St. John of Damascus

CATHOLIC TRADITION. CENTURY VIII. YEAR 756. INDEX OF THE WORKS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME XCIV.

S. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

Notitia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . col. 9 Prefaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Prolegomena of Leo Allatius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Seven Damascene Dissertations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 Dialectics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518 Book on Heresies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578 Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. . . . . . . . . . . 790 Three Orations on the Holy Images. . . . . . . . . 1227 Book on the Right Sentiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1421 Treatise against the Jacobites. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1433 Dialogue against the Manichaeans. . . . . . . . . . 1503 Disputation of a Christian and a Saracen. . . . . . 1585 Fragment of the treatise on Dragons and Stryges. 1598

Paris. — From the press of L. MIGNE.

NOTITIA

(Fabricius, *Bibliotheca Graeca*, ed. Harless, vol. IX, p. 682.)

John of Damascus, presbyter and monk, is not to be confused, as many have done, ^A with John Mesue, the Damascene physician, ^B or with John of Damascus, son of Serapion, likewise a physician, nor with the Damascene, bishop of Rhondine, ^C or with another Damascene bishop, or of the city of Damascus, who in the middle of the sixteenth century wrote concerning animals to Michael Cantacuzenus, ^D nor finally with a more recent writer, a Damascene, monk and hypodeacon Studite from Thessalonica. [E]

(a) Just as the homonymy of the Emperor Theodosius, who existed before Leo the Isaurian, was a source of error for Vincent of Beauvais, Antoninus of Florence, Andrea Dandolo, John Nauclerus, Trithemius, and others, leading them to write that John of Damascus lived in the fourth century under Theodosius the Great; so also has the similarity of names deceived others, causing them to confuse our John of Damascus with John of Damascus, the physician. See Latinus Latinius, *Bibliotheca sacra et profana*, pp. 79b and 81a; Pierre Bayle’s *Historical Lexicon* entry on "Damascenus," and Leo Allatius, cited in Michel Lequien’s *Prolegomena ad Damascenum*, where these errors are refuted. The same Allatius also refutes and proves to be fabulous what Raphael Volaterra falsely reports in book XVI of his *Commentarii Urbani*, that he was born of Jewish parents and converted from Judaism to Christianity, that he came to Constantinople and was captured by Saracen pirates, was later ransomed by Theodosius and became his secretary, and shortly thereafter had his right hand cut off because he had come under suspicion of treason. Not to speak of the fables added by the author of the sermon on the conversion of the Damascene, Vincent of Beauvais in his *Speculum historiale* XVII, 103; Petrus de Natalibus, bishop of Equilio, in his *Historia sanctorum*, IV, 135; John Nauclerus in his *Chronicon*, and others, claiming his hand was restored by the benefit of the Virgin Mary, that he was returned to Constantinople, etc.

(b) John of Damascus, the physician, by surname Mesue, a great-grandson of Abdallah, King of Damascus, a follower of the Muhammadan sect, flourished around the year 1200 and wrote in Arabic; these writings of his were later translated from Arabic into Greek and Latin. Lambecius (VI, pp. 148, 131, 134, etc.) notes that some of these are wrongly attributed to St. John of Damascus, the presbyter. (Fabricius—In the Ambrosian Library at Milan, according to Montfaucon, *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum MSS*, p. 499, and p. 1199. C., *On Medicines* in the library of Guil. Pellissier, ibid., p. 382. A. 384. B. 433. B. *Aphorisms*. These are the same with the commentary of Isidore, at Leipzig in the Paulinum Library, according to Feller in his catalogue of the manuscripts of that library, p. 277. *Aphorismorum liber*: by Platon de Benedictis, Bologna 1489, 4to. In the same Imperial [Library] XXV, no. 7, is found among the Greco-barbarian medical collections, John of Damascus's remedy for purging the head and stomach, inscribed "a composition of John of Damascus"; see Lambecius, *Commentarii*, VI, part II, p. 269. However, the work *De simplicibus medicamentis purgantibus*, divided into five sections, is wrongly attributed in the manuscripts to St. John of Damascus; it is the work of John, son of Mesue, i.e., Moses, the Arab physician. In the Imperial manuscripts XXIX, no. 4; XXX, no. 1; and XXXI, no. 2, see Lambecius VI, p. 297 sq., who states, following Conrad Gesner, that he lived circa 1158, and notes other things about him: if this is so, it is the younger John Mesue the Damascenus who is meant. P. 299 sq. and 303, ed. Kollar. *On medicines, especially those suitable for purging*, in three manuscripts in the Paris public library. On the older John of Damascus, son of Mesue, a Syrian Christian physician, circa 845, see Hamberger, *Z. N.* III, p. 183 sqq., and for more on both, see below in volume XIII, in the list of ancient physicians, p. 257 sq. (where more will be noted in its proper time), ibid., p. 259 sqq. and 273, from the libellus of John Leo Africanus regarding certain illustrious men among the Arabs. Add John of Damascus's libellus on the sacred art in political verses, in manuscript MMCCCXXVII, no. 37, Paris public library; compare Bandini, *Catalogus codicum Laurentianorum* III, p. 357, and Fabricius, *B. Gr.* XII, p. 774. Harl.)

(c) John of Damascus, son of Serapion, likewise a Muhammadan physician, is praised by John Mesue. Fabricius. See below, vol. XIII, pp. 299 sq., and above in this volume, p. 156. Harl.

[Regarding Damascius the Syrian, the Peripatetic philosopher, see above, vol. III, p. 483 sq. Regarding Damascius, the epigrammatic poet, see above, vol. IV, p. 470 sq. Harl.]

(d) Leo Allatius in his *Prolegomena to John of Damascus*, where he discourses on these various Damascenes, mentions a manuscript: *Δαμασκηνοῦ ἐπισκόπου Ρονδίνης διάλογον μετὰ τοῦ ἡγουμένου τῆς ἁγίας Ἀναστασίας· ἤτοι ταλανισμὸν κατὰ τῶν νῦν τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἐπισκόπων* ("A dialogue of Damascenus, Bishop of Rhondine, with the Abbot of St. Anastasia, being a lamentation against the bishops of Greece in our own time"). It begins: *Προσaγορεύω*. Fabricius. In the Nanian manuscripts LXXXV, no. 5, and CLX, no. 9: *Παραίνεσις πρὸς τοὺς θέλοντας σωθῆναι μοναχοὺς ὡς ἐν συνόπτῳ· τοῦ ἐπισκόπου λογιωτάτου Κυροῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ Λιτῆς καὶ Ρενδίνης· καὶ προέδρου Πουλιανῆς* ("An exhortation to those monks desiring salvation, summarized, by the most learned Bishop Kyros Damascenus of Lita and Rhondine, and president of Pouliane"). It begins: *Ἀδελφοὶ καὶ πατέρες, ἐπειδὴ τὸν κόσμον ἀφήσαμεν* ("Brothers and fathers, since we have left the world"), etc. In the latter manuscript, no. 11, there is also his *λόγος πεζῇ φράσει εἰς τὴν δεκάλογον τοῦ Μωϋσέως* ("A discourse in prose on the Decalogue of Moses"); it begins: *Δέκα παραγγελίαι εἶναι* ("There are ten commandments"). See *Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts of the Nani Library*, 173 and 361. In Martin Crusius, *Turcograecia*, book IV, among the authors of 60 letters, Damascenus of Lita and Rhendina, and Damascenus of Demonicon and Elasson are also named. See above, vol. VIII, p. 94. Harl.

(e) A book by the bishop of Damascus, written in the common Greek dialect, *De natura animalium*, consisting of 90 chapters, which he collected from Aristotle, Aelian, and Philes, and transmitted to Michael Cantacuzenus, the Grand Domestic; Leo Allatius, in the place already cited, testifies that he read the manuscript, though it was imperfect, at the house of Petrus Vellius the Roman; it begins: *Συνήθειαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ὅταν θέλουσι νὰ ἰδοῦσι τινὰ μέγαν ἄρχοντα* ("It is the custom of men when they wish to see some great ruler"). Fabricius. In the Turin manuscript CCXLVIII, fol. 35, there is: *Damasceni ἀρχιερέως Στουδίτου συναθροίσεις* etc., "A libellus of the Bishop Studite in which are collected from the books of ancient philosophers whatever has been said by them concerning birds and terrestrial and land-based animals, and a more common interpretation is appended." And the author of the catalogue of manuscripts—

(f) This is the Damascene whose *Thesaurus homiliarum in sanctos* in the common Greek language is frequently...

mentioned in the notes of Fabricius; but as to whether he is absolutely the same person who was later raised to the episcopacy and exercised his talent in collecting historical materials, the author remains uncertain. The cataloguer further observes that in the Turin manuscript there are 91 chapters, perhaps because the copyist divided a certain chapter into two sections; finally, the same author notes that in the Turin manuscript there is no preface preceding the work, but rather there is prefixed to the first chapter, *On the Eagle*, a tetrastich by Simeon the Hierodeacon (which the cataloguer published in Greek along with a Latin version), and that the first chapter begins: "The eagle is the king among all winged creatures," etc. Harl. — It appeared at Venice, in 1603, 1618, 4to [Venet. 1528, by Antonius Pinellus]. *Thesaurus of the Monk Damascene, subdeacon and Studite of Thessalonica*, in which are expositions of the Gospels. In common Greek, Venice, 1642, 4to. See Pinelli catalogue II, p. 5, no. 2288; add above vol. viii, p. 88, regarding the first book of the *Turco-Graecia* by Martin Crusius, and below, vol. x, p. 501, standard edition. Regarding Peter Damascene, see shortly below at no. 26. Harl. — I omit mentioning other Damascenes, such as Nicolaus Damascenus, Damascius Damascenus, and the Damascene whose drama *Sosandra* is lauded by Eustathius in *Dionysius Periegetes* v. 976. Fabricius, regarding Nicolaus Damascenus, who was sent by Herod as an orator to Octavian Augustus in 5 B.C., and whether he was the author of the drama *Sosandra*, see above vol. iii, in the *Catalogue of Peripatetics*, p. 500 sq., and in the *Notice of Lost Tragedians*, p. 313; and in both places Fabricius asserted that the drama which others wrongly attributed to John Damascene was his, but on p. 742 he hesitated; however, see note (sss. vol. ii, p. 179 — vol. i, p. 726, in the index of authors prefixed to the Froben collection of gnomics). He also wrote on Aristotle's philosophy and on certain of his books, though the scholia on Aristotle's *Categories* are attributed to John Damascene (see vol. i, p. 220). Add below vol. ix, p. 440, of the older edition, in the chapter on Photius. Brucker, *Critical History of Philosophy*, tom. ii, cites it. Regarding the *Aporiae* of Damascius the Damascene, etc., see Villoison, *Anecdota Graeca* II, p. 253, etc. Harl. — [Michael Damascenus, the Cretan, a scribe of manuscripts, see Montfaucon, *Palaeographia Graeca*, p. 104, especially p. 512 sq., where he professes to have transcribed the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in the year of Christ 1525. Harl.]

(a) That the father of Damascene was Sergius, the son of Mansur, general quaestor (*logothetes* general) to the Caliph Abd-al-Malik of the Saracens, is what the praised Lequien and Fabricius reasonably conjecture from Theophanes. Regarding John Damascene, a man indeed of no small superstition, and a most spirited defender of the icons, yet a man most learned for his age, the founder of systematic theology, and a precursor of the Scholastics among the Greeks, confer Heineccius, *History of the Greek Church*, part i, cap. 2, § final; Cave, *History of Ecclesiastical Literature*, tom. i, p. 624 sq.; C. Oudin, *Commentary on Ecclesiastical Writers*, i, p. 1713 sq., who on p. 1717 sq. notes and discusses at length that John Damascene was the first among the Greek Fathers to teach that the Eucharist is the true body and blood of Christ, lib. iv, *De fide orthodoxa*, cap. 14. L. Ell. du Pin, *New Library*, tom. vi, p. 401; Brucker, *Critical History of Philosophy* iii, p. 534 sq., and in the appendix or vol. vi, p. 554; R. Ceillier, *General History of Ecclesiastical Authors*, tom. xviii, p. 110 sq.; Hamberger, *Reliable Reports*, part i, p. 528 sq.; Saxius, *Onomasticon* i, p. 84 sq. and p. 543, and others whom those two men cite; Schroeckh, *History of the Christian Church*, tom. xix, p. 60 sq. Some opinions of John Damascene are pursued by Mosheim in the notes to Cudworth's *Intellectual System*, tom. i, p. 765, note s, ed. Leiden, 1773, 4to, regarding God permeating all things; p. 921, regarding the similitudes by which the Holy Trinity is depicted; tom. ii, p. 473, *On the Nature of Angels*. Harl.

(b) That he was a presbyter is wrongly denied by Possevinus, who is refuted by the constant testimony of the ancients. See John of Jerusalem in the *Life of Damascene*, p. xxi, and the notes there.

(c) In Vincent of Beauvais XVII. 103: "Emperor Theodosius to John: 'You wicked Sarabaita.'" Unless it should read *Sabaita*, for it is certain that Damascene lived for a long time in the Laura of St. Sabas; and Stephen, the son of his brother, is called a *Sabaita*. For the rest, the Sarabaitae are described by St. Jerome in his *Epistle 22 to Eustochium* (new ed. 18, tom. ii, p. 43) as *Remoboth*, a most degraded and neglected class of monks: "two or three live together, and not many more, living by their own judgment and discipline." Concerning these, see the learned men on the *Rule of St. Benedict*, c. 1; Cassian, *Conferences* XVIII. 4 and 7; Petrus Crinitus III. 15, on honest discipline, where he illustrates the passage of Augustine concerning Sarabaita priests.

(d) That *Mansur* was spoken ^D *hybristikos*, or out of contumely, by the Iconoclasts, is reported by the Seventh Synod, Act VI, tom. iii, Binian edition, p. 678; and Du Cange is mistaken when he supposes that these words and the exclamation of the Iconoclasts—"Anathema to Mansur the ill-named and the Saracen"—are to be understood of some other unknown John, an Egyptian heretic, in his Greek gloss on *Mansur*. [In the Venetian Codex Marcianus CXXXVIII, which contains the *Parallela* attributed to Damascene, for *Mansur* is read *Masou*, according to the celebrated Morelli in the *Library of Manuscripts, Greek and Latin*, p. 85. Add Jo. Fabr., *Bibliothecal History of Fabricius* i, p. 152. Harl.] I agree, however, with Theophanes, who says on p. 350 that John Damascene was called *Mansur* by name, because his grandfather was so called. Theophanes adds that the word *Mansur* signifies *lelytromenon*, or "redeemed." For this word, the codices of Scylitzes and Cedrenus have the monstrous vocabulary *lentrabon*, but it should be written *lelytromenon*, as the same Du Cange correctly noted. Thus, the name *Mansur* itself was not so much contumelious—being common to many others—as it was that Constantine Copronymus had out of contumely corrupted it into *Mausēros*, "the spurious one," just as Cedrenus and the author of the *History Miscellanea* testify from the same Theophanes.

(e) "The Canon of John Arclas, in iambic verse, on the Holy Pentecost." This is the inscription of John Damascene's hymn for Pentecost; Eustathius of Thessalonica recognizes the name *Arclas*, which signifies "cabinet-maker," in his commentary on that hymn, reported by Allatius in *De Georgiis*, p. 320.

(f) Theophanes, Cedrenus, book of the *History Miscellanea* XXI. 26, p. 1004, and XXII. 6, p. 1015.

^A buried (a). Certainly, John Phocas (b) mentions that the tomb of the Damascene and of Cosmas was to be seen in that place. Everyone acknowledges that he was exceptionally well-versed in the disciplines of philosophy and adorned with universal erudition beyond the example of his century; he is most famous for his very sweet hymns and his very many writings, of which mention will be made subsequently. That in these he sometimes fights with tweezers and not with swords, and introduces narratives that are little credible, where he descends into the struggle for the veneration of images and for prayers for the deceased, I believe should be attributed rather to the age in which he lived than to his genius. He appears to have died not before A.C. 756 (c). He cared little, as long as he lived, for the rages of Leo the Isaurian and Constantine Copronymus. His memory is celebrated among the saints by the Latin Church on May 6, and by the Greek on November 29 and December 4. John of Jerusalem, famous after the middle of the tenth century, having obtained his life and commentaries written about it in Arabic, transmitted it, and from them, it seems, drew that little-credible fable ^B about the hand of the Damascene restored by St. Mary (d). The Basilians in the edition of the Damascene in 1575, folio, gave it in Latin, edited by Lipomanus in volume V, and by Surius for May 6; in Greek at Rome in 1553, 8vo, with orations on images, with the version of Jacobus Billius, then Papebroch in Greek in volume II of the *Acta Sanctorum* for May, page 723, from a Medicean manuscript codex, collated with the codex of the Most Christian King, and in Latin, page 111, from the version of Antonius Franciscus Destieu, S.J. It begins: *τοῖς τετηρηκόσι*. The same Papebroch gave the sermon of Constantine Acropolita on John Damascene, page 731, in Greek from a Vatican manuscript, together with the version by Jo. Franciscus de Rubeis, legal expert. It begins: *τῷ Ἰωάννῃ τὸν λόγον, τῷ ἐκ Δαμασκοῦ τὰ ἐγκώμια*. Likewise excerpts from the Greek Synaxarion and Menaea concerning the Damascene. Constantine Acropolita, as a paraphrast of John of Jerusalem, is omitted in the new edition of the Works of the Damascene, but John of Jerusalem is placed at the front by Mich. Lequien in the first volume in Greek and Latin, and is also illustrated with notes by which some of his hallucinations are corrected. Hence, in the same place, from the Latin edition of the Damascene of Cologne and the Royal Paris Latin codex MMMCMLXVI, there follows a Narrative ^C converted from the Greek, as it appears, concerning the life and conversation of St. John Damascene, which begins: *Quemadmodum dulce philocosmis exsistit*. Furthermore, excerpts from Vincent of Beauvais, from the Menaea, and various testimonies of various, especially ancient, authors concerning the Damascene. And the excellent commentary of Leo Allatius on the writings of the Damascene from his unpublished work on apocryphal books.

Besides Cosmas the Melodist, John Damascene had as friends (e) John, patriarch of Jerusalem, by whom he was ordained presbyter, Peter of Majuma, and Peter of Damascus, and his disciples John of Laodicea, Theodore Abucara (bishop of Caria), and Stephen, presbyter and syncellus of the Church of Jerusalem, and Anastasius, provost of the monastery of St. Euthymius, the author of the book against the Jews, which H. Canisius published in Latin from the version of Turrianus in volume III of *Antiq. lect.*, page 67.

MANUSCRIPT CODICES AND EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF JOHN DAMASCENE.

I shall briefly commemorate some of the manuscript codices first. Since, however, a great number of codices remain in various libraries, I must most especially serve brevity. Add the codices in Oudin, p. 1730 sqq. According to the catalog of the codices of England, etc., sometimes more, sometimes fewer, sometimes single works of the Damascene, or even small parts and fragments, are preserved in the codices of various libraries. Therefore, they are named in volume I, in the Bodleian library, among the Baroccian codices, no. 5, excerpts; no. 10, epistles and twice on the faith; no. 15, fragments on epacts; no. 49, two opusc.; no. 85, on the one God; no. 107, on the miracle of St. Michael; no. 196, two fragments; no. 197, on the passion of the Lord and others: among the codices of Th. Roe, no. 251, a narrative (in fact, a fable) concerning the cut-off hand of J. Damascene and how it was healed by the Virgin Mary; - among the Laud codices no. 506, That bread and wine are not signs of the Lord’s body, but the body and blood of Christ itself; no. 698, on the 22 Letters of the alphabet (see below, no. 30); no. 1229, various works; - among the Bodleian codices no. 2877, on images, on the adored cross, on the faith, on the saints, etc. - among the Selden codices no. 3216, a Russian booklet, containing something, as it seems, from the Damascene, or concerning him. - In the first part of volume I of the Oxford Catalog, in Merton College no. 612, five opusc., in the College of St. Mary Magdalene no. 2333, some opusc. in Latin. In volume II, among the Cambridge codices no. 279, on certain saints, etc.— no. 1502, a work divided into IV books: beginning *Deum nemo umquam vidit*. no. 2117, under a vague index.

or falsely so (cf. the note on no. 26), a book which is called *Mansur*, translated from Greek into Latin. In vol. II, in various libraries, no. 828, flowers from Damascene and others collected by Master Thomas of Ireland, a fellow of the Sorbonne. — no. 1608, certain works: 189, on true tradition; nos. 5958, 5959, 9079, 9291, various works. Part II, Dublin, etc., no. 507, a Saracen collection of fables in dialect by J. Damascene. — no. 1019, readings from Damascene. — Paris, in the public library, on the various ways in which one thing is said to be joined to another, in codex MIXV. — on the holy mysteries, in three codices. Jo. Damascene excerpts from Chrysostom’s homilies on the Epistles of Paul, in two codices (see below at no. 4, of writings which do not exist in the Lequien edition), — on the nature of man and the parts of the soul, in two codices; chapters on the incomprehensibility of God, in two codices (also in the Nanian codex CCXCI, no. 6, according to the catalog of Greek Nanian codices, p. 488). — on the body and blood of Christ in codex MMCCCXV; on free will, in codex MDCIII. — a fragment on geographical matters, in codex MMDCCCXLVII; and very many works of Damascene are inserted in codex MCV, up to codex MCXXIV; and not a few Parisian codices will be cited hereafter. — Montfaucon, in the *Bibliotheca Coisliniana*, lists very many codices of various works of Damascene, the great part of which, because Lequien has already consulted them, for the sake of brevity I shall refer only to the pages of the Coislin library where they are cited; p. 143, many works of Damascene in codex XCII. — p. 271 twice, 274 twice, 306, 404, 407, 412 ff., 581 several times. — At Venice in the Nanian codices LXXXIII, works of Damascene with his *Life*, or rather a sermon on his praises. — and CCXCI, a certain work according to their catalog p. 170 and 488. — in the Marciana library very many works in codex CXXXIX. — *On the holy and immaculate mysteries*, in codex CCCCXCVIII; Epistle to the Emperor Constantine Copronymus; explanation of XII chapters, i.e., of the anathematisms, and an epistle to the Emperor Theophilus on the icons. See the catalog of Greek Marcian codices, p. 79 ff., 261, 301, and 302. — Certain works in the codices of the library of S. Croce in Florence, attested by Franc. Anton. Zacharia in *Iter litterarium per Italiam*, p. 97, 98, 99. — By the author Montfaucon in *Diarium Italicum*, p. 13 (and in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum*, p. 499 C. D. and p. 528 D, in three codices): more works of Damascene at Milan in the Ambrosian library. — p. 62, philosophical and rhetorical works, at Venice in the Contarina library; — p. 216, and 217, and 337, various works at Rome in the monastery of S. Basil and in two codices of the monastery of Grottaferrata; — p. 392, at Fiesole in the monastery of the Canons Regular, certain works of Damascene in Latin; — p. 408, at Bologna in the monastery of S. Salvatore, Damascene’s *God is light*; — p. 433, at Venice in the library of Julius Justinian, a procurator, the canon of Damascene and some small works on astronomy. — By the same Montfaucon in *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum*, very many codices of various libraries are enumerated which contain either few or many works of Damascene. Here I shall make mention of several works at Rome in the Ottobonian library (I, p. 184 A. C.), in the Sfortiana library (I, p. 703 A. B, p. 705 B, and p. 706 C). — At Venice in the library of Meletius Typaldus, Damascene’s *Parallela* and other things (p. 478 C); — at Verona in the Museum of Jo. Saibante, and at Augsburg, certain works of Damascene (p. 490 D, and p. 593 B). — Paris, in the Coislin library, works in Slavonic (p. 1042 B). Various works in the Bavarian codices, see the catalog of Greek Bavarian codices, p. 10, 11, 12 ff., 18, 51, and in many places. — That the Imperial Vienna library abounds in codices which contain many and various works of Damascene, you will see at a glance in the index to Nessel’s Imperial catalog, p. 75 ff. Here I shall indicate some, especially those containing particles or fragments of Damascene, guided by Lambecius, who describes them more learnedly and copiously. In vol. III, codex XIX, at the end, Damascene’s sacred prayers (p. 95); in catenae on Luke, the Epistle to the Romans, and on the principal books of the Old and New Testament in codices XLIV, XLVI, and XLVII. (Thus mention of Damascene is not infrequent in catenae on the sacred books, above in vol. VIII, p. 679, etc.) In vol. V, p. 245 ff.; in codex CCXLVI, no. 12 (whose reading sometimes differs from the Paris ed. 1619, F. p. 931 ff.); and vol. VII, p. 227 ff., in codex LXIV, no. 3, an oration on the incorruptible body of Christ, which we receive in the holy gathering. — At Wrocław in the Rehdinger library, works, see Kranz’s *Memorabilia* of that library, p. 83. — At Moscow in the Synodal library, in codex XIII, with various writings against the Latins, fragments in particular in the oration *On the Entombment of the Word*. See Matthaei’s *Notitia of the Greek codices of Moscow*, p. 21 and 22. — Excerpts or fragments are in various Laurentian codices, thus in codex XX, no. 8 and 9, plut. 71, *On the Shape of the Earth* and a dialectical chapter *On Names*, etc., see Bandini’s catalog of Laurentian codices III, p. 14. Cf. shortly after at no. 1. — Damascene is cited by John Cantacuzene against Palamas, in the anonymous work against him and in the *Thesaurus of the Orthodox Faith*. Cf. Bandini’s catalog cited I, p. 254, 358, and 433. — How many various works of Damascene are found in the Escorial codices, we learn from Pluer’s *Itinerarium per Hispaniam*, p. 175 ff. Concerning certain codices of Damascene, Montfaucon has noted certain memorabilia in *Palaeographia Graeca*, p. 58, 65 ff., 303 ff., and p. 404; in a certain Greek diploma, Damascene’s dialogue is named. Behold the cloud of codices! And yet we shall hereafter cite not a few other codices of various works in their proper places.

Greek editions

^C Toward those who disparage the holy icons. Germanos, shining in life and word, was subjected to flagellation and became an exile; and there were very many other bishops and fathers whose names we do not know. ^D to publish, and to lead back to the fountains—namely, the older Fathers, whom the Damascene himself speaks of, having professed to write nothing of his own. This task, which Combefis was prevented from fulfilling because he was occupied with other things, Lequien has executed with great zeal; he presents this work of the Damascene, with a new version of his own and with notes, having accurately revised it according to Greek manuscripts while preserving the distinction of both chapters and books. It should not be omitted that Christopher Pelargus published at Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in 1605 (in quarto) an epitome of the entire theology compiled from this work of the Damascene, who, since he took that writer to be drawn toward the side of the Reformers, led our own B. D. Balthasar Mentzer the elder to publish at Giessen in 1614, and to defend publicly—with John Saubert of Altdorf as respondent—a very brief outline of the third book of the Damascene’s *De orthodoxa fide*, in which that which was this author's sentiment and confession concerning the God-man Christ is shown to the eye against certain unhappy critics of theological matters. It is also established that B. D. Elias Vejel, a most deserving minister of the Church of Ulm, had for a long time made it his aim to publish this work of the Damascene—revised in Greek and Latin according to manuscripts of the Augustan (a) and Imperial libraries—together with commentaries; but the fate of that most excellent man intervened against his noble proposal. Two interpolations, found in book III chapters 3 and 7 in certain manuscripts and inserted by a foreign hand into the Damascene, were given by Lequien in Greek and Latin on pages 659–661. Furthermore, what John Wegelinus published under the name of Cyril of Alexandria concerning the Holy Trinity, and what Aubert presents in the last volume of the works of Cyril—I recall having noted above on page 571—are the Damascene’s, even if they are in great part repeated from the writings of Cyril. I shall add: the three *Apologetic Orations* on pages 307–390. John of Jerusalem calls them "little discourses" in chapter 14 of the *Life of the Damascene*, and he mentions them again in chapter 33. The first was written after the year of Christ 727, the tenth of Leo the Isaurian, wherein he promulgated the edict against the icons, but before the time that he—the Damascene means Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople, on page 308—was deposed by Leo, which happened towards the end of the year. The third, which Humphrey Hody in his prolegomena to the *Chronicon* of John Malalas chapter 32, without great cause, denies to John of Damascus, is very similar to the second, and both were written still before the anathema against Leo was publicly pronounced, that is, before his thirteenth year, which is 730 (c). They first appeared with the *Life* written by John of Jerusalem in Greek, edited by Nicolaus Majoranus, who dedicated them to Cardinal Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, at Rome in 1553 (in octavo). Godfried Tilmann, a Carthusian monk of Paris, translated them into Latin in 1555 (in quarto) (e); and at Antwerp in 1556 (in duodecimo). Before him, Petrus Franciscus Zinus did so at Venice in 1554 (in octavo) (n), whose version—recusations added in Greek in the Basel edition of 1575—Jacob Billius also kept in his own Latin edition, with a few corrections added, at Paris in 1577, 1603, and 1619. Finally (not to speak of the French version published at Verdun in 1573), Lequien thought it worth the effort to prepare a third version from both Latin translations, using also the emendations of Billius (f). To these individual books from the Damascene are appended various places from the Fathers in favor of the icons, an index of which I shall append in this place [see Walch, *Hist. hær.*, XI, p. 322 et seq.].

^A which appeared to be designated for Combefis and Philippe Labbé (a), he occupied with the highest praise (b) and performed outstandingly, by publishing the works of J. Damascene in Greek and Latin, in such a way that he not only brought to light for the first time many unpublished works from manuscripts, or added Greek works to those that existed only in Latin, but also corrected those which were already extant in both languages, rendered them more clear by a new or corrected version, and explained them with learned notes, and, preceding these, with illuminating prolegomena in addition to the prefaces of previous editions, as well as with dissertations on the doctrine of the Damascene (c), Paris, 1712, 2 volumes, folio. It does not escape me that this work has been competed for in praise, and praised with merit by the writers of learned journals, in the *Ephemerides* of Paris, January 1712, in the *Acta Eruditorum* which are published in Latin in 1713, p. 1, and those which are in German, vol. I, p. 311, 365, in the Journal that appears under the title *Neues Museum*, likewise in the vernacular language at Leipzig at monthly intervals (not the *Bücher-Saal*), part XXXIII, p. 600, etc. (d). Yet I think that there is still room left by them for me to comply with my plan, which I have observed hitherto in other Greek writers, that I may be allowed to enumerate the writings of the Damascene to the reader according to the order of this excellent edition. ^B TOMO I. Here, the *Fons Scientiae* (e) or the tripartite work, which the author himself commended under the title *Fountain of Knowledge*, takes the lead; this is the *Dialectica*, the book *On Heresies*, and the book *On the Orthodox Faith* (f). To Cosmas, now Bishop of Maiuma, and therefore the writings are after A.D. 743, p. 1-74. The *Dialectica* of this author, in which the Damascene followed Porphyry on the five voices and the logical writings of Aristotle, had appeared in Latin in old editions as a compendium, perhaps from the version of Burgundio of Pisa. [cf. Bandini, *Cat. codd. Gr. Laur.* I, p. 273.] And in the Basel edition of 1575, the Latin epitome is poorly accommodated to the Greek fusions. An Arabic interpretation represents the same epitome, according to Lequien, which is not published. He himself revised the entire Greek text from many royal manuscript codices and the Basel edition, and provided it with a new version. Fabr. [In the British libraries, according to the *Catal. codd. Angl.*, etc., in vol. I, in the Bodleian library, there are no. 298, 702, 1882, works no. 1 and 3 (marked by Fabricius: - (the same among the codd. of the Harleian Library, no. 5649, and in cod. Bavar. CLXI, according to the *Cat. Gr. codd. Bavar.* p. 62.) - no. 2524, of the Damascene. 1) *Logica*; but, as the maker of the catalogue notes, the order of the chapters from 25 to 32 is not entirely the same as in the printed editions, just as this manuscript codex, so also others possess as one and the same work what are held as two in the printed editions, e.g. the *Dialectica* and *On the Orthodox Faith*. And certainly the letter to Cosmas the bishop proves plainly that they are not distinct works: sometimes there are also scholia or longer notes in this codex, but they are rare, where in some places in the top margin it is read *tou autou Ioannou* etc. 2) *On the Orthodox Faith*. - no. 3614, *On the Orthodox Faith*: *Logica*; introduction of dogmas, to J. Bishop of Laodicea, which differs much from the printed one; letter on the Trisagion to Jordan, archimandrite, which does not concord with the printed one. - Among the Eton coll. codd., vol. II cat. no. 1823. *Logica*, elementary, on... ^{C D}

two natures and one hypostasis; in the public library of Cambridge n. 2297, an introduction to dogmas, elementary, from the voice of St. Damascene to John, bishop of Laodicea, and marked n. 1, 2, 3 by Fabricius. Tom. II cat. n. 2276, among the Vossian codd., philosophical definitions. In the public library of Paris, on dialectics in twenty-two codd., on heresies in four codd. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith in twenty-seven codd., according to the catalogue, etc., tom. II. In the Coislin cod. CCCLXXV, 150 chapters on dialectics, some of which are missing from the beginning, some are transposed. In cod. CCCLXXVIII, the book *On Azymes* (concerning which see below, n. 24) is attributed to Damascene, according to Montfaucon in the *Bibliotheca Coisliniana*, p. 584 and 585. At Madrid in the royal cod. LXXXII *On the Orthodox Faith*, and cod. CXV, *Logica*; concerning these codd. Iriarte has much in the catalogue of Madrid codd., p. 303 and 455 sqq. At Augsburg, *Logica*, and again with the work *On the Orthodox Faith*, in II codd. In the Imperial Library of Vienna, vol. V, Lambecius n. 1, 2, 3, in cod. CCII. N. 1, and theological definitions, in cod. CCI. N. 1 and 3, in cod. CCIII, and CCV, and CCXCIII, and n. 1, with ancient Greek scholia in the margin, synoptic tables, and general prolegomena on philosophy, at n. 3, in cod. CCIV. *Logica* divided into 50 chapters, in cod. CCXCIV; see Lambecius, *Commentarii* V, p. 4 sq., where Kollar is extensive in a note on the term *Majuma*, i.e., a sea port, and festive games, celebrated in honor of Dionysus and Venus in early spring, especially by the Gazaeans, and distinguished by the name of Majumas (a), p. 1 sqq., p. 5 sq., where Kollar discusses that codex and the briefer *Logica* of Damascene more carefully; p. 9 sq., where Kollar notes that the general prolegomena in cod. CCIV are by no means on Damascene’s *Logica*, but on Porphyry’s *Isagoge* concerning the five universal predicables; p. 12 sqq., where one should compare the note of Kollar, p. 323, p. 535 and 539. Then in vol. IV n. 1 and 3, and 21, likewise theological definitions through questions and answers, in cod. CXLVII. Excerpts from the works, indicated at n. 1 and 3, in cod. CLVII. From the work *On the Orthodox Faith*, a fragment on the procession of the Holy Spirit in cod. CLXI, and a chapter on virginity, in cod. CLXV. Certain miscellaneous fragments, in cod. CLXXXVII. Primary institutions on decrees and opinions, and chapter 1 of dialectics on cognition, in cod. CLXXXVIII. N. 3, in cod. CXCVIII, in which the work is divided into 144 chapters and two following ones, and in the last of these the work is divided into 150 chapters; and some ancient scholia are placed in the margin; finally p. 177 sq., there exists a certain appendix on the divine names. See Lambecius V, p. 268 seq. et 270 seq., p. 340, p. 358 seq., p. 384, 447, 450 and 478 sqq. And in vol. VII, p. 382; in cod. XCV, 6, *Logica* with a preface to Cosmas, bishop of Majuma, a port and emporium of Palestine. At Venice in cod. Marc. CXL. and D. Opp. n. 1 and 3; in cod. CCCCXCIX, work n. 3 divided into one hundred chapters; in cod. DLXXXVII, *Dialectica*, with a letter to Cosmas; see the catalogue of Greek codd. of the Marciana, p. 80, 265 and 308. At Florence, in the Laurentian library, there are in various codd. sometimes philosophical and theological chapters; sometimes excerpts from dialectics and philosophical chapters; or a chapter on names; or an excerpt on God; sometimes dialectics according to a briefer method; sometimes an exposition of the orthodox faith; sometimes Damascene is cited in the works of others. For the sake of brevity I refer readers to the catalogue of Bandini of the Greek Laurentian codd. (where he sometimes follows more fully the order of things and themes or the difference of the codd. from the published ones and other things worthy of note), tom. I, p. 255, and 273, and 422, 1 and 2; and tom. III, p. 375 seq.; again in tom. I, p. 492, 3, tom. III, p. 4, n. 7, p. 11 sqq. n. 1, 2, and *On the Divine Names* n. 9, p. 34, n. 2; p. 324, n. 20; from the theological chapters of J. Damascene and other Fathers, excerpts on the Holy Spirit, p. 394, cod. XIV, n. 2; add above in the general notice of codices, at the end. At Turin in the Royal library, philosophical chapters in codd. CCXV and CCLXXXVII. Life of Damascene written by John, patriarch of Antioch; on the Holy Trinity (i.e., chapter VII, book I, *On the Orthodox Faith*, tom. I, p. 131, ed. Lequien). On the divine names and on the place of God, in cod. LIV. See the catalogue of Greek codd. of Turin, p. 308, 384 and 157. Harl. ...from whence they have arisen and how they have proceeded, p. 76-118 (b). Repetitive almost word-for-word from the *Anacephalaeosis* of St. Epiphanius, to which Damascene has added, from Theodoret, Timothy, and Sophronius, a narrative of a little more than twenty sects and some things about the Mohammedans (c). In previous editions it occurs in Latin only, from the version of Joachim Perionius. In the Cologne edition, another interpretation is read by an uncertain author, whom Lequien thinks to be the Burgundian Pisan. The final part on the Mohammedans was supplied in Greek from the Augsburg codex and the Latin version added by Fronto Ducaeus in the Latin edition of Damascene, Paris 1619, in folio. The complete book in Greek was first published by J. Baptista Cotelerius from the Paris Royal codex MMCCCXXXVI, with his own version and notes, in the first tome of *Monimenta Ecclesiae Graecae*, Paris 1677, in-4, p. 278, 337. Lequien further compared it with the royal codices MMMCCXLIV and MMCMXXX, and the Augsburg one, and also with that which Perionius used for the arrangement of his version, and with Epiphanius and other heresiologists, and added more extensive notes. The *Profession of Faith*, with which Damascene sealed the book on heresies, was published in Greek by Lambecius VIII, p. 426. Fabricius, *Bibliotheca* p. 898 sqq. ed. Kollar, whose notes on p. 901 and 903 you should compare, referring to the Caesar cod. XLIV, n. 43, where Damascene's epitome of the *Panarion*, i.e., the work of Epiphanius against 80 heresies, exists with a continuation up to his own time. That entire epilogue, which Lambecius published in Greek, Lequien also rendered in Greek and Latin in his edition, tom. 1, p. 117. The same book on heresies...

^A stands in cod. Caesar. CCI, n. 3. See Lambecius V, p. 5 seq., and Kollar’s note there. In the same volume, p. 257, in cod. CCXLVII, n. 16, there are chapters on the false dogmas of the Massalian heresies, but, in the judgment of Kollar, this collection seems to have been compiled from the same authors or similar ones as those from which the Damascene’s compendium on heresies was gathered, because the chapters on the Massalians in that same Caesar. codex, though more corrected and complete, are entirely the same as those which Cotelerius brought to light in *Eccles. Gr. Monument.*, tom. I, p. 278. In the same codex CCXLVII, n. 25, is the Damascene’s book against heresies, but much more complete. See Lambecius V, p. 266 seq., and Kollar there. — Various fragments of the Damascene from the work against heresies exist in cod. CCLI, or the common ascetic subjects of an anonymous author. Lambecius, V, p. 324 seqq., will provide more. In the book on heresies, tom. I, p. 302, ed. Coteler., the Damascene makes mention of the Collyridians; Kollar notes some things regarding this passage and the Collyridian heresy in his additions to Lambecius VIII, p. 303. Indeed, Lambecius himself goes on to demonstrate at length that the Collyridians were in error, since they held the Blessed Virgin Mary to be a goddess, and falsely believed that she was not subject to death. Add Walch, *Hist. hæres.*, tom. III, p. 625 seqq., regarding the sect of those women, and below, n. 31 (a). In Th. Gale’s cod. XX, see the catalog of English codices, etc., II, n. 5855, for a catalog of heresies taken from St. John Damascene. In cod. Coislin. XXXIV, fol. 195, of which see above, vol. VIII, p. 265, note ee. See also Montfaucon in *Bibl. Coislin.*, p. 111, regarding cod. XXXVII, or the collection by Nikon of passages from both Sacred Scripture and the Fathers, which contains very extensive excerpts from St. John Damascene. Paris, in four publ. bibl. codices. Add Oudin.

NOTIFICATION FROM THE FABRICIUS LIBRARY

^B This work was distributed by the Damascene into one hundred chapters, not four books, as Lambecius and Lequien attest from the inspection of Greek codices (b). The latter, a most learned man, adds that even in the Greek edition of Verona 1531, in-4, the division into four books is not exhibited: which indeed is true concerning the context itself; but in the running heads throughout the entire work, the numbers of the four books are found to be noted. Nor does that division appear in ancient manuscripts of the early Latin version, unless perhaps noted in the margins of some copies by a second and more recent hand and ink. ^C (In the Treviso library are the rubrics of a book by St. John Damascene, priest, in which is the certain tradition of the orthodox faith, translated from Greek into Latin by Burgundio, a Pisan judge and citizen under Pope Eugenius III, mentioned in Montfaucon p. 75 of his *Diarium Italicum*, [and in *bibl. bibl. mss.* I, p. 482 E.] Traces of the distinction into four books are already found in St. Thomas Aquinas, and Vincent of Beauvais, *Speculum naturale* XXVII, 102, who used the Latin version. Wherefore, I believe, says Lequien, that such a partition was devised and introduced by the Latins after the fashion of the four books of Peter Lombard. For just as this Peter, the Master of the Sentences, surpassed so many others among the Latin scholastics (c), so the Damascene is recognized as having been the first among the Greek Church Fathers who, more fully and *somatikōteron* (more bodily/concretely) and more subtly, embraced the entire system of theology in order, using for the most part the very words with which he discusses the divine mysteries, derived from the preeminent Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Nemesius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, the author known as Dionysius the Areopagite, Leo the Great, Leontius of Byzantium, Maximus the Confessor, and especially Gregory Nazianzen). John Leland, page 285 of *De scriptoribus Britannicis*, mentions the annotations of Robert Grosseteste, or Capito, Bishop of Lincoln, who flourished in England in the XIII century, on the Damascene’s book on the orthodox faith, which he translated poorly from the Greek. But neither Burgundio’s (d) translation nor Robert’s annotations have been edited to this day. Likewise, Robert, in his book *De cessatione legalium*, pages 92 and 167, cites St. John Damascene in his book of Sentences, alluding to this work. The version by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples was published in Paris in 1507, in-4, with the commentaries of Josse Clichtove; and subsequently, it was very often included, both with the Greek text and without it, as I reported above concerning the editions of the Damascene’s works. After Lefèvre, Jacques Billy translated it, whose interpretation appears in the Latin editions of Paris in 1577, 1603, and 1659, in folio, and often stands in need of correction, as Richard Simon also noted in *Bibl. selectæ*, tom. II, p. 35. It was not in the spirit of Clichtove, says Combefis, a man of no Greek learning, to have the excluded commentaries, by which the books on the faith were burdened rather than seriously illustrated, with a purer text augmented by the collation of multiple codices, and a new or interpolated (Billy’s) version.

^A and to restore them to the sources, namely the older Fathers, whom the Damascene, professing himself to write nothing of his own, brings forward. What Combefis, occupied with other matters, omitted to fulfill, Lequien has executed with great zeal, who presents this work of the Damascene, with both the distinction of chapters and books preserved, accurately revised according to the Greek manuscript codices, with his own new version and notes. One must not omit that Christophorus Pelargus of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder published in 1605 in quarto an epitome of universal theology fashioned from this work of the Damascene; and since he had intended to draw that writer to the side of the Reformers, Balthasar Mentzer of our own number, the elder, published at Giessen in 1614, and through the respondent Jo. Saubert of Altdorf publicly defended, a very brief delineation of the third book of the Damascene’s *On the Orthodox Faith*, in which his sentiment and confession concerning Christ, the God-man, is demonstrated to the eye against certain wretched critics of theological matters. It is also certain that B. D. Elias Veiel, a most deserving prelate of the Church of Ulm, had for a long time entertained the plan of publishing this work of the Damascene in Greek and Latin with commentaries, revised according to the Augustan (a) and Imperial library manuscripts; but the fate of that most excellent man intervened against this noble proposal. Two interpolations, in book III, chapters 3 and 7, found in some manuscripts and inserted by an alien hand into the Damascene’s work, Lequien rendered in Greek and Latin, pages 659-661. Furthermore, what Jo. Wegelin published under the name of Cyril of Alexandria concerning the Holy Trinity, and what Aubert presents in the final volume of the works of Cyril—which I recall noting above on page 571—is the work of the Damascene, although for the most part repeated from the writings of Cyril.

^B Three *Apologetic Discourses* (pages 307-390). John of Jerusalem calls them *epistolary discourses* in the *Life of the Damascene*, chapter 14, and he mentions them again in chapter 33. The first was written after the year 727 of Christ, the tenth of Leo the Isaurian, wherein he promulgated the edict against the images, but before that good shepherd of the rational flock of Christ—by which words the Damascene at page 308 understands Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople—was deposed by Leo, which happened toward the end of the year 729. Germanus, who was “shining in life and discourse, was beaten and became an exile, as did many other bishops and fathers whose names we do not know.” The third, which Humphrey Hody in the prolegomena to the *Chronicle of John Malalas*, chapter 32, without great cause adjudges away from John of Damascus, is very similar to the second, and each was written before the anathema was publicly pronounced against Leo, that is, before his thirteenth year, 730 of Christ (c). They were published first with the *Life* written by John of Jerusalem in Greek, edited by Nicolaus Majoranus, who dedicated them to Cardinal Giovanni Pietro Caraffa, Rome, 1553, in octavo. Godfried Tilmann, a Carthusian monk of Paris, translated them into Latin, Paris, 1555 in quarto (e); Antwerp, 1556, in duodecimo. Before him Petrus Franciscus Zinus, Venice, 1554, in octavo (n), whose version, recollated with the addition of the Greek, was published in the Basel edition of 1575, which Jac. Billius also preserved in his own Latin edition, with the addition of a few corrections, Paris, 1577, 1603, 1619. ^C Finally (not to mention the common French version of Verdun 1573), Lequien thought it worth the effort to fashion a new third version from both Latin interpretations, using also the emendations of Billius (f). Subjoined to each of these books by the Damascene are various passages of the Fathers in favor of the images, a list of which I shall subjoin in this place [v. Walch. *Hist. hær.*, XI, p. 322 sq.]

NOTITIA FROM THE LIBRARY OF FABRICIUS. INDEX OF WRITERS whom John Damascene cites in his books on images.

Ambrosius, bishop of Milan, from his letter to all Italy, 344; to the Emperor Gratian on the incarnation of God the Word, 383. Anastasius Sinaita, of the Holy Mountain of Sinai, 378. On the new Sunday and the Apostle, Thomas, 388. Anastasius, archbishop of Theopolis (Antioch), and patriarch, on the Sabbath and to Symeon, bishop of Bostra, 344, 386. Anastasius, emperor, 377. Arcadius, archbishop of Cyprus, in the Life of Symeon the Stylite, miracle CXXXII, 378. Athanasius, 319. Alexandrinus, book III, against the Arians, 383. From his writings, one hundred chapters to Antiochus the governor, by way of question and answer, chapter 38, 366, 383. These questions are those of the younger Athanasius, who, Lequien does not deny, lived after the year 700 A.D. Basilius, 317, 362: from his interpretation of Isaiah, 366; on Barlaam the martyr, 320, 342; [v]ian of the Samaritan woman, 384. Basilius, in the 27th of his thirty chapters to Amphilochius on the Holy Spirit, 318, 321, 342, 364. On the XL martyrs, 322, 323, 342, 364, 381. — Council of Chalcedon, 380. Clemens Alexandrinus, of the most ancient Clement to Alexander, from the seventh book of the Stromata, 382. Constantinus, emperor, 370. Cyrillus Alexandrinus, from his address to the Emperor Theodosius, 367; from the Thesaurus, 367; from the work [demonstrating] that the mystery of Christ is indicated throughout the whole of the Mosaic scripture, 367. Cyrillus of Jerusalem, from the twelfth catechesis, 383. Dionysius, 354; the Areopagite, great in divine matters, 355. And [the one who has] disputed about God and the things pertaining to God, 31. On the Divine Names, 320, 742. — Dionysius. On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 320, 342, 363. Epistle to Titus, 319, 342; to John the Theologian, 363. Dioscorus, 380. Ephesine synod, the robber synod, 329. Epiphanius: the book from which a testimony is produced against images, perhaps interpolated and spurious, 319. Know that the discourse is forged; [a] convenient interpreter of the words of Epiphanius, 326. The church of Epiphanius in Cyprus, adorned with images, 339. Eusebius Pamphili, book V, of the Demonstrations in the Gospels, 367; book VII, Ecclesiastical History, 369; book IX, 370. Life of Constantine, 371, 372, 380. Euthymius, exarch, Arian, 376. Eutychianus, 377. Flavianus, martyr, killed in the robber synod of Ephesus, 329. Another [Flavianus] of Antioch, 381. Gennadius, archbishop of Constantinople, 386.

[p] 71 sqq. He returned [some] from a book of prayers, which the Greek churches use, the prayers of John Damascene and other Church Fathers. But whether the three books on images are genuine or not, Oudin inquires at length 1. c. p. 1747 sqq. and [argues] against the opinion of Guil. Cave, Frid. Spanheim, and El. Dupin. By many arguments, especially that writers much later than the age of Damascene are cited, he corroborates that our Damascene was not the architect of those three orations; however, he defends the judgment of Humfred Hody, which was attacked by Fabricius, and endeavors to restore and confirm it; finally he concludes that the author of those three orations cannot be older than the end of the 10th century or the beginning of the following 11th. Concerning Damascene, the primary patron of the cult of images, you will read more in Walch’s *Histor. hær.*, etc., vol. X, p. 150 sqq., 156 sqq., 168 sqq., 176 sqq., 235 sqq., 399, 723 sqq., etc., and vol. XI, p. 276 sqq., where he also notes something against Lequien concerning the time when the 2nd discourse was written, and vindicates the three orations to Damascene against Oudin, etc., and does not approve the judgment of Humfred Hody. Harl.

Germanus, patriarch of Constantinople, 308, sent into exile, 336. Gregorius, the "God-breathed" (Nazianzenus), 312, 355; the Divine, 516, 546; the Theologian, 319; from the second discourse on the Son, 367; from the discourse against Julian the Apostate, 371; from his poems, 381, 382; on the baptism, 384. Gregorius Nyssenus, brother of Basil, 323. Supplement to the Hexaemeron of Basil, on the creation of man, 324, 342. Oration on the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit and on Abraham, 324, 342, 364. Helladius in the Life of St. Basil, 327, 365. Hieronymus, presbyter of Jerusalem, 385; the passage which is brought forward is of Hieronymus, a Greek writer, of whom see above. John of Antioch, also known as Malalas, Chronography, 368. John Chrysostom on the one lawgiver, 343. John Chrysostom from the interpretation of the just Job, 371. From the discourse, "Recognize that you walk in the midst of snares" (XV, De statuis), from the first discourse, 584; on the washing of the feet, 584. In Meletium, Antioch., it begins: "Everywhere this holy," 343. In St. Flavianum, Antioch., 381. In Colossians, from the third discourse, 367. In Epistle to Timothy, chapter 8, 382. Interpretation in Epistle to Hebrews, 324, 342, 364, 367. On the parable of the sower, 343. On the betrayal of Judas and on Pascha, 343. In psalm 117, on David and Absalom, 367. Denounced before Eudoxia as if he followed the heresy of Origen, 385. John, deacon, 377. Isidorus, deacon. His Chronography, 385. Julian, most godless and apostate, 327, 365. Another [Julian], 380. The Gospel against Leo; he has the iconoclasts write the Gospel of Leo the Isaurian by way of sarcasm, 338. Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, from the discourse against the Jews, 325, 326, 342. From the 5th discourse, 373, 374, 375, 376. Macedonius, 380. Magnus, presbyter, 376. Manichaeans, 314, 336. The shameful and filthy and unclean writing of the Manichaeans and of the Greeks and of the other heresies, 344, 350. The Manichaeans wrote the Gospel according to Thomas, 338. Maximus, philosopher and confessor, from the accounts of what was done regarding him between him and Theodosius the bishop, 344, 387. Mercurius, martyr, 365. Methodius, bishop of Patara, on the resurrection, 389. Olympius, 376. Pantaleon and Marinus, martyrs, relics of, 377. Polychronius, interpretation in Ezekiel, 372. Proclus (Constantinople), 328. Severianus, bishop of Gabala, on the dedication of the cross, 327, 343, 365; from the fourth discourse on the cross, 385.

^A Theodorus (S.), bishop of Pentapolis. His narrative, little to be credited, concerning Dio, who compelled a fugitive slave by means of an image of a martyr to return, 382 seq. "Theologically speaking," to speak like a theologian, 310, 349. They are referred to as Nazianzen's loci. Thomas's gospel, supposed by the Manichaeans, 338. Timotheus, of Constantinople, 380. Life of St. Basil, written by Helladius, 327. Of Chrysostom, 328, 343, 365. Of the abbot Daniel, 388. Of Eupraxia, 328, 343, 389. Martyrdom of Eustathius, 372. Of Mary of Egypt, 328, 343, 388. Of Simeon the Thaumaturge, written by Arcadius, 378.

5. *Libellus de recta sententia* [Booklet concerning the right opinion], or confession of faith, dictated by Damascenus and by Elias the bishop, delivered to Peter, metropolitan of Damascus, p. 390-395. It begins: *Non parvus utrorumque metus*. Lequien first edited it from Vatican codex 1262 and added the translation. In this booklet, the doctrine of the six synods is proved, and all heresies from Simon Magus ^B until that which has been moved in our own time against the holy Church of Christ and our God—that is, up to the Iconoclasts—are rejected; also the *nremata* [imputations] of Origen, the addition to the Trisagion by Peter the Fuller, the Monothelites Sergius, Cyrus, Paulus, Petrus, Pyrrhus, Macarius, and his disciple Stephanus, as well as the Maronites. [Conf. Walch, *Hist. haeres.* VIII, p. 480 sq. and the following note to no. 6. Harl.]

6. *Tomus*, or *Libellus contra Jacobitas, Monophysitas, sive Eutychianos* [Booklet against the Jacobites, Monophysites, or Eutychians], by Peter, bishop of Damascus, a person of Dara—that is, Daraea (a)—a Jacobite bishop, p. 397-427. It begins: *Non bonum est quod non bonum est*. Henry Canisius had edited it in Latin from the translation of Francis Turrianus, but it was mutilated, under the title *Damasceni contra Acephalos*, in volume IV, p. 173 of his *Antiquae lectiones*, Ingolstadt 1604, in-4. Lequien was the first to publish a more complete version in Greek from a Vatican codex, and he provided the parts that were lacking in Latin from an Arabic translation, which the Fathers of the Paris Oratory keep in manuscript (b). Since Damascenus appended many passages from the doctors of the Church to this booklet, receive also a short list of them in this place.

Ambrosius of Milan, *from the work on the incarnation, that is, against Apollinarius*, 423. The same, *to the emperor Gratian*, 425. Which passage Cyril cited in the Ephesian synod, ibid., *from the interpretation of the creed*, 423.

Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, *epistle to Seleucus*, 423, 424.

Aristotle, the thirteenth of the apostles, to the heretics, 399.

Arius, 396, 399.

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, 408, 409, *from the work against the heresies*, 420. *Epistle to Epictetus*, 422.

Basilius of Caesarea, *from the work against Eunomius discourse 1*, 421. *From the dialogue (7) against Aetius the Arian*, 421. *Epistle to Amphilochius*, 398.

Cyrillus of Alexandria, 406, 408, 409, 410, 411, 413. *In the Ephesian synod*, 423. *From the work to the Alexandrians*, 424. *From the discourse on faith*, 425. *Epistle to John of Antioch*, 425. *On Leviticus*, 425. *Discourse on the Trinity*, ibid. *Epistle to Succensus I and II*, 426.

Diodorus, 598.

Dioscorus, 398.

Eunomius, heretic, 397.

Gregorius the Theologian, 398, 410, 411, 412, 418, 419. *Epistle II to Cledonius*, 422. *Apologeticus*, 422. *From the poems*, 423. *Sermo II on the Son*, 422.

Gregorius of Nyssa, *Epistle to Philippus the monk*, 421. *From the work against Apollinarius*, ibid.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, *from the works against Valentinus*, 420. *The historical books declare*, 419.

Joannes Chrysostomus, *from the discourse on Lazarus*, 526. *From the epistle to the monk Caesarius*, 427.

Justinus, philosopher and martyr, *in the exposition on the right confession*, 410. *From the third book, on the holy Trinity, chapter 13*, 420. *Chapter 14*, ibid. Lequien observes that by the "third [book] on the Trinity," the exposition of faith is understood, which is read among the works of St. Justin, and which was appended to two booklets against the Jews and the Greeks addressed to Eufrasius the sophist; all of which have a younger Justin as their author, perhaps the one whose epistle to Peter the Fuller exists.

Methodius, bishop of Patara, *from the discourse on the Meeting of the Lord* [Hypapante], 421.

Nestorius, *anthropolatre*, 398, 402.

Petrus Fullo, 419. *Against the physicists*, 405.

7. ^A *Dialogue against the Manichaeans*, or *against the Paulicians* [pp. 429-465]. It begins: *Since we have gathered together*. In certain codices, it is attributed to S. Athanasius, contrary to the fact (a). Billius doubted that it belonged to Damascene for the sole reason that he interprets the "fire," the tormentor of demons and impious men, not as literal fire, but as the furies of malice and the burning, frustrated lust of sin. See pp. 146, 448, 460, 463. But the same view seemed correct to other Doctors of the Church, even more ancient ones; this was noted by Sixtus of Siena, lib. VI of his *Bibliotheca Sancta*, annotation 40, and by the Benedictines in [their edition of] Ambrose, vol. I, p. 1460. Emanuel Margunius, a Cretan, first published this dialogue with a translation at Padua (1572, 8vo). Then the Basle editors reprinted both languages in their edition of Damascene (1575, fol.). Jo. Leunclavius added it, along with another translation of his own, to the embassy of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus to the Armenians, the epistle of Leo the Great on the faith, the works of Leontius and Constantine Harmenopulus on sects, and the confessions of faith of Harmenopulus, Augustine, and Hilary (Basle, 1578, 8vo). The third translation, that of Jac. Billius, exists in the Parisian Latin editions of Damascene of 1577, 1603, and 1619, folio.

8. *Disputation between a Christian and a Saracen* [pp. 466-469]. It begins: *Tell me, O bishop, was not the world idolatrous?* It had appeared in Latin from an old translation in previous editions. Lequien did not have a Greek codex at hand, although Lambecius testifies that one exists in the Imperial Library (V, p. 126 b); nevertheless, he transcribed certain Greek fragments from the *Dialogues* of Theodore Abuqara, from which he also subjoined, on p. 470, a brief dialogue between a Christian and a Saracen in Greek and Latin, *from the objections against the Saracens by the voice of John Damascene*. See Oudin, *loc. cit.*, p. 1745, among the doubtful works, and p. 1760; and Fabricius, *De veritate relig. Christ.*, pp. 119 and 122 sq. Harl.]

9. *Fragment on Dragons* [pp. 471, 473]. It begins: *Since they fashion dragons*. And *On hags* [stryges, p. 473]. It begins: *I desire that not*. These two fragments, in which Damascene mocks the fables of the common people and the heretics, previously unpublished, were received by Lequien from Montfaucon. On p. 472, in the words *Dion, who wrote for the Romans regarding the kingdom and regarding the democracy of Rome, and who recounted the much-celebrated Carthaginian war*, it is not the *Discourse on Kingship* of Dio Chrysostom that is intended, but the *Roman History* books of another, Dio Cassius. Fabr. It is in Cod. Selden. XV, *Cat. Bibl. Bodl.*, s. codd. Angliæ, no. 3403. — in the Library of Saint-Germain. See Montfauc., *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum mss.*, p. 1157 A. Harl.

10. *On the Holy Trinity*, by questions and answers [pp. 474-477]. A work long since published by Jo. Wegelin with a translation and notes, Augsburg, 1611, 8vo. It begins: *Since the Holy Trinity is consubstantial*. Fabr. It exists in Paris in the public library, codices CD and MCCLXVII. In Vienna, in the Imperial codex CXLVII, no. 10. See Lambecius IV, p. 268. Regarding codex CCXLVI, no. 13, see Lambecius V, p. 246, and above at no. 6. Add Oudin, p. 1764, no. 8. Harl.

11. *On the Trisagion Hymn* [pp. 480-497]. Against the opinion of those who referred that hymn not to the Holy Trinity, but to Christ alone, and against the addition of Peter the Fuller, approved by the Jacobites and Maronites (see p. 485). This epistle had appeared in Greek and Latin, by I know not what translator, in the Basle edition of Damascene (1575), but it is presented here by Lequien, far more corrected and with a new translation, according to four manuscript codices. It begins: *The longing for you*. The places from the Fathers, which Damascene proposes to defend at the end of this writing (p. 488 sq.), are these: ^B From Athanasius, *in the discourse on the Incarnation and the Trinity* [p. 448], beginning: *Those who craftily*; p. 495. From Basil, *from the fourth discourse against Eunomius*, beginning: *If by nature God is the Son*, 493. *From the discourse to Amphilochius on the Holy Spirit* [p. 403]. From Chrysostom, *on "Blessed is"*, beginning: *From wonders into wonders* (tom. V Savil., p. 882); p. 489. From Cyril, Alex., *from the sixth discourse on the Holy Trinity*, beginning: *Of equality, then*; p. 490. *From the ninth discourse on worship in the Spirit*, p. 490. *From the fourth discourse to Hermias*, beginning: *But God from God*; p. 491. *From the fifth discourse to Hermias*, beginning: *Well then, by all means for us*; p. 492. *In the discourse on the Spirit to Hermias*, beginning: *A labor of good things*, 494. From Epiphanius, *from the discourse on the Holy Theotokos* [p. 498]: *The holy and wonderful Epiphanius in the discourse entitled "Ancoratus"*, 494.

^A Proclus of Constantinople, *from the discourse on the Holy Theotokos*, p. 492. *From the encomium on the Holy Theotokos, the beginning of which is: "All testimonies and festivals indeed...",* ibid.

Anastasius, abbot of St. Euthymius, had brought forward these passages, being alien to the Eutychian heresy, of whom Damascene makes mention with praise, pages 481 and 495, in order to prove that he had attributed the Trisagion to the Son, which to John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, seemed in no way admissible. Finally, from the solemn formula of the celebration of the mysteries, Damascene proves that the Trisagion is indeed to be understood as concerning the Holy Trinity, and not the Son alone, p. 496. Which passage, Lequien noted, was repeated from the liturgy that is borne under the name of the Apostle James.

12. *On the Holy Fasts (De sanctis jejuniis)*, an epistle to Cometas, a monk, *to the blessed and genuine servant of Christ, lord Cometas, spiritual brother, John the least*, pages 499-505. Lequien was the first to edit this from the Medicean [(a)] and Baroccian manuscripts, transcripts of which were communicated to him by John Ernest Grabe and Anselm Banduri, although Turrianus had long ago produced fragments from it in his *Apology for the Epistles of the Popes* and in his notes to the *Apostolic Constitutions*. In this epistle, Damascene rejects the custom of the Severians, who observed the fast for eight weeks, from Septuagesima until Easter. The passages which are subjoined at the end are both the *Apostolic Ordinance (diataxis)*, of which there is also mention in Epiphanius LXX, 12, and those of the Doctors of the Church: St. Basil *from the discourse against the drunkards*, Chrysostom *from the discourse at the end of the fast*, Anastasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, *from an encyclical epistle*, Epiphanius, Cyprian, *from the discourse to the monks* (translated from the epistle to the monks), John, Bishop of Athens, Anastasius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, then of the heretics: Severus, the Acephalus, Archbishop of Antioch, *from his festival sermons*, in the sermon *on the Forty Days of the Fasts*, delivered in the Church of Cassian, which begins: "It is a law also for bodily struggles," and from the book *of various chapters noted down by himself*, and also of Benjamin, the Severian, pseudo-bishop of Alexandria, *from his fourth book of festival matters, in the pseudo-festival thirtieth, the beginning of which is: "Radiant and to-be-admired"; and in the pseudo-festival thirty-fifth, the beginning of which is: "And now I think to hear."*

13. *On the eight spirits of wickedness (De spiritibus nequitiae)*, of which before Damascene, Evagrius, Nilus, Cassian, etc., [wrote] to a certain monk, pp. 506-508. Lequien was the first to provide the Greek from the manuscript of Abraham Selleri. Bilibald Pirckheimer had translated it into Latin, whose version, composed in many places differently from the Greek codex, is subjoined separately on p. 508. It begins: *Know, brother, that there are eight*. ^B Then follows *On virtues and vices, of the soul and body, and on the three-fold part of the soul (De virtutibus et vitiis animae, corporisque et de triplici parte animae)*. In Greek from the Royal codex with the version of Leo Allatius, pp. 509-514. It begins: *One must know that man is twofold*. Concerning the Caesarean manuscript, see Lambecius, IV, p. 197. Fabr. S. p. 434, ed. Kollar in cod. CLXXXIV, n. 3. — In cod. Coislin. CCCLXXIV, fol. 343, as testified by Montfaucon in *Bibl. Coisl.* p. 564. — At Venice, in cod. Marc. CCCCXCVIII. See the catalogue of Marcian codices, p. 261 sq. Harl.

14. *Elementary introduction to dogmas (Institutio elementaris ad dogmata)*, against the Acephali, or Monophysites, Monothelites, and Nestorians, to John, Bishop of the city of Laodicea, pages 515-521. It begins: *In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit*. Joachim Perionius had translated it in the year 1574. It appeared in Greek and Latin in the Basil edition of 1575. Fabr. See Oudin. ^C who writes in the author's catalogue of English codices, etc., I, p. 173. — At Oxford, in cod. CXLV of Merton College, s. n. 612 in the cited catalogue. — In cod. Taurin. CCCLXI. See the catalogue of Greek Taurin codices, p. 485. — At Florence, in cod. Medic. XXIX, n. 5, plut. 8, and cod. XX (in which there are many works of Damascene), n. 3, plut. 71. See Bandini, *Catalogue of Greek Laurentian codices* II, p. 272; and vol. III, p. 13. — At Paris, in the public library, cod. MCXXII, in which there are also the works that are immediately mentioned by Fabr., n. 15, 16, and 17. Harl.

15. *On composite nature, against the Acephali (De natura composita, contra Acephalos)*, pp. 521-527. This treatise also saw the light in Greek and Latin in the aforementioned Basil edition. Fabr. At Oxford, in the previously lauded codex of Merton College. — At Paris, in cod. MCXIX, n. 3. — At Florence, in cod. Laurent. XX, n. 4. Then follow those two little works which are reviewed by Fabr. under n. 16 and 17. See Bandini, *loc. cit.* III, p. 13; and Oudin, *loc. cit.* p. 1739 sq. Harl.

16. *On the two wills and operations in Christ, and on the remaining natural properties (De duabus in Christo voluntatibus et operationibus, et de naturalibus reliquis proprietatibus)*, pp. 529-554. It begins: *The two natures and one hypostasis*. It exists in the Basil edition of Damascene in the year 1575. ^D Billius makes corrections to Perionius from time to time in the Parisian Latin editions. But Francis Combefis published it with a new version and notes in his *History of the Monothelites*, or Volume II of the *Auctarium novum*, p. 466. Lequien kept the version of Combefis, [but] omitted the notes. Fabr. It exists in the Taurin codex cited at n. 14, and in six Paris codices in the public library; see also at n. 14 and 15; and compare Walch, *History of Heresies*, vol. IX (concerning the controversies with the Monothelites, whom Damascene opposed in this book), p. 498 sq., especially p. 540-556, where he gave longer excerpts from that book. Add Oudin, p. 1738 sq., who notes that in the Basil editions of 1548 and 1575, there is subjoined a little book *on the two natures of J.C.*, which, however, does not pertain to Damascene, but to St. Maximus the Confessor. Harl.

(a) See Bandini, *Catalogue of Greek Laurentian-Medicean codices*, vol. III, p. 294 seq. Harl.

the same mind as Nestorius"). Lequien is the first to publish the Greek text from the Royal Codex 2926, and he added the translation of Franciscus Turrianus, which Henricus Canisius had published in volume IV of the *Antiquae Lectiones*, p. 212, Ingolstadt, 1603, in-4 (a). I have learned by the same Lequien’s note that an Arabic translation of this book is also preserved in the Library of the Fathers of the Oratory in Paris. The translation of Turrianus also appeared with the notes of Marcus Beumler at Zurich, 1605, in-8, under the title of a short treatise *On the two natures in Christ*.

18. Various fragments found in ancient codices. [We have cited various fragments in general and passim in the *Notitia* of the codices.]

a) *’Eπίλυσις* ("Resolution"), a response to those who say that, if two natures constitute man, it is necessary to say that there are three natures in Christ, and as many actions (b), as Severus objected. pp. 572 seq. It begins: *Ὁ γὰρ ἄθλιος οὗτος Σεβῆρος* ("For this wretched Severus"). At the end it reads: *Τέλος εἴληφε ἡ βίβλος τοῦ ἁγίου καὶ μακαρίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ Μανσούρ τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ, ἡ λεγομένη Πάνδεκτος* ("The book of the holy and blessed John of Mansur of Damascus, called the Pandect, has reached its end"). The often-lauded Montfaucon attests, p. 62 of the *Diarium Italicum*, that there exists in Venice at the library of the most noble Contarini a parchment codex of the 12th century, in which the philosophical and rhetorical works of John Damascene are contained, at the end of which it likewise reads: *Τέλος τῶν ἐμπονημάτων Ἰωάννου τοῦ Μανσούρ, τῆς Πανδέκτης λεγομένης βίβλου* ("End of the works of John of Mansur, of the book called the Pandect").

b) ^B *Περὶ θεολογίας, πῶς εἰκονίζει τὸ θεῖον ἄνθρωπος* ("On theology, how man reflects the divine image"), pp. 573, 574. It begins: *Τὸ κατ’ εἰκόνα καὶ ὁμοίωσιν* ("That which is according to image and likeness").

c) Concerning the three parts of the soul, the four virtues, and the five faculties. It begins: *Τῆς δὲ ψυχῆς μέρη γ'* ("The parts of the soul are three"), p. 574 seq.

d) *Περὶ ἑνώσεως* ("On union"), various definitions. It begins: *Ἕνωσίς ἐστι διεστώτων* ("Union is of things that are apart"), p. 575. Confer St. Maximus, *Opera*, vol. II, p. 115. Fabr. In the Imperial codex CCL, no. 29, there is an excerpt from the *Logics* of Damascene (p. 651 sq., ed. Paris, 1619), *On the difference of union*. See Lambecius, vol. V, p. 323 sq. Harl.

e) A short fragment of Damascene, preserved by Nicetas Choniates in his *Thesaurus*, book XXIII, where he argues against Sotericus Panteugenos, who taught that the sacrifice was offered to the Father alone by the Son. It begins: *Ὁ τῶν ὅλων* ("He who of all"), p. 576. Allatius had published this in his *Vindiciae synodi Ephesinae*, p. 596.

f) Two other fragments from a manuscript Royal catena on Luke III, 13, p. 576. It begins: *Καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς τελώνας* ("And unto the tax collectors"). And: *Ἐπειδὴ πολλάκις* ("Since often"). See the general *Notitia* of codices (above, col. 14).

g) Concerning the Macedonian, Roman, Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian months, pp. 577, 578. It begins: *Φασὶ γὰρ οἱ Ἕλληνες εἶναι* ("For the Greeks say there are"). Fabr. In the Coislin codex CXX, fol. 214 verso, *concerning the months of the Macedonians from the ecclesiastical edition*. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. Coisl.*, p. 193. The same fragment is in the Florentine codex Med. VI, no. 7, plut. 4 (see Bandini, *cat. cit.*, I, p. 525) and in the codex CVII of Thomas Gale (see *cat. codd. Angliae*, II, no. 5941), as well as in Venice in the Bibl. Marciana DXXI, but the entire work is titled *Of the twelve months, and how they are named in the Egyptian language according to ecclesiastical tradition*, in the Marcian codex CCCXXXV (see *cat. codd. Gr. Marc.*, pp. 280 and 154); and in the Coislin codex CCLVIII (see Montfaucon, *l. c.*, p. 304). Harl.

19. ^C *Πασχάλιον* ("Paschal canon"), or Paschal table, pp. 580, 581, from Isaac Argyros, monk, *On the computus*, chap. 10, who wrote circa A.D. 1373. Moreover, as Lequien notes, John of Jerusalem reports in his *Life* (chap. 11) that Damascene was most skilled in astronomy, and he says this can be gathered from those few things he wrote for the instruction of the simpler folk, among which this Paschal canon would surely be. Furthermore, the occasion for composing, or rather for transcribing, this work was perhaps provided to our Damascene by the dissension of the heretics from the Catholics, which Theophanes reports occurred in the 20th year of Copronymus, ^D as the Catholics celebrated Easter on the 6th of April, and the heretics on the 13th—a date which, however, the most learned Antonius Pagi observes should be rejected to the 19th year of the same Copronymus and of Christ, 759. I have spoken of the computus of Isaac Argyros, monk—which after Jacob Christmann (Heidelberg, 1611, 4) was published by Petavius in *Uranologion* (Paris, 1630, fol.; Amsterdam, 1703, fol.)—in book III, chap. 5, p. 96 [in our edition, chap. 18, vol. IV, p. 29, note ff, f. 1].

20. An epistle, sent to I know not whom, but for the greater part missing, *On the nature of man*, p. 582. It begins: *Ὁ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι ζῶον λογικὸν θνητόν* ("Man is a rational, mortal animal"). Lequien first published it from the Baroccian codex.

21. *Περὶ τῶν ἐν πίστει κεκοιμημένων, ὅπως αἱ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν γινόμεναι λειτουργίαι καὶ εὐποιίαι τούτους ὀνίνησιν* ("Concerning those who have fallen asleep in faith, how the liturgies and kindnesses performed for them profit them"). In manuscript codices and by the more recent Greeks, this is attributed by great consensus to John Damascene. It is also read in the churches of the Greeks every year on the Saturday of the *Apokreo*, or Carnisprivium (Cheese-fare week).

^A However, Jo. Lensæus in *De limbo Patrum*, III, 12, Franciscus Suarez in *3 Thom.*, q. 52, art. 8, disp. 45, sect. 3, and Rob. Bellarmin in *II, 8 De purgatorio* (the references for which Rob. Cocus has already provided in *Censura scriptorum*, p. 427 f.), contend that it should be judged away from the Damascene. After them, Petrus Arcudius against Barlaam in *De purgatorio*, p. 396 and 402; Allatius, *De libris ecclesiasticis Græcorum* 270 f. and in the *Diatriba de Damasceno* p. 21; and most recently Lequien in his fifth Damascene dissertation [(a)]. And I confess that the reasons of the doubters, who deprive the Damascene of this writing, are not to be despised. Yet when I compare what the same Damascene wrote in favor of the images, I incline more to that opinion, which even Combefis in his *Bibl. concionatoria* approved, and I persuade myself that the Damascene is indeed the author.

“The old Latin translation,” says Lequien, “which Saint Thomas had been accustomed to, I could nowhere find.” Jo. Oecolampadius prepared another and dedicated it to Conrad Peutinger in 1520 in 4to, having been at that time a Brigittine monk. Ludovicus Nogarola composed another later, Verona, 1532, 4to. A fourth by Jacobus Billius, which Combefis thought should be changed here and there throughout, was corrected in its Greek diction according to several manuscript codices; to whose labor I did not hesitate to add my hand a second time, as is my custom. Oecolampadius’s version was reprinted frequently in the Basel editions of the Damascene; Billius’s in the Paris editions, and by Surius for November 2. Nogarola dedicated his to Clement VII, and published it at Verona in 1532, in 4to; it was reprinted at Venice in 1541, in 8vo, with the Greek text, because it had already appeared at Verona at the end of the book *De orthodoxa fide* in 1531, in 4to.

The following are cited in this writing: Athanasius, *ὁ πάνυ ἐν τῷ εἰς κοιμηθέντας αὐτοῦ παναρμονίῳ λόγῳ*, p. 591, 597. Basilius, 595, (*homilia in avaros*) 596. Dionysius, *ἐν τῇ περὶ τῶν κεκοιμημένων μυσταγωγίᾳ*, referred to in the book *De cœlesti Hierarch.* c. 7, p. 685. *τῆς οὐσίας ἀκριβέστατος μύστης Ἐφραὶμ ὁ μακάριος*, p. 596, 597. De Falconilla, restored to health by the prayers of St. Thecla, p. 585, 591; from the *Acts of Thecla*. Gregorius, *ὁ Διάλογος*, p. 591, interceding for the salvation of Trajan the Emperor, and heard, p. 591. Gregorius Nazianzenus, *orat. in funere Cæsarii, fratris*, p. 586. Gregorius Nyssenus, p. 586. Jo. Chrysostomus, recounted in the *epist. ad Philippenses et Galatas*, p. 586, 593. Life of St. John *τοῦ ἐλεήμονος*, p. 595. Books of the Maccabees, *ἡ θεία Γραφή*, p. 585. Palladius, *πρὸς Λαῦσον ἱστορικὴ βίβλος*, from which the fable about the skull speaking with Macarius, p. 587. He seems to touch upon the Sibylline prophecies concerning Christ, p. 589. ^B 22. *Epistola ad quemdam*, who had written to the author *περὶ ἐξομολογήσεως*, concerning confession, and who they are who have received the power of binding and loosing, p. 601–610. Incipit: *Ἐπέταξες τῇ εὐτελείᾳ ἡμῶν, πάτερ καὶ ἀδελφέ*. Lequien brought to light this epistle, in which the author, whoever he is, argues that monks, even if they are not priests, may enjoy the power of receiving the confessions of Christians, the first time with a translation by Thomas Gale, Dean of York [from cod. XCIII Gale, s. n. 5927 Cat. codd. Angliæ, etc.], from whom he received it for publication, but he denies that the author is our Damascene or another Syrian or Palestinian, but rather someone from another region that was subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople.

23. *Λόγος ἀποδεικτικὸς περὶ τῶν ἁγίων καὶ σεπτῶν εἰκόνων*. An oration or demonstrative epistle concerning the holy and venerable images to all Christians and against the emperor, Constantine *ὁ καβαλλῖνος*, Cabalinus, and all heretics, p. 613–638. Incipit: *Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν*. Combefis had published it with his own version in *tom. II Auctarii novi* p. 663, Paris, 1648 fol., testifying that in another royal codex [which is CM. secund. cat. codd. Paris. reg. tom. II, p. 174], it existed under the title of an epistle of John of Jerusalem to Constantine Cabalinus. Certainly, it was written after the synodal assembly against Copronymus held in A.D. 754, nay, even after the deposition of Constantine the patriarch, which took place in 766. Fabr. Therefore, Oudin also denied in the same place, p. 1749 f., that the author was John Damascene, to whom it is nonetheless attributed in cod. Vindob. Cæs. CXLIV, n. 27. See Lambec. *Comment. IV*, p. 235.—in *Cat. codd. Angliæ*, etc., vol. I, n. 274 Bibl. Bodl. among the codices of Thomas Roe.—Lequien suspects, p. 611, vol. I, that the author was John, Bishop of Euboea. Conf. Walch (who also does not acknowledge John Damascene as the author, in *Hist. hæres.*, vol. X, p. 151 f., vol. XI, p. 279, 288 f., 363–367. Harl.), and therefore that it is not by J. Damascene, to whom in the Mazarin codex [and the Venetian Marc. DLXXV of the catalog... ^{C D} [(a)] Oudin also in the same place, p. 1719, subscribes to the judgment of Natalis Alexander and the condemnation because of the enormous fables regarding the liberation of the soul of the Emperor Trajan from the underworld, narrated through the prayers of Pope Gregory, and of Falconilla, a woman, through the prayers of Thecla, the first martyr, and relates the judgments of Baronius and G. J. Vossius, *De historicis Gr. lib. II, cap. 24*. Add Oudin, p. 1744 f., among the doubtful works of Damascene. Nevertheless, it is ascribed to the Damascene in cod. Nanian. LXXV, n. 73, v. cat. codd. Gr. Nan. p. 156. In codices Taurin. LXX, CCXV and CCCXX. v. cat. codd. Gr. Taur. p. 164, 308 and 402. In cod. Medic. according to the index of Cat. Bandini.—Vindobonæ, in cod. CXLVI. n. 22. cod. CXLIV. n. 42 and CCCXV. n. 2. v. Lambec. IV. p. 261 and 241. with the note of Kollarius, and vol. V. p. 580, with Kollar.’s note.—in cod. Coislin. CCXXXIII and CCLXXXV, as tested by Montfaucon in *biblioth. Coislin.* p. 295 and 401, in the same index in *Bibl. biblioth. mss. I*, p. 196 B. and in *Diario Ital.* p. 215. Rome among the codices of the monastery of the holy fathers of St. Basil. Leiden in the public library among the Vossian codices. V. cat. bibl. Leid. p. 401. n. 4, with the *Titles XIV against the Nestorians*. Munich, in cod. Bavar. LXIII. v. cat. p. 18. Moscow, in the *bibl. synod.* cod. XXVI. by an ancient hand *Ἰωάννου τοῦ ταπεινοῦ μοναχοῦ* and by a more recent hand *τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ λόγος*, noting the learned Matthæi in *Notit. codd. Gr. Mosq. p. 37*. Paris, that sermon exists in fifteen codices in the public library. Harl.

[codd. Gr. p. 302], is attributed to him, but it is in fact by someone else, I know not whom, written long after his death in the name of three Eastern patriarchs, Christopher of Alexandria, Job of Antioch, and Basil of Jerusalem, and other bishops (a). It begins: *Ἐπεὶ τοιγαροῦν κατὰ τὴν θέλεκτον*, p. 629–647. Combefis first edited it in *Manipulo originum rerum Constantinopol.*, Paris, 1664, 4to, as I said in the eighth volume of this Library, p. 83.

25. *De azymis*, a work in two parts. The first begins: *Ἰστέον, ὅτι οἱ τὰ ἄζυμα προσκομίζοντες*, p. 674. The second is inscribed: *Ἕκτη αἵρεσις Ἀρμενίων*, and begins: *Τὸ ἄζυμον τὴν νεκρὰν θυσίαν*. "They offer with an impudent front a sacrifice dead and without leaven, according to the tradition of the Hebrews," p. 648–651. The author is not John of Damascus, but (at least regarding the latter part) a certain Meletius, who on p. 648 E is called *θεοφόρος ἀνὴρ καὶ τῶν Γραφῶν ἀκριβὴς ἐξεταστής*. Lequien, in his sixth Damascene dissertation, explains at length that neither work should be attributed to the Damascene, and shows that this holy doctor supported the common tradition of the Fathers, and maintained that Christ ate the Jewish Passover with his disciples on the day before he suffered. That point, however, is denied in both of these little works. The latter is praised by Combefis, vol. II of *Auctar. novi*, p. 427. Fabricius and Montfaucon, in *Bibl. Coislin.*, p. 585, note that in codex CCCLXXVIII, fol. 180, there does indeed occur a Damascene work *De azymis*, but that it is actually a book by John Philoponus, edited by Balthasar Corderius with the same Philoponus' *Opere in Hexaemeron*, and that it begins: *Ἐζήτηται περὶ τοῦ δείπνου τοῦ Δεσποτικοῦ πολλοῖς*. It is said that in the Paris public library codex MCCXCV, n. 18, there is a Damascene work *De azymis*, but in codex MCCCXV, n. 2, there is the letter of Leo of Achrida, Archbishop of Bulgaria, *De azymis et Sabbatis*, and at n. 3 another work *De azymis*, with no author's name added: it begins: *Τὰ ἄζυμα οὐκ ἄρτος*. Harl.

26. *Epistola Petri Mansur ad Zachariam*, bishop of Doara, which begins: *Εἰ καὶ διιστώμεθα τοῖς σώμασιν*, p. 655. Subjoined is his *κεφάλαιον περὶ τοῦ ἀχράντου σώματος οὗ μεταλαμβάνομεν*, concerning the immaculate body (b), of which we are made participants. It begins: *Τὸ τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν σώμα*, p. 656–659. Michael Glycas and Sicydita praise it under the name of John of Damascus in an epistle to Nectarius and Joannicius; and Peter Pantinus had published it under the name of John of Damascus at Antwerp, 1601, in 8vo; along with a homily *de Sabbato sancto*, from which Fronto Ducæus included it in the editions of the Damascene, Paris, 1603, 1619, folio. I do not think (says Lequien) that the Peter Mansur who was a kinsman of the Damascene was the Peter, Metropolitan of Damascus, under whose name it is certain our Damascene composed some works, and who, having had his tongue cut out under the Caliph Walid, was sent into exile because he had refuted the errors of the Arabs and Manichæans in his writings. Furthermore, Theophanes recounts the martyrdom of Peter of Maiuma, whom he notes was praised by our Damascene in a panegyric oration after he had been killed by the Mahomedans for the faith. There was another Peter Damascene, whose ascetic works are preserved in libraries but are not yet edited (c); he was, however, a simple monk and lived among the Byzantine Greeks. He lived in the year of the world 6695, or 1157 of Christ, as he himself testifies at the end of the third book with these words, which I excerpted from the royal codex MMCMXIV, fol. 122: *Ὁ γὰρ νικήσας χάριτι Χριστοῦ τὰ ὀκτὼ πάθη ταῦτα, φησὶν, ἐνίκησε καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ πάντα ἅτινα προεγράφησαν ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ βιβλίῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ συγγράψαντος αὐτὸν Πέτρου ταπεινοῦ μοναχοῦ τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ κατ' αὐτὸ σχήε' ἔτος, ἐνδ. ε'*. 663–670. It begins: "Who is wise, that he may understand?" The same person subjoins part of an oration against...

[a] Against Combefis, Oudin struggles heavily, [loc. cit. p. 1753 et seq.], and argues at length that it could not have been written by John of Damascus; the same is noted by Du Cange in *Catal. scriptorum Græcor.*, which he joined to the *Glossarium Græcum*, col. 28, attributing it to John, Archbishop of Jerusalem, then [col. 52] to John the Monk. Add Walch in *Hist. hær.*, vol. X, p. 153 seq. (where he writes that the author of the work is unknown and lived in the ninth century), p. 723 seq. (where he deals more copiously with the author, or authors, and the argument of this epistle, which is ancient indeed, but supposititious), vol. XI, p. 288 seq. and 368.

[b] That the body of Christ after the resurrection is devoid of blood is affirmed by this writer against the opinion of the Damascene and of the Fathers, especially the Greeks. See Jacques Boileau’s theological disquisition, opposed to the dissertation of Peter Allix concerning the blood of Jesus Christ after the resurrection, to the epistle of Augustine CXLVI, Paris, 1681, in 8vo. [In the Madrid royal codex LXXVII. fol. 330. v. Iriart. *Cat. codd. matr.* p. 286. concerning illuminated letters, *γράμμασι καταχύργοις*, and the true reading and interpretation of the last word. Harl.]

[c] Paris, in the Public Library, codex second of the catalog of Paris codices, vol. II. In codex MCXXXIV of Peter Damascene, 1) an admonition to his own soul (which is also in codex MCXXXV), 2) on the commandments of the Lord Christ, 3) an explanation of the dictum of St. Chrysostom on monastic life, 4) ascetica, which also exist in codices MCXXXVII and MCLXXXVIII. In this codex, furthermore, are found the same author's work on the struggle and spiritual warfare, on not refusing any danger for the defense of the truth; also on avoiding sin, and an explanation of the rule of John the hermit: in codex MCXXXV an alphabet; in codex MCXXXVI *Συνοπτικόν*. In the Bodleian Library, in codex Barocc. XIII, Peter Damascene on discretion; in codex CXXXIII four works of the soul. In codex CXCVII, from the book of Peter Damascene, *ἀρχὴ μὲν παντὸς ἀγαθοῦ*. The same excerpts from the book of Peter Damascene on ascetics are in Vienna in the Imperial codex CCLXXXIX, n. 20 sec. Nessel's *Cat. codd. Cæs.* part I, p. 397; in codex Barocc. CCXIII, on the seven operations, by which the mind is raised to God. In the Imperial codex CC, n. 2 at Nessel, l. c., p. 293 and at Lambec. vol. IV, p. 441; in codex CLXXXVII from the book of P. Damascene, sermons useful to the soul, beginning: *Τρίτη ἐστὶν ἀγρυπνία σύμμετρος*. In the Nanian codex CCXXIX, end, a work on virtues and vices. See the catalog of Greek Nanian codices, Venice, p. 423. Madrid in codex XIV, 35, Damascene excerpt on the manner in which one ought to approach the Holy Synaxis, and n. 92 seq. four chapters on ascetics. See Iriart, *Cat. codd. Gr. Matrit.*, p. 36, 37 sq. Peter Damascene’s book on the praises and feasts of the Virgin Mary, otherwise called *Marionale*, s. l. et a. folio. Panzer. A. T. IX, p. 170, from Thott, cat. VII, p. 35. Harl.

NOTICE FROM THE LIBRARY OF FABRICIUS.

similarly translated from the Arabic, in which a passage is cited from Chrysostom’s homily on Lazarus, which begins: *All knowledge is from God*. The learned man who thinks that this homily has not yet been published is mistaken; for it exists in Vol. VII of the Savile edition, p. 524, and not far from the beginning of it one reads these words, cited from the same by Damascene: *For he who honors the friends of that One sends the gift to Him; for being a lover of mankind, He is accustomed always to accept as His own the honors offered on their behalf*. ^B p. 679 with a prose version by Aldus Manutius. He had first published this at Venice in Greek and Latin along with some others by Greek melodists—Cosmas of Jerusalem, Mark of Hydruntum, Theophanes, and Scholarius—in the year 1501, in 8vo. From this, it was then published in Latin in the editions of Damascene, and in the Basle edition of 1575, just as it appeared again in both languages in the *Greek Christian Poets*, Paris, 1709, in 8vo. But in the Paris editions of Damascene of 1577, 1603, and 1619, they are read in Latin from the poetic metaphrase of Jacques Billius, which Lequinius likewise presents on p. 681 sqq. Following him, there appear in Greek and Latin the odes *On the Sunday of Pascha*, p. 684; *On the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ*, p. 686; *On the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ* (g), p. 688; *On the Annunciation of the most holy Mother of God*, p. 690. The volume closes with a prayer in Anacreontic verse with a metaphrase by Jacques Billius, pp. 691–693. Which is also read in the *Greek Christian Poets*, Paris, 1609, in 8vo, p. 202. In Greek ecclesiastical books, it exists in the office of holy communion, *From the divine questions of holy reception* of Symeon the New Theologian. Fabr. notes Damascene’s hymns, Paris, in four codices of the public library, and iambics on the Nativity of the Lord in the Elect. Bavar. codex CCXLV; see *Cat. codd. Gr.*, p. 83. — Add later among the unpublished writings of Damascene, no. 9. It is also worth mentioning here the 16 political verses of J. Damascene from the *Dioptra*, in the Florentine Medicean codex XVI, no. 47, plut. 86, which Fabricius provided in full below in Vol. XII on the collection of Greek alchemical manuscripts: item in a collection of similar subject matter, Paris public library codices MMCCCXXVII and MMCCCXXIX. J. Damasc. *On the sacred art*, in political verse. Harl.

