Excerpt of "The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence"

Christiaan Kappes

The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of ­Florence

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University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 undpress​.nd​.edu Copyright © 2019 by the University of Notre Dame All Rights Reserved Published in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data <to come>

∞ This book is printed on acid-­free paper.

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c o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments ix A Note on Translations xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 one

he Historical Origins and Theological Significance T of the Florentine Debate on the Epiclesis 11

two

The Life and Times of Mark of Ephesus 27

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four

five

six

John Torquemada and His Cedula as Gleaned from the Sermo prior and Sermo alter 49

Mark of Ephesus’s Libellus as Refutation of the Cedula and Sermo prior 105

Torquemada’s Sermo alter and Reunion: A Refutation of the Libellus 141

seven

Scholarius and Solutions to the Impasse 185

eight

Greek Solutions for Contemporary Problems 207

nine

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The Status questionis of Mark’s Theology and Works, and Preliminary Debate at Florence 35

Toward Greco-­Roman Ecclesial Reunion 223

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viii Contents

Appendix I: Sermo prior of John Torquemada: On the Matter and Form of the Most Holy Eucharist 231 Appendix II: The libellus of Mark of Ephesus on the Eucharistic Consecration 236 Appendix III: Sermo alter of John Torquemada: On the Matter and Form of the Most Holy Eucharist 247 Notes 253 Selected Bibliography 357 Index 365

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Introduction

In a monograph concentrated on the dogmatic debates and significance of the Eucharistic epiclesis at the Council of Florence (1439), not even a specialist would likely guess that the first name to grace the pages of such a study would be the Orthodox saint and celebrity Gregory Palamas (1296–1357).1 Yet, this famous defender of the Hesychastic movement (nowadays the dominant form of Eastern Orthodox spirituality) did in fact manage to serve as a lightning rod of controversy for the last great attempt, in the Italian cities of Ferrara and Florence (1438–39), to effect corporate reunion between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches.2 Until recently, very little has been published on the Palamite undercurrent that sometimes bubbled to the surface of the public debates at the Council of Ferrara-­Florence, even if bits and pieces of the Dominican–Palamite conflict had been studied in other ways.3 Byzantine studies and theological literature on Palamism have multiplied, but it has only been recently uncovered how much of the Council of Ferrara-­Florence was marked by the behind-­the-­scenes conflict between Greek Palamites and Dominican Thomists.4 In fact, the two historical figures at the center of my study here on the epiclesis embody another such instance of an Orthodox theologian upholding Palamas’s legacy and a Dominican Thomist carrying on 1

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2 The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

Cydones’s Thomistic anti-­Palamism. Previous studies have sometimes concentrated on Latin–Greek interaction on the question of Gregory Palamas, his essence-­energies theology, and the divine light emanating from the Godhead, but these remained largely focused on the dispute and debates happening within the confines of historical Byzantium, or within Latin-­occupied lands thereabouts.5 Although the Palamite conflict began among Byzantine scholars and Churchmen (1335–51), that is, between and among Orthodox parties who spoke the Greek tongue, argued from Greek philosophy, and did so in Greek lands, the controversy eventually spilled over into Italy in the months prior to a grandiose effort to reunite the Greek and Latin Churches. Gregory Palamas, who died in 1357 as reigning archbishop of Thessalonica, currently enjoys international celebrity because of his historic defense of Eastern Orthodox monastic practices of prayer and spirituality on Mount Athos. Palamas successfully managed to overcome his rivals via a series of Byzantine synods, leading to his theological school’s monopoly on spirituality and theology within Byzantine environs under imperial control, but the legacy of Palamas continued to be contested after his death by other Greek writers, some of whom were under the influence of the writings of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274).6 As has been chronicled many times and in many languages, the Byzantine humanist Demetrius Cydones (1324/5–97/8) and his younger brother, Prochoros, elongated this struggle against Palamite theologians after Prochoros had reintroduced onto Mount Athos the theological debate that came to a head in the early 1360s.

However, new terms were added to the old debate under the aegis of Augustine of Hippo’s and Thomas Aquinas’s theologies.7 For our purposes, the importance of this intra-­Byzantine quarrel over theological terms, and their objective points of reference in the Godhead and its operations, lies in the fact that Demetrius Cydones exercised great intellectual influence over those young Byzantines who eventually entered the Dominican Order within the confines of Byzantium, or Rumania, as it was sometimes called. Because monastic educators in Constantinople and other Palamitico-­friendly monasteries continued to heighten their Palamite profile, Greek exportation of Palamism to the future council in Ferrara was seemingly inevitable.

