¹ The manuscript is Venetus Marcianus 58. See Bernard Sesboüé et al., eds., Basile de Césarée: Contre Eunome: suivi de Eunome Apologie, vol. 1, SC 299 (Paris: du Cerf, 1982), 106.

¹² English translation of the “Greek” version is from DelCogliano and Radde-Gallwitz, Against Eunomius, 186; differences in the “Latin” version are based on the translation in Siecienski, Filioque, 157.

¹³ For a list of the considerable number of Basilian proof-texts offered by the Latins at the council, see Alexander Alexakis, “The Greek Patristic Testimonia Presented at the Council of Florence (1439) in Support of the Filioque Reconsidered,” Revue des études byzantines 58 (2000): 155.

¹⁴ This was the argument by which Metropolitan Basil Bessarion swayed the majority of the Greek delegation toward union. See Siecienski, Filioque, 162–163.

¹⁵ Acta Graeca, 296.

¹⁶ Bessarion goes on to contradict the statement of Mark of Ephesus regarding the manuscripts in Constantinople: “After the conclusion of the Holy Synod,” he writes, “and our return to Constantinople, I examined almost all the books of those holy monasteries. And I discovered that all those more recent ones that were written after the controversy had the sentence abridged, while those written in an older hand/script before the outbreak of the fight among us had remained intact and complete.” Basilios Bessarion, De Spiritus Sancti processione ad Alexium Lascarin Philanthropinum, ed. Emmanuel Candal, Concilium Florentinum documenta et scriptores, ser. B, vol. 7, fasc. 2 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1961), 6–8; translated in Alexakis, “Greek Patristic Testimonia,” 158.

¹⁷ The Greek Acts are in disagreement with Bessarion about the age of the manuscript Mark of Ephesus used. Bessarion recalls that it was a paper codex which would suggest a recent date given the low durability of paper. According to Mark of Ephesus’ statement in the Acts, his manuscript was very ancient. Acta Graeca, 296.

¹⁸ See Siecienski, Filioque, 158, and Alexakis, “Greek Patristic Testimonia,” 157.

¹⁹ Memoirs, 440–442.

²⁰ Ibid., 450–52. Translation from Ivan N. Ostroumoff, History of the Council of Florence, trans. Basil Popoff (Boston: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1971), 136.

²¹ Ironically, in this they are in agreement with a certain modern school of thought in the field of textual criticism represented, among others, by R. G. M. Nisbet, “How Textual Conjectures are Made,” Materiali e discussion per l’analisi dei testi classici 26 (1991): 65–91.

²² In fact, though Mark of Ephesus wrongly averred wholesale corruption of the Latin fathers, almost every passage of Greek provenance that he contested at the council has been found spurious by modern critics. See, for instance, Siecienski, Filioque, 281–282n52; Alexakis, “Greek Patristic Testimonia,” 156, 160–161; John Erickson, “Filioque and the Fathers at the Council of Florence,” in The Challenge of Our Past: Studies in Orthodox Canon Law and Church History (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991), 160–162.

²³ So argues M. van Parys, “Quelques remarques à propos d’un texte controversé de Saint Basile au concile de Florence,” Irénikon 40 (1967): 12–14. His conclusion has not been challenged to my knowledge.

²⁴ For this conclusion, see Alexakis, “Greek Patristic Testimonia,” 163.

Maximus’ Letter to Marinus

The case of the Letter to Marinus,²⁵ one of the texts upon which Mark of Ephesus staked his position, is considerably simpler than that of the Adversus Eunomius, but it is perhaps even more critical to the course and aftermath of the council. Siecienski has translated the letter’s crucial paragraph, which I have truncated:

Therefore the men of the queen of cities²⁶ attacked the synodal letter of the present most holy Pope [in two of its chapters]. One relates to the theology and makes the statement that, “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.” …In the first place they produced the unanimous evidence of the Roman Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria….From this they showed that they themselves do not make the Son the cause of the Spirit, for they know that the Father is the one cause (αἰτία) of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession, but they show the progression through him and thus the unity of the essence….At your request, I asked the Romans to translate what is unique to them in order to avoid such obscurities. But [for various reasons] I do not know if they will comply. Especially, they might not be able to express their thought with the same exactness in another language as they might in their mother tongue, just as we could not do.²⁷

It is likely that the Greek contingent brought this letter with them to the council hoping that by its terms union could be achieved. By it, the doctrine of the filioque would be accepted, but it would be understood not to make the hypostasis of the