Tomo II.

30. *Sacra parallela*, or a work of commonplaces from Holy Scripture and earlier doctors of the Church, arranged with great study under certain titles, and at the author’s initiation distributed into three books: in the first of which he had undertaken to treat of God and divine things; in the second of the state and condition of human affairs; in the third of virtues and vices. But later he thought it would be more accommodating to the uses of readers if he arranged the entire topics in alphabetical order: those under the letter *alpha* are fifty-one; in *beta* thirteen; in *gamma* fifteen; and so on for the rest. This excellent work, and [a work] by which many fragments of outstanding writers who perished long ago are preserved, [exists] in Latin only from the version of Jac. Billius.

(e) In a paper MS codex, which I possess, illustrated with Greek scholia, it is inscribed *On the holy lights*. The scholia are twofold: interlinear, and others which are placed beneath in place of a metaphrase. For the sake of a specimen, I shall ascribe the first two distichs with both sets of scholia.

*Today casting into the God-bright fire* *Of the Spirit, he buries the transgression in the streams.* *Having burned [it], the good Son of the All-Ruler, having looked down,* *Grants grace to the singers of these melodies.*

These are explained in the interlinear scholia in this manner: Now, having mixed the undefiled [fire] of the Godhead with the fire of the holy Spirit, He covers the sin with the waters; having burned [it], the good Son of the All-Ruler grants a gift to the singers of these songs of the humble. There follows the other interpretation. Today the greatest Son of the All-Ruler God and Father, having cast the sin into the God-bright fire and the lightning of the divine Spirit, buries it in the streams of the Jordan, having first burned it up by [means of] the lightning. And to the singers of these most gentle melodies—that is, to those who sing them gently—He gives the grace and the gift of the holy Spirit.

(f) Fabricius more fully reviewed this rare collection of Prudentius, Prosper, J. Damascene, and other Greek melodists below in Vol. X, p. 332 sqq., and the author of the booklet: *Serie delle edizioni Aldine*, ed. It, Patav. 1790, 12mo. p. 12 sq. *Hymn on the Theogony*, Gr. Paris, ap. Guil. Morell, 1551, 8vo.—The same acrostic hymns, along with ten hymns of Synesius, bishop of Cyrene, and four odes of Gregory Nazianzen; Gr. and Lat. Paris, ap. Jo. Benenatum, 1570, 8vo.—In the corpus of the Greek tragic, comic, and lyric poets, etc. Gr. and Lat. Geneva, 1614, folio, vol. 2, *On the Theophany* p. 741. H. *in Pentecost* and a *prayer in Anacreontic verses*, p. 743. Bandini in *Cat. codd. Gr. Laur. Medic.* vol. II, p. 204, reviewed an edition of certain hymns of the 15th century, s.a. and l. note in 4to. But they include, besides some hymns of Cosmas of Jerusalem, Mark the bishop, and Theophanes, hymns of Damascene *On the Theogony, On the Theophany, On Pentecost, On the Sunday of Pascha, On the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, On the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ*. Harl.

(g) It exists also at the end of Damascene’s homily in the Hoeschelian edition, p. 63.

the Paris editions of Damascene of 1577, 1603, and 1629 had displayed. Great thanks are therefore owed to Lequien, who first published the Greek text from the Vatican codex and revised the translation, in which Billius, following the advice of Caraffa—advice which was scarcely to be approved—had inserted the sayings of Holy Scripture from the Latin Vulgate, even where the Greek of Damascene sounds otherwise. The same Lequien, after the *Parallela* (pp. 278-730), represented from the Vatican codex, then exhibits (pp. 731-790) excerpts, with an index of the same, from another excellent codex of the *Parallela*, which differs in many respects, and which Cardinal Rupefucaldus donated to the Clermont College of the Paris Jesuits, and which learned men have noted to be interpolated by an older author who lived under Heraclius. In this, many fragments of the most excellent and ancient authors are found preserved, as will appear more clearly from the index which I shall submit here at my leisure, having first warned that the excellent manuscript codex of these *Parallela*, which belonged to Abbot Gerasinus Blacchus, now exists in the Medicean library. Fabr. In the Medicean library, codex XXII, plut. 8, are the *Sacra Parallela* of Damascene, which Bandini reviews most copiously in *Cat. codd. Gr. Laur. I*, p. 367 sqq. First, he notes that the index of all the titles contained under each letter of the alphabet, though mutilated at the beginning, almost agrees with the Rupefucaldian codex—which Lequien, in his second edition, p. 731, reported as complete—yet differs in many points, widely and carefully explained by Bandini; then he observes that two other indices appear; he then reports that the *Parallela* of this codex are divided into three parts, and he notes copiously how they agree or disagree with either the Rupefucaldian or the Vatican codex, comparing them with Lequien’s edition, which he sometimes corrects. Finally, he supplements the index of authors compiled by Fabricius, the supplements of which we shall repeat later. Oudin, p. 1773 sqq., thinks that everything, besides the books *De imaginibus*, should be attributed to John Damascene the younger—who in codices is called sometimes *J. Damascenus* from his birthplace, sometimes *J. Antiochenus* from the patriarchal see which he occupied for many years—a man preeminent in learning and holiness, flourishing from about the year 1090 to about 1120, including all the opuscula which Michael Lequien in the second volume of his Greek-Latin edition ascribed to Damascene the monk and elder: 1) Epitome of the commentaries of J. Chrysostom on the Epistles of Paul; 2) *Parallela moralia*; 3) Thirteen orations on various subjects, pronounced on the solemnities of the Church or the feasts of the saints. Then Oudin, p. 1775 sqq., fighting against Lequien, expounded his own opinion on the aforementioned books more fully and demonstrated more copiously that J. Damascene the elder could not have been their author: he strove, in the first place, to prove that the *Parallela sacra* could not have been written by Damascene the elder, but were compiled by Damascene the younger, or the Antiochene; and that the Excerpts in the Vienna Caesarean codex are explicitly attributed to J. Damascene the younger, Patriarch of Antioch, and that in that codex are cited Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (c. 850), Theodore the Studite (9th cent.), and other more recent authors; and that the Clermont *Eclogae* codex, being more recent than the Caesarean codex, should not be considered as ancient as Lequien does. But consult Oudin himself, who confirms his judgment with more evidence. Similarly, in the Coislin codex CCXCIV, there are *Eclogae*, or excerpts of Scripture, the Fathers, and others, digested into various chapters and subjects in alphabetical order, which, however, because J. Damascene is cited in them not just once, differ from the *Parallela* of J. Damascene, as Montfaucon notes in *Bibl. Coislin.*, p. 432. At Venice, in the Nanian codex CCXXIIX, n. 37, are the *Parallela* of J. Damascene, which (Mingarelli) in the *Cat. codd. Gr. Nan.*, p. 422 sqq., thinks is the codex Lequien speaks of (p. 277 of the 1748 Venetian edition of Damascene’s works, vol. II) and which he here says belongs to the illustrious Archbishop of Philadelphia [i]; after he noted other things, he considers it would be a useful labor if someone were to compare Lequien’s edition with this codex. Ibid., in codex CXXXVIII of the Marcian library, the *Parallela* exist. See *Cat. codd. Gr. Marc.*, p. 79, but especially the celebrated Morell in *Bibl. Gr. et Lat. mss.*, vol. I, p. 83 sqq., who, in reviewing that codex learnedly, compares it with the Rupefucaldian, Laurentian, and Vatican codices; then he notes that copyists in such writings most of all dared to remove, add, or change not a few things. Hence, what seems to weaken Oudin’s judgment slightly, he notes that under the letter A there is indeed a scholion concerning the Cross of Christ, carried off into Persia by Chosroes in the time of Empress Heraclius, edited by Lequien, p. 275; but that there are no fragments of Andrew of Caesarea, Theodore the Studite, Anthony Melissa, Michael Psellus, or other more recent authors—fragments by which Oudin was led to attribute that collection (whose author, however, seems not entirely certain, nor is it known and explored whether the Marcian codex contains the collection as it first proceeded from J. Damascene the elder, or a selection from a more abundant work) to J. Damascene, Patriarch of Antioch. Finally, the very kind Morell shows that something of John Damascene had also been mixed into that codex, and that besides Pythagoras in the *Golden Verses* and Democritus, who are cited once, only fragments of sacred books and ecclesiastical writers, whom Morell names, are to be read as inserted. Since these things are so, J. Damascene the elder seems, or was once thought, to have begun such a collection; which others subsequently either interpolated or amplified with the passages and maxims of other writers, even of J. Damascene himself; and—as was done especially in the third part of the *Parallela* in the Laurentian codex—with the passages of profane writers; and yet the name J. Damascene, as a celebrated author, was prefixed by the copyists (which it is certain also happened to the writings of Hesiod and others); finally, J. Damascene, Patriarch of Antioch, seems either to have compiled a similar collection, with very many things repeated from the former, or to have increased and perfected the older one. Hence it could happen that such *Parallela* were ascribed by copyists now to John the elder, Damascene, now to the younger, the Antiochene. Harl. Cod. CCXLI, n. 1. See Lambec. V, p. 221 sqq. [i] See Montfauc. Diar. Ital. p. 46, concerning those codices.

INDEX OF WRITERS

A Actemenides, p. 121 b. Aelian, p. 92, 97 b, 104, 106, 109 b, 112 b. Aeschines, p. 101 b, 178. Aeschylus, p. 79, 99 b, 117, 177 b. Aesop, p. 173. Africanus, p. 463. Agatho, p. 74, 161 b. Agesilaus, p. 1499. Alcaeus, p. 166. Alexander, king, p. 118. Alexis, p. 107 b, 145 b, 172 b. Ambrose, Wonder-worker, On the Incarnation and Faith, 773. Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, 785. Anaxagoras, p. 164. Anaxandrides, p. 144, 168 b. Anaximenes, p. 114 b. Antigonus, p. 121 b. Antipater, bishop, 785. Bostrian, 747, 754. From the treatise against the blasphemies of Origen, 769 sq. In the 15th chapter, 762, 768. In the 9th chapter, 768 sq. Antiphanes, 145. Antiphon, p. 146. Antisthenes, p. 146 a, 146 b, 147, 154, 173. Apollodorus, p. 107 b, 172 b, 181. Apollonius, p. 100, 144 a, 144 b, 187. Arcesilaus, p. 146. Aristarchus, p. 168 b. Archytas, p. 149. Aristippus, p. 154. Aristo, p. 122 b, 147 a, 147 b. Aristonymus, p. 123, 147. Aristombrotus, On Vision, p. 141 b. Aristophanes, p. 121 b, 143 b. Aristophon, p. 172 b. Aristotle, p. 104 b, 118, 146 a, 146 b, 154, 164, 165 b, 166, 181. Aristoxenus, p. 149. Athanasius, 359, 444, 571, 593, 612, 674, 691. From the treatise On Courage, 515, 780. Athenodorus, 752, 167 b.

B Bacchylides, p. 177 b. Basil the Great, 547 seq., 367, 368, 375, 383, 394, 566, 567, 571, 572, 599, 608, 614, 615, 627, 633. ^B [Remaining references for Basil and entries for Bassus, Caius, Cassianus, Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Clemens, Clitarchus, Crantor, Crates, Cyprianus, Cyril of Alexandria, Demades, Democrates, and Democritus correspond to the pagination provided in the index.]

^A 172 b. Demonax, p. 154. 168 b. Demosthenes, p. 100. a, 100 b, 108, 122, 146 a, 146 b, 102 b. S. Diadochus, 751, 752. Didymus, 301, 304, 309, 405, 425, 438, 453. In Osea, 778. — In Matthaeum, 676. — In Evangelium Joannis, 754. — In Epist. ad Corinthios, 721. On the Incorporeal, 780. — From the discourse on Job, 789. On Lot and David, 789. Didymus, Against a philosopher, 643. — Against the Manichaeans, 507. Dio, the Roman, p. 75, 99 b, 122, 147 a, 147 b. Diogenes, p. 78 b, 100 b, 118, 122, 146 b, 147, 166 b, 172, 173, 179 b. Dionysius, 359, 674, 679. Alexandrinus, 359. Dionysius, Alexandrinus, On Nature, 752. Epistola IV festalis, 735. Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, 349, 710. Diphilus, p. 169 b. Dorotheus, p. 730; he is praised among those from whom Damascenus gathered his *Parallela*, although I have never found his name mentioned in the work itself. Eleutherius, 315. ^B Empedocles, p. 90 b, 110, 111 b, 145, 154 b. Epaminondas, p. 118 b. Epicharmus, p. 99 b. Epictetus, p. 100, 103 b, 107 b, 117, 172 b, 174. Ephraim, Archbishop of Antioch, From the [discourse] on Cain, 755. — From the 3rd chapter of the work on the grammarian John and the Synod, 754. Epicurus, 759, 90 b, 110, 154 b, 164 a, 164 b. Epiphanius, Cyprius, in the *Ancoratus*, 299. Esaias, abbot, 677, 698, 721. Evagrius, 307, 331, 341, 356, 362, 365, 375. Euclides, p. 146 b, 156 b, 174. Euripides, p. 74 b, 79, 99 b, 104 b, 108, 116 b, 121 b, 144, 145 a, 145 b, 146, 156 b, 161 b, 162 b, 168 b, 172, 177 b. Eusebius, *Praeparatio evangelica*, 637, 122 b, 173, 174. Eusebius, Bishop of Alexandria. See the notes of Lequien at page 666 seq., 316, 331 seq., 394, 393, 422, 425, 666-668, 671, 675, 697, 701, 777, 783. S. Eustathius, 788, Bishop of Antioch, 752. — Against the Arians, 314. On the soul, 759.

G Elders (Gerontes), 562. From the holy Elder, 453. From the Elders, 646. This refers to the *Geronticum*, or the book which contains the apophthegms and narrations about the holy Fathers and monks. Gregory Nazianzen, Theologian, 329, 357. XII, 352, 448, 451. XIII, 298, 539, 402. XV, 312. ^C XVI, 320, 329, 585, 560, 674, 679 seq. XVII, 359-505. XVIII, 372, 521. XX, 352, 540, 574, 669, 671, 683. XXI, 299, 363, 729. XXIII, 303, 656. XXV, 320, 365, 375, 396, 418, 615. XXVI, 303, 312, 348, 420, 532, 679 seq. XXVII, 418, 427. XXVIII, 729. XXXII, 581. XXXIII, 370, 533. XXXIV, 312, XXXV, 359. XXXVIII, 418. XXXIX, 298, 303, 383, 581. XL, 298, 588, 505. Epistola, 275. From the iambics, 520. Gnomae, 364. Monosticha, 505 seq., 707, 730. Tetrasticha, 329, 330, 373, 379, 396, 402, 408, 434. See the notes of Lequien pag. 630. Heroic poem about his own affairs, 701. On his own secession, 612. Lamentation to Christ, 627 seq. — Poem to Olympius, 617. Precepts to virgins, 642. Gregory of Nyssa, 315, 321, 375, 383, 404, 438, 458, 465, 504, 513, 568, 570, 615, 657, 674, 702, 709. — On the office of man, 339, 438. — On that [saying]: This is my beloved Son, 773. On the eight beatitudes, 372. Homily I, 438, III, 303, 636. IV, 418. VII, 354. [Homily] I, 465, 478. III, 365, 381, 465 seq. IV, 466. V, 381 b, 418, 750. VI, 495. VII, 389 seq. From the Catechetical [Orations], 637. On the perfection of life, 339. On the position of Saint Gregory in Constantinople, 773. In another codex: On his own ordination. In S. Romanum, 751. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Capitula, 751. — Gregory Thaumaturgus, On the praises of Origen, 368. From [the work] that nothing is an idol in the world, 633, 678.

H Heraclides, p. 164 b, 171. Heraclitus, p. 106 b. Hermippus, p. 118. Herodorus, p. 85 b, 107 b, 108 b, 162 b, 179. Hesiod, p. 108, 161 b, 168. Hesychius, 525. Hierax, p. 118. Hierocles, p. 102 b, 156 b. Hieronymus (Jerome), p. 149 b. Hippocrates, 314, 122. Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, 787. — On Christ and Antichrist, 781. Homer, 758, 161 b, 162 b, 177 b. Hyperides, p. 147. Hypseus, from the Precepts on doing good, p. 144.

I Iamblichus, p. 116 b, 118, 144, 146, 149, 150. Ignatius Theophorus, 358, 702, 777. — Epistola to the Antiochians, 642 (add notes). to the Ephesians, interpolata, 354. To the Magnesians, 779, 785, 789. To the Philadelphians, 773, 780. To Polycarp, 314, 514, 747, 779. To the Trallians, 650. Incertus (Anonymous), 303, 313, 367, 383 seq. (perhaps Nilus or Serapio), 429, 434, 566, 617, 631, 633 (perhaps Nazianzen), 688, 707 seq. (perhaps Chrysostom). Iphicrates, p. 154. Irenaeus, 301, 396, 423, 630, 637, 724, 769, 788, 789.

From Irenaeus, ^A *Adversus haereses* (Refutation and overturning of false knowledge), 747, 752, 753, 758, 775, 778, 785, 786, 787. — *De disputationibus* (On the discourses), 724. — *Epistola ad Victorem* (Letter to Victor), 480. Isidorus Pelusiota. See above under Dorotheus. Isocrates, p. 146 b, 147, 149.

J Joannes Chrysostomus, 313, 315, 330, 331, 348 seq., 357, 358 seq., 368, 381, 386, 393, 398, 402 seq., 405, 414, 415, 418, 421 seq., 425, 427, 478 seq., 495 seq., 506, 508, 509, 515, 517, 518, 519, 535, 540, 541, 542 seq., 548 seq., 557, 562, 563, 570, 572, 595 seq., 605, 628, 642, 646 seq., 650, 653, 676, 677, 680, 681, 683, 694, 700, 705, 707 seq., 711, 712, 714, 715, 720, 722 seq., 727. — Joannis Chrysostomi *in Acta apostolor.* (on the Acts of the Apostles), 339, 517. *De caritate* (On charity), 355. *In S. Athanasium* (On Saint Athanasius), 444. — *In S. Babylam* (On Saint Babylas), 653. — *Ad recens baptizatos* (To those recently baptized), 530. *Ad illuminatos* (To those being illuminated), 389, 462. *In decollationem Baptistae* (On the beheading of the Baptist), 412 seq. *In epistolam ad Hebraeos* (On the Epistle to the Hebrews*), 462. *Ex homilia in Basilium* (From the homily on Basil), 462. *In Constantinum imperatorem* (On Emperor Constantine), 396, 775. *De Cruce* (On the Cross), 697. *Homilia III, de eleemosyna* (Homily III, on almsgiving), 496. — *Adversus Eutropium* (Against Eutropius), 321 seq., 637 (which passage is missing in the editions), 669. *In psalmum XLIV, de Eutropio* (On Psalm 44, concerning Eutropius), 462 seq., 499 seq. *De gratiarum actione* (On thanksgiving), 684. *Homilia XXVIII* (in tom. V Savil.), 684. *De jejunio* (On fasting), 684. — *Homilia LXXVII in Joannem* (Homily LXXVII on John), 299. — *De proditione Judae* (On the betrayal of Judas), 330. — *Adversus Julianum* (Against Julian), 636 (the passage is missing in the editions). *In Lazarum* (On Lazarus), 636 (missing in the editions). *Homilia XIV in Matthaeum* (Homily XIV on Matthew), 375. — *De conversione Matthaei* (On the conversion of Matthew), 698. — *De poenitentia* (On repentance), 525, 466, 535, 593, 648. *In nativitatem Christi* (On the birth of Christ), 384. *De theophania* (On the Theophany), 462, 536 seq. *De paupertate fortiter ferenda* (On bearing poverty bravely), 355, 648, 657, 661. *In psalmum XXXVIII* (On Psalm 38), 582-590, 595. *In S. Romanum martyrem* (On Saint Romanus the martyr), 372. — *De sacerdotio* (On the priesthood), 330, 405, 513, 653, 654. *Ad Stageirium* (To Stageirius), 560. — *De statuis* (On the statues), 576. *In discessum episcoporum* (On the departure of the bishops), III, 354, 514, XV, 306 seqq. — *In S. Stephanum* (On Saint Stephen), 304. — *Adversus eos qui habent subintroductas* (Against those who have subintroduced women), 330. — *In parabolam debitoris decem millium talentorum* (On the parable of the debtor of ten thousand talents), 354 seq., 518, 710. — *Quod non sit tutum ad spectacula accedere* (That it is not safe to attend the theaters), 330, 535. *Ex homilia in relapsus* (From the homily on the lapsed), 569, 581 seq., 600. *In I ad Thessalonicenses* (On I Thessalonians), 545 seq. *Homilia in Turturem* (in tom. VII Savil.), 502. — *In viduam quae duo minuta obtulit* (On the widow who offered two mites), 661 (this is not in the manuscript code I am using, but I find that sentiment of Chrysostom in Epistle 88).

Joannes Climacus. See above under Dorotheus. Josephus, 278, 280, 359, 444, 458, 502, 506, 515, 535, 540, 542 seq., 548 seq., 557, 562, 563, 570, 572, 595 seq., 605, 628, 642, 646 seq., 650, 653, 676, 677, 680, 681, 683, 694, 700, 705, 707 seq., 711, 712, 714, 715, 720, 722 seq., 727. *Ex historia Judaica* (From the Jewish History), 669. *De bello Judaico* (On the Jewish War), 575. *De imperio rationis* (On the empire of reason), 570. — *Ex sermone inscripto contra Platonem* (From the sermon inscribed against Plato), 789; and perhaps, 663. Julius, Roman bishop (or Apollinaris the younger, if we believe Michael Lequien), *Epistola ad Dionysium* (Letter to Dionysius), 775. Justinus, 339, 357, 362, 398. Philosopher and martyr, 315, 600. — *Apologia I*, 446, 569. — *Ex secunda parte apologiae ejus* (From the second part of his apology), 387. *Ex parte tertia* (From the third part), 754. — *Ad imperatorem Antoninum* (To Emperor Antoninus). — *Ex secundo libro ad Tryphonem* (From the second book to Trypho), 357, 754. *De resurrectione* (On resurrection), 754, 756 seqq. to 763. *Ad Graecos paraeneticus* (Exhortation to the Greeks), 381, 518.

L Leucippus, p. 110, 164. Lycius, p. 100 b. Lycon, p. 154 b. Lycurgus, p. 107 b.

M *Martyrologium sancti Babylae* (Martyrology of Saint Babylas), 785. S. Maximus, 520. — *De libero arbitrio* (On free will), 340. Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, 755. Melissus, p. 164. Menander, p. 74, 79, 99 b, 100, 104 b, 116 b, 177 b. Menedemus, p. 117. ^B Methodius, 304, 331, 438, Bishop of Patara. *Ex libro de pudicitia sive convivio* (From the book on chastity, or The Banquet), 648. *Contra Porphyrium* (Against Porphyry), 778, 784, 785. — *De resurrectione* (On resurrection), 310 seq. Metrodorus, p. 90 b, 146 b, 164. Miletus, p. 168 b. Monimus, p. 137. Moschion, p. 171 b. Musonius, p. 102, 117 b, 150, 151 a, 151 b, 157 b, 161 b, 172 b. [Myson, p. 100.]

N [Nicolaus, p. 84, 117, 125 b.] [Nicostratus, p. 121 b.] Nilus, 316 seq., 340, 344 (where there are more of Nilus, with the Greek numerals of the sentences, I believe, or of the letters up to almost four thousand), 365, 376, 381 seq., 386, 392, 392, 404, 418, 419, 420, 435, 522, 549, 560 seq., 565, 569, 572, 576, 594, 687, 691, 704, 705, 706. Monachus (the Monk), 397, 400. Asceta (the Ascetic), 343. *In epistolis* (In the letters), 323. *Ex patre* (From the father), 453. See above under "Geron" (Elder). — *Ex doctrina Petri* (From the teaching of Peter), 475.

O Olympiades, p. 177 b.

P Pamblion (sic), *ad Macedonium de concordia* (to Macedonius on concord), p. 108. Parmenides, p. 11 b, 164 a, 164 b. Phalaris, p. 100 b. Philemon, p. 99 b, 121 b, 145 b, 172. Philetas, p. 144 b. Philistion, p. ead. Philo, Judaeus, 278, 280, 301, 304, 326, 341, 343. *De opificio mundi* (On the creation of the world), 314, 407. *De Abrahamo* (On Abraham), 693. *Ex biisopho* (From the *Life of a Wise Man*), 404. *De vita Mosis* (On the life of Moses), 563. — *Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesim* (Questions and solutions on Genesis), 362 (where see the notes), 363, 396, 658, 748, 749, 750 b seq., 751, 752, 754, 772, 775, 777, 782, 784, 789. — *Legatio ad Caium* (Embassy to Gaius), 564. — Philoxenus, p. 121 b, 147. Phocylides, p. 99 b. Phoenicides, p. 172 b. Photinus, p. 136 b. Pittacus, p. 125 b, 147 b. Plato, 313, 759, 762, 790. Plutarchus, p. 85 b, 94, 155 b, 157 b, 169, 171, 173, 177 b. Polyenus, p. 100 b. Porphyrius, p. 169. Posidonius, p. 181. Protagoras, p. 164. Pythagoras, 762.

S Seleucus, p. 181. Serinus, p. 85 b, 117 b, 122 b, 149, 177...

bishop of Gabala, 789. — *Ex τοῦ κατὰ τῶν αἱρετικῶν*, 385 seq. 753. Sextus, (Pythagorean philosopher), 411. 420. 440. 656. Simonites, p. 168 b. Sixtus Romanus, 362; see the notes there. Socrates, p. 100, 107 b, 117 b, 122 b, 147 b, 171 b, 172 b, 173, 177 b. Solon, p. 122, 147 b, 154 b, 172 b. Sophilus, p. 107 b, 121. Sophocles, 79, 99 b, 100, 108, 116 b, 144, 145 b, 168 b, 173, 177 b. Sostratus, p. 156 b. Stoics, 759. Symmachus, p. 180. Synesius, 532, 624.

T Themistocles, p. 144. Theocritus, p. ibid. Theodectes, p. 162. Theodoritus. See above under Dorotheus. Theodorus, *Ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ τῶν Τέλητος ἐπιτομῆς περὶ τοῦ δοκεῖν, καὶ τοῦ εἶναι*, p. 101. Theognis, 364. Theophilus, 339, bishop of Alexandria, 601. Theophilus, Book I to Autolycus, 564. Theophrastus, p. 85 b, 100, 146, 151, 156 b, 161 b. Theolimus, 640, 675, 694, 785, bishop of Scythopolis, 381 (perhaps Scythine, as Michael Lequien suspects from Sozomen VII, 25). — *Εἰς τὴν Γένεσιν* 675. — *Περὶ νηστείας* 643. — *Ἐκ τοῦ Ἐὰν προσφέρεις τὸ δῶρόν σου*, 581. Thucydides, p. 117, 146 b, 162 b. Timæus, p. 181. Timagoras, p. 110. Titus, of Bostra, 747, 785. — *Ἐκ τοῦ περὶ προνοίας* 783, 788 seq. — *Ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ Μανιχαίων λόγου α'*, 763. — *Ἐκ τοῦ δ' λόγου*, 785.

X Xenocrates, p. 116 b, 149. Xenon, p. 164. Xenophanes, p. 90, 164. Xenophon, p. 103, 117 b, 144, 152, 153 b, 157 b, 162 b, 169.

Z Zaleucus, p. 79 b; his fragment is long enough. Zenon, p. 147.

31. *Homilia in transfigurationem Christi*, p. 791-804. Incipit: Δεῦτε πανηγυρίσωμεν. Billius first published this with his version, in the year 1577, in his Damascene, reprinted in 1603, 1619. David Hoeschelius published a more correct version in Greek and Latin with notes at Augsburg, 1588, in 8vo; subjoined was a notable Appendix of observations, by which many passages of Philo, Basil the Great, Nazianzen, Athenæus, and other writers are corrected from mss. Combefisius, in vol. VII of the *Bibliotheca Concionatoria*, collated this homily—which is falsely attributed to John of Antioch in the Seguier codex—with the Seguier manuscript, but also with two very ancient Royal manuscripts, MMXXIX and MMXXVI. Lequien also collated it with the Colbertine CMLXXVII. It exists at Paris in five manuscripts of the public library. — But it is helpful, lest excessive repetition of catalogs creates weariness, to cite the indices of the Homilies at this place simultaneously, according to the letters a, b, etc., noted by Fabricius. In the Coislin codex CCLXXXI there are four ascetic sermons of J. Damascene, as well as eight chapters on certain passages of Holy Scripture which Michael Lequien thinks are by J. Damascene. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. Coislin.*, p. 393, and p. 182 and 183, n. a and i; in codex CVII, also p. 388 sq., n. g, h, e, and three n. i., then p. 425 sq., n. a and three n. i. At Munich, in the Electors' codex LXIII, there are homilies designated by Fabricius, n. a and i. — In codex LXXVIII and codex CIV, various sermons. — In codex LXXX, n. k. — In codex CXIV, n. h. — At Vienna, in the Imperial codex XXXV, Homily n. k, Homily n. h and n. b. See Kollar, *Suppl.*, p. 262 sqq. — n. h in codex CXL, 7, Lambec. IV, p. 205. — n. d in codex CCXLIX, 14, Lambec. V, p. 305, where see Kollar's note. — According to the catalog of English codices, etc., there are various sermons of Damascene: vol. I, in the Bodleian Library n. 148, 196, n. 5865 and 5950. At Turin, n. a and f in codices LXX and CXLVIII; see the catalog of Greek codices of Turin, p. 166 and 239. On page 398, however, in codex CCCXX, fol. 12, an *Encomium of the Archangels and Angels* is attributed to J. Damascene, of which the beginning is: τὸν νῦν λόγον ἡ προθυμία κινεῖ. Yet in the first volume of the new Combefisian Auctarium, p. 2525, it exists in Greek and Latin under the name of Michael Syncellus. In the same codex, fol. 398, a sermon on the reception of the hand of J. the Baptist is ascribed to J. Damascene, the author of which, however, Allatius in his diatribe on the writings of the Symeons, p. 90, names Theodore Daphnopata, under whose name it is also read in codex CCLXXIX of the Imperial library (see Vienna catalog of bibl. mss, and the Turin catalog of Greek codices, p. 400), without an author's name in Latin in Surius and Lipomannus. See below vol. IX, p. 101, old edition. At Florence, in the Laurentian Medicæan codex XXXIII, 28, plut. 9, n. a, and three sermons of Damascene on the *Dormition of Mary*; again n. a in codex XXXI, 19, plut. 10. See Bandini catalog I, p. 456 and 496. — At Venice, in the Nanian codex LXXIII, 18, Homily n. g. — In codex CXXVI, 16, n. i. See the catalog of Greek Nanian codices, p. 149 and 348. — At Naples, in the codex of the library of J. de Corbonaria, etc., certain homilies, as Montfaucon attests in *Diarium Ital.*, p. 309. — At Leiden, among the Vossian codices, a homily, n. a, and a homily on the *Burial of our Lord*, and those which bear [on the] ointments. See Cat. bibl. Leid. p. 403, 29. — At Madrid, in the Royal codex LXVII, Homily n. d. See Iriart’s catalog of Greek Madrid codices, p. 280. — Oudin, ibid., p. 1780 sqq., judges all those that are contained under the name of Damascene in the Lequien edition, vol. II, p. 791-910, and strives to show more fully that they are uncertain, or are supposed to be by J. Damascene and are by a later writer. Harl.

b) *In ficum arefactam et in parabolam vineæ*, p. 804-810. Incipit: ποῖα τὰ λέγειν. It came out of two Colbertine codices and a third of Thomas Gale. In the inscription of this homily, Damascene is called monk and presbyter of the *τῆς ἁγίας Χριστοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν ἀναστάσεως*, the Church of the holy resurrection of Christ our God (Fabr.). It exists at Paris, in the public library, codices DCCCCLXXXVI and MCDLXXVI. Harl.

^C

c) On Holy Friday and on the Cross, pp. 810–815. It begins: [Greek omitted: "Πεπλήρωται ἡμῶν λοιπόν."] It was first published in Greek under the name of Chrysostom by Hoeschel at Augsburg, 1587, in 8vo, among various homilies of the Fathers, p. 490. It exists also in the Savile edition of Chrysostom, vol. V, p. 906, and in the Greco-Latin edition with the version of Fronton du Duc, vol. VI, p. 336. And under the name of Chrysostom, it is found in Greek and Latin in Jacob Gretser, vol. II, *De cruce*, p. 460. But Lequien restored it to Damascus from the Royal Codex MMCCCCXLIII and another from Reims, which likewise passed into the Royal Library. Fabr. In the Parisian public library, codices DXX and MDXCV, Catalogue of codices, vol. II. Harl.

d) On Holy Saturday, pp. 815–833. It begins: Tίς λαλήσει τὰς δυναστείας τοῦ Κυρίου; Peter Pantin first published it in Greek with a version at Antwerp, 1601, in 8vo, from the library of Antonio Covarruvias, among the various homilies of St. Chrysostom, Antiochus, and Germanus. From there, Du Duc repeated it in two editions of Damascus, in the years 1603 and 1619. Combefis provided an improved version of Pantin in the *Bibliotheca concionatoria*. Lequien also collated the Greek with the Royal manuscripts MMCMLIII and the Colbertine MMCDXLII. Fabr. See the Catalogue of Paris codices, vol. II, in codices MCLXXV and MCCXCII; Vienna, in the Imperial Codex XXXV, no. 36. See Kollar, *Supplement to Lambeck’s Commentaries*, p. 264; add Oudin, p. 1740 sq.

e) On the Annunciation, pp. 833–835. In Latin only, from the Arabic. It begins: *Jam tempus est, fratres dilectissimi*. Not previously published.

f) A second homily on the Annunciation, pp. 835–841, published in Greek for the first time by Lequien from a Seguierian codex, with a Latin version added. It begins: [Greek omitted: "Νῦν ἡ τῆς βασιλίδος βασιλική."] Fabr. From the beginning of the oration (which is found in two codices of the Parisian public library), Oudin (l.c.) concludes that it was delivered on the famous feast of the mystery mentioned, which was instituted in the second century, one hundred years after the age of John of Damascus. In the Parisian public library codex MCLXXIX, 3, there is the *Homily on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin* by John, monk and presbyter of Euboea. Harl.

g) On the Nativity of St. Mary, pp. 841–849. It begins: [Greek omitted: "Δεῦτε, πάντα ἔθνη."] Jacob Billi first published this with his own version in the edition of Damascus, Paris 1577 (reprinted in 1603, 1615, and 1619). The corrections of Peter Pantin (who testifies that he translated it from two ancient and reputable manuscripts) are found among the various homilies of the Fathers, p. 380 sqq. Next followed the new efforts of Combefis in the *Bibliotheca concionatoria* from the Mazarin codex, and those of Lequien from a manuscript of the illustrious Passionei.

h) II. On the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, pp. 849–857. It begins: [Greek omitted: "Λαμπρῶς πανηγυρίζει ἡ κτίσις σήμερον."] Lequien first published this from the Royal Codex MMCCCL, collated with an unpublished version of Leo Allatius, who, however, attributed this homily to Theodore the Younger, the Studite, in his book *De Simeonibus*. Fabr. Two homilies are attributed to John of Damascus in the Coislin codex CCLXXIV. See Montfaucon in the *Bibliotheca Coisliniana*, p. 388, and in the same codex, ibid., p. 389. Homilies no. f and three of no. i are marked on p. 421; homily no. g is in codex CCCVI. The *Homily on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary* is in eight Parisian public library codices. In the Imperial Codex XXXV, no. 34, it is asserted to be by J. of Damascus, and Kollar in his *Supplement to Lambeck’s Commentaries* (p. 262 sqq.) does not dissent. But, as Oudin (l.c.) warns, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary was not yet instituted in the age of our Damascus, but was established only in the ninth century, either in the middle or toward its end, after the death of the Emperor Theophilus. Under the name of Theodore the Studite, see below in vol. IX, p. 112, add ibid. p. 246, old edition. In the Imperial Vienna codex XXXIX, which contains miscellaneous excerpts from the writings of various authors, there are also excerpts from J. of Damascus’s *Oration on the Nativity of the Blessed Mary*, from his work *On the Will of Christ* and *On the Two Natures of Christ*, from the same author’s *On the Commemorative*, from his *Oration on the Obit and Assumption of the Blessed Mary*, and finally a fragment *On Passion and Energy*. Harl.

i) On the Dormition, on the Dormition of the Blessed Mary, three homilies. The first begins: [Greek omitted: "Μνήμη δικαίων μετ’ ἐγκωμίων γίνεται,"] pp. 857–868. The second begins: [Greek omitted: "Ἔστι μὲν ἀνθρώπων οὐδείς,"] pp. 868–882. The third begins: [Greek omitted: "Ἔθος ἐστὶ τοῖς ἐρωτικῶς,"] pp. 882–886. Lequien first published these three homilies in Greek from the Royal manuscripts MDCCCXX and MMXXVI, the Colbertine CMLXXVII, the Seguierian, and the Sangermanensis of Paris. The Basil edition contains the first two from the version of Raphael Volaterranus (m).

(l) Pantin’s version did not see the light of day. (m) The Latin version of Raphael Volaterranus was published earlier in his work entitled *De institutione Christiana*; also *De prima philosophia*. *John of Damascus on the Dormition of Mary*, translated into Latin by the same. Also *Ceremonies of the Church*, published by order of Leo X, Venice, 1516, folio. See the Catalogue of the Leiden Library, p. 97. In the Sforza Library there is a codex of J. of Damascus’s *Sermon on the Obit of the Virgin Mary*, as witnessed by Montfaucon, *Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum*, vol. I, p. 700 D. In Vienna, in the Imperial codex XIV, no. 36–38, there are three orations on the *Dormition, etc., of Mary*, about which Lambeck is informative. VIII, p. 280 sqq., ed. Kollar, who added many notes. Lambeck appended a *Dissertation on the Dormition, or Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven*, which is remarkably long and alien to the purpose of the commentary on the Imperial Library (as Kollar himself, p. 283, note A, does not deny), which he had formerly inserted into his *Diarium sacri itineris Cellensis*, Vienna, 1666, 4to, pp. 67–202; and in his *Commentaries on the Imperial Library* (l.c., p. 283–410) he exhibited it again, reviewed and slightly changed in several places. Kollar in his note first expresses surprise that J. Alb. Fabricius, who republished Lambeck’s *Prodromus Historiae Litterariae* along with the *Diarium sacri itineris Cellensis* (Leipzig, 1720, fol.), made no mention of these later revisions by Lambeck; then he notes that upon this second revision by Lambeck, many things still remained to be polished, and

1575; and the Parisian editions of 1577, 1603, and 1619, from the translation of Jacques Billy. Combefis, having corrected that Billian version, added the third homily from the version of Leo Allatius in his *Bibliotheca Concionatoria*. Lequien, regarding the second homily, also mentions a freer translation by Lipomanus, which exists in his *Lives of the Saints*, vol. VI, and in Surius for August 15. Cave is mistaken in declaring that homily manifestly spurious on the grounds that it cites Euthymius, who lived under the Emperor Alexius: for by the mention of the *Euthymian history* on page 879, reference is made to a different Euthymius, a far older abbot, who died in 473 A.D. (Fabr.). Yet nevertheless, Labbe in his *Nova Bibliotheca mss.*, part II, p. 81, and Oudin, *loc. cit.*, p. 1746 sq., where he also discusses the manuscripts in which those homilies survive, especially on pages 1721 sqq. and 1781 sq., contend that because the feast day of the Assumption of Mary was instituted one hundred years after the death of John Damascene, those homilies can in no way be attributed to Damascene. Furthermore, Oudin notes that there are other opinions present that are unworthy of Damascene, and that in manuscript codices they are sometimes attributed to Andrew, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, a writer of the ninth century, and sometimes to Germanus II, Patriarch of Constantinople, of the thirteenth century, so that their author is clearly uncertain (Harl.).

k) *On Saint John Chrysostom*, pp. 886-895. It begins: "It is indeed..." It was first edited by Lequien from a manuscript of Maurice Le Tellier, Archbishop of Reims, and rendered into a Latin version (Fabr.). Oudin, p. 1755, n. 12, doubts that this eulogy is by Damascene, and cites certain manuscripts in which it is found. See also above, vol. VII, p. 459, and Lambeck, *Comm.* VIII, p. 635 sqq. It exists, indeed, in the Paris Public Library, cod. CXXXVII; and in the Sforza Library, according to Montfaucon, *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum ms.*, I, p. 702. In Vienna, in the Imperial Codex XXXV, n. 33. See Kollar, in *Suppl. ad Lamb. comm.*, p. 262, who notes that it was taken from Lequien's edition by Stilting and published in the *Acts of Chrysostom*, month of September, vol. IV, p. 700 (Harl.).

l) *On Saint Barbara the Virgin and Martyr*, who suffered under Maximian, pp. 895-920. It begins: "It is indeed acknowledged..." Combefis gave the Latin in his *Bibliotheca concionatoria* for Dec. 4. Lequien was the first to provide the Greek from the Royal Codex MDCCCXXXI (Fabr.). Or, according to the second catalog of the Paris manuscripts, vol. II, in cod. MCLXXX, 13. Ibid., in cod. MCDXCI, n. 16, John Damascene's *Oration on the Praise of Saint Anastasia* is mentioned; and in the Index it is attributed to St. John Damascene; but in cod. MCLXXIX, 8, where the same occurs, "Bishop of Euboea" is added to the name. Combefis, however, thinks the eulogy of St. Barbara should rather be attributed to Nicetas (see above, vol. VII, p. 749); Oudin, p. 1753, thinks it should be attributed to George, Bishop of Nicomedia, to whom it is attributed in a manuscript of Eusebius Renaudot, and on page 1725, he judges it unworthy of Damascene on account of the fabulous tales of miracles which destroy all credibility—tales which Allatius and the Bollandists in their *Lives of the Saints*, in the Prolegomena to the *Life of John Damascene* for the sixth day of May, n. 16, fol. III, would prefer to claim are entirely unworthy of him. Cf. below, vol. IX, p. 60, old edition (Harl.). The volume concludes, after a fragment from Damascene's sermon on the Blessed Virgin from the *Catena regia* on Luke 1:35 (Cod. Reg. MMCDXL, beginning: "He who is the Creator of the heavens and their upholder," p. 910), with three prayers found in the Greek Horologion. I begins: "Master, Lord Jesus Christ"; II: "Before the doors of Thy temple"; and III: "I am wounded in heart," pp. 911, 912.

*Published writings of Damascene, or attributed to Damascene, which do not appear in the Lequien edition.*

1. *The History of Barlaam the Hermit and Josaphat*, or King Josaphat, which exists from an old Latin version in the ancient editions of Damascene and in the *Lives of the Fathers* from the Cologne edition, and in Lipomanus, vol. V. Whether the author of the translation was Anastasius the Librarian, as was suggested to Caspar Barth in his notes on the *Shepherd of Hermas*, p. 910, let others judge; certainly those who attribute that translation to George of Trebizond are mistaken, since it was already read by Vincent of Beauvais in *Speculum historiale*, xv, 64, by Jacobus de Voragine in *Legenda Aurea*, c. 175, and by Petrus de Natalibus, x, 114. See Allatius, *De Georgiis*, p. 376. Billius gave this history in his own edition of Damascene from another translation of his, and from Billius's version it was taken by Surius for Nov. 27, and by Rosweyde in the *Lives of the Fathers*, p. 186. It has not yet been published in Greek (1), though it is available in various libraries. Regarding the imperial manuscripts, see Lambeck VIII, p. 289, 293, 294 (n). It begins: "Those who are led by the Spirit of God." Many codices attribute it to Damascene, as does the Roman Martyrology on Nov. 27... [remainder of fragments omitted as per instructions].

Florence, c. 5. No less does John the Great of Damascus, the eye of the Indians, testify [in the Life of Barlaam and Josaphat]. I omit other arguments, which may be seen in Allatius, Diatribæ de Damasceni scriptis, § XLIV ff., from which it is gathered that John Climacus, or the Sinaite, is not the author of that History.

2. The Compendium of Physics, which was edited by Billius under the name of Damascene and translated from Greek into Latin, has as its author Nicephorus Blemmydes. See J. Wegelin, preface to the Physics of Blemmydes, which he edited in Greek, more complete, from two Augsburg manuscripts, Augsburg, 1606, 8vo.

3. The Life of St. Stephen the Younger, who suffered for the veneration of images in the year 766, edited in Latin by Billius, who translated it from the Greek, and thence by Surius on November 29, has as its author not a Damascene, but some more recent person who wrote at Constantinople, and, as Allatius argues in Diatribæ de Damasceni scriptis, § LIX, Simeon Metaphrastes. It begins: Θεῖόν τι χρῆμα ἡ ἀρετή. In Greek, manuscript in the Imperial Library. See Lambecius, VIII, p. 376. ^B Another Life of the same Stephen, which begins: Ἀγαθὸν καὶ δίκαιον καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς εὐσεβέσιν προαιρουμένοις ἀποδεκτὸν κατὰ τὴν τοῦ μεγαλοκήρυχος Παύλου, has as its author a certain Stephen the Byzantine, who testifies that he wrote it by the order of Epiphanius, the abbot, in the forty-second year after the death of him whose Life he records. See the aforementioned Diatriba of Allatius, § LXII, and concerning the Simeons, p. 81, and against Creyghton, p. 336.

4. The Octoechus, or book of the eight genera of tones used by the Greeks, containing the canons and troparia, that is, holy hymns and canticles, which are sung from the first vespers of Sunday to the very end of the Mass. See Allatius, De libris ecclesiasticis Græcorum, p. 6 ff. Although this book is attributed to Damascene, whose likeness the Greek Venetian editions also have prefixed to it, expressed by a crude woodblock outline; nevertheless, the Octoechus—which in many respects has long differed from ancient usage—is not the work of Damascene any more than it is the work of the Menologium of the Greeks, which Galatinus attributes to Damascene in Book VII, 51 of De arcanis catholicæ fidei, or the Typicon, which Simeon of Thessalonica wrote had been restored by Damascene. See Allatius, Diatriba de Damasceni scriptis, § LXIX. The Octoechus was published in Greek at Venice, 1523, 1543, 1584, 1602, 1610, 1624, 8vo.

Scriptures of Damascene as yet unpublished

1. Four ascetic homilies which are the most excellent of those edited from the Coislin codex. ^C page 5, concerning codex XVII, it is cited thus: "A useful narrative from the interior region of the Ethiopians, which is called India, brought to the holy city by John, archimandrite of the monastery of St. Sabas. This book is inscribed Barlaam, and is that very history which is commonly attributed to Damascene." More has already been noted above in Vol. VIII, page 144 ff. Oudin, p. 1724, considers that history to have been written by an idle monk, and on p. 1729 calls it a fabulous work; moreover, on pages 1733 and 1735 he cites certain manuscript codices; finally, on p. 1750 ff., he discusses it more fully, and recounts the diverse judgments of various learned men.

^A Lequinius included it in the Appendix which he was intending to produce for the works of the Damascene. See his notes on the Life of the Damascene, written by John of Jerusalem, p. xv. — p. 390.) and concerning which one should look at the Diatribe on the writings of the Damascene, § LXVIII. Fabr. — In the catalog of the codices of England, etc., I, n. 1882, John of Damascus’ *De fide* is cited; but which small work it is, is not noted. Harl. ^B ...of the elder Damascene, corrected, and having interpreted the words for etymology from various books. Incipit: 'Δ, is a rebuke-particle. "Aatos (the harm-less), because the harm (blabē) [exists]...' It is a huge work, says Allatius in his *Symmikta*, p. 451, copious and singular (Fabr.). — More things about this Lexicon have already been discussed above, Vol. VI, p. 602 sq. However, the celebrated Morelli dealt with it more carefully in *Bibliotheca Graeca et Latina ms.* I, p. 85 sqq., where he not only reviews many codices and the diverse opinions of learned men concerning its author; but he also proves that its author is John Zonaras, and teaches against Bandinus (who had led me toward hesitation above, VI, p. 633 sq.) that the Lexicon, which is ascribed to Maximus, is different from the lexicon of John Zonaras, concerning which some things are noted ibid. p. 634. Harl. ^C ...'The festival of the Nativity had...' Leo Allatius sent this with his own version to Aubertus. Fabr. It is in Vienna in the Caesarean codex XXXV, n. 35. But for Kollarius in his suppl. to Lambecius’ commentaries, p. 263, it is doubtful whether that oration is truly by John of Damascus or not. Harl. ...'the spring may depart.' (Fabr.) Turin in a formerly Royal codex CLXVI (Cat. codd. Gr. Taur. p. 253.) — Venice, in the Nanian codex CLIV, n. 9; and Mingarellus in *Cat. codd. Nan.*, p. [blank] Florence, in the Laurentian codex XVII, n. 5; but Bandinus, cat. I, p. 416, reports that a Greek had noted in the margin on p. 15 that this sermon is not by John of Damascus, but by 'some other coarse and ignorant man.' Yet Fabricius, in Vol. IX, p. 86 of the old ed., wrote without any hesitation that it is by John, bishop of Euboea: and in *Cat. codd. Paris.* vol. II, p. 235, from codex MCLXXIX, it is cited at n. 14 as 'Historical Oration on the Nativity of the Lord' by John, bishop of Euboea. Harl. ^D ...Incipit: 'Always indeed the grace of the Holy Spirit throughout all of God's Scripture.' Much the same, but slightly fuller, is the homily edited under the name of Anastasius of Antioch in Greek and Latin in Vol. III of Canisius’ *Antiquae lectiones* (r). But this, which is attributed to the Damascene in the Palatine ms., is more depressed, many things having been removed. And perhaps it is by Anastasius, says Allatius in his *Diatribe on the writings of the Damascene*, § LXXIV, though contracted into that form by John of Damascus: for it is detected that he transferred many things into his own commentaries, having removed what seemed best to him. ...from Anastasius... martyr Artemius about to recount the brave deeds. ...both rare, and in Allatius’ judgment, most grateful to the lovers of virginity. Lequinius wished to provide this in the Appendix to the Works of the Damascene with the version of Ludovicus Maraccius, a regular cleric. [Conf. cl. Morell. *Bibl. Gr. et Lat. mss.* I, p. 29.]

9. Various Canons (s) for the solemnities of the saints. ^A On the angels, incipit: 'Let us all sing out, O faithful.' On the martyr Conon, incipit: 'Let the victorious martyr now be sung.' On Lazarus, incipit: 'He who previously brought forth from non-existence.' On John the Evangelist and Saint Arsenius, incipit: 'The pure, the beloved.' On Saint Theodore the Recruit, incipit: 'God for you, O Theodore, an acrostic. God, thee I sing, O name-sake of gifts.' On Epiphanius of Cyprus, incipit: 'Faithfully in that of the servant.'

On Artemon the martyr, according to the alphabet. Incipit: 'I open the treasures of knowledge.' On the martyr Theophilus, incipit: 'You were made a beginning.' On Euphemia the martyr, incipit: 'It draws toward hymnody, the acrostic. I praise the all-praised maiden.' On the Dormition of the Theotokos, incipit: 'Adorned with divine glory, the acrostic. Let the God-minded celebrate.' [V. ad n. 10 Gregorii Pardi.] On the same Dormition of the Theotokos, incipit: 'O maidens, O young women.' On the Nativity of the Forerunner, incipit: 'As a becoming dawn.'

(r) Pag. 67. From a Bavarian codex or in the new edition of Basnage, or *Thesaurus monumentorum ecclesiasticorum* vol. III, p. 465, from the Combefisian edition, reviewed against the codices of the Paris Library. Harl. (s) Because of the multitude and sweetness of the sacred hymns, which the Damascene composed in both prose and verse, he is celebrated, along with Cosmas, as being long since among the preeminent melodists of the Greek Church. See John of Jerusalem in *Damasceni Vita*, c. 5 and 33; Suidas in *Joannes*. But as per this matter at greater length, we will be informed, I hope, before long by the Rev. Urbanus Godfridus Siberus, an egregious doctor of the church and academy of Leipzig, in his History of the Melodists of the Greeks, which he is preparing. As far as I know, only the Prolegomena to the History of the Greek Melodists have seen the light, Lps. 1714. However, in Jöcher’s *Lexicon of the Learned*,

^A *On the Indiction*. Incipit: "Let us sing, all people." [V. ad n. 10 of Gregorii Pardi etc.] *On Theodosius the Coenobiarch*. Incipit: "As a wise tactical commander." *On John the Hut-dweller*. Incipit: "Enriched with divine things." *On John the Forerunner*. Incipit: "Come, with a fitting tongue." *On Job*. Incipit: "The enduring one, without fetters." *On the prophet Isaiah*. Incipit: "Enlighten me, O Lord (1)."

^B *On the Source of Knowledge of John of Damascus*. Incipit: "The chapters usually sought after."

*Of Gregorii Pardi, Metropolitan of Corinth, from the explanations on the canons of the Despotic feasts, explanations on the canons of the same feasts by John of Damascus*. Incipit: "This present canon (v)."

*Of Theodoros Prodromos, explanation on the canons set forth for the holy Despotic feasts by the holy and wise poets Cosmas and John of Damascus*. Incipit: "You seem, O man of God, to be towards the one [set forth] in the Despotic and public feasts (x)."

And CCCXVII, an exposition on the Canons—that is, the ecclesiastical Canticles—of the holy Fathers Cosmas, Bishop of Majuma, and John of Damascus, which are accustomed to be sung on the principal holy solemnities. Lambecius indeed, in Commentaries V, p. 579, and again on p. 585, deceived by a Greek epigraph written by a more recent hand, attributes that exposition to Theodoros Prodromos. But Kollar, in his notes on both places, shows that it belongs to Georgios, or Gregorios Pardi, Metropolitan of Corinth, as the Vatican codices, cited by Allatius in *Diatriba de Georgiis et eorum scriptis*, pp. 418 and 419, hold; and as the codex *Caesareus* CCCXX, which is to be mentioned shortly, expressly testifies. The same Kollar, regarding the former codex, notes that three Canons, or Canticles, appear in that codex which are not found in the Aldine edition and others; namely, to use Kollar's words, at folio 105, p. 1, for the Lord's Day of Antipascha, whose beginning is: "Let us sing, all people," which canon, otherwise attributed to Damascenus, is inscribed: *On the Indiction*; then folio 160, p. 2, by Cosmas of Jerusalem on the Dormition of the B. V. Mary, whose beginning is: "Enwrapped in divine glory." In other manuscripts, this canon is ascribed to Damascenus; finally, on the same Dormition, by Damascenus, as it seems, whose beginning is: "I will open my mouth." That we observed this hymn being made public in Greek by Iriarte under the name of Damascenus in his *Catalogue of Greek Codices*, we noted a little while ago. ^C In codices CCCXIX, the *Anastasima* canons, or those on the Resurrection of Christ, with a very full exposition. Lambecius in p. 586 sqq. In codex CCCXX, of Gregorios, Archbishop of Corinth, an exposition on the canons, or ecclesiastical canticles, of the Lord's Day feasts throughout the whole year, as also on the Triodia and the canons of the Great Week and the feasts of the B. Virgin Mother of God. Lambecius, ibid., p. 587. — Paris, in the Public Library, codex MDCCXX, n. 11, four acrostic canons, of which the author of the first and third is Cosmas the monk, and of the second and fourth is J. Damascenus; all these with the commentary of Gregorios, Archbishop of Corinth. — At Florence, in the Laurentian Medicean codex XLVIII, n. 4, plut. 57, Gregorios of Corinth, *Exposition on the Lord's Day canons of the feasts, etc.* There are, in fact, thirteen canons, partly by J. Damascenus, partly by Cosmas the monk; the titles and the beginnings of the expositions of the individual canons correspond with the narrative of Allatius concerning Georgios, Metropolitan of Corinth, and his exposition of the canons (below in vol. X, p. 801 sqq. of the old ed.), although the series of canons [agrees] with the Palatinus codex CCCXV (ibid., p. 804), according to Bandini in the *Catalogue of Greek Codices of the Laurentian [Library]*, II, p. 428 sq.

(x) At Vienna, in the codex *Caesareus* CXLVII, n. 9, J. Damascenus, canons, that is, three iambic pentastich poems, with a Greek paraphrase by Theodoros Prodromos. See Lambecius, *Commentaries* IV, p. 267 sq. — In codices CCCXVI and CCCXVIII, the exposition of Theodoros on the canons of Cosmas and J. Damascenus, etc. Lambecius V, 584 sqq., with a note by Kollar. The same is in the codex once belonging to the Royal Library of Turin, CCLII, see *Catalogue of Greek Codices of Turin*, p. 369. — In the Baroccian codex of the Bodleian Library, codex CX, the *Exposition of the Octoechos of Cosmas and Damascenus* by Theodoros Prodromos; the same one’s *Exposition of the hymns of Cosmas and Damascenus* which are sung on the feasts; J. Damascenus.

^A Eustathius, Bishop of Thessalonica, a sufficiently long and learned commentary on the canon of John of Damascus for Pentecost (y). John Zonaras on the Octoechos. A most beautiful exposition of John of Damascus (z*). An exposition by Marcus Eugenicus on certain canons of Damascus (s'). (Besides these things, which Lequinius exhibits concerning the Damascene, the following were sent by Allatius to Aubert: A Discourse of the Lord Constantine Logothete Akropolites unto Saint John of Damascus. It begins: *To John the Word, to him from Damascus the praises.* 2) Concerning the same Damascene, from Macarius of Ancyra. It begins: *The aforementioned holy and oecumenical...* ^B 5) An Office for our holy Father John of Damascus. It begins: *With what songs of hymns [shall we celebrate] the canon?* Item: *The musical cicada of the Church.* 4) Another Office for the same. It begins: *Rejoice, O instrument of the Church.* The acrostic of the canon is alphabetical, and it is by Philotheos concerning the Theotokos. Item: *Adonai, [we offer] to Thee the venerable singing one* and so on. 4) Megalynaria by Athanasius Chatzukes for John of Damascus. It begins: *We bless thee, O wise John, as [one full] of logical graces.* (6) The Life and conduct and partial narrative of the miracles of our Father among the saints, Cosmas the Poet. It begins: *It is worthy to honor those who have discovered the finest things.* The writer professes that he is narrating concerning John of Damascus things which John of Jerusalem passed over in his Life.

Various hymns are expounded; cf. above, vol. VIII, p. 141 seq. sect. 7. ^C In cod. Coislin. CCXIX, the *Enarration* of Theod. Prodromos on the canons, etc. The canticles and troparia are explained, i.e., the versicles which occur in the offices of the individual feasts. V. Montfauc. Bibl. Coisl. p. 273. Venice, in cod. Naniano CLXXV. v. Cat. codd. gr. Nan. p. 384 sq. and p. 386 regarding cod. CLXXVII. Harl. (y) It exists at Vienna in the cod. Caesar. CCXCVIII, concerning which Lambecius speaks at length, V, p. 556 seq. Harl. (z) Cf. infra, vol. X, p. 243, 6 ed. vet., above to note 4 of the scriptor, which are not yet found in the ed. Lequin. It exists indeed at Vienna in the cod. Caesar. XXV, n. 4. — cod. CCVI. — codd. CCCXIII and CCCXIV. ^D v. Lambec. comm. vol. III, p. 104. — vol. V, p. 17 sqq. and there Kollar, whom you should also compare at vol. IV, p. 35 sq. — vol. V, p. 577 and 578; in cod. Coislin. CCIX. v. Montfauc. Bibl. Coisl. p. 273 sq. in cod. Naniano CLXXV. Fragments of J. Damasc. are at Moscow in cod. Syn. v. Matthaei Notit. codd. etc. p. 21 sq. Harl. (z*) On the Holy Trinity and eight canons, or canticles on the Blessed Mary, are at Vienna in cod. Caesar. CLXXXVII, according to Nesselius in the Cat. codd. Caesar. part I, p. 275, or according to Lambecius vol. V, p. 598 sq. in cod. CCCXXV. Cf. infra vol. X, pag. 531 edit. vet. Harl.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS THAT SURVIVE

BY THE CARE AND STUDY OF P. MICHEL LEQUIEN OF THE ORDER OF PREACHING FRIARS (Paris, at the shop of Jean-Baptiste Delespine, rue Saint-Jacques, at the sign of Saint Paul, near the fountain of Saint-Séverin, 1712, with royal privilege. 2 vols. folio).

TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MAN, JEAN-PAUL BIGNON ABBOT OF SAINT-QUENTIN, DECAN OF THE ROYAL AND COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAINT-GERMAIN-L’AUXERROIS, CONSISTORIAL COUNT, PRESIDENT OF THE ACADEMY OF INSCRIPTIONS AND BELLES-LETTRES, ETC.

Although by right of patronage, O MOST PREEMINENT MAN, all those of our literati who bring works to light ought to be considered yours—on account of that incredible zeal with which, even in the most difficult times, you assist the prudent counsels of your most illustrious uncle, the most upright Chancellor of France, in encouraging and promoting letters—yet this collection of the writings of St. John of Damascus, which I am now making public, lays claim to that glory more than the others. For indeed, this work, which men of the highest rank in every order, both those distinguished by ecclesiastical dignity and those remarkable for singular learning, had long and with assiduous prayers desired, and which other learned men had abandoned on account of its heavy bulk, I, bolder than them, undertook, animated by the hope that I would have you as a helper for my labor and struggle, and a most kind Maecenas. Nor did expectation deceive me. For you had scarcely learned that it was being prepared for the press when you promised me your patronage and assistance with the most willing benevolence. Furthermore, by the authority you wield in the literary sphere, you opened a clear and easy path by which it might at last be printed. Hence, this offspring of my labors had you not merely as a patron, as the other six hundred books that are available among us possess, but also experienced your kind, midwifery-like hand. For how, indeed, could it have happened otherwise that I should seek any other protector for a new edition of the lucubrations of the premier doctor of the Oriental Church, in which innumerable and most diverse matters are weighed and discussed, than you, O MOST LEARNED and MOST HUMANE of men, whom it is most well-known to be endowed with a skill and facility in dispatching business that is rare and common to few, and with an almost immense knowledge of all the sciences? Our countrymen honor you with auspicious voices and congratulate and applaud you, whether they hear you from the sacred pulpit discoursing upon the articles of the Christian faith or the rules of conduct with that innate and, for moving hearts, most fitting eloquence, or whether they see you in the Academies of Sciences and Ancient Inscriptions—over which you have deservedly been placed by Louis the Great—reviewing on the spot the individual items upon which men of select erudition have spoken copiously and accurately from their notes, illustrating them with new observations, as if you had yourself undertaken to clarify those same arguments with more dedicated labor. But even all the learned men of foreign nations who come to Paris from all sides almost envy us you, the most precious treasure and ornament of our Gauls, declaring that it seems like a miracle among us to behold the most excellent Abbot Jean-Paul Bignon, in whom all extraordinary gifts come together as if in a marching line. For not only do they all look with wonder upon that exquisite erudition of yours, your prudence, your equity, and the other virtues I have mentioned; but also, which adorns those virtues with elegant grace,

your very brow is the most certain herald, witness, and sponsor to those who meet you of the sincere piety, religion, modesty, and finally that ingenuous candor of soul within. Thus furthermore, most illustrious man, differing nothing from the ancestral and paternal glory, nothing from their incomparable probity as well as their own polished learning, nor degenerating, you hold out not the bare shadow of their great name, but represent a living and most exact image. A living, I say, and genuine image, and one not at all painted, of those most excellent men, the two Bignons, Hieronymus, your parent and grandfather (not to rehearse your ancestors in a longer series), whose most worthy praises, which they acquired for themselves through their outstanding merits in the republic and in literature, no future age will leave in silence. And this is all the more correct because you have yourself gathered together, in a hereditary right as it were, all those defenses of nature and mind in which they both shone, in such a way that those who are to be born of your most distinguished family may have you as an example which they ought to imitate. May God bring this to pass, as long as this world shall stand; may He meanwhile grant that you, most illustrious man, may preside over the world of letters for many years. Farewell then, most illustrious man, and accept with the same care and humanity with which you began, this little literary gift, which shall be a pledge of my respect and gratitude, if it holds itself up by any utility at all.

Offered by your most obedient and most devoted Brother MICHAEL LEQUIEN, of the Order of Preaching Friars.

GENERAL PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION OF THE WORKS OF ST. JOHN DAMASCENE

1. *John of Damascus’s works long and avidly sought.* — The Eastern Church considers John of Damascus among its most excellent doctors and has always honored him with special reverence, both on account of the very many most elegant canticles which the holy man published, and of which a great part of the Office of the Greek Church consists, on account of which he is also called *Iwánnēs poiētēs*, John the Poet, and especially on account of his vast knowledge and erudition in all matters, particularly divine, by which he discussed almost all and every mystery of the Christian faith with singular clarity, or defended them against heretics. This was the cause for him to be surnamed *Chrysorrhoas*, a term taken both from the golden streams of doctrine in which he abounds, and also from the river Chrysorrhoas by which Damascus, the city of his birth, is watered. For this reason, of all the Church Fathers, the works of hardly any one have been requested more avidly by theologians than those which John of Damascus bequeathed to posterity. I pass over the Greeks, for whom he has always been, like the others, one alone. But he also held great esteem in the West, from the time when his books began to be rendered into Latin.

II. *First translated into Latin by Burgundio of Pisa.* — In the twelfth century of the Church, while Eugenius III held the pontificate of the Roman Church, his book *De fide orthodoxa*, which is the most important of the others, was for the first time rendered into the Latin language by Burgundio, a judge, a citizen of Pisa, and prefect of Frederick Barbarossa, but quite barbarously and unlearnedly; because this interpreter, to use the words of John Cono, a Dominican of Nuremberg, by his version—or rather inversion—rendering word for word, corrupted it after his custom, plunging good and most elegant Greek into sordid Latin. This was the judgment of a very learned man regarding the various translations of the Fathers which Burgundio attempted. We have mention of this Burgundio in the second dialogue of Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, who testifies that he was present at Constantinople at his conferences which he held with Nicetas of Nicomedia under the Emperor Calo-John Comnenus, when he was acting there as orator for Lothair, Emperor of Germany. "There were present," he says, "not a few Latins, among whom were three wise men, skilled in both languages, and most learned in letters: James by name, Venetian by nation; Burgundio by name, Pisan by nation; the third, most excellent among others and most famous among both peoples for his knowledge of Greek and Latin letters, Moses by name, Italian by nation, from the city of Bergamo." Indeed, I consider it proper to ascribe to the same Burgundio the translation of other tractates of John of Damascus, which I found in the Royal codex 5966, and which our friend Henry Gravius published in his collection of the same author, of which we shall speak shortly. For it exhibits the same unrefined and rude style everywhere.

III. *Now that translation of the book De fide orthodoxa, which Burgundio had elaborated, Peter*

Lombard, Master of the Sentences, Saint Thomas, and other doctors of the school of the thirteenth and following centuries, used. But they never saw the other dissertations of the Damascene, except for that in which the matter of holding prayers for those who have fallen asleep is debated, nor are they found to be cited by them anywhere at all. Clearly Saint Thomas, who asserted that John Damascene held the same erroneous opinion about the procession of the Holy Spirit as Theodoret did, would have refrained from this accusation if he had read, at the end of the letter concerning the Trisagion hymn, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son; a thing which even Theodoret denied, though it does not in any way conflict with the sense of the true faith, just as has been demonstrated by me in its proper places. ^B

IV. *The translation of the book De fide orthodoxa by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples. Its first, second, and third editions.* No other Latin translation of the books of the Damascene was produced until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, as he says, amidst the tumults of the court, translated the book *De fide orthodoxa* in the year 1506 with more fidelity than elegance, and his interpretation was printed at Paris in quarto, by Henri Estienne in the year 1507. Subsequently, in the year 1512, the same book was edited in Latin again, by the work of Jodocus Clichtove, who prefixed a letter to Jacobus Ambasianus, Bishop of Clermont, and interspersed his own commentaries, which he had accommodated to Lefèvre's version, among the individual chapters. Another, similar Parisian edition followed this one in the year 1519.

*The Greek edition of Verona.* But since no work of John Damascene had yet seen the light in Greek, in the year of our Lord 1531, Donatus of Verona printed the entire book *De fide orthodoxa* in its native Greek language for the first time, along with the sermon *On those who have fallen asleep in the faith*, and dedicated his edition to the Roman Pontiff Clement VII, with the advice of Giovanni Matteo Giberti, Bishop of Verona, that this be done. This prelate, moreover, had considered again and again, he says, that the work on the orthodox faith could be dedicated to no one more fittingly than to him who had a constant struggle against the new deserters of the truth, who are called Lutherans. He adds: "You will have this Damascene as a most sharp weapon, with which you may pierce, if not those former ones, at least these latter ones." I would praise the merits of this writer more profusely in this place, and I would explain of how great a name he has always been, not only among theologians, but also among philosophers and physicians, if the brevity of the letter allowed it, or if this were so obscure. These things Donatus said to the Supreme Pontiff, by which he signifies how much utility the entire Church was about to receive from the works of Saint John Damascene. ^C

V. *Other Latin editions.* In the years 1535 and 1539, other editions of the book *De fide orthodoxa* with briefer annotations by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples were published by the Basel presses, as well as the oration *On those who have fallen asleep in the faith*, the translation of which Johannes Oecolampadius had adorned before he defected from the Catholic Church; and also the *History of Josaphat and Barlaam*, which was commonly attributed to our Damascene, and, in addition, the *Life of the same John Damascene* written by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, which the same Oecolampadius had likewise translated into the Latin language. All of which appeared only in Latin.

VI. *The Cologne edition.* After seven years, in the year 1546, Henricus Gravius of Nijmegen, of the Order of Preachers, a most learned man and deserving in many respects, both regarding the Church and regarding letters, published a new collection of the works of Saint John Damascene, which appeared at Cologne from the shop of Peter Quentel; in which, besides the books that existed in the earlier ones, he added the sermon *On the conversion of Saint John Damascene*, his *Logic*, the *Elementary Introduction to John, Bishop of Laodicea*, the *Treatise concerning two wills and operations*, the *Letter to Jordan the Archimandrite concerning the Trisagion hymn*, the *Book concerning heresies*, a *Fragment of sentences concerning the eight passions*, *Altercations with a Saracen*, concerning *judgment*, and finally his various poems and canticles, as well as those of Cosmas of Maiuma, Theophanes, and Scholarius. ^D

VII. *The first, second, and third Greco-Latin editions of Basel.* Again in the year 1548, those same works were printed anew at Basel by Matthaeus Hopper, with the Greek text of the book *De fide orthodoxa* added alongside, and of the sermon *On those who have fallen asleep in the faith*, just as it had been edited previously at Verona. Indeed, in the year 1559, a similar edition appeared again at Basel, and the same Hopper took charge of it. Finally, in the year 1575, another edition was elaborated there under the care of the same Matthaeus Hopper, far more enlarged than all the others, with the Greek text of the author added in addition to almost all the treatises.

VIII. *Latin Parisian editions, translated by Jacques Billy.* But since in all those editions the translations of the individual books abounded with various errors, and not a few of them were rendered bristling with a completely barbarous diction, and were not easy to understand, or even to read; the most learned man Jacques Billy of Prunay, of Saint-Michel in Er...

^A emo, abbot, applied his efforts to preparing a new version of almost all the studies that existed in the latest Basel edition, having first collated and emended the text against several manuscripts. Furthermore, he added a translation of the book of *Parallels*, and other works which either bore the name of John of Damascus or concerned him in any way. This interpretation by Jacques Billy was made public at Paris in the year 1577, but without the Greek text, except for four homilies, on the Transfiguration, and on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Once again in the years 1603 and 1619, the subsequent two editions were enriched by the addition of other works that were lacking in the previous one, by the Reverend Father Fronton du Duc of the Society of Jesus.

IX. The decree of the Gallican Clergy concerning the publication of the works of Saint John of Damascus in Greek and Latin. — But because those latest editions were in no way complete, and the Greek was lacking in them, therefore in the general assemblies of the Gallican clergy which were held in Paris in the year 1635, and subsequently in 1636, it was decreed that the works of John of Damascus should be published again in print, in Greek and Latin, more accurately and more fully than before. Indeed, the care for preparing the edition was entrusted to a man most learned in both languages, Jean Aubert, a Parisian theologian ^B and prefect of the college which is called the Laon College in the city, who had recently published the books of Cyril of Alexandria in Greek and Latin. The decree of the prelates of the Gallican Church exists in the Acts of those assemblies for the day of 21 January of the year 1636.

*On Monday, the twenty-first of January, at eight o’clock in the morning, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Arles being President.*

*Monseigneur the Archbishop of Toulouse reported, and said, that he and Monseigneur of Séez had, according to the intention of the Assembly, conferred together and taken the advice of some Doctors regarding the choice of the books of the Greek Fathers that it would be most appropriate to have printed. That they had judged that the Works of Saint John of Damascus, of Origen, of Maximus, and of Ephrem the Syrian were the most necessary, among those of all the ancients, to serve for the decision of religious controversies, which nevertheless had not been printed until now in their original language; indeed, that the greater part of their works had not been printed at all, which are to be found in various Libraries, and that for this reason it would be necessary to choose some person well versed in the Greek language to take this care: to which Monseigneur of Séez added, that one could request Monseigneur of Toulouse to take Sieur Aubert, Doctor of the Sorbonne, for one of the two whom the Company had previously asked him to choose to work on Canonical Law and Ecclesiastical History, and to give him the care of this printing, so as not to burden the state with greater expense.*

*The said report being considered and agitated, my aforesaid Lords of Toulouse and of Séez were requested to negotiate with some Printers who would make the most advantageous condition, and by lending them the sum of eight thousand livres, which is in the hands of Cramoisy, to bind them to the printing of the said Authors, and of the others they would judge necessary; into which treaty they will cause Sieur Vitré, Printer to the Clergy, to enter by preference: And furthermore the Company has desired that the said Sieur Aubert be employed in the care of the said printing; and for that, has ordered that he be entered on the rolls of gratifications, with the other whom Monseigneur of Toulouse will name for Canonical Law.*

The president of the assemblies was, furthermore, the most illustrious archbishop of Arles, Jean Joubert de Barrault; the archbishop of Toulouse, however, who is named in the decree, was Charles de Monchal, a man of extraordinary erudition ^C and most studious of literary matters; finally, the bishop of Séez was Jacques Camus de Pontcarré, a man also highly cultivated in the more refined literature. But Aubert, while he proposed to edit Ephrem the Syrian first, omitting the Damascene, finished neither. Wherefore the most illustrious lord Charles de Monchal, archbishop of Toulouse, as well as the most illustrious Lords Dominique Seguier of Meaux, Antoine Godeau of Vence, and François Bosquet of Montpellier, bishops, and the most renowned abbots de Rancé and de Ligny, who was afterwards also prelate of Meaux, with the approval of Aubert himself, entrusted this task of preparation to the Reverend Father François Combefis ^D, the polymath, of the Order of Preachers. Combefis, both by those prelates whom I have named, and by the most illustrious and learned Suaresius, bishop of Vaison, and also by the masters general of the Dominican order Thomas Turcus and Giovanni Battista de Marinis, and finally, to pass over others, by that man most celebrated in the whole world, and deserving very well of the Church, Leo Allatius, was summoned to complete that work.

It was with the greatest zeal that they stirred him up. The frequent letters which they addressed to him on this matter, and which I keep in my possession today, bear witness to this. However, having undertaken the task enjoined upon him, while he was unable to prevail upon Aubert to share with him those treatises which Allatius had sent to him from Rome, he was compelled to turn his mind to illustrating and editing other Fathers of the Eastern Church.

[X] X. Philippus Labbe publishes a Prospectus of the works of Saint John of Damascus. — Meanwhile, in the year 1652, the Reverend Father Philippus Labbe, a priest of the Society of Jesus, published a *Prospectus* of a new edition of all the works of Saint John of Damascus, monk and priest, which he had conceived in his mind; yet he did not bring the work he had planned to completion. He was distributing all the works of the Damascene into four volumes, although he had not yet accurately read or reviewed them individually. Hence it is that their arrangement appears neither sufficiently considered nor appropriate. Otherwise, I would be ungrateful if I did not testify that I owe much to this most learned man, for he indicated many of my author's works which might perhaps have otherwise escaped me, and many manuscript codices besides, by the help of which my edition was greatly augmented and illustrated. He hoped that he would eventually obtain those treatises which Leo Allatius had sent to Aubert, but he was disappointed in his hope; and our friend Goarius suspected in vain and incorrectly that everything had reached his hands. For, upon the death of Aubert, all his papers perished entirely.

[XI] XI. In the index of manuscript books of the Augusta Library, which was published in the year 1675, with reference to codex 29 of the second shelf, in which the *Logic* of the Damascene and the book *On the Orthodox Faith* are contained, we are notified in passing on page 29: "With the aid of either codex, D. Veielius, a singular ornament not only of the Church of Ulm but of the whole Church, is soon to publish this work of the Damascene on the orthodox faith, with translation and notes." Whether this was finally accomplished by Veielius, I have not yet been able to learn from anyone.

[XII] XII. Furthermore, when I was examining the papers and memoranda of our friend Combefis, I stumbled upon a collection of the books of John of Damascus which he had begun, of which he had translated into Latin only five: namely, the *Dialectics*, the book *On Heresies*, the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, part of the *Dialogue against the Manichaeans*, and a most useful treatise on the forming of morals; and he had, moreover, already published in volume II of the *Auctarium Bibliothecae Patrum* a treatise on the two wills and operations of Christ, in Greek and Latin, and likewise various homilies in Latin in the *Bibliotheca Patrum Concionatoria*. Wherefore, to these earlier efforts of this most learned man, I have added my own later ones, and with the aid of several handwritten codices, I have reviewed the author’s entire text, corrected the translations of Billius and Combefis with all the diligence I could, and endeavored to illustrate them with annotations. Moreover, many works of this excellent Doctor having been discovered which had not yet appeared even in Greek, the whole work gradually grew to nearly three volumes. The first of these contains treatises pertaining to the dogmas of the faith; the second will exhibit commentaries on the Epistles of Paul, the *Sacra Parallela*, and homilies; the third, finally, will show certain ascetic discourses, together with various subordinate works which are inscribed with his name.

[XIII] XIII. Concerning the Latin translation of Jacobus Billius. I hope no one will hold it against me that I have changed Billius's translation in many places repeatedly. For everyone considers Jacobus Billius one of the most excellent interpreters of Greek authors, and quite deservedly so. However, Combefis, a man most skilled in Greek, preceded me (a), and he once openly affirmed that Billius had served his apprenticeship in translating John of Damascus, and he related in the preface—which he had prepared to be sent ahead of his annotations—that he had noticed that many things had escaped Billius through lack of accuracy, "and that they were not sufficiently adjusted to the rigorous philosophical and theological precision in which the Damascene was chief and master; and that he had said as much to the Fathers of the first rank and most learned men in the course of conversation. So difficult, indeed, it is to compose a version and exposition of a perfect Greek philosopher and theologian into the Latin tongue that is entirely absolute." Although I think it must be added, in excuse of this most famous interpreter, that he worked on the translation of John of Damascus while in poor health, as he himself declares in the dedication to the most serene prince Charles de Bourbon, Archbishop of Rouen. Indeed, when I was reviewing his version and comparing it with the Greek words of the author, I only observed that this learned man had erred in this one thing: that by indulging too much in periphrases and circumlocutions, he had somewhat diminished the force of the most accurate and simple terms which John of Damascus had used, and had adopted various expressions that were by no means proper, nor sufficiently familiar to theologians, in place of the others.

(a) Combefis, *Bibl. Concion.*, vol. VIII, c. 457.

most common, which a pure Latin style would not necessarily reject. For in these matters one should by no means seek a display of eloquence, where the dogmas of the true faith must be declared and expressed without any circumlocution of words and without any veneer.

XIV. Concerning the annotations on the author's text. — From the annotations which our most learned Combefis left upon the Damascene's *Dialectic* and the earlier chapters of the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, ^A I have selected only a few, since the rest were nothing more than observations on Billius’s translation, and did not sufficiently explain the doctrine, tenets, and expressions of the Greek Fathers. That I might accomplish this myself, however, I applied special effort, with the advice or approval of learned men, as the benevolent reader will easily discover from my annotations. For this reason, I took care to extract the opinions of the ancient doctors ^B not only from published books, but also from many others which have not yet seen the light of day, and I have not hesitated to cite long fragments from them, through which the dogmas, the customs, and even the history of the ancient Eastern Church will receive no little light. Furthermore, in those notes concerning various works inscribed under the names of various authors and Fathers—which the author either admitted as sincere though they were cited by heretics, or which he himself cited while deceived—I have exercised judgment after the fashion of critics, so that, as far as it was in my power, I might restore them to their true parents. Moreover, since, on account of the vast harvest of discourse concerning many chapters of the Damascene’s doctrine and those spurious volumes, far more remained for me to explain and happened to arise, I considered that I would be doing something of value if I gathered all the points in order in certain dissertations, which I have therefore called *Damascenic*. Whether I have accomplished this successfully, let the learned decide by their own judgment. Therefore, since I have contended that many works which had been attributed to the most holy teachers of the Church were edited by none other than the heretical Apollinarists, Monophysites, and Nestorians, I submit whatever I have said on this matter to the censure of learned theologians who have spent at least some time in investigating the genuine tenets and expressions of those sectarians who infected the Eastern Church, by which they exposed and maintained, or sometimes concealed, their errors.

XV. The number of the books of John of Damascus is uncertain. — The number of books or short works of every kind which our John left behind cannot be determined ^C from any certain contemporary or peer. For he spent his whole life in that century, and especially in that region, where, on account of the harshest yoke of the Saracens and most ferocious barbarism, there were very few among the Christians who cultivated sacred or ecclesiastical letters, or committed the events occurring among them to writing. From the diligent inspection, therefore, of certain of his works, and from constant meditation, I was led to distinguish others and to separate them from the spurious: to this contributed also the remoteness of the antiquity of certain manuscripts, or an age closer to the author. However, although I have collected many works that are genuine and sincere, I am certain that many others have perished, or lie hidden in the libraries of the world. And indeed, in the *Life of St. Stephen the Younger*, the martyr, we read that John of Damascus, with whom Stephen had been joined in the closest intimacy, wrote various treatises in favor of the sacred images against Constantine Copronymus, which by no means survive today. Theophanes also, in the third year of this emperor, is a witness that he pronounced an oration in praise of Peter, bishop of Majuma, who had recently fallen as a martyr for the faith of Christ, which nowhere appears. Yet, whatever I have edited of his books, or treatises, and sermons, or homilies, in the premonitions which I have placed generally before each one, or in the annotations, I have discussed and defined according to the more accurate rules of critical art which seem to me to be genuine and sincere, and which, in turn, appear to be interpolated, or of suspect and doubtful authenticity.

XVI. Concerning the author’s style. — The diction of our author, or his manner of speaking and writing, where he explains or defends the dogmas of the faith, is simple and clear. He is wholly intent upon explaining the subject at hand in proper and customary words. For this reason, especially in the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, he uses the words not so much of himself as of those doctors of the Church who preceded ^D him. In his orations and homilies, however, he is indeed simple, and not very polished or laconic, as his age and country did not then allow, but he does savor somewhat of Asian eloquence. He sometimes pours himself out into very long periods, whose closely packed and successive members breathe his most keen and ardent genius, and consist for the most part of phrases and sentiments taken from Scripture. In his sacred verses and canticles, he, like Cosmas of Majuma, his former companion in studies, education, and instruction, had no superior among the Greeks, nor any equal, as Suida himself admits. Moreover, many other works

he composed, gathered from excerpts of Divine Scripture and the holy Fathers, and arranged into certain chapters, to which he added little more than a few scattered scholia here and there, a type of which is the book of *Sacred Parallels*.

[XVII] XVII. Regarding certain spurious histories that occur in the books of the Damascene. — Many commonly find fault with our John, because he willingly admitted fables without any discrimination. Among these, the heterodox Casaubon, in his annotations to Baronius’ *Annals*, congratulated and applauded the most learned Cardinal on this point at least: that concerning the year of Christ 31, n. 75, he wrote that in many of John Damascene's writings his reliability falters and that they abound in many falsehoods. These words other Protestants eagerly seized upon, to whom the name and doctrine of John Damascene are displeasing for manifold reasons and titles, such as Joannes Gerardus Vossius—a man otherwise most modest—and Guillelmus Cave. But how unreliable the faith with which they abused the words of the most illustrious Cardinal is, will become manifest to any reader. Indeed, that most celebrated father of ecclesiastical annals, after he recited that passage of Eusebius from book VIII of the *Ecclesiastical History*, in which it is narrated that in Paneas in Palestine a statue was erected to the Lord by the woman whose issue of blood He had healed, he adds: "At the end of the third oration of St. John Damascene, the suppliant petition offered by her to Philip, the tetrarch of the Trachonitis region, is recited from the *Chronicle* of John Malalas of Antioch, in order that for the benefit she had received, it might be permitted to erect statues as a monument to that event forever." Then he says: "But since the reliability of his writing falters in many places, and is recognized to abound in many falsehoods, we have thought it unworthy to insert it into these charts of ours." Here I appeal to a sincere and candid reader: does Baronius say that the reliability of John Damascene himself falters in his writings, and that his writings abound in many falsehoods? Or does he not rather refer only to that particular text and narration of John Malalas concerning the erection of the statue at Paneas, which he deemed unworthy to weave into these charts of his at any length?

But perhaps someone will say: at least the Damascene brought forth and recited this spurious suppliant petition from the *Chronicle* of John Malalas among the sources and testimonies of the ancients concerning the erection of images, and thus approved those most putrid fables with which that document abounds. As if one could truly affirm that all and individual sources which are read at the end, especially of the third oration on sacred images, were collected by our John himself, and that some were not inserted by copyists, as often happened elsewhere. Clearly, among those excerpts is canon 82 of the Trullan council, or, as they commonly call it, the Quinisext, which I infer was unknown to John Damascene, an hieromonk of the Church of Jerusalem, from this fact: that Anastasius the Librarian, in the preface to his Latin translation of the acts of the eighth council, testified to Pope John VIII that those rules, since they remain entirely unknown to the Latins because they were never translated, so too were they never found in the archives of other patriarchal sees, even though they use the Greek tongue. For certain, because not one of them, when they were issued, was found to be either promulgating, or consenting, or even present. Although they claim that those same Fathers who were found at the sixth council promulgated them. Where Anastasius declares quite clearly that the three patriarchates of the East—Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—were utterly ignorant of the Trullan canons: therefore St. John Damascene could not have appended the eighty-second to his third oration. How much less, truly, could our John have brought forth an excerpt from the *Chronicle* of Malalas, if John Malalas is posterior and more recent than the Damascene? This is exactly what very learned men signal and assert with these verses of John Tzetzes, where he writes concerning Cleopatra and the Pharos:

*Virgil remembers this Cleopatra,* *Lucian, and Galen, and Plutarch with them,* *Diodorus, George the Chronographer together with others,* *And John after them, the Antiochene, last of all.*

But if this George the chronographer is the Syncellus of Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, there is no doubt that Tzetzes judged John the Antiochene, who will scarcely be thought any other than Malalas, to have been much more recent than John Damascene. Whatever the case may be, let it be that this testimony of John Tzetzes is not irrefragable (for I would willingly admit this, nor would I concede that it departs from the truth), so that one could hardly suspect that in the ninth century of the Church, when the entire East groaned, afflicted and desolate under the sad yoke of the Saracens, there existed any [writer] of Antioch

who, while gathering Roman—and especially—Antiochene affairs, could have committed them to Greek letters. To me, it does not seem likely that John Damascene would have ^A wished to confirm the same matter—for instance, the history of the image of Christ erected at Paneas—with two testimonies, when for the establishing of its credibility, the clear narrative of Eusebius of Caesarea would be more powerful than that of the obscure and recent chronicler, John Malalas. There is no one who does not know that collections of such authorities, of whatever sort—as they are seen in the Chains, the Parallels, and the various Pandects—are, in accordance with the variety of the codices, found to be sometimes more concise and sometimes more ample, if one examines them accurately.

XVIII. Why Damascene gave credence to false narrations.

Furthermore, I do not deny that our author admitted false, nay, sometimes even spurious, narrations; but this ought to be pardoned in a man otherwise most learned, who lived in an age when there was no care for the critical art, of which even the greatest part of the Fathers were always negligent. Clearly, if my Damascene were to be condemned for this reason, the fame and name of the most excellent doctors and writers of the Church could, by equal right, be detracted from, for their books are by no means free from such fables and fabricated little traditions. For, to omit the scholastic doctors of later centuries, what shall I say of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Epiphanius? Their books swarm with citations and fragments of adulterated books. How many supposititious tracts did Eusebius allege in his books *On the Gospel Preparation* and in his *Ecclesiastical History*? What is more foolish than the epistles of Abgar to Christ, and of Christ to Abgar? What is more abhorrent from the truth than the narrative of Hegesippus concerning James, the brother of the Lord, which Eusebius seriously reported? Have not Nazianzen, Jerome, and Chrysostom given some credence to spurious histories? Indeed, not even the books of Theodoret are free from this defect. I pass over in silence Palladius, Sophronius, and other men of a later age, otherwise not entirely unlearned, who, because of their simplicity of morals and a mind most averse to deceit, could easily be imposed upon. Let Photius suffice as an example—that most celebrated critic, especially among the heterodox; did he not, in his *Library* of selected codices, consign and commend fabricated works to posterity as if they were sincere? Consider the acts of the Nicene Council inscribed with the name of Gelasius of Cyzicus, and likewise the ample excerpts from the acts of Saint Alexander of Alexandria, Metrophanes of Constantinople, Athanasius, and the seven martyrs whom they call the Sleepers, in addition to six hundred errors here and there, which betray a man little skilled in the critical art, such that he could scarcely extend his reach beyond the sphere of grammar; indeed, compared with the style and doctrine, one rarely separates the sincere writings of the authors from the false ones. All these men, and others whom it is not necessary to recount here, just like Damascene, not only accepted fables but even works ^B putatively inscribed with the names of the holy Doctors of the Church—of whom, for the most part, none were the authors except heretics—in good faith and without any suspicion of hidden poison, since they certainly perceived nothing in them that seemed to strike directly at sound doctrine, or [thought] that, because of the illustrious names with which they were adorned, if anything erroneous appeared in them, it had been intruded by heretics. I have discussed such spurious lucubrations at length in my dissertations which I called *Damascenica*, and especially in the second, third, and fourth. But if, on account of such lapses, nothing has been detracted from the name and authority of those most great men, because they otherwise campaigned successfully for the cause of the Catholic Church, why should our John be detracted from on this account—he who, because of the outstanding works in which he most happily—and more than others—expounded upon the individual mysteries of the Christian faith and defended them, and because of the most useful tracts he published which were most apt for the forming of morals, deserved the highest praise from the Church?