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Introduction 3

This ended up causing quite a stir and not a little friction between Latins and Greeks nearly a century after Palamas’s death. In fact, the main Greek theologians responsible for dialoguing with the Latins to convoke an ecumenical council and thereafter to debate theological matters were convinced Palamites. This held true for the principal Greek theologian representing the Byzantines in negotiations for the upcoming council, Makarios Makres (c. 1391–1431).8 It was equally the case for the principal rhetors at Ferrara-­Florence: Bessarion (1403–72), archbishop of Nicaea; and Mark Eugenicus (c. 1392–1445), archbishop of Ephesus (to whom I shall refer most often as simply “Mark” or “the Ephesine”).9 Meanwhile, Greek Dominicans kept alive the pious memory of Cydones in their Dominican studia of the Greek East.10 Of course, a certain antipathy toward the Palamites went hand in hand with reverence for and devotion to Cydones. After all, Palamites had been effectively responsible for Demetrius’s loss of political office, his persecution, and his exile from his homeland until his death.11 Greek Dominicans kept the memory of the Palamite conflict alive by disseminating Demetrius’s writings and by penning new treatises against Palamism in traditionally Byzantine lands.12 Because of these circumstances, Palamas’s infamy spread among Thomists and Dominicans with the result that a conciliar peritus, Andrew Escobar, OSB (1356/7–c. 1455) officially called for the condemnation of Palamas’s theology on December 15, 1437. This date follows upon the heels of an official papal decree (against a rebellious Latin council being held in Basel) transferring the Council of Basel to the city of Ferrara (September 18, 1437).13 Before the onset of the relocated council, Escobar pleaded with Pope Eugene IV as follows: “O most blessed Father Eugene . . . false, therefore, is the conclusion of some Greeks, and [their] errors, which claim that the attributes (attributa) differ essentially (essentialiter) from the divine essence (ab essentia divina) among [ad intra] divine items (in divinis).”14 A Benedictine and curial official for many decades, Escobar, whose Thomistic sympathies likely attracted him to Dominican circles, had first learned of the Thomist–Palamite controversy from none other than a Dominican and the former master of the sacred palace (palace theologian)

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4 The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

in Rome, Andreas Chrysoberges, OP (c. 1375–1457).15 Escobar, as a penitentiarius of the Roman Curia, would have easily had occasion to acquaint himself with the dean of the pope’s studium in Rome.16 Andreas himself had only received official word of his invitation to the Council of Ferrara in April 1437. He was invited as both a voting father and a principal orator on behalf of Pope Eugene. Perhaps aware of Andreas’s position at the nearing council, Bessarion of Nicaea wrote to Chrysoberges, probably later in the same year, to inquire about Latin thinking on the theology of Palamas. Consequently, the Greek Dominican ascertained that Palamite sympathizers were going to be present at the upcoming ecumenical council on Italian soil.17 Thereafter, Andreas undoubtedly alerted his former understudies and influential confreres in Italy about the danger of “Greek errors” being brought by Palamites to Italy. Dominicans and Thomists opposed, en bloc, Bessarion of Nicaea and Mark of Ephesus on Palamite articles of faith: the constitution of the Godhead, the nature of the light springing from the divinity, and the human intellect’s incapacity to see clearly and without aid the divine essence.18 The pope about to preside at Ferrara-­Florence, Pope Eugene IV (r. 1431–47), had initially inherited Chrysoberges as part of his household upon his election to the papacy in 1431. This meant that Andreas functioned as his palace theologian upon confirmation of the earlier appointment by his predecessor, Pope Martin V ­(1417–­31).

After Chrysoberges’s June 9, 1426, appointment to the office of dean, he was naturally able to exercise immense influence over the theologians who were teaching in the papal studium and to enjoy unfettered access to the pope.19 Eugene only brought Chrysoberges’s tenure to an end in 1434 so as to promote him to the Latin bishopric of Rhodes in order to further papal aims in Greek-­speaking territories under Latin political and ecclesiastical hegemony. Chrysoberges’s absence from the papal court had the effect of diminishing his control over the future handling of the question of Palamism as the preparatory period of study intensified (November 1437) before the opening of the council in Ferrara.20 All the same, given the fact that Dominicans supplied Eugene with refuge in Florence, after his flight from unruly Rome in 1432,