Son in any way a “source” or “cause” of the Spirit.²⁸ The Latin contingent was of two minds concerning the Letter. One of their group, Andrew of Rhodes, advanced it during the early discussion of the liceity of making an addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in order to argue that the addition of “filioque” to the Latin Creed occurred before the schism (by the time of Maximus) and thus was not reason to remain separate.²⁹ However, this proved to be a double-edged sword, because the greater portion of the Latin representation was not willing to reduce their doctrine to the terms expressed in the letter. When presented with the testimony of the letter from the Latin side, the Greeks jumped at the opportunity to offer union on its basis: “If this letter is accepted gladly on your part,” so they are reported to have said, “the union will happily proceed.”³⁰ At this the Latin delegation chastened Andrew and denied their willingness to admit the letter for any purpose on the grounds that it was “not found to be complete.”³¹

Twice more, in the course of debates over the orthodoxy of the filioque, during which it appeared to the Greeks at times that the Latins were saying substantively the same things as the letter,³² they offered the wording of the Letter to Marinus as a  formula for union (irrespective of whatever inherent authority it might have). They were rebuffed on both occasions. Eventually the Greek camp itself split over the letter. When the Latins offered what they believed to be a compromise formula, the Greeks split over the interpretation of Maximus: did the Latin formula accord with the letter or did it not? When Mark of Ephesus contested that the letter in fact contradicted the Latin formula, Bessarion responded by refusing to recognize its authenticity. He was willing to use the letter as an expedient formula for reunion, but doubts about its authenticity, to which he gave credence, prevented it from holding any authority to determine the question.

Why was the Letter to Marinus considered dubious by the majority of the council? And why was Mark of Ephesus in contrast so attached to its authenticity? Two reasons are given for suspicion in the sources. The first, which we have already seen, is that the letter is incomplete. The second, voiced by Bessarion, is that “it was not found in the ancient codices nor discovered among his works.”³³ Both of these complaints point to the same reality: the letter was not well established in the manuscript tradition. At a time when all books were handwritten and no two were identical, great stock was placed in the “established form” of a codex, especially of important works regarded as authorities. This was done specifically to prevent forgeries. The letters of a father like Basil, for instance, would be collected (in this case even before Basil’s death) and “published” as a volume, a single codex. Copies would then be made of the collection, and an established text of the letters would come into being. A letter was therefore likely to be authentic when it was found in such an established collection, in its established place in the order, and this could be verified by comparison with other copies of the same collection. If a letter bearing Basil’s name was found in any other context, and it could not be traced to the established collection, this was grounds for suspecting its authenticity. Thus, established collections, especially of shorter works like letters, were one of the few means of guaranteeing the authenticity of a document.

Likewise, if a document was incomplete, this too was grounds for suspicion. It would be rare for an incomplete work to be “published,” that is, to have been placed in a collection for reproduction and dissemination by reputable agents. Therefore, it is likely to have arisen in an unorthodox manner, the way forgeries typically would. An unfinished work might be the legitimate result of a damaged manuscript, but then, if it was part of an established collection, there should be other complete manuscripts around at the time of the damage by which to complete it. When every copy of the work to be found is incomplete, a red flag is rightly raised.

For all these considerations, then, there was good external evidence for suspecting the Letter to Marinus as a forgery. However, as in the case of Adversus Eunomius, Mark of Ephesus based his judgment of the letter on internal evidence. Because he read in it what he understood to be an authentic summary of Maximian and, based on his conviction of the harmonia patrum, patristic teaching generally on the procession of the Spirit, he maintained, despite external evidence to the contrary, the authenticity of the letter so strenuously as to make it the benchmark of orthodoxy and test of all other patristic writings.³⁴ For the Latins, whose theological training led them to read in Maximus at best a dubious account of the filioque, there could be no question of recognizing internal evidence in its favor; they rejected it in good faith and for legitimate reasons.

The irony is that the authenticity of the Letter to Marinus is now widely upheld precisely on the basis of internal evidence.³⁵ Two independent studies of the language and style of the letter by Polycarp Sherwood and Alexander Alexakis have disproven the earlier consensus theory of a ninth-century fabrication.³⁶ Both consider the letter authentic. The level of consensus in 1995 was such that the Vatican’s statement of that year, “The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit,” felt free to quote extensively from the letter as the testimony of Maximus and even made it the centerpiece for relating the Eastern and Western traditions.³⁷ Very recently Edward Siecienski, as a result of his dissertation research, has argued meticulously and convincingly that the letter is genuine based on its consistency with Maximus’ thought and method,³⁸ much the reason that Mark of Ephesus formed his own like opinion.