XIX. Why he applied the rules of Dialectic.

There are some who dare to blame the most holy Doctor on the same account: that he indulged too much in dialectical trifles. But not even they know the rationale and condition of his age. In the century in which Damascene flourished in Palestine, the entire East was infected with the manifold plague of heretics, but primarily that of the Jacobites, or Acephali, or Monophysites, who, with Severus of Antioch as their primary author, had for three centuries now been endeavoring to dement the pupils of the Catholic Church with various sophisms, having taken their arguments for contentious wrangling chiefly from the *Categories* of Aristotle. Similarly, the Incorrupticolae, the Agnoetae, the Monothelites, the Tritheites, and the Nestorians, were equally most well-instructed in dialectical arts and cavils, and in those alone. Hence, it was worth the effort for those who were conducting the cause of the sound faith to apply dialectical laws and definitions to refute them, which they nevertheless aligned with the common doctrine of the approved masters of the Church as if with a sure rule and norm. Yet, even before Damascene, Maximus the Confessor had campaigned against the Severians and the Monothelites, their offspring; thus Leontius of Byzantium, no ignoble writer of the sixth century, refuted those same Severians;

thus Eulogius of Alexandria, thus Ephræmius and Anastasius of Antioch, thus the deacon Rusticus, Fulgentius, Boethius, Pope Gelasius, and others whose volumes, either complete or in fragments, survive to this day. Indeed, so too did both Gregories, the Nazianzen and the Nyssen; and so too did Basil, most notably, who brilliantly refuted Aetius and Eunomius, the most cunning sophists of the Arians. Clearly, Dionysius Petavius—a man more devoted to the theology of the early Church Fathers than any other—did not show himself so morose toward the doctors of the schools who discoursed on divine matters in a philosophical manner; rather, he did not hesitate to take up their defense in the *Prolegomena* to his work on theological dogmas, ch. 4 and 5, especially by bringing forward the authority of the Damascene himself. "Nothing," he says, "can prevent a theologian from having a divine science that is better fortified and adorned by the defenses of sincere and genuine philosophy and dialectic." Yet he will not entirely reject that logic and sophistry, not so that he may make use of them as the heretics and other enemies of the Church do, to attack the truth; but rather to defend it, and to use the aid of art to solve their tangled knots and the snares from which those people are entangled. "Every craftsman," the Damascene says excellently (a), "has need of certain tools for the execution of his works. Furthermore, it is fitting for a queen to use the service of certain handmaids." Let us therefore accept these teachings as handmaidens of truth, and let us banish far away the impiety which had usurped them for its own tyrannical rule: let us not use a good thing for evil, nor turn that art of disputation toward ensnaring the simple; even though the truth in no way needs those various sophistic inventions, we shall nonetheless use them to overthrow those wicked combatants and to refute that science which is falsely so called. In the following chapter, the same most learned man pursues the argument and asserts that those questions which Erasmus had mocked, as well as many others which he omits, are found to have been treated by the Fathers themselves—Athanasius, Basil, Epiphanius, the two Gregories, Nazianzen and Nyssen, Cyril, Theodoret, Maximus the Confessor, Nemesius, Hilary, Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Fulgentius, and the rest who came after the Synod of Nicaea—and much more subtly and diffusely than in the schools. But truly, hardly any of the Fathers defended and explained the Catholic faith against errors of any kind with greater success than John of Damascus, by means of tradition and the authority of the holy Fathers; for his works consist of nothing but what has been woven from Scripture and the words, opinions, and arguments of the doctors who preceded him. This is what he accomplished above all in the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, as I have taken care to indicate in its margins, and more fully in the annotations to that same book, and to certain others in which he discourses upon the doctrine of the Church.

XX. Certain things are supplied which have been omitted here and there in both volumes*. — But because, both in the annotations and in the Damascene dissertations, while I had to treat several chapters concerning doctrine, history, and ecclesiastical discipline, I noticed that some things said and asserted by me were not sufficiently accurate, and thus stood in need of retraction or correction, I believe these defects ought to be supplied in this preface to the entire work.

John and Cyrus of Aegae distinct from John of Germanicia and Cyrus of Lesbos. — In the third dissertation, page LII, column 2, where I show—against the most learned Garnerius—that the Cyrus and John whom the monks of Palestine mention in their letter to Alcison and whom Victor of Tunnuna mentions in his *Chronicle* are not the Cyrus who was a monk on the island of Lesbos and the John of Germanicia to whom the letters of Theodoret are addressed; concerning these words found on line 14: "Furthermore, no one can infer this alleged patronage from [Epistle] 135, which is the only one to John of Germanicia," I wish to alert the reader that, after these things were printed, I came across another letter of Theodoret to John of Germanicia, which was published separately in vol. IV of his works, page 702, which ought to be considered the one hundred and twenty-fifth among his letters. In it, he narrates in a few words the things perpetrated by Dioscorus of Alexandria at the Robber Council of Ephesus, [and how] Domnus of Antioch was deposed because he would not admit the chapters of Cyril, and other crimes admitted against the laws; finally, he exhorts John not to allow himself to be deceived and to avoid the communion of impiety. All of which proves only that John of Germanicia was united with Theodoret by friendship, but not that he openly undertook the defense of the Nestorian error. For otherwise, he would not have been admitted by the Council of Chalcedon without being heard, to all of whose acts he subscribed.

(a) *Dialect.* c. 1. (*) I have attached a note to each place here retracted which recalls the reader to this paragraph of the Preface. — ED. PATR.

^A is read as having written, not as Ibas and Theodoret did, after first pronouncing an anathema against Nestorius. From which it is more strongly evidenced that John of Germanicia was distinct from John of Aegeae, whom I show hereafter to have sharpened his pen against the Council of Chalcedon, and whom I would scarcely doubt to have been one of those Nestorians whom Evagrius (Book II, Hist. cap. 2) reports came to Chalcedon and clamored against the council because anathema was spoken against holy men, namely Nestorius and Theodore of Mopsuestia.

*The shorter Life of St. Gregory the Great is wrongly attributed to Paul the Deacon.* — In the fifth dissertation, p. LXIV, col. 1, I noted that it should be observed that John the Deacon, in Book II of the *Life of Gregory the Great*, cap. 44, reported only from the tradition of the English and Saxons that the holy Pontiff, while proceeding in public, obtained through prayers poured forth to God that the soul of the emperor Trajan might be snatched from the punishments of hell; and thus, in John’s age, no other monuments existed at Rome or among the Italians by which that liberation might be evidenced. Wherefore it may be called into doubt whether the other shorter *Life* of Gregory, in which mention is likewise made of the liberated Trajan, ought to be attributed to Paul the Deacon and monk of Cassino; for it is certain that John the Deacon had under his hands and consulted the *Life* of Gregory adorned by Paul while he was writing his own history. The doubt is increased by the fact that Paul the Deacon reports certain matters in his *History of the Lombards* more accurately than they are found in that *Life* which bears his name in certain codices: such as the order of the sevenfold Litany; and what he did among Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, whence peace was procured for the Catholic Church and the Roman city.

*Petau did not desert his early opinion concerning the last Passover of Christ.* — In the sixth dissertation, in which I discussed the unleavened bread, as well as the final Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ, I brought forward a passage from Dionysius Petau taken from his annotations on Epiphanius, by which he did not hesitate to affirm that it is entirely probable that a disturbance occurred among the Jews in the year in which Christ suffered, so that some celebrated the Passover on a day different from the rest, and that in this way the common opinion was explained and defended; and because it seemed much more probable on account of the clear and express testimonies of John, which no quibbling can elude, I deemed it worth the effort to warn the reader again that that most erudite man never retracted this opinion of his, but furthermore commended it as more certain in Book XII *De doctrina temporum*, cap. 18, and *Rationarium temporum*, part II, lib. IV, § 4.

*Sadducees changed into Karaites; at what time.* — That which was said in the same dissertation, p. LXXXIII, col. 2, that those Jewish sectaries who are called Karaites or Caraites are the successors and descendants of the Sadducees, is indeed the common assertion of the Rabbinists: moreover, it seems it can be gathered from the *Authentic* of the Emperor Justinian, tit. 29, nov. 146, *De Hebraeis*, by which he settled a dispute that had arisen among them, when some wished the Greek translation to be read in the synagogues in addition to the Hebrew scripture, while others refused: and others, again, wished to establish the traditions of the elders, or the *deuterōseis* which are contained in the Mishnaic book, while others would not admit them. ^B To calm the tumult, the emperor enacted by this law that it was indeed necessary for the Greek translation to be recited in the synagogues in addition to the Hebrew text of Scripture, both that which was held to be of the seventy interpreters and that which the proselyte Aquila had adorned: but the *deuterōseis* of the Talmudists were not to be accepted, as things not contained in the sacred books, nor handed down by the prophets. He then adds in chapter 2: *If any among them should attempt to introduce godless empty talk, or, denying the resurrection or the judgment, or that the angels are the handiwork and creature of God, we will that these be driven from every place, and that they be allowed no voice of such blasphemy, which has fallen away altogether from even the knowledge concerning God. For we subject those attempting to utter anything of this sort to the most extreme punishments, purging the Jewish nation from the heresy introduced by this means.* If any among them should presume to introduce the impious language of vain speech, or denying the resurrection and judgment, or that the angels of God are handiwork and creature, we will that these be expelled from every place, and that no voice of blasphemy be left which has fallen from the knowledge of God. For those who presume to utter anything of the kind, we subject to the ultimate punishments, purging the Jewish nation from the error introduced by them. From an inspection of this law it appears that those among the Jews who refused to admit Mishnaic traditions followed the heresy of the Sadducees as ones who denied the existence of the resurrection and of the angels, who were spiritual created substances. Wherefore the emperor strictly commands that these remnants of Sadduceism be proscribed, and that those who might be discovered following that impious error be condemned to the ultimate punishments. Whence it came to pass that those who remained of the Sadduceean faction were changed into Karaites, who, having rejected human traditions along with their ancient errors, cared only for the native senses of holy Scripture.

^A The date for this was in the twenty-fifth year of Justinian, in the twelfth year after the consulship of Basilius, a man of consular rank—that is to say, 548 AD—from which, therefore, the beginnings of pure Karaism should be traced.

^B *The beginning of the epistle of Theorianus to the priests.* In that same sixth dissertation on page LXXXVI, column 2, I published a Greek and Latin fragment of the epistle of Theorianus the philosopher to the priests dwelling in the mountains, which I thought might perhaps belong to the epilogue of it. But subsequently the Reverend Father Jacobus Echart, a man of most thorough erudition, with whom I had often conferred regarding the manifold contentions of our Preachers with the Greeks, supplied me with the beginning of that same epistle, as it was discovered by him in Latin manuscripts at the end of a tract held at Constantinople against the Greeks, which was published by Stevartius; from which I discovered that this excerpt follows immediately after the opening of the epistle. For it reads thus: *The beginning of the epistle of Theorianus the philosopher to the priests. It has become known to us, O worthy priests, through a certain soldier, that there are contentions among you, and regarding certain ecclesiastical questions—I speak, that is, of the Sabbath fast, of holy communion, of the matrimonial marriage of priests, and of the shaving of beards, specifically of those who are set in holy orders.* Moreover, the same soldier related to us that many other contentions had arisen between you and the Latins, and he earnestly begged us to write something to you about these matters. We, however, out of the charity of Christ and for your benefit, have consented to the friendly request of this God-fearing man. Lo, we write, and first we ask you that you do not accept contentions, *καὶ πρῶτον παρακαλοῦμεν ὑμᾶς φιλονεικείας μὴ καταδέχεσθαι*, etc., as in those published from Allatius, up to *σκανδάλων τε καὶ πρόσκομμα*, *scandalum et offendiculum* (scandal and stumbling-block).

^C *Regarding the addition to the spurious epistle of the Synod of Sardica.* On page 37 of the works of Saint John Damascene, in annotation 4 to chapter 30 of the *Dialectica*, column 1, where I show that the Nicene Fathers in the appendix to the Creed, by the word *ὑποστάσεως* (hypostasis), did not signify a person subsisting in itself and by itself, but rather nature, essence, and substance, I thought this could be confirmed by the authority of the epistle of the Council of Sardica, in which, as may be read in Theodoret, *Hist.* lib. II, cap. 8, the same *hypostasis*, and thus *essence*, is attributed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But when the matter is considered better and more attentively, I judge that this part of the annotation must be removed, and I assent to the most learned critics who have inferred from Athanasius’s epistle to the Antiochenes that this latter part of the synodical document is a mere addition, which the council did not approve; rather, it was insipidly forced upon it by some, and the council rejected it so that the exposition of faith alone, which was established at Nicaea, might be held by all as sufficiently ample, complete, and clear. Wherefore let it suffice for us that Athanasius, who was a great part of the Nicene Council, in his more common usage, accepted *hypostasis*—not for person, but for nature, essence, and substance—after the ancient custom, so that I may conclude therefrom that the Fathers of that first synod did not use this word in another sense. For the rest, that long appendix should by no means be considered as a second formula of faith other than the Nicene, but as a more diffuse exposition of it: just as these words of the sincere epistle do not present the appearance or form of a formula of faith, in which the Fathers explain the Catholic faith thus: *For those who separate the Son from the substance and divinity of the Father, who consider the Word to be alien from the Father, they are entirely to be excluded from the Catholic Church and deprived of the name of Christians.* Which, indeed, although they may be equivalent to the appendix of the Nicene Creed, are nevertheless not held by the Sardican Fathers as a second exposition of faith. Although one cannot help but wonder that Theodoret, a prelate subject to the Antiochene see and a follower of Meletius of Antioch, approved that addition, not only against the most certain testimony of Athanasius, whereby it is clear that this was repudiated by the council, but also when the usage of the Orientals and Antiochenes was neglected, which, from the times of Meletius against the custom of Paulinus and his followers, had gained strength—that *οὐσία* (ousia) and *ὑπόστασις* (hypostasis) were not to be understood in the same sense.

^D *Florinus was a Valentinian, not a Marcionite.* On page 88, in the annotation to the heresy of the Quartodecimans, I said that Florinus, against whom Irenaeus of Lyons wrote a book in which he showed that God is not the author of evil, was a Marcionite, who, however, according to the testimony of Eusebius, was rather entangled in the errors of Valentinus. Indeed, the Valentinians, just as the Marcionites, clearly cast the blame for evils upon God, the creator of the world. Nor would there have been any need for Irenaeus to argue against Florinus concerning the *Ogdoad*, or the eight primary *Aeons*, about which Marcion would care nothing, but Valentinus would. Wherefore on page 173, in the annotation towards the end, another error of mine must be corrected, where I said from Jerome that Irenaeus wrote about the eighth, as if it were about the first seven days of the created world and the eighth day that followed them, when that eighth was nothing other than *ὀγδοάς*, or the eight primary *Aeons* of the Valentinians.

*The Macedonians did not abandon the error of the Semi-Arians.* On page 93, in the annotation to the heresy

74, which is that of the Pneumatomachians or Macedonians, this has escaped my memory, a point which I once considered worth observing: that the leaders of the Macedonian party had composed a formula of their own error, especially in the council of Cyzicus, in which, as Basil narrates in epist. 82, ^A *passing over in silence the consubstantial [τὸ ὁμοούσιον], they introduced "like in essence" [τὸ κατ' οὐσίαν ὅμοιον], and wrote down the blasphemies against the Holy Spirit alongside Eunomius,* suppressing the word "consubstantial," expressing the Son as "like in essence," and writing down Eunomius's blasphemies against the Holy Spirit; and thus, they did not in any point dissent from the perverse sense of the Semi-Arian Macedonian himself.

When was the word *μετουσίωσις* first used to signify the Eucharistic transubstantiation? Since at chapter 13 of book IV of *De fid. orthod.*, page 270, I had said some things about the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which the Greeks once expressed with various words, but afterwards did not hesitate, and do not now hesitate, to denote clearly by *μετουσίωσις*, it will not be beside the point here to admonish the learned reader as to what I have discovered concerning the authors of this word. I believe that there were clearly no others than the Latins who dealt with the union of the Churches among the Byzantine emperors and patriarchs, and those men were either from the Order of Preachers [Dominicans] or from the Friars Minor [Franciscans]. There exist among the acts of the Council of Lyons the letters of the Emperor Michael Palaiologos to Gregory X, in which, among other articles of the Roman faith, he professes to admit this point as well, concerning both unleavened and leavened bread, ^B *that in the very celebration of the rite the bread is truly transubstantiated into the body, and the wine into the blood of the Lord Christ.* "Panem in ipso sacramento vere transsubstantiari in corpus, et vinum in sanguinem Domini Jesu Christi." I am certain that the authors of these letters were those Friars Minor who are named at their beginning. For in them one can discern not the diction and phrasing of the Greek language, but rather the character of the Latin. Indeed, Odericus Raynaldus, at the year of Christ 1277, published in Latin (would that it were in Greek as well!) the synodical letters of John Beccus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and of the Oriental synod, in which they likewise testified that they believed with certain faith that unleavened bread, just as leavened, is truly transubstantiated into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wine into his blood, through the virtue and operation of the most Holy Spirit; where, without a doubt, they used the word *μετουσιοῦσθαι* as it lies in the emperor's letters, which they were imitating to a hair's breadth and almost transcribing. Furthermore, while I was examining the Greek manuscripts of the Colbertine library, I came upon codex 3285, which contains a Latin-Greek collection of various scraps gathered from the works of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers—and especially of the Greeks—which Bonacursius, a member of the Order of Preachers, ^C had translated in the middle of the 13th century from the Latin language into Greek, so that they might be of use to our people against the schismatics. But in that collection, I found a fragment of that epistle whose beginning I referred to earlier: of Theorianus the philosopher to priests and monks, but inscribed under the name of John Chrysostom, and such as it is seen in the collation held at Constantinople with the Greeks, which Stevartius published; in which, for these words that the Latin translation has, *transmutatur autem divina virtute a Spiritu sancto in corpus et sanguinem Jesu Christi* ("is however transmuted by divine virtue by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Jesus Christ"), the Latin interpreter rendered in Greek: *μετουσιοῦται δὲ τὰ θεῖα δῶρα παρὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἁγίου εἰς τὸ σῶμα καὶ αἷμα τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ* ("The divine gifts are however transsubstantiated by the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ"). Furthermore, I have no doubt that this is the same collection that Urban IV provided to Saint Thomas so that he might edit a work against the errors of the Greeks; ^D especially because there occur in it those passages, as if excerpted from the *Thesaurus* of Cyril of Alexandria, by which the authority of the Roman pontiff is highly commended. Now, indeed, since the Greek schismatics have since then detested in every possible way the reconciliation initiated and completed by Michael Palaiologos, and have for that reason lacerated that emperor, and John Beccus, with the most bitter reproaches of any kind, and do not cease to lacerate them to this day; since they have railed with venomous heat against the various articles of that confession sent to Pope Gregory X, as well as the synodical letters of Beccus, and above all against those four chief points which they claim stand in the way of the union of the Churches more than the rest—namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, that the souls of the dead are purified by purgatorial fire, that unleavened bread is the legitimate matter of the Eucharist, [and] that the Roman pontiff has primary authority in the Church—nay, indeed, against any and all peculiar placita and rites of us Latins: nonetheless, it is so far from the case that they have abhorred the word denoting transubstantiation, *μετουσίωσις*, let alone the very head of faith which is signified by it, that the schismatics themselves have since then most willingly used it, as is evident from the double oration on the sacrament of the Eucharist by George Scholarius, or Gennadius. Moreover, although Bonacursius rendered the Latin word *transmutatur* ("is transmuted") with the new Greek word *μετουσιοῦται* ("is transsubstantiated") instead of the more common *μεταβάλλεται*, he by no means [rendered] the author's native...

to have weakened or changed its meaning: since Theorianus himself most clearly taught in that same place that there is a substantial conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, specifically in these words: *Ὁ θεῖος ἄρτος πρὸ μὲν τοῦ ἁγιασθῆναι, εἴτ' ἄζυμος, εἶτ᾽ ἔνζυμος ἦν, ἀδιαφόρως ἄρτος ἔστι τε καὶ λέγεται ὑπὸ τῶν θείων λογίων, ὡς ὕστερον δείξομεν· μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἁγιασθῆναι, οὔτε ἔνζυμος, οὔτε ἄζυμος, ἀλλὰ σῶμα καὶ Κυρίου ἡ αὐτή ἐστιν, οὔτ᾽ ἄλλη ἀντ᾽ ἄλλης.* "The divine bread, before it is sanctified, whether it be unleavened or leavened, is and is called bread indiscriminately by the divine oracles, as we shall show later. But after it is sanctified, it is neither leavened nor unleavened, but the very body and blood of the Lord, not one in place of another." Plainly, he who believes that any bread whatsoever is so changed by consecration into the flesh of Christ that it is no longer unleavened nor leavened is certainly not of the opinion that the substance of the bread remains after consecration; and thus Theorianus confessed in this epistle the Catholic dogma which is expressed by the term transubstantiation: nay more, he used that term as one familiar and valid to the Greeks, from which he might draw a strong and effective argument to persuade schismatic priests and monks not to refuse concord with the Roman Church. Furthermore, Bonacursius translated that passage of Theorianus's epistle which I have just quoted from the Latin interpretation into Greek as follows: *Ὁ θεῖός γε ἄρτος πρὸ τοῦ ἱερουργεῖσθαι καὶ κατασκευάζεσθαι, εἴτε ἄζυμος, εἴτε ζυμωτός, ἀδιαφόρως ἄρτος ἐστὶ καὶ λέγεται ὑπὸ τῶν ἱερῶν Λογίων, καθὼς ὕστερον ἀποδείξομεν. Μετὰ δὲ τὸ ἱερουργεῖσθαι καὶ καθιεροῦσθαι, οὔτε ἄζυμος, οὔτε ζυμωτός λέγεται, οὔτε ὑπάρχει, ἀλλὰ σῶμα καὶ σὰρξ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡ αὐτή, ἥτις ἀπὸ τῆς ἀφθάρτου Παρθένου καὶ Θεοτόκου ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου ληφθεῖσα, καὶ ἐν τῇ δεξιᾷ τοῦ Πατρὸς συνεδριάζουσα, ἀφ' ἡμῶν τῶν ὀρθοδόξων μυστικῶς λαμβάνεται.*

^B *Decrees of the Eastern Church concerning the canonical books.* — Page 283, in the note where I wrote that Dionysius, Patriarch of Constantinople, together with many bishops of his diocese, had supported the Bethlehemite or Jerusalemite synodical decree concerning the canonical books of Scripture against Cyril Lucaris, I must note that this statement of mine was not sufficiently accurate. For the Constantinopolitan decree was issued in the year 1672, in the month of January, *ἔτει ͵αχοβ΄, μηνὶ Ἰανουαρίῳ, Ἰνδικτιῶνος ε΄*. But the Jerusalemite synod was not celebrated until the month of March of the same year, *τῷ σωτηρίῳ ͵αχοβ΄, μηνὶ Μαρτίῳ ις΄*, in the year of salvation 1672, the sixteenth of March: and so the Constantinopolitan decree preceded the Jerusalemite council. ^C But since the Palestinian bishops in their synod, besides the books contained in the Laodicean canon, also held those which Latin custom receives, such as the Wisdom of Solomon, Tobias, the histories of the Dragon and Susanna, the Machabees, and the Wisdom of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, as genuine parts of Scripture, *καὶ ταῦτα τῆς Γραφῆς μέρη κρίνομεν*, just as they had been praised by Lucaris himself in various homilies according to the norm of the Eastern Church; in the Constantinopolitan decree it is merely sanctioned that these should by no means be rejected, but rather commended as good and excellent, *ἀλλὰ καλὰ καὶ ἐνάρετα προσαγορεύεται*. Otherwise, they do not commemorate only the Laodicean catalog of sacred books, as the Palestinian prelates do, but also that which is found first of all in the last or eighty-fifth canon of the Apostles, and also the Carthaginian [canon], in the former of which, besides the books of the Old Testament which the Hebrews use as divine, three books of the Machabees and Ecclesiasticus are enumerated, and in the latter, all those which the Jerusalemite synod likewise admitted. ^D When, however, Damascenus did not hesitate to add those canons which are called the Apostles' to the divine Scriptures of the New Testament, one might from this conclude that he held the three books of the Machabees, as well as Ecclesiasticus, to be divine. Yet he nowhere seems to make mention of them in chapter 17 of book IV of *De fide orthodoxa*. Nay more, in the *Sacred Parallels*, both the Rupefucaldin and the Vatican, no excerpts occur from any book of the Machabees. This might be an argument that they were not at one time familiar to the Christians of Palestine. But that John Damascenus should number the Apostolic canons among the books of the New Testament, I would hardly assert resulted from his having consulted the second Trullan canon, which perhaps he had not read at all. On whose authority he wrote this, I confess myself to be entirely ignorant. Although it was at hand for him to reckon those rules, which the Churches of the Orient venerated as having been issued by the apostles, among the divine Scriptures.

*On the inscription of the treatise against the Jacobites.* — Page 396, in the admonition to the treatise against the Jacobites, where I inquire concerning the word *τοῦ Δαραῒς*, which is read in the inscription of the work, whether *τοῦ* is an article or part of the name of the city whose bishop had at that time been addicted to the Jacobite heresy, I think this should be added and not omitted: that the article *τοῦ* is commonly placed before the name of the city *Δαραῒς*, Daras, which was situated in Mesopotamia: whence it may be concluded that it seems entirely appropriate to prefix it to the name of the town, which was called Daras or Dara, and not far

^A from Damascus, and which authors skilled in Oriental matters declare to have been sufficiently famous. Wherefore in the title it seems that we should read, Πρὸς ἐπίσκοπον τοῦ Δαραίας Ἰακωβίτην, "To the Jacobite Bishop of Daræa."

The *Rupefucaldina Parallels* were compiled by an author of the early seventh century.— In Volume II, page 730, in an annotation, it proved necessary to confirm what I had stated in the preface to the sacred *Vatican Parallels*, namely, that the *Rupefucaldina Parallels*—or those which are preserved in the library of the Paris College of the Society of Jesus by the gift of the most eminent Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld—since they are very different from the Vatican, Venetian, and others, were compiled before the age of John of Damascus, at the time of the Persian War, when Khosrow, King of the Persians, had transported the cross of the Lord, taken from Jerusalem, into Persia: for it was not taken from the Christians by the Mohammedan Saracens after they had gained possession of the Holy City under the Caliph Omar. Indeed, although Theophanes narrates that Heraclius, on his final journey into Palestine when the Saracens were planning the siege of Jerusalem, had taken the holy wood with him to Constantinople; I have proved by many arguments that at least a significant portion of the Lord's cross was left there: in the first place, indeed, from the sermon of St. Sophronius, which was delivered at the time when the Holy City began to be besieged by the Saracens, long after Heraclius had bid farewell to Palestine and all of Syria; and also from certain passages in the works of John of Damascus, by which it is evident that in his age the precious wood of the cross was accustomed to be adored in Jerusalem. Finally, I have added the testimony of William of Tyre, who in his *De bello sacro*, Book IX, chapter 4, maintains that this piece, having been hidden by a certain Christian with whom it had been deposited, was restored to our Franks as soon as they recovered the city. Furthermore, a short time later, Anselm, once a Canon of Paris, and, after the Holy City was captured, the Precentor of the Church of Jerusalem, obtained a significant portion of this and took care for it to be sent to Paris. The Church of Paris commemorates the annual receipt of this on the first Sunday after the feast of St. Peter in Chains. To these most certain arguments I add this other one, namely, that in the very age of John of Damascus and thereafter, for at least the whole of the eighth century, the faithful from everywhere, as far as the barbarian masters of Palestine allowed, were accustomed to gather in Jerusalem every year for the exaltation or exhibition of the Lord's cross, just as they had been accustomed to do long before under the Roman and Christian emperors. This is attested by the author of the *Life and Contest of St. Bacchus the Younger*, who died a martyr in Palestine in the late eighth century under Patriarch Elias. For the author, a contemporary of the events, narrates that his mother had at length journeyed to the Holy City for the exaltation or exhibition of the precious cross: εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἀφίκετο τῆς ὑψώσεως ἕνεκεν τοῦ τιμίου σταυροῦ. Likewise, in the *Life of Stephen the Sabite*, who was the son of St. John of Damascus's brother, it is reported that he was ordained a priest in those days in which the cross was exhibited to the people from the platform (this, indeed, is what was signified by the phrase "Exaltation of the precious cross"): ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις δὴ τῆς ὑψώσεως τοῦ τιμίου σταυροῦ. Finally, the *Hierosolymitan Typicon*, which was first adorned, restored, or augmented by Patriarch Sophronius and afterwards by our John of Damascus, narrates the rite of this exhibition and those things which were to be sung or recited on those days. From which it is most certainly evidenced that the precious wood of Christ's cross was still kept at Jerusalem long after the times of Heraclius, to which the faithful came at fixed times of the year so that it might be adored.

XXI. These, moreover, are the things which seemed to me, above others, to require either correction or illustration in both volumes of the works of St. John of Damascus—whether in the dissertations, the prefaces, or finally the annotations. I do not wish, nor does it please me, to speak here in this general preface about each of the holy Doctor's treatises which both volumes contain. For what needed to be said about each one can be read either in the account recorded by the most learned Leo Allatius in his *Diatriba* on John of Damascus and his works, or in my own admonitions which I have prefixed to every book and lucubration. However, it is worth the effort to warn the reader here that in the first volume I have enclosed whatever works exist under the name of John of Damascus, in which matters of the dogmas of the faith are treated, whether they are genuine and sincere, or of doubtful authority, or spurious and supposititious. The second contains those which he treated, collected, and finished concerning various themes of piety.

What things are reserved for the appendix of the works of John of Damascus. In the latest Basel edition and in the Parisian ones there are other lucubrations, falsely marked with the name of John of Damascus, which will hold their own place in the appendix or third volume of his works, which I am preparing (a), along with some of his genuine ascetic sermons, which I recently found in a hand-written codex.

(a) It did not see the light.

^A of the library of the most illustrious Duke, Bishop of Metz. To these I shall add unpublished treatises by certain other authors, which learned men have deemed most worthy of the press. In the first place, however, I had destined for this appendix the lucubrations of Leontius of Byzantium that could be found, of which I possess some that have not yet appeared in Greek; the rest, the most reverend Master General of our Order, Antoninus Cloche, has caused to be retrieved at great expense from the Vatican codex, as he most kindly signified to me recently in his own letters to me. Although I fear that, on account of the excessive size and prolixity of the treatises, it might be necessary to publish these works of Leontius in a separate, single volume.

An enumeration of several very learned men who have applied their labor to the ornamentation of the books of Damascene.

It redounds greatly to the commendation of John Damascene that most learned men have applied their own labor to translating, reviewing, illustrating, and editing his works, whose remarkable efforts, I most willingly confess, have been of the greatest assistance to me. I have already named Burgundio, the judge and citizen of Pisa, the prefect of Frederick Barbarossa, whose translations, although John Cono cried out that they were cacophonous and unrefined, were nevertheless recognized and attested to by the same man as having been for a long time and in the highest degree useful to theologians. Furthermore, I have mentioned Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, by whom, as Paolo Giovio writes in his *Elogia* (no. 121), the youth of all Gaul was excited to the study of liberal letters, since he was considered most apt for teaching in almost every kind of learning. Would that he had not died under the suspicion of the Lutheran heresy. John Oecolampadius was still acting as a Brigittine monk in the camps of the Church when he translated into Latin the life of John Damascene and the discourse *On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep in the Faith*. All know that Jodocus Clichtove of Nieuwpoort, canon of Chartres, has earned the best of all reputations for his writing and religion. I have brought forward the reasons why I have omitted his commentaries on the book *On the Orthodox Faith* in this edition of mine in the preface to that principal work of John Damascene.

Following these are Pietro Francesco Zini of Verona, a man most skilled in both languages, Latin and Greek, who produced Latin versions of not a few lucubrations of the Greek Church Fathers; likewise Henry Gravius, of the Order of Preachers, whose remarkable skill in sacred and secular letters is attested by the most learned annotations he wrote on one hundred of Saint Jerome's epistles; Joachim Perionius of Cormery, a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict of the Congregation of Cluny, widely known for his manifold translation of Greek authors; Godefriod Tilmann, a Carthusian monk of Paris, learned in Greek and Latin, who won for himself the highest praise from his investigation of ecclesiastical antiquity. To these I shall add Willibald Pirckheimer, Matthäus Hopper, Aldus Manutius, Petrus Pantinus of Tielt, Dean of Brussels, Fronton du Duc, and Philippe Labbé. ^B But above all these stands Jacques Billi de Prunay, Abbot of Saint-Michel-en-l'Herm in Lower Brittany, who on account of his singular skill in the Greek language gained the greatest veneration from learned men. Our own François Combefis added his secondary efforts to the previous concern of the former in rendering the books of Damascene into Latin; his praise is also not insignificant among the learned for those many volumes which he edited, by which the republic of letters was greatly enriched. Nor did Dionysius Petavius, the most shining light of the century just past, play a lesser part than all those in illustrating our author; his five volumes *On Theological Dogmas* are filled with the sayings and opinions of John Damascene in particular, by which he highly commends the eminent authority of the holy Doctor in explaining and defining divine matters. I omit other writers of a lower bench, lest by excessive prolixity I cause tediousness to those who will have read this preface of mine.

Those who have contributed especially to this edition.

It remains to make known to all the singular benevolence of those whose works, counsel, and advice I have used in preparing this edition of mine for the promotion of my studies, and in particular of those who, having manuscripts in their possession, made copies for me either through themselves or through friends. In the first place, how much I owe to the most illustrious Abbot de Louvois, the royal librarian, cannot be sufficiently signified by me, through whose natural kindness, and by whose kind favor and consent, I had the most ample and unrestricted faculty of approaching, consulting, reading, and taking home any royal books whatsoever, whether handwritten or printed. Nor did the most obliging offices of men of learning and kindness, most noted in the literary world, who look after that truly royal treasure most worthily, the most illustrious DD. Nicolas Clément and Jean Boivin, fail me, by whom I was encouraged to pursue the work I had undertaken. The most learned men, DD. Ste—

Étienne Baluze and Charles Duchesne, who one after another were the prefects of the most abundant Colbertine library, did not fail me.

I had not yet finished the second volume when I experienced the singular kindness of the most illustrious and noble Bishop of Metz, D. Henri-Charles du Cambout, Duke of Coislin and Peer of France, who ordered that easy access be granted to me for his library—which they once called the Seguierian library—rich in the most exquisite manuscripts. This task was executed most lovingly, in accordance with his custom, by the learned D. Nicolas Blanchard, Doctor of Theology of the Parisian faculty and most deserving prefect of this same library.

Great aid was likewise brought by the preeminent codices of the Parisian College of the Society of Jesus, which the most learned man, the Very Reverend Father Jean Hardouin, whose perennial love and benevolence toward me I shall never cease to remember, provided for my use.

But what shall I say of the Most Reverend Master General of our Order, Antonin Cloche, who, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, acted in every possible way so that I might provide an edition of John of Damascus complete in all respects? For this reason, because of his incredible zeal in assisting and promoting literary studies among us, he spared no great expense so that the volumes of our author which I desired—and especially the very extensive work of the *Parallels*—might be brought forth, especially from the Vatican Library, and transmitted to me as quickly as possible. I have already reported above what he still provides today, and how much expense he incurs so that I might obtain the books of Leontius the monk—a most learned and accurate writer, and one who deserved so well of the Church against the heresies of the Nestorians and Monophysites. Favoring his wishes and cares both willingly and most humanely, he gained the most learned prefects of the Vatican Library, Laurent Zacagni and the Abbot D. Jean-Baptiste de Miro, men who are as celebrated for their erudition as they are for their propitious spirit toward literary matters.

In addition to this, I profess myself a debtor bound by many ties to the most illustrious Abbot Giulio Imperiali, recently vice-legate of the Supreme Pontiff at Ferrara, and later designated nuncio of the Apostolic See to the Supreme Master of the Order of Malta, who, out of benevolence toward me—which I feel myself unequal to celebrating with sufficient dignity—removed obstacles that seemed insurmountable and with a wide and beneficial hand procured for me several treatises of Damascus, without which it was in no way possible for me to bring into the public sphere this edition which I was preparing. Furthermore, the learned Justus Julius Fontaninius, custodian of the Imperial Library, showed himself to be the executor of his counsels in this business with the greatest alacrity; because of his singular erudition and the work he performed so egregiously in vindicating the rights of the Roman Church, the Supreme Pontiff Clement XI made him his honorary chamberlain.

Nor shall I again show myself ungrateful to those men among the English, most illustrious and most studious of letters, particularly Pierre Allix, John Hudson, and John Ernest Grabe, who, having opened the museums and libraries of Great Britain, transmitted to me with prompt and brisk solicitude whatever writings of John of Damascus they found lying hidden among them which had not yet been printed.

Furthermore, the two most preeminent men, known throughout the whole world, D. Abbot Louis du Four de Longuerue and D. Eusèbe Renaudot, were a primary help to me with their advice and documents. Their extraordinary erudition, especially regarding Oriental matters, is held in high esteem by both natives and foreigners; and both of them most humanely lent their efforts to translating and reviewing certain short works from the Arabic language.

Among so many illustrious men who have shown themselves to be patrons of my studies and labors, the final place is not held by the most learned and most loving toward me, the Very Reverend Father Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, who, while he occupies himself entirely with the work of enriching ecclesiastical and literary matters through his own renowned works and the publication of ancient monuments, mindful of our own work, has studied with intent solicitude to communicate to me whatever he found here and there that was apt and suitable for illustrating and augmenting the edition of John of Damascus. Nor did the Very Reverend D. Anselm Banduri of Ragusa, alumnus of the same institute, act less prolifically in my interest—already most famous throughout the whole world for his singular erudition—for whose efforts, from the time he arrived in Paris, I have obtained whatever treatises of my author lay hidden in various places in Italy, and especially in Florence and Venice, as the most illustrious D. Meletius Typaldos, Metropolitan of Philadelphia, and the most illustrious and learned men, the Very Reverend D. Angelo Maria Quirini, alumnus of the Order of St. Benedict, and Antonio Maria Salvini, willingly complied with his desires and petitions.

SELECTED PREFACES

SELECTED PREFACES OR DEDICATORY EPISTLES

WHICH ARE PREFIXED TO PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

JACOB FABER STAPULENSIS

Epistle to Aegidius Delfus, doctor of theology, concerning his Latin translation of the book *On the Orthodox Faith*.

Jacobus Faber to Aegidius Delfus, doctor of theology. ^A I recognized that the Academy of Paris, the common parent of our studies, received you back with faithful report: whether I should congratulate myself or you more, I am uncertain. For what other place is more distinguished? What place is more accommodating to your conduct and your character? For more precious plants are accustomed, in a soil agreeable to their nature, not only to be an ornament, but also to bring forth fruit no less precious. A place becoming to me, nor would they be an ornament, nor would they bring forth the fruits they ought. But I think you have received that place as most apt for fostering all good things, both in letters and in talents. ^B But because I, one among many friends of old custom, could not be present to welcome you as you returned as if from a most distant pilgrimage: by this little gift, I attest my goodwill to you in my absence: by this little work, I say, of the blessed Father John of Damascus, which in days past, amid the tumults of the court, I rendered from Greek into Latin: not, I confess, with the dignity that is fitting, nor with elegance: but removed for a little while into a corner, shunning the miseries of courtiers, I made the author's mind passable to readers with such fidelity as I could. Therefore, it will be your task, and Clichtove’s, who, with you as his helper (few days have passed), has been inserted into the holy assembly of doctors, to recognize whether this work is perhaps such that it may be of use to that most celebrated study. ^C Since it is seen to be highly approved by students of theology, and to have flowed down from the Athenian. Both of which things this present little work of Damascus seems to promise. For in the gymnasia of the Greeks, they were not accustomed to be initiated into the holy arena of theology by any other work. Farewell. At Bourges, on the Ides of February.

BEATUS RHENANUS OF ALSACE

A poem to Robert Fortunat of Saint-Malo.

Where the ray rises closer from the eastern axis, Here it holds more of brilliance from Phoeban light. No differently does the first cohort of Fathers Receive more from on high than the people who follow. Such are indeed the most celebrated dogmas of Paul, Which the new law-giver bore in the whole world: Such is the page of John of Damascus, Cultivated in sublime sense, it pours forth light like the stars.

It rightly hands down the first cradles of the faith, And teaches pure minds the mystical sacred rites. And so that one may hold the path of salvation, avoiding devious places: It warns everyone with sincere tradition. Let happy Greece always boast of herself with this offspring, Which nourishing, once brought forth famous men. Therefore, following the pious laws and rights of the Thunderer, Let him read this work with exact diligence.

JODOCUS CLICHTOVEUS

Epistle to James, Bishop of Clermont, concerning his observations on the book *On the Orthodox Faith*.

To the Reverend Father in Christ and Lord, D. James Ambasianus, most worthy Bishop of Clermont, Jodocus Clichtoveus of Nieuwpoort. ^D Nothing, most holy prelate, is or ought to be more certain or firmer in our minds—for they who think rightly know that this is true wisdom—than the documents, rules, and articles of the Catholic faith, to which all ought to assent without hesitation or solicitation of discourse, because they have flowed down from heaven into men by divine irradiation. For if the authority of Pythagoras was of such weight among his disciples that, when called upon to render a cause for the things they asserted, they brought forward no other proof but that “the master has said so,” and deemed it a sin to bring what they had received from him into dispute or controversy: if again the asserting speech of Xenocrates was of such importance among the Athenians, that when once in judgment his hand was at the altars

^A of the gods, the judges would dismiss the oath, content with the mere affirmation of his words; will not the divine and supreme truth, which can neither be deceived nor deceive, carry greater weight among men? God is, as the Apostle says, truthful; but every man a liar. Who, therefore, would doubt, or agitate with an uncertain mind, the mysteries of the most holy faith revealed by God, especially when they rest upon such a solid base and are founded upon the firm rock? Nevertheless, it will not be absurd if they are sometimes upheld by a rational path and method, and if, while the piety of religion remains intact, they are approved by persuasive arguments, for the sake of aiding our mind’s weakness, which is then easily led to believe them when it perceives that they are not alien to reason. Wherefore, one must be most studious in perusing those books which reveal the most lofty sacraments of our faith and provide aid for understanding them more clearly, especially if they have been elaborated by ancient, approved authors, ^B distinguished for their doctrine and holiness. For a stream cannot but taste of the nature of its spring, nor can fruit differ from its tree. Clearly, among these, this fourfold work of the excellent Father John of Damascus is not undeservedly to be numbered, which he inscribed *On the Orthodox Faith*, truly copious, fruitful, and useful, omitting nothing of those things which pertain to the elucidation of the faith. For having started from the primary principle of all things, through the genesis of the world and the reparation of our fall, he leads his edition perpetually in order to the consummation of the world, and having completed the orb and circle of human condition, he leads us back to that end through participation in blessedness, from which we took our primal origin (as indeed do all things): namely, to Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. ^C Indeed, some have called this present edition the *Theology* of Damascenus, others his *Book of Sentences*, and both rightly. From this as an archetype, I should believe—unless conjecture deceives me—that the celebrated man in doctrine, Peter Lombard, took the example for the laboring of his own work, which is commonly called the *Book of Sentences*. For the number and order of the books and the same subject matter are in both. Here, however, is far later than that. But that this excellent work of Damascenus might be more accessible to readers, I have added an easy commentary to the text, clarifying those things which present themselves as obscure with a plainer explanation, and if any things occur that demand discussion, agitating them with doctrinal debate. But I have added these annotations rather to the more recent edition of Damascenus, because it is adorned with a more polished elegance of Latin speech than the older, and expresses the mind of the author himself more faithfully and truly, and is much more open and accurate. For the older translation of the same from Greek into Latin seems in many places mutilated and maimed, with a coarser context, and indeed so obscure and difficult to understand at times because of the dark language, that often there would be need of an Oedipus ^D as a guesser, or a Sibyl as an interpreter to perceive the sense of the writing. Furthermore, I have added to the lower margin lateral numbers, which divide both the letter of the author and his commentary in an almost continuous series following from head to foot into smaller parts, and through the application of these same numbers, they indicate more clearly to which part of the letter each part of the commentary corresponds. Finally, I desired this our own explanation, however small, to go forth into the light under the patronage and dedication of your most ample name, most grave pontiff: that if those who study the sacred Scriptures have drawn any utility (which I would most especially wish) from it, they may refer it all as accepted to your excellent paternity, to whom I confess myself primarily beholden and bound by perpetual obedience. Farewell, lover and cultivator of letters and virtue. Paris, on the day before the Kalends of September, MDXII.

TO DONATUS OF VERONA: THE DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO THE GREEK EDITION OF THE BOOK OF ST. JOHN OF DAMASCENUS "ON THE ORTHODOX FAITH," AND THE ORATION "ON THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN THE FAITH," PREFIXED WITH A SMALL GREEK PREFACE TO THOSE STUDIOUS OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE.

To our most holy and blessed Father, Clement VII, Supreme Pontiff, Donatus of Verona. Not only when the Greek language was formerly sending out frequent colonies into Sicily and Italy, and rather into the whole world, but even in Roman times, when all things were already held under their empire, did it extend more widely than any other language; (otherwise) Paul, writing to the Romans, would never have used this very one in preference to the Latin, which was their own. Furthermore, not only this Paul of whom I speak, but also those others who were first instituted by Christ Himself while He lived among humans, and under whom the Christian state, which is called the Church, received its first beginning, are known to have delighted in no other language in writing than the Greek, and this is so especially discovered that it cannot be doubted. Wherefore, not even that remains to be doubted, that such was the amplitude of the Greek language that it alone of all seemed rightly to be the one to which those divine men would commit all their meditations which they desired to be known to posterity. For because the same Paul wrote an Epistle to the Hebrews, and Matthew his Gospel in the Hebrew language, how much is this to be accounted for, if it is compared with the remaining parts? Especially since it is certain that the same Epistle and the same Gospel were immediately translated by the most holy men of that same age from Hebrew into Greek, nor could they come to posterity or be propagated or disseminated more widely at the beginning in any other language. Many other writers followed as if interpreters of the former, up to Origen, Basil, Chrysostom, and others of the same age; whom those of us who came later began partly to imitate, and partly to translate: nor were there wanting afterward those who, imitating the writings of the former in both languages, always brought forth something new into the public view. And here I, indeed, am not about to judge which has performed its office more excellently in sacred doctrine, the Greek or the Latin, so that I might not, by preferring one or the other, offend the others. This, however, I do not hesitate to affirm clearly: that those things which have been translated from the Greek are held to be much purer and much more whole among the Greeks themselves than among the Latins. For all doctrine is accustomed to be very similar to wine, and to be contained by the letters as if by a vessel. If you transfer wine from this vessel to that, it must necessarily lose its strength and vigor; and all the more so if it has been transported from its own region into an alien one. Thus, doctrine, if it is translated from the letters in which it was published into different ones, it cannot but turn out much worse and more sordid. Rightly, therefore, this alumnus of yours, most blessed Father, who refers all the good he recognizes in himself to you as accepted, Joannes Matthaeus Gibertus, Bishop of Verona, has wished that this John of Damascenus be published here now for the first time in the very language in which he wrote, that is, Greek, when hitherto he was only read translated into our own, and has taken care that it be dedicated to you, the prince of all our religion and of the entire Christian commonwealth: so that you yourself, as if an excellent artisan, might rejoice in the famous works: and what recently in the Greek edition of Chrysostom on Paul’s Epistles, and subsequently in Euthymius, interpreter of the psalms, whom the Latin

^A you have accepted as a fact, you have experienced, now likewise in Damascene speaking his own language, and by us, so far as possible, amended in this work, and by the collation of many copies restored to his integrity, you shall experience. Furthermore, Giberti, a man most devoted to you, thought it should be considered again and again that no work could be more aptly dedicated to you than this; to whom there is a constant struggle not only against the barbarian nations, which at this time never cease to attack it with arms, but always strive to overthrow it, but also against the new deserters of the truth, who are called Lutherans: against both of whom you resist with such diligence and such vigilance that I do not fear to declare openly that there is nothing over which we ought to rejoice more vehemently—that this ship, in which all the Christian people now sail, has attained such a pilot—or to grieve more, because it has fallen into such adverse storms and such onsets of tempests as it has never experienced since it received its sovereignty. Therefore, you shall have this Damascene as an extremely sharp weapon, with which you may pierce, if not those former enemies, at least these later ones. I would expatiate more fully in this place on the praises of this writer, and explain of how great a name he has always been, not only among theologians, but even among philosophers and physicians, if the brevity of a letter allowed it, or if this work were so obscure that it seemed to require exposition. For now, whoever has even moderately accustomed himself to reading sacred authors cannot be ignorant that this man has always been so highly esteemed by the Latins that they wished not only to have him translated, but even explained with long commentaries: which has happened to very few of the Greeks, besides the apostles. Let this, therefore, be the end of this letter: and for me, when I shall have had a view of your holiness’s feet in my mind and in my thought, may it be granted to say: Farewell.

The same to the lovers of the Greek language.

^B That which you have already done before in other disciplines of the Greeks, O lovers of the Greek language, you have now done also in this more august, because more truthful, discipline. For having received before this the writings of the rhetoricians, philosophers, and poets, do not reject the writings of these wonderful and divine men: but rather love and embrace them all the more, the more divine things are more precious than human things. And do not be like those senseless people, who, having found or acquired gold or silver, or some other such property, rejoice and are greatly delighted, but are slow to acquire for a small price wisdom and science, and the uprightness of glory, and all such propriety, and, finally, the eternal kingdom in heaven, and do not even in a dream consider seeking such things. Behold, therefore, we bestow upon you this Damascene, who discourses very clearly on all of our piety; who alone has accomplished—most beautifully and most happily, even in our own discipline—that which is always sought by all studious men. And what is this? It is ^C to have in every subject a manual as a reminder of all the most necessary and most difficult things in it. Which the Damascene accomplished so clearly that even women, one might say, and the unlettered among men—if at least they were not totally deaf to the Greek tongue—could understand the whole thing accurately; and so concisely and summarily that they might survey them in the reading of a few hours. For indeed this man explained the things that had been contained by other theologians and masters of Christian learning in many and countless books, in very few and very brief chapters; or rather, as it seems to me, he recalled to their own order and art those things which were composed by all the others in a disorderly and unskillful way concerning the Christian faith, in such a wise and didactic manner that all who read this one volume alone may subsequently discourse learnedly and accurately about all divine things. Why then do you still hesitate to appropriate such a treasure? ^D Lay hold now, lay hold of instruction, and do not waste more time tarrying in your pleasures, lest the Lord be angry, and you perish from the righteous way. For this life is indeed short, O best of men! But the things that follow it, whether good or evil, are eternal. You owe, however, much gratitude for this labor, not only to those who wrote these things long ago, but also to those who have now corrected them, and not least to the provider and lord of such an expense, John Matteo Giberti, the most devout and most magnificent bishop of Verona. For he, having bestowed it upon the most blessed Father and our supreme pontiff, Clement VII, has also bestowed it upon you no less. And we, too, at the expense and order of the same Giberti, [have...]

transcribed and purged this one, and finally handed it over to those today called printers, so that not even Damascene himself would be grieved by the labor and the correction. If you receive these things now with a cheerful and eager spirit, hope for yet more to be published by us with even greater readiness in times to come.

BY HENRICUS GRAVIUS OF NIJMEGEN, OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS, Concerning his edition of the works of S. John Damascene, Cologne 1545.

To the illustrious prince and lord, D. Oswald, Count of Berg, Lord of Bilant, Hedel, Homoet, Wisch, Boxmer, Haeps, etc., F. Henricus Gravius, Dominican, S. D.

Since we reflect upon the small boat of the Apostles, which has been endangered so often and in such various and grave shipwrecks of the faith from the very beginning of the nascent Church, we not undeservedly judge the vigilance of the Almighty God not only to be admired, but also to be adored; for as a most attentive helmsman, although he has allowed it to be tossed by so many tempests, committed to so many storms, and dashed against so many reefs, he has not only never allowed it to be submerged, but even when it was laboring to the point of destruction, he has led it back, through the long-desired and much-needed tranquility, to the safe harbor of salvation. For although that excellent captain may sometimes, by his own counsel, rest or sleep in order to test and explore, yet the keeper of Israel will never slumber nor sleep, so that he might lose or allow to perish those who are his. Of this matter, there are very many examples to be found throughout the sacred histories. How often, for instance, has he avenged his afflicted people, both Jewish and Christian, from their adversaries? Did he not rouse against Pharaoh, the Canaanites, the Philistines, and other plunderers and destroyers of his inheritance, Moses, Joshua, and the other judges and kings as avengers, using them as arms to wear down and crush the attack and impiety of his enemies? And against Arius, Sabellius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Photinus, Apollinaris, and countless other conspirators and robbers of the Church, did he not arm from among the Greeks Athanasius, Didymus, Epiphanius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, and Chrysostom; and from the Latins, Hilary, Victorinus, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and many other orthodox men, whom by their erudition and example of life he uncovered and crushed the craftiness, madness, and blasphemies of the heresiarchs? Furthermore, when peace had been restored to the Church for some time, and that unhappy spirit, the breeder of all tares, had once again envied the salvation of those who believe piously, and had roused Nestor, Eutyches, the Monophysites, the Iconoclasts, and more monsters of that kind, in order to incite and overturn the ship of the Catholic faith, and with their help and work had disturbed almost the entire Orient, that supreme navigator, by no means unmindful of his duty, soon exhibited to the world that most esteemed theologian, John, surnamed Damascene from the metropolis of Syria, Damascus, whom, as a kind of Hercules of our faith, he set against such monsters of heresiarchs—a man, to use the testimony of Suidas, "most esteemed, inferior to none of those who shone in his time for their learning." For he was truly wonderful in his incredible power of speech and festive variety, truly "golden-named" and no less "golden-flowing" than his name, as if from his mouth a golden spring were continually flowing, who, "like a bee," having gathered flowers from the vast volumes of the theologians, his predecessors, as if from meadows, wove a certain anthology from most elegantly selected blossoms with wondrous industry and art, fighting against all the heresies of past centuries. To this wrestling ground he came not as one "unarmed," as many are today, but instructed with the exquisite panoply of the Sacred Scriptures and orthodox opinions. A proof of this can be abundantly provided by his single "Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," in which he treats almost everything necessary for a Christian or a theologian in such a way, according to the weight and dignity of the subjects, that you are altogether in doubt whether to admire more the sharpness of his mind or the eloquence of his tongue. Although that does not shine forth so clearly from the Latin translation as it does from the Greek work, which we greatly rejoice has recently come into the hands of students by divine favor.

Since, however, in previous years I had happened upon some other small works of this man, also translated into Latin, and was wonderfully delighted by their reading, I expected that someone would arise, one who, intending to deserve well of posterity, would assert that these things should be rescued from darkness and neglect, and because I could not find such a champion, I finally thought it a great impiety—nay, unworthy—that what I had prepared, after being dug out from here and there with exhausting effort, should be suppressed to the great detriment of our religion; I did not wish any longer to hide this lamp under a bushel, so that from this point on, the splendor of that truth, however great it may be, might immediately shine forth for all, especially for candidates of theology. Nor was the urgent encourager, Petrus Quentelius, missing here—a printer of wondrous diligence today, who neither refuses labor nor spares expense in promoting good authors, so that I might bring forth for the press the books of this outstanding author, which he had observed were being sought everywhere by students. While I was silently pondering these things in my heart, and looking about for a patron under whose auspices these most learned monuments of antiquity might come into the light, you, most illustrious prince, appeared to me as one among many, to whose highness this Damascene of ours could quite appropriately be dedicated entirely. This is so, especially for the reason that by this small addition, I might foster the singular inclination of your mind toward piety and the sacred letters: that is, that by the reading of so great a doctor, who is beyond controversy most celebrated in the Church, you might not only more happily sharpen and delight your learned mind and wondrously dextrous wit, in both of which you fortunately excel, but also confirm your religious heart in the Catholic faith. Indeed, I could here recount the most ancient nobility of your lineage, the most illustrious pedigrees of your ancestors, the breadth of your dominion, its ornaments, and those gifts which easily testify to an excellent prince, had I not been better off admiring that primary zeal for piety, even if it is not suitable to praise it now; a zeal which so flourishes in you, and so blooms in a prince of the entire republic, that in this most turbulent time of all, you persist and stand out for so many years as one of the rare princes who is a most brave defender of the Catholic faith: being, as you are, one who, omitting the madness of wars, considers nothing more important, nothing more sublime, than that which relates to helping and maintaining the dignity and concord of the Catholic Church, so that even by this name you seem to us to reflect a certain Damascene. Although these things might perhaps be related more timely elsewhere, and, I judge, more correctly by others than by you. Now, to deal only with the Damascene we share with you, the annals report that he flourished around the times of Pope Gregory II and that Iconoclast emperor, Leo, and from his son, Constantine, [there happened] a *poikilotropou paradoxes* (variegated contradiction); a man so great, together with Germanus

^A the patriarch, and with Gregory of Cyprus, men likewise conspicuous for all holiness and reverence, was openly subjected to anathema, while the heterodox in the meantime applauded the condemnation of a most innocent man beyond measure. The cause of the damnation appeared no more just than this: that Damascene, a most sincere defender of religion, refused with all his own strength and power to condemn the ecclesiastical faith. Indeed, for this very reason, from the perfidious emperor, he brought upon himself that happy reproach for Christ, such that he was ignominiously called Manserou, even though he was accustomed to be called Mansur for his ancestral name—which is to say, "the Redeemed" among the Latins. And they say that Damascene wrote three books against this very Leo, who was marked by a ferocity truly leonine, though it has not been granted to me to find any of them to this day.

Furthermore, I think those are by no means to be listened to who, led by a great error, either affirm that this writer lived in the age of Theodosius the Elder, or who, with Johannes Trithemius, the abbot of Sponheim, dream that two Johns of Damascus existed. For besides the fact that such an error is openly refuted by the works themselves, which still exist for us, it is certainly certain from the authority of all the most reliable historians that this Damascene, who shone forth as a certain chief light of the Church under Leo III the Isaurian, and was already very well known to the world around the year of the restored salvation 730, is one and the same author, and was subsequently always numbered among the most respected doctors of the Church by his own merit, no less in the Eastern Church than in the Western.

But the same error also causes many to invent several Damascenes out of one, partly from his *Life*, which we read in the translation of Father Johannes Œcolampadius (not yet a heretic at that time), and especially from the language of a certain writer—an anonymous one, but a Greek—whose title is *On the Lovers of the World and the Lovers of God*, and who can be seen to be altogether clear: in the flow of which speech (whoever his translator may have been, who used a less polished style and translated it no more successfully), beyond the incredible integrity of Damascene's life, his monuments are recited with wondrous commendation.

Of all these, his work on Logic is the first, and it also appears to be the first evidence of the author's genius, and that not a common one, for in it he hands down that genuine method of disputation, obscured by no sophistries, in a certain compendium, as he foresaw it would be sufficiently useful for theology, being a most skilled ^B *cheiragogos* (a guide-leader) for the *introduction to the dogmas of piety*, dedicating this work to Cosmas, the most holy bishop of Majuma. Subjoined to the Logic is the *Dialectica*, to the most blessed John, bishop of Laodicea. Following this is that celebrated work, *On the two wills and operations in Christ, and the other natural properties, and on the two natures and one hypostasis*, by which book he fights most strongly against the heresies that had recently sprung up, that unconquered pugilist for Christ. Then follow those four books, never sufficiently praised, *On the Orthodox Faith*, in which Damascene treats succinctly everything that a Christian must either piously believe or necessarily know, with an admirable method. Nor did it seem pointless to add the very erudite scholia of Jacobus Stapulensis, who also translated those same books *On the Orthodox Faith* into Latin.

For the fact that we have inserted very brief annotations somewhere, or wanted them inserted by some learned and theological student, is on account of heretics, especially where they wickedly tear down the doctrine of the Church as asserted by Damascene. Although, what do they not slander today, however Catholic and pious it may be, according to their own whim—(as has always been the custom for heretics)—disapprovingly, traducing, despising, laughing at, hissing at, abominating, and overturning with stubborn minds whatever is taught sincerely in the Church, or is piously observed, or is decently required, provided that it does not seem to correspond enough to their own sense, by which they would wish for everything to be innovated, or rather, inverted? But let these things be said in passing. For the narrowness of a letter does not allow everything to be said, however opportune.

Closely tied to the four books of the *Orthodox Faith* is a small work, or letter, *On the Trisagion*, written specifically against the pestilent error of Peter the Fuller, by which he attempted to render a quaternity from the Trinity: of which he makes mention also in the third book of the *Orthodox Faith*, chapter 10. Following the *Trisagion* comes that rare work, now emerging into the light for the first time, inscribed *On the Hundred Heresies*: in which, in imitation of Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, he briefly touches upon almost all heresies up to his own age. Following this book on heresies is a fragment of sentences from the sermons of Damascene, a small one indeed, but which did not seem to the most distinguished Bilibald Pirckheimer to be unworthy, and he even published it for Latin ears in his own translation, undoubtedly declaring that a huge treasure would be found if those sermons from which those sentences are excerpted could eventually be found somewhere. After that fragment is subject to the refutation of Saracenism, inscribed *The Altercation of a Christian and a Saracen*; in which that strong athlete of the most strong truth destroys with most valid arguments the most inept and at the same time most impudent blasphemies of the Agarenes.

Subjoined to the *Altercation* is that distinguished and pious sermon, asserting that those who have departed here in the faith are much helped by sacred operations and the benefits of the living. Father Johannes Œcolampadius, a professor of the Birgittine order, who at that time was not yet addicted to any heresy or had cast off his cowl, translated this sermon into Latin most learnedly; otherwise he would never have turned such a sermon against himself and his own people. Closely following this sermon is that wonderful and pious history of Barlaam and Josaphat, so useful, so pleasant both for religious and secular people alike, that you would not easily find anything above it.

Finally, in the last place, we have subjoined the *Katanyktika* (Compunctions) of Damascene and poems of certain others peer to Damascene, translated into Latin by Aldus Manutius: so that nothing of our Damascene that was available anywhere would be missed here. I am compelled to admit ingenuously that certain things here, *kakozelos* (badly emulated) from the good Greek, as he says, were rendered into Latin not well, and not very purely transferred into our language, while the interpreter, too religious, against the precept of the most grave Satirist, takes care to render word for word, nor does he fully accommodate himself to the custom of interpreting well. But it was decided to correct, change, or expunge nothing here rashly, without the aid of Greek exemplars, which perhaps either exist rarely or not at all today. But if anyone has them included at home, or knows where they are kept anywhere, let him, I beg, bring forth more corrected versions, and look with me to the same thing—that is, the common fruit, and especially that of students of theology. Thus he will not be cheated of his own glory among men, nor of the reward before Him who is to judge the living and the dead.

It was my special concern that whatever I could gather from all the works of Damascene from every source, having searched through various libraries for that purpose, I should bring forth for the public benefit of the Church, and that I should bring such a doctor, a light of theologians, newly to the Christian world, and bestow him upon all students, and finally inscribe him to your name, illustrious prince, and likewise singular patron, and—which I am doing—dedicate him to you explicitly. Fare well, best prince, and think kindly of our effort of this dedication and edition. May the almighty and merciful God keep your Lordship safe for a long time for the restoration of the Christian faith and the repair of concord. At Noviomagus in Gelria, in the year of the birth of Jesus Christ 1545, on the fourth of the Nones of December. ^C

MARCUS HOPPERUS OF BASEL On the Greco-Latin edition of the works of St. John of Damascus, Basel, 1575. To the Reverend Father and Lord, Lord Thomas a Planta, bishop of Chur, or Upper Rhaetia, Marcus Hopperus of Basel, sends his greetings. ^D

^A If we ought by no means to neglect the reading of those authors, most distinguished prelate, who both impart the precepts for living well and explain the more abstruse dogmas of the true religion, and show the way to explain them, why should we cast aside from our hands the pious and learned volumes of this holy man, the Damascene? In these volumes, that which I have already said has been fulfilled with no small degree of trustworthiness. For this reason, it is fitting that it should be a pious duty to reprint and reissue their edition. But since I have already at some time dedicated a previous edition of this same author to your predecessor in the dignity of the episcopate, the Lord Lucius Yter, of happy memory, I did not think it would be doing what is proper if I were to dedicate this same author again to Your Amplitude, as the bishop of that same Church. I trust that this undertaking of mine will not be taken ill by the pious ghost of your predecessor, but rather that he would approve of them as much as possible. For how could they whom they wished to have as a successor in the height of dignity not also commit the patronage left by the departed to him? But lest some people spitefully carp at me, as if I wished to draw from one jar (as the proverb goes) from two different walls, let them know that I am indeed offering the same author, but not him alone, as before, but accompanied by his fellow-mystic Cassian, so that I might come before your presence, so that this new edition might appear to be a new work. For the reading of which, that Your Amplitude might approach it better instructed and with greater pleasure, I will here sketch out the arguments of the individual books with such brevity as I can. ^B The first and greatest work of the Damascene is inscribed *The Orthodox Faith*, which the Latin translator has distinguished into four books, which nevertheless in the Greek context is a single and continuous whole: whence it also happens that the Latin chapter numbering in the three subsequent books does not at all correspond to the Greek. In this volume, however, pious prelate, and specifically in the first book, he discusses the Creator Himself, God one and triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, explaining various points concerning the mystery of the supersanct Trinity which every Christian man ought to grasp and hold in his mind: such as the incomprehensible essence of God, the three hypostases in one nature, and their distinction from one another, and other things of the same kind. In the second, however, after the Creator, he speaks of creatures, the aeon, angels, demons, heaven, earth, and the remaining elements of the world, paradise, man, and what pertains to him, along with his perturbations and virtues. In the third, he returns to the incarnate Word of God, discussing His conception, the conjunction of both natures in one hypostasis, the actions in our Savior, His passion, while His divinity remains inseparable and impassible, and many other things of this kind. In the fourth, finally, he proceeds to refute various objections concerning the two natures in Christ the Lord sitting at the right hand of the Father after the resurrection; likewise concerning faith in Jesus Christ, baptism, adoration, the cross, Scripture, the law of God and of sin, the Antichrist, the resurrection, and other matters of this argument. Thus far concerning the work of the *Orthodox Faith*; to which is joined *De his qui in fide obdormierunt* [On those who have fallen asleep in faith], an oration in which he takes as his subject for debate whether the pious prayers of the living benefit at all those who have departed from this life as faithful. The third place is held by two orations *On the Falling Asleep of the holy Mother of God*, in which her encomium and praises are celebrated. To these is attached a sermon *On the Day of the Last Judgment*, where all men are exhorted to a pious and religious life. The fourth work in order is an *Introduction to the Dogmas* [Inscribed *'Αξιωμάτων εἰσαγωγή*], addressed to the bishop of Laodicea, which the metaphrast translated as *First Institutions of Decrees and Tenets*: because in it are contained the first institutions of theology, by which we consider the divine nature and hypostasis in part. The fifth is inscribed *On the Two Wills of Christ*, and his other actions and properties, by which we are taught what differs between nature and person, what constitutes natures or personal properties, whether they are, as they exist in our Lord Jesus Christ, double or single: whether, as there are two natures, there are also two wills in Christ, and how the human differs from the divine will, and many other things of this subject. ^C This is followed by a treatise, *On how we are made to the image of God*, as a kind of repetition and explanation of the preceding. To which is also annexed an oration of the same argument by the Blessed Maximus, namely, concerning the two natures in Christ the Lord, translated from Greek into Latin. In the sixth place is deferred the little book *On the Trisagion*, that is, the hymn composed of the triple repetition of "Holy," by which he shows that this *Trisagion*—most certain symbol of the supersanct Trinity, that is, of three hypostases in one nature—is against Peter the Fuller and the followers of this heretic, who did not fear to attach a fourth person to the Divinity with insane error, of which also chapter 10 of book 3 of the *Orthodox Faith* is held. The seventh place is held by the *Dialogue of the Orthodox and the Manichaean*, in which the deliriums of the Manichaeans concerning the two principles of things and matter, which they maintained was vile and evil, are recounted and refuted by most evident arguments. The eighth place is claimed by the sermon *On the Composite Nature against the Acephali*. The ninth place is occupied by the book *On Heresies*, in which he describes the sects and heresies which have existed after men were born up to his own age, briefly indeed, but clearly. The tenth place is obtained by the colloquy of the *Christian and the Saracen* on the incarnation of the Word of God, passion, death, the free will of man, concerning the cause of good and evil, concerning the formation of man in the womb, and other things of this kind: by which also some monstrous errors of the Hagarenes are refuted. The eleventh is a certain fragment of sentences: by which we are armed against the eight genera of principal vices, which are also accustomed to infest even the holy ones. The twelfth have been allotted the poems inscribed *Euchatanocta*, by which the birth of Christ our Lord, [His] transfiguration, resurrection, the mission of the Holy Spirit, and other divine mysteries of this kind are celebrated. The thirteenth work is *On the Art of Discourse*, in which he imparts the precepts of that art, as much as he deemed sufficient for a candidate of theology. In the fourteenth place is placed the dogmatic oration of the holy Father and confessor Theodore, prefect of studies, concerning the honor and adoration of holy images. In the fifteenth place is described the *Life of the blessed John of Damascus*, written by John, patriarch of Jerusalem. The penult placed are three orations *On the Veneration of Holy Images*, in which these are treated summarily: first, what an image is, and why it was established; the testimonies of Scripture and the Fathers concerning the use of images; likewise how many genera of images there are, which can and which cannot be expressed by images: finally, who was the author of images. Likewise concerning adoration, what adoration is: how many genera of adoration there are: afterwards how many things we find in Scripture to have been adored: to these, that all adoration for the sake of Him who is by nature God has been established: finally, however, that the honor which is had for images reaches to the prototype itself. The last place it chose for itself is the *History of the two Martyrs of Christ*: although some may doubt the author; because, however, it seemed worthy to Trapezuntius, that he should present it, translated by himself, for the Latins to read, we have decided it should be joined to the remaining works of this author. Thus far concerning the Damascene. ^D As for the CASSIAN of the same [name], or at least of an argument not entirely foreign to the above, these are the works, such as those twelve books which Your Amplitude sees placed here in the first rank, of which the first four were written concerning the institutions of the cenobites, but the remaining eight provide us with a complete and perfect disputation concerning the eight principal vices, which we read scarcely begun in the aforementioned fragment of sentences of the Damascene. They are followed by the twenty-four Conferences of the Fathers, or disputations all instituted to this end also, that from vices to virtues, from the allurements of this life to holiness, from the vanities of this age to divine and heavenly

contemplation and study we might be drawn; and that, denying ourselves, we might follow Christ the Lord as our leader, and fashion our life according to his precepts. After these, there offers itself for reading a work distinguished by piety and the depth of heavenly wisdom, concerning the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, divided into seven homilies or books: in which that devout prelate, with most strong arguments, confirmed by the most manifest testimonies of the prophets, apostles, and evangelists, attacks with great zeal that impious opinion of the heretic Nestorius, who wished, together with the Pelagians, that the Virgin Mary should be called, not Theotokos, but only Christotokos—that is to say, that Christ the Lord was not God, but a man born solitary from the Virgin; who, to use the words of the author, only afterwards attained by the way of virtue, by living piously and religiously, to become worthy through this holiness of life to be joined to the divine majesty; so that, with the dignity of his sacred origin utterly excluded, there remained to him only the choice of his own merits, than which a greater blasphemy against our Savior could hardly be uttered. You have now, most Reverend Father, the summaries of all the works of this volume, by which I have wished to prepare for you an entrance and an easier path to reading them, which, for one reading with an unprejudiced and sincere mind, can increase faith, erudition, and probity of life. May your Reverence be pleased to accept these things gladly and to take them in good part. May the omnipotent and merciful God grant you that you may for a long time continue to preside as a good father and pastor for the glory of His name and the salvation of the Church. Basel, the Kalends of August, in the year of restored salvation 1575.

JAMES BILLIUS, COENOBIARCH OF ST. MICHAEL IN THE DESERT, ON HIS LATIN TRANSLATION OF THE WORKS OF ST. JOHN DAMASCENE.

To the most Reverend Cardinal and most illustrious prince, Charles de Bourbon, Archbishop of Rouen, James Billius, Coenobiarch of St. Michael in the Desert, greeting.

^A Among the many marks that distinguish the orthodox from heretics, one might rightly count this as primary: that the former cultivate and revere the ancient theologians as parents, cling to their footsteps, willingly dwell upon their lucubrations and monuments of genius, and think they should not depart even a nail's breadth from their tenets. These others, however, hold even the most celebrated Fathers, endowed both with doctrine and with admirable holiness of life and piety, in unprecedented contempt, and—as if casting them from a bridge ^B—now assail them with insults and curses, now attack them with mockery and jibes, and—not in fear, like that degenerate Ham, but much more wickedly than he—make their most honorable parts, that is, their most grave and holy dogmas, a subject for derision and mockery. They finally act in every way so that those whom they entangle in the snares of their errors may be deterred from the reading of the most excellent authors. I would say that this arises from an intolerable pride and a blind self-love, as indeed it truly does. For it is no wonder if anyone who labors under these vices (and all who have nefariously cut themselves off from the assembly of the Church do labor under them) looks down on all the rest, and prefers the phantasms of his own brain to the commentaries of others, however learned and pious. But there is another and far more weighty cause for this. For these most cunning men see clearly that if, for the sake of religion, one should dispute according to the judgment of the ancient Fathers of the Church, victory would be seen to be won for us, and already founded, as it were, in our hands. ^C For they know well that those errors which they have recalled from hell in this most wretched age were long ago confessed and slaughtered by the ancient theologians; so that they can be called not so much the inventors of heresies (which might bring some name to those who seek glory in confusion) as the exhumers of buried ones. Since, therefore, they perceive that in the writings of these most holy men a most certain protection has been established for us, and that they have staked their own ruin, they therefore avert their minds with the most intense hostility from them as the most firm defenders of the Catholic faith, and wish them to be removed from the hands of all.

A most rich and trustworthy witness in this matter is that standard-bearer of the heretics of our time, Luther, who, when he perceived that Vicelius (for so, indeed, the most learned Bishop of Noyon, having passed his last day of life, not once told me that he had heard from Vicelius himself) while still serving in his camp, was more deeply delighted by the reading of the ancient doctors than he wished, he was immediately struck with the fear that he would defect from his side. And though he had exhorted him greatly, but in vain, to shake such books from his hands; then at last he began to distrust him plainly, and openly predicted to his fellow-sectarians that he would shortly return to the "papistic" assembly (for so that impure apostate used to call, by way of insult, those who thought correctly about religion). In which he was not at all a false prophet. For this dragnet drew that huge fish out of the muddy vortex of the Lutheran heresy into the deep, and, like a second Moses, long brought up by the daughter of Pharaoh and infected with the pestiferous doctrine of Egypt, brought him back to the bosom of the true mother. ^D Nor did this befall Vicelius alone, but many others as well, who, with the help of the same hand, have emerged by God's kindness from the labyrinth of monstrous errors: just as, on the contrary, for countless men it has been a capital fraud to have neglected the ancient ways, to use the word of Scripture 1, and to have set their mind upon the profane novelties of words. For what else drove Augustine himself to turn aside from the course of Christian piety and for a long time to follow, not so much the decrees as the portents of the Manichaeans, except that, as he himself confessed, he had thought it better in matters of faith and salvation to consult heretics than the orthodox? Wherefore, since those who uproot and destroy, and tear the tunic of Christ into six hundred pieces, avert their own as much as they can from the reading of the ancients, and strive to block the life-giving wells in the manner of the Palestinians 2; do not those who study to plant and to build, and to imitate Him who gathered the dispersed children of God into one 3, understand from this most clearly how useful and fruitful, nay, how necessary for the Church it is to follow and embrace what they flee as something that will bring detriment and ruin to their own cause? And to turn the pious Fathers—who have deserved so well of the whole posterity—by night with the hand, and turn them by day? By this shield, as also Sisinnius (a) once observed, the blades of heretics may be blunted, or, if they openly reject the authority of the ancients (as those perfidious men are not ashamed to do), their singular audacity can be clearly refuted. That is, indeed, without controversy, that all Catholics—unless they are like corpses in the sea, cast out of the assembly of the pious by a most wicked life—can be retained in the orthodox religion by this means most of all. And for this reason I judge that those who devote their study and work to emending and explaining the books of the ancients, or even to converting them from Greek into Latin and amplifying them with new additions, and who provide the theologians with matter by which, both to

________________ 1 I Tim. vi. 2 Gen. XXVI. 3 Joan. XI. (a) Lib. v Hist. eccl. cap. 10.

^A to repel the onslaughts of adversaries and to instruct the common people in the best of morals, they may be able. In which pursuit, when I saw the industry of many shining forth, and I myself had already brought to light somewhat that had been not ungraciously received by certain pious and learned men, a huge impetus seemed from this to be added to me to pursue the same kind of study. But partly my own fortune, which was but little in accordance with my heart's desire, partly the ^B *’αλληλα* wars, and partly a health worn out and almost ruined by various diseases, held me back, as if by a hand thrust upon me, from running further; and they prompted me not to commit myself to the deep, but to skim the very edge of the shore—that is, not to undertake any lengthier labor, but to exercise my mind in those things which could be finished with less effort and within a shorter space of time. And yet the weakness of my body was not so powerful in this matter that I should not proceed beyond what had been determined in the case of divine John Damascene, and, as the saying goes, leap beyond the bounds. Yet this happened by chance rather than by design and premeditation. For when I had decided to re-translate into Latin the books of the *Orthodox Faith* alone, which some were complaining had not been rendered with sufficient clarity, and sometimes not sufficiently rightly and integrally according to the fidelity of the Greek codex, it happened to me just as it happens to squeamish invalids who, if you heap many foods upon them at once, reject them all, but if you offer them one after another, generally accept them all. For in the same way, when those books were already brought to a conclusion, I had received certain short works from the most learned Cardinal Sirleto, and when those too were finished, I had obtained the work of the *Parallels* by the benefit and kindness of that most noble and learned man, Cardinal Carafa, and these having been rendered into Latin, I had borrowed other things from that most excellent professor of law, Jacques Cujas, and finally the history of Barlaam from that most illustrious man, John Sanctandrea, it so came to pass that while I proposed to myself an end of labor in each individual short work, weariness never crept in, and the work at length grew into a fair-sized volume. But as for Damascene, and his learning, what need is there to prepare a long speech, since his own writings abundantly testify both to how great a philosopher he was, and in what great praise of theology he excelled, and how studiously he was versed in the reading of the authors who flourished before him? That he was the first who collected into one body those things which previously were wont to be disputed vaguely and freely, and transmitted theological matter by way and method, and in a far more convenient order, this surely cannot be denied. For he himself first performed this among the Greeks, which long afterwards among the Latins Peter Lombard and the rest of the schoolmen did. Therefore this author, although less ample than I could wish (for I hear that many of his works still exist among the Greeks, even if many have perished through the injury of time), I nevertheless—not a little more ample than he had ever been before, and for the most part translated by myself, and also in those parts which were translated by Perionius and Zino, not negligently revised and corrected—when I was preparing to publish him, I did not have to deliberate long as to under whose auspices he should appear. For since you have long since constrained me with many great benefits, and have always shown yourself to desire even many more things on my behalf, I would be the most ungrateful of all mortals if, when it is not allowed me through bodily infirmity either to be in your retinue or to perform any services for you, I should not show, in the one thing in which I can, a sign of a grateful mind towards you. That one thing, however, I can do, which lettered leisure provides. But it would perhaps have provided more if it had been my lot to lie hidden ^C in our little corner of Saint-Michel, or in the Royal Isle—that is, the *makarōn nēsois*—as I was accustomed to do before, and to philosophize among the waves and groves. But the truculent boars, the devastators and incendiaries of our vineyard, have begrudged me such happiness. Wherefore, to use the words of divine Peter, *what I have, this I give thee*: namely, John Damascene, the most clear light of Greece, who, when he had for some time performed the greatest duties and held the greatest dignities in his fatherland, and had been punished in his right hand for the sake of religion, and afterwards had recovered it by divine gift, fired by the desire for eternal things, abandoned not only honors and the ornaments of life, but also wealth and property, friends, parents, and finally his very homeland, in order to seek a better homeland and to consecrate himself entirely to it, in which whatever is left behind here for his sake is found again much more certainly and amply. For which reason also, although the rule of my duty did not in the least impel me to it, I ought deservedly and by the best of rights to dedicate his works to your Illustrious Lordship. For all the pious notice many things in you, in which you approach very closely to the likeness and praise of this most distinguished man. For what? Have you not also cut off your right hand—that which brought scandal to you—and cast it from you, willing to lack that which nature herself had fixed in your innermost bowels and marrow—the most ardent love for those who were your own—rather than offend God, and thinking it not to be committed that flesh and blood should have more power over you than He who is to be loved and sought after not only over flesh and blood, but even over the soul itself? Did you not, in that memorable deed of the previous year, pluck out an eye ^D even for yourself, when at Rouen, in your presence, a wolf, relying on the confidence of a most deadly edict, was grazing freely in your—nay, in your Lord’s—fold, and the king's indignation, which the Wise Man pronounces to be the messenger of death, was meeting you like a strong man armed? For a stronger one coming upon that strong man bound him; the zeal, namely, of the house of God, with which your spirit then so suddenly conflagrated, that, all fear of royal offense being repelled, you betook yourself at once into that hiding-hole in which that monstrous wild beast was working its prey, and there delivered to the wandering little sheep an address of such a kind that, in the judgment of the most learned men who were with you, it seemed not so much to flow from you as to proceed from the breathing and instinct of that vehement Spirit by which rocks are crushed. But if it is to be reckoned to Damascene's highest praise that he cast away the care and administration of public business, that he might dedicate himself entirely to the contemplation of divine things, no less praise is merited by him who, placed in the highest rank of dignity, makes leisure for himself amidst business, and has nothing more in his vows than to save himself from the waves of courtly tumults into the harbor of tranquility, if only the utility of the Church should so demand. For you do not judge—as many are wont to do—that to flourish in the court with grace and authority is the height of happiness, but that it is shackles, and fetters, and a specious prison. What of the fact that you live in the court in such a way that mortals nevertheless perceive nothing courtly—that is, nothing crafty, nothing deceitful, nothing *oulov*—in you? For that Circe could not, by any of her poisons, I say, effect this: that you should depart from your native simplicity of manners, and consider that you should cultivate an *epikōron tropon*, to use the word of Aristophanes. Which, just as it is wont to be derided and held as a fault by courtiers, so is it placed in the highest praise and preaching by all the best men; inasmuch as, just as they judge *tēn diploēn* to be worthy of wonderful commendation, so do they think *to aploun kai skēnēs eleutheron* to be worthy of the same. Now, if the monastic life, which Damascene preferred to the most ample wealth and followed most holily, brings him huge praise, who will be so unjust an estimator of things as not to think that you are to be extolled with the highest praises, by whose work and contention it was oft achieved that many men of this institute have attained, without any of their own labor, without any expense, without any delay of time, those things which, had your favor not intervened, they could never have obtained? For just as of old, with the curtains of the tabernacle woven of linen and scarlet and hyacinth,

^A inner curtains and outer skins offered protection, so that they might ward off the force of winds and rains and dust from themselves: in the same way, that men devoted to the study of piety might enjoy spiritual delights without any clamor, and may, if I may use the words of St. Gregory, penetrate the inner recesses, securely, through your frequent aid, you who labor outwardly against the storms of this age. For them you show yourself a patron, for them an excellent parent; for them you are a place of protection, a sacred anchor, a harbor. To them not only your house, but also your ears are open. For them you build temples and houses at great expense. Finally, your mind is so disposed toward them, that there is nothing for their sake that you would not do, so that your will may be fulfilled. Since these things are so (for I pass over many things, because I know that you are delighted more by virtue itself than by the praise of virtue), I thought that I would perform a task not alien to my duty, and one both grateful and pleasant to the Damascene himself, if I were to consecrate his monuments to your most illustrious name. I beseech you, and as a suppliant I pray, that you accept this gift, as it were a thank-offering from a client most devoted to you, with a grateful heart. May the Lord God keep your most illustrious Lordship in safety for the utility of His Church for as long as possible. From the Dionysian monastery, on the Nones of May, 1577.

FROM THE VOLUME OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS LEO ALLATIUS, WHICH HE TITLED SYMMIKTA, PAGE 446.

The works of Saint John Damascene transmitted to the most learned Joannes Aubertus at Paris by Leo Allatius.

I. *Encomium on John Chrysostom*. Beginning: "It was necessary, indeed, it was necessary, O John most golden," with a Latin interpretation by Franciscus Arcudius, bishop of Nusco, collated and corrected from the manuscript code of Leo Allatius. II. *On the Nativity of the Theotokos*. Beginning: "Brightly does creation celebrate today," with an interpretation by Leo Allatius. III. *On the Meeting of our Lord Jesus Christ*. Beginning: "The celebration of the birthday already," with a Latin interpretation by Leo Allatius. IV. *On the Dormition of the Theotokos*. Beginning: "Custom is for those who are disposed erotically toward anyone," with an interpretation by Allatius. V. *On the Withered Fig Tree*, etc. Beginning: "The enhypostaton Word of God and the Father moves me to speak," with a Latin interpretation by Allatius. VI. *Libellus of Orthodoxy*. Beginning: "I believe in one God the Father almighty," with a Latin interpretation by Allatius. VII. *On Virtue and Vice*. Beginning: "It must be known that man is twofold," with a Latin interpretation by Allatius. VIII. *Historical Discourse on the Nativity of the Lord*. Beginning: "When spring departs," with a Latin interpretation by Allatius. IX. *Disputation against a Saracen*. Beginning: "Tell me, O Bishop." They had published it, without the Greek text, only in Latin, with two others by Theodore Abucara, which they could not find in Greek. Now, from the manuscript of Allatius, both the Damascene's and Theodore's are given in Greek. X. *Definitions*. Beginning: "For a more accurate tradition," with an interpretation by Malatesta Albani. XI. *Other Definitions*. Beginning: "Necessity is the cause of force. An element is." XII. *On the Divinity and the Incarnate Economy of Jesus Christ*. Beginning: "Those who choose to be pious." XIII. *On the Body of the Lord*. Beginning: "Regarding the Lordly body, of which we partake." XIV. *Against the God-hated religion of the Jacobites*. Beginning: "Not even the good is good, when it is not done well." XV. *Equal to the Libellus dictated by John of Damascus, and delivered by Elias the bishop to Peter the metropolitan of Damascus*. Beginning: "Not slight is the fear and perplexity on both sides." XVI. *Against the Nestorians*. Beginning: "Toward those of the same mind as Nestorius, the discourse must commence thus." XVII. *On the Faith against the Nestorians*. Beginning: "It behooved us, who have been saved by God." XVIII. *The same one's Citations from the Holy Fathers, showing that Christ is one, out of two natures, and two natures*. Beginning: "Of the holy Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons." XIX. *On the two wills in Christ, and*

^A of his activities, and other natural properties. This is a part of the published works, which can be compared with the published editions, which are most corrupt. XX. Of the same, Paschalion. XXI. Of the same, Prayer. Beginning: "Lord our God, rich in mercy and in compassion." XXII. On the Annunciation of the All-Holy Theotokos. Beginning: "Now the queenly and most strange feast and assembly of the Queen." Beginning only. XXIII. Kγ'. To those who piously and God-pleasingly speak of two natures in Christ, and likewise of energies and wills. Beginning: "It is to be known and not ignored that we ought not, without examination and thoughtlessly, ^B [to speak]." XXIV. Of George Chioniades, commentaries on the "Fount of Knowledge" of John of Damascus. Beginning: "The chapters usually inquired into." XXV. Of Gregory Pardos, Metropolitan of Corinth, from the explanations of the canons of the Despotic feasts, explanations of the canons of the same feasts by John of Damascus. Beginning: "This present canon." XXVI. His Greek Life, edited by John of Jerusalem, collated and corrected in Rome with the manuscript of Leo Allatius. Beginning: "To those who have kept the image according to God." XXVII. His Life from the Vatican Basilian Menology. Beginning: "He existed during the reign of [the emperor]." XXVIII. Of the most wise lord Constantine Acropolites, a discourse on the holy John of Damascus. Beginning: "To John the discourse, to him of Damascus the praises." XXIX. On the same Damascene, from Macarius Ancyranus. Beginning: "The aforementioned holy and ecumenical [council]." XXX. Office for our holy Father John of Damascus. Beginning: "With what songs of hymns of the canon." Beginning: "The singer of the Church ^C as a cicada." XXXI. Another office for the same. Beginning: "Rejoice, O instrument of the Church." The acrostic of the canon is alphabetical; and in the Theotokia of Philotheus. Beginning: "And to thee the chanting, holy and..." XXXII. Of Athanasius Chatzikes, megalynaria on John of Damascus. Beginning: "We call thee blessed, O wise John, as one of rational graces." XXXIII. Life and conduct and a partial narrative of the miracles of our Father among the saints, Cosmas the Poet. Beginning: "It is worthy to honor those who have discovered the most beautiful things." The writer claims to narrate concerning John of Damascus things which John of Jerusalem omitted in his Life. XXXIV. Of Leo Allatius, on John of Damascus and his writings, from his unpublished work, "On Apochryphal Books." These illustrate the edition of the Damascene and were sent. XXXV. Of Anastasius the monk, to those who speak of one nature in Christ. Beginning: "A. This one nature of God the Word incarnate." XXXVI. Of Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, a narrative concerning the synod of the eastern bishops held in Persia, in which also [are mentioned] the miracles that occurred in the same country at the birth of Christ. Beginning: "Arrenatus reigning over the Persian country." XXXVII. Of Timothy the priest, concerning those coming to the Church. Beginning: "We find three classes." Collected, corrected, and augmented from the manuscript of Leo Allatius. XXXVIII. Proposal of Photius the Manichaean. Refutation by Zacharias, Bishop of Mitylene. Beginning: "If they are contraries, one does not speak of them as contraries to themselves." XXXIX. Since Stephen, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, in his small work "On the tripartite nature of the soul" (Beginning: "That there are three parts of the soul"), had copied everything from the Damascene’s small work "On virtues and vices," this same Stephen is to be published, so that he may be considered the legitimate ^D author of the matters. And for this reason he was sent in Greek and Latin. XL. Of John, monk and priest of Euboea, a discourse on the Conception of the All-Holy Theotokos. Beginning: "The great apostle Paul, the interpreter of great mysteries." XLI. Of the same, a discourse on the Infants who were slain by Herod. Beginning: "Again, wretch that I am, I wish to unfold my mind toward Bethlehem."