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Introduction 5

one might think that the pope would have felt beholden to the Dominicans so as to cede them the task of preparing the officially sanctioned papal study on the attributes and essence of God.21 After all, the Dominicans relocated their Studium Romanae Curiae, or pontifical-­ attaché studium, to Florence in 1434, within the very walls of the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria Novella where Eugene lived and his Curia operated.22 This was coupled with the fact that John Torquemada, dean or master of the papal studium, was technically in charge of any faculty of the papal studium who had also relocated to Santa Maria Novella. Additionally, Eugene had only recently written to the Dominican master-­general on October 7, 1437, inviting him to send twelve experts, or periti, to undertake official study of issues pertinent to the approaching council.23 All these facts would normally portend future Dominican hegemony over a camp of scholars investigating the Dominican and Thomist hot topic, Palamism. Instead, the pope entrusted the Palamite question of the essence and attributes of God to Bonaventurian and Scotist theologians of the Franciscan Order.24 Escobar’s open plea for Palamism’s condemnation shortly thereafter likely betrays Thomistic dissatisfaction with the results of the Franciscan study on the essence and energies of God.25 Pope Eugene, presumably after reading the (no longer extant) Franciscan disquisition into the matter, decided that Palamism did not constitute a serious enough issue to demand resolution at Ferrara.26 About this time, Torquemada, the Spanish Dominican, won Eugene IV’s favor for his staunch “papalism” and cooperation with Pope Martin V in opposition to antipapal conciliarists. Rivals to papal power in Christendom had been gathered together for some time in Basel in what was proving to be an increasingly rebellious council since its papally sanctioned convocation in 1431. Pope Eugene took advantage of the vacancy left by Chrysoberges (now at Rhodes) to appoint Torquemada to the Dominican office of papal theologian, or master of the sacred palace, in 1434.27 This change of appointment was propitious for the Greeks and Dominicans to maintain some semblance of peace and order at Ferrara-­Florence, for just prior to Ferrara the main rhetor of the Greek contingent, Mark of Ephesus, had written two fiery treatises defending Palamism

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6 The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

against Chrysoberges’s celebrated predecessor and confrere, a Greek Dominican and Thomist named Manuel Calecas (c. 1350–1410).28 Had Chrysoberges controlled the tenor and subject of the conciliar discussions, Mark would have been put on a collision course with the pugnacious Chrysoberges, given their shared fixation on the metaphysics of Palamas. Fortunately for everyone, Pope Eugene and the Byzantine emperor John VIII (1392–1448) had already formally agreed to forbid arbitrarily introducing debates on Palamism into the public discussions.29 All the same, Torquemada, the new dean of papal theologians, quickly came to agree with his fellow (Greek) Dominicans that Mark and Bessarion held unacceptable opinions stemming from their Palamism. These Palamite tenets seemed at odds with Dominican, if not Roman Catholic, theology, as evidenced during the initial debates with the Greeks on purgatory and the beatific vision in November 1438. First, John Lei, OP (d. c. 1463), who probably acted as Torquemada’s secretary and peritus at Ferrara, renewed Dominican pleas for a conciliar condemnation of Palamism, but to no avail.30 Second, Torquemada reproduced his own list of Palamite “errors” in perfect agreement with that of Lei. Clearly, Torquemada also took note of these Palamite ideas, which he had divined out of the purgatory discussions, as his Apparatus, or apologetic treatise, records: “Concerning ‘God three and one,’ this is written against those saying that beatitude (beatitudo), glory (gloria), or final happiness (felicitas ultima) of people does not consist in the vision of God himself. Contrariwise [they say it consists] of some other entity (entitas), which is thought to be really distinct from the very divine essence (essentia), or, as the Greeks call it, ‘energy’ (energia), or ‘act’ (actus), or ‘illumination’ (fulgor).”31 Torquemada only managed to publish (scripsit 1441) his condemnation of Palamism after Greek participation in the council had officially ended. By this time, Torquemada’s attack on Palamism served an ulterior purpose of refuting anti-­Florentine and antipapal Latin Fathers still present at Basel. They were accusing the Latins at Florence of having committed heresy on any number of theological questions. This section of Torquemada’s Apparatus was written, therefore, to refute accusations that papalists had fallen

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Introduction 7

away from the right faith by caving to Greek theologians. For their part, the Greeks had already been home many months and remained totally unaware of Torquemada’s literary debut wherewith he entered into the Dominican–Palamite fray.

Torquemada’s role at Florence ideally should have been to act as Eugene’s handpicked theologian and principal orator to engage the Greeks on disagreements needing to be publicly discussed and negotiated at the Council of Ferrara-­Florence. In reality, Torquemada was never afforded the opportunity to debate Mark of Ephesus publicly on central issues at Florence, most especially on the focus of this study, the epiclesis.

The term “epiclesis” was meant to signify an invocation to God (typically to the Father) to send the Holy Spirit down upon persons or objects of blessing.