²⁵ Opusculum 10 (PG 91.133a–137c). There is no complete English translation. In French, see Emmanuel Ponsoye, trans., Opuscules Théologiques et Polémiques, Sagesses chrétiennes (Paris: du Cerf, 1998), 181–184. The Letter is a reply to the presbyter Marinus’ questions concerning a synodal letter of Pope Martin I that was causing a stir in Constantinople.

²⁶ That is, Constantinople.

²⁷ Opusculum 10 (PG 91.136); translated in A. E. Siecienski, “The Authenticity of Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus: The Argument from Theological Consistency,” Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007): 189–190n1.

²⁸ Hans-Jürgen Marx, Filioque und Verbot eines anderen Glaubens auf dem Florentinum (Sankt Augustin: Steyler Verlag, 1977), 122; cited in Siecienski, Filioque, 280n25.

²⁹ Memoirs, 334.

³⁰ Memoirs, 336; translated in Siecienski, Filioque, 154.

³¹ Ibid.

³² The Latin spokesman Montenero, in response to Mark of Ephesus’ presentation of the Greek patristic witness on the matter, had declared, “We follow the apostolic see and affirm one cause of the Son and the Spirit, the Father….It does not confess two principles or two causes but one principle and one cause. We anathematize all those who assert two principles or two causes,” and he provided the Greeks with a written statement to the same effect. Acta Graeca, 390–393; translated in Siecienski, Filioque, 159.

³³ Basilios Bessarion, Oratio dogmatic de unione, ed. Emmanuel Candal, Concilium Florentium documenta et scriptores, ser. B, vol. 7, fasc. 1 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1958), 43; translated in Siecienski, Filioque, 164.

³⁴ So he says in council, “I will admit as authentic all the citations from the Western saints in the measure that they are in accord with the Letter of St. Maximus to Marinus. All that are divergent from it I will not accept.” Memoirs, 8.6; translated in A. Edward Siecienski, “The Use of Maximus the Confessor’s Writing on the Filioque at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439)” (PhD diss., Fordham University, 2005), 171n33.

³⁵ We await a comprehensive study of the manuscript tradition of Maximus’ works which would allow for a thoroughgoing analysis of the transmission of the letter.

³⁶ Polycarp Sherwood, An Annotated Date List of the Works of St. Maximus the Confessor (Rome: Herder, 1952), 54, and Alexander Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and Its Archetypes (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996), 76.

³⁷ The authorized English translation can be found in Catholic International 7 (1996): 36–43.

³⁸ Siecienski, “Authenticity,” 189–227.

The Fallout

The evidence in favor of the “Latin” reading of Basil’s Adversus Eunomium at the council, which we have seen was considerable, was great enough to secure its admission by the majority of the Greek delegation. Therefore the Latins were able to provide what seemed to be a clear acknowledgment on the part of a Greek Father of the doctrine of the filioque. The Greeks had only two of their fathers whom they could cite in direct opposition to the notion that the Son was a cause (αἰτία) of the Spirit: Maximus in his Letter to Marinus and John of Damascus in his On the Orthodox Faith.³⁹ Given the issues discussed concerning the letter, it was thrown out, and all that was left against union was John of Damascus, who seemed now to stand against the entire weight of patristic authority. When the Latins presented their case, laced with proof-text after proof-text from scripture and the fathers, the effect was overwhelming. Bessarion reports:

It was not the syllogisms or the cogency of proofs or the force of arguments that led me to believe [as the Latins], but the plain words of the doctors. For when I saw and heard them, straightway I put aside all contention and controversy and yielded to the authority of those whose words they were, even though till then I had been not a little active in opposition. For I judged that the holy fathers, speaking as they did in the Holy Spirit, could not have departed from the truth.⁴⁰

The statements of the Greek fathers, oblivious as they were to the issue upon which they were now summoned to pass judgment, required an interpretive key. One potential key was the clear consensus of the Latin fathers as it was presented by the Latin delegation,⁴¹ but this was difficult because the Greeks did not know their works first-hand. The only clear statements of Greek writers were made, not surprisingly, by those later fathers who knew of the teaching in the West. Upon these Mark of Ephesus was prepared to stand. However, one of these two, the letter of Maximus, was cast into doubt by its poor representation in the manuscripts. Once Basil was made a champion of the Latin cause, his prestige added to that of the Latin fathers was more than a match for John of Damascus. The patristic consensus was set in opposition to John, so the only sensible thing was to reinterpret John.⁴² On this basis all but two of the Greek bishops were persuaded to sign a Latin statement of double procession. Isaiah of Stavropolis had quietly left the city before the document was prepared, and Mark of Ephesus adamantly refused.