Mittenda erant. XLII. Lexicon by the most holy and wise lord John, priest of Damascus, corrected by him, and in which he explained words by etymology from various books. Beginning: "A, is an interjection of reproach. Aatos, the harmless: for [it implies] where there is the harm." A work huge, copious, and singular. XLIII. Of Theodore Prodromus, explanation of the canons set forth for the holy Despotic feasts by the holy and wise poets Cosmas and John of Damascus. Beginning: "You seem, O man of God, toward the [explanation] of those in the Despotic and public feasts." XLIV. Paracletice in the Blessed Virgin, distinguished according to the eight tones of the Greeks: a work great and rare and very grateful to those who love the Virgin. XLV. Discourse on the great martyr Barbara. Beginning: "It surpasses, by common consent, the composition of all panegyrics." XLVI. Discourse concerning the holy assembly of the Resurrection of the Lord, regarding not judging nor bearing a grudge. Beginning: "The grace of the Holy Spirit always [flows] through the whole of the Scripture of God." XLVII. Narrative concerning the great Artemius from the works of Philostorgius. Beginning: "Intending to recount the courageous deeds of the great and glorious martyr Artemius." XLVIII. Various Canons for the solemnities of the saints. For the Incorporeal Hosts. Beginning: "Let all of us believers sing hymns." For the martyr Conon. Beginning: "Let the glorious victor, the martyr, now be celebrated." For Lazarus. Beginning: "He who previously brought forth from non-existence." For John the Evangelist and for the holy Arsenius. Beginning: "The pure beloved one." For the holy Theodore the Recruit. Beginning: "Thee, O Theodore, of God." Acrostic: "Thee, O God-named by gifts, I sing." For Epiphanius of Cyprus. Beginning: "In the [feast] of the servant faithfully." For Artemon the martyr, alphabetically. Beginning: "I open the treasures of knowledge." For the martyr Theophilus. Beginning: "Thou didst begin as a beginning." For Euphemia the martyr. Beginning: "She draws [me] to hymnody." The acrostic: "I praise the all-praised maiden." For the Dormition of the Theotokos. Beginning: "Adorned with divine glory." The acrostic: "Let the God-minded keep festival." For the same Dormition of the Theotokos. Beginning: "Virgin maidens." For the Nativity of the Forerunner. Beginning: "Like a fair dawn." For the Indiction. Beginning: "Let us sing, all ye peoples." For Theodosius the Cenobiarch. Beginning: "As a wise marshal." For John the Hut-dweller. Beginning: "Enriched by the divine [gifts]." For John the Forerunner. Beginning: "Come with tongue of praise." For Job. Beginning: "The long-suffering one [I sing] without bonds." For the prophet Isaiah. Beginning: "Enlighten me, O Lord." And very many others.

XLIX. Troparia, almost numberless, for various feast days.

L. By the same, a treatise on those who have fallen asleep, translated into our vernacular Cypriote tongue, and already starting to be circulated. ^A

LI. Eustathius, Bishop of Thessalonica, a very prolix and learned commentary on the canon of John of Damascus for Pentecost.

LII. John Zonaras, a most beautiful exposition of the Octateuch of John of Damascus.

LIII. Mark Eugenicus, an exposition of certain canons of John of Damascus.

LIV. Gregory Pardi, an exposition of some other canons of Damascus.

LV. And others.

PROLEGOMENA OF LEO ALLATIUS ON ST. JOHN DAMASCENE

From his own unpublished work "On Apocryphal Books"

I. That John Damascene, whom the Church places in the album of Catholic doctors, is different from John Damascene the physician—whatever Symphorien Champier, Caspar Cunrad, and others may assert to the contrary—is so manifest that if anyone were to attempt to prove it with more arguments, he would be like one trying to add light to the sun. The former, born of Christian parents, dedicated himself to Christ and finally, taking the habit of a monk, ended his life in the most absolute fullness of every virtue and in the perfect condition of Christian piety; he is numbered among the saints not only by the Eastern Church, in which he passed his life, but also by the Western. The latter, born of Gentile parents, lived among Gentiles and Mahometans, and died ^B addicted to Mahomet even at the very end of his life. The former claims a lineage from noble and wealthy ancestors; the latter, from the kings of Damascus, for his great-grandfather Abdala ruled in Damascus. The former flourished circa the year of our Lord 740, under Leo the Isaurian, under whom he suffered much for the veneration of images; the latter, after the year 1000, in the year 1158. The former wrote in Greek; the latter, in Arabic—the writings of whom were later translated from that language into Latin and Greek, of which we shall speak more fully under John Mesue.

II. He is also different from another John Damascene, the son of Serapion, who lived in the time of Isaac Beimiram, as some would have it, and wrote not before the year 1000; he was a follower of the Mahometan sect and a contemporary of, or lived after, John Mesue. For since the one is praised in the writings of the other, it must have been that they either lived at the same time, or, if the son of Serapion is later than the son of Mesue, that the sayings and opinions of the one were introduced into the books of Mesue by scribes or amanuenses, ^C or were later inserted in bad faith into the text by copyists from notes which curious readers had made in the margin; whence disputes subsequently arose among philologists regarding their age.

III. And furthermore, there is another of our Damascenes, distinct from the very recent Greek writer Damascene. For this Damascene is a name, not a surname. For he is described thus: «Μοναχοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ τοῦ ὑποδιακόνου καὶ Στουδίτου, τοῦ Θεσσαλονικέως.» (Monk Damascene, the subdeacon and Studite, the Thessalonian.) He composed most of his orations for the various celebrations of the saints in the common Greek tongue (though sometimes, when he affects the ancient Greek style too much, he spoils the grace of the common tongue and represents it to us mostly as those pedants—a most foolish sort of men—shout it on stage and in the theater to provoke laughter from the audience) and entitled his work "Thesaurus"; the Venetian printers later frequently published these. The work, if you except certain parts and reduce the language to a better state, is not inconvenient nor unpleasant for the less learned. ^D [1] He is likewise different from the Bishop Damascene, who collected in the common Greek dialect ninety chapters on the nature of animals from Aelian, Phile, Aristotle, and others.

(a) Gregory Abulfaragius reports that John, son of Masawaih, or Mesue, lived and taught the art of medicine in Baghdad under the Caliph Harun al-Rashid until the times of Al-Mutawakkil, who succeeded his brother Al-Wathiq in the year of the Hegira 230, of Christ 816, while Theophilus ruled the Greeks; and thus he was more recent than our John Damascene. Moreover, he was a Christian. Another John is mentioned, son of Mesue, son of Hamach, son of Heli, son of Abdala, king of Damascus—who is therefore surnamed Damascene—who they say wrote around the year 1160 or 1168. Verino Mondino de Lentiis, in his old version of his canons, scarcely concedes that John Mesue is said to have been the grandson of Abdala, king of Damascus, and interprets the title thus: that although these words of this book were those of John, son of Mesue, yet they were titled or named for the son of Hamech, son of Hely, who was the son of Abdala, king of Damascus, or caliph of Damascus. And certainly the name John would rather be that of a Christian than of a Mohammedan. Lindanus at one point makes him a Benedictine monk—a fable for which I have no time, let alone to refute.

compiled it and transmitted it to Michael Cantacuzenus, the Grand Domestikos, which I read a long time ago in the possession of that most noble man, the Roman Petrus Vellius—though it was incomplete. [F] "They act this way when they wish to see some great official." Unless we wish to say that he is the same person as the aforementioned author of sermons, who was later elevated to the episcopate and exercised his talent in collecting similar things—which I do not believe, unless I am more accurately informed from elsewhere.

IV. A different Damascene entirely is the bishop of Rondina, who composed a dialogue—not inelegantly—in which he deplores the state and morals of contemporary bishops of Greece. He held it with the abbot of Saint Anastasia. The title is framed thus:

Of Damascenus, Bishop of Rondina, a dialogue with the abbot of Saint Anastasia, that is to say, a lamentation against the present bishops of Greece.

V. As, therefore, this John Damascenus is different from those mentioned above, so he is one and the same person, and no different from him whom men of no low reputation hand down as having lived around the time of Theodosius the Elder. Vincent of Beauvais in *Speculum historiale*, book XVIII, chapter 100, and from Vincent, Antoninus of Florence in his *Chronicle*, title 40, chapter 10, § 4; Joannes Nauclerus, *Chronology*, volume II; and besides these, Andrea Dandolo in the *Venetian Chronicle* under Theodosius the Elder: "John, a priest of Damascus, flourished at this time, who acquired knowledge of the liberal arts within twelve years, and, having become a monk, was defamed before the Emperor on a criminal charge and lost his hand, which the Blessed Mary restored to him." Gesner, in his life of John Serapion, writes that he lived in the year 400 from Christ. John Driedo, in *On various dogmas and apocryphal books*, book V, states that he was close to the times of Augustine. Trithemius maintains the same. Nor was John Franciscus Picus alien to this opinion, while he was discussing the miracle of the Emperor Trajan with Lilius Gregorius Giraldus; the same Giraldus reports this in his *History of the Poets*, dialogue 5.

VI. The first to thoroughly refute their opinion, to my knowledge, was Giraldus, followed afterward by Billius, and from Billius, Possevinus, Bellarmine, and other more recent writers. For it is manifestly gathered from his biographer, John of Jerusalem, from the Greek Menologies, and from others, that the Damascene lived under the empire of Leo the Isaurian, and also from the Anonymous author who described the life of Cosmas the Melodist. Succeeding them are other recent writers: Sanders, book VII *On the visible monarchy*, Baronius, and others, so that I need not list them individually. The Damascene himself also proves it by his own testimony, for in book II of *On the Orthodox Faith*, chapter 10, and in his book *On the Trisagion*, he makes mention of Peter the Fuller, who was condemned in the fifth synod under Justinian. In book IV, chapter 12, he disputes against the Iconoclasts, and in his book *On Heresies*, he brings forth Cyrus, Sergius, and Eustathius, who were condemned in the sixth synod. Indeed, in his second oration *On Images*, he mentions Germanus the Patriarch, whom he says was struck with blows by the tyrant and sent into exile. Therefore, the person who published the books *On the Orthodox Faith* is not different from the one who fought for images. For it could not have happened that he who lived under Theodosius would make mention of heretics who were condemned in the Church long after Theodosius; and that he who composed the books *On the Orthodox Faith* and the one who fought for images were the same person, John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, is a witness who is certainly an ancient author, who makes all these things the work of the John who was the associate, friend, and brother of Cosmas.

VII. But it is necessary to examine the words of Volaterranus thoroughly before we turn our discourse to the works of the Damascene himself, so that it may be more evident to the readers how much the stubborn perversity of heretics has invented to denigrate this most holy man. Volaterranus writes: "John Damascenus was born in Damascus, a Hebrew, and came as a boy to Constantinople: where, having been duly imbued with the liberal arts and converted to Christ, he took the habit of a monk and at the same time taught. He was captured later on the seashore by Saracen pirates; [III] afterward he was ransomed by Theodosius and became his secretary. Coming under suspicion of treason, his right hand was cut off. But after it was discovered that someone had thoroughly imitated the treasonous letters in the style of the Damascene, he was in honor with the Emperor. But he returned to the monastery and died there." Bravo, my dear Volaterranus, are you heaping up stories for us, or trifles? For I have business with you among others, since in the more cultivated times of the literary republic, you cull and steal for us little flowers from the most foul meadows. "John Damascenus, born in Damascus." He could not, even if he had wished, say otherwise. Nor was he called Damascene for any other reason than that he was born in Damascus. "A Hebrew." If you assert this as occurring before his baptism, it is difficult; nevertheless, I will humor the custom, since it is a trite proverb that no one is born a Christian: yet that one is a Hebrew who is born of Christian parents—even if he has not yet been washed by baptism—let us allow others to say, for they are not so committed to the Christian name; we who are born of the faithful, and, if it is permitted to say so, along with this sunlight embrace the faith of our parents, can never be called Hebrews before baptism, even if it happens that the baptism is delayed. For all boys of all nations would be Hebrews before the sign of their sect, and heathens themselves before the advent of Christ, which not even the Jews themselves would concede. If you say that the adult Damascene gave his name to Hebraism, and for that reason was a Hebrew, with your permission I will say that this is false. For the Damascene, from his very infancy, was imbued with the Christian religion, and he always worshipped it, and remained firm and stable in it, and even in his final breath, just as throughout his whole life, he preserved it undefiled when he breathed out his soul. So that you may see from this the ravings of his adversaries, who, from some cupboard or other, did not fear to report in their commentaries that John, while he was still held in high regard by the king of the Saracens, pretended that he did not have much aversion to the religion of Mohammed. For, having gone with him to the tomb of Mohammed, and having been struck by fear at the king's command, he worshipped Mohammed

^A and inclined himself to his praise, and publicly preached him. Wherefore, having received honors and gifts from the king, he returned to Damascus. And they produce this whole story from a clearly fabulous commentary concerning his conversion. However, that these are the trifles of detractors, who iniquitously calumniate the efforts and zeal of such a man for the Catholic religion and the veneration of images, one may discern from the most trustworthy testimonies of other writers. For although in the seventh pseudo-synod against images he was called a Saracen by those wicked enemies of the ancestral religion, he was not called this because he had at any time been addicted to the religion of the Saracens, but because he was born among the Saracens then occupying Damascus, and had not, along with them, abjured the veneration of sacred images. The author of his Life, and another, Cosmas, most openly confess that his parents were also Christians; and the Greeks do so on the 4th of December, in the Menaeon: ^B *He was, in the reign of Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine, from the city of Damascus, of a noble family, and distinguished in the orthodox faith.* The Basilian Menologion says: *Of noble, glorious, and faithful family.* But it is in vain that we seek the testimonies of others here, since we have John of Damascus himself asserting this same thing about himself in his profession of faith, in which he confesses in the most open terms: *This is my entire profession, in which I was born; this is my faith, in which I was baptized, and this is my glory, in which I was nurtured, and in which I have lived.* In the Christian faith he is not called "born," who has his origin from infidel parents, but he who is born of Christians, even if he has not yet been washed in baptism, is called "in the Christian faith," which he has in his parents and will embrace at his future baptism: and if he abjures this, as one guilty of perfidy and rebellion, he will be condemned no less than those who have submitted themselves to the faith through baptism.

Some, however, have told another story regarding his Father, the little history of which—since it is not common—I think I shall do well to transcribe in Greek: ^C *It is not fitting that what happened after this, as they say, should be left untold. For there was not much time between, when the father of these men departed from this life; and he died, alas, a double death, of soul and body. But what of his good children, those most virtuous offspring? They did not suffer themselves to appear ungrateful toward their benefactor; nor did they concern themselves with their own salvation while passing over him who had so freely nurtured them, so that he should reap the fruit of impiety and be stored up for eternal fire. And so, approaching their teacher, they reminded him of the fatherly benefits, and how, even if he limped regarding the faith, he did not limp in his conduct, and they pleaded with him to pray to God in common, so that He might pardon him, and that he might not receive the wages of impiety. He is persuaded by these—and indeed, how could such a gentle man, and one endowed with deep compassion, not be? And devoting themselves to earnest vigils and prayers, they besought Him on behalf of the deceased. But the teacher added these things also to his prayers: "O Lord God, who didst deliver both Trajan the impious king, who had raged immoderately against Christians like a mad dog, from the fire of Gehenna through the prayers of Thy servant Gregory, and didst enroll Falconilla the Greek among the lot of the saved through the prayers of the protomartyr Thecla, do Thou Thyself hearken also to us, and place the parent of Thy servants in the tabernacles of Thy chosen ones." But the greatest is the protomartyr Thecla, and the divine Gregory is great, and for this reason they had great power with Thee; but let the good deeds of the deceased also come before Thee to balance the scale for us, and moreover these noble, newly-planted, and beautiful-fruited shoots, even if they sprang from a poor root, may receive their completion from there. This was done for forty days, and they were praying so earnestly, and awaiting the mercy from God; but the prayer of all the righteous is indeed effective, and the will of those who fear Him, God will fulfill, and it was confirmed from this. For when the fortieth day was ending, there occurs even here a work to be wondered at of Thy great, O Christ King, love for mankind. For night having supervened, and the good suppliants having turned to sleep from much toil, the deceased appears to the three, and he was giving much thanks, and acknowledging grace to them. "Through your prayers," he said, "I have been delivered from darkness and fire." As soon as they saw these things, sleep left them, and having recounted to one another what was seen, they rendered fitting thanksgiving to God who hearkens to those calling upon Him. And these things, indeed, have been bruited about by many until now.* ^D It is also worthy to record in these commentaries what followed, which some relate. For not much time had passed, and their parent (that is, of John and Cosmas) departs this life, and dies—alas, poor wretch—a double death of body and soul. But what of the upright boys, the noble offspring? They did not suffer themselves not to return thanks to their benefactor; nor did they concern themselves merely with their own salvation, and neglect the favor of a parent so lavishly bestowed in the provision of food, so that he should reap the fruit of impiety and be consigned to perpetual fires. Wherefore they approach their teacher, recall the memory of paternal benefits, and how the parent, even if he wavered and limped in matters of faith, was yet firm in heart and upright in character. Hence, as suppliants, they entreat that with joined prayers they might beseech God, that He might have mercy on him, and not decree for him punishment and torments for his impiety. By these he is induced. For how could it be otherwise with a man of noble character, and one most prone to mercy? Wherefore, giving themselves over to continuous vigils and prayers, they pour out entreaties for the salvation of the deceased. The master added these things also to his supplications: "O Lord God, who didst deliver the impious king Trajan, who had raged immoderately against Christians like a rabid dog, from the fire of Gehenna through the prayers of Thy servant Gregory, and didst number Falconilla the Gentile among the lot of the righteous through the prayers of the protomartyr Thecla, do Thou Thyself hearken also to us, and place the parent of Thy servants in the tabernacles of Thy chosen ones. For indeed..."

if the protomartyr Thecla was great, and the great and divine Gregory likewise, they also—being great—fashioned him out of thee: nevertheless, there are other things available for us to set forth, and the deeds well performed by the deceased, and these noble and recently born and fruitful sprigs, though they are sprung from a base root, by which, if there be anything that is lacking in us, we may supplement it.» For forty whole days they persisted, applying themselves to these unceasing prayers, and waiting for the mercy of the Divinity. For the prayers of the righteous were indeed powerful, and thus it was proven that God fulfills the will of those who fear Him. For at the very close of the forty days, a work worthy of admiration is completed by Thy exceeding kindness, O Christ the King. For when night arrived, the three honest supplicants having been lulled to sleep by long weariness, the dead man appeared, bearing and offering them great thanks: «By your supplications,» he said, «I have been delivered from the darkness and the fire.» When they had seen these things, they were awakened from sleep, each one related to the other what they had seen, and gave thanks to God, who hears the prayers of those calling upon Him. And these are the things which are commonly bruited about among the majority to this very day. So much for that rumor—unless you wish to call it a fable, which in its own time had occupied the minds of many, that author. Constantine Acropolita also proves it to be a fabrication, and contends in his oration on the praises of John Damascene: «Thus, then, his parents were pious by succession, and illustrious in their life according to virtue. For let us not accept those who have told different stories about them, having heard, as I suppose, of their affairs without consideration, and not having investigated accurately the things of the truth and of the holy ancestors. For they were truly holy in the midst of the ungodly, having preserved their faith pure, while those who malign this most holy and most divine man are sowing the seeds of the holy ones, and as it were, putting up for public defamation those from whom he came; but the progenitors of the Blessed One were pious, as true history has handed down from of old. And the parents were pious, and contended through every virtue.» And so, by succession, his holy parents were conspicuous in piety and virtue. Nor do we admit those who have handed down some absurd things about them in writing, having considered their affairs and those of their holy progenitors carelessly (for they were truly holy who preserved an unblemished faith among the impious), defiling the lineage of this most holy and most divine man with lies, and as if they were pleading his cause, abusing those from whom he himself was born. But the ancestors of this blessed man cultivated piety, as true history has long since handed down: his parents also were pious, and followed every kind of virtue throughout their whole life.

VIII. Volaterranus follows. "The boy came to Constantinople." Nothing of the sort: the Damascene never came to Constantinople, which he was not even given to see while alive, due to other occupations. For he was born in Damascus: there, through the munificence—not to say prodigality—of his father, he was thoroughly cultivated alongside another Cosmas, the Melodist, by Cosmas, a pious monk, both in profane and in our own disciplines: afterwards, his father’s funeral rites having been performed, he himself, with the dignities offered by the satrap of Damascus, and even with the greatest contention, and having neglected his domestic affairs, after his hand was recovered by the benefit of the divine Virgin, having set out for Jerusalem, spent the remainder of his life in the monastery of Sabas under a very rustic and irritable old man, where at last, having laid down the end of his life, he is buried; and the war declared against the Iconoclasts, from Damascus at first, and afterwards from Palestine, although from afar, he waged with spirit and very profitably. Does he, therefore, who had so divided the conduct of his own life, come to Constantinople? The witness to this fact is John, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the truly accurate writer of his Life. His words are: «This man, who derived his name from grace, living at that time in Thrace, did not flee to the Sauromatae, nor did he escape from Byzantium to the pillars of Hercules, but spending his time first in Damascus, second in Palestine, and living the ascetic life in a desert place, he struggled against Leo most nobly.» But that man who has taken his name from grace neither, inhabiting Thrace, went off to the Sauromatae, nor fled from Byzantium to the pillars of Hercules; but when he was passing his life first in Damascus, and afterwards in Palestine, and exercising himself in solitary places, he fought strenuously and fearlessly against Leo: and infra, «And departing to Jerusalem and having made the fitting veneration in these holy/venerable places, like a deer panting for God, he goes out into the desert, and reaches the lavra of the God-bearing Sabas, having as a companion, not only of the way but also of his purpose, Cosmas.» And from thence: «Having set out from Damascus to Jerusalem, and having made adoration in the venerable places with decency, he soon, like a deer thirsting for God, went into the desert, and set out to the monastery of the blessed Sabas, with Cosmas as his companion not only of the journey, but of the same rule.» And finally: «And him also the divine zeal persuaded to this, that, having struggled beyond the divine laws, he should—first from Damascus, and second from Palestine—cast down those at Constantinople who were the destroyers and abusers of the venerable icons.» For as to his having been borne against those who were the despoilers and contemners of the venerable images at Constantinople, first from Damascus and later from Palestine, nothing else drove him to it but divine zeal. And when once he had withdrawn from the place by the order of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, where authority was given to him by the same, he returns straightway to the same. «And John, he who was guiding the rudders of Jerusalem, having been moved by divine inspiration, ordains him as a presbyter of the Lord to praise Him from the chair of the elders; but he, returning again to the lavra of the God-bearing Sabas.» The same governor of Jerusalem, by divine inspiration, also calls John, and that he might praise God from the chair of the elders, ordains him presbyter, who however, soon returning to the monastery of divine Sabas, etc. Could the journeys and customs of the Damascene have been distinguished more correctly? Not in the city of Byzantium, but separated from it by a long interval of places, he wields his pen against [VI] Leo. In vain does Leo fashion letters to the prefect of Damascus, to be sent to the present one, and whom he himself could have destroyed. Volaterranus: "Where, being legitimately imbued with the liberal arts." Who could have been imbued with the liberal arts at Constantinople, in which he never was? Just as that which he adds: "There he assumed the habit of a monk and taught." He assumed the habit of a monk in the monastery of Sabas, in which he also gave his effort to studies and to the writing of memorials. "And turned to Christ." Therefore, he was already of greater stature and adult in age, at which piety and faith could be pleasing. But the authors of his Life [say he was] from a small boy.

^A and baptized in the sacred font whilst still in his very cradle. *Tikte-tai oun auto pais houtos ho lampros, kai hapalo tō sōmati, eti tē dia tēs pneumatikēs mētros anagennēsei, teknon phōtos ho patēr ton huion apergazetai.* This brilliant boy is therefore born to him, whom he makes a son of light while still of tender body, via regeneration through a spiritual mother. Volaterranus, "Captured then on the sea shore by Saracen pirates." What sort of fable is this? How is it that he, already on the verge of perishing from the deep and clinging [to survival], is carried—not by an inconvenient tale, but by water and a favorable wind—onto the shore and into a harbor? Whence he later makes use of more inflated sails to dream up and lie about his undoing! On what shore was this done? Was it at Constantinople itself, or was he cast as prey to the pirates and those Saracens on a shore far removed from it? But, my friend, that at that time the Saracen nation (for it does not pertain to the matter) might have enjoyed the light of the sun—even if it basked in the use of light—it is nevertheless most certain that they were confined within their own borders, content with their own lot, and that they did not covet the fortunes of others, even to the point of being, so to speak, not even known by name at those times. In the twelfth year of the reign of Heraclius, 6131 since the creation of the world, 622 of Christ, 227 after Theodosius the Elder, and 172 after Theodosius the Younger—as the writers of these matters, Theophanes the monk, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, George Hamartolus, George Cedrenus, and others assert—they broke through their own barriers and poured forth, primarily for the destruction of Greece and the islands; and after various outcomes of battles under different leaders, they then for the first time stained the most beautiful face of the Eastern regions with most disastrous calamities. In which year also Stephen the Mathematician, who was flourishing at that time, composed a theme concerning the departure of the Saracens. Therefore, he could not have been captured under Theodosius by Saracens, who did not [yet] exist. "Later ransomed by Theodosius, he was his master of epistles." Dreams, and all things novel, handed down by scribes who were smatterers and doing something else (for it is not likely that they wrote these things seriously). "Coming under suspicion of treason, his right hand was cut off." But after he was apprehended, he who had expertly imitated the Damascene's style of treacherous writing was held in honor by the emperor. He brought up mention of the Damascene’s hand being sacrilegiously cut off, but he is silent about the fact—which was the most important thing—that it was miraculously restored through the grace of the Virgin. Surely, he does the Damascene a remarkable wrong for no reason at all: for he attaches to him a crime that he had not committed. Nor does the Damascene diminish the injury done to him, having been received honorably after the fraud was detected. For that man—a most inhuman man and an enemy of the Christian name—would have most brilliantly died once the truth was discovered. "Then he returned to the monastery and died there." And this also is far from the truth. For having never left, he could not have returned; and he who had never laid aside a resolve once fixed in his mind, could not have nurtured it anew. His writings are received as useful by both Churches. Here at last, while Volaterranus finishes, it came to mind, and I know not by what reason he once confessed the truth. He would have finished faster at any rate. For thus he would have gathered fewer inanities, and would have freed us from the trouble and weariness of refuting them. Others, too, being more cautious, talk nonsense with Volaterranus about many things, which it is enough to have disproven in Volaterranus, lest we seem to be serving up warmed-over cabbage.

IX. Nevertheless, when I was investigating, not without admiration, the cause of such great blindness in Volaterranus, I finally discovered that he had been made most foolish by certain foolish narratives about John of Damascus. Giraldus, in *De poet., histor. Dial. 5*, held a torch for me. Among those [narratives] is the one who described his *Life* copiously: whose fables it is wearying to relate to you here. Hence, when I was searching for a *Life* of this kind for myself, I fell upon one part or another of it in Vincent of Beauvais, *Specul. histor.*, book XVII, ch. 103, and Peter of Equilo, book IV, ch. 135. For they were not afraid to fashion their work entirely out of those trifles, especially the Centuriators, who, because they were hostile to the Damascene on account of his zeal in defending the icons [VII], what do they not blather against the Damascene? And, to press the point more bitterly, they bring into the middle a sermon *On his conversion* that is, as I think, different from this *Life* (for I have not seen it). But this sermon collapses in its own inanity and is most openly detected as having been fabricated by the enemies of the Damascene’s name, since it contains things that cannot be said of the Damascene. Receive in few words what is to be thought of the *Life*. Vincent [says] he took up the monastic habit under Theodosius III, or Anastasius, from whom he says he received it. This is novel; emperors [usually] do not give the monastic habit. Vincent says he was snatched away by the Saracens and taken to Persia; Peter [says] to Egypt. Vincent [says] that when a division of the spoils was being made among the robbers, it happened that John fell to the lot of one among them who was very wealthy; Peter [says] that those leading him to Egypt sold him to a rich Saracen. Vincent [says] that Theodosius sent an embassy, commanding the master under pain of death that he should send him back as quickly as possible, and that he did not dare to contradict the imperial command; Peter [says] that Theodosius, who had been his very good friend, ransomed John from the Saracens with prayers and a great price. Vincent [says] that once brought back to Constantinople, he was shut up in a monastery, with the emperor often consulting him for most important matters; Peter [says] that when he was brought back to Constantinople, he made him his chancellor and entrusted the whole court to be managed by his counsel and industry. Nor are the things which John Nauclerus, *vol. II De generat. 14*, relates about John of Damascus from any other source. What, in these things so vehemently repugnant and countering themselves, will you call firm and stable? Merely the dreams of idlers abusing their time, believe me.

X. I will also add this: John of Damascus is accused by Vincent of treason and is decried as a most wicked Sarabite (a). What that name means must be explained. I conclude from St. Benedict, in ch. 1 of his *Rule*, that Sarabites are those monks who reject the counsels of evangelical doctrine and monastic discipline: "The third sort of monks is the most detestable, namely, the Sarabites, who, not having been tried by any rule, as gold is by the furnace, but being soft, in the nature of lead..."

(a) In those spurious acts of the *Life of St. John of Damascus*, the angry emperor is reported to have used this insult against John: "O most wicked John, ungrateful for my benefits, you have rendered me evil for good, you most wicked Sarabite." Which passage indicates the author of those fables, a man who, having learned from the Rule of St. Benedict that there was a certain kind of monk of no discipline who were called "Sarabites," invented that the holy monk John was assailed by the prince with this word.

[They are] softened, still keeping their faith for the worldly works, and are known to lie to God by their tonsure; who, by twos, or threes, or even alone, without a shepherd, shut up not in the Lord's sheepfolds, but in their own, find that pleasure is the law of their desires, since whatever they have thought of or chosen, this they call holy, and what they do not want, they think to be forbidden. Odo, Abbot of Cluny, lib. III Collat., cap. 23; Petrus Damianus, epist. 4, book V; Isidore, lib. II De ecclesiast. offic., cap. 16, explain the character and nature of these Sarabites at length, just as St. Benedict does. But where the name derives, I have searched in vain among the Greeks. I thought it was from *βαινω*, later *βήτης*, walking, wandering, stepping, as also that *λαλοβαρυπαρομελοῤῥυθμοβάτης*. However, I found that no *sara* was annexed in that language. Nor do I think it derived from *σάραβος*, a shameful and infamous name from which Christian propriety would recoil. Wherefore I have recourse to outsiders, and I judge the name to be accepted from the Syrians. For *Sarabaita* among them, whether you spell it with *S* [Samekh], signifies one who is negligent, leaving and denying his house; or with *sade*, one who persuades the house [to be abandoned]. This was brought forth against the Damascene by enemies, so that it might be hinted that he had fallen away from his own [people] and had turned his mind to outsiders. And thus "most wicked Sarabite," as if you were saying: rebel, apostate, traitor to his own, supporter of enemies, and whatever else could be said of a petulant and rebellious spirit.

XI. He was called Mansur. It is uncertain to me whether [this is] from his family, or [an expression of] the Emperor Leo's insult. Nicephorus the Constantinopolitan in his *Chronicon*: "And John from Damascus of Syria, surnamed Mansur." And *John Damascene, by the surname Mansur*. Suidas: "John the Damascene, who was surnamed Mansur." *John Damascene, surnamed Mansur*. But these do not infer a family name. That surname could have immigrated into John's name and domestic household from elsewhere. And surely that it did immigrate from elsewhere, the words of St. Stephen the Younger, in the *Stephen the Byzantine* who described his Life, infer: "Among whom [was] also the most honorable John the Damascene the presbyter, he who was named Mansur by this tyrant, [and who is] holy and God-bearing among us, he ceased not from writing." Among whom [was] also the most excellent John [VIII] Damascene the presbyter, who, being surnamed Mansur by the tyrant, [is] holy and God-bearing among us, and never ceased to write. And [it is found] among Simeon Metaphrastes: "With whom also [was] the grace-tongued John, the God-loving presbyter, whom that abusive tongue, narrow in its education [though it be], but excessive and sharp in accusation, called Mansur." In a similar way also that most-pious presbyter John, endowed with a charming tongue, whom that tyrant—with his petulant and abusive tongue, and though of narrow education, yet copious and very keen in vituperation—called Mansur. Also in the Seventh Synod, act 6: "John, indeed, who was called Mansur by him through an insult." John indeed, who was surnamed Mansur by the same through an insult. Paul the Deacon, *Hist. miscell.*, lib. XII: "John, who was well surnamed Chrysorrhoas because of the golden and radiant grace of the Holy Spirit, which flourished in him both in word and in the act of life; whom, namely, the impious emperor Constantine submitted to anathema annually because of his eminent orthodoxy, calling him—by a change of name—'Manzeron,' the new teacher of the Church, in a Jewish sense, instead of 'Mansur,' which is his ancestral name and which is interpreted as 'Redeemer'." And Cedrenus: "John the monk and presbyter, Chrysorrhoas, [son] of Mansur, which is interpreted as 'Lentrabus,' whom the impious one renamed to 'Manzer' with a Jewish frame of mind." John the monk and presbyter, surnamed Chrysorrhoas, son of Mansur, which denotes a "Lentrabus," whom the impious one transformed into "Manzer" in a Jewish sense. And therefore Cedrenus reports that Mansur was the name of the Damascene's father, and from this, through an allusion, the name "Manzer" was distorted by the impious one and imposed upon the Damascene; and that "Mansur" denotes a "lentrabus." But what "lentrabus" might be, Meursius is still searching, and I with him. Cedrenus calls the Damascene's father Mansur. And perhaps because of his munificence and other excellent deeds, in which John’s father excelled in Damascus before others, the surname Mansur was added to him first by the citizens, as is the custom among the Arabs; and I seem to recall having read (a), if my memory does not fail me, that it was exhibited to kings among them as well; did it later degenerate into his proper name, which they then attributed to John, who in no way degenerated from his fatherly and attested virtue? For thereby "victor," "helper," "noted" is signified. At length, the tyrant distorted the surname of virtue into infamy by changing a single little letter. For as it was reported to me by those most expert in that language, *Mansur* with an *s* or *scin* denotes "eradicated," "separated," "pulled out," "cut." Wherefore the tyrant by that name implied that John, differing from him and not fighting against images along with him, had been plucked out and separated from the common faith of the faithful. Which insult the Damascene later converted into one of the greatest proclamations of praise through his doctrine and holiness. Whence you may see the excessive fussiness of others in discerning such words.

XII. Another might say, and not implausibly, if the oldest codices and Greek ecclesiastical books do not deceive us, that his surname was none other than Arcla. For thus he himself is surnamed in the same books before the canon for Pentecost, which he composed in iambic verse. For there the name of the author is prefixed in this way: *John Arcla’s canon in iambic verse for the Holy Pentecost*. Its acrostic is *Theogenes loge pneuma*, and its beginning, *Theio kalyphtheis*. And almost all today attribute that canon to the Damascene. Therefore, John Arcla Damascene shall be [his name] for us henceforth, who until now has become known as John, as one more familiar and more illustrious from his fatherland than by his surname, Damascene. But I would have wished that others before me had said this. *I, however, am slow-moving.*

XIII. But from where Possevinus drew the idea that he was not a priest; and who they are who record this, let him say himself. I, indeed, in manuscript codices, and those sufficiently ancient, find him designated by the title of presbyter. For it is written: *Of John the presbyter Damascene*. Stephen the Younger, when among Metaphrastes, *the tongue* [he records].

endowed with eloquence, and a pious presbyter; and according to Stephen of Byzantium, in whose writings also *the most honorable John the Damascene, presbyter*. Among these is also the most celebrated John Damascene, presbyter. John of Jerusalem says: *But John, he who holds the rudder of the Jerusalemites, having brought him by divine inspiration, ordains this man presbyter to praise the Lord in the seat of the elders*. The same governor of the Church of Jerusalem ordained John, brought by divine inspiration that he might praise God in the seat of the elders, as a presbyter. [IX] And lest you confuse the presbyter with the bishop, the same author reports earlier that Cosmas was made bishop of Majuma by the same prelate of Jerusalem, and from his ordination he distinguishes that of the Damascene. Cosmas, indeed, is ordained bishop; John, presbyter. Furthermore, the Greeks in the Synaxarion of December 4th: *Commemoration of our holy Father John the monk and presbyter the Damascene*. And Gregory the Protosyncellus in his Response to the Epistle of Mark of Ephesus: *In the discourse read in Church bearing the inscription, "Of John the monk and presbyter the Damascene."* The sermon is read in the Church with this inscription, "Of John the monk and presbyter the Damascene." Possevinus surely did not speak in the manner of Augustine and Jerome, among whom the name of priest sometimes signifies a bishop.

XIV. He wrote, therefore, many things approved by both Churches, and always held in such honor—as were the monuments of other holy ecclesiastical Fathers. *On the Orthodox Faith*; *Against the enemies of holy images*; *Panegyric orations*; *various canons for the feast days of saints*; *treatises against heresies*; and many other things, which in part still survive, in part voracious time has consumed. I willingly pass over the eulogies of these writers, since they are everywhere obvious to everyone, though not in such a way that I should cloak in silence those things which wait for the light through my efforts. An anonymous writer: *Truly a river you are, John,* *Another Psimathias, or a gold-flowing one,* *Irrigating with understanding the hearts of the faithful,* *With the flood of your dogmas entirely.*

And another: *This book brings forth the wise words* *Which John, the glory of Damascus,* *Wrote, being filled with the all-holy Spirit.*

And concerning the canons: *The Damascene and wise John* *Clearly celebrates the wonders of the Master.*

And he who not yesterday or the day before, but many years ago, had transcribed the same books, John the monk, brother of Arsenius: *The artful technique of the word, as one filled with beauty,* *Has inclined toward the brilliance of the Church.* *And bearing the contemplation regarding dogmas,* *Reverent, true, honored by the wise,* *I, a stranger, knowing I was inflamed with zeal,* *Having written, was advanced, having received strength from God.* *For I am a stranger. From another land into Thrace* *I came a settler; but for the sake of dwelling* *With Arsenius, John, with longing,* *Living together with my brother in bodily separation.* *We cherish, however, the life of the monks.* *But, O all-ruling Trinity, with him to accomplish* *Thy divine things, have I prayed, in all time.*

Macarius of Ancyra against Barlaam, ch. 35: *Having said "the Damascene," I have shown that I included all teachers and theologians; for he is the mouth and interpreter of all these great theologians, for whose sake and whose writings—I do not say "I," but "we" say—not how great is the material of his words, and the beauty and standard of his dogmas, and how great is the greatest glory in all things, the seventh holy ecumenical council commemorates it.* But when I say Damascene, I signify all the doctors and theologians collected together. For he is a great mouth and interpreter of all theologians. Wherefore in those things which he writes, he does not say "I" but "we," he says. How great is the sublimity of his oration and the integrity and accuracy of his dogmas, how great his widely celebrated glory in all things, the seventh holy ecumenical council commemorates.

George Chioniades in his *Expositions on the Damascene*: [X] *This our holy Father also wrote dogmatic discourses concerning the incomprehensible Deity, and concerning those parts of Leo the Isaurian, son of Conon, and his son Constantine Copronymus, of those who were accusing him and calling him the blasphemer Mansur, and of those like-minded with them and [of those] impious emperors.* This our holy Father composed dogmatic orations concerning the incomprehensible Deity, and against those execrable [men], Leo the Isaurian, son of Conon, and his son Constantine Copronymus, who accused him and called him the blasphemer Mansur, and against those who felt as they did, the impious emperors. Here we note in passing that this Leo is falsely said by Chioniades to be the son of Conon. For that Leo was also called Conon. For historians, and especially the Greeks, relate that Conon was his name given in baptism.

XV. From these [writings], some cut off all—others a very large part—from this John of ours, who flourished under Leo, and refer them to that elder one under Theodosius, whom they themselves feign for themselves with very little conviction. That this may be better known, I will institute a discourse on each point, and first concerning those to which *On the Orthodox Faith* gave its name; for all those who invent a double Damascene attribute them to the elder one, whom they declare to have been not tongue-tied or unlearned, but very eloquent and exceedingly learned in divine matters.

XVI. He is different from John the Egyptian. And it is indeed a wonder that this Damascene—by so many and such great men—

has been intruded upon, when nowhere in that age does the name of the Damascene occur in Greek or Latin historical writers, or indeed in other ancient authors. For although under Theodosius the name of John—and that famous for the sanctity in which that man excelled—is common, there is no one who asserts that he was from Damascus; rather, Theodoret (Hist. lib. v, cap. 24), Sozomen (lib. vi, cap. 28), and Callistus (lib. xi, cap. 34) clearly acknowledge that he was an Egyptian, and, what is worthy of admiration, they record that he never withdrew from Egypt except to the Thebaid, and that by divine command. "He flourished," says Sozomen, "according to those whom we have known, John in Egypt." In those, moreover, whom we have known to have flourished in Egypt, John easily held the first place. And after a few words intervening: "But when he was an old man, having migrated by divine command to the Thebaid, he presided over many monasteries." When he had become an old man, he betook himself by divine command into the Thebaid, and presided over many monasteries. Shall we say that this man was born in Damascus, or contemplated the walls of Damascus? We have recalled above that the journeys of the Damascene were far different from these; for, having become a monk, he always wished to be subject to others even to the last breath of his life, so far is he from having presided over many monasteries. Nevertheless, some have thought this John to be the Damascene, as even Baronius noted in his Martyrology for May 6, and therefore they assign the Damascene to the times of Theodosius.

XVII. But how could this Egyptian, an infant and ignorant man, and otherwise unskilled in the disciplines, and I might almost say illiterate, be the author of the theological work *De fide orthodoxa*? I would myself be senseless if I said he wrote having been divinely inspired and divinely imbued with sciences, I who have attentively read and circumspectly considered the divine oracles, and whatever was later committed to parchment under the dictation of the Divine. The mode of speaking, the rationale, and the color and substance of the oration in those works are far different from this Damascene, in whom, although the divinity is too manifest and the doctrine revealed, I nevertheless clearly perceive it flowing from the genius of the author and digested and adorned according to his grasp. I discern the free genius of a writer and human powers in difficult matters, and striving beyond their own grasp, and supported by human disciplines, observing divine things in obscurities and in an enigma not at all securely. In a word, in these books, *De fide orthodoxa*, I recognize the same majesty and divinity of doctrine as in other Fathers, but I do not approve that they were written down at God's dictation. But let Sozomen say what that Egyptian could provide in writing: "And not having learned letters, he did not need books for recollection, but everything he received into his mind was superior to forgetting." Who, though ignorant of letters, still did not need books for recollection, but whatever he comprehended in his mind, no oblivion could destroy. Callistus explained this more clearly (lib. xi, cap. 34): "Being uninitiated in letters, he least of all needed books for recollection; for everything he heard and took into his mind, as one superior to all forgetfulness, he kept in store, and found ready at the time of need." And although he had not been initiated in letters, he had no need of books for memory. For whatever he had once comprehended in his mind after hearing it, he preserved beyond all oblivion, and at whatever time he had need of it, he had it ready at hand. You see that an illiterate man did not need books to stimulate his memory, since what he had once committed to memory he never afterwards forgot. For a memory tenacious of what it once conceives neglects the monuments of others. But he who is so taught that he is so powerful in memory, how did he write books, and books like *De fide orthodoxa*? But by what means—as I shall also explain this—could one who was unskilled in letters and did not know how to read commit anything to memory, and afterwards retain it for so long without the help of books? That is a very easy matter, if you consider the custom of the ancient ascetics: for they, with their simple minds and by the aid of their mnemonic mistress, by the assiduous repetition of psalms would ingest the Psalms and other passages of the Sacred Scripture, which they afterwards retained in memory by continuous recitation without the help of books. See Epiphanius, in his oration *De fide orthodoxa et apostolica Ecclesia*, at the end, and the charming little narrative about Pambo in Socrates (lib. iv, cap. 23), who calls Pambo "illiterate," just as this Sozomen calls John "not having learned letters," and Callistus "uninitiated in letters." But how far Billius errs, who confuses this Egyptian with the Sinaite, we shall say below when we have a discussion regarding the history of Barlaam and Josaphat.

XVIII. John the Egyptian did not write the books *De fide orthodoxa*. But even if this John did write books, whether of his own accord or at the dictation of the Divine, and those very many, indeed he could not have written those books, *De fide orthodoxa*, which do not bear his age, nor the times of Theodosius. For John was staying in the Thebaid before the Italian expedition of the Emperor Theodosius against the tyrant Eugenius (Sozomen, lib. vii, c. 22: "He [Theodosius] knew to use as a counselor regarding this matter John who was a monk in the Thebaid." He decided in this matter to use the counsel of John the monk, dwelling in the Thebaid; and Callistus: "He knew to use as a counselor regarding this matter John, a monk shining in the Thebaid." He decided that he must use the counsel of John the monk struggling in the Thebaid); and he sought the Thebaid when he was already worn out by old age (Sozomen: "But when he was an old man, having migrated by divine command to the Thebaid, he presided over many monasteries." When he had become an old man, he betook himself by divine command into the Thebaid, and presided over many monasteries; Callistus: "But when he came to old age, having migrated by a certain divine vision to the Thebaid, he became a leader of many monasteries." But when he had arrived at old age, having been ordered by a certain divine vision to inhabit the Thebaid, he became leader of many monasteries). Wherefore he ended his life either while Theodosius was still reigning, or shortly after his death. He could not, therefore, have remembered the works of Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, or indeed Chrysostom, Proclus, and Cyril, some of which were not even published, and others not yet composed. Hence Nicolaus Alemannus argued further, as he discusses more about that John. But...

^A if these things are entirely so, and this John survived until the times of Theodosius the Younger—although Theodoret and Sozomen, historians of that era, suggest the contrary—and was a contemporary of Cyril, how, I ask, does he venerate all these as contemporaries, nay, as his own little sons, so religiously that he calls them in almost every chapter "holy," "sacred," "blessed," whenever it happens that he praises their writings? So that he does not hesitate to compare Cyril—the youngest in age of all those already mentioned and contemporary to himself—with Athanasius, most illustrious in holiness and who had departed this life long before, and to venerate him with equal piety. "And as much as we have said," he says in Book II, "concerning the nature of the Word having become incarnate, according to the blessed Athanasius and Cyril, we say that the divinity was united to flesh." What, furthermore, would the adversaries say to so many sects, which a later age cast forth like abortions, against which the author of these books inveighs sharply: the Monothelites, Nestorians, Monophysites, Dioscorians? Is there not mention in these books of Peter the Fuller, who lived under the emperors Zeno and Anastasius, and then of the Iconoclasts, who vexed the Church under Leo the Isaurian? Wherefore, if they do not strip some orations concerning the veneration of sacred images from Damascene because of his and the Iconoclasts’ equal times, by the same reasoning it is necessary that they restore to him the books *Of the Orthodox Faith*, in which a complete dispute against them is contained.

XIX. They were written around the times of Leo the Isaurian. — It is therefore certain and firm that the said books *Of the Orthodox Faith*, just as the other works which are attributed to John Damascene under Theodosius, are of this John Damascene under Leo, and since there is no other John Damascene than this one of ours, they are to be attributed to no one other than him. Nor has it ever been disputed among sane and prudent men, all opinions concurring in this same thing. The Greeks, whom we should indeed believe more in this matter, all with one mouth profess that there was only one John Damascene, and that he flourished under Leo the Isaurian, to whom they also ascribe the four books *Of the Orthodox Faith*.

XX. The title of the tripartite work, "Fount of Knowledge."

bundle, he exhibited an exact knowledge of God, suited nevertheless to human capacity. Furthermore, between philosophical and theological matters, he intermixed the trifles of heretics, so that readers might be on their guard more cautiously. Therefore, he set dialectic before them, that it should be as it were the instruments which any craftsman has need of for the construction of the entire work, serving as a handmaid to a queen—namely, to matters of faith—and that they might make a beginning from these as if from elements for those having need of milk. For he did not think it right to trust in the doctrines of the heathens, which are in many things diverse from Christian truth, yet he drew forth right and approved things from the fountain of true wisdom. For he used to say concerning nature in definitions, that we may learn the rest from this one: ^A *Nature is, as the mind of the Church determines, the existence of a true reality; but according to Aristotle and the other Greeks, nature is defined in many ways, which definitions those who followed Severus, being in power, failed to discern.* Nature is, as the Church determines, the existence of a true reality; as Aristotle and the remaining Gentiles determine, nature is defined in many ways: which definitions, when the followers of Severus sought to follow, they strayed from the straight path. He inter-posed the trifles of heresies, so that by knowing the falsity, they might be carried with a more inclined spirit ^B toward the truth. In the last place, he dictated the truth itself, and most especially concerning matters of faith. Hear the Damascene himself in his epistle to Cosmas, bishop of Maiuma: *I shall set forth the best of the things which are among the Greeks, imitating the manner of the bee, [whereby] I shall join them to the properties of truth, and I shall harvest salvation from enemies. But I shall send away everything which is base and which holds to falsely-named knowledge. Then I shall arrange the trifles of the God-hated heresies, as if, by recognizing the falsehood, we might ^C lay hold of the truth more perfectly. Then I shall set forth, with God, the Truth, which is the destroyer of error and the destroyer of lies.* And first I shall propose all the most excellent things of those who excelled in the praise of learning among the Greeks, imitating the manner of the bee, I shall compose those things which are akin to the truth, and I shall gather salvation from enemies; but whatever is foul and joined with false knowledge, I shall cast out. Soon, however, I shall comprehend the trifles of the heresies, which God hates, in one light, so that, the falsity being known, we may the more closely embrace ^D the truth. And so at last, with God favoring me, I shall commit to books that truth which brings destruction to error and repels falsehood. Who, then, does not see that the work, which is complete and consistent in its parts, is diminished, disjointed, and cut up by others having been interposed, and disfigured to this present time? For the first place is assigned to the third [part]: the first and second, scattered here and there, exiled from their own body, are thrown about as it pleases anyone, and the straight and holy order of the divine writer is inverted too lazily. That scribe of the Vatican codex 1077 certainly recognized this, and although he may have confessed the crime, if it is any crime to overturn the writings of authors, he nevertheless persisted in his former opinion. *Even if in the epistle this present saint has said that after setting forth the things which are held by the wise men of the Greeks, I shall set forth the things of the heresies; then the things of the truth. Yet nevertheless we have done it differently, having placed the things of the truth before those of the philosophers, then the things of the heresies. Not opposing the saint; far from it, but rather choosing to know the things of the truth truly and accurately over the things of the heresies.* Although in the epistle this holy man said that he would, after having set forth those things which exist among the wise men of the Greeks, enumerate the heresies in a continuous order, and then at last the truth: we, nevertheless, have arranged them in an inverse order, attaching those things which are of the truth after the philosophical ones, and the heresies last of all—not opposing the holy man; let this be far from us—but rather desiring to know those things which are of the truth truly and accurately before the heresies.

XXI. The Damascene himself is the author of the distribution into chapters. — And these things, indeed, regarding the whole body. What then regarding the chapters? I doubt not that the Damascene divided the parts into chapters, since all manuscripts, both ancient and more recent, present that division; yet in such a way that the philosophical matters were linked to the theological by a continuation of the same number; so that, indeed, both the philosophical [XIV] and the theological—or rather this treatise, in which philosophical and theological matters are treated—are concluded in one number. Nevertheless, in all the codices the number of chapters is not one, for in some it is larger, in others smaller: nor is the end of the work the same; which I think was done by the excessive diligence of later men, who subdivided one chapter or another in order to distinguish them more, or who, in order to unite the argument more, compressed two chapters into one. Since this has been done in few cases, however, it does not mean that all the other chapters are disjoined from one another, and their arguments prefixed to them itself.

XXII. Some chapters, however, are distracted and torn away by librarians. — I have observed that these aforesaid chapters do not always occupy the same place in all codices, but that those which are placed first in some are placed later in others: many things also are torn away from the first part and carried into another, and conversely, which a curious reader, by unwinding the manuscripts himself, so that I need not be too wordy, will be able to note. The most powerful part of them, however, preserves the same place for itself, even if the number has been changed. This is to be ascribed to the carelessness of the scribes. For George Chioniades asserts, with probability, that the chapters of the whole work were only one hundred and fifty: *It is divided into 150 chapters. It did not exceed this number, as it is a venerable one in numbers. For this number consists of three fifties; just as the book of Psalms.* It is divided, furthermore, into one hundred and fifty chapters. Nor did he pass by this number as if it were worthy of veneration among other numbers; for this number consists of a triple fifty, just as the book of Psalms. We have already transmitted to the printers in Paris some things which we found in the manuscript codices outside the number of the editors. By these it is also concluded that that distinction of the theological chapters into four books, just like the title, De fide orthodoxa, is very recent, and from the genius of the men of this century, who adapt old things to new ones.

XXIII. The book De orthodoxa fide was not corrupted. — But whether the one which at present under his name of the philosophical [works] or the Dialectic of the Damascene.

They are passed from hand to hand by all, the books of the *De fide orthodoxa*, remain whole, and have not been corrupted by heretics even up to these times, some have doubted, albeit with little caution, who, since they less understood the dicta of that man which were contrary to their own opinion, cast them out from the other writings of so great a Father as if they were insertions. And among the Greeks, indeed, George Moschambar, chartophylax of the Church of Constantinople, as Pachymeres reports and refutes in book VII of his *History*, ch. 35, rejected that saying, "But we do not say the Spirit is from the Son," etc., as spurious from the book of so great a Father ^A: "And the producer through the Word of the manifesting Spirit." From this, George Moschambar, being then chartophylax of the Church, said the passage was counterfeit. But the great Logothete said to him, bowing his head close so that others might not hear, "And how, good sirs, shall we seem to speak strongly by defending ourselves in this way? Since in the book of the holy Armamentary the passage is set down word for word as the saying of the saint and of the great Damascene." And "producer through the Word of the manifesting Spirit." Hence George Moschambar, at that time chartophylax of the Church, affirmed that that dictum was spurious, to whom the great Logothete, with his head drawn close, lest others should hear, said, "And how, he says, shall we appear to satisfy the propositions by answering in this way, since that dictum is extended in the codex of the sacred Armamentary word for word, as the dictum of the saint, and especially of the great Damascene?" And book VIII, chapter 1: "For it did not seem sensible to Moschambar himself to say that the passage was counterfeit, and that the chapter is not carried in some of the books. For the book of the sacred Armamentary stood out, carrying this also written down with the others, and indeed witnessing to the creator/begetter." But as for Moschambar and the others who asserted that that dictum was spurious, and that that chapter was not held in some books, they condemned them for imprudence. For there existed a codex of the sacred Armamentary which contained this and other writings, and indicated the parent of the dictum. And among the Latins, as Bessarion the Cardinal in his *Oration Dogmatica* to the Oriental Synod, ch. 6, hints and refutes: "What the Latins say, I myself would not say on these points, as if the [passage] of the Damascene is not found in most of his books, and that this letter of Maximus is not Maximus'. For it is not to be found written down in many places, nor in ancient books, nor in his own writings. Nor [do I say] that some of ours corrupt this; but I will concede this, and I will accept that these things are of their voice and thought." What the Latins say to these points, I will not say, namely, that neither is that of the Damascene found in all his books, and that the letter of Maximus is not his, since it is found neither everywhere, nor in older codices, nor among his works; and that some of our men even think it is not his: these things, I say, I will not state, but I will concede that these are the ^B words and opinions of those learned men.

XXIV. Furthermore, book IV, chapter 14—those words by which the Damascene denies that bread and wine are called Antitypa by Basil after the consecration—Turrianus, in his scholia on the Greek [text] in book V, chapter 14 of the *Constitutio Apostolica*, explodes as contrary to the words and mind of Basil, and asserts them to have been stitched on by certain shallow and malevolent men: for it is not probable that the Damascene was ignorant of the words of Clement, Nazianzen, and other authors, who attribute this word not to bread and wine, but to the body and blood of Christ. Billius, in his oration on Gregory Nazianzen’s [oration] to his sister Gorgonia, adds that Bessarion was of the same opinion, but by what faith, he himself may see. For Bessarion is so far from exploding the words of the Damascene from the rest of the work that, relying upon their authority, he begs pardon from the Damascene as a son from a father, if, with two friends proposed, he himself prefers the truth, and below he audaciously declares: "But it is necessary to remember that he was a man, although endowed with wondrous holiness, and that it could happen at some time that, according to the weakness of human ingenuity, he might not have perceived something clearly." And that the words were rather of Basil, torn away from that place where they were read in the age of the Damascene, and carried off to another. What, moreover, he thought about this matter, although Turrianus thinks he can conclude it most certainly, I myself would only say that the matter is not so easy, since in the age of the Damascene (which we will say elsewhere for what reason it was done, when we discuss the *Antitypa* and the opinion of the Damascene ^C *ou periergōs*—without curiosity), not only the Damascene himself, but other Fathers also declined to name the true body and blood of Christ *Antitypa*. Which is most openly evinced from the *Second Nicaea*, act VI, and Anastasius against the Gaianites: "Far be it from us to name the holy communion an *antitype* of the body of Christ, or a bare loaf, but truly body and blood of Christ." And others. The arguments of Turrianus, moreover, prove nothing. For nowhere did the Damascene call bread and wine *Antitypa*, but the true body and blood of Christ. And although *Antitypa* in Basil may imply that, is it to be said that it notes that same thing in the Damascene? And those things could not have been added to the Damascene unless after the arising of that heresy which contended that not only the Lord's words, but also the prayers of the priests, were necessary for the effecting of the body and blood of Christ. We, however, have seen and observed almost countless books of the Damascene, and those most ancient, many also which referred to the age of the Damascene, and in all of them those words which Turrianus wishes to be additions are found precisely in the same place. And lest I enumerate all the codices, they are held in the Vatican codices 106, 492, 495, 496, 500, 501, 1075, 1076, 1078, 1752; Palat. 242, 334; Barberinis 54, 55, 56, 57 ^D (b). Hence I conclude, if the places are difficult and craggy; if the opinions are twisted and obscure; if those things which [differ] from the opinion of our...

adversaries are to be wiped out from the books of the Fathers, and we were to wish to affirm that they were inserted by others not having the same sentiment, or were corrupted, or changed—Good God!—what part of them would remain whole, what book undisturbed, what sentences not mangled? They committed many things to writing, either indulging their own genius, or serving the occasion, or driven by a zeal for attacking heretics, which even the men of later times either neglect or condemn, although the most approved writers explain them by translating them into a better sense, or clarify them by subdividing them. Not to dwell on examples here—for the books of all writers are full of them—what am I to say here of the attempts of most audacious men who, since they cannot understand everything, and measure all things by their own pace, do not refrain their impious hands even from the divine Scriptures?

[XXV] It should also be noted in passing here that the Gesnerian epitomizers write too lazily from book 3, chapter 11 of Damascene: *Theodoric the Greek, against whom [XVI] Leontius of Byzantium made an Apology regarding the accusations of his detestation.* Since there is no Theodoric in him—whom they confuse with Theodoret—nor did Leontius of Byzantium compose an Apology against him, but Cyril of Alexandria. Therefore, Damascene, after quoting that Cyril, "one incarnate nature," from the same Cyril previously set forth, subjoins that Cyril was not understood in any other way by Leontius of Byzantium. And rightly so; since Cyril himself, in the defense of the second of the anathematisms which Theodoret had attacked against him, defends the same sentiment. The words of Damascene are: "For by saying 'one hypostasis' of God the Word absolutely, we do not err. Likewise, Leontius of Byzantium also understood the phrase regarding the nature, not in place of the hypostasis; and in the apology against the strictures of Theodoret on the second anathematism, the blessed Cyril rightly says: 'The nature of the Word.'" For by saying one person of God the Word absolutely, we do not err. In a similar manner, Leontius of Byzantium also understood this passage concerning nature, not concerning person. But the blessed Cyril, in that apology in which he refutes the book of Theodoret, which he had published against the second anathematism, speaks thus: "The nature of the Word, this is the person," etc.

[XXVI] The Latin translators of John of Damascus. — Burgundius the Pisan, a jurist not unknown in his time, translated the books of Damascene's *De fide orthodoxa* into the Latin language under Eugenius III, and others did others. Afterward, it was translated from the beginning for the most part by Jacobus Billius, published at Paris in 1577.

[XXVII] On the oration concerning the departed. — The books *De fide orthodoxa* are followed by the oration *De iis qui in fide obdormierunt*, "On those who have fallen asleep in the faith." All who wrote after Damascene, provided they remembered him, attribute this to Damascene, even those among the Greeks who, favoring the schism, remove purgatorial punishments from the middle. They would, indeed, if they could, have brought it into doubt, lest they give their adversaries an opportunity to refute their own opinion. Some have handed this down so assertively that they have not even feared to prove it by prophecy; and they maintain that by the Fathers who were present at the Council of Ferrara and Florence, among other testimonies of the holy Fathers which they brought forward to assert purgatorial punishments, these of Damascene were also recounted, which all the Greeks received as those of approved and certain authors. "Many," they say, "read the testimonies of the saints." To whom Marcus Ephesius replied: "All those things that you have said, and the testimonies of the saints which you have read, the Church of the Greeks accepts and reads." And below: "On the twenty-seventh of the same month they sat again, and the Italians read many testimonies of the saints, and examples, and proofs." Among which it seems wonderful to these men if the testimonies of Damascene were not recounted. Since even Gennadius the Patriarch, a writer of those times, in the defense of the chapters of the Council of Florence, chapter 3, transcribes almost the whole said oration. Its testimonies are used against the Greeks to prove purgatorial fire by Gregory the Hieromonachus, Protosyncellus, in his *Apology for the Council of Florence against the epistle of Marcus Ephesius*. Glycas, in epistle 50 to Esaias the monk, transcribed many things from it as Damascene’s genuine work, and especially the history regarding Trajan, and Faconilla, and the skull of the infidel; nor does Emmanuel Calecas abdicate it from Damascene in his book IV against the Greeks. And the common opinion of the Greeks attributes it to Damascene, and they read it translated into their own language under the name of Damascene. And another, I know not who, translated it into the vernacular language of the Cypriots, and it is found in codex 1171 of the Vatican, with this beginning: "Η γλυκομνόςταις τροφαῖς, καὶ τὰ δειλικάτα, καὶ τίμια φαγία." They add that purgatorial punishments began to be attacked in the age of Damascene, as from Eustratius the presbyter of the Church of Constantinople, whose books written on this subject are recounted by Photius in his *Bibliotheca*, mem. 171. A manner of speaking familiar to Damascene also proves this. For he, sparing the names of the heretics of his own time, only proposes and attacks the errors. Book IV *Orthod. fid.*, chapter 17: "Since some blame us," etc. And here in this discourse, it is no otherwise, "The lawless one crept in," "a certain foul pretext," etc. These and other things are gathered by very many in favor of Damascene.

[XXVIII] Gretser, in his notes on volume II *De cruce*, regarding the oration attributed by the Greeks to Pope Gregory under the name of *Dialogus*, doubts it. As does Damascene, or [XVII] whoever that author is of the oration for the faithful departed among the works of Damascene. And before Gretser, Gregory the Protosyncellus in the said place: "In the discourse read in Church, having the inscription: Of John the monk and presbyter, the Damascene." In the oration which is read in the Church under this inscription of John the monk and presbyter, the Damascene. If he had thought it the genuine offspring of Damascene, he would surely have written: John the monk and presbyter Damascene in the oration, etc. Joannes Lensæus, *De Limbo*, book III, chapter 12: "That this book is not by Damascene can seem not without reason." Petrus Arcudius also doubted this, with many arguments brought hither and thither, in his book against Barlaam concerning purgatory, page 396. Others snatch it away from Damascene as spurious, and contend that it is such with not invalid reasons. Bartholomæus Medina: "It is, he says, likewise, this..."

for attributing to Damascene the oration for the deceased, and for reviving the dead after a long course of years from their passing, and calling them back again to studies and literary labors. For Damascene, whose age belongs to the times of Theodosius the Elder, died long before the great Gregory, of whom mention is made in that speech. Therefore he could not have written similar things about him, and it is necessary that this work be of someone else, and not of the great Damascene." Franciscus Suarez rejects it for this reason, because it relates a doctrine concerning the deceased that is entirely contrary to Damascene. For, regarding the story of Trajan and Falconilla, they overturn that theological axiom of Damascene's, which he expresses thus in book II of *De Fide Orthodoxa*: ^A *Χρὴ δὲ γινώσκειν, ὅτι ὅπερ ἐστὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὁ θάνατος, τοῦτο τοῖς ἀγγέλοις ἡ ἔκπτωσις· μετὰ γὰρ τὴν ἔκπτωσιν οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῖς μετάνοια, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις μετὰ τὸν θάνατον.* "One must know that what death is for men, that the fall is for angels; for after the fall there is no repentance for them, just as there is not for men after death."

XXIX. They think Medina is perfectly satisfied if they say that he is manifestly deceived in that which he assumes as certain, when he relegates our Damascene to Theodosius the Elder, since he lived so many years after Theodosius and could perfectly well relate the deed of Gregory the Great and the salvation of Trajan. And from these things, which we brought forward above concerning the age of Damascene and of John the Egyptian, it is openly evident that Damascene could have written that narrative about the soul of Trajan, on account of which, and on account of the other one about Falconilla, others have adjudged that oration away from Damascene, although not as firmly; and even if they do not adjudge it away, they nevertheless condemn the Father for ^B excessive credulity. Bellarmine, in *De Scriptoribus Sacris*, concerning John Damascene: "The oration *On those who have fallen asleep in the faith* cast a scruple, because it relates that Falconilla was liberated from the torments of hell through the prayers of the martyr Thecla, and the soul of Trajan through the prayers of Pope St. Gregory; these narratives seem to be false, and more like fables than history. But it may be that St. John Damascene, though otherwise learned and prudent, gave easy credence to these narratives, and was not solicitous to investigate their truth." Gerardus Joannes Vossius, in *De Historicis Græcis*, book II, ch. 24: "Although Damascene was indeed an eminently learned man of great name, yet in most matters he was more than sufficiently credulous, and among other things you might desire judgment in that narrative about the soul of Falconilla being liberated from the torments of the underworld by the prayers of B. Thecla, the first martyr, even though she had died in gentile error and idolatry. Likewise what he says, that the soul of the Emperor Trajan was similarly exempted from the pains of hell by the prayers of Gregory the Great, both of which you may read in Damascene’s oration, *On those who have departed in the faith*. Perhaps someone may for that reason adjudge that oration away from Damascene."

XXX. They answer Suarez that the force of that reasoning is not so great as to prove the assumption. For the books *De Fide Orthodoxa*, which are clearly Damascene’s, contain some things which infringe upon the stated axiom of Damascene, and uproot it entirely. Falsely, therefore, are the books *De Fide Orthodoxa* attributed to Damascene. Indeed, the commentaries on the images, which Trithemius even granted to our Damascene, are entirely emancipated by the reasoning of Suarez, and will be *ἀδέσποτοι* (ownerless). Since they also contain things which render that axiom empty. For the very same sentiment concerning the salvation of many, and their being called forth from the torments of hell, a sentiment which Damascene sets forth at length in the oration for the deceased, and confirms with the stories of Trajan and Falconilla, is asserted most clearly by the same author in his book *De Fide Orthodoxa*, ch. 29, and in book I *De Imaginibus*. And there ^C indeed with these words: *Κάτεισιν οὖν εἰς ᾅδην ψυχὴ τεθεωμένη, ἵν᾿ ὥσπερ τοῖς ἐν γῇ ὁ τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἀνέτειλεν Ἥλιος, οὕτω καὶ τοῖς ὑπὸ γῆν ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ καθημένοις ἐπιλάμψῃ τὸ φῶς· ἵν᾿ ὥσπερ τοῖς ἐν γῇ εὐηγγελίσατο εἰρήνην, αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν, καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν, καὶ τοῖς μὲν πιστεύσασι γέγονεν αἴτιος σωτηρίας αἰωνίου, τοῖς δὲ ἀπειθήσασιν ἀπιστίας ἔλεγχος· οὕτω καὶ τοῖς ἐν ᾅδου, ἵν᾿ αὐτῷ πᾶν γόνυ κάμψῃ ἐπουρανίων, καὶ ἐπιγείων, καὶ καταχθονίων.* "The deified soul descends into Hades, in order that, just as for those on earth the Sun of righteousness has risen, so for those sitting under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death, light might shine; and that, just as for those on earth he preached peace, remission to captives, sight to the blind, and became the cause of eternal salvation to those who believed, but to those who did not obey, a refutation of their unbelief, so also for those in Hades, that unto him every knee might bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth." And here: *Καὶ ἀφ᾽ οὗ κατελθὼν εἰς ᾅδην ταῖς ἀπ' αἰῶνος πεπεδημέναις ψυχαῖς, ὡς αἰχμαλώτοις ἐκήρυξεν ἄφεσιν, ὡς τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν.* "And from the time he descended into Hades, he preached remission as to captives and sight to the blind to the souls bound from the ages." And in the oration *On Holy Saturday*, so that you may perceive the perpetual doctrine in Damascene from this too, he asserts the same thing: *Αὐτὸς δὲ τῶν πονηρῶν τὰ σκῦλα, τοὺς ἀπ' αἰῶνος θανόντας κεκληρονόμηκεν, ἀπαλλάξας τούτους ὅσοι τῷ ζυγῷ τῆς ἁμαρτίας κατείχοντο· ἐν γὰρ ἀνόμοις καταλεχθεὶς τὴν εὐνομίαν ἐφύτευσε· τῶν δὲ ἀπειθούντων τὸ σπέρμα γέγονεν εἰς ἀπώλειαν, καὶ πένθος τῶν ἑορτῶν ἀντηλλάξατο, καὶ θρήνους ὑμνῶν ἀντήχησεν· ἡμῖν δὲ φῶς ἐκ σκότους ἀνέτειλε, καὶ ζωὴ προῆλθεν ἐκ μνήματος, καὶ ἐξ ᾅδου πηγάζει ἀνάστασις, καὶ χαρὰ, καὶ θυμηδία, καὶ ἀγαλλίασις.* "He himself has inherited the spoils of the wicked, those who died from the ages, delivering those who were held by the yoke of sin; for being numbered among the lawless, he planted the law; the seed of the disobedient became for destruction, and he exchanged the mourning of the feasts, and made lamentations echo for hymns; but for us light has risen from darkness, and life has come forth from the tomb, and from Hades springs forth resurrection, and joy, and gladness, and exultation."

XXXI. And this opinion ^D seems to have been not only Damascene’s, but also that of many other doctors, and those the most approved in the Church. That I may not recount everyone here, and repeat what I have dealt with at length elsewhere, you may see Irenæus, book IV, ch. 45; Clement of Alexandria, books I and IV of the *Stromata*; Job the monk, in Photius’s *Bibliotheca*; Anastasius Sinaita, quæst. 3; Theodore the Studite, *Orat. catechet. de Pascha*; Theodorus Abucara, quæst. 12; Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople, *Orat. de resurrectione*, from whom he transcribed his own, as

the Damascene usually does, says: He celebrates the Resurrection with hymns, because in it freedom was granted to those held captive from the beginning of time, and sight was restored to the blind. And Eustratius, presbyter of the Church of Constantinople, in a truly golden treatise on whether souls after this life accomplish anything or whether suffrages for the dead are useful to them, speaks most clearly of all. Since the words are not easily available to everyone, I shall set them down: "The gates of death are opened. The wardens of Hades, seeing You, were terrified; and it is clear from this that the souls of all were held in the lower parts of the earth, which our Lord and God also drew up, by death trampling down death and shattering the gates of Hades. Whence the Evangelist also notes that many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose and appeared to many. 'Behold,' he said, 'they appeared.' And if this happened then, it is evident that they appear even now. For from that time the souls of the saints, having taken their beginning, will not cease to do this until the consummation. And regarding the releasing of souls from the dark and lowest places, which are indeed those places, it must be said of all souls, because the chief of the apostles said: 'For this reason He went and preached to the spirits in prison.' The Evangelist, however, declared that they appeared only concerning the saints, not concerning all. Whether these are the bodies of saints who had died long ago, or those of a few years past, or rather those who had died recently—which seems to me more truthful, because he says 'they appeared,' implying the freshness of the memory and their recognition by one another—those who saw this know, not everyone, but those to whom it was given to see, etc." But to You, the gates of death open with trembling, and the wardens of the infernal regions, upon seeing You, were struck with fear. Hence it becomes manifest that in the lowest parts of the earth the souls of all were detained, which our Lord God, trampling death by death, drew forth after shattering the gates of the underworld; wherefore the Evangelist also reports that the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep had risen and appeared to many. "Behold," he said, "they appeared." And if that was done then, it remains manifest that they appear now as well. For from that time forward, once the souls of the saints (XIX) had begun [this], they do not cease to perform the same thing until the end of the world. But about the release of souls from those gloomy and lowest places, whoever those souls may be, it must be asserted for all souls, since the prince of the apostles said: "For which reason He also went and preached to the spirits who were in prison." But the Evangelist affirmed that [they] appeared only regarding the saints, not concerning all. Truly, however, whether those were the bodies of persons who had already died long before, or a few years ago, or rather those who had recently departed—which seems more true to me, since he said "they appeared"—so that he might mark their recent memory and mutual recognition; this, not everyone knows, but those to whom it was given to know, etc. Nor does Gregory Nazianzenus appear different from these in his *Orat. in Pascha*. Indeed, the Greek Church seems to have embraced this same opinion, since it so frequently inculcates it, even to the point of annoyance, in its ecclesiastical books during the offices, as I myself had noted in my review of the said books: where I gathered into one place all the passages which seemed to favor this opinion, and I translated the sayings of the Fathers who affirm the same thing into a better sense, insofar as I was able. Wherefore it is in vain to recount here the passage from the Epistles of Peter as well. It is not, therefore, to be feared, as Suaresius greatly fears, that the Damascene speaks contrary to his own doctrine; since he establishes the cited axiom as the ordinary power of God, as the theologians say; those things, however, which are brought forward concerning Trajan and Falconilla commend an absolute power. And one must be careful lest, by this same reasoning, we strip the Damascene not only of his little oration for the dead, but also of many other of his principal monuments, in which this constant and so often repeated sentiment concerning the calling forth of many from the underworld is found, which he himself finally wished to confirm more extensively in this oration, lest even the slack-minded doubt the author of that work. Which souls Christ finally led out from the underworld, and what that preaching was, asserted by so many Fathers among them, and whether along with the souls of the just the souls of the impious also escaped, to obtain eternal salvation—since it is beyond my present purpose, and I have already said elsewhere that I have treated it at greater length, as also concerning the histories of Trajan and Falconilla, which are so greatly stressed in the monuments of more recent Greek writers—let him who wishes investigate. They are mere fables and trifles, believe me.

XXXII. Nogarola's judgment regarding the oration *pro defunctis*. Ludovicus Nogarola, in the Preface to Clement VII of this oration, which he himself had translated into Latin, writes: "Although I would not want anyone to suspect that this very thing was not truly ascribed to the Damascene, for the reason that it leans heavily upon the history of the Maccabees, which in the volume *De fide orthodoxa*, which everyone judges to be the legitimate work of the Damascene, he does not count among the number of the sacred books. For if anyone studies and examines both carefully and diligently, he will see without a doubt that it was done in a similar oration and style, and that it approaches very closely to the elocution of the great Dionysius the Areopagite, whose testimony, which is for the most part very weighty, he also frequently introduces." Nogarola himself does not respond to the objection concerning the books of the Maccabees, and he ought to have responded; and the more willingly, the lighter that objection was judged to be, so that he would not be compelled to adjudge the oration away from the Damascene, when he sells it to the supreme pontiff as the Damascene's. Wherefore neither shall we respond. Let those respond who think the same as Nogarola. Who, indeed, could bear with an equal mind, without revulsion, both works—namely, the *De fide orthodoxa* and this one on the dead—[by claiming they are] in a similar oration and style, and approach very closely to the elocution of the great Dionysius the Areopagite? The books *De fide orthodoxa* are grave, are divine, they are not mute; they rise up at times, and stir the wavering, and strengthen the hesitant, and strike the adversary most evidently and quite robustly. But what has this to do with areopagitic majesty, the dignity of forms, the grandeur of elocution, the composition of words, the sublimity of sentences? Damascene is grand, and sublime, and eloquent, provided you do not refer him to Dionysius; if you compare him with him, although he is forceful and acute, he nevertheless repeats himself, and, as in the schools, flows and teaches. Wherefore in this judgment Nogarola is entirely blind.

XXXIII. Whether it is truly John of Damascus's. Whether that oration is truly Damascene's, in vain we seek in the matter.

What I once stated elsewhere regarding this same subject in my examination of the ecclesiastical books of the Greeks, take here. For after the passages of the Damascene, set forth both in the books ^A *De fide orthodoxa* and in this Oration concerning those who have fallen asleep, I added these words: "But indeed, I know not what always seemed to me to smell of something else in that discourse; and, to tell the truth, I have never considered it a legitimate offspring of the Damascene; but, as often happens elsewhere, it was foisted upon the Damascene by scoundrels, that they might add grace and weight to the oration under the name of so great a Father." If you do not err from the works of the Damascene, you will perceive this with the greatest ease. This author is, in the first place, light and trifling, one who, dealing with the most serious subjects, plays as if it were a farce, stuffing the whole oration with verse and prose alike, with no purpose in his discourse. His diction and manner, if you rightly consider it, are base, gaping, sluggish, affected, childlike, and wonderfully different from the Damascene style; which, although it may not luxuriate in oratorical flowers and an accurate form of exposition, nevertheless flows unoffended, elegant in its facility, grave in content, clear in the weight of its judgments, severe, balanced, and divine. The verses of the Damascene, although they are at other times most elegant, always bright with chosen words, always convenient in the quantity of their syllables, and always innocent of errors: these, which are read in this discourse, if you remove only the count of the syllables, are always unkempt and rustic, uniform only in their deformity itself. To prove this, no argument will be more valid than the reading itself. Read, if you can, without disgust: by yourself alone, with no other guide, you will know me to be telling the truth. Add also what Arcudius conveys about this same oration, treating of Purgatory against Barlaam from the history of Trajan: "The Damascene is not ^B to be blamed for any reason. For he wrote sincerely what he had heard, placing faith in those things that were said for the sake of piety, neither diligently examining nor inquiring to know the truth." And these things we indeed admit, if the oration concerning those who sleep is truly from the Damascene. If not, it is not difficult to admit it is not his. For someone can be John, and a monk, and from the city of Damascus; yet not that Mansur, that scholastic and supreme theologian. But he who adapted the disciple of the elder to these, who are punished in hell perpetually together with the rich man according to the parable and history of blessed Lazarus, is contrary to the true Damascene. For he [the true Damascene] says in the seventh chapter of the second book of his *Theologica*: "What death is to men, the fall is to the angels. If therefore any angel, after he has fallen, has ever been saved; man also, being in the depths of hell, would have been saved, in which place Gentiles and infidels dwell together with the demons." For the saint says, "After the fall there is no repentance for them, just as there is not for men after death," and this is that which the divine Scripture says: "In hell, who will confess to thee?" namely, no one. But Pseudo-Damascene says: "In hell, confession has been made entirely." Furthermore, he says that those who believed were saved. Who, therefore, if he were being burned by fire, would not believe? Therefore he says in an admiring way, that this is said with a question: "Will few be saved?" as if he were saying that many and infinite numbers are saved; when, however, the sacred doctors confess the contrary; witnesses being the Gospel: "many indeed are called, but few are chosen;" and, "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way."

XXXIV. On the dialogue against the Manichaeans. — That the dialogue against the Manichaeans, published often and under various interpretations under the name of the Damascene, is by an uncertain author, not a few have affirmed; because in the Pinelli library it was read without the author's name, or under the name of an anonymous writer; but with what a futile argument! For what does it matter if a transcriber, or an amanuensis, did not put the author's name on the front of the book? In other codices, and those very ancient and of the best quality, that name is held. The oration of Demosthenes, *On the Crown*, I have often seen in codices, even the best ones, without a name, just as the books of Aristotle, *On Physics*, and the dialogues of Plato, and countless others. Shall the oration of Demosthenes, and the books *On Physics* of Aristotle, and the dialogues of Plato be spurious for this reason? And shall we seek out another writer for them? It is a sin. ^C

XXXV. Billius, in his notes on this same dialogue, seems to have doubted. For it is very strange to him that the Damascene discourses on the punishment of demons and of impious men in such a way as if he recognized only the punishment of loss, and not likewise of sense, and interpreted that vindicating fire only tropically. To this point look these words: «κόλασις ἐκείνη οὐδέν ἕτερόν ἐστιν, εἰ μὴ πῦρ ἀστοχίας τῆς ἐπιθυμίας.» That punishment is nothing else than the fire of a frustrated desire. So it must be translated, not as a certain otherwise very learned man [did], "the fire of inordinately and immoderately desiring." To this point also [look] those things which follow immediately: «Ἐπιθυμοῦντες οὖν, καὶ μὴ μετέχοντες τῆς ἐπιθυμίας, πυρὸς δίκην ὑπὸ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας καταφλέγονται.» Wishing therefore, and not partaking of the desire, they are scorched like fire by the desire. Where from these [XXI] "like fire," it is granted to be understood that the author takes the word "fire" improperly. And also below, dealing with the same matter, he constitutes this to be the sole punishment of the damned, namely, the non-partaking. For thus he speaks: «Ἔστι δὲ ἡ μὲν μετοχὴ Θεοῦ τρυφή, ἡ δὲ ἀμεθεξία (vitiose namque legitur, ἀνεξικακία) αὐτοῦ κόλασις.» Just as a little later he states this to be the punishment of the devil, the non-partaking of the eternal light. Finally, even speaking again about the damned, he uses these words: «Οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ πενθοῦντες τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ μὴ ἔχοντες τὰς ὕλας τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ὡς ὑπὸ πυρὸς καὶ σκώληκος κατεσθιόμενοι κολάζονται· τί γὰρ καὶ κόλασις ἑτέρα;» By which it is clearly evident that this author places the punishment of the impious only in the torture of the mind, and not also in bodily pain; which indeed brings suspicion to Billius that this book is not the Damascene's. For he, even in lib. II *De fide orthodoxa*, cap. 4, most openly hands down that for the devil, and those who follow him, fire is prepared that is never to be extinguished, and eternal torture: and at the end of the last cap. of lib. IV, he says that both demons and impious and wicked men will be handed over to eternal fire. Afterwards, perhaps, the matter being better considered, he acts more mildly. Or certainly, if we wish to attribute this dialogue to the Damascene, we shall say that he, who from the places cited above by me had principally constituted the punishment of sense, here thought the punishment of loss alone ought to be commemorated. Otherwise, for this impious dogma, that the punishment of sense of the damned...

^A is, as it were, a fiction, is something which not only does the countless testimony of Holy Scripture clearly refute, but the consenting doctrine of all the ancient Fathers has always exploded and rejected. How much more detestable, then, is the impiety of those whom, in this our own age, so incredibly prolific of monstrous errors and so miserable, it does not shame to hold, nor even to profess—both by word of mouth and in writing—the very same thing.

XXXVI. It is asserted of Damascene. — Nevertheless, since I see that this dialogue is fashioned in both its sentiments and its language exactly after the Damascene style, and as to all things refers to Damascene just as his other writings do, it will be sufficient if I demonstrate, in a few words, that the difficulties which Billius himself so greatly exaggerates—by which he would prevent the dialogue from being ascribed to him—are not at all alien to the doctrine of Damascene ^B or that of the other holy Fathers. Billius himself had not esteemed them of such weight that he should think, on that account, the dialogue unworthy of Damascene: "However it may be," he says, "this disputation is elegant, sharp, and learned, and clearly worthy to bear the name of Damascene: unless, perhaps, that matter, about which something has been noted, stands as an impediment to the dialogue being ascribed to him." But it is no impediment. For those things which are argued here concerning the first and only principle against the Manichaeans, in no less a solid than pious manner, you will find in the books *On the Orthodox Faith* in almost the same words and sentiments. ^C Not to recount here everything—so that we may understand how empty the Billian impediment is—we need only examine those things which touch upon the fire and the punishments of the damned. The punishments of the damned are the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense. I shall not delay. Others, however, add a third: the worm—not a physical one, for as the worm stings and corrodes, so the remorse of conscience, as they describe it, stings, lacerates, and afflicts. Others, lest there be a shortage of the very worst things, add a fourth: the ever-present sight of Lucifer and the other demons, and the sharp reproaches of those who are different. Whatever state of affairs may be, since in sin there is an aversion from the Infinite Good, it is necessary that punishment follow ^D but an infinite one: of loss, since the Infinite Good is lost; for indeed there is also a conversion to a finite and wavering good, and for this conversion, which is finite, a finite punishment is likewise owed, which is termed that of sense. But because the sinner deprives himself of remission and remains stubbornly fixed, that punishment is extended into infinity, which, although it does not respond to the quantity of the guilt, nevertheless responds to the irremissibility of it itself. Wherefore the punishment will be twofold: one of loss, the other of sense. Concerning the punishment of loss, there are most open testimonies in this dialogue; concerning the punishment of sense, none. What follows from this? Therefore, this dialogue will not be Damascene’s? Not everything must be declared at once. Nor is Billius to be reproached because, in his reasoning, he remains silent on many things, as if he had not said everything. It is enough if he has not omitted necessary things, or if his words have served the argument of the matter. Damascene is dealing with the Manichaeans, who laid the blame on God for having produced angels and men whom He knew would fall, and for later punishing them. Damascene replies that the punishments of demons and the damned are in no way from God, but that they procured them for themselves by sinning, and afterward, while they are continuously frustrated in what they desire, they are continuously tormented as well. But he says that this torment is nothing other than frustrated desire. It is so. But he laid down the punishment responding to guilt, and the most important and greatest one: namely, that which is infinite in itself, whereas the other has its infinity from elsewhere. Through which, he answers the Manichaeans' objection alone. For to be deprived of the Divine vision is the most grievous of all punishments, and greater than any other sensible punishment. Augustine: "To be alienated from the kingdom of God, to be deprived of a great multitude of God's sweetness, is such a great punishment that no torments we know can be compared to it." Chrysostom: "Some of the ignorant think it enough and desirable if they only escape Gehenna; but I say that there are torments much graver than Gehenna: to be removed and cast away from that glory. Postulate a thousand Gehennas and a thousand torments, nothing is such as to be excluded from glory, and to be held in hatred by God, and to hear: 'Depart, ye cursed.' This alone produces such torment that, even if no external punishment were to torment one, this alone would suffice: for it surpasses all the Gehennas of torment."

XXXVII. Even if one should say that in this same dialogue he mentions fire, which seems to be the punishment of sense; Billius will reply that the author uses the term "fire" improperly, since elsewhere Damascene says that the fire of the damned, with which they are punished, is inextinguishable. I truly marvel that Billius, so well-versed in the doctrine of Damascene, should bring these things forward concerning him. For although Damascene, in *de Fide orthodoxa*, lib. II, cap. 4, writes that the fire of the damned is inextinguishable and the torment eternal, in the final chapter of lib. IV, in which he treats professedly of what this fire is, he most openly confesses that the fire prepared for the devil and the other impious ones, although eternal, is nevertheless neither material nor like our own: *Καὶ παραδοθήσεται ὁ διάβολος, καὶ οἱ δαίμονες αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὁ ἄνθρωπος αὐτοῦ, ἤγουν ὁ Ἀντίχριστος, καὶ οἱ ἀσεβεῖς, καὶ οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον, οὐχ ὑλικὸν, οἷον τὸ παρ' ἡμῖν, ἀλλ' οἷον οἶδεν ὁ Θεός*. "And the devil, and his demons, and his man, that is to say the Antichrist, and the impious and flagitious men shall be cast into eternal fire, not consisting of matter like this of ours, but such as God knows." What could be said more clearly here? Is not the author the same who speaks such consistent things in these books and in the dialogue?

XXXVIII. Many piously explain Damascene, not that he denied the fire, but that such fire is of such a nature in its operations as the fire we have. For there is a great difference between this one and that: this one is extinguishable and luminous, consuming those things upon which it acts, and having no action upon spiritual and incorporeal substances: that one is eternal, inextinguishable, dark, and not diffusing light, neither consuming bodies, nor punishing all in an equal manner. Well, therefore, did Damascene say that the damned are tormented *δίκην πυρός* [after the manner of fire], since that fire is not in all respects like ours: nor must it be asserted on that account that he used the term "fire" improperly there. For although it is certain that souls are punished by fire, he nevertheless thought that the manner of punishment is hidden from every man, to whom God has not revealed it. And therefore it is called corporeal, because it is going to afflict the bodies of the damned after the resurrection. But now, truly, that souls are tormented by the apprehension of future evil, and by the contemplation, and by the fear of that future fire, they become inflamed; and this...

to a greater or lesser degree of more or less intense torture, to which they know they are adjudged. For just as the reward of the blessed, before they are united to their bodies, consists in the joy of the reality of the divine vision and the joy of hope (for so theologians speak concerning the glorification of the body), so too the punishment of the reprobate is a vehement sadness for the lost divine vision, and a vehement fear of the future torture of the body. And this fire, conceived only by the mind, through which the absent future burning of the body mightily afflicts the souls, once the bodies are resumed, being truly corporeal, will truly burn the bodies: just so do they say that the fire which burns the spirit is called fire by analogy and adaptation; for their spiritual pain cannot be expressed otherwise than by fire. And just as the blessed spirits, attaining their end and not delighting in any other corporeal thing, are said by analogy to see and to be refreshed, which are corporeal things: by a like reasoning, the demons, separated from the end by which they would be perfectly fulfilled, are said, not in any corporeal thing, but by analogy, to burn with fire and to be afflicted by foul stenches, which are corporeal, and to be tormented in the loss and privation of their end by sadness and pain. Hence I am persuaded that Billius did not rightly reject this dialogue from the works of Damascene, and others will persuade themselves of the same if they compare what is related here with other writings of Damascene ^C and weigh the matter more accurately [XXIII]. This is so most especially because I see it asserted by the ancients that Damascene drew his pen against the Manichaeans. In the Canon on said Damascene for 4 December, ode 1, Tropar 2: "Thou didst fervently denounce the blasphemous impiety of the ill-named pupils of Manes, which attempted to defile the Church of Christ, with the orthodox words and dogmas, O John, which thou hast composed." Thou didst bitterly oppose the blasphemous impiety of the wretched pupils of Manes, which attempted to seduce the Church of Christ, with prayers and right dogmas, in which, O John, thou hadst interspersed thy writings.