Because of Torquemada’s valuable skills in negotiating with Western princes and Churchmen of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Eugene assigned him to travel north of the Alps while a significant portion of the debates was occurring in Florence. As a result, Torquemada failed to arrive in time to debate Mark of Ephesus on the filioque at Florence in 1439. In the summer of 1439, by the time Torquemada was prepared to resume formal discussions, Mark had already absented himself from disputations on the papacy, Eucharist, and epiclesis. By then Mark’s physical health, and his psychological attitude toward the Latins, altogether constrained him from participating in the discussions on the Eucharist. Mark ended up only anonymously responding, in written format alone, to Torquemada’s forensic arguments and written treatise on behalf of the Dominican-­ papal position, which he delivered before Florentine Greek and Latin Fathers. This treatise included arguments on the subjects of unleavened bread, the words of consecration, and the Eucharistic epiclesis.

Most major realms of factual contention (i.e., the beatific vision, the filioque, and the question of the divine essence and attributes of God) owed some of their acrimonious handling to the D ­ ominican–­Palamite antipathy that had by now become traditional in the Greek East. Can we likewise surmise that the epiclesis disputation, as the last major question to be debated before the close of the Council of Florence in

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8 The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

1439, took on a Palamite tenor? Is there a “Palamite liturgiology” or a Palamite view on liturgical questions? It must frankly be answered that there was no peculiarly Palamite (or Hesychastic for that matter) development of Byzantine liturgiology on the nature and function of the epiclesis, insofar as the writings and doctrine of Gregory Palamas are concerned. Nonetheless, it is significant that the more recent Greek writers, serving as primary sources for the Byzantines during the epiclesis debate at Florence, were either friends of Palamas or they theologized in a Palamite manner. Writers such as Nicholas Cabasilas (c. 1322–c. 1397/98) had certainly been friendly to Palamas, whereas Makarios Makres and Symeon of Thessalonica (c. 1381–1429) had adopted wholesale Palamism in their theological method.

Conversely, the principal Latin theology of the Eucharist dominating the discussions at Florence was peculiarly Dominican and mostly, but not entirely, dependent on the works of Aquinas. Dominicans naturally exercised zeal in defending their Scholastic tradition of sacramentology (diverse from that of the Franciscans and others). Consequently, this theologically Dominican facet of the epiclesis debate served only to intensify hostility between Thomists and Palamites, narrowing conciliar Fathers’ purview to only two theological foci.

In this regard, certain moments of exclusively D ­ ominican–­Palamite disagreement are reducible to sectarian squabbles, having essentially little to do with official dogmas of the Latin Church in opposition to official Palamism of the Greek Orthodox Church. Whenever these two customary opponents concentrated on matters of historical rivalry, they effectively sidelined competing Latin theologies and sometimes bypassed official Roman Catholic doctrine.

Now, in this line of Palamite metaphysics and intellectual formation, a future hero of Orthodoxy, whose birth name was Eugenicus, arose at the Council of Florence. His Greek and Latin contemporaries gave him the nickname “the Ephesine” since he had been enthroned as the metropolitan archbishop of Ephesus in 1437. Mark thereafter played the role of simultaneous hero and antihero for all of Christendom, which eagerly followed the actions of the ongoing council.

Many of Mark’s contemporary Orthodox Churchmen hailed him as “a Pillar of Orthodoxy” in his own time. Nowadays he has even

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Introduction 9

been popularly dubbed “the Conscience of Orthodoxy”—his mind said to have been illumined with divine energies and bathed in uncreated light, just as exposited by his spiritual master Palamas.32 Mark earned many a heroic epithet through correcting his coreligionists at Florence, who often enough proved eager to resolve religious disagreements by means of capitulation and compromise rather than by stalwart syllogistics.33 Latin authors, too, chronicled the Ephesine’s words and deeds at this Orthodox/Catholic council of reunion in the Italian cities of Ferrara and Florence. Roman Catholic authors sometimes harbored a muffled fascination, even admiration, for the Mark person, whose virtues sometimes managed to slip from their otherwise apologetic pens. Hence, for Latins, Mark was typified as a religious antihero, while for Orthodox believers he was commemorated as the perpetual harbor of Orthodox faith amid the ecclesiastical typhoons of the fifteenth century. With this in mind, we embark on an exploration of Ferrara-­Florence to understand the precise nature of Mark’s defense of the faith of his Fathers, endeavoring as he did to solidify adherence to the perennial traditions of his Church on Italian soil before he died shortly after his return to his Byzantine homeland.

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