Given what we now know about the texts in question, the Letter to Marinus, as Mark of Ephesus somehow maintained (against, it would seem, all reason), was the obvious choice for the interpretive key the Greeks needed. It not only upheld the fundamental Greek principle of the monarchia, that is, the single source (αἰτία) of the Son and Spirit who is the Father, but it also allowed them to maintain the orthodoxy of the Latin fathers as Maximus had done. If the authority of the letter had not been in question, the dispute also would likely have been a much simpler and shorter affair. Debate almost certainly would have come to center on that text, and neither side is likely to have budged.

Scholars are generally agreed that the Latins entered the council with no intention of backing off their position. At stake for them was not only the doctrine itself, but the authority of the Holy See whose prerogative it was to establish doctrine. The statement of Cardinal Cesarini, one of the Latin spokesmen, says it plainly enough: “The delegates of our most Holy Father and of your paternities always stood fast that the question should be defined in accordance with the dogmas of the Holy Roman Church.”⁴³ Union on any other terms was simply not in the cards. The unfortunate misappropriation of the texts of Basil and Maximus managed to split what would have otherwise likely remained a united Greek delegation. With a united Greek front behind an authentic Letter to Marinus, union on Latin terms would seem just as impossible.

However, given the aftermath of the council, union as it was achieved seems to have done more harm than good—both to East-West relations and at least to the Greek Church individually. In the East, the elite unionist party and the  majority anti-unionist party rent the church and empire in two for the few years before Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.⁴⁴ With the wound of the council still fresh, the fall of the “Queen of cities” was quickly and fatefully interpreted by the populace (somewhat contradictorily) both as a token of the dishonesty of the “Franks” (who had promised military aid against the Turks when the union was reached but failed to deliver in any substantial way) and as a just retribution for having betrayed their faith at the council.⁴⁵ Similarly, the attitude of the Latins toward the Greeks did not improve as a result of the failed union. The Greeks gained a reputation for intransigence in the eyes of the Latins, especially with the ascendancy of anti-union sentiment following the fall of Constantinople. This reputation would persist right into the twentieth century,⁴⁶ and it is only recently being overturned, due in large part to the discoveries of textual scholars, which have helped substantiate anti-unionist objections to the terms of Florence.

As a result of the synergy of text critical research and careful study of both Greek and Latin patristic traditions, new and potentially more fruitful avenues of rapprochement are now being pursued with respect to the church-dividing issue of the filioque. It is now recognized that the two traditions have each developed their own, unique ways of speaking about the origin of the Spirit. None may now plausibly argue on the basis of the Contra Eunomium or any other text of which scholars are aware that the Greek fathers taught just as the Latin or vice versa. At the same time, growing consensus on the authenticity of the Letter to Marinus has fostered a promising dialogue that is exploring how the different language employed by the two traditions to talk about the Spirit might be reconciled as Maximus suggested fourteen centuries ago, so that each, perhaps, may come to recognize in the teaching of the other an authentic account of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”⁴⁷

³⁹ The relevant passage is de Fide orthodoxa 1.8.

⁴⁰ Basilios Bessarion, Oratio dogmatic de unione, ed. Candal, 40–41; translated in Erickson, “Filioque and the Fathers,” 159.

⁴¹ Siecienski, “Use of Maximus,” 82–95 suggests that this “consensus” was largely the product not of the Latin Fathers themselves, but of a particular interpretation of them that rose to prominence in the post-Carolingian era.

⁴² See Siecienski, Filioque, 166.

⁴³ George Hofman, ed., Acta Camerae Apostolicae et civitatum Venetiarum, Ferrariae, Florentinae, Ianuae, de Concilio Florentino, Concilium Florentinum documenta et scriptores, ser. A, vol. 3, fasc. 1 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1950), 254; translated in Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 265.

⁴⁴ Gill, Council of Florence, 355–357, 365–385.

⁴⁵ J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 285–286; Siecienski, Filioque, 172.

⁴⁶ See, for instance, the scathing assessment of Mark of Ephesus, now a Saint in the Eastern Church, in Joseph Gill’s epilogue to Council of Florence, 395–396.

⁴⁷ Jude 1:3. The Vatican statement of 1995 is one example (see note 37) of dialogue coming to center on the Letter. In their agreed statement, “The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue?” Saint Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2004): 114–118, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation acknowledges that “the Filioque controversy is first of all a controversy over words,” and the Letter to Marinus is invoked, suggesting that the heart of the matter may be a mutual misunderstanding of each tradition’s word(s) for “procession.” Edward Siecienski suggests in “Authenticity,” 226–227, and in Filioque, 214, that the hermeneutic in the Letter to Marinus holds considerable promise for work toward reconciliation on the issue going forward.