XXXIX. Concerning the *Book on Heresies*. — That Damascene wrote on heresies, I do not doubt, since he himself promises that he will write about them after his philosophical treatises in the Preface to Cosmas, bishop of Majuma: "Then, following these, I will compile the babblings of the God-hated heresies, to the end that, by recognizing falsehood, we may more firmly embrace the truth." However, that this little book on heresies is his can be refuted by no light argument. For he writes in *On the Aerians* that Aerius, while he was writing, was attempting to prolong his life; but he could not, for he who lived in the age of Epiphanius could not prolong his life unto the times of Damascene. Wherefore Billius asserts in his notes that these words were added by someone who perhaps received them from Epiphanius. For he, in heresy 76, which is against the Aerians, speaking of him, uses these words: "Who even now lives in the flesh and survives" — or perhaps by "Aerius," the error of Aerius is to be understood.

XL. What need is there for more words? Since the first part of this little book is not by Damascene in regards to the Nestorian heresy, but is entirely verbatim either added by Damascene himself, who placed it before his *On Heresies*, or by another, so that a complete history of heresies might be had without the emendation of other books, it was transcribed from the *Ancyrotus* of Epiphanius. This I later found noted by the most learned Fronto Ducaeus in his notes. I first observed that this book contains nothing other than an epitome of the heresies ^D refuted in the *Panarion* of Epiphanius, which epitome you will find in two places in the Greek Basilian edition of the same Epiphanius of 1544, page 2 and page 519. But since Epiphanius had only brought the enumeration of the eighty heresies down to his own times, Damascene appended other subsequent ones, beginning from the Nestorians down to the Mahumetans.

XLI. Wherefore, since the preceding Greek text can be sought from Epiphanius, Ducaeus took care to have printed in Greek only those things which were edited by Damascene, but those which were lacking in Perionius’s translation, in both Greek and Latin: then if anything had occurred while he compared the Latin translation with the author's words, he interspersed it in the notes, in which he also judged it necessary to indicate the various readings of both the printed and the manuscript codex. Others have done the same in similar subject matter. For the prior works, arranged and disposed by the study of others, they kept as they were, and putting them before their own works, they themselves later appended what had happened up to their own times, leaving one absolute work for posterity. This is often found to have occurred in the practice of Chronologists. Hence, one might separate the Damascenica from the Epiphaniana. I, however, do not doubt that Damascene compiled this compendium from Epiphanius and others who have written on heresies. For he himself openly confesses that he has nothing of his own, but has drawn everything from the writings of the Fathers, chapter 2: "Therefore, I will say nothing of my own, but rather arrange in a compendium whatever has been said dispersedly by divine and learned men." It is further gathered from the *Index August.*, subsell. 2, *Theolog.*: "John Damascene on heresies, taken from Epiphanius, Theodoret, Timothy, and Sophronius, Archbishop of Jerusalem." And from the Vatican codex 1182, in which is contained: "Of Epiphanius, Archbishop of Constantia in Cyprus; or according to some, of Damascene; on heresies in brief, and whence they began, and whence they arose." And in the same place later, just as in the tomes of Epiphanius, the diverse heresies are disposed, which I also noted in the Barberini manuscript codex. It is therefore true that this compendium of heresies is for the greater part read in Epiphanius: and it is likewise true that Damascene transcribed it from thence, and appended to the work those many [XIV] that had arisen in the Church after Epiphanius.

XLII. Concerning the *Book against the Acephali* or rather the Jacobites. — In the same way also concerning the little book

regarding the same, it is necessary to proceed against the Acephali. For many things in it are similar to those which Leontius writes against the Acephali, so that it is probable that the Damascene irrigated his own garden plots from the fountains of Leontius. See the Preface of Canisius to the reader, which he prefixed to the little book. And not only in this little book does the Damascene copy Leontius, but in others he also transcribes into his own writings the sentiments of other holy Fathers and men of great name ^A, and passages torn from their context for the convenience of the matter he was treating, very often even without mentioning their names. The keen, lively, ready, curious, and vehement genius of the Damascene is always undertaking and perfecting many things, which he afterwards adorns with the sayings and sentiments of the Fathers, so that they might go forth as firmer, more ornate, and more desirable. Nor did he himself deny this of himself, who writes that he imitates the bee: “And I shall, with God, set forth... Truth—the destroyer of error and the expeller of falsehood—which has been beautified and adorned like golden fringes with the words of divinely inspired prophets, apostles taught by God, and God-bearing shepherds and teachers, by his grace... I say nothing of my own, as I have said, but having collected together the labors of outstanding teachers, I shall make the discourse as concise as my ability permits.” And thus, at length, bringing destruction to error and driving out falsehood, I shall commit to writing that truth which is adorned, as if with golden fringes, by the discourses of prophets who were inspired by God, and of apostles whom God taught, and of divine shepherds and teachers, with God and his grace favoring me. And: “Moreover, as I have already said, I shall bring forward nothing of my own, but gathering together what has been elaborated by each of the most outstanding masters, I shall make a brief and compendious discourse, as far as it can be done.” Who would not fix in the inner parts of his mind and heart a doctrine so adorned, prudently founded, and received safely, securely, and with open arms? This is to write truly and holily. ^B

XLIII. Concerning the letters falsely attributed to the Damascene. — Many, likewise, have fabricated letters under the name of the Damascene, enemies of such great virtue, who were afterwards convicted of falsity not without a miracle, which betrayed their author. John of Jerusalem thus exposed the fraud and artifices of Leo the Isaurian in his *Life*: “The emperor commanded them to put on the mask of piety, and to make it their business to find a letter written in the hand of John. The auxiliaries of wickedness left nothing untried, concealing their guile, and searching for what they were commanded, until they found it and handed it to the emperor. And he, having called together some of the copyists of John's writings, set before them the patterns for imitation, both the character of the writing as it was in his mind, and as it was in his words. He found, therefore, those capable of serving this purpose, and he ordered them to scribe a letter as if from John to the infamous emperor himself, along the lines of the following aim.” The emperor, having summoned some who were associates of his own opinion, commanded them that, having assumed the persona of piety, they should take great pains and, using various fabrications, see to it that the letter of John, which he had written with his own hand, once found, should be returned to him. The ministers and champions of impiety, therefore, obeying the king’s command, devised every possible trick under the guise of piety, until they could offer it once found. Moreover, the ignominious king called for notaries and, proposing examples of John’s letters, asked if they could imitate the character of the script, both in its words and in its sentiments. In which matter he found those who complied with his will, and who wrote a little letter to him, of this sort. And this indeed is feigned as if from John to Leo. There are also others which are said to have been sent by the same, while he was staying in Byzantium, to the prince of the Saracens, and they are detected as false in many ways: because it was in the time of Theodosius, when the Damascene did not yet exist; because it was from Byzantium, in which he had never been; because it was to the prince of the Saracens, who at that time were entirely hiding; and because they are referred to in the deeds of the Damascene, which have no authority among sensible men, but are condemned as false on many counts. And, that you may form a judgment about them from reading them, I shall append the one which Vincentius reports. It is written to the friends in Persia: “To the beloved friends who are in Persia, John the Damascene, the least, sends greetings. You should know that the emperor has sent the strength of his army to various wars in foreign nations, and the royal city and its environs remain void of men. Since, therefore, you are wise, come safely, and manfully seize the victory prepared for you without delay.” Jacob Gretser, in *On Prohibited Books*, lib. II, cap. 5, regarding these same epistles: “Who is ignorant that the epistles forged in the name of Saint John Damascene by the impious Iconoclasts brought the Damascene into nearly ultimate danger?” But the author of the oration *On the Sunday of Orthodoxy*, which is read in manuscript in the Barberini Library, makes mention of his genuine epistles: “When he [the tyrant] commanded that the images in the holy temples be obliterated, and commanded Christians not to venerate them in any way, John, burning with divine zeal from Damascus, sent letters to the Orthodox, in which he showed by irrefutable proofs and testimonies from Holy Scripture that those who read them were necessarily persuaded to hold the holy icons in veneration and to despise the command of the tyrant. Upon learning this, the tyrant, out of calumny, ordered his hand to be cut off, which God restored whole through the prayers of the all-pure Lady.” When he had commanded that images in the divine temples be abolished, and had ordered Christians in no way to venerate them, John Damascene, burning with divine zeal, sent letters to the Orthodox, in which he demonstrated, with proofs difficult to overcome and with testimonies from Holy Scripture—to such an extent that the readers were necessarily persuaded—that images were to be held in veneration, and that the tyrant’s commands were to be neglected. When the tyrant heard this, he, with fabricated calumnies, ordered his hand to be cut off, which God restored whole to him through the prayers of the most holy Lady (a).

XLIV. Concerning the history of Barlaam and Josaphat. — The history of Barlaam and Josaphat, which is possessed by Vincentius in his *Speculum historiale*, lib. xv, per cap. 64, is distinguished from the ancient version [and is] slightly contracted; and more contracted in Petrus de Natalibus in his *Catalogus*, lib. x, c. 114. The complete [version is] from

the ancient version in the *Vitas Patrum* from the Cologne edition, and in Lipomanus, vol. V; Surius, vol. VI; Rosweydus in the *Vitas Patrum Orientalium*, and in Latin only among the works of Damascene, and afterwards translated more accurately by Billius among the same works. ^A That Damascene wrote it, the *Roman Martyrology* of November 27th hands down: Among the Indians neighboring the Persians, [lived] the saints Barlaam and Josaphat, whose wonderful deeds Saint John Damascene wrote down. And Patriarch Gennadius, for the Council of Florence, chap. 5: «Not less does John, the great eye of Damascus, bear witness in the life of Barlaam and Josaphat of the Indians, thus:» And John, the great eye of Damascus, in the *Life of Barlaam and Josaphat of the Indians*, exhibits their testimony in these words. Although Billius may think that it does not much concern the reader whose it is, provided it is pious or worth reading—as indeed it truly is—he does not doubt that it is the offspring of Damascene. «For to omit,» he says, «that Trapezuntius, a man Greek by nation, and of great renown not only among his own, but also among ours, testifies that no other than Damascene is its author, next, to confirm that opinion, it is of great moment to me that in the books *On the Orthodox Faith* and nearly all the rest, Damascene freely collects many things from Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and other Fathers of the same stamp, and often borrows whole verses, or even entire periods, from them. ^B In the same way, in this history too, I have noticed that many things from the same authors are produced with the name suppressed for a time, and especially from Nazianzen, as in chaps. 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 17, 20, 24, and in most other places. Add that not only does he freely take from them, but he also brings forward many things from the books *On the Orthodox Faith* transcribed word for word, as all those things which he discusses in chap. 15 concerning free will. Finally, chap. 19, that disputation concerning images, which was burning in Damascene’s age, confirms me not a little in the same opinion. But just as all these things make for Damascene, so do they most openly prove that this history is by no means by John the Sinaite. For since he was in the time of Theodosius the Elder, as is clear from book XIII of the *Historiæ miscellæ* of Paul the Deacon, how could he, in this history—which the author testifies was translated from India—have cited Nazianzen, whose writings were scarcely in the hands of men, and also the bishop older than him, Basil, who finished his life in the time of Valens, suppressed though the name be, in chap. 19, where he treats of images, and chap. 34, where Josaphat has that prayer to God which he clearly drew from ch. 1 of Basil’s *Constitutions*? ^C In the same way, how could he bring in Barlaam discoursing to the king’s son concerning images, when that question had not yet been stirred up at that time?» Thus far Billius.

XLV. Bellarmine, in *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, seems to have called it into doubt, as he did the oration *For the Departed*. The *History of Barlaam and Josaphat* [XXVI] is notable and useful. But because Barlaam, when he instructs his disciple Josaphat, orders him to believe in the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son, a doubt has arisen whether this work could be of John Damascene, who in book 1 *De fide orthod.*, chap. 11, teaches that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, but through the Son; but it can be answered that in the *History of Barlaam*, that little phrase, *from the Son*, seems added by someone; for in the new edition corrected by Billius, *from the Son* is not there. Hence some ill-sane person, I know not who, seems to himself to triumph against Bellarmine, and says that the reasoning is so cogent that it can be avoided in no way except by erasing from the text those words, *and the Son*: which evidence of fact testifies that Billius did in the new edition, and Bellarmine himself, who, to consult for Billius’s reputation, lest he appear a plagiarist, quibbles that the little phrase, *from the Son*, seems added by someone. ^D But the calumny of this worst of quibblers against Bellarmine will be shown more than enough from those things which we shall say below. Nor does Possevinus in the *Apparatus*, under John Damascene, recite otherwise than Billius and Bellarmine. And Vossius, *De historicis Græcis*, lib. II, chap. 24: «But here another thing also comes into controversy: Whether this history of Damascene is genuine. It scarcely seems so. For in it the king’s son is ordered to believe in the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son. Which is repugnant to Damascene’s opinion, as is clear from book 1 *De fide*, chap. 11. Nor do I see how this difficulty can be met, unless we say that those things were added by the Latins. Certainly they are not in the Billian edition, whether Billius removed them against the faith of the ancient codices, or earlier people added them.»

XLVI. Matthæus Raderus, in the *Isagoge* to John Climacus’s *Ladder*, chap. 1, examines and refutes Billius’s opinion concerning John the Sinaite. For since in most manuscript codices that history is inscribed to John the Sinaite, as in the Fumaeus codex, which Billius refers to, and in the Sfortiana codex 63, which Baronius notes in the *Martyrology*, Raderus adds codex 205 of the Bavarian library and Heidelberg 200. Some have thought that the writer of that history was John Climacus, who also is called the Sinaite. Billius had disapproved of that in many ways, as we have seen; and Raderus [disapproves] of Billius’s reasoning from the authority of Paul the Deacon. For the Deacon says nothing about the Sinaite, not even in a dream, and John the Deacon is very different from the Sinaite. For that monk of the Deacon, the seer of Theodosius, lives his life in Egypt and the Thebaid: the Sinaite was far from the Thebaid, an inhabitant of Mount Sinai, in which he administered the prefecture of the monks for many years, which he afterwards left to his own brother by blood: he never lived with Theodosius, but one hundred and eighty-five years after Theodosius. With these, Billius’s reasoning falls, since that Theodosian John has nothing to do with the Sinaite.

XLVII. With these and other things, Raderus concludes that this offspring concerning Barlaam and Josaphat appears to be neither of John the Sinaite, nor of Damascene, much less of that Egyptian John; but of John the monk from the monastery of Saint Sabas, and that the manuscript catalog of the Heidelberg Palatine library, no. 368, testifies to this, where these words are read: *The Life of Barlaam and Joasaph, from the inner region of the Ethiopians, or that called that of the Indians, translated to the holy city by John the monk from the brotherhood of Saint Sabas*. In Greek they are:

The soul-benefiting history of the people of the Ethiopians, of the region called that of the Indians, translated to the holy city by John the monk, a man honorable and virtuous, of the monastery of...

Saint Sabas, in which is the life of Barlaam and Josaphat, of the famous and blessed ^A ones. Nor does it differ from that which was read in the Altempsian library: *A soul-profiting narrative from the interior region of the Ethiopians, of the land called that of the Indians, brought to the holy city through John the monk of the monastery of Saint Sabas*. Nor is it a different one, which is expressed in the Scoriac library in Spain thus: *Joannis Monachi expositio de S. Barlaam, et Josaphat* (John the Monk’s exposition on St. Barlaam and Josaphat). And it is clearly and explicitly handed down in the library of the Republic of Augsburg, no. 79: *Joannis Monachi, ἀνδρὸς τιμίου καὶ ἐναρέτου μονῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Σάββα, historia interioris India Indorum Ethiopia, continens vitam Barlaami et Joasaphi* (Of John the Monk, an honorable and virtuous man of the monastery of Saint Sabas, the history of interior India of the Ethiopians, containing the life of Barlaam and Joasaph): And in the Bavarian library, no. 17: *Narratio utilis ex interiore Ethiopum regione, quæ India dicitur, ad sanctam civitatem perlata per Joannem archimandritam monasterii Sancti Sabæ* (A useful narrative from the interior region of the Ethiopians, which is called India, brought to the holy city by John, archimandrite of the monastery of Saint Sabas). This book is inscribed *Barlaam*, and it is that very history which is commonly attributed to Damascenus. These points, although he is called Damascenus and John, and he had retired to the monastery of Sabas, do not draw it to Damascenus, since in all the library indices where his works are registered, ^B he is always called Damascenus [XXVII]. For in this work also, just as in other monuments of Damascenus, we would have had Damascenus in the title. Moreover, opinions and passages pulled from Damascenus, Basil, and Gregory prove nothing, since what has been made public can be usurped by anyone.

XLVIII. John Climacus is not the author of the history of Barlaam and Josaphat. Raderus easily understands that John the Sinaite, or Climacus, is not the author of this History, not for the reason which Billius brings forward—who confuses the Sinaite with the Egyptian and thinks they are the same—but because in the age of the Sinaite no question or contention had arisen in the Church concerning the veneration or abolition of holy images, which was agitated in the age of Damascenus by the Isaurian and Copronymus; yet in the History of Barlaam, ch. 19, there is a lengthy dispute about the adoration of images. He suspects, moreover, that something in the name of John the Sinaite had been altered and should have been written "John the Sabaite," because he was a monk who lived and wrote in the monastery of Saint Sabas. I myself add that the name "Sabaite" is not so foreign and new, but was already accepted by custom in the histories of the Fathers; and not to go far, in the *Life of John Climacus*, by an anonymous author, mention is made of John the Sabaite, most noted monk: *Ὁ ἐπιστάτης αὐτοῦ ὁ ἀββᾶς Μαρτύριος ἀπῆλθε πρὸς τὸν μέγαν Ἰωάννην τὸν Σαβαΐτην, ἐν τῇ τοῦ Γουδδᾶ ἐρήμῳ τότε διάγοντα* (His prefect, the abbot Martyrius, went to the great John the Sabaite, who was then living in the desert of Gudda). And the Greeks in the Menologion on July 13 and October 28 commemorate Stephanus the Sabaite among the saints, *καὶ τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Στεφάνου τοῦ Σαβαΐτου, μαθητοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου Σάββα* (and of our holy father Stephanus the Sabaite, disciple of Saint Sabas). S. P. N. Stephani Sabaitæ, sancti Sabæ discipuli; and on the 16th and 2nd: *Martyres Sabaitas* (the Sabaite Martyrs). Likewise, in the Barberini library, cod. 72, are read some things from the hundred chapters pertaining to monastic perfection by Theodore bishop and Sabaite. And, if my memory does not fail me, among the poems of Tzetzes are held iambics on the Sabaite monk. I also take the name "Sabaite," given by heretics as a reproach to Catholics, from Cyril of Scythopolis in the *Life of Saint Sabas*: *Καὶ εἴ τινα ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ πόλει μοναχὸν ὀρθόδοξον ἑώρων, τοῦτον διὰ κοσμικῶν τινων τύπτοντες, καὶ Σαβαΐτην ἀποκαλοῦντες, τῆς ἁγίας ἀπήλαυνον πόλεως* (And if they saw any orthodox monk in the holy city, they would beat him through certain seculars, and calling him a Sabaite, they would drive him from the holy city).

XLIX. It is asserted for John Damascenus. I, ^C nevertheless, with Billius, acknowledge Damascenus as the writer of this History, whatever Raderus may argue to the contrary from the variety of titles. Truly he will not deny this, that there are many more codices which prefer Damascenus to us; and not to go further, in codices 59 and 201 of the same Palatine library. The title is framed thus: *Ἱστορία ψυχωφελὴς ἐκ τῆς ἐνδοτέρας τῶν Αἰθιόπων χώρας, τῆς Ἰνδῶν λεγομένης, ἀπελθόντων τιμίων ἀνδρῶν πρὸς τὴν ἁγίαν πόλιν ἐν τῇ μονῇ τοῦ ἁγίου Σάββα, καὶ ἀπαγγειλάντων, συγγραφεῖσα παρὰ Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ* (A soul-profiting history from the interior region of the Ethiopians, called that of the Indians, of honorable men arriving at the holy city in the monastery of Saint Sabas, and reporting it, written by John Damascenus). And in cod. Vaticano 1724: *Ἱστορία ψυχωφελὴς ἐκ τῆς ἐνδοτέρας τῶν Αἰθιόπων χώρας, τῆς Ἰνδῶν λεγομένης, Βαρλαάμ τε καὶ Ἰωσάφατ, συγγραφεῖσα παρὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ καὶ ποιητοῦ* (A very useful history, from the interior region of the Ethiopians, called that of the Indians, Barlaam and Josaphat, written by our holy Father John Damascenus, and poet). Agapius too, a monk, who published that history in the common Greek language in Venice, ascribes it to John Damascenus: he would not have ascribed it if he had not found the name of Damascenus expressed in the manuscript codices from which he had his own. And those who omit the name of Damascenus do not add things that might move us away from Damascenus, since all things are attributed to Damascenus. For he himself donned the monk in the monastery of Sabas; whence truly, *ἀνὴρ τίμιος καὶ ἐναρέτος μονῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Σάββα* (an honorable and virtuous man of the monastery of Saint Sabas). He is called "a man honorable and studious in the monastery of Saint Sabas." And he is called "monk of the community of Saint Sabas." It is more in doubt how he can be called a Sinaite. It is traditional for Greek monks not only to take names for themselves from the place in which they give their vows to religion, but also from the institute and the manner of life which they embrace. For those who direct their life according to the rules of Theodore the Studite and deal with ecclesiastical [XXXVIII] affairs, or are admitted in a place subject to the Studite, even if they are not included in the Studite monastery, nonetheless claim the name of Studites for themselves. I have known many on the island of Chios who had never even in a dream beheld the holy mountain, yet were called Hagiorites because they followed the institutes of the Hagiorites; just so, there are many Sinaites for us who have never been on Mount Sinai. In this same way, could Damascenus have been called a Sinaite, either because the place in which he exercised himself was subject to the Sinaites, or because he followed the institutes of the Sinaites? We can also say that the name of Sinaite was appended to that person by some ignorant man; which ought not to be of such importance, even if it is present in some codices, as to infringe upon the testimony of a great number of other codices. Besides, it is false to suppo-

suppose that Raderus, in all the works of the Damascene, always has the name "Damascene" affixed. I have myself seen very many of his works, some of which are [inscribed] *Joannis monachi* (of John the monk); others *Joannis presbyteri* (of John the priest); others *Joannis minimi* (of John the least); others merely *Joannis* (of John), and they are not for that reason adjudged to be outside the genuine writings of the Damascene, especially if in other codices the name of the Damascene is placed at the head of the same treatises. As for what Bellarmine finally says, that the phrase "from the Son" was added by someone, this is true, and it is made plain by the translation of Billius and by manuscript codices which do not have it. However, regarding this matter and the Damascene’s opinion on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, see what we have discussed at length concerning the consensus of both Churches, book II, chapter 2, number 8, etc.

L. Therefore, the Damascene wrote this history when the whole of Syria, Egypt, and other parts of Asia were yielding to the most unjust empire of the Saracens: so that, in the midst of calamities and the detriment of their religion and fortunes, they might be rendered more prudent and alleviate their own miseries. While I read the history, I do not merely contemplate the misery of that age, the sacred buildings of the Christians deserted and desolate, and the ceremonies lost, but I seem to see it with my own eyes and to walk, in a way, among the most depraved enemies of the true religion.

LI. ^A Whether this history is true or a fiction. — But there will be that greater doubt: Is this narrative a true history, or is it rather composed to instruct noble adolescents, such as the *Life of Cyrus* in Xenophon, the *Life of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina* by Antonio de Guevara, the bishop of Mondoñedo, and Thomas More’s *Utopia*, not to mention others? Those to whom everything put forward under the names of the saints smells foul—just as they most impudently prate that Saints George, Christopher, Hippolytus, Catherine, and others never existed in the nature of things, whom Serrarius recounts and rejects in his *Litaneuticon*, lib. II, quæst. 16—are of the opinion that the whole history of Barlaam and Josaphat flowed from the brain of John of Damascus, who was devising one thing after another; and that the author, under these specious names, ^B set forth the true faith in God, the plots of the impious to abolish it, the perseverance of the pious in preserving it, and then at last the turmoil of life at court, its dangers, deceits, and the peace, security, and leisure of monastic and solitary life, and finally that all, who while they live serve God because they live usefully, embrace all sufferings and exercises which are most profitable to them, and when they are dead they are admitted to the perpetual possession of eternity and the joy by which they are empowered to behold God, being happy and no less celebrated by miracles than while they lived.

LII. Although I myself know that in similar narratives many things have been invented by human ingenuity, which the Fathers have condemned, and which I discuss elsewhere in this same work; ^C yet, since mention of Barlaam and Josaphat is made not only in the *Menæa* of the Greeks but also in the Roman Martyrology—whose history, of course, the Damascene had written; the *Menæa* of August 16: τοῦ ὁσίου Ἰωάσαφ υἱοῦ Ἀβενὴρ τοῦ βασιλέως (of the holy Josaphat, son of King Abener); the *Martyrology* of November 27: *Among the Indians inhabiting the borders of Persia, [the monks] Barlaam and Josaphat*—and there is also read a canon on the same holy Josaphat by some Philip, I know not who, whose acrostic is *τῆς τῶν παθῶν ῥῦσαί με ἀχύος, Πάτερ* (Deliver me, Father, from the darkness of the passions), I am nowise led to believe that this history was a fabrication. Respecting these, the manuscript *Floriarium* which Rosweydus cites says, on September 29: *Josaphat, king and confessor.* And on December 27: *Josaphat, king and hermit, in the year of salvation 383.* From where the *Floriarium* derived this age, I do not know, ^D [XXIX] adds Rosweydus. And I would say they are more ancient, since trust must be had in this narration. For the struggles of Josaphat are preached at a time when all the kings of the world and illustrious men were worshiping gods. Chapter 26: *Since great and preeminent men, by whom all wisdom and knowledge were invented, call them sublime and immortal gods, and all the kings of the earth and illustrious men worship and venerate them: how is it that you sharpen your tongue against them and rush into such audacity as to propose these things?* These things, in truth, could only have been so before the times of Emperor Constantine—the three-hundredth year of Christ, or thereabouts—when almost the entire world was wrapped in the thick darkness of idols. And in the year 383, under Theodosius, the Christian religion had occupied not only parts of the Roman Empire but had penetrated to the Indians and Persians. Rightly, therefore, does Billius say: *But as regards the truth of the history itself, for certain reasons which it does not behoove us to recount here, it might perhaps have seemed to some that this work is not a true history, but rather, under the guise of history, a tacit exhortation to monastic life and one calculated for Christian perfection, had not the author at the end testified that he received it from men who were strangers to the crime of lying.* To distrust him therefore, when he so declares, would seem to me to be the act of a man who attributes more to his own suspicions than to Christian charity, which believes all things. Bellarmine adds: *Furthermore, that it is a true history is evident from the fact that Saint John of Damascus, at the end of the history, invokes Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, whose deeds he had written, and the Catholic Church venerates them as recorded in the Martyrology.* I myself conclude with Rosweydus in the *Vitae Patrum Orientalium*: I hardly doubt that the foundation of the whole history is true. Perhaps certain disputations about some mysteries of the faith were either added or expanded by the author. For how could Josaphat, recently converted to the faith, arm himself with so many passages of Scripture if he had never read it? Could he not have spoken by the dictation of the Spirit or the suggestion of the Divine? Matthew x, 18: *And you shall be led before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not take thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given to you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.* And Luke xii, 2: *But when they shall bring you into the synagogues and to magistrates and powers, be not solicitous how or what you shall answer, or what you shall say.*

^A For where the Spirit is teacher, and whets the tongue for speaking, it is in vain that we fill our breasts with the reading of Scriptures. I have read of infants, boys, simple women, unrefined men, and those ignorant of letters fighting in contentions and struggles, and pleading the cause of their faith most eloquently before most eloquent men and most talkative tyrants, so much did the Spirit impel them. It is not my intention, however, to assert that those discourses which Damascene inserts here were dictated by the Holy Spirit with the same words and sentiments; for while this might be said of those which Barlaam and Josaphat held, it could in no way be said of others, which, having been poured forth by wicked and impious men, could only have been vomited out by a diseased spirit. But in whatever way Damascene may have arranged and fashioned them so they seem not implausible, they must always be deemed true, as is the history in which they are inserted; and this could have happened by the example not only of profane writers, but also of ecclesiastical writers, who, in relating true events, have used similar discourses; nor have they been condemned for falsehood on that account, except by men of unsound mind.

LIII. *Who was the first Latin interpreter of this history.* — And so much for the truth of the history. What, then, of the interpreter? There exists an ancient version under the name of George of Trebizond, published along with the works of Damascene by the Basilians in the year 1548. Yet it is much older than Trebizond, since Vincent in his *Speculum historiale* used it one hundred and fifty years before Trebizond; nor is it different from that which is found copied in old parchments here and there in the libraries of Italy long before the age of Trebizond, as is clearly conjectured from the books themselves, the condition of the parchment, and other things. And on account of the errors, and those most foul, in the said version, Billius seems to doubt whether it is by Trebizond, and judged it thus: "Of the version of Trebizond, I will say nothing other than that it has always seemed to me very unrefined and unskilled; but afterward (when, through John of St. Andrew, a most excellent and learned man, and also one well-equipped with a supply of excellent and very learned books, a copy of the Greek exemplar was provided) it also seemed faulty in countless places." Which I should certainly more willingly attribute to excessive haste than to ignorance of the Greek language, were there not too many places in which the interpreter can scarcely deprecate the mark of ignorance under the excuse of haste. This raises a not insignificant suspicion in me that Trebizond might not be the author of this version, unless I had discovered that in certain other works he very often did not sufficiently grasp the Greek. However the matter may be, you have a new translation from us, if nothing else, certainly, if I am not mistaken, a little clearer and more faithful than the preceding one. Heribert Rosweyde agrees with Billius in his notes on the *Lives of the Fathers*: "There exists also another ancient version which they suppose to have been procured by George of Trebizond, under whose name it is issued in the edition of Damascene in the year 1548 at Basel from the workshop of Henricus Petri. To me, the old translation seems much older than Trebizond. For it is found in manuscript parchments, and already 300 years ago, Vincent used that translation in the *Speculum historiale* cited above. Trebizond, however, lived within the memory of our fathers, not yet 150 years having elapsed." Gaspar Barthius, *Adversaria*, lib. XLI, cap. 2: "With the works of Damascene is edited the *History of the Two Soldiers of Christ*, rendered into Latin by an ancient monk, which translation, by a very bad error, they ascribe to George of Trebizond, although the style and all things teach that the translation is many centuries older." And lib. XLVII, cap. 10: "When in the memory of our ancestors the name of Trebizond made books expressed from Greek writers sellable, the printer's boys did not hesitate to postpone the knowledge of posterity for their own profit. The same happened to the *History of Barlaam and Josaphat*, which, although it was translated from the Greek of John Sinaites by a certain monk some centuries ago, has nevertheless been read for many years past among the works and with the works of John Damascene from the interpretation of a certain, if you please, Trebizond." But concerning Trebizond and his writings, we have spoken in our *Diatribe on the Georges and their writings*, already published with George Acropolita.

LIV. *Orations on the images.* — Concerning the orations against the deserters of the images, Joachim Camerarius writes in his notes on the *Chronology of the Patriarch Nicephorus*: "There exists a writing under the title of John Damascene on the veneration of images, unworthy of the fame of his piety and doctrine." If you ask the cause of what was said by Camerarius, hear how the notorious Iconoclast argues: "But it is incredible to how great a degree, in a short work at times, the greatest errors are strengthened by the stubborn zeal of contentious men; especially if the minds of the common folk are occupied by an opinion of religion. And so, as elsewhere, so especially in the Church, it is a most pernicious thing to assert and defend one's own opinion and peculiar thought, in which those who are excessive are called by the Greeks *idiognomones* [self-opinionated]; so prepared are they to prefer accumulating absurdities upon absurdities, rather than concede to another, or admit what they have once grasped, even if those things are sometimes found to be futile and inexplicable, once they have understood that they are opposed. To such a degree do they rejoice that their own views are approved, and grieve that they are disapproved. But all things are worse if other desires also chance to be added, with these a propensity to gratify some, and the impudence of fawning." But this disputation wanders too far; let us proceed to the rest. The stubborn zeal of contentious men, the defense of one's own opinion, and especially if it is done for the sake of religion, are other desires, and are a huge evil in the state. Therefore, what, Camerarius? Therefore the cabbage grows in the garden, and *from the rivers, [there are] springs*? For that seems rather to be concluded, than that the orations on images are unworthy of Damascene gravity and dignity. I would return his own words to Camerarius here, in whom even the blind see both the heat of contention and the attempt to attack the truth and defend heresy. But I do not wish to deal more contentiously with a contentious and stubborn man. I myself examine the matter, from which the strength of my opinion increases. The writing is unworthy of the fame of his piety and doctrine. Is it unworthy because, while it is not by Damascene, it is nevertheless wrongly attributed to Damascene by others; or is it un-

- worthy because, even if it is written by Damascene, it is beneath the standing of such a great man? Camerarius leaves this for us to divine. However, we shall prove that both claims are rashly asserted and maliciously observed. And first, that it is a writing of Damascene, and indeed an authentic one, is proven beyond John of Jerusalem in his *Life*: ^A “And again, concerning the illustrious veneration of the divine and holy icons, and as much as the beauty of the divine icon in it had fashioned itself more beautifully from the beginning, so much the more highly and brilliantly did it also rearrange the matters concerning the honoring of the venerable icons”; and likewise the books on the glorious adoration of venerable images, and as much as the beauty of the divine image in itself had better informed from the beginning, so much the more sublimely and splendidly did he compose the honor of venerable images; the ^B Basilian Menologion: “Saint John, by the power of his words and by the proofs taken from the Scriptures, put to shame the heresy of the iconoclasts.” Therefore, Saint John confounded the heresy of the Iconoclasts with the vigor of his words and with demonstrations taken from the Holy Scriptures, and not without the reproach of heresy: in addition to George Chioniades in his *Expositions on Damascene*, Constantine Acropolita in his *Eulogy of John Damascene*, and the perpetual tradition of all doctors, the very manner of speaking, the doctrine consonant with other works of Damascene, the force of the arguments, and the subject matter itself, which appropriately express John to us, convince us that the true author was John. This the discourse of Camerarius himself, subjoined in the same place, most openly demonstrates.

LV. What cause, therefore, will there be for a writing to be said to be from Damascene, yet unworthy of his piety and doctrine? Unless we wish to say that all the writings of the Fathers which are brought forth against the errors of the innovators are, on this count alone—because they slaughter the innovators and most clearly refute their heresies—unworthy of such great Fathers. By the same reasoning, we could say that the dignity of the sacred Scriptures and of the Gospels, when they contend against the impieties of heretics, is unworthy of both Christian piety and ecclesiastical doctrine. The Eunomians would say the writings that Basil wrote against Eunomius are unworthy of him. The Nestorians would say the writings opposed to the Nestorian heresy are unworthy of Cyril. The Arians would say the writings Athanasius composed against the Arians are unworthy of him, just as now at last, not to recount the rest, the recent Iconoclasts and enemies of images say that the writings which Damascene composed against the deserters of images are unworthy of Damascene. But just as learned and wise men do not heed the spirit of the Eunomians, or the Nestorians, or the Arians, nor do Catholics abandon those writings on the ground that they condemn their own error, so too do they embrace and cherish the writings of Damascene—whatever chattering and nonsense these recent Iconoclasts spew—and consider them most worthy of such a Father, and by their authority they corroborate ancient traditions of the Church and correct dogmas against similar triflers, just as he did from other writings of the same Father. But what, in the end, is in that writing that is unworthy of his piety or his doctrine? Are not the sentences of Holy Scripture and the testimonies of the ancient and most holy Fathers, which confirm ecclesiastical tradition on every side, found therein? What is stronger than arguments drawn from the storehouse of sacred Letters? What is more evident than reasonings? What is more severe than conclusions? ^C What is more worthy than his opinions? What is more illustrious than the structure of the matters? Would that these censors might read such writings and weigh the doctrine! They would surely confess the work to be most worthy of both the piety and the doctrine of Damascene. For there is nothing in it that does not breathe of Damascene, that does not reflect Damascene, and that does not rise to Damascenic dignity. Furthermore, since Camerarius only asserts, but does not prove his assertion, and craftily intends to pull the wool over the eyes of his readers, which he has already pulled over his own, there is no reason why we should delay any longer in proving a matter that is so clear and not controversial among others.

LVI. Another Calvinist arises, an enemy of images, and with sophisticated craft he clamors against the defender of images, Damascene, saying that in these orations Damascene often gave credence to fables and open lies, even with Baronius and Bellarmine as witnesses. Baronius calls the *Chronicle* of John Malalas of Antioch, praised by Damascene in *Oration 3 on Images*, full of lies: therefore, in the judgment of Baronius, Damascene often assents to open fables and lies. Listen, lest I say more, to what Gretser replies to the calumniator in *On Icons Not Made by Hands*, chapter 9: that this is nothing other than a manifest accusation against Damascene as well as Baronius: for Damascene does not assent to Malalas in those things in which he errs either chronologically or historically: but in those things which he hands down concerning the image of the woman with the issue of blood; for here he does not err; since other historians, namely Eusebius, lib. VII *Hist. eccles.*, cap. 15, have committed the same to writing. But Damascene had no other purpose than to demonstrate that the use and cult of images in the Church took its origin from the very times of Christ; to which end he rightly invoked Malalas as a witness: whatever may be the case afterward regarding the chronological and historical errors concerning Herod. Nor does Bellarmine say this in his booklet *On Ecclesiastical Writers*, which the Calvinist craftily imposes upon him; from these words of Bellarmine concerning Damascene you will understand: “But it may be that Saint John Damascene, although otherwise learned and prudent, easily gave credence to those stories about Falconilla and Trajan being liberated from hell (in the oration on those who have migrated in the faith), and was not much concerned with investigating their truth.” Is this to say that Damascene, in the judgment of Bellarmine, “often gave credence to fables and open lies”? What is it to pervert the words and mind of another, if this is not? Heribert Rosweyde also detects the gross and perverse ignorance and fraud regarding John Damascene in the *Lex Talionis*, table 3, in which you have expressed the sound judgment of Baronius regarding John Damascene, and the unjust opinion regarding Baronius and Damascene.

LVII. On the *Life of Saint Stephen the Younger*. — There exist among the opera of the same Damascene, the *Res gestae* of Saint Stephen the Younger, and his companions, who because of the cult and defense of images, in the time of Constan-

Constantine Copronymus, were put to a most cruel death—all of this is recorded with every testimony. Vossius, in *De historicis Graecis*, lib. II, cap. 24, asserts that Damascene wrote the Life: "Furthermore, Damascene wrote the Life of his contemporary, Stephen the Younger, who, because he fiercely defended the cult of images, was on that account very hateful to the Emperor Constantine, and was forced to endure heavy sufferings at his hands."

LVIII. Yet, since there are two narratives of the Life of this Stephen in the most ancient manuscript codices (for a single one could not suffice for so many virtues and praises)—one of which Billius first published rendered into Latin, and following Billius, Surius on the 29th of November; the other of which has been published neither in Greek nor Latin—we must discuss both. And to make the matter clearer, we must first inquire whether Damascene could have written the Life of Stephen. That he could not, it is manifestly proven if you calculate the time-spans of the lives of both. For how could one who was dead have written the life of the living? Let us collect the dates. Stephen was born in the reign of Anastasius, who was also called Artemius, according to Baronius in the second year of his reign, which would be the year of Christ 714; according to Theophanes and Cedrenus, in the first year, 713. In such a small difference, I judge it not necessary to examine which is the more true, for it matters little whether Stephen came into the light in this year or that. He died, according to Baronius, in the year of Christ 767, according to others 766, namely in the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year of the reign of Constantine Copronymus, in the fifty-third year of his age. But Damascene, in the thirteenth year of Copronymus, having already fulfilled his destiny, is struck with anathema, along with Germanus and George of Cyprus, in a pseudo-synod against images. Not to recount others, take for yourself the words of Theophanes, not yet published, under the year of Christ 754: "In the same year, the impious Constantine gathered an unlawful council of 338 bishops against the holy and venerable icons in the palace of Hieria, presided over by Theodosius of Ephesus, son of Apsimarus, and Pastillas of Perge, who, deciding among themselves what they pleased, without the presence of anyone from the apostolic thrones—Rome, I say, or Alexandria, or Antioch, or Jerusalem—began on the tenth day of February and lasted until the eighth of August, of the same indiction, during which the enemies of the Theotokos entered the Blachernae. Constantine ascended the ambo holding the monk Constantine, who had become bishop of Syllaeum, and praying, he said in a loud voice: 'Long life to Constantine the ecumenical patriarch.' And on the 26th of the same month, the emperor ascended in the Forum with Constantine the unholy prelate, together with the other bishops, and they proclaimed their own heretical doctrine before all the people, anathematizing Germanus the most holy, and George of Cyprus, and John Chrysorrhoas of Damascus, called Mansur, men of holiness and venerable teachers." In this same year, the impious Constantine gathered in the palace of Hieria a perverse conventicle of 338 bishops against the holy and venerable images. Theodosius, the prelate of Ephesus, son of Apsimarus, presided over them, with Pastillas of Perge, who decreed as settled whatever they privately decided, with no one from the universal thrones—namely the Roman, Alexandrian, Antiochene, and Hierosolymitan—present; and they continued the synod from the tenth of February to the eighth day of August of the same seventh indiction. On that day, when the enemies of the Mother of God had gathered in the church of the Blachernae, Constantine ascended the ambo holding the monk Constantine, who had been bishop of Syllaeum, and praying, he cried out with a loud voice: "Long life to Constantine the ecumenical patriarch!" And on the twenty-seventh of the same month, the emperor, having gone forward into the forum with Constantine, the detestable prelate, and the rest of the bishops, proclaimed their perverse heresy before the collective people, striking with anathema the most holy Germanus, and George of Cyprus, and John Chrysorrhoas of Damascus, by the surname Mansur, men celebrated for holiness and venerable for their doctrine. See furthermore the second Nicene synod, act 6; Nicephorus the patriarch in his *Breviarium historicum*; Zonaras and Cedrenus. Who, therefore, having departed from life so many years before, would be said, not ridiculously, to have written the life of another who survived for a long time thereafter? And that life, most especially, in which mention is made of himself as if dead, and as one celebrated and highly honored for his holiness and his contests by the very person whose life he is asserted to have continued? I am not peddling trifles. Consider the words: "With whom also John, that pleasant-tongued one, the God-beloved priest, whom that railing tongue, narrow in education but abundant and ready in accusation, called Mansur—he attacked him more sharply in various letters, calling him a new Mohammed, a Christ-fighter, and a hater of the holy." In a similar manner, that priest John, gifted with a winsome tongue and pious, whom that tyrant with his petulant and abusive tongue—a man indeed of narrow, yet otherwise abundant and very sharp, learning for the sake of vituperation—called Mansur, attacked him most bitterly in many letters, calling him a new Mohammed, an enemy of Christ, and an enemy of the saints, etc. A master of shame and modesty would never have written these things about himself, even if forced, let alone those things said by others. And lest you suspect that these praises were added by others during his lifetime, John of Jerusalem himself removes all doubt in his Life of Damascene: "Thence, the nursling of the great city, he who shares a name with the Protomartyr, and who, like him, having ascended to the heavens for Christ, and in the same way for his icon, remembers the words of John, and even from afar calls the man divine and God-bearer, when speaking of those [defended] by the pious." By which name he also calls the alumnus of the great city: who had the same name as the first martyr, and who, like him, covered in stones for Christ—but in this case for his image—ascended into heaven, he made mention of the writings and the struggles of John against the impious, calling him a divine man, and divinely inspired. And indeed, how could it be Damascene's, when the writer proclaims himself a Byzantine? What does Byzantium have in common with Damascus? Note the words: "For the great city, the true lady and queen of cities, Constantinople, I say, brought forth this good sprout. For this sprout is our own, a native, and its divine production, and Stephen is its planting. And it was the first to enjoy the fruits of his virtue, and even now still enjoys its benefit, and delights in the pleasure of the fruits and the miracles of this nursling." Therefore, Constantinople, the lady and queen of cities, indeed brought forth this excellent germ. For this germ is indeed our own, a native, and his divine fetus and plant is Stephen, by whom it first tasted the fruits of his virtue, and now also reaps the benefit,

and rejoices in the most supreme pleasure with his own nursling, resting most sweetly.

LIX. ^A Metaphrastes as the writer of the Life of Saint Stephen the Younger. — Consequently, the Byzantine writer, I must frankly confess, was none other than he who labored so much for the revising and polishing of the deeds of the saints, both in tongue and pen, namely Simeon Metaphrastes, who was himself a Byzantine by birth, as I have proved at length in my own discourse *On the Simeons and their writings*. Gennadius, Patriarch for the Council of Florence, defends him in Chapter 5, from which document, relying on the authority of the Roman Pontiff, he transcribes a long testimony: "Especially in the Life of Saint Stephen the Younger, whom the Metaphrast accurately writes of on the 23rd of November." And most especially in the Life of Saint Stephen the Younger, which Metaphrastes describes with accuracy on the twenty-third of November. Moreover, those who have tasted even with a fingertip the hares and charms of Metaphrastes in the narration of events will undoubtedly say that it is his offspring. For in this entire history I exquisitely detect the Metaphrast and his singular manner of dictation; nor [do I detect] any other than the one whom Michael Psellus ^B presented in his Panegyric oration upon the same, not yet edited in Greek, so far as I know: "Having set before him these two paths, the endurance of a martyr and the patience of an ascetic, he runs in both fields, not with the swiftness of feet, but with the sharpness of mind; and especially as he traverses the ascetic racecourse, he becomes more robust and more competitive than himself. My hearing is tickled indeed when his discourse ascends to the mountains, [XXXIV] descends into the caves, and places the ascetic under a pine or some oak, and improvises for him food from herbs and drink from the springs. For he embellishes such narratives with certain words blooming with beauty, and with varied 'rose-gardens' of rhetorical figures, and shows the events of that time as if they were being seen." When he had proposed these two ways to himself, the constancy of a martyr and the endurance of an ascetic in training, he runs in both pursuits, not with the swiftness of feet, but with the celerity of speech: but above all, traversing the monastic curriculum, he becomes more robust and stronger than himself. My ears are certainly enriched when his oration ascends the mountains, yet descends into the caverns, and under a pine, or some oak, places the struggler, and offers him vile and labor-free food from herbs, and drink from fountains. For he adorns narrations of this kind with certain beautifully flourishing expressions, and various roses of figurative speech, and subjects to the eyes, as it were, those things which were done at that time.

LX. I said above that he died in the fifty-third year of his age; and I had this from Simeon Metaphrastes, since Simeon is the author of that Life: "The truly much-suffering Stephen is brought to completion by the finish of martyrdom, having reached fifty-three years, on the 28th of the month of November." ^C Stephen, that truly excellent struggler, finished his martyrdom in the fifty-third year of his age, on the twenty-eighth day of the month of November. And from the other writer of his Life, whom we shall say below is Stephen, a monk of Constantinople: "The holy and great martyr of God, Stephen, died in the fifty-third year of his age, on the twenty-eighth day of the month of November." If, however, the things which Cedrenus narrates concerning the same are true: "For he spent sixty years on the Mount of Saint Auxentius as a recluse." For he had spent sixty years as a recluse on the Mount of Saint Auxentius. The years of the life of such a man will be—what a vast discrepancy!—seventy-nine. For if you add sixty years to the sixteen years, which was when he arrived at the Mount of Auxentius, and the three years and ten days, which he is said to have survived after he was driven from Auxentius, they will already be seventy-nine years and ten days. ^D Nevertheless, since he had remained on Mount Auxentius for only thirty-three years, which, when added to the sixteen before his departure and the three years and ten days after his exile, do not make more than fifty-three, even if they are not complete, Cedrenus appears to be mistaken in the highest degree, whether he himself was nodding off, or whether the text suffered a defect through the carelessness of a copyist. But he had a guide, whom he himself, while following and transcribing, also drew the error from, albeit incautiously: for Theophanes in his *History*, I know not whether by his own fault or that of others, as I gather from the most ancient manuscript codices, states this same thing, adding after narrating the martyrdom of such a man: "For the man was venerable to all, because he had spent about sixty years in the recluse’s cell, and shone with many virtues." And far less: but George Hamartolus is also mistaken in his account of Constantine Copronymus: "In the same way, he also subjected Saint Stephen, who had spent forty years in a small cell on the heights of the mountain of the God-bearing Auxentius, to many torments and crushed him, dragging him and casting him to the followers of Pelagius, because he not only stood against and fought his heterodoxy, but also converted many to the monastic life, and persuaded them to despise royal dignities and riches." Therefore, in not a dissimilar way, he ordered Saint Stephen, who had spent forty years in a small cell on the summit of the mountain which takes its name from the divine Auxentius, to be affected with many torments, and, once crushed, to be thrown to the sepulchers of Pelagius; because he not only opposed his heresy, but converted many to the monastic life, and compelled them to neglect royal dignities and wealth. In order to weigh the matter more accurately: he was born in the first year of Anastasius, the year of Christ 713, and at that time, when Germanus ascended the patriarchal throne, he received a blessing from him while still enclosed in the womb; in his sixteenth year of life, he is tonsured by John on the Mount of Saint Auxentius and is clothed in the monastic habit; at the age of somewhat more than forty, he is appointed in the place of the deceased John, and succeeds him as his designated heir: afterwards, at the age of forty-two, having traversed the summit of the mountain, he encloses himself in a small cell built by himself: finally, at the age of forty-nine, he is sent into exile from Mount Auxentius to Proconnesus and [XXXV] is enclosed on a column in a very narrow cell; in the second year of his exile, his mother and sister exchange life for death; subsequently brought back to Constantinople by order of the emperor, he is consigned to the prisons of the praetorium for eleven months, and his food and drink was six ounces of bread and no more than three cups of water for each week. On the fortieth day before his death he requests that not even that tiny amount of food be brought to him. When the eighty-first day began, the hostess...

bestows a noble deposit upon the woman. If you compare these years together, they will be 53 years not yet completed. I collect the years of the life of Stephen from Metaphrastes. And so that you may see more clearly, have them also from Stephen the monk of Constantinople in the *Life of Stephen*, who distinguishes it thus: "In the times of Artemius, who is also Anastasius Augustus, in the first year of his reign, in the year 6225 from the creation of the world, having passed the sixth year, they hand him over to the learning of the holy Scriptures, and having taken the shears from his hands, he cut his hair for him in the sixteenth year of his age. For he was passing his forty-second year when he was translated to the summit of the mountain, having made a small enclosure in Proconnesus in the forty-ninth year of his age. In these merits of the precious Father, in the second year of his residence on the island, and of his exile, his mother departed this life. The eleven-month period which he spent in the praetorium." ^A Temporibus Artemii, qui et Anastasius Augustus dictus est, anno primo illius imperii, ab orbe condito anno 6222 (qui erit Christi 714), sex annos emensum lectioni sacrarum Litterarum tradit acceptoque e manu illius forcipe ætatis illius anno sexto et decimo totondit. In loci angusti ædicula, et subterraneo lapide semetipsum obserans anno ætatis suæ tricesimo primo. Quadragesimum et secundum annum agebat, cum in verticem montis secessit. In Proconneso angusto in claustro annum quadragesimum nonum ætatis suæ exegit. Inter has prærogativas venerandi Patris in insula sua habitationis anno secundo, et exsilii, mater illius ex hac vita migrat. Undecimestre tempus quod in prætorio transegit.

LXI. And these things are from the *Life of Stephen* edited by Billius. Or is there perhaps another, which has not yet seen the light, as far as I know, neither in Greek nor Latin, and begins: "It is good and just, and acceptable to all those who choose to live piously, according to the great herald Paul." Is it of Damascene? Much less. His writer is older than Metaphrastes; he is, however, much later than Damascene. Wherefore he rejects Damascene. For the author, at the command of Epiphanius the abbot, the successor of Stephen in dignity, wrote: "O Father venerable, and of the same hill, and of the cave and manner successor most holy Epiphanius, who even gave orders for such an undertaking, and exhorted my lowliness, disregarding both my ignorance and my sloth, which, setting aside all hesitation, I have gathered a few things from the many, and bring them as collaborators. Having anticipated in these the elegance of prayers pleasing to God." O Pater honorande, et ejusdem collis, et speluncæ et morum hæres, sanctissime Epiphani, qui, ut hunc conatum assumerem imperasti, et adhortatus es meam vilitatem, mea despecta ruditate ac segnitie, ea non segnes ex multis pauca colligentes, tuis a Deo bene exceptis precibus in auxilium antea ascitis, offerimus. Quadraginta duobus annis elapsis post illius martyrium: "And so that by the passage of time such a life of our venerable Father might not lapse into oblivion. For just as a cloud covers the sun, so time is accustomed to hide things that are not spoken; although forty-two years have passed since our all-blessed Father Stephen underwent his holy death by martyrdom, up to the present day, having been urged to collect them from truthful men, and from his disciples, running hither and thither, and gathering together all the very delightful and marvelous accounts from his tender years up to his old age, concerning his birth and his death." Et ne diuturno temporis decursu tanta et talis venerandi Patris nostri vita in oblivionem abeat: ut enim solem nubes, ita tempus, quæ non enarrantur abscondere suevit. Et licet ex quo beatissimus ille Pater noster Stephanus martyrio sacræ vitam posuit, ad hæc usque tempora anni jam sint elapsi quadraginta duo; ipse mandatis aliorum compulsus, a fallere nescientibus viris, illiusque discipulis, huc atque illuc divagans collegi, collectasque, quæ ille a teneris, ut aiunt, unguiculis ad senectam usque, illiusque natalium, et obitus, quam maxime lætas, admirandasque narrationes scripto mandavi. ^B Et quemadmodum alter, ita et hic Byzanteus fuit: "This man, by name and in deed, is of the same name and manner as the first martyr, no stranger to the Byzantines, nor alien to those living in the queen of cities. For this one is our own offspring and sacrifice, and known to us, and a self-witnessed whole-burnt offering." Hic protomartyris illius et nomine et re cognominis et moribus iisdem, non Byzantii advena et peregrinus, neque reginam urbium colentium alienus. Nostrum enim erat hic germen et alumnus, et sacrificium, nostris non ignotus, et quod ipsi oculati testes viderunt holocaustum. In hac quoque Damasceni mentio fit, non sine laude: "Among whom also the most precious John the Damascene the presbyter, who was called Mansour by this tyrant, among us, holy and God-bearing, did not cease to write of him and call him..." Inter eos et maxime venerandus Joannes Damascenus presbyter, qui ab hoc tyranno Mansur dictus fuit, apud nos vero, sanctus et deifer, non cessavit eum refellere et nuncupare, etc. Et ut finem quæstioni imponam, nomen quoque tene, longe a Joanne diversum, Stephanum: nam hic est, qui gesta tanti viri ante Metaphrastem exsecutus est: "And just as in this life I have become homonymous with the name of the calling, all-blessed Stephen, and fellow-called by the hand standing with all this orthodox company which faithfully praises you as a martyr with the holy martyrs." Et quemadmodum in hac vita eodem ac tu, beatissime Stephane, nomine nuncupor; ita illius quæ ibidem est dexteræ stationis una cum hoc orthodoxo cœtu tibi plaudente, et inter martyres te martyrem collocante consors fiam. Stephanus itaque Byzanteus quadraginta duos post e vivis exemptum Stephanum annos, jussu Epiphanii in officio ac dignitate Stephani successoris, vitam hanc collegit, et scripsit. Concorda hæc cum Damasceno, et palmarium habe. ^C δ LXIII. Sed præstat hic aliquantulum immorari, quando de morte Joannis Damasceni facta supra mentio est, quam ante Copronymianam synodum conjecturis non levibus posuimus. Dubium tamen, quod remanet aliis extricandum, ingenue in medium afferam, ne quid præteriisse videar. Gretserus epistola dedicatoria in Theodorum Abucaram, cum tempora Abucaræ quærit, Joannis quoque Damasceni tempora, perplexe licet nimis statuisse se putat. Namque, cum Abucaram Damasceni discipulum Turrianus aliquoties nominet, dictoque Turriani probabilitatem conciliet illud ex titulo dissertationis decimum octava, διὰ φωνῆς Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ, ex ore dictantis Damasceni, et ex alia parte Theodorus Cariæ episcopus Pho

Photius ^A defended the Christian cause against Ignatius, and afterwards, as Nicetas testifies in the Life of Ignatius, when the Photian frauds were brought into the open, he obtained pardon for his admitted sin at the eighth synod; Gretser believes he flourished under Basil the Macedonian, in the times of the eighth synod, in respect to his learning and renown. And since seventy-two years elapsed from the second Nicene synod, celebrated in the year of the Lord 787, up to the eighth synod, which was held in the year 869; and since John of Damascus, as is agreed upon by most chroniclers who are not unskilled, died before the seventh synod, one of two things must necessarily be asserted: either that Abucara, being almost still a boy, did work for the Damascene, or that the Damascene was far beyond his eightieth year when the eighth ecumenical synod was convened at Constantinople—unless one wishes to extend the life of the Damascene beyond the seventh synod. However, it seems from what we have said above that it should not be extended beyond the seventh synod. And although the opinion of Gretser concerning Theodore Abucara may appear probable, on a conjecture so shaky, who will grant it firm assent? And those things which establish the contrary seem [to hold weight]. The author of the Life of Saint Cosmas, brother of the Damascene—whoever he may have been—was not without elegance, and not an unlearned investigator of ecclesiastical history, and he committed to writing many things concerning the Damascene that were omitted or neglected by John of Jerusalem, the writer of the Damascene's Life; thus, while treating of Cosmas, as he follows his deeds in the Byzantine city, he transmits, among other things, what he had prophesied to the patriarch Tarasius three years before he died—afterwards, with the work having been completed at the aforementioned time, he relates this as well: "But that which was foretold to the holy man, and which indeed in due time came to pass, it is necessary to relate, and not superfluous to write down. ^B What are these things? 'To me,' he says, 'O divine high priest and best of teachers, there is enough of my stay here. For I must return to the place from which I came, but you, having shepherded the flock of Christ well and God-pleasingly, having departed with confidence to the Lord, shall receive the crown of righteousness which is laid up for you as a reward for your labors for the Church. It will be yours after two years.'" What the holy herald had prophesied, and which at the stated time came to pass in reality, [XXXVII] I consider it necessary to tell and not redundant to put into writing. And what are these things? "It is enough for me," he says, "O divine prelate and best of teachers, the delay in this life. For from where I came, to there I must return again. But you, when you have well and piously fed the flock of Christ, will go cheerfully to the Lord, and will receive the crown of righteousness which is laid up for you for your labors, which will come to pass after the passage of three years." Tarasius dies in the 21st year of his pontificate, in the year of Christ 806. The prophecy of Cosmas, therefore, will have been made two years earlier, in the year of Christ 804. Afterwards, Cosmas withdrew from Byzantium, came to Rome, then arrived in Egypt, and at last returned to the monastery of Saint Sabas, famous everywhere for miracles, when Stephen, the son of Cosmas's brother, was governing the place, from whom he heard that John of Damascus had also departed from life a little earlier; I shall condense the series of events into the shortest possible time, not protracting it beyond two years. Therefore, John of Damascus, having measured his life with that of the patriarch Tarasius, died in the same year as Tarasius, or around the same times. Therefore, in the year of Christ 806, 17 years after the second Nicene synod, 51 years after the Copronymian synod (in which, as we opined, mention was made as if of a dead man), 40 years after the martyrdom of Stephen the Younger, about the same time when Stephen the Byzantine was committing to writing the deeds of the same Stephen. Wherefore, if Stephen the Byzantine could write the Life of the martyr Stephen, the Damascene could as well. Yet, if this were permitted by age, it was certainly not permitted by the many other things brought forward. I know the Damascene, full of years and consumed by extreme old age—as one who died older than a centenarian—did not hasten his own death; but that he arrived at those times, I would wish others to say: I am in a state of great suspense. Alas, how shall I extricate myself from this crowd? ^C LXIV. Among the four orations which Billius communicated to us in Greek and Latin from the codex of Jacques Cujas among the works of the Damascene, the last two, in which it is shown both from ancient history and from various testimonies that the Virgin descended from the seed of David, against the Hebrews who deny this—the other, the beginning of which is, "Ἄλλοι μὲν ἄλλας ἑορτάς," and the other, whose beginning is, "πάλιν ἑορτὴ καὶ πάλιν πανήγυρις, καὶ πάλιν ἐγώ"—are exhibited in many very ancient manuscript codices, sometimes under the name of the Damascene, sometimes under that of Andrew of Crete. Nor is this a wonder. For the family of such orations, through the negligence of transcribers, sometimes acknowledges this parent, sometimes that, and sometimes even another; as we have noted in many places in our work. It is indeed difficult to recognize them, and much more difficult to assign them to their parents, especially those whose manner and form of speaking we are in no way able to ferret out, since no other oration of theirs survives besides one or two. But what I myself think of these, since we are now examining the works of the Damascene, I frankly confess. The composition is not so jerky, but rather austere and somewhat turbid, composed of many nouns made from nouns, the passages of Scripture not broadly expounded but only, if I may so speak, proposed; disputes frequently inculcated concerning the dogmas of our faith, bothering the heretics and those who hold wrong opinions, especially the Acephali and the Jews, contrary to what is usually done in these sermons; repetitions frequently inserted by which the author says he is returning to the point; and other smaller ^D matters which in the Damascene, as the Damascene's own, nowhere fail to present themselves—[all these] impel me to claim them for the Damascene and deny them to the Cretan. For the latter, according to the custom of his own age, knows how to speak only figuratively, and like a horse freed from the reins, wanders freely, moving his foot from one thing to another, and from there again referring back to the first; and he points out theological questions only with a finger, and explains them with a word. But there will be a more opportune place to speak of the Cretan. For now, let these things suffice for these orations (a).

(a) That neither is our Damascene's, but Andrew of Crete's, most certainly, if I am not mistaken, I have shown in its proper place.

^A LXV. Among other orations which we now provide for the first time in Greek and Latin, under the name of John of Damascus—not only in the Barberini Library, but also in other very ancient manuscripts—there is found one which begins: "When the spring returned," with the title: *A historical oration on the birth of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ*. In others: *Concerning those things done in Persia*. And the Vatican codices 93, 555, 1246, and 1816 attribute it to Damascene. [XXXVIII] While I was first perusing it and considering the contents more precisely, and examining the manner of their explanation more diligently, it seemed in no way to be of Damascene. Damascene is altogether more grave, and he does not pour himself out into trivialities unless the occasion offers itself. He does not take much pleasure in metaphors, especially those sought from afar, when explaining serious subjects. He does not transcribe the words of Scripture, especially its chapters, but introduces them only briefly and in haste. He abstains from compound words that exceed the limit; he never, or rarely, proves his points from apocryphal histories. But in this oration, you see the author’s puerile talent especially in the preface. The most minute details are traversed; he uses enormous and irrelevant metaphors; he transcribes entire chapters of Scripture just to explain a single word; he misuses compound and unrefined words and stuffs his oration with apocryphal stories. I would be a trifler myself if I were to detail everything here; I will simply point to the matter with my finger. For instance, notice how he shows everything changing in the early spring to a more beautiful aspect—not only by men, but by the earth, birds, mountains, trees, shepherds, the sun, farmers, the vine, and the sea—so that he may later conclude that all things assumed a better face from the birth of God from the Virgin. But what does that have to do with this? He transcribes entire chapters from the Evangelists and the Book of Judges to explain one member of a sentence. And what is that besides? "To sing a twittering; a circle-twisting, or sweet-circle-twisting, pipe-woven tragedy; mountains leaf-sprouting with the dense-woven thickness of the forest"—[and so forth], not to mention them individually. Furthermore, where did he get what he narrates so lengthily concerning Dorida and Philippus, the contention of the Persian gods, and the journey of the Magi? I do not doubt that these same things, as well as many other fabrications of triflers, became known to Damascene; however, although he was never moved by any one reason to recite them lest he appear to have lost his mind, he banished them and, as if they did not exist, ignored both those spoken and written things. As I was considering these things with myself and weighing Damascene as being immune to such writing, it happened that while browsing through the labors of others, I unwillingly found the author of the oration. In that same Barberini Library, and in other sufficiently ancient manuscripts, I found the same oration, similar in all respects, except where the carelessness of librarians or a variety of readings—which is wont to happen in other books as well—had crept in. It acknowledges not John of Damascus as its begetter, but John, bishop of Euboea (a). And so, that the matter might be handled better, I sought out other orations of the same Euboean, so that by making a comparison I might fix my stance; nor did it turn out unfortunately. For in that same Barberini codex there is another oration of his on the birth of the Theotokos, which I read avidly and compared; and I saw nothing more similar, no egg to an egg, nor milk to milk. Indeed, just as I had noted above in the first [oration] on the birth of Christ, everything is found in this second one. And as if this author were a fountain of apocrypha, he packs many things in here too from similar stories. But so that you also, reader, may see and judge more securely, we have had both of these orations of the Euboean edited in Greek from the same codex, and a third—on the slaughter of the infants by Herod—[edited] from our own treasures, along with our Latin version.

LXVI. This is another author, sufficiently ancient, [different] from John of Damascus. Although Vossius, in his book IV, part III, rejected him among those writers whose age is unknown—an *achronos*—as one who flourished about the year of the Lord 744, as is clearly gathered from his oration on the most holy infants slaughtered by Herod: "If I was not present (for there are already seven hundred and forty years since that time; from the coming of Christ seven hundred and forty-four years; from the slaughter of the infants seven hundred and forty-two years), yet as if I were present there, I really consider these things in my heart." And although I myself was not present (for more than seven hundred and forty-four years have now passed since that time, from the advent of Christ, indeed, seven hundred and forty-four years, but from the infanticide seven hundred and forty-two years), yet as if I had been present, they are so enveloped in my mind. He is also sufficiently pious, a most bitter enemy of the heresies that have arisen, especially regarding the mystery of the incarnation, which he often refutes; nor is he inept in explaining the Holy Scriptures; and for many other things not to be despised, with which he sprinkles his orations, he is worthy to be read. Therefore, he lived at the time when the heresy of the Acephali and the Jacobites, [XXXIX] having driven its root deep, was undermining the mystery of the divine economy; which were the very same times as those of Damascene.

LXVI*. This also ought to be noted in passing: that under the name of Anastasius, archbishop of Theopolis, an oration or short tract is read with this title: *On those things which were done in Persia*. Which, however, is distinct from this one of ours, although it contains the same things for the most part. For it treats of the temple built by Cyrus in Persia, the contention between gods or goddesses, the appearance of the star, the calling of the Magi, the journey, adoration, and the return to Persia, which the Euboean also pursues—nay, he seemed to have drawn from this little work, and my conjecture did not fail me; for in the Vatican manuscript codex 1816, this title is offered to me: *John the monk and the least of the Damascenes, a discourse on the holy birth of our God Christ, taken from the account of Anastasius, patriarch of Theopolis, concerning those things done in Persia. When the spring returned...* John the monk, and the least of the Damascenes, a sermon on the holy birth of our God Christ, taken from the narration of Anastasius, patriarch of Theopolis.

^A Regarding those things which were done in Persis. Anastasius (a) furthermore writes concerning the dispute between the historians Dionysarus and Philippus among the pagans and Christians.

LXVII. Concerning the ecclesiastical definitions. — My friend Malatesta Albanus rendered the ecclesiastical definitions, or those regarding a theological subject—which I had described from my own notes and collated with other codices—into more correct Latin; and many things seem to confirm that they are not by the Damascene, and these are not to be disregarded. For other codices attribute them to Athanasius of Alexandria, and therefore they have been published with other works of his. Bellarmine, who thinks the book was written after the Council of Chalcedon, and Andreas Rivetus, following Bellarmine, have noted that they are not by Athanasius. For Athanasius could not have praised Nyssen, who lived after Athanasius, or at least who had not yet written when Athanasius was alive. These same definitions reveal this, as at the beginning they are said to have been collected by Clement and other holy men and blessed Fathers. And Anastasius, in his *Odegos*, cap. I, asserts that Clement (not that Alexandrian, the teacher of Origen, but the Roman, the disciple of the saints Peter and Paul) composed the ecclesiastical definitions: *“And for this reason Clement also, who was great in wisdom and knowledge—being a student and a genuine product of the holy Peter and most of all of the all-wise Paul, and having heard him rejecting and greatly detesting the Greek philosophy—composed his own definitions of ecclesiastical dogmas.”* Wherefore, that most excellent man in wisdom and doctrine, Clement, composed his own definitions of ecclesiastical dogmas, as a genuine disciple of the saints Peter and most especially of the all-wise Paul, since he had heard him greatly repudiate and detest the Greek wisdom. And there is no doubt, since Anastasius asserts it, that Clement—in order to avoid the trifles and frauds of the Gentiles—dictated many definitions based on his own genius and Christian dogma, and that he either included them in a special work or, where the occasion offered, interspersed them in his other, longer works; which later Fathers who followed him then transferred into commentaries after they had been enlarged, or collected those that were Clement's, and, adding others of the Fathers dispersed in various places, gathered them into one as it were in a bundle. In the Vatican codex 1445 it is read: *"Definitions varied by God’s grace, according to the tradition and faith of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, collected by Clement and other holy and blessed Fathers."* Divine grace aiding, various definitions according to the tradition of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, collected by Clement and other holy and blessed Fathers. The title is also conceived in this way in codex 1075, in which it is read more correctly *dictae* [called], not *legomena* [collected]. ^B In codex 1077, however, it is held: *"Various definitions by God according to the tradition and faith of the holy Catholic Church, collected from Clement of Rome, Anastasius of Antioch, and other holy and blessed Fathers."* Divine grace aiding, various definitions according to the tradition and faith of the holy Catholic Church, collected from Clement of Rome, Anastasius of Antioch, and other holy and blessed Fathers. You have here the fatherland of Clement, and explicitly the name of Anastasius of Antioch, from whom they were also collected. And from this I believe the error crept in through the carelessness of the copyists, that instead of *Anastasii Antiocheni* [Anastasius of Antioch], *Athanasii Alexandrini* [Athanasius of Alexandria] was prefixed. For Anastasius could well have borrowed many things from Clement, Nyssen, Cyril, and others, and added many of his own anew. Codex 495, in the place of Anastasius, places John Damascene: *“collected from the blessed Clement, and John Damascene, and others.”* My own notes, however, state thus: *"Of our father among the saints John the Damascene, various definitions according to tradition, etc."* Therefore Clement, and Anastasius of Antioch, and the Damascene, and other Fathers wrote ecclesiastical definitions: but whose were these that are now at hand and published in Greek and Latin among the works of the Damascene? Since some codices ascribe them to the Damascene, I am led by no slight conjecture to believe that they are the Damascene’s. For indeed, since the things that are claimed for the Damascene are more prolix, and the book contains many things which neither Athanasius (or if you prefer, Anastasius) nor even Anastasius himself possesses, it is likely that what remains was published by a man later than all these, who, without a doubt, since no one else is brought forward, was the Damascene. For those who come later are for the most part accustomed to add new things invented by themselves to the monuments of the ancients, or, if they do not have any of their own, to insert into the writings of others many things taken from the storehouse of others—a matter on which I have treated in more detail elsewhere. And it was the custom of the Damascene, as he himself expressly professes, to write nothing or little of his own; however, to re-collect whatever he writes from the monuments of others. Hence it is no wonder that Jacob Gretser noted in Anastasius, while he hands down that he found these Greek definitions in the Bavarian and Augustan manuscript codices, that the edition of Athanasius nonetheless differs from the Augustan and Bavarian codices, and is far more concise. For the first in this type of writing are for the most part more concise, the last more prolix. The work is necessary for the doctrine of the Damascene; and they can rightly be placed at the head of the whole work, so that the reader, having imbibed the terms and formulations of things, might be more prompt and more exercised to penetrate the shrines of divine wisdom which the Damascene dispenses.

^C LXVIII. Concerning the little book of right faith. — That the little book of right faith is not the Damascene's, one may infer even from this (b). For how could the Damascene have remembered the seventh synod, he who died before the seventh? And yet in it is written: *"Furthermore, in addition to these, I receive the holy ecumenical..."* ^D

"* seven synods, as being convened by the Holy Spirit. ^A And the Damascene everywhere, whenever mention of the synods happens to be made, always mentions only six. We have said that this happened because of the excessive diligence of copyists. For since those who copied the little book after the seventh synod took little or no account of the authors, fearing that if that writing were publicly read in which only six synods were approved, readers, thinking the seventh was rejected by so great a Father, would themselves also reject as many synods as had preceded it, they added the seventh and, with a rash hand—though with a not evil aim—they forestalled the writing of the most holy Father. I could show this in many cases, but I shall be content with a single example from Anastasius of Antioch. For in his *Hodegetes*, chapter 5, where he treats of the holy ecumenical councils, since, while he was writing, only five had been celebrated, and therefore he could not mention more than five (of which alone he makes mention), the copyists who followed, since they already knew that a sixth had occurred, lest the truncated and mutilated number offend the minds of readers, placed six: *I say, however, regarding the holy and ecumenical six synods.* Holy, I say, and ecumenical are the six councils. And at the end of the chapter he sets down only five, nor does he make mention of another ecumenical one, which indeed he could not. For he died in the year 599, the 14th of the Emperor Maurice, and the sixth ecumenical council against the Monothelites was celebrated in the year 681, the 12th of Constantine Pogonatus, 82 years after the death of Anastasius. That this also happened to the Damascene ^B should not seem wonderful. And I have found the sixth synod added from another manuscript which numbers only six: *I receive also the holy six synods.* Whoever, furthermore, increased the number of synods was not afraid to intend mention of the Constantinopolitan see beneath it: *To be subject to the most holy Catholic Church of Constantinople, and in all things to be persuaded by and to listen to thy holiness, and to those who protect the most holy Church after thee.* In more ancient, and indeed not poorly-regarded, codices, there is no mention of the Constantinopolitan [Church]. From this you may see the temerity of sciolists in subverting the writings of the holy Fathers. In other copies, the little book reports the whole Damascene, and it is [truly] from him.

LXIII.

LXIV.

LXV.

LXVI.

^A agree, since it is evident from elsewhere that John Damascene was the good administrator of ecclesiastical offices in his time, and that it could well have come about that he either first composed, or at least corrected and purged, the said *Martyrologium*, or *Menologium*, or *Calendar* (for the work is called by these names). Salazar, in *Pro immaculata conceptione*, ch. 35, no. 21, affirms that certain feasts are contained in the *Menologium* which began to be celebrated in the Church after Damascene. For, on the eleventh day of October, a certain celebration is proposed in these words: *Of the Seventh Nicene Synod against the Iconoclasts Copronymus, and the bishops, and those favoring a certain execrable conventicle.* Now this synod was celebrated after the death of Damascene, as Baronius gathers from the chronology, vol. VIII; and on the same day is inscribed: *Theophanes, bishop of Nicaea, who was struck with lashes while Theophilus was emperor, and afterwards, when Theophilus was removed, was created bishop of Nicaea.* And on April 3, the Abbot Nicetas is presented, and he too is minor to Damascene, who suffered under Leo the Armenian; Theodore the Studite, Nicephorus patriarch of Constantinople, March 9 and June 2; Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, February 25; Plato the Studite, April 4; Nico Myroblyta, who gained the surname ^B *Metanoeite* ("Repent") from his habitual formula, and flourished under John Zimisces, Basil the Younger, and Constantine Porphyrogenitus around the year of the Lord 985, November 26; Stephen Neolampes in the time of Patriarch Methodius after Theophilus, December 9; Theophano, wife of the Emperor Leo the Wise, December 16; Theodore Graptus, December 26, and six hundred others are commemorated in the same Greek *Menologium* who flourished after Damascene, so as not to recount them individually. Hence I argue that the Greek *Menologium* was not compiled or reformed by Damascene, since it is said to have no author. But he could have done it, I admit. Basil could have, and Nazianzen, and Tarasius, and countless others. Shall we therefore say that they compiled it? Trifles. However, since there are various *Menologia* of the saints among the Greeks, let them tell me, if they can, of whom Damascene stands as the compiler or corrector. In all of them, many things are inserted which happened after Damascene's times. Wherefore, although I have said that Damascene could have compiled it up to his own time, nevertheless subsequent authors added various things according to the opportuneness of time; yet I do not recognize Damascene as its author: nor would I ever say that of that which is now in the hands of the Greeks, he was ^C the author. That trite axiom of the jurists: *When we subtract from or add to some work, etc.*, and therefore, when it has changed its face and form in subsequent times, I do not know if another author is so easily to be sought.

LXVII. And that I may also note this, Salazar argues quite acutely that, just as the names of the aforementioned saints were inserted into that Calendar after Damascene, when they had already fulfilled their course after Damascene, so it is also certain that the feast of the Conception could well have been inserted in a similar way. Wherefore, the solemnity of the Conception is not to be preserved in the Greek Church, neither by the Emperor Leo called the Wise, nor by George of Nicomedia, whose orations Baronius hands down in the Sfortiana Library (a), which is the most ancient monument of this feast among the Greeks. Now Leo flourished around the year nine hundred. At which time, or a little before among the Latins, this feast seems to have begun. The same author proves this more broadly in the same place later.

LXVIII. When the feast of the Conception of the B. V. began to be celebrated. — The *Typicon* instituted by Damascene, but not by him alone. However, whatever may be the case regarding the opinion of those who claim that the feast of the Conception was celebrated in the Church from the very cradle of the Church, and who try to persuade others—whom the best-cited Salazar and others refute—I myself, in favor of the ^D *philoparthenos* (lover of the Virgin), think that I shall prove by the most evident reason that it was in the Church much earlier than Leo and George, since I have also found an oration written on the Conception of the Mother of God before them. Its author was John, who at one time is a presbyter, at another Bishop of Euboea, as the orations composed by him are prefixed, of which I have no doubt that he composed many: yet time has left us only three, which I bring forth into the light with the same Damascene in Greek and Latin. How much authority he himself had in the Church will be proven by the fact that his orations were in such estimation that they were published by many under the name of Damascene. That they are not Damascene’s, however, the very character of the speaking and the arrangement of the matters exposed prove most clearly, as we have noted above. Here, therefore, in the oration which he gave on the Conception of the Mother of God, whose beginning is: *‘O μέγας ἀπόστολος Παῦλος*, he narrates that in his age the feast of the Conception was celebrated by many, and held by some in no consideration, yet it was absolutely to be celebrated, so that from this you may see that its celebration was already at that time in ambiguity, and afterwards was eagerly accepted and approved by all. His words are: "Let us also, beloved, all keep the solemn feasts of the Theotokos Mary, rejoicing spiritually, and understanding the word of the prophet: 'For keep your feasts, says he, O Judah, for he who breathes upon your face and rescues you from affliction has ascended.' So this is from Judah, and the Lord is from her according to the flesh. It is necessary, therefore, on the divine and great feasts, to also celebrate those of the Theotokos, our hope. Outside, therefore, of the fullness of the twelve feasts, we celebrate also her life-giving Dormition. This, after the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ into heaven, and the descent of the all-holy and life-giving Spirit upon the blessed apostles, we celebrate as the last and great feast, the fullness of the kindness of the economy of our Lord and God, and lastly above all, her all-venerable Dormition. But the aforementioned ones are according to the decalogue of the Old and New Testament. For there are three successions of the ten words, which we have been taught by the all-holy, consubstantial, and life-giving, and adorable Trinity. The first is from the law: 'You shall love the Lord your God,' and the rest." And afterwards

in the New, the beatitudes are likewise ten in number; and the Pater noster is likewise completed in ten petitions. We celebrate these ten solemnities not without honor and joy. The first, indeed, though not acknowledged by all, is that in which the blessed Joachim and Anna received the announcement of the birth of the ever-virgin and Theotokos Mary, on the ninth day of December. And note well, most beloved, that it is not contrary to the faith, nor in vain, that which we commit to writing: for if we dedicate temples, nor do we do so beyond the dignity of such a great matter, how much more fervently, with infinite devotion and fear of God, should this solemnity be celebrated, in which the foundations are not laid of stone, nor is the temple of God built by the hand of man; but she was conceived in the womb of the all-holy Theotokos by the good pleasure of the Father and the cooperation of the all-holy and life-giving Spirit? Christ the Son of God, who is the corner-stone, built her, in whom He Himself also afterward dwelt, that He might fulfill the law and the prophets by coming to save us. Above, indeed, he had written concerning these same solemnities: "What feasts, O prophet, do you cry out for Judah to celebrate?" "Then he who sees," he says, "Judah shall not celebrate to me those legal feasts here in Sabbaths, and new moons, and trumpets. For it is time to act for the Lord; to break your law. For I say to celebrate the feasts when grace has arrived in glorious days, ten feasts; in which, first of all the glorious feasts, is that in which Joachim and Anna received the message of the birth of the all-immaculate and Theotokos Mary; and after this, her all-venerable nativity; there the conception, here the birth. After this, another most reverend and worshipful one, in which Gabriel, having trodden the earth with incorporeal feet, cried out 'Hail' to the Virgin. Then the world-saving birth from the Virgin of the King of all, Christ our God. And then thus the entrance into the temple, and the reception in the arms of Simeon; and again the light-bearing epiphany; and again the transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and the life-giving passion of Pascha of the life-bearing resurrection; and again the ascension into the heavens, and the sitting at the right hand of the Father in the flesh, and the last day, and the great day of the feast, in which the all-holy Spirit descended upon the holy apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 'Celebrate, Judah, your feasts.' These, then, are the feasts which the prophet cries out for Judah to celebrate."

"What kind of solemnities, O prophet, do you proclaim for Judah to be celebrated? 'Afterward,' he says, 'he who sees, Judas shall not celebrate legal feasts for me, not those which are done in Sabbaths, and new moons, and trumpets. For it is the time to act for the Lord, to dissipate your law.' I say that the feasts to be observed, when grace has arrived, are ten, and distinguished. First and before other solemnities, that in which Joachim and Anna received the news of the birth of the most pure and Theotokos Mary. Afterward, her most highly to be venerated nativity. There the conception, here the nativity. Afterward, most to be honored and adored, in which Gabriel, having trodden the earth with feet devoid of matter, announced 'Ave' to the Virgin. Next, the birth of the King of all, Christ our God, from the Virgin, who saved the world. Furthermore, the procession into the temple, and the reception in the arms of Simeon. Again, the light-bearing appearing. There follows the transformation on Mount Tabor: the life-giving passion, the Pascha of the life-bringing resurrection: and also the ascension into heaven, and the throne at the right hand of the Father in the flesh. Finally, the last and great feast day, on which the most holy Spirit descended upon the holy apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 'Celebrate, Judah, your solemnities.' These, then, are the festive days which the prophet proclaims must be kept by Judah. You see, therefore, in the year 744 from the Nativity of Christ, 156 years before the Emperor Leo (when the age of George of Nicomedia is not certain), the Conception of the Virgin—not that which implies the conception of Christ the Lord in the womb of Mary herself, but that which brings about the conception of Mary herself in the bowels of Anna—though it had not been so well known among some, was nevertheless celebrated by the majority, and its solemnity was very earnestly inculcated upon the faithful by this writer, and afterward, as we now see, accepted with happy success, since it is in everyone's use. You have now from me, O lover of the Virgin, the feast day of the conception, much more ancient than others have asserted. Since, therefore, the feast of the Conception was celebrated in the age of the Damascene, he could undoubtedly have commemorated the said Conception in the Menologion, in which he enumerated the remaining solemnities of the saints, and especially of the Theotokos, unless he wished to be injurious to the Virgin. Wherefore, although for other reasons that Menologion is not wrongly adjudged away from the Damascene; for this ^{A B C D}

[LATIN COLUMN] Conception is not to be judged. And since I see that others, and indeed not lightly, have doubted what that is which the Greeks have perceived concerning the Conception, which moved them afterward—not from others, but from those same Greeks I observed—yet I myself may not be long-winded; see the speech of John of Euboea of the same subject, and two [speeches] of George of Nicomedia on the same argument, for I have these on the same Conception of the Virgin. And these things are ^A enough said for a man treating of another matter, for the feast of the Marian Conception. I will add this, that the Menologion of the Greeks, which was attributed to the Damascene, was attributed to him by Galatinus, which I do not think I am wrong in saying—in certain Arabic codices, in which the four books of the Damascene's *On the Orthodox Faith* are written in that language, it stands apart, with no author indicated—is a Menologion of the saints. When Galatinus had seen [them], and could not profess another author, lest that work, which he had so much boasted to himself as if it were a fungus born from the earth without a parent, should become vile, and he should lose the arguments of [its] dignity, he brought it into companionship with the Damascene there, and sold that Menologion under the name of the Damascene.

LXIX. The Menologion of the Damascene does not exist.—They would have done better if they had not ascribed to the Damascene the Typikon, but rather, in illustrating the Damascene, they had spent their own ^B labor, in which I have expended mine, or had taken this [typikon] from Symeon of Thessalonica’s *Dialogue against all heresies*: "But this ordinance, both most necessary, and ancestral, and from our divine Father Sabbas, was defined by him, having received it from the holy [fathers] and from the confessor Chariton." They have also received the decree of the holy Sabbas, as we have learned, [which was] destroyed by barbarians, [and] the holy Father Sophronius, patriarch of the holy city, recovered it with care and labor; and after him again, our divine theologian Father, John of Damascus, renewed and wrote down and handed it on. And this indeed is a constitution most necessary, and most convenient for the Fathers. For the holy Father Sabbas prescribed it, and it was accepted by the holy Euthymius and Theoctistus. But these [things] they received from the elders, [XLV] the confessors Chariton. The constitution of the holy Sabbas, as we have heard, [was] destroyed by the invasion of barbarians of those places: the holy Father Sophronius, patriarch of the holy city, ^C restored it with study and labor: and after him again the divine [one], and the one keen in thoroughly examining theological matters, John Damascene, renewed it, and handed it down, committed to writing.

LXX. Therefore, the false Typikon, as it is displayed under the name of Sabbas, and at length renovated after the corrections of others by the Damascene, is handed down by Symeon of Thessalonica. For it is not the Damascene’s, and much less Sabbas’s, or Theodore the Studite’s, when I have seen it inscribed in certain manuscripts by this man as well. For what could he do, [this] man of a later time, when it was destroyed, or deprecated by such great Fathers, even after the Damascene [it was] often restored, renovated, unchanged, and augmented, [yet] it was compiled by Sabbas? Therefore, the age absolutely does not allow it. For how could the Fathers who flourished in the Church after them prescribe the offices of the saints? See what I have said above concerning the Menologion. For the names of the saints which we have commemorated after the Damascene are inserted in this Typikon as well. It is held ^D inviolably in the Lavra of Saint Sabbas, and almost everywhere throughout the Greek world, as true and infallible [and] divine, as they observe; and the title words signify: *Typikon of the ecclesiastical order of the holy Lavra of the holy and God-bearing Father Sabbas*: "Typikon of the ecclesiastical office, which is in Jerusalem, of the holy Lavra of the holy and God-bearing Father Sabbas." That [word] "of the holy Sabbas" does not refer to the Typikon, but to the monastery, which at length keeps the name of the author, Sabbas, as the first.

LXXI. Of certain excerpts from the Damascene.—There is edited, moreover, a booklet by John Damascene *On body and blood of Christ* with other such tracts of others, namely of Nicholas of Methone, Samonas of Gaza, [and] Mark of Ephesus, in Greek and Latin at Paris by the royal printer Guillaume Morel in 1560, in folio. It is the same as the Damascene’s, but nevertheless, it is not distinct from the others of the same Damascene. For it is the final chapter of book 14 of *On the Orthodox Faith*, though it be detached; and it is chapter 90.

LXX. I wish also to admonish you, reader, that three chapters against the Nestorians were edited by John Wegelin of Augsburg in Greek and Latin with the arguments of Cyril against them, at Frankfurt in 1611, in 8vo. Though it is a work distinct from others of the same Damascene against them, yet it is not a work distinct from other works of the same Damascene, since they are nothing else than [chapters] 12, 22, and 27, from book 3 of *On the Orthodox Faith*, which Wegelin saw, and he observed them to be most fiercely attacking the Nestorians. However, he did not see that they were taken from the *Panoplia* of Euthymius, tit. 14, *Against the Nestorians*, just as also the rest of Cyril’s works were edited by him.

LXXIII. Of the physical work edited by Billius, the genuine author is Blemmydes.—The Greek exemplar of which, as I have learned, Billius received in his Preface to Jacques Cujas, and which he asserts is a compendium of Aristotelian Physics, and that it was to be translated by an Italian man, he confesses ingenuously, in places rather of the matters themselves than of the obscurity of the words, in those things which caused him trouble. He does not attribute the name of the one to whom it was directed. I say that this physics, consisting only of nineteen chapters, is wrongly contended by John Wegelin of Augsburg in his Preface to the *Epitome of Physics* by Blemmydes to be ascribed to the Damascene, just as also [it is not found] in the works of the Damascene of Basel of the year 1575, either in Greek or Latin. Perhaps Billius was moved by this, that he had the name of the Damascene prescribed in his manuscript codex. But this was never done, as the names of his true authors [are found] in certain books.

Or perhaps Billius also looked to this fact, that the first chapter of that *Physics* is repeated twice in the Damascene’s *Logic*, in a sequence both third and sixty-fifth; whence he thought that the following sixteen chapters also belonged to the same author, namely the Damascene. But neither is this a very firm argument. For it seems that this first chapter was placed there not by the author of the *Physics*, but by some other librarian or reader in place of a prolegomenon: since that first chapter in the text lacks a clear connection with the succeeding chapters; just as our *Physics*—that chapter being omitted—begins immediately from the chapter which is second in that work. That this *Physics* belongs to Blemmydes, and not to another author, is confirmed not only from the fact that it has the name of Blemmydes expressly prefixed in the manuscript codices, but also because its author, in chapter 4, page 46, verse 5, cites *Blemmydes’ Epitome of Logic*, and its twenty-fourth chapter, and attributes it to himself; which *Logic* is indeed Blemmydes’, and not the Damascene’s, as can be clearly established from the manifest difference between both. Furthermore, just as the author of this *Physics* cites Blemmydes’ *Logic*, so too does Blemmydes in his *Logic* send the reader to this very *Physics* in two places, namely, page 118, at the first chapter *On Natural Principles*, and page 136, at the 4th and 5th chapters *On Motion and Rest*; where he had proposed to say more about these matters. And truly they also harmonize in such a way that no doubt is left but that we ought to attribute and refer both Epitomes—the *Logic* as the former and the *Physics* as the latter—to one author, namely Nicephorus Blemmydes. I most willingly embrace the conjectures of Wegelinus, although the answer is ready at hand, since almost all manuscript codices (and the one which is in my possession is most elegantly written out on parchment) adjudicate both the *Epitome of Logic* and the *Physics Compendium* to Blemmydes, and I publish them as authentic. How much the more recent Greeks have acted like madmen in transcribing the works of others, and philosophical ones especially, and claiming them for themselves, we have spoken profusely elsewhere.

LXXIV. ^B *Homily on the Sacred Synaxis.* — In Palatine codex 248, there is an oration under the name of John of Damascus *On the Sacred Synaxis, and on not judging*: Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ, περὶ τῆς ἁγίας Συνάξεως, τῆς ἀναστάσεως τοῦ Κυρίου, περὶ τοῦ μὴ κρίνειν, μηδὲ μνησικα [sc. *Of our holy Father John of Damascus, on the holy Synaxis, the resurrection of the Lord, on not judging, and not remembering injury*]. With the beginning: *Ἀεὶ μὲν ἡ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος χάρις διὰ πάσης τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ Γραφῆς.* [Always indeed the grace of the Holy Spirit throughout all of God's Scripture]. The same was published in Greek and Latin by Canisius in volume III of his *Antiquae Lectiones*, under the name of Anastasius of Antioch (a). They differ in that the Anastasian version is more prolix and more abundant in words, while the Damascene’s manuscript, with many things removed, is more concise. And perhaps it is Anastasius’, yet contracted into that form by John of Damascus: for the Damascenes are found to have poured many things from Anastasius into their own commentaries, having taken away what they thought fit.

LXXV. *Homily on St. Barbara.* — Antonius Verderius, in his supplement to the Gesnerian Library, notes that Petrus Galesinus translated the *Life of the holy Virgin and Martyr Barbara*, written in Greek by the Damascene and Arsenius, into Latin, which Surius then later reported, briefly explained, in the sixth volume of his *Lives of the Saints*. Galesinus mentions his version in his *Martyrology* (b), as do the acts of St. Barbara written by the Damascene, which seem more trustworthy than others as they are borne under the name of John of Damascus, writes Baronius in his *Martyrology* of December 4th. When I had anxiously searched for the Damascene’s Greek, I finally saw in Vatican codex 679, at the very beginning, the orations of Arsenius of Corcyra and John of Damascus on the same saint, which are neither unlearned nor inelegant. Arsenius’ [orations]: that is the beginning: *Ἐπειδὴ μάρτυρος σήμερον ἐπέστη πανήγυρις, καὶ τοσαύτη γέγονεν ἡ συνάθροισις* [Since the festival of a martyr has come today, and so great is the gathering]. The Damascene’s: *Ὑπέρκειται μὲν ὁμολογουμένως ἅπασαν ἐγκωμίων σύνθεσιν* [It surpasses indeed confessedly every composition of encomia]. From which it is likely that Galesinus drew his own.

LXXVI. *Synopsis of the Old Testament.* — In the manuscript index of the Medicean library, there is held John of Damascus' Σύναψις εἰς τὴν Παλαιὰν Γραφὴν διασαφισθεῖσα φιλοσοφικῶς· *Synopsis of the Old Testament set forth in a philosophical manner*. It would be in the public interest for the work to be dug out from there and edited for the public convenience, since the pen of so great a Father never plays the fool and is always plotting some great thing.

LXXVII. *On the book of the life and morals of the Savior.* — Petrus Equilinus, book IV, chapter 135, among other works of the Damascene, counts this one too: *He also compiled a book on the life and morals of the Savior, and it contains seriously and particularly all the deeds of Christ and the Mother from the incarnation up to the ascension.* What this book is, since I have not seen it myself, I confess I do not know. It would be a cause for grief [XLVII], however, if Petrus is not playing with us, that a work so distinguished and singular, and of prime importance in matters of faith, [is lost]. Nor indeed is there any other conclusion to reach: if it came from the pen of the Damascene, whose every work is most glorious, it must be that through the injury of time it was lost, or through the negligence of the careless it still lies in shadows and libraries.

LXXVII. [sic] Equilinus adds *a Book in praise of the Virgin composed in a rhythmic style in Latin.* That the Damascene wrote much in praise of the Virgin both in verse and in prose is true; but in Greek. If he wrote in Latin himself, it is as I now write in Arabic. But that he wrote something in Arabic is much more likely. And perhaps he wrote it, and we do not know. But La-

- ^Atine aliquid eum scripsisse credat qui volet. Ego fidem Equilini fluxam sæpissime deprehendi.

LXXVIII. De dramate de Susanna.

While I was writing these things, I happened upon the Notes of Henri Valois on the *Excerpts of Nicolaus Damascenus*, and I congratulated myself greatly on this matter for having felt one and the same thing with that most learned man. "Nicolaus," he says, "wrote a tragedy entitled *Susanna*, which Eustathius mentions in his *Dionysius Periegetes*, where he speaks of the Tigris." Yet, to confess frankly, that Eustathius himself, in a sufficiently long and learned commentary on the iambics for Pentecost, bears witness that he was pointing to no one other than John Damascene as the author of the Susanna drama. For by no one better than by Eustathius himself can the mind of Eustathius be extracted. Therefore, while speaking of John Damascene and of that drama, he declares: "That great man has not escaped, nor [the quality of] how his epic poetry was. For he did not merely leave behind measurable pages of verses, but he also engaged in dramaturgy, as experience has taught us, having encountered a drama of his, composed indeed about the blessed and chaste Susanna, but marked on the side as being a poem of John Mansur; and Mansur was an epithet, with which the execrable Copronymus used to abuse him, mocking him as having sprung from Syrian stock, and he fashioned the manner of that drama after a truly Euripidean method. For Susanna would trace her genealogy, and lament if she should have fallen into such a great evil within the garden, and were violated there, and calling the place a paradise, in which the first mother of all was deceived by the demon, she explains sweetly in what manner the serpent, the origin of evils, was striving to deceive me, Eve, again; thus also was the epic poetry, and bright with the light of clarity, and not darkened by a harsh manner of speech, [as is characteristic of] the brilliant Damascene."

What and how great he was in composing poems is manifest. For he did not leave behind small and easily countable pages of poems, but he also composed dramas, as experience itself has taught us, who discover that the drama concerning the deeds of the blessed and chaste Susanna was finished by him, and that it was noted in its living sides that the work was of John Mansur. For Mansur was his surname. For thus the execrable Copronymus would address him, hurling curses at him as if he were born of Syrian stock. And the management of that drama was woven together in a Euripidean method, to speak plainly. For in it, Susanna enumerated her progenitors and lamented if she were to come into such misfortune within the garden and be violated: where, also likening the place to Paradise, in which the first mother of all was deceived by the demon, she explains sweetly by what reason the serpent, the origin ^C of evils, was striving to deceive me, Eve, again. Thus, the method of composing poems—soft, sweet, and splendid with the light of clarity, and a form of expression not harsh—is seen in the illustrious Damascene. Therefore, Eustathius himself asserting it, who is set before us out of the commentaries on the *Periegetes* as Damascene, it is John ^D Damascene, not Nicolaus. So it is; we are not peddling trifles.

But could Eustathius be mistaken, and what should have been attributed to Nicolaus Damascenus, did he pin upon John, just as others had done before him? I do not deny it. From those things which Eustathius recites, he notes that the author of that drama was most knowledgeable in the science of Hebrew affairs, not turned away from Christ. I do not know if anyone might learn that Nicolaus Damascenus was not at all alien to Hebrew affairs, having been greatly delighted by the reading of those books, since in the construction of the *Susanna* drama he was dealing with Jewish matters, and from the stores of the Jews, so as to represent the customs of the Jews to a hair's breadth, he had gathered many things into that drama, such as those things which are related concerning the serpent and Eve. A doubt also increases when Eustathius writes that the name of John was not at the beginning or at the end of the work, as was the custom, but was noted in the margin and the sides: and perhaps even in a handwriting of letters different from the rest of the drama, which Eustathius passed over in silence. Could not that note have originated from the head of some sciolist, who asserts nothing certain but rashly blathers from his own mind: to which, paying little attention, and not examining the rest, of what kind that might be, being intent on proving his own opinion, Eustathius attributed it to John Damascene? But who might untie this knot where there is no knot, since that drama does not exist?

LXXIX.

Of which Canons the author is Damascene.

^A Arcla, so called; to whom I myself also give my assent, it bearing an acrostic. And in the manuscript Vatican Typicon, under number 782, for the most holy Sunday of Pentecost, when there is a sermon on this same Canon, which is accustomed to be sung on that day, it is noted in the margin: "They say it is not of the Damascene, but of another, who is surnamed Arcla." And I myself have seen in very ancient manuscript codices the name of John Arcla prefixed to that Canon. Wherefore if, by the common opinion of the Greeks, the author of this Canon is the Damascene, who is also known under the name of Arcla, we then possess the family and lineage of the Damascene, who will be John Arcla Damascene, to whom was given by the enemies of the icons the nickname Mansur. But I do not pronounce so easily. Eustathius of Thessalonica, who illustrated the said Canon with a most elegant and learned, and sufficiently prolix commentary, strips the Damascene of the three now mentioned Canons, but of this one most especially. Let us hear those reasons of his, clothed in refined blossoms of speech, lest I myself seem to hold forth too often. ^B For he, disputing about the author of the Canon, writes: "I shall begin from where you inquired; and indeed I note in the first place that, whereas many attribute the investigation of the Canon set before us to him who set forth the iambic verses on the Despotic feasts, that on the birth of the Savior Christ, and that on the Baptism, and those again to the great John the Damascene—I, not being able easily to come to such a judgment, because I have not thoroughly examined the Canon, and judging by the diction, distinguish it from those two iambic ones, and attributing it to another craftsman, I affix it to some other—whoever that might be—and I cannot assign it even to the great Damascene for such a reason: 'Light came into the divine Scriptures from God,' and I speak of this brilliant Damascene. But who will capture his clarity by imitating him in all things in which he writes? The aforementioned Canons are very far from such a character. But if someone were to say that he purposely changed his own character in those in which he wrote iambics, first he shall hear that the clear orator proceeds in such a manner everywhere, almost even against his will, with the nature of writing tyrannizing him, and particularly so in his verses, because poetry aims more at pleasure, and in such a way boasts most of that which is attractive; and what is clear is sweet, not what is unclear. For Plato, because he writes according to measure, is clearer than himself and sweeter; then he shall hear that that great man is not hidden, nor what his epic poetry was like; and so on." ^C But, "Lest we be accused of harboring persuasion where we should not, let us allow even the holy Damascene to change, while composing melody, his own tone, like some imitator of voices for the sake of emulation, not that which is commonly studied by many when there is occasion, nor according to the most celebrated narrative about some heroic person, but according to the multi-sounding harmony of tongues harmonized by him, so that he might be, according to art, also himself multi-vocal and, from divine inspiration, multi-tongued. Therefore, O most holy Damascene, owe thanks to those who attribute such Canons to you, and having adopted these words, as though you had even brought them forth, and having thus multiplied your children, accept also a third Canon, that on the most holy Spirit; for what prevents it from being inscribed to you according to their opinion, so that as a Panarium, which is a chest or Arcla, that is a casket, we might gift you, the great John, with this work, as the learned ones say, of John Arcla? And so on." ^D Even if it has happened that he, the luminary of the Church of God risen from Damascus, desiring it, changed his philosophical disposition and wrote this in iambics, not according to his own nature—which is, so to speak, life-bearing in the Holy Spirit—but for the imitation of a poetic character, in one way most venerable in thought, but in that which he expresses, austere or even rugged, according to him who speaks thus, in which character he himself also appears different than heretofore, as inaccessible, and whence is this attested to be beyond dispute? I place deep prostration and accept for confession that which has been attested; for I know well that I shall suffer blame if, as an old man, I have not yet learned, having investigated a matter so good. But I shall endure it, due to not being ignorant that God does not give all these things, nor indeed does the long time, through which much experience is gathered, give everyone an experience of all things. But if those who are about to bear witness and establish the thing sought after are not found, I bow and thus also I put myself to the report of the many, and for the rest I become one of the friendly commission. Beginning from that which you have requested, I shall take my start, and before all, I note that in the first place. Although many attribute the Canon proposed to us to him who composed iambic verses for the Lord's solemnities, namely for the Birth of the Savior Christ and for the Baptism, and refer them to the great John Damascene; I myself, however, not easily able to assent to them, since I have not examined that Canon with precision, yet from the evidence taken from the form of speech, I separate it from those two iambic ones, and granting that they are by another craftsman, I attach this to a certain other, whoever he may be. But I do not attribute even those to the great Damascene for this reason. I assert that this most illustrious Damascene received light into the divine Scriptures from God; but who could express by imitation the clarity which he preserves in all his writings? From this form the lauded Canons are as far removed as possible. But if anyone should say that he, of set purpose, changed his own form of speech in those things which he brought forth in iambic verses into another, let him hear this indeed, that a clear orator in almost all places, even against his will, is the same, with the nature that is prone to writing compelling and as it were forcing him, and that he is such especially in his verses, since poetry itself is for the most part delighted by sweetness and procures it for itself, and it is what drives one to see it most especially; and clarity, not obscurity, begets sweetness. Plato, therefore, when he plays with verse, is more clear and sweeter than himself. Afterwards, let him also hear this, that it is clearly evident what and how great that great Damascene was in composing verses, etc. For lest anyone refute us as obstinate in these matters, in which there is least need, let us concede that even the holy Damascene, while he sets his hand to melody, changed his own diction as a kind of imitator of voices for the sake of emulation, not that which is in common use and study among many when occasion arises, nor according to the most famous narration about some heroic person, but according to the apostolic and multi-sounding harmony of tongues sung by himself, so that, as before, he might be celebrated himself in varied speech and by the instinct of the divinity in many tongues. Therefore, most holy Damascene, have thanks to those who demand Canons similar to yours: and receiving these words, as if by producing them you had increased the number of your children, have also the third Canon, which has been poured out unto the Holy Spirit. For what prevents it from being ascribed to you by their opinion, so that by Panarium, which is a repository or Arcla, we might gift the most holy John with this work, as those who know report John

Arcla, etc. And it came to pass that the Damascene, that luminary of the Church of God, desiring to write in iambic verse, having changed his philosophical condition, did so not according to his nature in the Holy Spirit—who, if I may say so, supplies a light to his thoughts both most grave and most sweet—but with a diction and form of speaking [that is] austere, or as another might say, intractable; where he himself also seems other than he was before, as one who cannot be reached. And this which is affirmed by the testimony of some as if it were most certain, I revere submissively; and that which is proven by the testimony of others, I eagerly embrace. Yet I will not escape the critics, if I, an old man and already broken by age, have not yet acquired or learned for myself a thing so beautiful; whom, however, I could not equally endure, since I hold it for certain that God does not display all these things to all people, nor does He bestow the experience of all things—by which the experience of many matters is acquired—upon everyone. But if there are not those present who might prove it with their own testimony and make the matter credible, for this reason also I show deference, and I yield to the opinion of the many, and I become for the future one of the company of my friends, obedient.

^C LXXX. Eustathius’s judgment concerning the canon for Pentecost is weakened. — Eustathius, a man otherwise sufficiently circumspect, argues in this way; but as to how much weight he has in these matters, let others judge. For me, truly, the answer is ready at hand, if I shall remove from the midst, by a single negation, those things which he himself asserts so confidently. For who, even slightly initiated in the oratorical art, will concede that poetry is clearer than prose itself? And that the pleasure we obtain from poems, and [our] sweetness, is produced by nothing else but clarity? Is Plato sweeter and clearer in verse? And what of Plato’s own verses, apart from a few epigrams recorded in monuments by others for their sweetness, from which no judgment can be made concerning Plato’s poems, and most other things? You would say that a boy, experimenting in the rhetorical wrestling-school, had blathered them. But he says himself that he is an old man, and already of broken age, and you, reader, see [it]. Be it so, I do not marvel, lest I say worse things about so great a man, whose reading and erudition I respect. And I conclude that the Damascene could have written this Canon most excellently, and that in writing it, for the dignity of the subject matter, for the nature of the poems, and for the more restricted forms of speaking, he had changed his own open and clear diction into something more obscure and shadowed. For when the Damascene teaches, he flows more limpid than the very springs; when he proceeds to praises of the saints from the pulpit, he rises more turgid, and loses a little of his clarity in that vehemence of his. It is therefore no wonder that in setting forth the most obscure matters, he rides lifted from the earth, and with complicated spurs, prone and clear, he confuses [matters] and, rising with dithyrambic rhythms, he confuses and darkens everything with a swifter rush. Which we were also observing in others. Who does not see that Thucydides narrating is one thing, and the same man haranguing is another? That Attic Bee constructs honey for us by narrating, while indeed he harangues, he also leaves behind stings, and jumps with the sinews of oratory. Present the Damascene to yourself as a poet, and incited by the frenzy not only of the divine, but of poetry itself, you will not say that he merely changed his forms of speaking and made it more obscure, but that he spoke as though in another language, just as other Greek poets did, if we credit Cicero in his *De Oratore*. He could, therefore, have written: did he write? By the common voice of all, though not holding the scales of justice equally, he wrote. Eustathius, though too anxiously, denies it. I, as I must frankly say, am entirely ignorant. John Arcla, whom the most ancient manuscripts of the best quality prefer as the writer of that Canon, detains agreement. For I suspect that Arcla is someone other than the Damascene, since I find no mention of him among the Damascene’s sketches, of whom he was also an excellent writer, though known only by name, or [if] this Canon alone demonstrates [it], which, from itself alone, and even if it professed no author, is so great that it has been deemed worthy to have a place among ecclesiastical offices, and to be attributed to the Damascene by many. Regarding him, the opinion of Eustathius is very good: ^D "He reasoned well," he says, "that which is celebrated ecclesiastically in a holy manner, as now already manifested and tested, and approved, and appearing with boldness in psalmody, is not such that it should be cast aside; likewise, neither should it be turned aside as not being, of course, the offspring of a good father; wherefore it should not be overlooked as spurious and supposititious, and on that account to be destroyed or rejected, but rather it should be adopted and placed in high regard. Or how would he not be blameworthy, by not looking after the foundation stone of the ecclesiastical base, or the tesserae, or the plaster of marble, so to speak—not to let them fall—but to honor the Trinitarian theologies and the words of the most divine mysteries, the revealers, with which also the holy servants of God are hymned while being woven together, and to be spoken and chanted and written in orthodoxy, without hesitation, for the sake of clarity, so that in this way they may be sanctified, both the eyes and the mouth and the hands and the whole area of the body and the soul itself?" Consider very well that among sacred things, he held it as a sacred place, since it has already been notified and plainly excepted, and enumerated among other things, and proposed to all by song and solemnity, that it cannot be condemned: just so, neither can we doubt that it is not the offspring of a good parent—the offspring, namely, of the mind—and therefore to be looked down upon as spurious and supposititious, and on that account to be thrown out and expelled, but to be adopted and held in much consideration. For by what reason would it not be to be argued: the precious stone of the ecclesiastical base, or the little stone, or the cement, in whatever way they may fall, one should not spurn. Truly, similar treatises concerning the Trinity, and interpreters of the speeches of the most divine arcana, with whom together also the holy servants of God are praised as they are intertwined, are not to be spoken and sung irreverently, and are to be written correctly, and are to be drawn securely into a more open meaning, so that by that reason both the eyes, and the mouth, and the hands, and the rest of the structure of the body, and the mind itself at last, may be holy.

LXXXI. The author of the Life of St. Nilus the Younger writes that John of Damascus wrote a laudation for the holy Apostles in iambic verses; "The great Phantinus urges the holy Nilus to rise and read the encomium for the Apostles written by the one among the saints, John of Damascus"

^A Blessed Nilus, knowing that he should never disobey, although he happened to be almost withered away, arose with all joy and eagerness, and he himself began the reading, and that wicked disease gradually departed from his body. It is uncertain whether that eulogy consisted only of poems, or if similar poems were inserted into it by the author where and when it seemed fit, as happened in the oration on the dead published under the name of the same Damascene. For it is said to be [italicized: embellished with iambic verses]. Which would be put in vain if that whole work were composed of verses; and it would hint that it was [italicized: written in iambic and metrical verses]. Whether it still exists, I for one do not know. I wish that the Fathers of the monasteries which Phantinus and Nilus had built would strive for this one thing, that whatever of the Damascene lies hidden in them might be published for the public good. Perhaps together with those, his verses on the Apostles might see the light.

LXXXII.

Oration on Holy Saturday.

LXXXIII.

Dissertation against the Nestorians.

A most exact sermon against the God-hated heresy of the Nestorians.

LXXXIV. There are mentioned also [LII] orations of John of Damascus against the Jews, among the books presented by the Grammarian at Antonius Verderius.

LXXXV. Concerning his book the [italicized: Paracleticus] in praise of the Virgin, like the [italicized: Octoechus], divided into eight volumes, but different from the [italicized: Octoechus], because the [italicized: Octoechus] presents canons and troparia for Sundays, while the [italicized: Paracleticus] presents them also for individual weekdays; and it is, with me, an enormous and rare volume. Concerning this and other similar works of the Damascene, we shall speak at a more opportune time elsewhere in our treatise [italicized: De melodis Græcorum]. And let these for now be enough concerning the writings of Saint John of Damascus.

To all these things which Leo Allatius collected very copiously and learnedly concerning Saint John of Damascus and his works, I have nothing more that I might now add. For I have executed everything that seemed to me to need either addition or re-treatment, both in the annotations to the life of the most holy author, and in the admonitions which I have prefixed to almost all his lucubrations. For besides those Canons and hymns, about which the most learned man promised he would speak elsewhere, in his treatise [italicized: De melodis Græcorum], he passed judgment on none of the many other dissertations or orations of the holy doctor which he himself had discovered and had sent to the illustrious John Aubert to be published, or was about to send. Indeed, although I highly honor and admire his extraordinary and almost immense erudition, and feel myself a debtor to him on many counts, the love of truth has nevertheless forced me to dissent sometimes from his judgment and opinion. Which, however, whether I have attained, the fair reader will judge, having weighed the moments of the arguments on either side. Moreover, because in the premonitions and notes I could not set forth everything that I thought worthy of observation for the elucidation of certain principal chapters, I thought I would be doing something worthwhile if I treated of these separately and more fully, in special dissertations, which, as Allatius’s [italicized: Diatriba], might precede the whole edition as prolegomena.

DAMASCENE DISSERTATIONS. DISSERTATION I. ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I. Although in the books of Saint John Damascene many passages occur regarding the dispute over the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, yet the brevity of [these] brief notes has been an impediment to there being a sufficiently accurate explanation of all that pertains to this principal point of Eastern theology. Therefore, in order that the things which must be said about this subject may be better perceived, I enter upon a critical and historical dissertation; for nothing seems more apt and useful according to this method for defending and explaining the points of orthodox tradition.

^A II. The status of the question.—In the middle of the fourth century of the Church, Saint Hilary (a) pronounced that no calumny or injury should be done to the liberty of the intelligence of the Arians, [when debating] whether they think the Paraclete Spirit is from the Father or from the Son. For he did not consider that the Lord left this in uncertainty, having spoken thus: *I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.* [John 16:12-15]. Therefore, the Spirit receives from the Son (continues Hilary), who is sent by him, and proceeds from the Father. But it is believed that there is no difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, and it will be considered one and the same thing to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father. This which he receives, whether it be power, or virtue, or doctrine, when the Son says it is to be received ^B from himself, he signified that this very thing is to be received from the Father, when he says that all things which are the Father's are his own. Finally, he concludes: “This happens thus because of the unity of the same nature, nor should we permit, for the sake of the liberty of impious intelligence, that this heretical perversity should be [maintained], that because all things are the Father's, the Spirit of truth should therefore receive from himself, not confessing it to be of the unity of the nature.” In this way, Hilary explains what he had said elsewhere (b), that the Son is not only the bestower of the Holy Spirit, but also the author: that the Spirit is from the Father and the Son as authors; as if, namely, from one principle, because of the one nature of both: and thus the Spirit receives and is sent by the Son, because he proceeds from him as he does from the Father. These things he taught in the West against the Arians, who ^C said that the Spirit was a creature of the Son, whom the Macedonians subsequently imitated; and indeed even Marcellus of Ancyra, who said that the Son, or the Word, was an extension of the Father's substance; and [that] the Spirit was a further extension of that extension. All these men taught these things whilst impiously interpreting the received faith of the Church. The theology which Hilary explained, and which is the genuine faith of the Latin Church today, was confirmed by Epiphanius, affirming that for this reason the Holy Spirit should not be called the son of the Son, nor the grandson of the Father, because he proceeds from the Father and the Son simultaneously. And just as Hilary in another place professed that the Spirit proceeds through the Son from the Father, in the sense noted: so also the same is asserted by Basil, Nyssen, and others (c), who add that the Spirit is the *rhema* [word], the *eikona* [image] of the Son. What more? [They say] that the Son is the fountain of the Holy Spirit, and other similar things. This indeed was fixed and certain, that the Holy Spirit is to the Son as the Son is to the Father; ^D that the Holy Spirit depends on the Son, [and] that the Spirit is of the Son, because he is spirated, so to speak, by the Son: in short, that he receives all that he has from the Son. I omit six hundred similar expressions of the ancient Fathers, by which the procession of the Holy Spirit is hinted at, both from the Father and from the Son.

III. The opinion of Cyril of Alexandria.—Cyril of Alexandria taught this doctrine, most received in the universal Church, passim in his works. In his synodical epistle to Nestorius of Constantinople, in the name of himself and his own Egyptian Church, he has these words: “The Spirit is understood, according to what he is the Spirit, and not the Son, but yet he is not alien from him. For he is named the Spirit of truth, and Christ is the truth, *kai procheitai par' autou, kathaper amelei kai ek Theou kai Patros*,” and [it] profited

^A from Him, just as [it proceeds] from God and the Father. Cyril, as it turns out, was prefiguring this with his ninth anathema, in which he defined against Nestorius: “If anyone should say that the one Lord Jesus Christ was sanctified by the Holy Spirit, as using a power proper to Him as something alien, and [if he says] that He received from the same the force and efficacy by which He worked against unclean spirits and performed divine miracles among men, and does not rather confess that the Spirit, through whom He performed divine signs, is His own—let him be anathema.” Theodoret received this anathema with the same captiousness as the others, and laid it to the charge of the prelate of Alexandria that, in saying the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, he understood Him to exist either from the Son or through the Son. “But if,” he says [II], “when he called Him the Spirit of the Son, he meant that He is of the same nature as He and proceeds from the Father, we shall confess it together and receive this expression as pious; but if [he means that He has] existence as from the Son, or through the Son, we reject this as blasphemous and impious.” Theodoret, therefore, gathered the sense of the aforementioned anathema from the synodical epistle to which Cyril had attached the anathemas as if they were appendices, unless perhaps he had not read the declaration of the same ninth anathema given by Cyril at the Council of Ephesus, in which it is stated in express words that the Son has the Holy Spirit as His own, *ex autou, kai ousiōdōs empephykos autō*, that is, one who is from Himself and essentially implanted in Him. What reason Theodoret actually advanced to rise up against this head of Cyril's doctrine, he himself reveals in the epistle which he wrote against those anathemas to the monasteries, and which was read at the fifth general synod (a). “But he (Cyril) blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,” he says, “by saying that He does not proceed from the Father, according to the Lord’s voice, but is from the Son.” This, indeed, is the fruit of the seeds of Apollinarius; but it also approaches the malignant cult of Macedonius. From this it is clear that Theodoret disapproved of Cyril's statements concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son only insofar as he supposed that the impieties of Macedonius and Apollinarius were expressed in them. But for what reason he should have said at first that this was the fruit of Apollinarius's seeds, one might gather from the fact that Apollinarius, having adduced the example of the sun, the ray, and the splendor which is emitted from the sun by the ray, uttered forth the notion, by establishing grades in the Trinity, that the Holy Spirit was great, the Son greater, and the Father greatest; so that just as the Son would be lesser than the Father because He was born of the Father, so too the Holy Spirit would be lesser than the Son because He was begotten of the Son. Theodoret also mentions in another place (b) that Apollinarius inverted the properties of the divine persons: but by what logic, he does not explain. There exists an exposition of the faith *kata meros*, which is adorned with the name of Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, but it had Apollinarius as its true parent, just as ^B under ^C the Emperor Leo the First, the Palestinian monks and other defenders of the Council of Chalcedon proved by producing a list of the works of this arch-heretic, which Timotheus, his disciple, had once compiled. In that exposition we read: *Tou te Pneumatos; ek tēs ousias tou Patros, di’ Huiou aidiōs ekpemphthentos*, “And the Holy Spirit, eternally sent forth from the substance of the Father through the Son.” For these and other reasons, Theodoret defined it to be blasphemy, and a fruit of the seeds of Apollinarius, to confess that the Holy Spirit has existence either from the Son or through the Son. Carried away by this heat of envy toward the most excellent doctor, he did not notice that it had been a familiar assertion of the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries that the Holy Spirit shines forth from the Father through the Son. This is proclaimed everywhere by the great Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, in accordance with that true and sincere formula of faith which they had received as having been divinely delivered to the Thaumaturgus. “One Holy Spirit, having existence from God (the words of that formula are) *kai di’ Huiou pephēnos*,” and who shone forth through the Son. In the Greek codices into which I have fallen to date, there is added, *tois anthrōpois*, that is, “to men.” The simplicity of this Gregorian confession does not seem to tolerate such little words, and they savor of the temerity of the schismatic Greeks who, by this interpretation, wished to signify that the Holy Spirit shines forth through the Son only in such a way that He is granted to men through the Son. But for the Greek Fathers it is very common to express any procession of a divine person with the word *ekphansis*, or *eklampsys*, “effusion.” Therefore, Gregory the Theologian says somewhere that the divine persons are distinguished from one another by the character *tēs ekphanseōs, ē tēs pros allēla scheseōs*, of the effusion, or of the mutual relation between them. By these words he plainly teaches that the divine relations are founded in the procession of one from the other, as we have noted in its proper place. Furthermore, the old Latin translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, which Rufinus of Aquileia adorned, refutes the falsified exposition of the Thaumaturgus; into it he inserted, along with many other things, this formula of Gregory, excluding those words, namely, “to men.” Hadrian I also did not read them; in his epistle to Charlemagne, he contends by the authority of this same exposition of the faith, that it was rightly said by Tarasius of Constantinople that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Indeed, all the Greeks who wrote on theology thereafter, putting aside Theodoret's cavils, have asserted without hesitation that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. But Theodoret also reveals a excessive itch for polemics when he says in the aforementioned epistle that Cyril blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, who says that He does not proceed ^D from the Father, according to the Lord’s voice. For Cyril had written explicitly in the synodical [letter].

^A proceeding from Him (the Son), just as from God and the Father. ^B But he thought it better to pass over this point concerning the procession of the Spirit in silence, in order to complete the main business that weighed upon him against Nestorius, by dispelling that troublesome accusation by which he was rumored to hold the same views as Apollinarius regarding the mystery of the incarnation.

IV. The Ephesine Synod acknowledges the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Meanwhile, while the synod at Ephesus was being celebrated in the year 431, under the presidency of Cyril, Charisius, a presbyter of Philadelphia in Lydia, brought forward a certain symbol of faith which Nestorius and his emissaries were handing over to heretics who were returning to the Church to profess. It is well established that the true author of this was Theodore of Mopsuestia. In it, it was said concerning the Holy Spirit, "But we do not think He is the Son, nor that He received existence through the Son," (οὔτε δι’ Υἱοῦ τὴν ὕπαρξιν εἰληφός); then, furthermore, in the subsequent parts, the Nestorian error concerning the person of Christ was clearly stated. Wherefore, the synod issued a decree, which it is worthwhile to relate here in its entirety. These things having been completed, the holy synod decreed that it is not permitted for anyone to produce, or write, or compose another [faith] besides that which was defined by the holy Fathers who were gathered in Nicaea with the Holy Spirit [III]. But as for those who shall have dared to either compose another faith, or to produce or offer it to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, whether from paganism, or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever; them, indeed, if they are bishops or clerics, it decreed to be aliens, the bishops from the episcopate, and the clerics from the clergy: but if they should be laymen, it subjects them to anathema. In a similar manner, if any should be found, whether bishops, or clerics, or laymen, either holding or teaching those things which are contained in the exposition offered by Charisius the presbyter concerning the incarnation of the only-begotten Son, or the perverse dogmas of Nestorius which are also annexed, they shall be subject to the sentence of this holy and universal synod; namely, that the bishop indeed be removed from his episcopate and be deposed; the cleric likewise fall from his clergy; but if he be a layman, he himself also be anathematized. Regarding this statute, of which there will later be a place to speak, many have thought that it was that symbol which was condemned by the Ephesine Fathers, also on account of those things which it contains against the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. Which, however, is not certain, since it only expresses that those would be subject to anathema who were found to hold or teach those things contained in the exposition offered by Charisius the presbyter regarding the incarnation (τὰ περὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως), that is to say, the wicked and perverse dogmas of Nestorius. Nestorius, therefore, denied that the Spirit exists from the Son, or rather (δι’ Υἱοῦ), through the Son, with the same reasoning as Theodoret; having cast aside, that is to say, the Eunomian, or the Macedonian, or even the Apollinarian error. ^C Indeed, Rusticus, a deacon of the Roman Church, who under Justinian I and Pope Vigilius published a Dialogue against the Acephali in Constantinople—not being so ignorant of the Church's decrees that he would deny it to be certain in faith that the Spirit proceeds from the Son just as from the Father, if that had been defined at Ephesus against Nestorius—wrote: "The Father begat, and is not begotten," these are the words of Rusticus, "and is not from any other, as others are from Him. But the Son is begotten, and He begat nothing coeternal: and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and nothing coeternal proceeds, or is begotten from Him." Yet some of the ancients added this to the properties, that just as the Holy Spirit did not eternally beget the Son with the Father, so neither does the Spirit proceed from the Son as from the Father. "I indeed, because the Spirit did not beget eternally, profess (for we do not say there are two Fathers), but whether He truly proceeds from the Son in the same way as He does from the Father, I do not have perfectly satisfied." Who those ancients were, Rusticus does not indicate. But nowhere has Theodoret argued thus. Moreover, even if Rusticus thought that his Theodoret denied altogether that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, we have nonetheless said that Hilary long ago took away the liberty of doubting that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son; for that, indeed, the Lord had not left in uncertainty. In the very age of Rusticus, or rather before Rusticus had written those books, Gennadius, in his book *On Dogmas*, had confessed the Holy Spirit to be proceeding from the Father and the Son: and again, that He proceeds from God the Father and from God the Son. Avitus of Vienne, in his book *On the Divinity of the Holy Spirit*, after he said: "Concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, whom we read was neither made, nor begotten, nor created, the Apostle says, 'He is God'," etc. (where he seems to hint at the symbol which is called Athanasius's), subjoins: "But we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son and the Father." And again he says that in the rule of the Catholic faith and discipline it has not been omitted that it is proper to the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son. Fulgentius: "That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the nature of the Father and the Son." And likewise: "Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the same Holy Spirit, who is the one spirit of the Father and the Son, proceeds from the Father and the Son." Paschasius the deacon (b): "Behold, here the Holy Spirit is rightly recognized to proceed from both." Again: "He is said to be sent by the Father and the Son, and to proceed from their own substance." I omit Eucherius, Vigilius of Tapsus, and other more ancient ones. But the Ephesine synod also conceded the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, where it approved the synodical [letter] of Cyril with the anathematisms. Yet it did not rashly admit those anathematisms, but [demanded] ^D what was requested by that selfsame...

^A declaration of these by Cyril, in which he had also professed this procession more clearly, as was shown above. The title prefixed to the exposition of the anathematisms bears witness to this in the following manner: *Explanation of the twelve chapters, pronounced at Ephesus by Cyril of Alexandria, the holy synod demanding of him a clearer explanation of these.*

V. Cyril did not change his opinion. The Greek schismatics claim that Cyril changed both his statement and his opinion because of the complaints of Theodoret, and they bring forward Theodoret’s letter to John of Antioch, in which he narrates that he had read the letters of the Egyptians, in which they proclaimed that the Holy Spirit did not have existence from the Son, or *through* the Son, but proceeds from the Father, and is called the property of the Son because He is consubstantial [with Him]. Allatius ^B contends that this letter is spurious, with whom, however, I do not entirely agree; because it is found in the very ancient Latin translation of the 95th chapter of the *Tragedy* of Irenæus. But Theodoret is thereby convicted of having denied that the Spirit exists *from* the Son or *through* the Son in no other sense than as it might refer to things created by God *through* the Son. For he speaks of the letters of communion which the Alexandrian pontiff had sent to the Antiochene through Paul of Emesa, in which one might read only this, which pertains to the Holy Spirit: *For the Fathers themselves did not speak, but the Spirit of God and the Fathers: "He does not proceed from him, nor is He foreign to the Son according to the rationale of essence";* that is, He proceeds indeed from Him, but is not, however, foreign to the Son according to the rationale of essence. Where Cyril does not deny that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, but confirms that He is consubstantial with the Son, or Christ; which at that time sufficed for him, and calmed the complaints of Theodoret.

VI. Furthermore, the holy doctor held to the procession of the Spirit from the Son in his later works as well. For just as he had often asserted this doctrine in the *Treasury* which he dedicated to a certain Nemesius, especially in assertion 34, so too in the dialogues on the Trinity, in which he summarized the chief points and headers he had treated in the *Treasury*, he inculcated the same thing again. In dialogue 6, where he disputes about the Deity of the Holy Spirit, he asserts that He has all efficiency and action from the Son; *and not rather as He Himself and from Him having all His energy.* In dialogue 7, because of these words of Scripture: *In this we know that He is in us, from the Spirit which He has given to us,* ^C he infers that the Spirit is not foreign or separated in substance from the Son, inasmuch as *He is from Him and in Him and is His own property*; which he repeats in the things that follow. And yet, I would gather from this that those dialogues ^D on the Trinity, which he also inscribed to Nemesius, were held at Alexandria some time after peace had been established with the Orientals (when, that is to say, he was already openly defending two natures in Christ), [and that] in them he uses *ousia* and *physis* to signify essence and nature common to many, and *hypostasis* to express person, the individual, and the singular; whereas before this he had taken *physis* and *hypostasis* for the same thing in the anathematisms, and indeed also in his epistle to Valerian. Be that as it may, in the final two dialogues which are on the incarnation, *That Christ is one*, and in which he briefly but elegantly rebutted all that he had put forward in various studies for the faith against Nestorius and his followers; in these, I say, dialogues, he continues to teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. For in dialogue 8, he speaks thus in the same and identical words which he himself once used in his *Epistle on the Right Faith to the Emperor Theodosius*: *He (John) said that He baptizes in fire and Spirit, not introducing a Spirit foreign to those being baptized, in the manner of a servant and minister, but as God according to nature, with supreme authority, He who is from Him and is His own,*—neither introducing a Spirit foreign to those being baptized in the manner of a servant and minister, but as God in His own nature with supreme power, He who is from Him and is His own property. Which things, indeed, in both places exhibit a declaration of the ninth anathematism, entirely similar to that which he had given at Ephesus. From dialogue 9 it appears that both works were written after the Ephesian synod; because he calls Nestorius a "venomed dragon" in it, which he would not rightly have done unless the heretic had already been condemned by the judgment of the council. Furthermore, since he struggles to defend the distinction of natures in these dialogues, I gather from this that they were published after the year 433, and after the epistle written to Successus, who had inquired of him whether it was necessary to speak of two natures in Christ: to which, indeed, having exploded the sense of Diodorus of Tarsus—who first posited two sons—which Nestorius had followed, he responds that it must be preached. Wherefore I have no doubt that the words which are read at the beginning of the former dialogue, with the author’s name omitted, are those of either Diodorus or Theodore of Mopsuestia. The acts of the fifth synod testify that Cyril wrote another volume, *That Christ is one*, against both, especially the Mopsuestian, and that it was refuted by Theodoret. Moreover, the errors of Theodore began to be disclosed and attacked around the year 435, two years after the reconciliation of Cyril with the Antiochenes. The counsel of Cyril and Proclus of Constantinople was, at first, that Theodore’s name should be spared, provided his impious sayings were proscribed, so that their spirits might not be offended again.

VII. As regards the Latin Fathers, they all taught with one consent that the Spirit [proceeds] from the Father and the Son

although not in precisely the same way from the Son as from the Father, since they considered the Father to be the primordial fountain of the Holy Spirit, from whom the whole of Deity flows into the Son and the Spirit: even though the Father and the Son, by the same power, that is, the divine nature, produce the Spirit. Whence Augustine says (a), the Spirit proceeds principally from the Father. But I added "principally," he says, because the Holy Spirit is found also to proceed from the Son; but the Father gave this to Him, not as something already existing and not having it, but whatever He gave to the Only-begotten, He gave by begetting Him. Thus in Book III of *Contra Maximinum*, he states that the Spirit proceeds properly from the Father, since the Father is the author of His procession; this is the primordial principle. Whence it is not without merit that those ancient writers, of whom Rusticus spoke, denied that the Spirit proceeds from the Son in the same way as He proceeds from the Father. Besides Hilary and Augustine, whom our theologians have imitated; besides writers contemporary with Rusticus, whose passages I have just produced, Ambrose also often taught the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, as for instance in his book *De Symbolo*, ch. 1, 3, and 4, and elsewhere; Marius Victorinus in Book I of *Contra Arianos*: The Spirit, he says, is from the Son, and therefore from both. I omit the old declaration of the Creed to Damasus, and the Creed of Damasus, which exist among the works of Jerome; since, although they may have been praised by writers of the eighth century, they are not considered to be by Damasus or Jerome. Perhaps more authentic is the *Confession of the Catholic Faith* which Pope Damasus wrote to Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch, which was praised at the Council of Florence, from an ancient original; in which it is twice stated that the Spirit, the Paraclete, proceeds from the Father and the Son. Leo the Great, whose words even the Greeks themselves, in the *Synodicon* of Orthodoxy every year on the first Sunday of Lent, declare to be of equal weight to the general councils, writes thus in his epistle to Turribius of Astorga concerning the Priscillianists: "Who assert that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the same person, as if the same God were named now Father, now Son, now Holy Spirit, and that there is not one who is the Begetter, another the Begotten, and another who proceeds from both." The schismatics, who boasted that Leo was entirely their own, had not read these things. Turribius, in turn, having received the pontiff’s epistle, issued a declaration of faith in a crowded council of all Spain in the year 447, in which the Holy Spirit is twice said to proceed from the Father and the Son. The third Council of Toledo, subsequently held in the year 589 under King Reccared, defined against the Arians that the Holy Spirit should not be thought to be outside that substance which is the Father's and the Son's.

VIII. Augustine is not the author of the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. But because Augustine inculcated this point of doctrine more than the rest, later Greeks asserted that he was its very architect, and they moved heaven and earth to destroy the authority of such a great man: which, however, like that of other doctors, the general councils, the fifth and six, commended. George Scholarius, in Book I of *De processione Spiritus sancti*, sect. 1, ch. 5, asserts quite contentiously that Augustine, with the intention of defeating Nestorius on all sides, composed the system of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. But this is gratuitous: for Augustine had already edited Book XV of *De Trinitate*, as well as three other more refined books *Contra Maximinum Arianum*, before Nestorius had declared his heresy: in all of which, however, he argues about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. In the books *De Trinitate*, indeed, which he wrote when he was younger, he commonly asserts, according to the principles of the Platonists, as Claudianus Mamertus (b) reveals, that the Holy Spirit is the mutual love of the Father and the Son: from which both he and subsequent Latin theologians confirmed that the Spirit proceeds from both. But in the books *Contra Maximinum*, which he composed in his more advanced age, having omitted the mention of mutual love, he continues to defend the dogma of the Church. Augustine therefore did not forge a new doctrine by asserting that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, even if [V] perhaps he stabilized and illustrated an ancient one with new moments of argument, which the Latins subsequently embraced.

IX. The Greek Fathers meanwhile teach that the Spirit proceeds through the Son. As regards the Greek doctors, having set aside, as has been said, the complaints of Theodoret against the words of Cyril, they continued to confess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, although in saying "through the Son," the Eunomian or Macedonian sense was rather cast in their minds than the Catholic one. For the sacred pages, when they speak of the creation of things, affirm them to have been founded through the Son, more sparingly from the Son: "All things," they say, "were made through Him; all things subsist through Him; through whom He also made the ages," etc. But when the Spirit is said to be from the Father and the Son, it is immediately understood that He is of the substance of the Father and the Son, and is consubstantial with both, just as indeed the Council of Nicaea, by saying that the Son is born of the Father, signified that it should be understood that He is from the substance of the Father, τουτέστιν ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός. Nor does it follow from the Latin manner of speaking that the Spirit is from two principles. For, as Augustine (c) warns: "Just as the Father and the Son are one God, and relative to the creature, one Creator, and one Lord, so relative to the Holy Spirit, [they are] one principle." Wherefore Anselm (d) defined that the Holy Spirit is not from that by which the Father and the Son are others from each other, but from the divine essence, in which they are one: that is, not in the way by which as persons and hypostases they are Father and Son do they produce the Spirit, but in the way by which they are one in the divine nature.

X. Various modes of expression did not rend the Churches. The Monothelites were the first authors of the quarrels. Because

these various ways of speaking of both nations did nothing to derogate from peace and concord, however much the Latins, and especially the Roman pontiffs, might openly profess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Hormisdas, in his decretal epistle to the elder Augustus Justin, wrote clearly and with impunity: "It is proper to the Father that He should beget the Son; proper to the Son of God that He should be born of the Father, equal to the Father; proper to the Holy Spirit that He should proceed from the Father and the Son under one substance of the Godhead." No one among the Greeks during all these centuries muttered against the Latins. The Constantinopolitan Monothelites, I would say, were the first of all to harass the Romans, when, having read in certain synodical letters of Pope Martin that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, they had from thence a pretext for accusing the Roman Church, by which their own error had been condemned. Saint Maximus the Confessor teaches this in his epistle to Marinus the priest of Cyprus, where he relates that the Romans, when they had diligently scrutinized their understanding, brought forth in harmony the testimonies of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria from his sacred work which he did on the holy evangelist John: from which they showed that they were not making themselves the cause of the Holy Spirit. For they acknowledge that there is one cause of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Father—of the one, indeed, according to generation, but of the other according to procession—but that they intended to insinuate that the latter proceeds through the former, and by this (the word, namely, *Filioque*) to demonstrate the communion and lack of difference of substance. With some things interposed, he adds this, which is worth citing here: "Furthermore, according to your command, I asked the Romans to interpret their own statements, for the sake of escaping the machinations of the adversaries (the Monothelites, that is). But, as the custom of doing and sending things in this manner prevails, I do not know whether they would consent. Moreover, they are not able in another language and word to express their meaning as they do in their own, or in their native, subtle (or accurate) intelligence, or even as we do ours in our own." I describe Maximus's passage in Latin from the translation of Anastasius the Librarian; concerning which he himself speaks thus in his epistle to John the Deacon: "Furthermore, we have translated from the epistle of Saint Maximus written to the priest Marinus the circumstance concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, where he ^B intimates that the Greeks cause trouble for us in vain, since we do not say that the Son is the cause or principle of the Holy Spirit, as they suppose, but, not being ignorant of the unity of the substance of the Father and the Son, we confess that, just as He proceeds from the Father, so He proceeds from the Son, understanding the mission (perhaps it should be read 'procession,' as in the interpretation of Anastasius himself)—that is, the procession; interpreting piously, and instructing those skilled in both languages; while he teaches us and the Greeks that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son according to a certain respect, and does not proceed according to a certain respect; signifying the difficulty of expressing the property of one language into that of the other." For indeed, by such a pious interpretation, Saint Athanasius once united the Orientals and Occidentals who were dissenting on the name of substance or person, while he taught both to believe and hold to one and the same meaning; although, on account of the variety of language, they confessed it differently and were enraged by untimely contentions.

^C XI. The epistle of Maximus to Marinus is sincere. Thus far the Cardinal Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, who, as apocrisiarius of the Apostolic See, long resided in Constantinople. Moreover, by his testimony the sincerity of Maximus's epistle is supported, which some among the Latins at the Council of Florence rejected as spurious. Nor indeed could this epistle, which seems to favor both sides, have been fabricated by the Latins alone, nor likewise by the Greeks alone, as George Scholarius aptly argues. Furthermore, it appears from the same epistle how unjust evaluators of dogmas were those who turned to the blame of the Latins the faith of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son: "The Constantinopolitans did not reproach the most holy Pope in so many chapters of his synodical letter as you have written," says Maximus, "but in two only, of which the one is about the reason of the divinity; for they say it was stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son: the other is about the divine incarnation; for they say it was written that the Lord was without original and actual sin. Who could, without blasphemy, teach that the Lord was not without original and actual sin?" These accusations, therefore, of the Greeks against the Romans were not lasting, nor is there any doubt that they were settled by the letters of Saint Maximus.

^D XII. Other impugners of the Latin dogma, the Iconoclasts. The dispute, however, concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit was stirred up again by Constantine Copronymus with his Iconoclasts, when he perceived himself to be proscribed by the Apostolic See. Wherefore, concerning this article, a debate was held before the king of the Franks, Pepin, at a synod of the bishops of Gaul, at Gentilly, not far from Paris. "A synod was held at that time," says Ado of Vienne in his Chronicle, "and a question was debated between the Greeks and the Romans concerning the Trinity, and whether the Holy Spirit, just as He proceeds from the Father, so proceeds from the Son, and concerning the images of the saints, whether they should be fashioned or painted in the churches." Paulus Æmilius adds, though I know not on what authority, that the Greek envoys were ordered to advise their emperor to think piously along with the others. Which I understand especially touching the head of the procession of the Holy Spirit, since our Gauls at that time were not particularly favorable to the veneration of sacred images. Afterward, Charles the Great, son of Pepin, fought with the utmost zeal for the opinion of the Latins: who, when the acts

^A of the seventh synod had read, and had found in the profession of Tarasius of Constantinople that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, he thought this article, as well as many others, deserved to be marked with a censor’s note, as being less consistent with piety; because Tarasius had not expressly said that the Spirit proceeds from the Son. Nevertheless, Pope Hadrian I, in his responsive epistle to Charles, which exists today, defends Tarasius and the synod, and shows that it is rightly said that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, having gathered not a few testimonies of the holy Fathers for this matter: which, however, if they are attentively considered, for the most part declare nothing else than that the Holy Spirit is granted to men by the Father through the Son.

XIII. At Jerusalem, there is arguing again concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit against the Latins. The opinion of the Greeks had hitherto gathered these defenders: Theodoret, the fiercest patron of Nestorius and the most bitter enemy of the great Cyril, the Monothelites, and the Iconoclast heretics. About this same age, a certain monk of Jerusalem, whose name was John, although he was not guilty of any other error, began to accuse certain Latin monks who dwelt on the Mount of Olives of heresy, because they believed that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son. And this was the cause that in the year of the Lord 809, in the month of December, a council was held at Aachen in the presence of the Emperor Charles the Great, who, having sent an embassy to Rome, learnedly confirmed the ancient dogma of the Church in an epistle to Leo III. Petrus Pithoeus believed that this John of Jerusalem was no other than our own John of Damascus, who was a presbyter and monk of the Church of Jerusalem, and that he was indeed the author behind the raising of this question in the book *On the Orthodox Faith*, in which we read, "But we do not say that the Spirit is from the Son"; as well as in the oration on Holy Saturday, in which likewise it is said more plainly that the Holy Spirit does not have existence from the Son, οὐκ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἔχον τὴν ὕπαρξιν. ^B Gerardus Vossius almost conceded to the conjecture of Pithoeus. Leo Allatius suspects that another John, who was patriarch of Jerusalem and wrote much against the Latins, was the spark of those quarrels. But this patriarch was of a more recent age, and as far as I can conjecture, he is the very one who was present in the year 1156 at the synod which was held at Constantinople to eradicate the errors of Soterichus Panteugenus, who had recently been elected patriarch of Antioch, and his followers. I do not doubt that all these were deceived by the similarity of the name. To make this more clear, it is helpful to insert here some fragments of the epistle of the Latin monks, whom John had provoked, to Pope Leo III, which the most learned and illustrious man Baluze provided me with the opportunity to transcribe from his papers, out of his customary kindness.

EPISTLE OF THE PILGRIM MONKS DWELLING ON MOUNT OLIVET TO POPE LEO

To the most holy and most reverend Lord in Christ, Father Leo, Sovereign Pontiff and universal Pope of the holy apostolic see of the city of Rome, those gathered on the Mount of Olives. Lord Father, the Lord has deigned to exalt you above all the sees of Christians, because Christ deigned to say with His own mouth: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church." Most benign Father, we who are pilgrims here in the holy city of Jerusalem love no man upon earth more than you, and as much as we are able, in these holy places, we pour out our prayers to the Lord day and night, all your servants prostrate upon the earth with tears. And so we make known to you our tribulation which we suffer here. John, who was of the monastery of Saint Sabas, whom Theodulus the Abbot, your servant, knows, he has risen up against us, saying that the Franks ^C who are on the Mount of Olives are heretics: and he said to us, "Because all you Franks are heretics"; and he rejects our faith, saying that there is no greater heresy. And we said to him: "Our brother, be silent. For if you call us heretics, you speak against the holy apostolic see." And he has disturbed us to such a degree that on the day of the Nativity of the Lord, in holy Bethlehem, in the holy manger where our Lord, the Redeemer of the human race, deigned to be born for the salvation of the world, he incited laymen who wanted to cast us out, saying that you are heretics, and the books which you have are heretical: but through your holy prayer and faith, the Lord comforted us. For they could not cast us out. We all said: "Here we wish to die. For you shall not cast us out." Whence we all, your servants, lifted our voices together, saying to the priests who are in the holy city: "Look, Fathers and brothers, at this man who speaks such and so many things against us, and against the holy Roman faith, for we have never heard such things about our people." Afterward, on the Lord’s day, the priests were gathered with the clergy and the people against the sepulcher of the Lord, and between the place of holy Calvary, and they questioned us ourselves, the priests, about our faith, and how we believed the Creed. We, however, saying that we believe just as the holy Roman Church believes, we said: "And we say in our tongue what you do not say in Greek. And in the 'Gloria Patri' you do not say 'Sicut erat in principio'; and in the 'Gloria in excelsis' ^D you do not say 'Tu solus altissimus'; and you say the 'Pater noster' in another way, and in the Creed we say more than you, 'Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.'" Whence this John, the enemy of sou…

souls, [VII] because we are heretics. We asked these Jerusalemites, saying: Do not listen to this man, nor speak of heresies concerning us. For if you call us heretics, you speak heresy of the throne of blessed Peter. And if you say this, you bring sin upon yourselves. And the priests wrote for us a document concerning our faith, though we believed it, saying to us: "Do you believe as the holy resurrection (that is, the Church of Jerusalem)?" We, however, said that we believe just as the holy Roman apostolic see believes. Afterward, the archdeacon himself went up onto the ambo with us in the holy Constantine, and read that same document to the people, and we, your servants, anathematized every heresy, and all who would call the holy Roman apostolic see heretical. And now, most benign lord Father, deign to think of us, your servants, for although we are from afar, we are your sheep, and the whole world has been entrusted to you, as your holiness knows, just as the Lord said to Peter, "If you love me, Peter, feed my sheep." Most benign Father, when I, Leo, your servant, was at your holy feet, and at the pious feet of our lord Charles, most pious emperor, and your son, we heard in his chapel [it being said] in the Symbol of the faith, "Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit." And in the homily of Saint Gregory, which your son, the lord Emperor Charles, gave us for the parable of the Octave of Easter, where he said: "But its mission is that very procession, which proceeds from the Father and the Son." And in the Rule of Saint Benedict, which your son, the lord Emperor Charles, gave us, which has the faith written concerning the holy and inseparable Trinity: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the true God, proceeding from the Father and the Son"; and in the Dialogue which your holiness deigned to give us, he says the same. And in the faith of Saint Athanasius he says it in the same way. And so, through this John, great confusion has been caused for us in the holy city; because he says: "The Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Son." And regarding this he sent great error through all the monasteries; and he was demanding our faith, and our books. And concerning lord Gregory, he says that his books are not to be received. Whence again and again, holy Father, prostrate on the ground with tears, we beseech and pray you, through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who is called Trinity and inseparably one, that you deign to inquire, both in Greek and in Latin, concerning the holy Fathers who composed the Symbol, [about] that statement, where [it reads], "Ex Patre Filioque procedit"; and in Greek they do not say as we do, but they say: "Qui ex Patre procedit." And they see that statement to be grave, which we say in Latin. And deign to send word to the lord Emperor Charles, your son, that we heard this statement in his chapel, "Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit." And deign to assure us, your servants here, that no species of this sacrament seems so lovable to us as your holy countenance, and your holy intercession, or your memory. Whence we ask, most benign Father, your most holy piety, that these servants [here a word is missing: perhaps "together with," or a conjunction, and] John the priest, when they shall have reached your sacrosanct gravity, God guiding them, you might deign to receive them kindly, and direct a most certain mandate to us, your servants. We commend ourselves, Dominicus, Theodorus, Arimundus, Gregorius, Joannes, Leo, and the whole congregation of the holy Mount of Olives, your humble servants, to your holy and God-worthy prayers. May our God and Lord, O most holy Father, along with all yours, deign to govern and protect [us] for the exaltation of the holy Church, and for the salvation of your soul, and for our joy, and in his pious mercy in all things and through all things to watch over [us]; who is said to be blessed forever.

XIV. A monk of Engolism in the *Life* of this emperor narrates that the Latin monks remained on the Mount of Olives by the command of Charlemagne. But those who were sent at this time from this holy congregation to Rome brought letters of recommendation from Patriarch Thomas to Pope Leo, by which it is made manifest that neither that holy bishop, nor the priests of the Church of Jerusalem, had consented to the accusation of the monk John. This Leo himself testifies in a letter to Charles, which I likewise present from the papers of that most learned man, D. Stephen Baluze.

To the most pious and serene victor and triumphant son, lover of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, Charles Augustus, Leo, bishop, servant of the servants of God. It is necessary that we intimate to your imperial power all things that happen to us from [our] respective regions. For in the present year, monks who dwell on the holy Mount of Olives sent us a letter, containing a contention of faith which they were having among themselves. We, however, sent to them the Symbol of the orthodox faith, insofar as they should hold the faith right and immovable, according to this holy catholic Church of ours. Which letter, indeed, we have sent to your imperial power to be read over. Meanwhile, your faithful who are present, returning—namely, Agamus and Rocalphus—have brought to us from Jerusalem a letter of Thomas, Patriarch of Jerusalem, which, upon reading, we found that we should commend to your piety through our own supplicatory letter. For which reason we beg your imperial power, that just as you are over all your faithful, you might deign to bestow favor, so do you command that mercy be done to them. The letter itself, which our aforesaid faithful brought to us, we have sent to your serenity. These things having been premised, may almighty God hold you in his protection, and may he defend your kingdom from all perfidious men by the extension of his arm, and after long years of life lead you to eternal joys. May his grace always protect the former empire of the lord Charles, and may it lay the necks of all nations beneath it.

FOLLOWS THE SYMBOL OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH OF POPE LEO.

may hold the right and inviolate faith according to the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. We believe in the holy Trinity, that is, in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one omnipotent God, of one substance, of one essence, of one power, the creator of all creatures, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things: the Father in himself, not from another; the Son begotten from the Father, true God from true God, true light from true light, yet not two lights, but one light; the Holy Spirit proceeding equally from the Father and the Son, consubstantial with the Father and the Son; the Father full God in himself, the Son full God begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit full God, proceeding from the Father and the Son... Thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead: whom the wicked shall see as judge in the same form in which He was crucified; not in that humility in which He was unjustly judged, but in that glory in which He shall justly judge the world: the vision of whose majesty is the ^B eternal blessedness of all the saints. Whoever shall not have believed according to this faith, him the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church condemns, which is founded by Jesus Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory in eternity.

XV. Charles, having received the letters of Pope Leo, held a council of bishops at Aachen in the year 809, as we mentioned before, in which the procession of the Holy Spirit was discussed. Bernarius, bishop of Worms, and Adalardus, abbot of the monastery of Corbie, were sent to Rome so that they might obtain from the pontiff the insertion of the word *Filioque* into the Constantinopolitan Creed. Smaragdus, abbot of Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine, recorded the conversation of the legates with Leo; the gist of which is as follows. Leo refused their request, and said that the authority of the holy Fathers who edited that Creed was more weighty. "For I do not say," the most equitable pontiff said, "that I place myself before them, but it is even far from me to presume to make myself their equal." Is it not more salutary to believe—and dangerous not to believe—that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as He does from the Father, than that the Son is Wisdom, God from Wisdom, God, and Truth, God from Truth, God—and yet both are one Wisdom, one Truth, essentially God; ^C when, however, it is certain that this was not set down in the same Creed by the holy Fathers? Furthermore, he said that the dogma concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was of such a nature that not everyone could grasp it. He said that he had given permission for the Creed to be chanted, but not for anything to be added, subtracted, or changed in the chanting. "For we do not chant that very point," he said, "but we read it, and by reading we teach; but we do not presume by reading to add anything by inserting it into the same Creed." But when the legates asked whether that thing under discussion might be removed from the frequently mentioned Creed, and then finally be permitted and taught by anyone at will or freely, either by chanting or by handing it down, the pope replied: "It is undoubtedly determined on our part: so also that it be assented to by yours, it is persuaded by us in every way." He said that this would only be done if the custom of chanting the Creed in the palace were first discontinued: "For then it should be put aside by all." To further confirm this response, Pope Leo had the Creed, pure and without addition, inscribed in Greek and Latin on two silver tablets ^D and affixed it to the confession of St. Peter in his basilica, so that it might be known to all that the Roman Church does not agree with those who would change this common formula of faith with any addition or declaration. But, lest the correct dogma concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son be undermined, he had already stated this clearly enough in the exposition of faith to the Oriental bishops, which we mentioned just before: nor has any see of the Orient been severed from the Roman Church on account of this faith. From these things, Photius and other schismatics are convinced of falsehood, who asserted that Leo III, just as Leo the Great, denied the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, when it is certain that it is asserted by the decretal epistles of both pontiffs and others.

XVI. From all these things it is again proven that it was on account of a completely vain conjecture that certain learned men imagined that a certain John, a monk of Jerusalem sent from the East to Charles, had stirred up the debate about the procession of the Holy Spirit at that time, having heard the *Filioque* addition which he had heard uttered in the royal chapel at Aachen. That he had argued against this addition, and thence seized the opportunity to come to the matter itself. Arguments were brought forth from both sides, as happens, both by the Franks and by John himself, for the opinion of either party. Clearly the monk of Angoulême who wrote the *Life of Charles* states plainly that the dispute was initiated not at Aachen, not in the lands of the Franks, but in Jerusalem. "With these things thus done," he says (referring to the year 809), "the emperor, having returned to Aachen from the Ardennes, held a council in the month of November concerning the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. Which question a certain monk, John, first moved at Jerusalem." The writers of the annals of that age hold the same. Nay more, the anonymous author of Angoulême mentions the monks of the Mount of Olives for the year 807, in these words: "A legate of the king of the Persians (or rather of the Arabs), by the name of Abdella, with the monks from Jerusalem who were legates of the patriarch Thomas, that is, George and Felix (of whom George, abbot of the Mount of Olives, a German by birth, was called by his own name Engelbald), arrived at the emperor, bearing gifts... The emperor, keeping the legate and the monks with him for some time, sent them to Italy, and there ordered them to await the time of navigation. Since things are so, John of Damascus was not the author of these disturbances, as Pithou and Vossius imagined. For all these things were done in the years 808, 809, and 810, under Leo III, in the last...

^A years of the reign of Charlemagne, while Thomas of Jerusalem held the see; but our Damascene had died before the seventh synod, which was celebrated in the year of Christ 787, in the 16th year of Hadrian, the predecessor of Leo III, while Theodore presided over the Church of Jerusalem. But who this monk and presbyter John was, I would not venture to define. I will only observe this, that in that age a certain John, a monk and presbyter of Jerusalem, held the place of the three patriarchs of the East at the seventh synod, and read before the Fathers that account of the preludes to the Iconoclastic heresy ^B which Combefis published among the continuators of the Byzantine History after Theophanes.

XVII. Concerning the Athanasian Creed.

^A of the doctors of the concluding fifth century, so that they might insert it into their exposition of the faith, at a time when the Monophysites, with Severus especially as their leader, were fighting against the Catholics with such vehemence in order to prove that there was one nature in Christ composed of deity and humanity. Indeed, they were compelled to apply all the resources of their intellect to find various discrepancies between the union of the deity with humanity in Christ, and the union of the soul with the body in man. Furthermore, the Creed which is called Athanasius's, the Greeks eventually did not hesitate to accept from the Latins on account of the name of so great a doctor prefixed to it, but it was corrupted by the Greek translator, or at least subsequently erased, where there is mention of the procession of the Holy Spirit. For in place of those words which reflect the common doctrine of our Churches—"The Son is from the Father alone: and, the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, etc."—they read thus: Ὁ Υἱὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρός ἐστιν· The Son is from the Father, etc., τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρός ἐστιν· The Holy Spirit is from the Father. The audacity or falsehood of the translator is proven more than sufficiently by the fact that he received this exposition of the faith from the Latins alone, among whom it had been in use long before it became known to the Greeks; to such an extent that our people contended against them by its authority when the dispute regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit first began between the two nations.

XVIII. ^B The monks of Mount Olivet, in addition to the Faith of saint Athanasius, praise a homily of saint Gregory, which, they say, "your son the lord Emperor Charles gave to us, on the parable of the Octaves of Easter." By these words, I have no doubt that they mean that a collection of homilies, which Paul the Deacon had compiled by the order of the Emperor himself, had been handed to them by Charles to be recited on certain days and feasts of the year. For in this collection, that homily of Gregory which they cite is found for the eighth day of Easter. They add: "And in the Rule of saint Benedict, which your son the lord Charles gave to us, which has written the faith concerning the holy and inseparable Trinity: I believe in the Holy Spirit, true God, proceeding from the Father and the Son." Nothing of that kind is found today in the Rule of saint Benedict. I suppose that this profession of faith was like an appendix, which was subsequently attached to the rule to be recited by the monks. Regarding the *Dialogue*, indeed, of Gregory the Great, which they cite from time to time, its own place for discussion will briefly be.

XIX. Photius revives the dispute. ^C Photius stirred up the silenced quarrel later at Constantinople with more persistent fury, when he first learned that he had been proscribed at Rome by Nicholas I as an invader of another's see, namely, that of Ignatius. He sounded the war-trumpet here by issuing an epistle to the patriarchs of the East. He also published a treatise against the dogma of the Latins and other customs of theirs, of which some fragments here and there

are extant in the works of Leo Allatius. Above all, he persuaded the Emperor Michael and Caesar Bardas to issue a decree on the faith in which the doctrine of the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, the celibate life of Roman presbyters, the fast on the Sabbath, and other such chapters of our discipline were severely criticized. Indeed, no memory of this decree survives among the Greeks, and only Rathramnus, a monk of Corbie, is a sufficient witness that it was given by the emperors Michael and Basil; for he devoted his energy to refuting it in four books. ^A Regarding these "Opposita" (Opposite views), by which Michael and Basil, the emperors of the Greeks, attempted to defame the Roman Church, Rathramnus says at the beginning of the first book that they are known to be either false, or heretical, or irreligious. In book II, he says of the same things: "We see laymen going against all ecclesiastical rules, imposing decrees of faith upon the faithful, and establishing statutes—being people to whom it is not permitted to establish anything whatsoever regarding ecclesiastical law beyond the counsel of bishops—making laws of faith itself; and according to their decrees, some are received into communion, others are removed." ^B It can be inferred that this decree was sent by Nicholas to the bishops of Gaul from the epistle of Hincmar to Odo of Beauvais: "The Apostolic Lord," he says, "sent a common epistle to us and to other bishops of the kingdom of our Lord Charles, in which it is contained that the Greeks, as much as they specifically attack the Roman Church, so also generally attack all that uses the Latin tongue, because we fast on the Sabbath, [and] because we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, whereas they confess that He proceeds only from the Father. They say, moreover, that we abhor marriages, because we inhibit presbyters from taking wives; which, however, they falsely think we perform out of the water of the river; they endeavor to rebuke us nonetheless in that we do not refrain, according to their custom, from the eating of meat for eight weeks before Easter, and from cheese and eggs for seven weeks, etc." Yet these are the very chapters for which Rathramnus narrates that the Greek emperors attempted to defame the Roman Church. ^C Both add that they refused to receive the legates of the Apostolic See.

XX. As for Photius, in the books in which he disputes regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, he scarcely produces the opinion of one Doctor of the Church, even though he claims that very many—indeed, all—side with him; but he weaves together monstrous insults and pure paralogisms, which strike just as squarely against the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, which St. John Damascene acknowledges in many places according to the tradition of the ancient Fathers. The most learned man was ignorant that, whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son, His production would be equally perfect and His hypostasis equally simple; because the essence of the Father and the Son is one, indivisible, and most simple, produced by virtue and vital action, without any succession; and it is by no means absurd that the same property, from among those they call "notional," should belong to two persons, ^D seeing that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit does not send the Father and the Son. We have said above, according to the doctrine of St. Gregory the Theologian, that the Spirit is distinguished from the Father and the Son only in so far as He is referred to both; that relation is indeed grounded in the procession. Since, therefore, He is distinguished from both, it is necessary that He should acknowledge both as His author. The Colbertine codex, nine hundred years old, ascribes and vindicates both of Photius's books against the Latins—along with four others against the Manichaeans—to Photius himself; just as Euthymius does in the *Panoplia*, even though in certain manuscripts, not without the fraud of the Greeks, it bears the name of Metrophanes of Smyrna, a man of Catholic unity, and an invincible defender of the Ignatian cause. However, the refutations of Photius's arguments are read in John Beccus, *De unione*, lib. I, and Georgius Scholarius in the former work, *Concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit against the Latins*, ch. 4, frankly confesses that Photius did not enter into this dispute out of zeal for the Catholic faith, but with the intent of rending the Churches: "For he himself was not led to divide the Churches, but used the difference of dogma as a pretext, and again sold/traded the unions of the Churches for the sake of his own private advantages." For here, having attempted to divide the Churches under the pretext of a difference of dogma, he again bartered away the confederations of the Churches for his own private convenience, so that he might buy himself a lesser evil at the cost of a greater one.

XXI. The epistle of Pope John VIII, forged by Photius. — Truly, when Photius had recovered the see from which he had been driven by force by the council, in order not to be thought to have lacerated the Roman Church unjustly, he had such influence among his own people that he persuaded them that he had rejected not only the word *Filioque* from the Roman Pontiff John VIII, but the dogma itself. He composed an epistle as if written to him by Pope John, in which those who added this word to the Symbol represent themselves as destroyers of the divine faith and of paternal traditions: "We judge them transgressors of the divine words, and transformers of the theology of the Lord Christ and of the rest of the Fathers." And in what follows, the Pontiff is introduced speaking thus: "It seemed good to us that it should be consistent with reason that no one be violently compelled by us to omit that addition by which the Symbol was increased, but rather by prudence and gentleness to prepare them, gradually admonishing them to recede from the blasphemy." (ἀποστῆναι τῆς βλασφημίας). Who that is sane could concede that a Pontiff would deem blasphemous that which he himself had confessed once and again in his own ordination, according to the ancient custom, of which we have been made more certain since the *Liber Diurnus* of the Roman Pontiffs was edited by Garnerius? These things clearly reflect the style and quill of that most crafty forger, Photius. For even if at that time the word *Filioque* had not yet been admitted at Rome, nevertheless, the Roman Pontiffs never judged the authors of this addition as destroyers of the true theology and faith; for

those who knew very well that all the Latin doctors and theologians—to say nothing of the Greeks—affirmed this [doctrine] with one voice as that which that little word expressed. Therefore, Photius did not cite those letters in his epistle to the Bishop of Aquileia, in which he flatters himself greatly that Pope John, through his legates, had sought his communion at the Synod of Constantinople. For he feared that the Latin prelate would finally recognize his frauds. Nor were the man's guile and evil arts entirely hidden from the Pontiff. For, having heard what his legates had done in Constantinople in favor of Photius, and that his letters had been falsified, he rescinded everything that had been done and deprived the pseudo-patriarch permanently of communion with the Church.

[XXII] The Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory were not corrupted by the Greeks. But in order to prove more clearly that Pope John was not of that opinion—that it is not asserted without blasphemy that the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son—I shall add that John the Deacon, in Book IV of his *Life of St. Gregory*, § 75, where he speaks of the dialogues of this holy pontiff, which Pope Zacharias had translated from Latin into Greek, observed that the crafty perversity of the Greeks, in the commemoration of the Spirit proceeding from the Father, had of their own accord erased and removed the name of the Son. Yet John the Deacon speaks in this way in the work which he dedicated to John VIII; he followed the Roman Church, indeed, when Photius objected to the Latins in a minor treatise concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, that Gregory in his Dialogues, and his successor and translator Zacharias, had judged that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. John the Deacon would not have dared to write these things before Pope John, and to dedicate them to him, if the Pontiff had endorsed the opinion of Photius in a special epistle. But as regards the passage of Gregory, which is found in Book II of the *Dialogues*, ch. 38, I shall say frankly: the reading preferred by the Greek translation is more pleasing to me. The Latin context has: "For since it is certain that the Paraclete Spirit always proceeds from the Father and the Son, why does the Son say that he will depart so that He might come, who never departs from the Son?" But the Greek translation: "It is evident, therefore, that the Paraclete Spirit proceeds from the Father and remains in the Son." It is certain, then, that the Spirit Paraclete proceeds from the Father [[XI]] and remains in the Son. Since Gregory soon after adds by way of inference that the Spirit never departs from the Son, so that the deduction may be consistent, he seems entirely to have said that the Spirit remains in the Son: just as, indeed, in Book III of his *Moralia*, n. 92, where he speaks of the manner in which the Holy Spirit dwells in the just, he concludes by saying: "The Spirit therefore dwells differently in Him (the Son), from whom He does not depart by nature." Moreover, the holy pontiff professes the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son in Book I of the *Moralia*, n. 30, in these words: "The Redeemer besought the Father: but well, by sending the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from Himself (many codices say: from Him), He bestows Him upon the hearts of the disciples." And in his 26th Homily on the Gospels, n. 2: "If to be sent were only to be understood as being incarnate, he says, the Holy Spirit would undoubtedly in no way be said to be sent, for He was not incarnate. But His mission itself is the procession by which He proceeds from the Father and the Son. Therefore, just as the Spirit is said to be sent because He proceeds, so also the Son is properly said to be sent because He is begotten." These are the words of Gregory, than which nothing can be said to be more in conformity with the theology of the Latins. For they cannot be understood of the procession which they call *ad extra* (outward), since it is joined with the generation of the Word, which is entirely *intranea* (inward). Wherefore, by saying in the *Dialogues* that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and remains in the Son, he in no way dissented from Vigilius of Thapsus, who in Book XI *On the Trinity* had comprised all these things: "I believe," he says, "the Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son; and the Holy Spirit also, the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father, and is of the Son and of the Father, because He also proceeds from the Son." And a little later: "That the same Spirit is of the Son, we have proven by many testimonies of the Scriptures, and that He remains wholly in the Son, and just as He proceeds from God the Father, so He proceeds from the Son, so that the whole Trinity may be believed to be one God." Therefore, that epistle of Pope John to Photius, by which the dogma of the Latins is cleared of blasphemy, and which the Greeks so very much boast of, was forged by this schismatic scoundrel along with the acts of that synod, the supposition and forgery of which Leo Allatius demonstrated eruditely and invincibly in a singular work. It is by now known to everyone that Photius, a man otherwise exceptionally learned and of incredible genius, had surpassed all forgers in artifice and impudence.

[XXIII] When Photius had been brought into line by the Emperor Leo, who succeeded his father Basil the Macedonian, peace and concord persisted between both Churches, the Greek, that is, and the Latin, until the times of Sisinnius II, patriarch, who sat from the year 996 to 999. They say that he sent, in his own name, the encyclical epistle of Photius to the patriarchs of the East, against the opinion of the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit: yet the bond of communion was not broken because of this. For the schismatic Greeks commonly admit that peace remained between the Churches at least until Sergius, the successor of Sisinnius. I will not deny that he, being of the same nature as Photius, showed himself to be heir to his jealousy toward the Roman Church. But as for the story that Sergius had then defected from the communion of the Romans when he had received the Creed with the addition of the word *Filioque* from Pope Christophorus, they present themselves to be mocked: for Christophorus preceded Sergius by eighty-six whole years. For Christophorus occupied the see in the year 903, in the month of November, and was thrust out of it in the month of May of the following year, 904.

[XXIV] Why the Greeks accused Pope Christophorus of a corrupted Creed. But in order that it might be persuaded to the later Greeks that Christophorus was most wicked

and that he had interpolated the Creed, I can offer this cause: that under Sergius III, who succeeded Christophorus after he was removed from his order, there was a discussion held once again between the Romans and the Greeks concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. We have testimony of this from Herveus, Archbishop of Reims, in a council of his province, which he celebrated at Trosly near Soissons in Gaul under this same Pope Sergius in the year 909: "Truly, because it has become known to us," he says (ch. 14), "that the errors and blasphemies of the certain Photius still flourish in the parts of the East regarding the Holy Spirit—blaspheming that He does not proceed from the Son, but from the Father only—we exhort your fraternity, together with me, that, according to the admonition of the Lord of the Roman See, each of us, having examined the sentiments of the Catholic Fathers, might bring forth sharp arrows of the powerful from the quivers of Divine Scripture, to pierce the beast of the reborn monster and to crush the head of the most wicked serpent." Whether those Photians instituted this quarrel on account of the word *Filioque* added to the Creed by the Roman Pontiff, it cannot be determined with certainty. But if it is so, the Greeks are wrongly complaining that on account of this addition the Eastern Church separated from the Roman; since at this very time, namely under the Emperor Leo the Wise, and from then on, both Churches remained very closely joined together. Nor should Sergius, a kinsman of Photius, have broken the peace under the guise of that addition, which had already been confirmed for nearly a hundred years by the silence and assent of his predecessors.

XXV. But neither could Sergius of Constantinople admit this crime, unless perhaps after the middle of his patriarchate had passed. For Peter of Antioch, around the year 1054, was writing confidently to Michael Cerularius in this manner: "I myself am also an irrefragable witness, and many others with me from among the ecclesiastical primates, that under the most blessed Antiochian Patriarch John, the Roman Pontiff, John by name, was commemorated in the sacred diptychs. And forty-five years ago, when I had arrived in Constantinople under the Patriarch Sergius of blessed memory, I heard the aforementioned Pope being commemorated among the other patriarchs during the solemnities of the sacred masses. But as for how his commemoration was later erased, and for what reason, I am ignorant." Nicetas of Nicaea, the Chartophylax—whom Allatius (a) says was far older than George Scholarius—confesses that the cause of the Sergian schism is not known to him: "Although the schism is said to have been renewed under Sergius, who held the patriarchate under the Emperor Basil Bulgaroctonos, yet for what reason, I do not know; however, I surmise it was on account of the sees." Allatius brings forward another anonymous author who likewise says he does not know if Sergius defected from the Romans (XIII) because of errors or because of the usurpation of rights and privileges. I do not believe, however, that Michael Cerularius lied at all when he wrote to Peter of Antioch that the name of the Roman Pontiff had long since been obliterated from the diptychs among the Byzantines. Indeed, the testimony of Euthymius Zigabenus seems to me firm enough, where he affirms that the Roman bishops, up until the times of Sergius of Constantinople, had sent the Creed to the patriarchs of the East with no interpolation mixed in, as if to imply that the schism began under Sergius on account of the added word *Filioque*. Euthymius wrote this in his *Panoplia*, title 13, which is against the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, where he recites the paralogisms of Photius and others; but in the Latin edition, this whole chapter was purposely omitted. Euthymius was living at the beginning of the twelfth century, about the hundredth year after the death of Sergius. Nevertheless, Leo Allatius doubts whether the Sergian schism lasted until the pontificate of Cerularius, and he cites an anonymous author of a treatise *On the Translation of Bishops*, who affirms that seventeen patriarchs, who succeeded from Photius to Michael Cerularius, had communion with the Italians: "All these, except for Cerularius, had the Italians as communicants." Moreover, he recounts from Glaber Radulphus, a monk of Cluny who was writing in this very age, that Eustathius, the archpriest of the Great Church—who after Sergius was granted the patriarchate by the Emperor Basil Bulgaroctonos—and other Greeks were sent to Rome with gifts, and asked of Pope John XIX that it be permitted for the Constantinopolitan Church to be called universal in its own sphere, just as the Roman is in the universe. John had secretly considered granting what was asked, but was deterred by the very grave letters of William, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Benignus of Dijon. But if this is so, Sergius made use of the pretext of the interpolated Creed only to break the peace of the Churches; in reality, however, he defected on account of rights and privileges, as the anonymous schismatic, whom I cited above from Allatius, correctly suspected. Be that as it may, it is most certain that long before the cardinals Humbert and Frederick, and Peter of Amalfi, were sent by Leo IX to Constantinople to suppress the schism, the word *Filioque* had already been added to the Creed at Rome. For they themselves wrote in the excommunicatory letter concerning Michael Cerularius and his followers: "Just as the *Pneumatomachi* and *Theomachi* cut away the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Creed." By which words it is clearly indicated that the addition was by no means recent; but rather that hardly any memory survived at that time of by which pope it had been received. Wherefore, it behooves us to inquire more carefully about the authors of this interpolation.

XXVI. Concerning the word *Filioque* added to the Creed, when it was done. St. Thomas in his *Summa Theologica* (b) considers that the word *Filioque* was added to the Creed

in a certain general council. There were not wanting, among the more recent writers, both Latin and Greek, by no means schismatical, who asserted that the Creed had been published by the Fathers of the second council, which was celebrated at Constantinople, with this clause, *Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son*. Cardinal Humbert and his associates seem to have held this opinion, having accused the Greeks of having mutilated the Creed by excising the procession of the Holy Spirit. Joseph of Methone, bishop, and Simeon, who was patriarch of Constantinople after the city was captured by the Turks, due to the authority of a certain Alexius, or, as others maintain, Georgius Aristenus, thought that the addition was made by Pope Damasus in a Roman synod. Allatius thinks this Aristenus to be the same person whose commentaries on the canons are extant, and who flourished under Alexius Comnenus. But Aristenus, whom Joseph and Simeon cite, proves himself to be more inclined toward the Latins than that canonist. Emmanuel Calecas, and then subsequently Cardinal Julian and Andreas Colossensis, in the Council of Florence, inferred from the letter of St. Maximus to Marianus the presbyter that the word *Filioque* had been inserted into the Creed before the sixth council. Which, however, the holy confessor neither conceded, but only that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son had been expressed in the synodical letters of the Roman pontiff. From the *Liber Diurnus* of the Roman pontiffs, it appears that, in their dual profession of faith, they preached at that time at their ordination the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father as well as from the Son; though they kept the Constantinopolitan Creed pure from every addition. Indeed, in the letters of communion which survive today, even up to the times of Leo IX, both the Roman pope and other patriarchs omitted that Creed, and composed other expositions and formulas of faith differing in words. Bellarminus, however, favors them, *De Christo*, chap. 22. Martinus Polonus in his *Chronicon*, where he speaks of the empire of Constantine and Irene, says: "In the eighth year of their empire was held the second synod at Nicaea, where there were present three hundred and fifty Fathers, in which it was affirmed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son." Cardinal Julian cited this passage of Martinus’s history in the Council of Ferrara, when he produced a very ancient codex of the authors of the seventh council, in which the Creed was read with the article of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. But Pithoeus judges the authority of the translation of the Acts of that Nicene council, which Anastasius Bibliothecarius prepared under John VIII, to be more reliable; a codex of whose translation, currently in our hands, he says, contains nothing of the kind. And deservedly so, clearly, because the addition had not been received even under Leo III, the predecessor of Adrian I, under whom the seventh council was held, as was shown in the preceding; no, not even in the age of Photius had the Roman pontiffs approved it. For in the acts of the Photian pseudo-synod, it is narrated that the apocrisiarii of the Roman see were entirely averse ^A to undertaking the addition in that place of the Creed where the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father is declared, *without prejudice to the one who proceeds from the Father*. Furthermore, John VIII, in the letter which we said Photius [XIV] had forged as if it were addressed to him, is introduced asserting that this interpolation was by no means approved by the Romans, and that he himself would see to it that the Westerners would remove it from the Creed. To these points, Photius himself again, in the treatise which he wrote against the Latins on the procession of the Holy Spirit during the time of Pope Nicholas I, indicated not obscurely that the addition had not yet been accepted at that time by the Roman pontiff, even though the dogma was maintained. I transcribe his words, as they are referred to in Leo Allatius’s *Exercitationes contra Creyghtonum*: "For he would not dare ^B to set himself against the best things with head uncovered; ^C but neither would he dare to have the fearful thing of the faith carried about on all lips, setting as a veil for his opinion the aforementioned most God-fearing and most ambitious work of the Churches, which he cut away and harmed." For he (Pope Nicholas) did not dare to strive openly against what was best and most pleasing to God, but neither did he dare to attack or injure that aforementioned most holy and most honorable work—that is, the tremendum *fidei* (Creed) which is carried about in the mouths of all—by superimposing his own judgment as a covering for it. This is that he preserved it intact and whole, just as his predecessors Leo III and Benedict. Finally, in the letter to the bishop of Aquileia, which he wrote after he had again occupied the Constantinopolitan throne, he is a most certain witness that not the Roman pontiffs, but only certain persons among the Westerners favored the interpolation, *some of those in the West*, and he affirms that the apostolic see was not guilty of this crime.

XXVII. The word *FILIOQUE* added first by the Spaniards. — In the West, indeed, among many provinces and kingdoms, the custom had long since become established of chanting the Creed in the Mass with the little word *Filioque*: and they say that the first authors of this addition were the Spaniards, at the time when the Goths, having abjured the Arian heresy, professed the Catholic faith. During the reign of Recared, the third Council of Toledo was celebrated in the year 589, in which the king, in an allocution to the Fathers of the council, said concerning the Holy Spirit: "The Holy Spirit likewise must be confessed and preached by us as proceeding from the Father and the Son, and as being of one substance with the Father and the Son." Then he recited the Nicene formula of faith, and soon after the Constantinopolitan with these words, *Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son*. The Fathers, however, issued anathemas, of which the third was this: "If anyone does not believe, or has not believed, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and has not said that He is coeternal with the Father and the Son and coequal, let him be anathema." Finally, so that the Gothic race might more firmly retain the true faith of the holy Trinity, it was decreed: "That all the Churches of the Spains and Gaul (read: Gallaecia) should observe this rule, that at every time of sacrifice (for) the communion of the body or blood of Christ, according to the custom of the Eastern Fathers, they unanimously, with a clear voice...

^A recite the most sacred Symbol; the Constantinopolitan, indeed, and with the little word *Filioque*, which they had confirmed by their decrees. The same Symbol was recited in like manner in the councils: the eighth of Toledo, in the year 653; the Meridan, in 666; the twelfth and thirteenth of Toledo; the fourth of Braga, and the fifteenth of Toledo. The Gauls emulated our Spaniards, though it is not sufficiently clear in what age. The most learned Pithou, on the authority of Walafrid Strabo, points out that in the year 794, at the Council of Frankfurt, it was enjoined that the Symbol should be chanted at Mass, on account of the errors of the Spanish bishops Felix and Elipandus, which were closely akin to those of the Nestorians. But some years before this synod was convened, Paulinus of Aquileia, at the Council of Friuli in the year 791, had said: "On account of those who whisper that the Holy Spirit is of the Father alone, and proceeds from the Father alone, it is added: 'Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.'" From these words it can be gathered that this word was added to the Symbol in the Gauls after it was heard that the Greeks denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son; and therefore ^B perhaps at the Council of Gentilly, about which we have spoken before. For besides the Greeks, or the Monothelites, or rather the Iconoclasts, it had nowhere been asserted by others that the Holy Spirit had Its origin from the Father alone, excluding the Son. The Dominican brothers, who wrote the treatise *On the causes of the schism of the Greeks*, which Stevartius published in his *Collectanea*, report that the Greeks were also accustomed to put forward this pretext for the schism, that they were not called to the Ultramontane council when that phrase was added. Yet, by the name of the Ultramontane council, someone might perhaps understand some plenary council that was celebrated in the Gauls. But why might not the Greeks, or even the Dominicans, have called any other council held in Italy "Ultramontane," in which they might have presumed that the phrase so often declaimed against had been approved and added to the Symbol? Furthermore, not only the Gauls in the ninth century, but also the Spaniards, Germans, and other nations that were subject to the Frankish kings, accepted the Symbol augmented by that addition. When, therefore, certain bishops and priests from those nations had gone to instruct the Bulgarians, they handed down to their neophytes the Symbol thus interpolated. For Photius himself, in his letter to the patriarchs (a), testifies that he became aware of this change from what the Latin bishops had taught the Bulgarians: "These bishops of darkness were disseminating this impiety, along with other illicit things, among the nations." *Ἔλθεν ἡ τούτων φήμη πρὸς τὰς ἡμετέρας ἀκοάς* — the report of these matters reached our ears. From those things, therefore, which he had learned were being done among the Bulgarians, he inferred that the same things were accepted in use at Rome, and he affirmed against all the churches of the West indiscriminately that the most holy Symbol, which is confirmed by the sanction of all the ecumenical councils and possesses an irresistible force, ^C had been adulterated by them with spurious senses and added words with the greatest temerity. But later, under John VIII, he changed his dictum, as was shown previously.

XXVIII. When the word *Filioque* was added by the Romans. — But truly, that the little word *Filioque* was added to the Symbol in the space of years that flowed from Photius to Michael Cerularius, there should be absolutely no doubt, on account of the accusation of Cardinal Humbert and his fellow legates, by which, as we have reported above, he accused the Greeks of having cut out [XV] the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Symbol. But it is obscure which of the Roman pontiffs admitted the addition so often decried. The most learned Pagius and other erudite men do not believe this happened before the Symbol began to be chanted at Rome: that is, before the year 1014, in which the Emperor Henry acted with Pope Benedict VIII that the Symbol might be chanted at the public Mass in the Roman church, just as it had long been the custom in Germany (b). The emperor obtained this only with difficulty, the Roman priests by no means approving of chanting the Symbol of faith in their Church, which had hitherto not come under the suspicion of any error. Wherefore Baronius and Spondanus say: "These things are pleasing: but it would be more pleasing to us if more deference had been paid to venerable antiquity of a thousand years than to novelty." These things were done at Rome in the last years of Sergius of Constantinople, who sat from the year 999 to 1019. Wherefore, if it is true as the Greeks report, that the interpolation of the Symbol was admitted at Rome in the time of Sergius, it will be sufficiently probable that Pope Benedict, by admitting the rite of reciting the Symbol in the Mass, which the Gauls and Germans observed, admitted this very symbol with the declaration that they had added to that Symbol. Yet it seems to oppose this conjecture that from the year 1014, which was the third of Benedict VIII, until the year 1019, in which Sergius of Constantinople died, no other ascended the Roman throne. Therefore, by no Roman pope of this time could the Symbol have been sent from Rome to the East at the beginning of his pontificate. The difficulty is increased by the reply of the Roman priests to the Emperor Henry, by which they complained that the Symbol could not be chanted among them because their Church had preserved the faith inviolate: how much more ^D they should have resisted so that the Symbol itself might not be augmented by even a single word, however pious and promotive of the right faith, even as Leo III had sanctioned. And that all the more because Rufinus testifies that the apostolic Symbol formerly persisted sincere at Rome without any addition, because, he says, "no heresy took its origin there, and the ancient custom is preserved there." Which is indeed the very reason for which the priests of the Roman Church under Benedict VIII would have been most averse to admitting the addition of the word *Filioque*. Nevertheless, it must be conceded that at least one of the pontiffs who succeeded Benedict VIII, up to Leo IX, admitted the addition...

from Benedict VIII down to Leo IX, eventually consented to the addition. Hugo Etherianus, who wrote in the following century for the Latin Church against the Greeks, says that this was done in a frequent convocation of bishops and cardinals. Therefore, he says, if the Constantinopolitan [Council] added to the Nicene Symbol, "And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father"; if the Synod of Chalcedon also added to the Constantinopolitan Symbol, "perfect in divinity, and perfect in humanity, and consubstantial with the mother according to humanity, and consubstantial with the Father according to divinity," and certain other things, as has been said, then the prelate of elder Rome is to be faulted by no accusation, no censure, no calumny, because, for the sake of interpretation, with the consent of very many holy bishops and most learned cardinals having been obtained, he added one phrase (I speak, of course, of "the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Son"). Let the authority for this matter rest with the author.

XXIX. The addition made to the Symbol was the pretext for the schism, not the cause. Nevertheless, this addition was the occasion or pretext for confirming that perpetual schism which had been established by the arts of Michael Cerularius for other reasons. In those things which were written at that time by Cerularius himself, and Leo of Achrida, and also Nicetas Stethatus (our people call him Pectoratus) against the Roman Church—which are reported in the epistles of Leo IX and in the books of Cardinal Humbert—there is not even a word to be found concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. But they say that Cerularius, when he had attempted with a new machination to strip away the assent of the Roman pontiff, and thought that the title of ecumenical patriarch would be his in the future, and that the other patriarchs of the East, namely those of Alexandria and Antioch, would be subjected to him, broke out in open persecution against the Church of the Latins, to such a degree that he did not fear to anathematize all who handle the sacraments using unleavened bread. And this becomes clear from the letter of Peter of Antioch to Dominic of Grado, where he says: "The most holy patriarch of Constantinople does not so obstinately attack your estimation, as you wrote, nor does he call you *kakodoxous*, that is, men of evil opinion... but he is greatly disturbed at this one thing, *ἐνὶ δὲ μόνῳ τούτῳ*, namely, in the offering of unleavened bread." But later, when Michael Cerularius wrote again to the Antiochene, he exhorted him to withdraw from the Romans, and for the first time alleged as a grave crime the word *Filioque* added to the Symbol: which addition Peter himself also disapproved of. At this same time Pectoratus published a discourse against the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, fragments of which Allatius reports here and there. I would think that Michael, Leo, and Stethatus did not immediately attack the Romans on account of this dogma, because it had not yet been established at Constantinople that the supreme pontiffs had finally permitted it to be said in the Symbol, "Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son," until the legates of Leo in the writ of excommunication accused the Greeks of having cut this article from the Symbol, and therefore the treatise of Pectoratus *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit* was published after the departure of Humbert and the other legates. Yet it is certain that the letter to Peter of Antioch was written by Cerularius after the death of Pope Leo.

XXX. The true cause of the schism of the Greeks is inquired into. It is shameful here to refute certain schismatics, who have feigned that a universal synod was convoked at Constantinople, in which the Roman pontiff was made an outcast from communion. For there is no mention of such a council in any writer of this age. We know that Peter of Antioch in his letters in response to Cerularius disapproved of the addition made to the Symbol by the Latins: but that he himself came to Byzantium for a general council is a pure lie. Cerularius did indeed convoke a synod against Humbert and the other legates of the apostolic see; but it was a particular one, the decree of which, along with the names of the twenty bishops who were present, Leo Allatius published in his second dissertation *On the Ecclesiastical Books of the Greeks*. Constantine Monomachus, who was reigning at that time, favored the confirmation of the schism not a little. For although he had received the Roman legates benevolently, and had defended them from the snares of the schismatics, and had consigned to the flames the book which Nicetas had written against the Latins concerning unleavened bread, the Sabbath, and the marriage of priests; nevertheless, when he realized he was frustrated by the pontiff regarding the help he had requested against the Franks or Normans who were subduing Calabria, he approved the patriarch's defection. This is related by George Metochita, a man of plain, most profound learning, in his first historical oration on the dissension, a fragment of which Leo Allatius cites, which, having omitted the Greek text for the sake of brevity, I have thought it worth the effort to transcribe. The Emperor Constantine sends to the pontiff of elder Rome, accusing the injustice of (Count Robert), who had occupied [the land] in the manner of tyrants, and demanding vengeance from him in every way, just as from one who was close to him who had committed the injury, as he was of Italian race, and from whom he could demand obedience in all things. And these [were] indeed [the actions of] the moderator of the Ausonian empire. But he who was presiding over the Roman Church at that time, since he used delays regarding the requests, more than was proper, and, as I am persuaded, on account of certain causes that had preceded—as is wont to happen between prelates and emperors, and especially between those who are under suspicion of the other’s dominion, and are distinguished by many customs, and whom intervals of place discriminate—he inflamed the fury of the emperor, who was asking for help for his own affairs, and was being utterly frustrated in the aid which he expected without any hesitation. Wherefore once again the sections of the Church, of the one body of Christ, are stirred up, and the separation of Christian peoples is established anew.

^A And, before all others, he who then held the patriarchal throne, Michael, surnamed Cerularius, set his hand to the work. He had long been meditating on separating himself from the Pope, so that he might usurp the primacy for himself alone—a position which, while communion proceeded together with the Pope, was not granted to him as he wished. He bore it ill and considered it intolerable that he should be judged by any other. A report also circulates that he, relying upon foolish imaginings, was led into this crime when he desired to use red vestments just as the Pope did. Then, indeed, pregnant with what he had conceived in his mind, seizing the first opportunity to bring his child into the light—especially when the Emperor’s indignation against the Pope had arisen—he was borne along by a swollen impulse to dissolve the union of both Churches. The synod which, as has been said, was celebrated with a gathering of so many prelates while Photius held the first place, did not confirm it, but rather upheld and corroborated it, settling every scandal that had arisen between them with canonical decrees. Being reminded of this, Cerularius, presiding by patriarchal right and seizing the occasion, brought changes and confusion—not by examination, not by tribunals, not by discussions, not by councils, but by the sole mandate of the prince, with the remaining prelates who were under him, restricted to a small number indeed, he erased the name of the Pope ipso facto, and thus fomented dissension.

XXXI. Cerularius writes in a letter to Peter of Antioch that Monomachus had asked for aid from Leo IX against the Franks, or Count Robert, but had not obtained it. However, while he gratuitously declares Argyrus, the commander of the Emperor’s army, guilty of rebellion, he deliberately keeps silent about the fact that Leo, solicited by Argyrus, had stood with his army against the Gauls, or Normans, in order to secure the freedom of Italy and that the ancient territories might be restored to the Greeks, and that the Pope had been captured in war by the Normans in the year 1053, and thus it was not in his own power to bring aid to the failing fortunes of the Greeks. As far as Argyrus is concerned, William of Apulia is a reliable witness that he left nothing untried to lead the pontiff to renew the war. That the Emperor, having failed to obtain aid, later returned to favor the schism of the Churches which Michael Cerularius had set in motion, I shall prove from the fact that Michael Psellus, who was privy to all the counsels of Cerularius and his successors, not only rejected the Latin dogma concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit—in those theological chapters which Joannes Gerardus Vossius cites—but he even praised this plague of a patriarch in an oration which he delivered in praise of the deceased Cerularius, because he had split from the Romans on account of this point of theology. This oration of Psellus exists in the Royal Library, and I hope to see it eventually published in print along with other studies by the same author. What more? From the decree of the Cerularian synod, about which we have spoken before, it is clear that, with the consent of Monomachus, anathema was pronounced against the legates of the Apostolic See, nor was there any other reason why this Emperor showed himself favorable to them, except that he took care not to incur the crime of violated international law.

^B XXXII. To these things, the monuments of the Greeks record that the patriarch Cerularius soon put on scarlet shoes, which were the regalia of the priests and the pontiff himself of the Roman Church, as well as of the emperors. Although Matthew the Monk and George Phranza testify that golden eagles were seen depicted on the footwear of emperors and Caesars, it is therefore not probable that Michael coveted such a royal insignia. And yet, they refer this deed of his to the time of Isaac Comnenus, by whom he was expelled from the patriarchate on account of his ambition and insolence. In regard to this, one must hear John Scylitzes Curopalates in his *Historical Breviary*: "The Patriarch," he says, "relying on the insatiable benevolence of the Emperor, rose up against him, not using only petitions or admonitions if he were in need of something for someone; but often, not obtaining his desire because of frequent and odious petitions, he used threats and absurd rebukes, and if he did not obey, he threatened him with the loss of the empire, uttering this common and trite saying: 'I created you, fool, and I will also destroy you.' He also took it upon himself to wear scarlet-dyed shoes, asserting that this was the custom of the ancient priesthood, and that the new pontiff ought to use them. For there was nothing, or very little, between the priesthood and the kingdom, and in matters of greater moment, he ought to be honored more." I have cited this entire passage as a specimen of the immoderate and proud mind of that patriarch who tore the Churches asunder with an execrable schism. ^C [XVII] Furthermore, Michael Psellus, in another oration which he delivered before the council of bishops for his removal, nowhere mentions those scarlet shoes, although he heaps other crimes upon him, for which he declares him guilty of multiple treason and of having aspired to tyranny more than once. Wherefore, with Metochita, I shall affirm that Michael Cerularius began to wear red shoes under Monomachus in order to signify that he was the equal of the Roman pontiff; although in truth he was not averse to attempting the conjunction of the patriarchate with the empire. Therefore, it was not on account of a single little word added to the Symbol, not on account of unleavened bread, or other customs, that the Greeks were torn from the Apostolic Roman See, but rather on account of secular interests, which led their princes and patriarchs to perform this deed. And yet, those among them who were more sensible, and not of a shallow faith, sincerely confessed that the opinion of the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, which was the pretext for the disagreement, was not in the least heretical, but that only the interpolation of the Symbol was to be blamed. And this is proven by the harmony often entered into since the time that Photius was brought into order by Basil the Macedonian. For nothing was indeed done regarding dogma, even though from the time of at least the sixth synod it was known to the Greeks...

[229] that the head of Roman faith is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Photius, a man of immense erudition, certainly knew this well, nor did he move the dispute about this article before he had received his condemnation from Nicholas I. Wherefore, under Leo the Wise, peace was restored between the Churches, Photius being deposed, without any theological dispute; although Pope Stephen VI, via his legates, had enjoined that there should not be peace with the Greeks before, as they say, [ἐξεταζομένης πάσης ἀμφιβολογίας, καὶ ἐκ πάντων τῶν μερῶν τῆς ἀληθείας πεφανερωμένης], all doubt was discussed and the truth explored from all sides. For the holy Roman Church, it says, is set as a kind of mirror and example for the Churches; if it defines anything, it remains firm and unshaken for all. Peter of Antioch, in his letter to Cerularius, indeed reproves the addition to the Creed; but not as heretical, nor for which the Church ought to be split immediately. There exists among the sanctions of Greco-Roman law a letter from Basil, Archbishop of the Bulgarians of Ohrid, to Pope Adrian II, in which he admits there are [βραχέα τινὰ προσκόμματα], certain small points of offense, on account of which the schism of the Churches occurred. ^C XXXIII. Theophylactus and the opinion of the other Greeks. — Therefore Theophylactus, the successor of Basil, used to say to John Veccus (a): "In other matters I permit you to use the phrase of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, as the tongue provides; I speak of common discourse and ecclesiastical conversations, if you wish; but in the Creed alone I shall not permit it to you." In other matters, indeed, I grant you the use of the term, "Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son," as language carries it; in common discourse and in conversations, if you like, in ecclesiastical matters; but in the Creed, however, I shall not grant it to you. A similar view was later issued by the metropolitan Marcus of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara, when he was not yet so hardened in mind. Finally, to mention others, Demetrius Chomatenus, also Archbishop of Bulgaria, being asked (b) whether it is permitted to enter Latin churches and worship with them, or even to receive fragments of their antidote, or blessed bread, replies without hesitation that it is allowed; although he thinks it is by no means right to agree with them on the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, he asserts that men distinguished for their erudition, [πολλοὶ τῶν ἐλλογίμων ἀνδρῶν], did not support the definition of Theodore Balsamon, as it carried much harshness and bitterness, which did not befit the reproof of Latin rites and customs: and because, as they claimed, these things were not read synodically, and they had not been publicly absolved as heretics, they were not synodical decrees, nor were they themselves publicly rejected as heretics, but they pray and communicate with us at the same time. These and other things of this kind can be read in the Oriental, or Greco-Roman law, which was composed from the various decrees of emperors, patriarchs, and prelates, and was printed once and again, first by Agmondus Bonefidius, and later by Marquard Freher, from the recension of Joannes Leunclavius. ^D

XXXIV. On the canon of the Council of Ephesus, by which it is prohibited to write a faith other than the Nicene or Constantinopolitan. — The Greeks, on account of the word *Filioque* added to the Creed, contend with this single argument against the Latins, namely that it was once decreed by a special canon of an Ephesian synod that it is permitted to no one to produce, or write down, or compose any other faith, except that which was defined by the holy Fathers gathered at Nicaea. The Monophysites had once contended against the Council of Chalcedon by this very canon, because it had attached an appendix to the Creed, by which it was affirmed that Christ was perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, and consubstantial with his mother and us according to humanity. Eulogius of Alexandria, Ephraem of Antioch (c), and other Catholics answered these heretics with nothing else (d) than that it was prohibited by the Ephesian decree that another faith be written, [τὰ ἐναντία δόγματα πρὸς τὴν ἐν Νικαίᾳ καθέστηκε], that is, dogmas contrary to the Nicene synod; but that to those things which were defined by it, while kept pure and inviolable, must be added what the occasion of things and times requires, just as it itself added. And this is taught both by nature, the teacher of all things, and the use of the Church does not seem to have rejected it, [καὶ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας ὁρᾶται τοῦτο στέργουσα διὰ παντὸς ἡ παράδοσις].

XXXV. The Ephesian canon explained by Cyril. — But why do I bring forward the opinions of the Fathers of a later age, when Cyril himself explained the meaning of his Ephesian canon in a letter to Acacius of Melitene, on the occasion of a certain more explanatory profession of faith which the bishops of Phoenicia had written to clear away the stain of Nestorianism which was branded upon them? He declares that if Nestorius had exhibited such a confession at the time when it was proposed to him by all to abjure his error, he would by no means have been thought to have composed a new Creed of faith. Therefore, the prelates of Phoenicia were wrongly burdened with reproaches, as if they had brought forth a new Creed, when they had published a very useful and necessary exposition of their faith to clear themselves before those who had persuaded themselves that they approved of the Nestorian novelty of terms. For the holy and ecumenical synod, he says, which gathered at Ephesus, necessarily provided that it was not right to bring another exposition of faith into the Churches of God, except that which already existed, which our most blessed Fathers, speaking by the Holy Spirit, had defined. But they, having once seemed to dissent from this, I know not how, and having been brought into suspicion because they neither thought correctly nor adhered to the apostolic and evangelical dogmas,

^A nor did they free themselves from this mark of ignominy by remaining silent or, rather, by making an apology and demonstrating the power of the belief they held? Could they have freed themselves from this mark of ignominy by keeping silent, or rather by a full satisfaction and the declaration of their own opinion? ... He, therefore, who wishes to do this, [Greek text omitted], as it is seen that he is not innovating regarding the exposition of the faith, essentially devises nothing new, nor is he found to be innovating the exposition of the faith, but rather he renders the faith he holds concerning Christ clear to those who ask. Wherefore, he concludes that these bishops innovated nothing by their profession, [Greek text omitted], nor added anything at all to those things which had been defined of old, but rather adhered to the blameless doctrine of the Fathers. This is what Cyril says. Thus, a formula of faith, made fuller by true declarations, is not to be thought of as a new or different faith, nor are such declarations, properly speaking, additions to the faith.

XXXVI. When and by whom the word *Filioque* was first added to the Creed. — Yet the word *Filioque* is first read as having been added to the Creed in the acts of the third Council of Toledo; when it had long since been defined in the plenary council of all Spain against the Arians, Macedonians, and Priscillianists, according to an assertion familiar to the Latin Fathers, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so that it might be signified that He is of the essence of both and consubstantial to each in the same way, and that He is a different person, distinct from both. For according to the theology of Athanasius and Cyril, the reason why the Holy Spirit is of the same substance as the Father and the Son is this: that He proceeds naturally not only from the Father but also from the Son. For just as the Son and the Holy Spirit are in that measure indivisibly joined with the Father, insofar as they exist from Him without division, so too is the Holy Spirit joined with the Son, because He proceeds from Him. And again, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from the Father for this reason: because they have their existence from Him; so it is necessary that the Spirit be distinguished from the Son, as He proceeds from Him. For, as has been said before from the Nazianzen, the diversity of mutual relation made the diversity of their appellation, and the account of that diverse relation is nothing other than *ekstasis*—that is, the efflusion or procession of one person from another: nor do the three persons differ in any other way, according to the doctrine of Gregory of Nyssa, except [Greek text omitted], insofar as the one is the cause and the other is from the cause. Therefore, the word *Filioque* was added to the Creed for the sake of declaration, not so that a new dogma might be established.

XXXVII. The Roman Church cleared of the accusations of the Greeks. — Therefore, the Roman Church has in no way sinned when, at long last, it reluctantly allowed a single little word to be inserted into the Creed—which, indeed, other Western churches had long since deemed worthy of admission for the confirmation and explanation of the faith. ^B It is furthermore useful for our purpose to observe that the Ephesian canon forbids the writing of another faith beyond the Nicene, and yet, a formula published in the general council of Constantinople was admitted by that same synod; that is, the Nicene, but augmented with various declarations—indeed, with not a few articles. From which it can be deduced that by the term "another faith," a formula that teaches a more explicit norm of Christian doctrine is not forbidden, but rather one that embraces spurious and foreign dogmas. Indeed, the synod issued this decree because of a certain Nestorian formula which the priest Charisius had brought before the Fathers. Yet, not only did the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon add an appendix to the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan, Creed, but also in the sixth synod, with no one objecting, Peter of Nicomedia, Theodore, and other bishops, clerics, and monks who had consented to the Monothelite heresy, openly recited a more prolix and explicit Nicene formula. ^C In the seventh synod as well, another was read, written by Theodore of Jerusalem; and likewise, Basil of Ancyra and the rest of the bishops who had embraced the errors of the Iconoclasts offered another one again; however much the Ephesian canon might decree that it was by no means lawful for heretics who wished to convert to the Church to offer another faith besides the Nicene. In this same synod, another profession of faith was read, which Tarasius had sent to the patriarchs of the Eastern sees: and since it contains the Nicene, or Constantinopolitan, Creed, augmented and interpolated in various ways, it has this specifically concerning the Holy Spirit: [Greek text omitted]. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the life-giver, who proceeds from the Father through the Son. But because the Greeks in the Council of Ferrara, or Florence, said that these formulas of faith were particular, not common; behold other clearly common and solemn ones which are contained in their rituals. They do not baptize a Hebrew, or Jew, before he has uttered a profession of the Christian faith, which is entirely different from the Constantinopolitan Creed, as can be seen in the Euchologion, page ^D 544. In the ordination of a bishop, he is ordered first to recite the Constantinopolitan Creed, then afterward, as if this were by no means sufficient, another exposition, and a third, is demanded of him, the last of which exhibits that aforesaid Creed mixed with various declarations: indeed, Photius himself is indicated to be the author of this interpolated Creed in the Caesarean codex, of which Lambecius makes mention in Book VII, codex 77; I pass over other formulas which the Greeks have cared to use for those who are converted to the Church from different heresies or sects; even though it is held by the Ephesian canon that it is not lawful to offer another faith to those who have wished to be converted to the Church from paganism, or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever.

^A Either, then, they must acknowledge themselves guilty of the violation of this sanction, or they must cease their bluster against the Latins on account of the one little explanatory phrase added to the Creed.

XXVIII. The second objection of the Photians. — They again object, along with their Photius, that the Fathers of the first Constantinopolitan council received this article, which proceeds from the Father, from the very words of the Lord which are read in the Gospel (John xv, 26), and that, therefore, nothing ought to have been inserted into the words of Christ. But, in truth, the Fathers by no means placed this passage into the Creed as it lies in the Evangelist, but they changed the preposition παρὰ into ἐκ. For in the Gospel we read, ὃ παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, "who proceeds from the Father"; but in the Creed they said, τὸ ἐκ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, "proceeding from the Father." Why, then, was it not permitted for the Roman Church to add one little word for the sake of interpretation, especially since the seventh council and the whole East consented that these very words of the Lord be interpolated by Tarasius with two words, καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ, "and the Son"? Indeed, Epiphanius in his *Panarion* and in his *Ancoratus* does not hesitate to profess concerning the Holy Spirit, τὸ παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευόμενον, "who proceeds from the Father and the Son," fearing nothing, lest he be judged to have adulterated the words of Christ or the Creed.

^B XXXIX. The Roman pontiff allowed only the Latins to add the word FILIOQUE to the Creed. — But at least, they say, the Roman pontiff ought not, without consulting the other patriarchs who share with him the administration of the Church, to have added anything to the common Creed. Perhaps so, indeed, if he had decreed that this addition was to be admitted by the whole Christian world. But he merely acceded to the most urgent requests of the Latin bishops, that the word *Filioque* might be recited in the Creed in the churches of the West, and he did not bind the Orientals to do the same by any decree: nay rather, although in the Council of Lyons it was sung by the Greeks and Latins during the solemnities of the Mass, "who proceeds from the Father and the Son," the Greeks were by no means thereafter obligated to recite the Creed with the addition thereafter and perpetually. Indeed, Michael Palaeologus requested that the pact be entered into under this condition, that his Church always say the Creed as it had said it before the schism up to the present day. This was approved by the pontiff and the Latin bishops. Similarly, in the Council of Florence (b) the Greeks, with none of the Latins objecting, said, τὸ τῆς προσθήκης ἡμεῖς οὐ δεχόμεθα πώποτε, "we do not at all accept the addition; but we concede to you that you may have it in your churches." What more? Clement VIII, in his bull 33, § 6, decreed that while the Greeks are bound to believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, they are not bound to pronounce it, unless scandal should exist. Wherefore, the Greeks who honor the Roman Church recite the Creed freely ^C without the addition. Moreover, by equal right it was lawful for the Western Church to insert one little word into the Constantinopolitan Creed, by which the hundred and fifty Oriental bishops who convened at the first Constantinopolitan council, without consulting the Apostolic See and the bishops of the West, changed the Nicene formula published against the various heresies that had arisen; even though Athanasius, in his Epistle to Jovian Augustus, testified that it was by no means permitted for the nations to add or subtract anything from it. But however much the schismatics may complain that the word added to the Creed was the cause of the schism—as well as the intolerable pride and avarice of the Roman legates—the first root of the evil must more truly be sought in the ambitious attempt of the Byzantine patriarchs, by which, on account of a certain pretended and shapeless canon of the Council of Chalcedon, they arrogated to themselves rights equal to those which the Roman and apostolic see possessed (c), so that they wished to be called οἰκουμενικοὶ, that is, patriarchs of the world. The Roman pontiffs resisted them for a long time, up to Sergius and Michael Cerularius, who, having once aspired to tyranny and afterwards having been made bishop, attempted to depose and institute the very emperors, and thus would not endure being subject to the apostolic see. Furthermore, the emperors of the Greeks were annoyed and indignant that the empire of the East had been conferred upon the kings of the Franks by the Roman bishop. Resentments born from the occasion of the holy war which the Latins undertook against the Saracens increased the schism, and finally the storming of the city of Constantinople, which our Franks seized from the Greeks in the year 1204, against the will of Pope Innocent III, and held until the year 1260. After the death of Cerularius, there was often talk of the reconciliation of both Churches, just as the Byzantine emperors perceived it to be conducive to their affairs, and therefore various councils were held on this side and that, in which it was especially disputed concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, as if the peace and union of the Churches depended on this one head.

^D XL. The Council of Bari, and St. Anselm's treatise on the procession of the Holy Spirit. — In the year of our Lord 1098, a fairly numerous council was celebrated at Bari in Apulia by Urban II, in the month of October, at which 185 bishops sat, as Lupus Protospata narrates. Thither also came the Greeks, and they disputed with such force concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit that the Latins were thought to have fallen in the cause, although it is reported by Simeon of Durham that more had been said with eloquent reason by the apostolic (or Pope Urban II). Wherefore the pontiff called upon Anselm, who was present there, with shouts, to support the cause of the Church; this the prelate of Canterbury performed brilliantly. After the council had finished, he committed to writing what he had said against the Greeks, urged by the prayers of his friends. Today there remains Anselm's book *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*.

^A in which, setting aside what he had previously established in other volumes regarding the manner in which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father—since it was a matter of the mutual love of both (which, as he had discovered at the Bari colloquy, was not consistent with the theology of the Eastern Fathers)—he adheres to the principles of the Greeks themselves, so that from these he might prove that which they were denying against our side. Anselm himself teaches that this is the sum of his work: "It stands as an unassailable argument that the Holy Spirit is from the Son just as He is from the Father; yet He is not, as it were, from two separate principles, but as if from one. For from that which the Father and the Son are one—that is, from God—the Holy Spirit exists, not from that by which they are distinct from one another. But since the God from whom the Holy Spirit is, is Father and Son, therefore He is truly said to be from the Father and the Son, who are two." But this very thing, if I am not mistaken, is what the Greeks ask to be conceded to them, lest two principles seem to be admitted; namely, that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Son as they are two, or as they are two hypostases, but as they are one according to the divine nature. "The Holy Spirit proceeds from God, who is the Father and the Son," says Anselm, "or from the divine essence, in which the Father and the Son are one, not from that in which they are distinct from one another. Just as a lake is not from this where the spring and the river are separate, but from the water in which they are one." Thus, by an example familiar to the Greeks, he defends and explains the Latin case.

XLI. On Peter of Milan, and his lucubrations. — Around the year 1113, Peter Grosulanus (whom the Greeks call Chrysolanus), who had been transferred from being the Bishop of Savona to being the Archbishop of Milan, not without suspicion of the stain of simony, being forbidden from living quietly in Milan, undertook a journey to Jerusalem and came to Constantinople. There, before Alexius Comnenus, he held a disputation on the procession of the Holy Spirit, indeed even with the emperor himself, as is gathered from Nicolaus Hydruntinus, in Book I *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, which Leo Allatius cites in Book I *On the Consensus of the Western and Eastern Church*, ch. 10. His treatise, which exists in Greek, handwritten in many libraries, was edited by the same Leo Allatius in Volume 1 of *Graecia Orthodoxa*. And from the title which the Royal Codex, no. 3327, bears, it appears that Peter’s adversary was John Phurnes, a monk of Mount Gani, whose stronger arguments Patriarch John Beccus later refuted in his first oration *On the Union of the Churches*. Against Grosulanus, those who took up their pen were, above all, Nicolaus of Methone and Eustratius of Nicaea.

XLII. Dialogues of Anselm of Havelberg with the Greeks. — A few years later, another Anselm, Bishop of Havelberg, while acting as legate of Emperor Lothair II in Constantinople to John Comnenus, who had succeeded Alexius, held a solemn and public debate regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit ^B before the Byzantine emperor, the patriarch, and however many men of notable erudition were dwelling in the Royal City. There were also present not a few Latins, he says (a), among whom were three men wise and learned in both languages: one named James, by nation a Venetian; another named Burgundio, by nation a Pisan. The third, among others, was prominent, most famous in the doctrine of Greek and Latin letters among both peoples: Moses, by nation an Italian, from the city of Pergamo. He was chosen by all to be the most faithful interpreter for both sides. The cause of the Greeks was defended by Nichites, or Nicetas, of Nicomedia, whom he states was chief among the twelve *didaskaloi*, or teachers, who, according to the custom of the wise men of the Greeks, steer the studies of the liberal arts and divine Scriptures; they preside in doctrine, standing out as preeminent among all as if they were over all, and to them all most difficult questions are referred, and once solved by them, they are held and written down without retraction. Mention of these [διδασκάλοι], or teachers—whose duties Anselm elegantly describes here—is found in Zonaras, Book XV of the *Annals*, n. 4; and he who was placed over them was called not only [διδάσκαλος Εὐαγγελίου], teacher of the Gospel, but also [διδάσκαλος οἰκουμενικός], universal teacher. And there is no doubt that that Nicetas of Nicomedia held this first place, who is said by Anselm to have been the chief of the masters. After many objections and responses from both sides, without cavils or the itch for quarreling, Nechites, or Nicetas, concludes that the dogma of the Latins is not at all unseemly; but that it should not be said, "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son," that is, it should not be added to the Creed without the decree of a universal synod. In a second conference, the debate was held regarding unleavened bread and the primacy of the Pope, and it had the same outcome. Then Nicetas (b) said that the scandals on account of which the Churches were split arose from the time when a certain Charles, King of the Franks, violently invaded the empire of the Romans and had himself called "Patrician of the City of Rome." In whose time, against the majesty of the empire, the monarchy was divided, or rather, torn asunder: whence not a few scandals arose between Latins and Greeks, not only in the variety of imperial institutions, but also in the diversity of ecclesiastical rules. These things, and others like them, the Greeks have long complained of, which it is not the purpose of this our present work to refute. Furthermore, Anselm of Havelberg committed his conferences to writing, to dismantle the objections of a certain schismatic bishop who had been sent by his emperor to Rome to Eugenius III.

XLIII. On Hugh Etherianus. — Under Manuel, the successor of John Comnenus, Hugh Etherianus, with the prince himself approving, wrote three books for the dogma of the Latins, in which he copiously and learnedly refuted the principal authors among the schismatics, namely ^C

(a) Lib. II, cont. Graec. cap. 2, t. 1 *Spicil.* (b) Lib. III, c. 14.

^A the bishop of Nicomedia, Nicholas of Methone, Nicetas of Byzantium—whom he calls the Philosopher—Theophylact, and Photius. Bessarion, in a letter to Alexius Philanthropenos, a fragment of which Allatius recites in his *De Consensu*, lib. II, cap. 28, n. 5, narrates that he had read a book by that Nicetas of Byzantium, who later became Metropolitan of Thessalonica, in which he signified his approval of the Latins' opinion, with the sole exception that he judged the little word *Filioque*, however true it might be, to have been wrongly added to the Symbol: *This Thessalonican stood with the Latins on this dogma. For he taught that the conclusion was true, but he fought—to use the common saying—for the shadow of an ass, arguing that not even truths ought to be added to the Symbol.* When John Beccus had come upon his book and read it, he soon abjured the schism and embraced the Roman faith and party, as testified by Pachymeres, *Hist.* lib. VI, cap. 6, who furthermore narrates that this Nicetas, who carried the surname Maroneia, was in high esteem in his own age and was the chartophylax in the Great Church: *The Great Church held him in honors, even as chartophylax.*

XLIV. Laurentius Surius, in a brief preface to the Fourth Lateran Council, which was celebrated under Innocent III, says that it was ecumenical: inasmuch as matters of religion and the concord of the Greek and Latin Churches were treated therein; to which were present the patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and four hundred and eleven bishops, both Latin and Greek, to the number of seventy... Nor were the legates of the Greek and Roman emperors, the kings of Jerusalem, etc., absent. Whence that most learned Carthusian drew these facts is unknown. That the Latin patriarchs of the Orient, the Constantinopolitan and Hierosolymitan, and even the Antiochene—who was unable to come only on account of his health—were present at the Fourth Lateran Council, I will concede to Surius and others. For at that time those cities obeyed the Latin princes. Nor would I deny that Greek bishops of various regions, which the Latins had likewise subdued, came there. But for those whose emperor, after Byzantium was seized by our people, had retreated to Nicaea, I do not believe it likely: all the more so because the fourth canon of this council was established against the Greeks, who at that time were raging quite vehemently against the Roman Church. Therefore, I do not think that the procession of the Holy Spirit was discussed in that synod in any way. There are some who attribute this act to the Third Lateran Council, which was celebrated in 1179 under Pope Alexander III, while Manuel Comnenus was ruling the Greeks. But the acts of that council do not testify to this, as almost nothing survives except the canons, along with which was published a letter from George, Metropolitan of Corfu, to Nectarius, the superior of the monastery of Casulae (a), in which he congratulates him on the fact that Rome returned from the battle victorious ^B. In Volume XII of the *Spicilegium*, an index of three hundred and two bishops who were present at this synod can be seen, and not one of the Greeks appears among them, except for one or two from Calabria. Thus, this much at least is certain: that Manuel at one time attempted to curry the favor of the Roman pontiff, promising the union of the Churches, provided that the empire of the West be restored to him, and that he favored Hugo Etherianus, who debated before him, quite kindly.

XLV. In the year 1232, the Greeks, weary of their own calamities, began through the efforts of certain Friars Minor (b) to think of establishing peace; and Germanus III, the patriarch, with the assent of his emperor, John Ducas, wrote letters from Nicaea to Gregory IX and also to the cardinals, which have now been published many times. Two from the Order of Preachers and the same number from the Minors were sent from Rome to Nicaea, to make peace with the Greeks; and a synod having been held at Nymphaeum in Bithynia (c), at which the Antiochene patriarch was present along with the Byzantine, the Greeks gave letters to the Pope in the manner of a profession of faith, in which, with many sentences of the Fathers interlaced, they explicitly stated their error regarding the Holy Spirit; and thus, through the evil arts of the Antiochenes, the work begun did not result according to their wishes. Germanus, who had shown himself favorable to the Roman party, was later deposed, and Joseph, a monk from Mount Galesius, was ordained in his place. Nevertheless, the Emperor John acted with all his might so that peace might be restored. This is testified to by the letters of Alexander IV, dated 1256, to the Bishop of Orvieto, whom the Pope was sending as legate to Theodore Lascaris the Younger (d): in which he recites the articles of the peace to be entered into, which the Archbishops of Cyzicus and Sardis, and other orators of Calo-Joannes, had offered to his predecessor, Innocent IV. Namely: 1st, the recognition and profession of the supreme principate of the Roman see and its supreme pontiff, above all other patriarchal sees; 2nd, the canonical obedience to be exhibited to the aforementioned predecessor and his canonically entering successors; 3rd, the prerogative of appealing to the Roman Church, when Greek ecclesiastics considered themselves aggrieved by their superiors; 4th, the free recourse to the Roman see in questions which might happen to arise between Greek prelates and other ecclesiastical persons; 5th, obedience also in those sentences which the Roman pontiff promulgated, provided they were not contrary to the sacred canons; 6th, the first seat in councils, moreover, to the same pontiff, and the first turn in subscribing when the subscriptions were to be made; 7th, in questions of faith, if any should happen to emerge therein, to give his opinion before others, and to offer the judgment of his own will, which, provided it not be contrary to evangelical and canonical testimonies, the rest would obediently receive and follow; 8th, in other causes and affairs of ecclesiastical persons ^C.

that which the authority of the Roman pontiff will dictate, provided it be not contrary to the decrees of sacred councils, the others shall acquiesce. The pontiff narrates that those envoys requested that Constantinople be restored to the Greek emperor, and that the Latin patriarch be removed from there; and he soon subjoins: "Truly, the offering and the profession mentioned before, our predecessor of happy memory, Pope Innocent, approved—with the counsel of his brothers, and ourselves then constituted in lesser office—so that by a token of such kindness, the whole body of the faithful might rejoice in the increase of so great a reconciliation." He adds, finally, that which makes for our case: The same predecessor deemed it quite absurd that, in the celebration of the council, that single article of the Symbol of the Nicene synod, in which the Greek Church seemed to differ slightly from the Roman concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, was excepted by the aforementioned envoys from the judgment of the Roman pontiff, adding that the Greek Church would not acquiesce to his definition therein, unless it could be proven by the testimony of authentic Scripture or divine oracle... However, lest any impediment or obstacle from this hinder the reconciliation of the Church itself, the predecessor himself conceded that, in the impending council, the tenor of the aforementioned Symbol, by any addition—unless perhaps by mutual consent, which, as we trust, the concord of reconciliation will bring about—not be changed; but remain in its form with the Greek Church, as the said synod promulgated it, provided that concerning the faith of the Holy Trinity, the Greek Church in all things consensually agrees with the Roman. Both these things the pontiffs granted to the wishes of the Greeks. Nevertheless, the covenant was by no means ratified, since Constantinople was not restored to the Greek emperor. ^C

XLVI. The Greeks join the Roman Church at the Second Council of Lyon.—But a little later, the city having been recovered in the year 1261, when Emperor Michael Palaeologus feared the encroaching King Charles of Sicily with his army, he deemed it necessary to reconcile the Roman pontiff to himself, and thus to promote the union of the Churches. Wherefore, when Gregory X convened the general council at Lyon, he sent envoys thither, whose leaders were Germanus, the former patriarch, Theophanes of Nicaea, John the emperor’s brother, and George Acropolita. In the synod, no disputes are reported to have been held concerning the Holy Spirit or other controversial points; for the reason that these had been sufficiently debated at Constantinople by the Friars Minor, whom the pontiff had delegated thither. Therefore, in the session immediately following the arrival of the Greek legates, Germanus with his own, as well as with the prelates of Calabria and William of Moerbeke, chanted the Symbol in Greek, with a three-fold repetition of the verse, which "proceeds from the Father and the Son." In the fourth session, peace and union were sanctioned by sacrament, with the reading of the letters of the emperor and many Greek prelates: then, within the solemnities of the Mass, the Symbol was in turn chanted by the Greeks and Latins, ^D and the verse, "Who proceeds from the Father and the Son," was repeated twice. The emperor’s letters contained a full profession of faith; in the end, however, he requested that the Symbol not be ordered to be changed by the Greeks with the addition of the word "Filioque," *iva ὴ ἡμετέρα Ἐκκλησία λέγῃ τὸ ἅγιον Σύμβολον, ὡς ἔλεγε πρὸ τοῦ σχίσματος*, "so that our Church may say the Symbol," he says, "as it used to say before the schism, down to the present day." Joseph the patriarch refused his consent to this concord; whence he was reduced to order by Michael, and in his place John Beccus, a man of exceptional integrity and erudition, was substituted. He, having gathered a frequent synod of bishops, confirmed what had been done at Lyon, and sent a synodical letter to Pope John XIX, in which the dogma of the Latins was most eruditely and elegantly enunciated. Many of the Greeks obstinately detested the reconciliation with the Latins and were eventually punished in a second synod with imprisonment, scourging, exile, and finally with the deprivation of communion.

XLVII. A bold Greek hand on a certain passage of Gregory of Nyssa.—Meanwhile, John Beccus the patriarch, being assiduously concerned about the union of the Churches, having held a council again according to custom, held a discussion regarding a certain passage of Gregory of Nyssa, which, as it declared the existence of the Holy Spirit also from the Son (*ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ*), had been corrupted by a sword-cut by the referendary of the Great Church, who was named Enscammatismenus, with the preposition *ἐκ* erased—for which offense he humbly begged pardon from the Fathers. The acts of the synod at the Leon. Allat. lib. III *De cons. ns.* cap. 1; and t. I *Graec. orthod.* attest to this. They say the codex which the Enscammatismenus had damaged was very ancient and had belonged to Xiphilinus, the former oeconomus. The passage of Nyssenus was said to be taken from his sermon on the Lord’s Prayer, which begins, *ὅτε προῆγεν ὁ μέγας Μωϋσῆς*, "when the great Moses," etc. But in truth, it does not appear in any sermon of the same doctor on the Lord’s Prayer; no, not even in the sermon which is reckoned the third in the editions, in the end of which, however, the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit are disputed. Truly, as if accepted by Nyssenus, it is cited by Hugo Etherianus, lib. I, cap. 3. Therefore, it is helpful to recite it in full, as much in Greek as in Latin: "For the Son went forth from the Father, as Scripture says, and the Spirit proceeds from God and through the Father; but just as being without cause, which is of the Father alone, cannot be attributed to the Son and the Spirit, so the reverse, to be from a cause, which is the property of the Son and of the Spirit, has no nature to be viewed as belonging to the Father. For since there is a new thing for the Son and for the Spirit, namely that of not being unbegotten—lest any confusion should be viewed regarding the subject—it is again possible/fitting to discover the distinction between them unmixed in their idioms, so that both the common may be guarded, and the proper not confused. For the only-begotten Son is named from the Father by Holy Scripture, and up to this point the discourse establishes His idiom. The..."

^A Holy Spirit is also said to be from the Father, AND IS TESTIFIED AS BEING FROM THE SON. "For if anyone," he says, "has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Consequently, the Spirit is from God, and is God’s Spirit. But the Son, while being from God, is no longer also of the Spirit, neither is He, nor is He called so. Or does not this relative sequence admit of conversion? For since the Son also went forth from the Father, as Scripture says, and the Spirit proceeds from God and the Father; but just as it cannot be that being without a principle belongs to the Son and the Holy Spirit, since it belongs to the Father alone; so, on the other hand, nature does not permit that being from a principle, which is proper to the Son and the Spirit, be considered in the Father. Now, since it is common to the Son and the Holy Spirit that they do not exist in an unbegotten manner, that no confusion may be observed in the subject, we can again find an incommunicable difference in their properties, so that both that which is common is preserved, and that which is proper is not confounded. For the only-begotten Son is said in Holy Scripture to be from the Father, and thus far its doctrine defines His property. But the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father, AND IS TESTIFIED TO BE FROM THE SON. For if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His; therefore, the Spirit, who is from God, is also the Spirit of God. But the Son, although He is from God, is not yet either ^B any Spirit, nor is He called so: nor is this relative consequence transposed. Petavius, discussing this passage, says that he was led to the opinion that the proposition *ex* (from) is alien to that [text], and that Gregory wrote: "The Holy Spirit is said both from the Father, and is testified to be of the Son." Thus, he says, the consequential discourse demands this, since on the contrary he says the Son is from the Father in such a way that the Spirit is not said to be: "But the Son, being from God, is no longer also of the Spirit, neither is He, nor is He called so." He does not say "from the Spirit," which would have been consistent, provided he had previously written that the Spirit is both from God and from the Son. He wrote, therefore, that the Spirit is both from God and is of the Son, so that he might respond contrariwise that the Son is both from God and is not of the Spirit. Permit me also to note that the author argues from various places in Scripture, in which the Holy Spirit is read to proceed from the Father, and is furthermore testified to be the Spirit of the Son; but nowhere is He said to be from the Son. Although, as the man who is beyond measure learned adds, this formula of speech which calls the Spirit "of the Son" is of the same value as "from the Son," as is taught elsewhere. But as regards the integral passage of Nyssen, from Euthymius, part 2 of the *Panoplia*, tit. 12, it becomes certain that it is genuine, and that the discourse on the Lord's Prayer was borrowed from it, which is considered the third homily. For after he had brought forth three fragments of this homily [XXIII], he adds this one: "From the same discourse; the Holy Spirit is both from God, and is also called the Spirit of Christ; but the Son, when He is from God, is not ^C also the Spirit, nor is He so called. For this order of sequence does not follow, that the account should respond to itself in turn through resolution on equal terms, and just as we call Him the Spirit of Christ, so also should we call Christ the Spirit of Himself." Indeed, Nyssen testifies that in this discourse he had disputed concerning the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, when he subjoined: "But now it has been demonstrated by the opinions of the pious, that the nature is the same in the Father and the Son, and it is impossible that those which are of different genus be called by the name of God... Furthermore, that the Spirit has the same nature has been shown from the operations," etc. Which cannot be true, unless the fragment which I have described above, and some other things, are supplied, which have fallen out by the error of the scribes. But let us return to the subject.

XLVIII. The deposition of John Beccus, his praises, and his congresses with the schismatics; the temporal procession of the Spirit through the Son, a concept of the Monothelites. That union of both Churches, such as it was, is said to have lasted until the death of Michael Palaiologos. But upon his death, John Beccus was thrust from the patriarchal throne by Andronicus, the son and successor of Michael: of whom, however, Nicephorus Gregoras weaves these excellent praises: "At those times, the chartophylax of the Great Church was John Beccus, a man of excellent intellect, and instructed in the studies of the doctrines from his early youth: moreover, he was adorned with such natural gifts as anyone else of that age. For both in the height of his body, and the majesty of his countenance, and his eloquence, and the sharpness of his mind, he was capable in all things, and surpassed others in other gifts." And when he vehemently opposed the decree of the emperor (concerning entering into peace with the Latins), the emperor tried everything, both through himself and through others conspicuous for their learning, so that he might lead him by legitimate arguments to assent... Frustrated in this hope, the emperor threw him and almost his whole circle into most dismal prisons. Then he sent the writings of Nicephorus Blemmydes to Beccus. Having read these, he asked of his own accord for the books of the saints, from which Blemmydes had collected his own. And so, in a short time, he collected a heap of testimonies that could fill entire volumes, and he who had long been opposed to the Latins, his opinion changed, transferred the victory to the other side. Therefore, the patriarch, having ascended the seat, was for the emperor all things, both tongue, and hand, and the pen of a swift scribe, in teaching, writing, and finishing matters; with the helpers of this struggle, Meliteniotes and Metochites, archdeacons of the imperial clergy, and George the Cypriot. So says Gregoras, as well as Pachymeres, neither well-disposed to the Catholic cause: who nonetheless did not omit the praises of the companions of John Beccus, namely Constantine Meliteniotes and George Metochites. Nicephorus Blemmydes also had the more elegant writers of his age as his laudators, as one who was a man

of most illustrious piety and learning, and who had generously refused the patriarchate offered to him by the emperor. Some of his lucubrations exist as a sample, which Allatius bestowed upon Latium, and edited in his *Graecia orthodoxa*. Yet from these we learn that the schismatics, by reason of their frequent skirmishes with the Catholics, had been reduced to such straits that, while contending that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, they not only denied that He exists from the Father and the Son, but also from the Father through the Son, contrary to the familiar theology of the ancient Fathers. “I will discourse freely and openly,” says Blemmydes in his first epistle (a), “on the proposed question; which is, whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, or indeed from the Father without a medium, and not through the Son. And that the first was handed down by many holy doctors, and the second by none, I think all men who are exercised in the Holy Scriptures and guided by fairness will confirm.” But that this phrase is not inserted into the Gospels, *τοῦτο δὴ τὸ πρόχειρον εἰς ἀντιλογίαν,* this most vulgar people seize upon for the sake of contradiction. Wherefore, in this entire epistle, he confirms from the sentiments of the holy synods that the Holy Spirit exists from the Father through the Son, and incidentally shows that it makes no difference whether one says He is from the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son. In another epistle, which he gave to the Emperor Theodore Ducas, he says: “But in truth, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son was already held for a long time as a confession, and is asserted by pious men down to our own times, and is received as a common dogma of the Church.” *Καιρὸς δὲ οὐ πολὺ ἐξ οὗ τινες ἔπαθόν τι γελοιότατον, ἢ μᾶλλον εἰπεῖν ἀθλιώτατον· βουλομένοι γὰρ ἐκ περιουσίας ἀνελεῖν τὸ, ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ, συνανεῖλον αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ, δι' Υἱοῦ.* “But it is not long since some, in a ridiculous, or rather, I should say, most miserable state of mind, while wishing to remove the ‘from the Son’ entirely, took away also the ‘through the Son’ along with it; and the testimonies of so many and such great Fathers they perverted if any handle for deception was given; but if there was none, they rejected them as things that did not agree with many others. And wherever it was that the Spirit was said to be poured out or to emanate from the Father, they took the voices for ‘procession’; but wherever ‘through the Son’ was attached, they contended that the pouring out and emanation there, and whatever else similar, were said in place of a gift and a bounty.” In the former epistle he reports that they interpreted the words *φανεροῦσθαι* (to be manifested) and *ἐκλάμπειν* (to shine forth) and *ἐξαίνειν* (to shine out) in the same sense. But while I look into the ancient authors of this interpretation, there occurs to me in the Acts of the Sixth Synod (b) the confession of Macarius of Antioch, the Monothelite heretic, in which he says thus concerning the Holy Spirit: “And in the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, *καὶ δι' Υἱοῦ πεφηνός, δηλαδὴ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις,* and shining through the Son, namely to men.” These things are similar to those which we read today in the *Exposition of the Faith* of Gregory Thaumaturgus, as it has been adulterated by the Greeks. Whence I shall conclude that the Monothelites, who were the first of all to create envy for the Latins on account of the dogma concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, understood the procession of the Spirit through the Son in this sense, that He is made known to men through the Son. Why, then, might not the Gregorian *Exposition* also have been falsified by them, with the addition of these two words, *δηλαδὴ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις*, namely "to men," which never appeared in the ancient translation of Rufinus? Be that as it may. Although John of Damascus, to whom the schismatics have hitherto appealed, has in many places (c) said, following the doctrine received by the Greek Fathers, that the Spirit exists from the Father through the Son by an eternal procession; nevertheless, all those who have written for the schism from the time of Cerularius down to Beccus have, with almost one consent, asserted no procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, except for that temporal manifestation or the bestowal of spiritual gifts. Thus Michael Psellus, whom we have said favored the schism of Cerularius, in his first theological chapter says that the Spirit proceeds indeed from the Father, but is communicated and received by every created thing through the Son: *δι' Υἱοῦ δὲ μεταδιδόμενον, καὶ μεταλαμβανόμενον ὑπὸ πάσης κτίσεως*. Thus the prelate of Nicomedia, Nicetas, responded to Anselm of Havelberg (d) that He proceeds from the Father through the Son, because He is given through the Son for the sanctification of the creature, or, according to others, because He passes from the Father through the Son to the sanctification of men. Hugo Etherianus writes similarly (e) that the prelate of Nicomedia (whether it be that Nicetas or someone else) taught that the Spirit’s proceeding through the Son is the same as being sent or given through the Son. So also Andronicus Camaterus in that famous *Oplotheca* of his, or *Sacred Armamentarium*, whose authority among the Greeks was very great, attempted to transfer to this sense the passage (f) of Cyril of Alexandria on the Prophet Joel, in which the Spirit is called the Spirit proper to the Son, and is said to be in Him and from Him: "Let it not disturb you that it is asserted here 'from Him,' nor take that as referring to the procession, but as to the mission, the giving, and the supply." For, he says, so many other doctrines of the same holy writer, and the fact that all the holy ones accepted the preposition 'from' when used of the Son in place of 'through,' would have sufficiently proved and explained it. Camaterus was writing this while he was *vigla drungarius*, or prefect of the watch, under the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.

XLIX. The contest of John Beccus and his associates with the schismatics. The vapid opinion of Gregory of Cyprus, separating the eternal effulgence from the procession. Thus, under John Beccus, this was the hinge of the contentions: whether the Spirit proceeded substantially from the Father through the Son; nor was Beccus striving to inculcate anything else (g) than the eternal and hypostatic [procession] of the Holy Spirit through...

the Son. ^A Indeed, after having been ejected from his patriarchate by Andronicus the Elder, he could not be deterred by exiles, nor by prisons, nor by any tortures or punishments from professing this very thing to his dying breath. In the first place, on account of certain expostulations of his regarding Gregory Cyprius, he convened bishops and clergy, as well as the dignitaries of the empire, before the Emperor, presided over by Gregory of Constantinople and Athanasius of Alexandria. Beccus and his associates, Melitiniota and Metochita, were summoned, and they disputed concerning the procession of the Spirit. And when, besides a certain passage from Nyssen (a), where the Spirit is said to proceed through Him who is continuously from the Father, διὰ τοῦ προσεχῶς, they had brought forward another from Damascene (b), by which it is likewise asserted that the Father is the producer of the Spirit manifesting through the Word, προβολεὺς διὰ λόγου ἐφαντορικοῦ Πνεύματος; and this text, despite the protestations of George Moschabar, the Great Chartophylax, was recognized as genuine, being cited in Andronicus Camaterus' *Hoplotheca*, and not to be understood of any procession other than the eternal one, the assembly was dissolved, and the task was given to Patriarch Gregory of composing a document in which the statement of Damascene might be expounded and reconciled with those other words of the same Doctor (c), *ἐκ δὲ Υἱοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα οὐ λέγομεν*, "but we do not say the Spirit from the Son." The composed tome was read publicly in the church, and the Emperor himself, the patriarch, and several others fortified it with their signatures; yet many protested on the grounds that it was asserted in the document that the aforementioned passage of Damascene signified that the Father is the producer of the Spirit through the Word, not that the Spirit exists through the Word, but that it shines forth through Him: *εἰ καὶ διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ παρά τισι τῶν ἁγίων ἐκπορεύεσθαι τὸ ἅγιον εἴρηται, τὴν εἰς ἀΐδιον ἔκφασιν ἡ λέξις ἐνταῦθα οὐ τὴν εἰς τὸ εἶναι καθαρῶς σημαίνειν βούλεται*; "Even if it is said by some of the saints that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, the word here signifies eternal manifestation, not existence in its pure sense." Licet apud sanctos quosdam per Filium Spiritus procedere affirmetur, dictio haec progressum ad effusionem, non ad esse, proprie et pure significat. Allatius (d) recites these words of the tome from the fourth oration of Joseph Bryennius *On the Trinity*, and he cites other passages after Bryennius that agree with the same sense; but Beccus [wrote] more in two books in which he refuted the tome. "They did not grasp, therefore," says Pachymeres, "what precisely was the distinction between the production of the Spirit unto existence and the procession unto eternal effulgence; especially since the doctors of the Church usually called the emanations of the divine persons of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father *ἐκφάνσεις*, or effulgences."

^C Gregory Cyprius is accused of crime by many of the schismatics; he prefigured the heresy of the Palamites. John Beccus drew his pen against the tome of Cyprius, and stirred up such schismatical hatred against the patriarch that all thought he had conspired toward the sentiment of Beccus. Nor… ^D for, since besides those things which I have just cited, these other words of the tome which Beccus recites (Orat. 1) do not yield another sense: *Ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ Υἱοῦ φυσικῶς ὑπάρχειν, οὐμενοῦν δι’ Υἱοῦ, καὶ ἐξ Υἱοῦ, τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχειν οἱ εἰρηκότες Πατέρες τὸ Πνεῦμα ἔφασαν*. "But the Fathers have said that the Spirit exists naturally from the Son, but not that [He exists] through the Son and from the Son, or that He has [His] existence from the Son." *Sed Patres docuerunt Spiritum per Filium, et ex Filio naturaliter exsistere, non item per Filium et ex Filio exsistentiam habere*. As if, forsooth, to exist through the Son and from the Son, and to have existence through the Son and from the Son, do not sound the same! Let Beccus be read (Vol. II *Graec. orthodox.*, p. 252). The same Beccus finds fault with other things in the same book full of error, primarily that he asserted: *Μηδὲν καινὸν εἶναι, μηδὲ τῆς τῶν Γραφῶν συνηθείας ἀλλότριον, ἐὰν τὸ πνευματικὸν χάρισμα ἅγιον ὁμωνύμως Πνεῦμα καλῆται· καὶ τὴν ἐνέργειαν ἔστιν ὅτε οἰκειοῦται τὴν τοῦ ἐνεργοῦντος κλῆσιν, ὡς ἡ τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ λαμπάδων αὐγὴ πολλάκις τὴν τοῦ ἡλίου*. "That there is nothing new, nor foreign to the usage of the Scriptures, if the holy spiritual gift is called 'Spirit' homonymously; and [that] an action sometimes appropriates the name of the one acting, as the splendor of the sun and the ray often [takes] that of the sun." *Nihil esse novi, neque a Scripturae consuetudine alieni, ut spirituale donum Spiritus sanctus appelletur: quinimo actionem aliquando nomen sibi agentis asciscere, veluti solis splendor et radius solis nomen sæpenumero obtinet*. By which words, indeed, he signified that the eternal action of God, which is common to the three persons, is sometimes called the Holy Spirit. This is what he presently declared more fully in another work in which he defended his own tome, a large fragment of which I found in the Royal codex 2953, with this title: *Γρηγορίου τοῦ Κυπρίου πρὸς Βέκκον Λατινόφρονα· ὅτι ἡ θεία χάρις, καὶ ἡ ἔλλαμψις, καὶ ἡ ἐνέργεια συναΐδιός ἐστι τῷ Υἱῷ, καὶ πηγάζεται ἐξ αὐτοῦ, καθὰ καὶ ἐκ Πατρὸς, καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ παρακλήτου Θεοῦ*, "Of Gregory Cyprius to Beccus the Latin-minded: that divine grace, and effulgence, and operation is co-eternal with the Son, and springs from Him, even as it does from the Father, and from the Paraclete God Himself." Quod divina gratia, effulgentiaque, et operatio, coæterna Filio sit, et ex ipso scaturiat velut [XXV] etiam ex Patre et ipsomet Paracleto. These things, however, portend nothing but the impiety which Gregory Palamas taught a little later, namely, that the divine operation, which they called *θεότητα* (deity), is in reality distinct from the very nature of God, and co-eternal with God and the three persons. Wherefore Beccus refuted this error of his adversary by citing the entire twenty-seventh chapter of Theodore Abucara.

Cyprius went before the Palamites. Furthermore, he signifies that this perverse opinion was then brought forth for the first time by the author, Cyprius, with these explicit words: *At veritatis qualem se esse dicit præclarus vindex, qui nos calumniatores et sanctorum apostolorum conviciatores vocat, qui hac ratione res theologicas tractamus, quinam a nobis ipse compellabitur, ὁ οἴκοθεν καὶ ἀπὸ κοιλίας νέας ἄρτι δογμάτων φωνὰς τῇ τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰσηγούμενος Ἐκκλησίᾳ*, "But the illustrious defender of truth, as he calls himself, who calls us calumniators and revilers of the holy apostles, who handle theological matters in this way, how will he himself be challenged by us, [he] who from his own resources and from a new belly now brings into the Church of God voices of doctrines," who from his own and now for the first time from his belly introduces novel sounds of tenets into the Church of God. By which testimony of Beccus it is proven that Palamas and his errors were by no means proscribed by him while he was patriarch, although Combefisius.

in his annotations to the second part of his newest Auctarium affirmed this; nay rather, that Cyprius preceded him, and preformed his erratic dogma. Wherefore that patriarch John, who first condemned Gregory Palamas, was either Sozopolita, or, which is truer, Glycys, who held the Constantinopolitan throne circa the year 1316, until 1320.

Gregorii Cyprii expositio explosa. — Beccus’s lucubrations on the Tome added spirit to the adversaries of Gregory. The chief of these were John Chilas, Metropolitan of Ephesus, Daniel of Cyzicus, and Theoleptus of Philadelphia, to whom Muzalo the Grand Logothete gave his support. There exists in Allatius, lib. II *De consensu*, cap. 2, col. 513, the pamphlet of John Chilas which he offered to the emperor: and this was the cause that Cyprius wrote an exposition of his Tome. Theoleptus objected to the patriarch that in the Tome were found traces of some impious doctrine of Mark the monk, who had used the name *prodoteus* (producer) in an ambiguous sense, who himself also equates the word *prodoteus*, says Pachymeres. Meanwhile, those who stood with Gregory urged Athanasius of Alexandria to subscribe to the Tome. But he complained that he had neither sufficient leisure nor ability to examine its individual words; especially because he did not know the customs and sensibilities of the Constantinopolitans. To Gregory, who was entreating for a public colloquy in which he might more plainly explain his mind, Andronicus at first assented, but soon changed his mind, fearing lest the same might happen as in the previous debate with Beccus, from which the affairs of the Church had become no more peaceful. But, lest the patriarch be condemned unheard, he gave the confession of faith that he had written to be read in a public assembly, and it was judged immune from every suspicion of error: yet the Ephesian and Cyzicene contested this opinion, whence Gregory thought he ought to resign the patriarchate.

Then the emperor, having again collected councils, decreed that the Tome should be altogether amended and explained: which, however, the men selected to carry out this work did not achieve, since they could not agree among themselves on assigning the genuine sense of Damascus (a). And with good reason: for Cyprius in his Apology for his Tome excellently refutes those of his adversaries who interpreted Damascus, when he says that the Spirit is produced by the Father *through* the Word, as if *di' Logou* (through the Word) and *di' Huiou* (through the Son) were the same as *syn tõi Logõi* (with the Word), *meta tou Huiou* (with the Son), and *hama tõi Huiõi* (together with the Son). Which interpretation he showed and proved by many arguments to be contrary both to the sentiments of the Fathers and to the laws of grammar. From all of which the sincere reader will recognize how alien our John of Damascus was from the error of Photius and the schismatics, and how consonant he was with the sense and doctrine of the Latins.

^D

LI. Pachymeres disapproves of the sentiments of the schismatics. — In the same way also Pachymeres himself, by whose authority especially I have related all these things, just as he by no means approved of the exposition of Cyprius by which the dictum of John of Damascus concerning the production of the Spirit *through* the Son was understood not as to existence, but as to shining forth; so neither did he assent to those who contended that the Spirit is therefore called the Spirit of the Son because he has the same nature as the Son, or because he is supplied to the worthy by him: "To those who say that for this reason he is called the Spirit of the Son, because of the consubstantiality, or because of being supplied by him to the worthy." He shows this in the opusculum which Leo Allatius did not hesitate to publish twice (b). Where he immediately infers, if the supplying of the Spirit by the Son to those who are worthy is not the cause why he is and is called the Spirit of the Son, just as he is also the Spirit of the Father, another cause for this matter must be sought. Furthermore, "If one might dare anything, that through the Son from the Father the Spirit is *proodikōs* (in a proceeding manner), and through the mediation of the Son, by which both the Only-begotten is preserved to him, and the Spirit is not prevented from being of the Father who is the cause." If it is permissible to dare, this might be affirmed: that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, and by the natural intervention of the Son; by which both the reason of the Only-begotten is preserved for him, and the Spirit is not hindered from being from the Father as from a cause. Thus Pachymeres did not hesitate to contest the common doctrine of his own people, just as he did the new figment of Cyprius, which, however, the schismatics embraced with open hands under the leadership of Palamas.

LII. The attempted reconciliation under Andronicus the Younger. The heresy of the Palamites hostile to union. Its true and first parent. The ninth general council for the Greek schismatics. — From the reign of Andronicus the Elder to the times of John Palaeologus, nothing worth recording occurs that pertains to our purpose. Indeed, Gregoras narrates that a reconciliation was attempted under Andronicus the Younger by two Latin bishops who had come to Constantinople, but that he himself diverted his Greeks, having delivered an oration which he recites, for various reasons, and especially because the Romans wanted everything to be settled by the judgment of their own see, and the Latins indulged too much in dialectical quibbles, which would be harmful for confirming dogmas. I omit the other attempts of certain of our men, which were no more successful. Meanwhile, the Palamite plague invaded the Oriental Church, from which new strength accrued to the schism. Of this, Simeon, the prior of the monastery of Xyloxerus, whom they call the younger Theologos, had once been the parent, whose companion and defender Nicetas Stethatus showed himself to be, whom we have said was the author of the schism along with Michael Cerularius and Michael Achridanus. When Gregory Palamas had stirred up the same heresy (XXVI), he also declared war more vehemently upon the Latins with his men, and primarily upon both Cabasilas, Nilus and Nicholas, so that for this very reason...

his Synaxarion is celebrated by the schismatics even today. All the patriarchs and Greek bishops thereafter conspired to consolidate the follies of Palamas; from which point, especially John XIII, the patriarch, approved them in a synod held at Constantinople, at which Lazarus of Jerusalem with the legates of Alexandria and Antioch is said to have been present, and which for this reason was heard of among the Greeks as the ninth general and œcumenical council. The same was done by John’s successor, Callistus, and Philotheus, who was substituted in his place, who enrolled Palamas among the saints as a defender of the ancestral faith. Therefore, with this heresy rampant, little thought was given to repairing the union of the Churches, although the Byzantine Empire was collapsing day by day. A long-standing disagreement among the Latins also stood in the way, by which three popes claimed the Roman see for themselves. ^A

LIII. The Council of Florence, begun at Ferrara.

LIV. Mark of Ephesus debates with the Provincial.

were being uttered without reproach. ^A However, the passage of Basil, as cited by John, is not read in the editions, nor does Combefis indicate any manuscript in which it is found as it was cited at the Council of Florence. But Hugo Etherianus, about three hundred years ago, had raised this same passage of Basil against the Greeks at Constantinople. John Beccus had found it complete in some manuscripts, and in some others erased. *“For there are found some books from which has been blotted out that which has its being from Him,”* etc. That manuscript which John de Monte Nigro had in his hands was said to have been written six hundred years ago, and thus before the Cerularian schism. The acts of the synod testify that another of the same age [XXVII] was cited by the Latins; Manuel Calecas too, long before the Florentine synod, had vindicated the same passage for Basil, by the authority of most ancient manuscripts, which no one could doubt were written before the schism; some of which appeared obliterated, iron having been applied against the writing by those who would reject this saying of the Doctor as spurious. Among many things which this author subjoins, to prove that the reading which those ancient manuscripts offered is genuine, this seemed to me the most urgent: If Basil had believed the Spirit to be from the Father alone, what prevented him from saying that, just as the Son is second in order and dignity from the Father, because from Him He has His being: so too the Holy Spirit is likewise second in order and dignity from the Father? For if he had established this, he could most effectively conclude against Eunomius that the Spirit is not a creature of the Son, because the Son would contribute nothing to His existence.

LV. How much that passage of Basil, of which we are now speaking, would disadvantage the cause of the schismatics, one may not vainly gather from the deed of a certain minister of the Archbishop of Nicomedia, which Joseph of Methone relates in his response to the brief of Mark of Ephesus: When you sent, he says, the minister of the Nicomedian prelate, so that he might bring the manuscript of St. Basil, in which that saying is contained, *“For what necessity? And the rest.”* But he, whether moved by his own malice, or even warned by you, wished to hide the truth, and having received the manuscript, he came to a window, intending to erase that saying, and with the leaf marked where the sentence was contained, he sought a knife with which he might scrape it out. But the Spirit of Truth did not permit this to be done, so that the truth might not be extinguished. Therefore He excites a blowing wind, through which it happened that the leaf in which the saying was contained being turned, another presented itself. He, hastening, erased one thing for another. Then with a swift step, having returned to the synod, he went boldly to convince the Latins. But when his father opened the book and saw the complete sentence, looking grimly at his minister, he pointed out the matter. But he, trembling, cried out: “So help me, Lord, may your blessing profit me, I scraped it out. But how it is whole again, I do not know.” Thus, when ^B the sentence had been set forth, you withdrew in confusion: and are you not now ashamed to say that the doctrine of the Latins has been demonstrated by you to be absurd?

LVI. After many contentions to and fro, it finally came to pass that the provincial declareth to this effect: “We follow the apostolic faith; we know one cause of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Father.... Wherefore the Roman Church does not believe in two principles or two causes, but in one principle and one cause. But those who assert two principles and two causes, we anathematize.” This saying of John pleased the Greeks greatly, and, as the Emperor requested, he affirmed in writing that this was his faith: that the Father is the one cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Then they requested that they should admit the epistle of St. Maximus to Marinus, in which it is not only affirmed that there is one cause of the Son and Holy Spirit, namely, the Father, but it is added, not that (the Romans) make the Son the cause of the Spirit. But the Latins deemed that the words of Maximus should be interpreted thus: Neither do we ourselves say the Son is the primordial cause of the Spirit: for we assert that the Father is the one cause of the Son and the Spirit, of the former indeed by generation, of the latter by procession: but that we also signify the communion and identity of the essence, and assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, and openly confess that the substance is inseparable from the hypostases. Then, the Greeks and Latins meeting again, the former, because of the confession of Tarasius, in which it is said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, contended that our men should state their faith in the same words. But the Latins explained the word *per* (through) well, as they wished, says the Greek writer of the acts of the synod, saying: “This word, *διὰ*, *per*, is it different from *ἐκ*, *ex* (from), or is it not?” The Greeks respond: “It is different.” The Latins say: “If, therefore, the action of the preposition *ex* is one thing, and the action of the preposition *per* is another, there will be, according to the response, two actions, one of the Father and one of the Son: but this is inconvenient; however, we do not admit the preposition *per* in any way, fearing lest it be said to be ‘via a channel’ or ‘via an instrument.’” Wherefore the Latins handed over their opinion in two writings, which were rejected by the Greeks, for the reason that in both it was stated that the Son is the cause of the Holy Spirit. Then the Greeks in turn offered a schedule in which they said the Son sends forth the Holy Spirit, and pours Him out, as though bubbling forth from Himself: that the Spirit is sent forth, flows, and is poured out by the Son. Thus the Greek writer of the acts of the synod briefly summarizes the sum of their formula, and adds that this was not admitted by the Latins: because it was not in the least known to them in what sense it was affirmed that the Spirit is poured out, bubbles forth, is sent forth, and flows. “For we hear,” says Cardinal Julian, “that these things are of a certain secondary and temporal procession: but we say that the holy Fathers assert one procession only in the production...

of the Holy Spirit. ^B This effusion from the Son is not secondary. But I would rather write out the entire Greek formula itself, as it is reported by Syropulus, sect. 8, from whom we learn moreover that its author was the doctor George Scholarius, of whom there will be a place to speak in his proper turn. Since we Greeks previously thought that the Latins affirmed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son as from two principles or two breathings, and furthermore did not affirm that the Father is the principle and source of the entire Deity, namely of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; for that reason we guarded ourselves as much from the addition, or the little word which they add to the Creed for the sake of explanation, as from their communion. Now, however, gathered into this holy and ecumenical synod, by the singular grace of God, so that a holy union may be brought about between us, after many questions and disputations aired here and there, and many testimonies brought forward into the middle both from the Holy Scriptures and from the holy doctors of the Church: we Latins indeed profess that which we say, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, not saying it in the sense that we exclude the Father from being the principle and source of the entire Deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, or as if we believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son while the Son has not received [this] from the Father: or as if we hold two principles or two productions of the Holy Spirit: but we confess that the Holy Spirit has flowed forth from the Father and the Son as from one principle, and by one [XXVIII] singular production, from eternity: similarly, we Greeks also assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, but that He is proper to the Son and flows forth from Him, and [we] confessed and believed that He flows forth from both, namely from the Father through the Son, according to substance. And now we coalesce into mutual union and join together by divine charity. And we give this as a specimen of mutual faith and confession, and we judge that no one should abstain from the communion of the other for the future: but we mutually pledge ourselves again and embrace one sentiment, and we are all reintegrated into one Church of God by the favor of grace. This formula of Scholarius pleased the patriarch and the greater part of the Greeks, and in particular Bessarion and Isidore, the metropolitan of the Ruthenians, although some resisted. What, moreover, our men carped at in it, Syropulus recites from their own writing. 4º They asked whether they ought to recoil further from the addition, or explanation, since they held it for established that the Latins did not profess two principles. 5º Whether they believed the faith of the Latins to be true, and whether they desired to strike a treaty in it. 6º Whether they professed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and not likewise from the Son. 4º Whether by saying that the Spirit is proper to the Son they understood a naked consubstantiality of both; or whether they [understood] that He draws Him from the Son just as eternally as from the Father. 5º Whether by saying that He flows forth from Him, that “from Him” referred to the Father or to the Son. 6º If to the Son, whether they understood Him to flow forth ^C from eternity according to substance and person, or not. 7º What they meant by “to flow forth,” whether it was to draw the divine substance and personal subsistence from the Son: or whether it is the same as to proceed, or differs in some sense, and in what sense. 8º Whether by saying the Spirit is from both, namely from the Father through the Son, they understood this also substantially and eternally. 9º What was meant by that, to be poured forth substantially from both: whether to have and to take substantially from both: whether they differ, and in what sense “to be poured forth” and “to proceed” differ. 10º Whether this proposition is true absolutely and without commentary: the Holy Spirit proceeds and is poured forth eternally from the Father and the Son, without this declaration, from the Father through the Son. Whether “through” might signify that the Son is the cause and principle of the Holy Spirit. 12º Whether by saying, “we are united,” they embraced the doctrine and confession of the Latins. These doubts displeased the Greeks much, and, as I suppose, were the cause that George Scholarius, who had hitherto diligently exerted himself in promoting the union, gradually moved backward, and before the concord of both Churches was sanctioned, departed for Venice with Demetrius the despot, the brother of the emperor, and Gemistus Pletho, as is narrated by Syropulus (a). But the Church has not since experienced a more hostile adversary of the Florentine peace.

LVII. ^D As the Greeks grumbled at the response of the Latins and complained that the voices of the Fathers were rejected, since nothing was being accomplished, our men finally prevailed that the sentences and sayings of the Western doctors should be weighed more maturely; which, when it was done, the patriarch, who had hitherto been averse to the dogma of the Latins, having gathered his assembly, gave this suffrage in writing, which Syropulus reports (b): “Since we have heard the words of the holy Fathers, both Eastern and Western, [some] saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, others from the Father through the Son, and although ‘through the Son’ is the same as ‘from the Son,’ and ‘from the Son’ the same as ‘through the Son,’ yet we, leaving aside ‘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’ here signifying cause in the proceeding of the Holy Spirit.” Whereas we have heard the sayings of the SS. Fathers of the Church, both Oriental and Occidental, of whom these assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, those from the Father through the Son: although “from the Son” is the same as “through the Son”; and “through the Son” the same as “from the Son”: we, however, having dismissed this word, “from the Son,” profess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, from eternity and according to substance as from one principle and cause, the preposition “through” there signifying cause in the procession of the Holy Spirit. Other prelates assented to the patriarch, except for five, among whom was the Ephesian. Then immediately the emperor [index: entries preserved]

delivered a sermon to all concerning union, but upon this condition and law: that by the Latins his own people should not be forced to add an addition to the Symbol [Creed] (that we Latins not be forced to add our addition to our holy Symbol), nor to change their own Church’s rites. Syropulus relates what the patriarch said to him in order to entice him to subscribe to the union: namely, that the writings of the Western Fathers were genuine; that he had read Athanasius affirming the same, and likewise Cyril in various places; and Epiphanius too, whose words were so explicit that Joseph, a monk and didascalos (or doctor), had at one time frankly confessed: "To the passages of other Fathers I have something to answer; but to those of Epiphanius, I have nothing to say to the holy man himself." So that, although he might not agree with any of that Father’s sentiments, it was nevertheless consistent to follow what he taught. Meanwhile, however, while the patriarch was striving to obtain and awaiting the assent of two or three bishops, he died worn out by old age, having left a document wherein he signified and swore that he followed all things which the Catholic and Apostolic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ of senior Rome follows and teaches: "All things whatsoever the Catholic and Apostolic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ of senior Rome knows and dogmatizes, I too myself also know, and to these I dedicate myself, being convinced." After his passing, all the clergy eventually consented to the union, except for one, the Ephesian, who asserted that the authorities of the Latin Fathers had been corrupted and falsified by our side, while those of the Greeks, which stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds "through the Son," he interpreted as if "through the Son" meant the same as "together with the Son" and "as the Son," even if not by generation, [XXIX] that is to say (with the Son, and as the Son, even if not begetting), and also because He shines forth "through the Son" and is given to men. Even as he himself also declared again in the confession of his own faith, of whatever kind it was, which he published against the synod. As if it had ever been heard by any grammarians that the preposition *dia*, "through," if it is construed with the genitive case, ever signifies the same as *meta*, "with." Moreover, everyone acknowledges that these signify the same things as the Latin *per*, *ex*, *inter*, and indeed that either a cause or a medium is expressed. *Dia*, when it is construed with the genitive, says Favorinus, denotes an intermediary. Wherefore Damascene, chapter 13, book 1 *De fide orth.*, after having said from Basil that the Spirit is the image of the Son, as the Son is of the Father (by which, to be sure, we are taught that the Spirit is derived from the Son), immediately subjoins: "God is the Holy Spirit, ^A *di' Huiou tō Patri synaptomenon*, who is connected to the Father through the Son." This is what Basil the Great had pronounced before him (a). "But there is one Holy Spirit, ^B *di' henos Huiou tō heni Patri synaptomenon*, who is connected to the one Father through the one Son." And again: "The natural goodness, and the holiness according to nature, and the royal dignity, ^C *ek Patros dia tou Monogenous epi to Pneuma diekei*, from the Father through the Only-Begotten, passes through to the Spirit." All of which, whether the schismatics like it or not, involves some reasoning of a medium, and therefore of a cause or principle, so that the Son, together with the Father, produces and emits the Holy Spirit as a principle. Nor is what Mark subjoins to be valued even at a penny, that according to the Damascene the Spirit is the Son’s companion, ^D *symparomartētei*. For by this word nothing else is signified except that the Son is not anterior to the Spirit in time or in nature. In which sense Basil denies that the Holy Spirit is *hypoarithmeisthai*, sub-enumerated, to the Son. No less insipid is that which the Ephesian suggested in that aforementioned booklet of his, that the Spirit has no other relation to the Son except in so far as He is known with the Son: "The Holy Spirit has, therefore, no other relation to the Son than that He is known with Him." For that which is relative is known simultaneously; the property of the relation is one thing, not the relation itself, which has another foundation. Whence, for them to be known simultaneously, it is necessary that one have its origin from the other: with Gregory of Nyssa teaching that divine persons are referred to one another and distinguished *kata to aition kai to aitiaton*, according to the cause and that which is caused.

LVIII. Definition of the Florentine Synod. — The synod, therefore, having finished the controversies, gave this decree concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit: We define that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has His essence and His subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and eternally proceeds from both as from one principle and by one spiration: declaring that that which the holy doctors and Fathers say, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this understanding, that by this it is signified that the Son is also, according to the Greeks indeed a cause, but according to the Latins a principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, just as the Father is. And since all things that are the Father’s, the Father himself gave to His only-begotten Son in begetting Him, except that He is the Father, this very thing, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the Son himself eternally has, from whom He is also eternally begotten. We define, moreover, that the explanation of those words *Filioque*, for the sake of declaring the truth and because of the urgency of the necessity at that time, was lawfully and reasonably added to the Symbol. That was the outcome of the Florentine synod, by whose definitions I wish the Greeks had stood. But by arts and persuasions, especially those of Mark of Ephesus, it came to pass (b) that not only the Byzantine crowd, but also the three patriarchs of the Oriental sees, resisted the sanctioned union, having issued a synodical decree by which they cursed Metrophanes, the successor of Joseph of Constantinople (who had died at Florence and was most observant of the peace and the pact that had been struck), as well as the Florentine Fathers, and bitterly attacked the emperor.

For this reason, Pope Eugenius sent certain men to Byzantium to the Greeks, says Laonicus Chalcocondylas (book VI), so that they might come into a colloquy with those who did not admit the synod and the concord made in Italy. For Mark, Bishop of Ephesus, and Scholarius, most learned of the Greeks, were not willing to consent to the dogma of the Latins even from the beginning. When it came to a colloquy, the Romans could accomplish nothing, and, the matter being left unfinished, they returned home. There survives to this day a book by George Scholarius: *On the Procession of the Holy Spirit*, in which he treats all the points concerning which, as he himself says, he had disputed for fifteen days in the palace with the apostolic nuncio, the Bishop of Cortona, and a certain professor of theology before Emperor John, the Despot Theodore, Patriarch Gregory (who had succeeded Metrophanes), and also a cardinal, and others among both the Greeks and the Latins. For he himself at that time was *katholikos sekretarios tou basileōs*, that is, universal secretary of the emperor, and *katholikos kritēs tōn Rhōmaiōn*, universal judge of the Romans, and he would give a discourse on divine matters in the emperor’s triclinium every Friday, in the presence of the senate. Scholarius wrote these things about himself and his own work with his own hand, and testified to them, as can be read at the beginning of the Royal Codex, no. 2956, in which this book of his exists in a more accurate and more complete form than in the London edition.

LIX. Concerning George Scholarius.—From what we have said thus far concerning George Scholarius, Leo Allatius and other learned men can be refuted when they argue that this Scholarius is different from that George Scholarius who was present at the Council of Florence and showed himself a mediator for entering into peace. To achieve this, they deny that the schismatic Scholarius came to Italy to the synod. Yet Scholarius himself, the schismatic, testifies in many places of his works, which are preserved in manuscript in libraries, that he proceeded to Italy to the synod with the others. Moreover, it is evident from Syropulus that that George Scholarius who had approached Florence with the others, and who for some time had exerted excellent effort toward promoting the union, had afterwards abandoned it, and had fled to Venice with the Despot Demetrius and Gemistus Plethon before the decree of peace was established. The words of Syropulus are these: "The despot departed for Venice four days after the death (of Patriarch Joseph), disregarding his salary and provisions, so that he might not be forced to take part in the subscription or union; and there departed with him also the most wise teachers, both Gemistus and Scholarius, not wishing even themselves to be present." ^A And thus they were accompanied by the most learned Gemistus and Scholarius, who themselves did not wish to be present then. How attached to the schism he subsequently became, the writings of his that he published against the Latins show more than sufficiently. Michael Ducas also clearly indicates (b) that the George Scholarius who traveled to Florence was none other than the schismatic. "There were present from the senators," he says, "Gemistus the Lacedaemonian, George Scholarius, and universal judge." And yet, by his own testimony cited above, we have observed that the schismatic George held the office of universal judge. Here it is also to be noted in passing that the article *ho* and the preposition *kai* at [the mention of] Ducas imply that by the name "Scholarius," not a family surname, but a dignity is signified, contrary to what Allatius contends. After his return to his homeland, for some time George again appeared to consent to the union, in order to show deference to the emperor, and to this period can be assigned what he wrote against Plethon on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, which Gemistus had attacked with philosophical arguments. But immediately he was recalled to the schism by a letter, as I suppose, from Mark of Ephesus, which is seen in many libraries and was edited by Leo Allatius in his *Exercitationes adversus Creyghtonum*, exerc. 7. "How much pleasure and joy you brought us when you embraced the correct faith and the pious and ancestral opinion, and took up the defense against unjust judges," says Eugenicus, "so much, on the contrary, we were filled with sadness and grief when it reached our ears that you again with an altered face held and spoke things that were self-contradictory, and were flowing together with the worst managers to procure the means of union and alliance." By this entire letter that virtuous master exhorts his disciple so that he might avoid the synod, which was being convened at Constantinople for the purpose of confirming the Florentine decree, just as he would a gathering of Caiaphas, and, having pushed aside the vanities of the world, might retreat into the desert. Scholarius obeyed the wishes of his master and openly defended the schism by word and writing; and since his attempts did not proceed sufficiently to his liking, he retired (c) into the monastery of the Pantocrator (i.e., the Almighty God), having assumed the name Gennadius. When, however, under Constantine, the last of the Greek emperors, the colloquies were held again for the sake of restoring the union, he struggled from the cell in which he was leading his reclusive life against the Florentine decree, both with discourse and with writings. That this Gennadius, or George Scholarius, was initiated into the sacred orders at that time is proved by no monument. Wherefore, George Phranza is to be understood most conveniently regarding him, when he narrates (d) that, upon the storming of Constantinople and with Sultan Mahomet thus consenting, he [the sultan] granted to the bishops who happened to be present, and to a few of the clergy and laity, that the most wise and most learned George Scholarius might—

^A be chosen, whom they also called by the changed name of Gennadius. Where it is also most worthy of note that epithet, "most learned" and "most wise," which by Greek writers is commonly attributed to George the schismatic; as can be gathered from their testimonies cited above. If these things are so, that Gennadius of Phranza is wrongly confused by Allatius with the other Gennadius, who had been demanded as the successor of Patriarch Joseph. For Syropulus is a wealthy witness that this Gennadius, at that time—that is, when the Greeks had returned from Italy—was by no means a layman, but was the superior of the Batopaedion monastery and a presbyter. In these three names they had agreed—Trapezuntius, Cyzicenus, and the superior of Batopaedion, the hieromonk Lord Gennadius—and the prefect of Batopaedion, the hieromonk Lord Gennadius. But neither had Scholarius assumed the name of Gennadius at this time.

Moreover, with what disposition George Scholarius, with such great effort, strove to attack ^B from an adverse position the agreement made at Florence and confirmed once and again at Constantinople, is revealed to us by Leonard of Chios, Archbishop of Mitylene, in his epistle to Nicholas V concerning the fall and captivity of the city of Constantinople: "The nobles, he says, whose blood now irrigates the ground by the enemy sword, said indeed: let the honor of commemoration be given to the Supreme Pontiff; but let the decree of the Florentine synod not be read." Why this, O hypocrite? "So that it may be erased," he says, "from the decree, that the Holy Spirit proceeds equally from the Son, as He proceeds from the Father." Why also, hypocrite? "Lest the Greeks seem to have erred, if they say (that is, object to the Latins) that there are two producers of the Holy Spirit." But why this also, I pray, O hypocrite? Lest the glory be given to him who desires to capture it all for himself by virtue of his office (namely, Isidore of Ruthenia, cardinal and legate). Scholarius was attempting on one side, and Chirluca on the other, to transfer themselves to the apostolic presence (or that of the Roman Pontiff), so that they might be the ones who alone were seen to have understood the matter, and who first would be praised as the authors of such a great union. For many were secretly tormented by envy against the legate. That Scholarius was indeed so affected can be detected without any trouble by whoever reads attentively the two books which he wrote against the Latins on the procession of the Holy Spirit. ^C In the former, indeed, of which mention was made above, after discussing much concerning the mind of Cyril, Theodoret, and the Ephesian Fathers, and concerning the authority of Augustine; after weighing the various sayings of the Greek doctors by which the faith of the Latins seems to be built up; he finally concedes that the Church Fathers, when they said that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, did not signify only a temporal and secondary mission, or a bestowing of gifts; but intended to indicate by this phrasing: 1° The indivisible conjunction of the Holy Spirit with the Son: "For the laws of theology," he says, "desire that the Holy Spirit and the Son of God be not only united by proceeding from the same principle, nor that the Trinity be coupled by this reason alone; but also by the fact that the one is produced through the other, and, if I may say so, mingled in an order that is not in the least disordered." In this sense, the preposition "from" (*ex*), which the European Fathers love to use, is equal in force and significance to the preposition "through" (*per*), being equivalent to *dia*. This he attempts to explain by an example, rude indeed and corporeal, yet not altogether inept, which the holy Fathers, especially the Greeks, frequently employed: namely, of an eye or spring, a fountain, and a river; and likewise of a root, a branch, and a fruit; so that, just as the river flows from the spring through the fountain, and the fruit is pushed forth from the root through the branch indivisibly, so the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son without any interval of nature, or place, or time, and by virtue of this procession is conjoined both to the Father and to the Son. From which it follows, and just as the branch receives its fecundity from the root, so that the fruit is pushed forth from it: so also the Father communicates fecundity to the Son, so that the Spirit is produced from Him, or through Him, and thus the Son is in His own way the principle of the Holy Spirit, albeit not the primordial one.

2° Scholarius ^D concedes that the holy Fathers, when they said that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, did indeed intimate a certain procession from the Son; but not as the Spirit subsists in Himself, but as He is distinguished and separated from the Son; *in the proceeding of the Spirit through the Son is understood a certain going forth from the Son, not for the sake of subsisting, but only for the sake of being distinguished and separated.* The Holy Spirit, he says, is in the Father and in the Son by His own nature, *and is distinguished from them according to the hypostasis, by proceeding from the Father through the Son; but the proceeding from the Father is of the cause, as has been said, whereas that through the Son is of distinction only*, and is discerned from them according to the hypostasis insofar as He proceeds from the Father through the Son. But the "procession from the Father" signifies the cause, as has been said; "through the Son," however, signifies the distinction only. As if it were not the same thing, as all philosophers teach, that by which something is constituted, and that by which it is distinguished from others. And therefore if the Spirit is from the Son or through the Son because He is distinguished from the Son, for the same reason by the Son, or even from the Son, He has that He is constituted, or is a certain hypostasis.

LXI. George Scholarius recognizes the Latin dogma.

"Two. For the Father generates the Son, and the Father [*] and Son the Holy Spirit." From which it appears ^B that Georgius Scholarius did not sincerely defend the cause of the schism, but did so on account of certain enmities, and also from a latent pride of spirit, because he could not bear with an equitable mind that the first places in procuring a union should not be granted to him. This George Scholarius, therefore, who assumed the surname Gennadius, is the very man who delivered, at the time of Good Friday, the sermon praised by Meletius Syrigus in the work of the most learned Richard Simon [(b)], in which he clearly enunciated the mystery of transubstantiation, without omitting the word, μετουσιώσεως: at that time, namely, when he was a Catholic judge, and on every Friday, as he himself testifies in the place cited above, he spoke of divine matters in the imperial dining hall before the senators. In that very dining hall, he sometimes defended the position of the schismatics against the apostolic nuncio and the Latins who were staying in Constantinople. Hence he was far from betraying the faith of his Greeks concerning the sacrament of the Eucharist in order to confirm the dogma of the Latins.

SECOND DISSERTATION.

[XXXII]

Concerning certain authorities whereby Eutyches and others, assertors of one nature in Christ, defended their heresy.

1. Since John Damascene, in his book *On the Orthodox Faith* as well as in other polemical treatises, moved a discourse on the tenets of the Eutychians or Monophysites, and on the main points by which they defended their heresy, I thought I would do something worthwhile if I were to re-examine in a single chapter certain authorities or testimonies which they objected against the Catholics. Moreover, they praised Athanasius, Julius and Felix, the Roman pontiffs, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, as if they had vindicated one nature in Christ for him; the passages of whom I will first recite, and then afterwards I will give my own judgment—however much it might be worth—whether they ought to be considered as belonging to those authors by whose illustrious names they were distinguished. Athanasius’s passage was this: ^A *From the discourse on the incarnation:* "We confess that he is the Son of God, and God according to the Spirit, but Son of man according to the flesh; not two natures in one Son, one to be worshipped and one not to be worshipped, but one nature of God the Word, incarnate; nor two sons, one the true Son of God, who is worshipped, and another from Mary, a man not worshipped, who became Son of God by grace; but the one from God, as I have said, one Son of God, and God himself, and no other." We confess him to be both the Son of God and God according to the Spirit, but the Son of man according to the flesh; not two natures in one Son, one to be worshipped, the other not to be worshipped; but the one nature of God the Word incarnate, which, with the flesh itself, is worshipped with one worship; nor, again, two sons, one the true Son of God and to be worshipped, and the other, the man from Mary, not to be worshipped, but made Son of God by grace just as other men; but one, as I said, Son, and God himself, and not another.

Julius the Roman, in his epistle to Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, the beginning of which was, *Θαυμάζω πυνθανόμενος περί τινων* (I am astonished, hearing about certain things), was said to have spoken thus: "For it is necessary that those who say there are two natures, worship one and do not worship the other, and be baptized into the divine but not be baptized into the human. But if we are baptized into the death of Christ, we confess one nature of the impassible divinity and of the passible humanity." For it is necessary that they, when they say there are two natures, worship one and not worship the other, and be baptized into the divine, but not into the human. For even if we are baptized into the death of Christ, yet we confess one nature of the impassible divinity and of the passible humanity.

That Felix the Roman pope was brought in by the Monophysites as a testimony for one nature in Christ

^A we read, especially in the conference held at Constantinople between the Catholics and the Severians under the Emperor Justinian in the year 552, and in Liberatus in his *Breviary*, ch. 10. But as to what they produced from the *Exposition of the Faith* κὰτὰ μέρος (particularized), which was attributed to Gregory of Neocaesarea, or the Thaumaturge, I relate it from the Latin translation of Franciscus Turrianus, since the Greek is wanting, apart from a few words which I shall insert, as they are read in Leontius of Byzantium, *De sect.*, act. 8: "And because some have stirred up troubles for us, striving to overturn our faith in Christ our Lord, not confessing God to have been incarnate, but a man joined to God: therefore we issue a confession of faith, which we have stated, rejecting the faithlessness of those who contradict. For God, incarnate in human flesh, has pure operation, since as mind He is invincible to the passions of soul and body, and He rules over both the flesh and the movements of the flesh divinely and without sin; He who not only could not be held by death, but even destroyed death; and He is true God, who appeared in the flesh, though He is without flesh, perfect in true and divine perfection: οὐ δύο πρόσωπα, οὐ δύο φύσεις. Οὐ γὰρ δεῖν τέσσαρα προσκυνεῖν λέγομεν. Not two persons, not two natures. For we do not say that four must be worshipped: God, and the Son of God, and man, and the Holy Spirit."

II. On the Confession of Faith to Jovian concerning the Incarnation.

Primum locum Athanasio concesserunt Ephraemius of Antioch and Eulogius of Alexandria, in Photius, codd. 229 and 230, as did John of Damascus, and other orthodox. But the distinguished critics of our age, among whom the most erudite R. P. D. Bernard de Montfaucon holds first place, have recognized at a glance that this confession of faith is not a genuine offspring of Athanasius: terrified indeed by the authority of the great Cyril of Alexandria, they judged it at least to be relegated to his doubtful works. For Cyril, in the book *De recta fide ad imperatrices*, n. 9, cites this little book of faith against Nestorius: "He said then truly," he says, "the thrice-blessed and famous for piety Athanasius, who was in his time bishop of the Church of the Alexandrians, in the discourse *On the Incarnation*, concerning Christ [these things]: 'We confess, for, etc.'" Therefore, the most blessed, and of famous reputation for piety among all Athanasius, who in a former age held the episcopate of the Alexandrian Church, thus spoke concerning Christ in the book *On the Incarnation*: "We confess Him, etc." Having recited the almost entire confession, as it stands in the Athanasian editions, he subjoins: "I think, however, that the sentiments of other holy bishops also, by which it was intended to teach the same, should by no means be omitted here." Nor does he subsequently allege another testimony of Athanasius, although many were available from his genuine lucubrations; but ^B those of Atticus of Constantinople, Antiochus of Ptolemais, Amphilochius, Ammonius of Adrianopolis, John Chrysostom, Severian of Gabala, Theophilus his uncle of Alexandria, and, a thing worth noting, it is worthy of mention, of that bishop Vitalis, who, as will be shown hereafter, was a follower of Apollinaris. Moreover, in the defense of his 8th anathema against the Orientals, he places the same *Exposition of the Faith* before his adversaries as if it were by Athanasius, and quotes its prolix texts accordingly. Wherefore Eustathius of Berytus rightly pronounced in the council of Ephesus that Cyril had confirmed by the testimony of Athanasius that one incarnate nature of the Word of God should be spoken of; that is, by that profession of faith which is the subject of inquiry here: καὶ ταύτην αὐτοῦ φωνὴν τῇ τοῦ μακαριωτάτου Ἀθανασίου ἐβεβαίωσε μαρτυρία. These things Hypatius of Ephesus and other Catholic prelates had not read, who in that Constantinople conference with the Severians, when it was objected to them that Cyril in his books against Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia had praised the confession of faith to Jovian along with the previously mentioned works of Julius, Felix, Gregory, and also Dionysius the Areopagite, unhesitatingly denied that such citations were found anywhere in Cyril; and therefore they denied that the books that were circulating under his name against Diodore and Theodore, and *On the Incarnation*, were to be attributed to Cyril. They add, moreover, that all those authorities proceeded from no other place than the workshop of the Apollinarists, and that they seemed to them to have been inserted into the books of Cyril by Dioscorus, if indeed they are Cyril's. To the same effect Leontius, in *De sect.*, act. 8, says: "They bring forward another authority of Saint Athanasius from the *Oration on the Incarnation*, which indeed is of this kind: 'That the same is the Son of God by reason of the Spirit, and the Son of man by reason of the flesh: not two natures in that one Son, of which one is to be worshipped and the other not; but one incarnate nature of the Word of God.' We answer, first, that this is not against us: for we do not transmit two natures in such a way that one is worshipped and the other not; but we establish that there is one incarnate nature of the Word of God. Secondly, it is not even Athanasius's. For when they are asked by us where this saying exists, they have no way of showing it; but, driven into a corner, they produce a certain small oration, as if of two leaves, in which this saying is read. But it is known to all that all the works of Saint Athanasius are very great. But what shall we answer to this, that they produce the blessed Cyril citing this saying in the book against Theodore, as if it proceeded from Athanasius? We say, indeed, that it is read in the invectives of the blessed Cyril against Theodore, but that it is an ancient corruption. For Dioscorus, having become the successor of B. Cyril, did not fear to insert, by chance, some things which it pleased him to do, among the works he had found. Nor do we use only conjectures; that the blessed Cyril did not produce it against Theodore is also manifest from this. For Theodoret, who defended Theodore, while examining all the authorities which Saint Cyril had brought forward against Theodore from the holy Fathers, makes no mention of this saying. For those men reply, by cunningly omitting ^C: for what against it, by...

^A their own eyes, were they unable to see an authoritative text so plain and open, that for that reason it was deliberately passed over by him? We respond that it is so far from the case that Theodoret wished to pass over what was placed there, that when that blessed Cyril had said elsewhere that the "one nature of the Word had been made flesh," as the Fathers had declared, ὡς οἱ Πατέρες εἰρήκασιν· ἐπιλαμβανόμενος αὐτοῦ Θεοδώρητός φησιν, ὅτι Τίς σοι τῶν Πατέρων εἴρηκε τὸ μίαν φύσιν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένην; Theodoret, rebuking him with these words: "Which of the Fathers told you that the nature of the Word of God was made flesh?" If indeed Theodoret had known that this phrase which exists in Cyril had been cited from the holy Athanasius, he would by no means have spoken so rashly: "Which of the Fathers told you that the nature of the Word of God was made flesh?" Conversely, they argue that it is certain that Athanasius had spoken thus, and that he had even said, just as the Fathers had spoken. We, on the contrary, bid whoever wishes to show that the things he himself puts forward have been brought forth from the Fathers, to show it at least by the force of the words. Hitherto the opinion of Leontius, who, as it appears, had not even read the book of Cyril *On the Right Faith* to the empresses. Fifthly, since in the same words and just as many, explicitly, it is contained in the *Confession of Faith to Jovian*, which is attributed to Athanasius, that "one nature of the Word of God was made flesh"; and since no one among the Fathers prior to Cyril is found to have pronounced it, it must altogether be conceded that he borrowed this from that spurious little book. Nor let it move anyone, Leontius' other argument, namely that Theodoret said nothing about that *Confession of Faith* when he was examining other authorities, which Cyril had produced in his books against Theodore. For it is indeed certain that Theodoret had read his first three books, by which Diodore and Theodore were attacked: but not likewise the fourth, which was like an appendix *On the Incarnation*, and in which the passages of Athanasius and others had been collected. Nor do I think that I have conjectured this rashly; since Eustathius of Berytus, whom I cited just a little before, said explicitly in the Council of Ephesus that Cyril had confirmed this very saying, "one nature of the Word of God was made flesh," by the testimony of Athanasius. Yet the confirmation of that expression by the authority of Athanasius appears nowhere else in the books or letters of Cyril. From which I conclude that he had done this in that fourth book, which was entirely *On the Incarnation*. Let it not, therefore, weary anyone to admit that the holy doctor had been deceived by the inscription of this little work; and this with so much the better right, because by his own admission, in the first action of the Council of Ephesus, the letter to Prosdocius was praised against Nestorius as being by Julius of Rome—a letter which he ^B himself brought back in defense of his sixth anathema against the Orientals, and which it is clearer than light he will show to have been produced by Apollinarius as its author, as he did with the other adulterated one, which he also cited in this last place, as being by Felix of Rome.

III. Leontius, in another work, whose title in Latin is: *Against those who proffer to us certain things of Apollinarius, falsely inscribed under the name of the holy Fathers*, proves that that little book of faith to Jovian, as well as the letter to Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, [XXXIV] and similarly the *Exposition of faith* κατὰ μέρος, were edited by Apollinarius. Thus, moreover, he speaks at the very beginning: "Some of the heresy of Apollinarius, or of Eutyches, or of Dioscorus, when they wished to confirm their own heresy, inscribed certain orations of Apollinarius to Gregory Thaumaturgus, or to Athanasius, or to Julius, in order to deceive the simpler ones; which indeed they had accomplished. For by the authority of such persons, worthy of trust, they could captivate many of the Catholic Church, and among many of the right believers you can find a book whose title is: Ἡ κατὰ μέρος πίστις (Faith digested part by part), inscribed to Gregory, and certain of his letters which are inscribed to Julius of Rome, and other orations and expositions of his *On the Incarnation* ascribed to Athanasius." This will be made clear to you, and to anyone studious of the truth, from those things which we shall bring into the middle, concerning both Apollinarius himself and his disciples, of whom Valentinus is one among others. Then, having brought forward very many fragments of the works of Apollinarius and his disciples Valentinus, Polemius, Timotheus, and Jobius, which altogether agree with the confession of faith *On the Incarnation* which we are discussing, as well as with the letter and the exposition which are attributed to Julius of Rome and Gregory Thaumaturgus, he concludes in this way at length: "I think that he who is not too contentious cannot, with reason, oppose and contradict these; nay rather, it will be that he continually, and, so to say, not forcedly, gives his assent to the truth, and with all votes admits that the epistles or sermons *On the Incarnation* are of Apollinarius, which are falsely reported to be of Julius, Gregory, and Athanasius, etc." Truly, many years before Leontius, the Catholics had proved this very thing against the Eutychians and Monophysites, as the monks of Palestine testify in their letter to Alciso, which was written under the emperor Anastasius, namely in the year 511, and is reported by Evagrius, *Hist.* lib. III, cap. 31. They relate that these heretics often depraved the books of the holy Fathers, πολλοὺς δὲ ᾿Απολιναρίου λόγους Αθανασίῳ καὶ Γρηγορίῳ τῷ θαυματουργῷ καὶ Ἰουλίῳ, διὰ τῶν ἐπιγραφῶν ἀνατεθείκασιν, and had attributed many of the books of Apollinarius to Athanasius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Julius by changing the inscriptions; by which fraud they made many companions of their own impiety. Wherefore saint Maximus, when Theodosius bishop of Caesarea, a Monothelite, had objected, τὰς ψευδωνύμως περιφερομένας Ἰουλίου τοῦ Ῥώμης, καὶ τοῦ θαυματουργοῦ Γρηγορίου, καὶ ᾿Αθανασίου τῶν ἁγίων χρήσεις, the authorities that are circulated, falsely inscribed with the names of the SS. Julius of Rome, Gregory Thaumaturgus and Athanasius, replied that there is no one who does not know that they are of the impious Apollinarius: Οὐδεὶς ἀγνοεῖ ταύτας εἶναι τοῦ δυσσεβοῦς ᾿Απολιναρίου. For in them, as two natures are denied to Christ, so also are two operations. Similar things were written later also by Nicephorus of Constantinople, at the beginning of his dissertation κατ’ Ἐπιφανίδου, against Epiphanides: "For indeed, the..."

insane and most senseless followers of Apollinaris, and those of the God-detested Eutychius, similarly produce certain forged authorities of the holy Fathers, by which they might construct their own detestable dogma: such as those of the great Gregory the Wonderworker, of the celebrated Athanasius, and indeed also of Julius, who held the hierarchy of the Romans. ^B It is appropriate to set forth what the opponents produce, having falsely attributed the discourse to Athanasius, when it is clearly Apollinaris’, as witnessed by Timotheus, who compiled the index of the books of Apollinaris, in which he also included that which is produced as Athanasius’, and indeed that which they also attribute to Julius, so that from the kinship of the discourses the true author of these might be recognized. They produce it, then, as a discourse of Athanasius, from which they bring forward a testimony having this form: "Apollinaris, from the letter to the Emperor Jovian. 'When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman' [Galat. iv, 4]. We confess that he himself is the Son of God, and God according to the Spirit, and Son of man according to the flesh; not two natures in the one Son, one adorable and one not adorable, but one nature of the Word of God incarnate.'" ^C And they produce the letter attributed to Julius as being to Diocletian, or to Decius, or to Prosdochias, with the opening: "To my master, most beloved fellow-minister Dionysius, Apollinaris." For the Romans never make such an inscription to anyone, nor to a bishop, even if he be the most eminent of all, much less to a presbyter. Nor is the diction, as if it had been translated from Latin, very Hellenized. In his work to Diodorus, Apollinaris says: "How would it not be an impious thing to give the same adoration to a created and servile substance as to the Creator and Master?" And again, in the book on the Incarnation, he says: "It is impossible for the same one to be adorable and not adorable: therefore it is impossible for the same one to be God and man completely, but [it is] in the oneness of a mixed divine nature incarnate." These are the wonderful things of Apollinaris, as Polemon, his disciple, says; these have the greatest similarity to those things which were fabricated by them as though they were of Athanasius and Julius. ^D VI. From these things it becomes manifest that that letter to Dionysius should be returned to Apollinaris, not to Julius.

^A Likewise, one must also listen to Leontius in *De sectis*, act 8: "They bring forward another saying," he says, "as if it proceeded from Julius, which exists in a letter written to Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, the beginning of which is: 'I marvel at some who hear,' and it is a saying of this kind: 'It is necessary to say that there are two natures, to adore one, and not to adore the other; and to be baptized in the divine, but not to be baptized in the human,' and many other things this letter contains. Yet we prove by many arguments that this letter is not the blessed Julius', but Apollinaris'." First, for the reason that, if one considers it carefully, it contains nothing worthy of the name of Julius. ^B "And indeed the seven letters which they say are his," and furthermore, the seven letters which they say are his, these are Apollinaris'. Secondly, because in that same letter, in the mention of the body, he never once called it "endowed with a mind" or "animate." But it was the custom of the fathers of that century, if ever they made mention of the body, to call it both endowed with a mind and animate. And this is true to such an extent that those who were fearful of this charge, and for that reason thereafter added the terms "endowed with a mind" and "animate," are found in no later books, which do not have this appendage. Furthermore, from this it is also demonstrated not to be of the blessed Julius, but of Apollinaris, because Gregory of Nyssa in his book against Apollinaris openly mocks these things which are contained in this letter, and refutes them as evil. It can be proven from elsewhere also that it is not of the blessed Julius. For they say that it was inserted in the acts of the Synod of Ephesus by Cyril: which point they openly misrepresent. For there is nothing of the sort found in the text: but some other letter, which was inserted as if it were written by Julius, is not of Julius, but of Timothy (an Apollinarist, of course), as can be understood from many copies. Leontius speaks in this final place of the letter to Prosdocius, which, as if it were of Julius the Roman, I said had been praised by Cyril in his defense of the *Anathematisms* against the Orientals, and in act 1 of the Synod of Ephesus. I have this intact in Greek: and if it is compared with other libels of Apollinaris or Apollinarists, it will be found entirely to have been produced by them, not by disciples of the right faith. Thus furthermore, after the confessed declaration of the faith of the Trinity, he explains the incarnation: "Preached for the completion of the faith is he who was also incarnate from the Virgin, the Son of God, and tabernacled among men, not acting in man (for this is the case with prophets and apostles), perfect God in flesh, and perfect man in Spirit." For the fullness of the faith of the Son, incarnatus *from the Virgin Mary is preached, and* he who dwelt among men, not having operated *in* man (as indeed happens in the prophets and apostles), is perfect God in flesh, perfect man in Spirit. Similar to these are the things which are related as spoken by Apollinaris ^C in the *Antirrheticus* of Gregory of Nyssa, n. 7: "But God is in the Spirit by the flesh assumed, and man is by the flesh assumed by God." Likewise, in the same manner in the little book to Jovian, of which we spoke in the first place, he professes Christ to be *God according to Spirit, and man according to flesh*, God by reason of the spirit and man by reason of the flesh. This, certainly, he had proposed, which Nyssenus reports in n. 13, "that the Lord in the nature of God's man was the divine Spirit," or the divine mind, which might fulfill the defaulted duties of the human. It is said in the letter to Prosdocius that the Word did not dwell in a man from earth, but is according to that heavenly Adam, because it is the heavenly Word which has flesh from Mary; and since we are earthly, he would make us heavenly to his own likeness, through that which is heavenly: "Nor to have dwelt in a man from the earth of dust, but that he [is] the second Adam, heavenly, because the Word is heavenly, the one having flesh from Mary, and us also, through the heavenly, making heavenly, being of dust." In a similar manner, Apollinaris, cited in the *Antirrheticus* of Gregory of Nyssa, inculcates this, that Christ is a heavenly man who lacks a human spirit. [XXXVI] "If from all the things equal to us who are of dust consists the heavenly man," he says (n. 48), "so that he also has the Spirit equal to those of dust, he is not heavenly, but a container of the heavenly God." If from all those things, which in us who are earthly are found equally, the heavenly man consists, so that he also has a spirit of the same kind like earthly men, he will not be heavenly, but only a receptacle of the heavenly God. Thus again he says according to Leontius: "The Word was so made man, because flesh and spirit is man, according to the Apostle: and this is the Word having been made flesh, to be united to the flesh, as [is] human spirit." Yet he is called a man like us, flesh: but the Lord is a man above us. Therefore he is also heavenly because of his own heavenly spirit, to which the prudence of the flesh does not stand opposed: and thus sin was destroyed in Christ. And death was dissolved because of sin, and we, having been made partakers of this work, are saved by faith, and although we are from an earthly father, we are made similar to the heavenly. These *anathematisms* are subjoined in the letter to Prosdocius: "Anathema be everyone who does not confess the man from Mary to be God incarnate." "Anathema be he who says the flesh of the Savior is not from Mary, but from heaven, or the creation to be uncreated by nature." ^D Thus just so, in the place cited in Leontius, Apollinaris says: "Anathema, therefore, let him be who does not say the flesh is from Mary, and who says that flesh to hold the nature of the uncreated and to be consubstantial with God." And this is what in the first place he guards against in the fragments which [are obtained] from his lucubrations.

^A Leontius collected these through various disquisitions. So likewise, in his confession to Jovian, he says: "If anyone says that the Lord's flesh is from above and not from Mary, etc." Apollinarists used to strive to remove, by these kinds of frequent anathemas, the impious consequences which were deduced from their own erroneous dogma, since it feigned that the flesh fulfilled one substance with the deity. Finally, he concludes: "He who says the body is divine, and adores it according to both [natures] as one uncreated God, shall be blessed. Do not be scandalized by his flesh and his sufferings, but adore him incorporeally, him who is adored together with his own body." He who says that the body is divine, and adores both equally as one uncreated God, this man shall be blessed. Do not be offended at his flesh and his passions, but adore him without body, him who is adored together with his own body. In these words, there is nothing that expresses more clearly the perverse sentiment of Apollinaris, who confounded Christ's humanity into one divine nature. He also busied himself with this in a perpetual discourse, that the Word with his own flesh, or body, is to be adored with a single adoration, as can be seen in the little book of faith to Jovian, and in many excerpts in Leontius. Indeed, he says also in Nyssen: Οὐδὲν δὲ οὕτως προσκυνητόν, ὡς ἡ σάρξ τοῦ Χριστοῦ· "Nothing is so to be adored as the flesh of Christ; ἡ σάρξ τοῦ Κυρίου προσκυνεῖται, καθὸ ἔν ἐστι τὸ πρόσωπον, καὶ ἓν ζῶον μετ' αὐτοῦ· the flesh of the Lord is adored, inasmuch as it is one person and one animal with him." Nothing did Apollinaris object to Catholics so much as the fact that they adored a man, or that by adoring one nature and not adoring another, they worshipped him at the same time and did not worship him, or divided Christ into two; and therefore he incessantly inculcated that the Word, with his flesh, is to be worshipped with a single adoration. ^B Finally, as is read in the last place of the epistle to Prosdocius, ἀλλ' αὐτὸν ἀσωμάτως προσκύνει, τὸν μετὰ τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος προσκυνούμενον, "but adore him incorporeally, him who is adored together with his own body," but adore him without the body, he who is adored with his own body: so also in the exposition of faith in part in Leontius, Apollinaris wrote that God appeared in the flesh without flesh. From this diligent collation, therefore, it becomes clear and is placed beyond doubt that the epistle to Prosdocius, which Cyril lauded once and again, had at least an Apollinarist author. Furthermore, it is surprising that Leontius, in the book *De sect.*, act 8, accused of falsehood the Monophysites who said that this epistle was praised in the Council of Ephesus. Truly, Leontius had either consulted the acts of this synod very sluggishly, or he had them truncated before his eyes. For Marius Mercator, in the fragments of the Ephesine synod, relates that the epistle of the most holy Roman bishop Julius to Prosdocius was cited, as also the epistle of the most holy Roman bishop and martyr Felix to Maximin the bishop and to the clergy of the Church of Alexandria, of which we are about to speak. Similarly, Vincent of Lérins, three years after the celebrated Ephesine synod, wrote in chapter 42 of the *Commonitorium* that in it were read certain epistles of the martyr Saint Felix and of Saint Julius, bishops of the City of Rome.

VII. Concerning the epistle inscribed with the name of Pope Felix.

The epistle which was carried under the name of the Roman Felix, [asserting] that there is one nature, is testified to by Hypatius and Liberatus; ^C nor is there therefore any room for doubt but that it proceeded from the same fountain as the others which I have recounted. And let not those few words deter anyone, which are read in the fragment that Cyril cited in the defense of his sixth anathema: "But when he was perfect God, γέγονεν ἅμα καὶ τέλειος ἄνθρωπος, σαρκωθεὶς ἐκ Παρθένου, he became at the same time and perfect man, incarnate from the Virgin." For Apollinaris certainly conceded that Christ was a perfect man, not that he possessed all the parts of our nature, and therefore a mind, sense, and human spirit, but that the Word, by supplying the place of the intelligent faculty, constituted a perfect man. In this subtle sense, Vitalis the Apollinarist bishop is reported by Epiphanius, *Haer*. 77, num. 23, to have said without hesitation that Christ was a perfect man, καὶ τέλειος ἄνθρωπος ἦν ὁ Χριστός· "and Christ was a perfect man." So yet, that we may say he was a perfect man in such a way, he says, εἰ τὴν θεότητα ποιήσομεν ἀντὶ τοῦ νοῦ, καὶ τὴν σάρκα, καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ὡς εἶναι ἄνθρωπον ἐκ σαρκὸς καὶ ψυχῆς καὶ θεότητος ἀντὶ τοῦ νοῦ, if we assign the divinity to that place of the mind, with the addition of flesh and soul; so that he exists as a perfect man from flesh, soul, and divinity, which serves in place of the mind. Whence, when in the [XXXVII] fragment of Bishop Vitalis, *Περὶ πίστεως*, *On the faith*, which Cyril cited in *De recta fide* against Nestorius, we read: "And he is one and the same according to his divinity, perfect Son, and consubstantial with the Father; and the same according to his generation from the Virgin, perfect man, etc.," this is not to be understood in the Catholic sense but in the Apollinarian, so that Christ is not a perfect man by human perfection, but by divine perfection, as Apollinaris himself declares once and again in Leontius. Thus, when Vitalis devoted to the anathema him who said that our Lord and Savior, who was born according to the flesh of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, was destitute of soul, or sense, or reason, or mind, he meant nothing else except that the Word had performed all the offices of the omitted human mind.

The guile of Vitalis and other Apollinarists. These, therefore, is the profession of faith which Cyril incautiously cited, the very one by which Vitalis had at some time deceived Pope Damasus; which Nazianzen and other bishops of the East, having at first praised it, afterward at length repudiated: "For these men," says the Theologian (epist. 2, *Ad Cledon.*) regarding Vitalis and his followers, "when they dispute about the divinity among faithful disciples and those privy to their secrets, just as the Manichaeans do among those whom they call the 'elect,' they lay bare the whole disease, and barely even attribute flesh to the Savior. But when they see themselves convicted and pressed by common expressions concerning the assumption of humanity, which Scripture exhibits, τὰς μὲν εὐσεβεῖς λέξεις ὁμολογοῦσι, περὶ δὲ τῶν νοῶν κακουργοῦσιν, οὐκ ἄψυχον μὲν οὐδὲ ἄλογον αὐτοὶ ἄνουν, οὐδ᾽ ἀτελῆ ὁμολογοῦντες τὸν they acknowledge the pious terms, but they do evil concerning the minds, not confessing the [subject] to be soulless, nor irrational, nor mindless, nor incomplete."

^A They profess certain pious terms; but they act fraudulently concerning the mind, not that they confess Christ to be destitute of soul, reason, and mind; but in place of soul, reason, and mind, they introduce the Trinity, as if it were this alone that had been tempered and mingled with the flesh. Since these things are so, it must be conceded that Nestorius was not altogether vain when, concerning the authority of Vitalis which was being objected to him, he wrote in this manner to the Scholastic eunuch of Theodosius: "There is Vitalis, who was a bishop of the orthodox; and there is another Vitalis, who was consecrated by the impious Apollinarius." There are similar names of many others. Who the other Vitalis among the Fathers was, remains unknown to me, unless perhaps Nestorius meant the Antiochene prelate Vitalis, of whom Theodoret makes mention, lib. I, Hist. eccl., cap. 3, and the catalogs of the bishops of Antioch. But that it is the confession of a heretical Vitalis, or the book *On the Faith* about which we are debating, I do not believe there is anyone now who would deny. By the same right and reason, Nestorius considered that the authorities of Basil the Great and Meliton could be exploded. But the passages of Basil were genuine and sincere, by which his heresy was stifled. As regards Meliton, in what Anastasius Sinaita cites in his *Odegos*, pages 21 and 28, it appears that that writer affirmed thus that God suffered by an Israelitish hand, while he likewise acknowledged two natures and substances in Christ, and so was very far from the error of Apollinarius, who posited but one: "For as he was at once God and perfect man, the same person, he secured for us his two substances" (he said in his book *Contra Marcionem*). For since the same person was both God and perfect man, he assured us of his two substances, etc. However, I will not assert stubbornly that these were the words of Meliton of Sardis.

VIII. ^B Regarding the *Exposition of the Faith*, κατὰ μέρος, which is attributed to Gregory Thaumaturgus. — Concerning the *Exposition of the Faith* κατὰ μέρος, "part by part" or "in detail," which they have ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus, Leontius says these things, lib. *De sectis*, act. 8. To this we also respond that it was doubted among the ancients from the first whether it was truly Gregory’s. Next, Gregory of Nyssenus, writing a discourse about that worker of miracles, [said] that no other work of his was in his hands, except only the faith which he beheld in a vision. Eulogius of Alexandria, apud Photius, cod. 230, judges that this *Exposition of the Faith* should be attributed to Apollinarius. Thus also Leontius, in his book *Against those who present to us certain things of Apollinarius*, etc., where he recites two fragments of this booklet *On the Faith* in part, which he says had been found in an ancient copy of the library of Bishop Andreas of Sidon, with the name of Apollinarius prefixed to it. Wherefore Combefis, having reached its legitimate author, is not the one who, in the notes to this *Exposition* which he had destined for the press, conjectured its author to be perhaps one of those who in Pontus and neighboring Armenia so opposed the Council of Chalcedon that they imputed a spurious offspring to Gregory Thaumaturgus, otherwise sufficiently learned and theological. But in truth, besides those words, "not two perfect natures," ^C these others betray Apollinarius or an Apollinarist: "We still confess that the Son of God was made the Son of man, who assumed flesh from the Virgin Mary, not in name, but in truth: and that he is ONE perfect [being], not two perfect [beings]." For in the same way Apollinarius argues in Nyssenus: "If he consists of two perfect [natures], neither is God in what is man, nor is man in what is God." If he consists of two perfects, neither is he in whom there is God, this is man; nor in whom there is man, this is God. But also in the same exposition it follows: "One adoration of the Word and of the flesh, which he assumed. And we anathematize those who make different adorations, one divine and one human; and who adore the man from Mary as another beside God from God." That nothing was more common among the Apollinarists than this, is evident from those things which have been said thus far.

IX. Regarding the anathemas attributed to the same Gregory. — Indeed, those twelve anathemas with their interpretations, which likewise have the name of the Thaumaturgus prefixed to them, are clearly of the same bran. For although one nature is not explicitly expressed in them, the usual locutions of the Apollinarists, with which they assailed the unsound expressions of Diodorus of Tarsus concerning the person and natures of Christ, and so posed as professors of the Catholic faith, nevertheless indicate the hidden deceit. ^D But also we learn in the first place from those same chapters how they twisted to their own sense various places of Holy Scripture, in which Christ is signified as perfect in humanity just as he is in divinity. And let it not create a fog, where he seems to deny that the soul of the Lord was *anoetos*, devoid of mind. For he does not mean it was endowed with the human and native mind of man, but with the divine spirit of the Word, as he says, by which it came to pass that he should not be called *anoetos*, devoid of mind, absolutely. Wherefore such formulae of faith and anathemas must be recalled to that Lydian stone, which we brought forward a little earlier from Gregory Nazianzen concerning the similar confession of Vitalis the Apollinarist.

X. Regarding the books which are ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite. — As far as concerns the books which we have under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the matter is already concluded among critics of more select and accurate learning that they are not sincere and genuine. Ancient writers of discerning nose once smelled the fraud. For Photius in the *Bibliotheca*, cod. 1, recites the lucubration of a certain Theodorus, by which he had set out to refute another author,

^A contending with the very same arguments which our more recent men use, namely, that those volumes were by no means composed by the Areopagite who was a disciple of Paul and the first primate of the Athenians: [this is evident] from the silence of the older Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, and especially of Eusebius of Caesarea, who recounted none of the writings of Dionysius the Athenian; and again, because in these books, customs and disciplines of a later age of the apostles are narrated; and finally because their author has reported the language of Ignatius of Antioch, which this holy martyr consigned in his final epistle, written to the Romans shortly before his death: whereas Dionysius the Areopagite, who in his mature age had given his name to Christ when Paul first preached at Athens, could scarcely have prolonged his life to the beginning of the reign of Trajan, under whom Ignatius suffered martyrdom. Yet Photius himself seems to insinuate that the endeavor of his Theodorus was not entirely successful, since he says that he fought against the four momentum-points of an anonymous author, *τό γε ἐφ' αὐτῷ*—as far as lies within himself—that the books are the genuine ones of the great Dionysius. I would almost believe that this Theodorus was none other than that Theodorus, the sectarian leader of the Severian Monophysites, whose pamphlet or book against Themistius, the ringleader of the Agnoetae heresy, the same Photius recites in cod. 108, or perhaps that extensive volume which John Philoponus named—the same also mentioned in Photius, cod. 116—for it concerned the Severians more than the Catholics to defend the lucubrations attributed to Dionysius, which they themselves, led by Severus, boasted were highly favorable to their own heresy, and were the first of all to impose upon the Christian world. From the collation of the 4th Lateran Council under Martin I, it is apparent that many Agnoetae, including Themistius himself, made great use of the masked books of Dionysius, which Colluthus, a Monophysite of a different sect, had attempted to corrupt. There was another Theodorus, of Pharan, the architect of the Monothelite heresy along with Cyrus of Alexandria, whose interest it was, by the same token, to propagate the authority of the books of Dionysius, as will become manifest from what is to be said below.

^B XI. They are not Apollinarian. I shall show that the Greek Scholia, which are accustomed to be attributed to Saint Maximus and to John, Bishop of Scythopolis in Palestine, are—with a few excisions—to be returned to them; hence, others are refuted here and there, who, in their zeal to defend the Catholic faith against the Monophysites, asserted that all these books came from the workshop of Apollinaris, from which, of course, many others had been struck, as they had recently proven—books, especially, upon which those heretics primarily relied. Clearly, the name of Dionysius was not written upon them by lucky chance, or by the negligence or ignorance of some scribe (a thing which does indeed often happen), but their parent imposed it upon readers not without huge deceit, so that he might be believed to be the Areopagite himself. For he feigned himself the equal of the holy Timothy, Titus, Clement of Rome, James the brother of the Lord, John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, Bartholomew, and the other apostles, and indeed of Christ and the Mother of God. But for what reason he wished to delude the Christians, the learned have not yet sufficiently grasped, and this is the very thing which I have undertaken to investigate with more labor.

Guillaume Cave, in his *Historia Literaria*, among all the various opinions concerning the author of these books, thinks that the better one is that which assigns them to Apollinaris of Laodicea. However, he leaves it to the learned to discern whether they ought to be conceded to the father Apollinaris rather than the son. For the son, as he was a heretic in other matters, so too was he a proponent of the Millenarian belief in the earthly reign of Christ: which error, however, is expressly proscribed by Pseudo-Dionysius in ch. 7 *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*. Nay more, this author everywhere opposes the chief head of the Apollinarist heresy, where he teaches and inculcates that a full and entire humanity was assumed by Christ. For example, in ch. 9 *De eccl. hier.*, he writes that Jesus Christ, who is our life, coming forth from divine mysteries, accepted the species and form from us, *τῇ παντελεῖ καὶ ἀσυγχύτω καθ' ἡμᾶς ἐνανθρωπήσει*, in an entire or absolute and unconfused inhumanation according to us. Ch. 4, he judges that Christ is signified by the divine ointment or chrism, *ἐν τῇ καθ' ἡμᾶς ὁλικῇ πρὸς ἀλήθειαν ἐνανθρωπήσει*, in a total and omnimodous assumption of humanity according to truth. And likewise ch. 2 *De div. nom.*, *καὶ τῇ παντελεῖ τῶν ἡμετέρων προσλήψει, τὴν τελεωτάτην τῶν οἰκείων μετάδοσιν αὐτουργήσαι*, and in the most perfect assumption of our nature, he accomplished the communication of His own. In these places and others which I refrain from citing, the author removes from himself the odium of the Apollinarist heresy, which mutilated the Lord’s humanity by destroying its nobler part, the human mind. Whence the Scythopolitan deservedly separated and acquitted him from this error of theirs.

Scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite falsely ascribed to Dionysius of Alexandria. It does not please me to refute those who deemed (a) that Dionysius of Alexandria had written the Scholia and Commentaries on the Areopagitica. ^C (a) In the *Odegos* of Anastasius Sinaita against the Acephali, p. 340, we read likewise that Dionysius of Alexandria wrote scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite: "Again, when the Church says that all the holy angels are of one essence, the same divine and apostolic Dionysius calls the higher powers many essences. The great Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, who from a rhetorician became a bishop, in the Scholia which he composed on his blessed namesake Dionysius, writes thus: 'External philosophy is accustomed to call every invisible nature—likewise the essences and the hypostases—unbegotten; and because of this, he says that such words are used by holy Dionysius according to the usage of those outside [the Church], abusively.'" Again, when the Church teaches that the essence of the angels is one, the same divine and apostolic Dionysius names the supernal virtues "many substances." But the great Dionysius of Alexandria, who from being a rhetorician was made bishop, has this in the Scholia which he wrote on his namesake Dionysius: "External philosophy is accustomed to call every...

^A nature uninspectable: similarly also [it calls] hypostases [substances]. From whose habit the holy Dionysius has spoken in these places, doubtless misusing these terms." This is from the Sinaite, who in matters pertaining to criticism shows himself everywhere crude and unlearned. But from this we learn that certain scholia on Dionysius the Areopagite were forged, as I believe, by the Alexandrians, the sort of Dionysius who merits ^B the angelic orders, in such a way that he omitted the Seraphim and Cherubim, or rather, as other Fathers of his age [did], he did not distinguish them from the Thrones; this is evidence that he had by no means seen the books *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, which he [the author] might have deemed to be the genuine work of Dionysius. Nor does it matter that in the same orations, 34 and 41, Gregory teaches that the lower orders of the celestial virtues are illuminated by the higher, in the manner that Dionysius explains. For why could this author not have composed or adorned his own treatise on the angels from those few things which the Theologian had repeatedly put forth? I hold it for certain that this Areopagite clearly pilfered the sentiments and the very words of this eminent doctor. But also Cyril of Alexandria wrote similar things about the illumination of the angelic classes in his *Thesaurus*, assertion 31. But, as he names and recounts the various orders, he makes no mention of the Cherubim, and therefore he did not think them to be distinct from the Seraphim or the Thrones. Yet, because there is not lacking a suspicion that the Areopagitica books were not unknown to him, I continue to inquire what the cause of this might have been.

XII. Presented by the Monophysites. — The Monophysites, successors of the Eutychians, among the primary patrons of their heresy, put forward Dionysius the Areopagite as well. That this is what they did is established in the celebrated conference which they held at Constantinople with the orthodox in the year 632, under the Emperor Justinian, in which the Severians speak thus: "To blessed Cyril and blessed Athanasius, bishops of the Alexandrian Church, and also to Felix and Julius of the Roman Church, and to Gregory besides, the worker of wonders, and to Dionysius the Areopagite, decreeing one nature of the Word of God after the union, these transgressors (the Fathers of the Chalcedonian synod) presumed to speak of two natures after the union." Indeed, those heretics asserted that they could show [this to be the case]. Because Blessed Cyril used these testimonies in the books edited against Diodorus and Theodore. They were alluding to those four books, on the occasion of which we discuss these matters, by which Cyril in the last years of his life had refuted the *Apology* which Theodoret had edited in defense of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Hypathius protested that Cyril had not written those books: however, in the fifth general synod, they were admitted and read as his genuine work: a fact which Leontius of Byzantium again acknowledged, lib. VII *De sectis*, act. 8, and Eulogius of Alexandria, as his *Excerpta* cited by Photius report. And the great Petavius, truly, t. IV *Theolog. dogm.*, lib. 1, c. 10, § 8, rendered this judgment concerning these studies: "As for the books of Cyril," he says, "Liberatus the deacon in his *Breviary*, cap. 10, reports that those four were formerly forged by him as if they had been elaborated by Dionysius of Alexandria." This observation of Anastasius is furthermore read in its entirety among the scholia on cap. 5 *De cœlesti hierarchia*; although it does not exist in ancient codices, but only in the most recent and published ones, so that it might therefore have been transcribed from cap. 22 of the *Odegos*.

^A scriptos esse, three against Diodorus and Theodore, as if they were the authors of the Nestorian dogma, and another book *On the Incarnation*, in which, among other things, he demonstrates that the testimonies of Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of the Corinthians, were placed. But he says that the Catholics had responded to the Acephali, who were abusing those books, that they were not by Cyril. Which I truly do not think is correct: not only because the Fifth Synod held them to be genuine, but also because the style and character of Cyril appear in those fragments, which are rendered into Latin in the Acts of Ephesus. Furthermore, it is the error of Liberatus, or at least of his scribe, where we read "Dionysius the Areopagite bishop of the Corinthians," nor did Garnerius mend this place, having removed the word "Areopagite," as if one could believe that Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, who flourished in the second century, was rather praised by Cyril. For it is certain that Liberatus briefly narrates here what transpired at the Constantinopolitan collation with the Severians; from whose acts, therefore, we learn that the title of "Areopagite" must be retained [XXXVIII]. However, it matters little that this writer, through a lapse of memory, put "bishop of the Corinthians" instead of "Athenians." Although his text could perhaps be restored thus: "In which are contained the incorrupt testimonies of the ancient Fathers, that is, of Pope Felix the Roman, of Julius to Dionysius bishop of Corinth, of Dionysius the Areopagite, and of Gregory the Wonderworker, etc." For Leontius, in *De sectis*, act 8, calls that Dionysius, to whom the letter of Pope Julius had been sent, bishop of Corinth. But Hypatius and his companions gave a further response to the Severians in that collation, namely, that it seemed they were heretics who had falsely added those testimonies into those books. ^B To the Severians, who then retorted that it could be proven from ancient copies—especially if they were ferreted out from the archives of Alexandria—that the authorities of Dionysius and others were truly cited by Cyril, Hypatius rejoined that those copies would be beyond doubt which could be shown to have been transcribed under Proterius or Timotheus Solofaciolus. Since, however, those were long since held by many who opposed the correct confession of two natures, it could by no means be demanded of Catholics that they accept the testimonies of their adversaries. For they say that even that famous letter of the blessed Julius was manifestly that of Apollinaris, written to Dionysius, etc. And soon they subjoin this primarily: "But what should have been said first, we say last. For those testimonies which you say are of Dionysius the Areopagite, from where can you show that they are true, as you suspect? For if they were his, they could not have escaped the blessed Cyril. But what do I say of blessed Cyril? When blessed Athanasius also, if he had known for sure they were his, would have, before all else at the Nicene Council, brought forth the same testimonies against the blasphemies of Arius regarding the consubstantial Trinity. But if no one among the ancients remembered them, from where can you show that they are his? I do not know." These things Hypatius says, by which he signifies among other things that he had read or known of the books of the counterfeit Dionysius before that collation, in which he had discovered, by assiduous reading, that [they were] ^C adversarial to the Arian heresy. Whence he rightly accuses them of novelty, since they had been cited neither by Athanasius nor by any of the ancients against the Arians.

Thus previously cited by Severus of Antioch. Catholics at Constantinople argued, since they knew thoroughly what in those books was consonant with the faith and what appeared dissentient from it. In the first place, they attest that the heretics who denied the two natures of Christ laid claim to those books of Dionysius, by which they defended their error. And certainly, it is found that Severus, the heretical invader of the see of Antioch, had already long before praised the fourth letter of Pseudo-Dionysius to Gaius many times, and in a fragment of his third letter to John the Hegumen, ^D of the letter to John the Hegumen, which exists in the collection against the Severians transcribed by hand, chapter 36, where for the nature to be attributed to Christ, he argues in this manner: "We, as we have already stated in other places through a multiplicity, have written the phrasing of the all-wise Dionysius the Areopagite, who says: 'But having conducted himself in a certain new way, the God-man, a theandric operation, we have understood one composite nature, and we conceive it, as being unable to be conceived by us in any other way, as having the denial of every duality, and the God who became man, who conducted this in a new way, we confess one nature and hypostasis, the theandric, just as [we confess] also the one nature of God the Word incarnate.' For the discourse of the economy, having made [these] new things, together renewed also the appellations for the natures. As long as Christ is one, as of his one [person] both the nature, and the hypostasis, and the composite operation, having ascended to the highest summits, we preach, anathematizing also all who, after the union, dogmatize two natures and operations." As we have written at length in other works, we understood and understand by that word of the most wise Dionysius the Areopagite, the "God-man," not that, bearing a certain new God-manlike operation, we understand one composite nature, which by us can be understood in no other way than that which brings about the negation of all quality. Wherefore we confess the God who became man, who conducted this in a new way, to be one nature and one hypostasis: the God-man, one nature of the Word incarnate. For the reason of the divine dispensation, as it renewed the natures, so also it made new appellations. As long, therefore, as Christ is one, we preach him as one, both as to nature, and as to hypostasis, and finally as to the composite operation, [having] ascended, as Scripture says, to the high mountain; anathematizing those who, after the union of the two natures and operations, teach a binary number.

In this letter, therefore, the heretic testifies that he already

^B referred to the authority of Dionysius as having fought for one nature and operation of Christ. Yet, in truth, the Monophysites are found to be the first of all to have praised those books. Hence, Catholic theologians, who had already refuted them, judged many other lucubrations which those sectarians were proffering—adorned with the illustrious names of Athanasius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and also Julius and Felix, the Roman pontiffs—to be legitimate offspring of Apollinarius, and likewise attributed the volumes of the false Dionysius to the same Apollinarius. We have seen above that this was the opinion of Hypatius of Ephesus and other Byzantine orthodox. But for a long time before this, the same judgment had been held by those whom John of Scythopolis, in his Scholia on Dionysius, strove everywhere to recall from this opinion, since he himself was persuaded that nothing existed in those books which was contrary to the true faith.

John of Scythopolis the true author of the Scholia on Dionysius.

From the Scholia themselves it is proven. That John of Scythopolis must be considered the true author of those other Scholia on Dionysius is proven from many of their places, which point to him as if with a finger. I omit the inscription of their prologue as it lies in the editions: *Πρόλογος τοῦ ἁγίου Μαξίμου, ἢ κατά τινας Ἰωάννου τοῦ Σκυθοπολίτου*—*Prologus sancti Maximi, vel secundum quosdam Joannis Scythopolitae*. I proceed to those things which indicate a man acting in Palestine, who was writing at the beginning of the sixth century; nay, which seem to have been able to be set to letters by none other than our John. In the interpretation of the obscure words of Dionysius, regarding the word *Πιαλείους*, he observes that this is similar to the word *δαψιλέοις*; which, he says, *εἴρηται, ἐπὶ ποίοις ὄφεσι τοῖς κατά Ἰεριχὼ μάλιστα εὑρισκομένοις, ἐξ ὧν ἰατροὶ ὡς τὰ πολλὰ τὴν θηριακὴν σκευάζουσιν*—"is used of those kinds of snakes which are found especially in the region of Jericho, from which doctors for the most part prepare theriac." It is used of a certain genus of serpents, which are found especially in the region of Jericho, from which physicians for the most part prepare theriac. Which truly seem to me to indicate an inhabitant of Palestine, who would not call these serpents by the usual and common name *διψάδας* used by other Greeks, but *διψαλέους*, after the fashion of the Palestinians. But, above all, he indicates that he lived in that age and in that region in which the heresy of the Origenists was growing strong. For in chapter 7 of the book *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, having listed the older heretics—Simon Magus, Menander, Valentinus, Marcion, and Manes—he adds concerning the Origenians: *καὶ νῦν δὲ οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν Ὠριγένους προερχόμενοι μύθων*—"and now those who come forth from the fables of Origen." But in the age of Saint Maximus, the Origenists had completely disappeared, since Origen, along with Didymus, Evagrius, and other associates of theirs, had been proscribed by the Fifth Synod, so that in the seventh century, in which Maximus flourished, only a bare memory of them remained. In the age of John of Scythopolis, however, their errors were spreading through the monasteries of Palestine, with a certain Leontius the Byzantine, John, Isidorus, and Nonnus as authors: whence very grave disturbances and tumults were excited on their account: as is narrated at length in the Lives of the holy monks Euthymius, Sabas, Theodosius, and Cyriacus, who for the sake of the faith against these new [heretics]

and their followers, long endured many labors. Furthermore, the outcome of these conflicts was such that, by the reiterated decrees of Justinian and the council held under Mennas, as well as the fifth general council, Origen together with his partisans was condemned, and the entire province of Palestine was delivered from that plague by the efforts of the Duke Anastasius.

But John of Scythopolis reveals himself even more clearly in his second scholium on chap. 7 of the *Celestial Hierarchy*, in which he speaks thus: ^A *Σημείωσαι κατὰ Βασιλειανῶν, ἤτοι Νεστοριανῶν*—"Note this against the Basilians, that is, the Nestorians: that Jesus Christ, in the aspect in which He is man, was assumed, and is the Lord of all spiritual beings and the King of glory," etc. And likewise in chap. 7 of the *Ecclesiastical Hierarchy*, where he says that by the name of "divine theology," Dionysius signifies the words, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," he adds: *σημειωτέον κατὰ τε Βασιλειανῶν, καὶ Νεστοριανῶν, καὶ Παυλιανιστῶν, καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων*—"Which is worth noting against the Basilians and Nestorians and Paulianists and the like." But you will find nowhere else that the Nestorians are called Basilians. This appellation, however, could not have been given to them by any other author than John of Scythopolis, who, having been provoked by various writings of Basilius the Cilician, a priest of the Church of Antioch, had denounced this same Basilius in his counter-theological dissertations as a most crafty propagator of Nestorian impiety, as Photius narrates in his *Bibliotheca*, cod. 95 and 107. For while Basilius professed to detest Peter Mongus and other enemies of the faith of Chalcedon, he was meanwhile building up the heresy of the Nestorians, suppressing indeed the name of Nestorius, but using the pretended authority of Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia as if they were Fathers of the Church. These strifes between Basilius and John of Scythopolis occurred under the Emperor Anastasius [XXXIX] and Flavian, bishop of the Church of Antioch. Afterwards, John took up his pen against the Monophysite Severus, who had occupied the see of Antioch after expelling Flavian, and wrote at least eight volumes against him; a fairly extensive fragment of his eighth book against Severus is to be seen in the acts of the sixth synod, as well as in the often-cited collections against the Monophysites, chap. 13.

Whence John of Scythopolis thought the books of Dionysius to be sincere. John of Scythopolis, therefore, deceived by the false inscription of the books that bore the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, and likewise by the various Attic words and idioms that occur in them here and there, and finally by many passages composed here and there according to the standard and discipline of the ancient age, thought it better to admit them as genuine; which he affirmed all the more confidently because of the testimony of Peter, a certain Roman deacon (I know not which one), asserting that there were preserved in the archives of the Roman Church far more works of Dionysius than were circulated in the East. But this was not without a most vain lie, since, by the time the sixth century was already advanced, Gregory the Great knew from hearsay alone that any such thing existed; for in Homily 31 on Luke he speaks in this manner: "It is said that Dionysius the Areopagite, an ancient and venerable Father, says that from the hosts of angels, etc." By saying "it is said that Dionysius the Areopagite," he sufficiently signaled to us that the books of the false Dionysius were not well known at Rome. And indeed, if the Romans had had all those books among them which they judged to be of the Areopagite, they would not have allowed those that were hidden to perish, but would have brought them into the public light. ^B Therefore, induced by the persuasions I have mentioned, the Scythopolitan translated all those passages on which the Monophysites relied, by means of most kindly interpretations, into a sound sense. But he had few among the Catholics who immediately voted for his opinion; others, up to the year 533, when the conference with the Severians was held at Constantinople, cried out in opposition that they were spurious Areopagitic writings, and were forged and smuggled in by heretics and Apollinarists. However, John gained for himself in Palestine and Syria others of great name, among whom was especially Ephraem of Antioch, as is gathered from those things which Photius reports in cod. 223, from which it is established that this patriarch of the East admitted those volumes about which we are disputing as sincere and genuine. Hence, after the fifth synod, the terrors having been gradually dissipated on account of the favorable interpretations I mentioned, the Fathers who followed afterwards, as if struck by the sublimity of doctrine and sense affected by the author, in no way hesitated to receive the same as authentic and orthodox. This, clearly, the holy Fathers of the sixth, seventh, and subsequent centuries, being incurious about the critical art, indulged in good faith—as the saying goes—regarding both the Pseudo-Areopagitic writings and other monuments that had been distinguished by equally specious titles and names, where they understood the cause of the Catholic faith to be kept intact even with those books admitted. But because, reverence always being saved which is owed to the most holy teachers of the Church, it is agreed among the learned today that the books which are inscribed with the name of Dionysius the Areopagite were composed by a certain impostor, I deemed that it would be worth the effort if I were to inquire somewhat more boldly into their author.

XIV. Whether Pseudo-Dionysius was a heretic. From these things which have been said by me, it is now beyond doubt that the pretended Areopagitica were first produced by Severus and the Monophysites to fashion a single nature for Christ, against the confession of his double nature [defined] at Chalcedon. Catholics, however, had immediately rejected them as adulterine, and had not long before proven that many other testimonies which bore the illustrious names of Athanasius, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Julius, and Felix were to be assigned to the heretic Apollinaris, and that they had passed the same judgment on the Areopagitic writings. But since I have vindicated Pseudo-Dionysius from the heresy of the Apollinarists, it remains for me, however, to investigate whether [he belonged to] the more recent Monophysites of Apollinaris, whether Eutychians, or

the error of the Dioscorites, or Acephali, and the Severians, is contained in them. In order that this may succeed better, I shall set forth in a few words what Eutyches, what Dioscorus, and what others subsequently held concerning the mystery of the Word incarnate.

The error of Eutyches.

From this repeated confession of Eutyches, ^A it appears that he had hitherto indeed avoided the impiety of Apollinaris, in that he declared that God was entirely made man, and that he was not of the opinion held by many of the ancients against him—not unless by logical consequence—that Christ’s flesh had slipped down from heaven and passed through the Virgin's womb as if through a conduit. Wherefore, I must rather say with Combefis that Eutyches did not deny in that sense that Christ was consubstantial with us in humanity, or that he had two natures, as if the flesh or humanity was not created from the Virgin, or was wanting to Christ, or [was lost] through mutation [XL] or conversion, or through absorption or destruction; but that the divine nature alone is and is called the nature properly so-called, which has the first place in the incarnation, not the human, which has only the second: that one, I say, which has the other, not that which is had, and belongs to the superior [nature] that possesses it; as if it were a mere appendix to it, and nearly immersed in it.

Of Dioscorus.

Of Timotheus Aelurus.

Of Severus of Antioch.

it is entirely human)—it was not the case that the one belonged to this nature and the other to that, but they belonged to one and the same, namely the divinity; because he performed both wonders and human works divinely ^A. This, moreover, was the erroneous doctrine of the Eutychians, the Acephali, and the rest of the Monophysites, which I would gladly demonstrate more fully with six hundred other testimonies of theirs, were it not that I must study brevity.

The Catholic faith concerning the incarnation of the Word

XV.

Pseudo-Dionysius thinks the humanity in Christ exceeded its own condition.

called *Falsiveri* by Theodore of Rhaithu; for in this regard they had departed from Eutyches, so that they nevertheless asserted the divinity alone to be the nature properly of Christ, even when incarnate: *the nature of Christ is his divinity alone, even if he has been made flesh.* Furthermore, Eutyches himself, as was shown previously, although he denied that Christ was consubstantial with us by reason of his humanity, not being consistent with himself, acknowledged the entire humanity taken by Christ from the Virgin’s flesh: a position which many things suggest we should equally affirm of Dioscorus. But the doctrine of the Catholic Church was different: namely, that his humanity, ^B although it subsisted in the hypostasis of the Word of God, had not abandoned the nature of our kind, nor had it overstepped the prisons of this condition, but had existed perfectly similar to our own, sin excepted; just as Paul taught and Leo the Great declared.

He teaches that the deity is incarnate. He does not distinguish the hypostasis from the nature. But that pseudo-Dionysius, at the same place, began to discourse in the name of Hierotheus concerning the incarnation of the Word in such a way that he left hardly any doubt that he believed the humanity had been elevated to the divine nature, to which it looked as an appendix: *The cause of all things,* he says, *and the fulfillment, the deity of Jesus, ineffable, unspeakable, above mind, above life, above substance, in a supernatural way possesses the supernatural, and in a supersubstantial way that which is supersubstantial. Whence, because he has even come down to nature by philanthropy, and has truly been made substantial, and has been called man in a supernatural way, he possesses in these things also that which is supernatural and supersubstantial;* the cause of the universe, and the fulfillment of the deity of Jesus, ineffable, inenarrable, sublime in mind, in life, in substance, possesses in a supernatural mode that which is above nature, and in a supersubstantial mode that which is above substance: whence, because he reached down even to nature, and was truly substantified, and became a man, he who was eminently God; in these things also he possesses that which is supernatural and supersubstantial. But after the manner of the Severians, contrary to what was settled and fixed among Catholics, especially after the Council of Chalcedon, he does not here separate the deity, or the divine nature, from the hypostasis, so as to consider it alone to be incarnate. But the divine nature or deity is by no means incarnate, says Damascene in his treatise against the Jacobites, n. 53, and elsewhere. Furthermore, if the divine nature itself intimately coupled the human to itself, so as to be substantified by its assumption, it follows entirely that out of both one composite nature has resulted; because the union would have been made in the nature: as saint Thomas invincibly demonstrates in part 3, quæst. 11, art. 2.

Nor indeed did that Dionysius, bearing the name of Hierotheus, merely profess that the deity itself was incarnate, but the same man had also distinctly pronounced in the first chapter of the same treatise *De div. nom.*: *The deity,* he says, *rendered itself most humane, because it wholly communicated with those of our kind in truth in one of its hypostases, calling back to itself, and having taken up the human extremity, from which, ineffably, the simple Jesus was composed, and the eternal One attained a temporal extension.* ^C Because he shared with our [nature] according to truth wholly in one of his hypostases, referring to himself, and claiming for himself the human lowliness, out of which in an ineffable way the simple Jesus was composed, and the eternal One admitted a temporary extension. In this place he considers the humanity to be so assumed by the deity that the divine nature itself made its own those things which are of the humanity, and not only the divine person of the Word; so that, I say, it ascribes the gifts of humanity not only to the divine person of the Word, according to the accurate rules of the mutual communication of properties, but also to the deity itself. Once this is granted, the deity itself will have been born of the Virgin, have suffered, and have been crucified, and other portents will be brought forward with impunity—things which were very familiar to the Eutychians and Severians, since they did not distinguish nature from hypostasis when they were disputing about the incarnation of the Word of God, as was explained in the notes to ch. 3 of lib. III *De fide*. Indeed, even that phrase *the simple Jesus was composed* sounds a little bit not at all consistent with true theology. For the word *Jesus* signifies a person composed of deity and humanity, not one simple and purely divine, which would immediately admit composition. But more on this again, below.

*Epistola 4, ad Caium, full of the Monophysite error.* The fourth letter, which is inscribed to Gaius the Therapeut, although it concedes that Christ was truly man, since the Word was made flesh and Christ Jesus is called man in the Scriptures; nevertheless, it teaches again, after the manner of the Monophysites, that he was a man above what the condition of men allows: *Above men, and according to men, from the substance of men, the supersubstantial One was substantified.* It continues and says: *He who exists above substance, having truly come into substance, was substantified above substance, and performed the things of man above man.* To the substance truly coming, he was substantified above what substance allows, and operated the things of man above man. This it proves from his conception in the Virgin's womb and his walking upon the waters: which are indeed the very same examples that Leo the Great had employed in his letter to Flavian, to show that the deity of Christ exercised its own peculiar divine operations distinct from the human, just as the humanity exercised its own, without confusion or division of either; whereas the Monophysites, on the contrary, inferred against him from those same miraculous works that there was only one kind of operation, and consequently one nature, namely of the deity, in Christ. If Christ was not deity (they say in the *Hodegos* of Anastasius Sinaita), how did his spittle make medicine for the blind? How did his tears raise Lazarus? But we do not read that he slept, except once in a boat; nor does it stand in the Gospel that he drank, as chance would have it. All of which are arguments that the flesh of Christ had become divine, and was not subject to human properties. Therefore, Christ is of one nature only. For which

reason, Severus, in chapter 113 of his *Apology to the Philalethes*, asserted that his flesh had attained a power equal to the Word in the performance of miracles, ^A *that is, to be equal to the Word according to the operation in all the signs of God.* But in truth, they did not entirely deny those properties of humanity to Christ which would constitute him, and for which he might truly be called a man. For, as Saint Maximus reports in *Epistle 2 to Marinus*, Severus acknowledged a distinction of natural qualities in Christ, which might be grasped by thought alone: ^B *asserting that this, according to the economy, is the hypostasis by nature, and that the difference is in the natural quality.* In the dispensation of the incarnation, while asserting the same to be hypostasis and nature, and, in the one natural quality, a distinction, *he considers, according to conception, the existence of the things that differ*, but in reality he posits confusion. For he was indeed recalling and transferring human properties to the divine nature, and especially all operations whatever, so that the flesh might be imbued with the gifts of the deity. Whence, in various places of his books and letters, which were recited at the Sixth Synod, he would deny human *energies or properties*—that is, acts or properties—as if they were the actions of the deity itself, whatever Christ might have ^C exercised in a human manner.

Humanity attributes conditions of deity.— The sense of Pseudo-Dionysius is confirmed not to have differed from this fabrication of the Severians, more from those things which he presently subjoins, namely, those things that are said in asserting the humanity of Christ, *being suppressed, to have the power of an eminent negation, having a transcendent apophasis*,—in that manner, specifically, in which he himself generally teaches in Chapter 3 of *Mystical Theology*, and other Fathers, that concerning God, because of the infinite sublimity of his very nature, it is better and more correct to enunciate what He is not, than what He is. Whence he judges that the humanity of Christ, once the humility which is co-born with our nature is posited, had been made into the divine nature and had passed into it, so that it might be endowed with its inexplicable gifts and prerogatives, so that, just as Aelurus felt, the only nature of Christ was divinity, even if incarnate, ^D or rather, with His flesh persisting in some way, and not completely absorbed. That assertion of his, that Dionysius proves in this way: *For, to speak collectively, he was not a man, not as if not a man, but as one beyond men, and truly becoming a man beyond man.* For, as (observe the causal particle *gar*, "for") as if to speak concisely, neither was he a man, not so that he was not altogether a man, but as one who, when he was from men, stood far distant from men, having truly become a man above man. In which words he imitates the expression of Apollinaris which I related before, and denies that Christ is absolutely called a man, just as Eutyches had once blurted out that his human body was a body, but not the body of a man. Moreover, he wished to imitate the saying of Gregory the Theologian, who, in *Oration 40 on Baptism*, in order to signify that the Lord’s body, after the resurrection, having cast off its former coarseness, had become in some way more divine, said in a figure of hyperbole, after the manner of rhetoricians, and on account of a certain expression of the Apostle, that it was no longer flesh, *and yet not bodiless by words which He himself knows, but a more divine body*. Thus the pretended Areopagite judged that the humanity of the Lord, not after the resurrection from the dead, but in its first existence, was of such a kind, through Monophysite error, that it had put on the gifts of the deity, having overcome the conditions of a humble nature, and that whatever appeared human, he performed more divinely than humanly. I have said before that many things occur in his books which he borrowed from the Theologian; but neither did Jacobus Billius, in Chapter 23 of his *Sacred Observations*, know them all.

He teaches a nature composed of deity and humanity. He feigns a Deivirile operation in no correct sense; he imposed upon the Catholics. The lying author proceeds, and immediately adds things which build up even more the one nature of Deity and humanity, composed on account of the word of one mixed and Deivirile operation, which he himself was the first of all to introduce. *The rest*, he says, *not acting upon divine things as God, nor upon human things as a man, but the God who had become man acting out for us a new, certain Theandric (Deivirile) operation.* Then, by consequence, not doing divine things in a divine manner, nor human things in a human manner; but acting for us as a new, certain Deivirile operation of God made man. Which final part of the epistle, although many of the Fathers of the succeeding age, after John of Scythopolis, and other theologians subsequently, who held the Areopagitica to be genuine, tried to transfer to a sane sense with various interpretations, so that now *Deivirile operation* might be attributed to the Lord Jesus without detriment to the faith: nevertheless, the obvious meaning of the whole period, especially when it is compared with those things which preceded it, represents nothing beyond the assertion of one composite nature, in which, however, the divinity is stronger and involves what is human. Sometimes it happens otherwise, that the doctors of the Church, omitting critical art, deceived by the specious names of earlier Fathers, which had been prefixed to certain books of heretics, interpreted in a Catholic sense some locutions by which the errors of the authors were displayed or insinuated: whence others subsequently claimed them for themselves as consonant with the right faith. Of which kind was that expression of Apollinaris, *one incarnate nature of God the Word*, which, when Cyril of Alexandria had found it in the genuine confession of that same heretic, which, I know not by what fate, was inscribed under the name of Saint Athanasius, he did not hesitate to translate it to the right sense of the Catholic Church, so that other theologians afterward did not doubt to use it, as that by which the perfect union of two natures without the destruction of the other might be expressed. But it was so much the more easily possible for the enormous dicta of the supposititious Dionysius concerning the incarnation of the Word, however much they might breathe the heresy of the Severians, to be received in a sane sense, because the confessions of the Monophysites, especially those after Eutyches, if you except the Gaianites, beyond discordant words and vain subtleties, are by the teachings of the Church

^A not seen to differ much: which was the reason why they were called Semi-Eutychians and ^B *ψευδαληθεῖς*, that is, those who falsely claim the truth.

*Severus infers a composite nature from the Deivirile operation.* As for the term *θεανδρικῆς ἐνεργείας*, "Deivirile operation," as far as it concerns this, Severus and his followers vaunted this passage from the epistle to Gaius, as I have mentioned before, with great wonder; from which they fashioned a most powerful argument to establish a single composite nature, on account of the divine-human operation that is thrust forward here. On the other hand, the Catholics, laboring in the resolution of this knot, were distracted into various interpretations, when, as even the very learned Lupus Augustinianus suggests, they could have used that very prescription: that the books of Dionysius are supposititious and were produced most recently by the heretics, since no mention of them was made in previous centuries. But they were ignorant of the rule of a more accurate criticism: that the utterance of any writer, especially one unknown, and much more so of a pretender and impostor, must be received in the obvious and native sense that the words offer, not in a more benign one, unless it is certain from other most evident passages of the same author what his genuine and sincere meaning was.

*A grave prejudice against Pseudo-Dionysius.* But perhaps one might be allowed to admit those favorable translations or expositions of the false Dionysius, if we did not know otherwise that his books were first produced by the heretics who assert a single nature in Christ, and by the Severians, by which they might defend their own errors; especially this fourth epistle to Gaius. Furthermore, it should by no means be forgiven this author, whoever he may have been, that in his lucubrations, which he concocted at a time when Christians in the East were most bitterly dissenting over one or two natures of the Lord, he nowhere set down or wrote anything from which he could persuade people that Dionysius the Areopagite, whose person he was playing, held the doctrine of the Catholic Church; while in the meantime he explicitly pretended to be a tenacious adherent of ancient traditions. Truly, while he presents a most accurate, nay, most refined theology concerning God and the mystery of the Trinity, and other chapters, and strives to explain and confirm by deliberate effort the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Ephesine councils, it is very strange that nothing clear was brought forward by him by which the definition of the Council of Chalcedon concerning the two natures of Christ would be vindicated; but in handing down the mystery of the incarnate Word, he stumbles everywhere: unless, therefore, he was imbued with the tenets of the Eutychians or later Monophysites and instructed in their arts.

*Why, finally, the term "Deivirile operation" was accepted by the Catholics.* But furthermore, that the term ^C *θεανδρικὴ ἐνέργεια*, "Deivirile operation," might finally escape from the suspicion of error, two things contributed: the first of which is that Cyrus of Alexandria in his 7th anathema, and Sergius of Constantinople in his epistle to the same Cyrus, both the principal actors of the Monothelite heresy, in order to infuse their poison better, did not hesitate to undermine the words of Dionysius himself, as if it were not sufficient for them that that author had brought forth a *καινήν τινα θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργειαν*, a certain new Deivirile operation; rather, they would posit a *μίαν θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργειαν*, a single Deivirile operation; as if that sincere context of Dionysius did not sufficiently favor their opinions. The second is that Colluthus, the Monophysite of Alexandria, when he was defending the parts of his patriarch Theodosius against the other Monophysite Themistius—the father of the Agnoetae—who, from that passage of Dionysius, maintained that Christ did some things divinely and others humanly, without the loss of a single operation, had not approved of the term *θεανδρικῆς ἐνεργείας*, "Deivirile operation," as if two operations were signified by it, but had substituted in its place *θεοπρεπῆ*, that which is congruent with God. Concerning which, see the Council of the Lateran, act 3. And yet, besides Colluthus, no other from the sect of the Monophysites appears who rejected the *θεανδρικὴν ἐνέργειαν*. Furthermore, Themistius in his book against him, the fragments of which were read in that same third session of the Lateran Council, testifies that his most blessed Severus ^D took pains primarily that a Deivirile operation should be asserted for Christ, and not only those which would befit God, *θεοπρεπής*, as if he had performed other things divinely and others humanly: "For the blessed Severus also, speaking about Christ, in that He did some things divinely and others humanly, in the same way preferred the *θεανδρικὸν*, the Deivirile nature of the operation, not merely the *θεοπρεπές*, as to behold it more easily." The Theodosians also felt the same, as did the other Severians, to whom the Monothelite Cyrus and Sergius and others had deemed it ought to be conceded that one will and operation in Christ be called *θεανδρικὴν*, Deivirile, on account of the authority of Dionysius.

*The wonderful works of Christ are common to the three divine persons.* But there remain other passages of this author for me to weigh, in which he again suggests his malformed opinion concerning that one composite operation of the Lord Jesus with other words. The doctrine of the Church is inviolable; that any external work of the deity is equally common to the three persons, just as whatever miracles Christ performed, even while making use of his flesh, the Father and the Holy Spirit performed them simultaneously and equally. The reason for this is that the divine essence and nature—which in the three persons is indivisibly one and the same—is the principle of that one and common operation, from which they are performed and brought forth. Wherefore the Lord said in the Gospel: *But the Father residing in me, he does the works.* For which reason in works of this kind

^A the divine person of the Word claimed nothing for itself as proper; nor did it add anything else to any of its human actions, save an infinite dignity, and a value and merit of immense worth, insofar as it was the principle, if one may speak as our schoolmen do, of them. Dionysius, however, subject to the Lord Jesus, besides

theurgy

andric theurgy

andric or human theurgy

theosemeia

human theurgy

theurgies

Dionysius thinks that Christ performed divine works without the Father and the Holy Spirit. This was the error of the Monophysites. ^B Therefore, in Chapter 2 *De div. nom.*, such

human theurgy

divino-human

Those who would recoil from this error were accused of Sabellian impiety. These mazes, by which either a quaternity instead of a Trinity, or even tritheism, was constructed, when some in Egypt (the Theodosians were a peculiar sect of the Severians) perceived this, in order to extricate themselves, they conceded of their own accord that absolutely everything that is predicated of Christ, or the Word made flesh, must be ascribed to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Which indeed the Alexandrian prelate of the Theodosians is reported by Anastasius the Sinaite in the *Odēgos*, c. 45, to have taught in his sixth festal epistle. But I conclude that the author of this noble solution was Damian, the Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria, from the tract of Timothy of Constantinople ^D *On the Reception of Heretics*, where he narrates that this opinion was proper to the Damianites, who for that reason were called Sabellians by others who did not approve of it, as if they were binding the three persons of the deity into one, and together crucifying the Father and the Holy Spirit with the Son, and subjecting them to passions. Sophronius also in his epistle to Sergius says: *Damian, he says, is an extreme opponent of these, yet a new Sabellius has appeared in our times.* Damian is an eminent adversary of these (Tritheites), but truly a new Sabellius in our times, etc.

These sectarians, therefore, differed from the genuine sense of Pseudo-Dionysius, by whose invention the whole ratio and series of the incarnation of the Word was

human-divine [XLII] theurgy

theurgic

and the Spirit, and from the Word, no one among the Catholics has ever dared to deny. For truly, the three divine and perpetual guides and efficiencies had one author.

The interpreters of Dionysius perceive the error.—How much these things differ from the true faith, the more recent Latin interpreters of the works of Dionysius—Ambrose the Camaldolese, Joachim Perionius, and Corderius—appear to have perceived, for they did not translate the word *theourgia* at all. The first rendered that passage in this way: "But it is distinct from the divine works remaining in us, which the supersubstantial Word took entirely and truly in accordance with us and from us, and performed and suffered those things which are the chosen and principal acts of his human assumption." The second: "But it is distinct from the divinity, whose benefits exist for us, that the divine Word, being himself truly and entirely from us, assumed and performed and suffered all things which are the principal and singular parts of his human action." The third: "Moreover, in the beneficial reparation of us, this gift is distinct from the deity, in that the Word who is above substance took upon himself for our sake, from us, our entire and true substance, and performed and endured those things which are the principal and singular parts of his human action." Another interpreter, whose translation Saint Thomas used, seems to have read *andrikēs theōrias* (human contemplation) instead of *andrikēs theourgias* (human theurgy). For he thus translates: "Whatever things are chosen and set apart of his human contemplation." Whence it is no wonder that the holy doctor did not notice the error. But indeed John of Scythopolis, Saint Maximus, Pachymeres, and others, both Greek and Latin, are witnesses that it was originally written *andrikēs theourgias*. Saint John of Damascus, in Book III of *On the Orthodox Faith*, chapter 10 [15], where he writes out this passage from chapter 2 of *On the Divine Names*, with a few words removed, omits *andrikēn theourgian* and puts: «κεκρίται δὲ καὶ ὅσα τῆς θείας καὶ φιλανθρώπου τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σαρκώσεως», that is, "But those things are distinct which are of the divine and philanthropic incarnation of the Word of God." And so he avoided the sense which the words of the pseudo-Dionysius present.

The more carefully all these things are considered and weighed, and compared with other things that I have brought forward before, the more they persuade and make manifest that this author, by the term *theandrikēs energeias* (deivirile operation), which he himself was the first to use, wished to signify a composite action, which proceeded from a composite [subject], not only in hypostasis but in nature; which composition of the divine-human nature he signified in the same chapter 11 of *On the Divine Names*, and elsewhere, by the name *theoplastias*, or «καθ' ἡμᾶς Ἰησοῦ θεοπλαστία» (the theoplasty of Jesus according to us). From which it is further inferred, when he says there again that the miracles which Christ performed through the flesh—such as the birth from a Virgin, walking upon the waters, and other things of that sort—pertain to his supernatural nature, «καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ὅσα τῆς ὑπερφυοῦς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦ φυσιολογίας» (and all other things which belong to the supernatural physiology of Jesus), that he intended not a nature merely divine and common to the three Persons, but one divino-human and proper to the Word alone.

The followers of Severus, from other less significant places in the falsely attributed books of Dionysius, were able to bolster their own erratic and inconsistent dogma, as for instance where he designates the person of the deity, [otherwise] naked and simple, with the name Jesus, in those words I mentioned before, «ὁ ἁπλοῦς Ἰησοῦς συνετέθη» (the simple Jesus was composed); as if that most holy word expressed the naked and simple second person of the divine nature, or the Word, even without humanity. Clearly the name Jesus is proper to the composite hypostasis and person, just as the name Christ, not to that which consists of the simple and solitary divine nature, as Maximus, Leontius, and other Fathers established against the Monophysites. In the same way, in chapter 2 of *On the Divine Names*, he says that the Father is the fountainhead of divinity, «πηγαία Θεότης», whose offshoots are «Ἰησοῦς καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα» (Jesus and the Spirit). I confess you might find something similar in Nazianzen, in Oration 45, or the Epistle to Evagrius, where he says: «Οἷονεὶ ἀκτῖνες τοῦ Πατρὸς ἀπεστάλησαν ἐφ' ἡμᾶς, ὅ τε φθεγγώδης Ἰησοῦς καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα» (As if rays of the Father were sent upon us, both the speaking Jesus and the Spirit). As it were, certain rays of the Father, the radiant Jesus and the Spirit, were sent to us. Here, however, the theologian, in expressing the mission, signified the incarnate Word by the name Jesus; not as Dionysius does throughout—ostensibly for the sake of proscribing Nestorian impiety, yet in the sense of the Monophysites, and not without abuse of the doctrine of the communication of idioms. Indeed, this masked author was adorning his lucubrations at the time when the Monophysites, especially under the leadership of Peter the Fuller, were striving for this: that God the Word, and one of the Trinity, be said to have suffered; for this purpose, the most celebrated hymn, the *Trisagion*, was interpolated. Although this did not appear at first glance to conflict with the Catholic faith, it was nevertheless heretical in their sense. Therefore, most of the faithful still shunned such words, lest the poison of the Theopaschite heresy be instilled through them.

The pseudo-Dionysius favors the Theopaschites

-chianists, the Acephali and the Severians, who have always held and even still hold it, while accusing of Nestorianism those who deny it.

XVI. The books of the Pseudo-Dionysius were produced around the time of Peter the Fuller, and perhaps by Peter himself or his associates. And certainly, since Peter the Fuller—that invader and tyrant of the Church of Antioch—was the foremost among the patrons of this impious doctrine, I cannot pass over this, that this most wicked man, or at least someone from among his followers, appears to be the true parent of the books that are called Areopagitical. The reason for my suspicion is this: in chapter 3 of *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, where he briefly recounts, and then subsequently explains, the parts of the divine liturgy which he wished to persuade the readers were handed down by the Apostles, he also makes mention of the recitation of the Symbol [Creed], ^A *professed by the whole fullness of the Church as the catholic hymnology*. For although the entire assembly of the Church had previously confessed before the catholic praise—that is, as he himself explains in the theory of the mystery, *the symbol of religion*—saying that it ought to be recited immediately upon the departure of the catechumens and the energumens; and as it subsequently became established to do in the Churches of the Greek rite, whose custom the Latins afterwards imitated. But the monuments of ecclesiastical history show that a few years before the supposititious volumes of Dionysius appeared, Peter the Fuller, when he had again occupied the throne of Antioch, ordained that the Symbol of faith should be recited in all masses, *and in every synaxis the symbol is to be said*, says the historian Theodorus Lector. This rite, not long after, under the Emperor Anastasius, Timotheus the bishop of Constantinople, a Monophysite and hostile to the Council of Chalcedon, sanctioned to be observed in the royal city, as testified by the same Theodorus Lector. From this institution of a man otherwise most wicked, neither the other Churches of the East, nor subsequently the Latin and Western [Churches], as we have said, recoiled. From this head we have evidence of the age in which the spurious Areopagitical works were written.

In addition to this, just as the Fuller devised that the holy ointment, or chrism, should be consecrated publicly in the church, with the people standing by ^B—*the ointment to be sanctified in the Church before all the people*—which consecration had previously taken place secretly and outside the divine liturgy: so also in the book *De ecclesiastica hierarchia*, chapter 4, it is read that, with the catechumens and others who were ordinarily kept away from the sacrifice having been ordered to leave, the consecration of the divine ointment was to be begun within the solemnities of the masses, and therefore in the presence of the Christian people. Furthermore, the other rite which is subjoined in the same place, and which the Greeks observe to this day, namely that the ointment placed upon the altar is covered by two seraphic figures, by which Christ is signified, who is represented by the ointment, as being celebrated with the perpetual Seraphic hymn, which is called the Trisagion, or thrice-holy: does not this also smack of the mind and character of the Fuller and the Severians, who chant the Trisagion hymn now to the whole Trinity, now to the Son and Christ alone, just as that ecclesiastical [phrase]: *Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal*, with the added phrase sometimes *who was crucified for us*, so that it might be signified as referring to Christ? Even children know that the Fuller was the author of this addition, by which the Son is thrice proclaimed Holy.

The author of these [books] seems to have been an Atticist. To my former conjecture, in which I suspected that the Fuller or some associate of his party or counsels had forged the books of the false Dionysius, it is helpful to add this second one: that they appear to have been elaborated by an Athenian, or one who had been educated at Athens, who thought that he would gain authority for his lucubrations and traditions, which he passed off as apostolic, by assuming the person of the first and most holy bishop of Athens. The frequent Atticisms, with which those books abound—as Joannes Scythopolitanus and other Greeks have observed—point out an Attic writer: so that, just as he was called *most Attic* by the Scythopolitan, so also by Michael Syncellus, his eulogist, he is called *the most Attic and most technical of those who Atticize and write in the Attic style*. He is a most Atticizing Atticist, and most skilled and ingenious in grammar. That singular mode of treating the mysteries and rites of the Christian religion also indicates this, by using terms in common use which were familiar to the Athenians, particularly when the business concerned their sacred Eleusinian mysteries, and which the pupils of Platonic philosophy, whose schools were famous at Athens down to the sixth century after the birth of Christ, had kept among themselves and were accustomed to use. Such were these: *theologia* (for signifying the oracles of the prophets or seers), *hierarches, hierotelestes, theoros, ekphantor, hypophetes, myein, mystai, mystagogoi, katharsis, kathartai, telein, tetelesmenoi, teletai, proteleioi euchon, epoptai teleton, epopteia, therapeutai, leitourgoi, symbola, thiasotai, theourgia, ierourgia, anaktoron, he ton anieron diakrisis, ilarioi hemerai*, etc. Moreover, he calls the bishop *armostes* or *ephoros*, just as the Lacedaemonians [called] their own magistrates, the neighbors of the Athenians. The Scythopolitan reminds us that his Dionysius described the rites of the Romans at times rather than those of the Orientals: because, as I conjecture, since the Churches of Achaia, Thessaly, and Illyricum had been addicted to the Roman primate from the very age of the Apostles, they observed some ceremonies of the Roman Church which others of the Greek ^C language did not have. Thus he concedes that the sacred unction, which we call confirmation, is not performed by presbyters, as those who lack the power to perfect, but by the pontiff, to whom they lead the candidate, *they lead him to the hierarch himself*. Which passage serves as an argument

^A proving that this masked Dionysius was not subject to the Alexandrian Church, in which the office of performing this anointing had long since resided even with the presbyters.

Yet in Achaia there were many who repeatedly existed who attributed one nature to the Lord. Athanasius had once written to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth, against certain persons in the Attic region who were whispering a doctrine not altogether unlike the Apollinarian one, not recognizing any nature in Christ other than the divine. There exist, as I have often said, in Leontius and others, fragments of the epistles of Apollinarius to Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, in which he endeavors to defend his error. At the Ephesian Latrocinium and afterwards, the Illyrian prelates—following Dioscorus—were [XLII] in agreement, and they barely admitted the epistle of Leo the Great written to Flavian against Eutyches at the Council of Chalcedon. Moreover, Acacius of Constantinople drew many of the Illyrian bishops into his rebellion against this holy synod. But Peter the Fuller does not seem to have been Syrian by birth, but to have originated from parts of Europe; having begun the monastic life in the monastery of the Acoemetae in Constantinople, and having been driven from there on account of his mind being hostile to Catholic doctrine, he betook himself to Chalcedon, until, having departed for Antioch, he attempted to occupy the see of that city.

XVII. Cyril did not take the phrase "there is one incarnate nature of the Word of God" from the books of pseudo-Dionysius, but from the works of Athanasius and other Apollinarian lucubrations cited under his name. The sense of Cyril has been poorly understood by some. For from those various lucubrations which I discussed before, and not from the books of Dionysius, Cyril concluded that the one nature of Christ the Lord must be affirmed, on account of the most intimate union of divinity with humanity—the one incarnate nature of the Word of God likewise. He stated this first in these express words in his *Commonitorium* to Eulogius, his apocrisiarius: "Once union is granted, those things which have been united do not differ any longer from one another, but henceforth there is the Son, μία φύσις αὐτοῦ ὡς σαρκωθέντος Λόγου, *one nature of him as the Word become flesh*." He had expressed the other in book II *Against Nestorius*, p. 31, in his epistle to Acacius of Melitene, and in that same *Commonitorium*: he explained himself, however, in his epistles to Successus, when he had come under suspicion of the Apollinarian heresy on account of this dictum. But Apollinarius had taken the name "nature" in one sense, and Cyril in another: Apollinarius, in the manner of the Asians, for essence or substance; Cyril, with a more subtle notion, for the thing itself, one and individual, whether it be essence, or hypostasis, or person, as we have explained in our dialectical annotations. Nay, Theodoret himself, in the first dialogue with the Eranist, ^B confessed one incarnate nature in a clearly Cyrillian sense, as I believe, through reverence for the name of Athanasius. Because many of the Catholics of that age did not perceive this, they thought that, against Nestorius, one must profess one nature in Christ, compounded out of two, having taken that word according to its common signification. Whence, when a certain Saturninus had been sent to Marcianopolis as bishop by the Emperor Theodosius in the place of Dorotheus, who had been more addicted to Nestorius, the people refused to admit him, mostly recognizing that he was miraculously proclaiming one nature of our Lord and Savior, while denying the other, says Dorotheus himself in epistle 46 of the collection edited by Lupus Augustinianus. But in the first place, Acacius of Melitene in Lesser Armenia, although he knew well what was signified by the word "nature" to his Orientals, nevertheless wrote to Cyril (a) that John of Antioch and his followers should not be gifted with communion unless they anathematized those who say there are two natures after union, each properly operating, so that this one may have taken on the passions, while that one remained impassible: for he claimed this is nothing else but to confess two sons and to introduce two persons. Wherefore those Oriental bishops who wrote to other prelates (b) that they had convicted Acacius, who among the *gesta* confessed the deity to be passible, are not guilty of falsehood: the most pious emperor was so moved by them that he shook off the purple chlamys he was wearing and recoiled from the magnitude of the blasphemy. Truly, I say, Alexander of Hierapolis narrated to Acacius of Beroea that the Melitenian, when he was at Ephesus, following the *capitula* of Cyril and his sense, had deposited this in writing (c): "Nestorius has lied against divine Scripture, as if it taught the nativity and death not of the divinity, but of the humanity." I omit Theodotus of Ancyra, who in his exposition of the Nicene Creed against Nestorius, although he denies everywhere that the deity is affected by sorrows, nevertheless disapproves that two substances are signified by the name of Christ, εὶ λέγεις.... ὑπὸ τοῦ ὀνόματος τούτου οὐσίας διαφόρους σημαίνεσθαι, οὐ συμφωνεῖς τοῖς Πατράσιν, nor does he want two things to be expressed by it. Τοῦτο σὺ ὡς ὄνομα ἓν πλειόνων πραγμάτων ἐκτίθης σημαντικόν. And again: "Αδειαν δέδωκεν ἑαυτῷ πλειόνων φύσεων τὸ Χριστὸς ὄνομα κοινὸν λέγειν—he has given himself license to assert that the name Christ is common to more than one nature." Liberatus also reports (d) that certain ones from the palace, through the presbyter and apocrisiarius Eulogius of the Alexandrian Church, blamed Cyril for why he had received from the Oriental bishops the confession of two natures, which Nestorius had said and taught. But it was well known to Cyril how sound the sense of John and the Antiochians was. Wherefore, having approved their profession of faith, he did not hesitate to return the same thing in the same words; namely, that our Lord Je-

Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and body ^A consubstantial with the Father as touching his divinity, and consubstantial with us as touching his humanity: for the union of two natures has been effected, the same being consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, and likewise consubstantial with us according to humanity; seeing that a union of two natures has been made. And on this account we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord: according to this understanding of an unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the God-bearer (Theotokos), in that the Word was incarnate and made man, and by being conceived from her did unite to himself the temple taken from her. And we know that the theological expressions of the Gospels and the Apostles regarding the Lord are used, some as pertaining to one person, common to both, but some—as in the case of the two natures—separating them, using others as if divided in two natures; and they possess those things which befit God according to the divinity of Christ, while the others, which are humble, pertain to the humanity. Moreover, before the union was initiated, John of Antioch himself, in a letter to Alexander, had confessed that Cyril had never condemned those who spoke of two natures. Furthermore, in the Dialogues to Hermias concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation, which Cyril published long after Nestorios was denounced, the terms "essence," "nature," and "hypostasis" are taken in the same sense as the Orientals [understood them], not in that special sense in which he had used them in earlier writings against Nestorios.

XVIII. Eutyches dissented from Cyril, and paraded the books of pseudo-Athanasius and others as genuine. Eutyches cared nothing for these things, but thought that one nature and substance of Christ was to be held, not two; and consequently he denied that Christ, who because of his divine nature is consubstantial with the Father, was of the same essence and nature as we are according to humanity. Then, he immediately obtained the favor of those illustrious men of the Palace, as Liberatus recounts; as the series of events which occurred on the occasion of his heresy confirmed. And yet, in the letter [XLIII] which he wrote to Pope Leo (a), when he had been condemned in a double council at Constantinople, he complains of this especially: "I, fearing the definition of the faith set forth by the holy Nicene synod—neither to take away, nor to add a word—and knowing that the holy and blessed Fathers, Julius, Felix, Athanasius, and Gregory, the holy bishops, rejected the term 'two natures,' and not daring to speculate on the nature of the Word of God, who came into the flesh in the last days into the womb of the holy Virgin Mary immutably, in the way he willed and knows, being made man in truth and not in phantasm, nor to anathematize our above-mentioned holy Fathers, I begged that these things be brought to your holiness, and that you would judge whatever seemed [fit] to you." From which it appears that Eutyches was also deceived by the false inscriptions of the little works, which bore the names of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Julius, ^B and Felix, and [did so] before they could be refuted by Dioscorus. Moreover, the orthodox soon suspected the fraud, as is gathered from the penultimate letter of the synodical [acts] against Irenæus, which was written not long after the forced Ephesian Robber Council, while Eutyches was still living, to an old man wishing to know what Eutyches had thought contrary to the Catholic faith. For the author of the letter, concerning that which was reported as sent by Julius to Dionysius the bishop, speaks thus: "For at last the letter, which Eutyches says was of Julius, formerly bishop of the city of Rome, which he also brought forth for the solace of his own perfidy—I know not whether perchance it is false, and by the perverse sense of which he is known to be led—in the very last part of its text declares thus, saying: 'Whoever, therefore, think thus, etc.,' as in the alleged letter of Julius, which appears in Chapter 234 of said synodical [acts], entirely in Latin with this title: 'Exemplar of Julius, bishop of the city of Rome, as they assert, of the writings of Eutyches, to Dionysius the bishop,' by whose sense Eutyches himself was led into error." Among modern Catholics, Gennadius of Marseilles, in his *Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers*, conceded this letter to Julius the Roman: but this must be forgiven a Latin man. However, he warns that it has been proven pernicious. "For it is a fomentation," he says, "of the Eutychian and Timothean impiety."

XIX. Concerning the discourse, "That Christ is one," among the works of Athanasius. — But not only to Julius, Felix, Gregory, and Athanasius were those books which I have hitherto discussed assigned by the greatest fraud; but also, among the works of Athanasius, two discourses were counted, which must be restored either to Apollinarius or to certain Apollinarists. The first is thus inscribed: *Ὅτι εἷς ὁ Χριστός* ("That Christ is one"), and it was quoted long ago by Paul the Deacon in his book *On the Incarnation and Grace*, c. 3, as though it were Athanasius's. Nevertheless, by more noble critics, it has rightly been withdrawn from this holy doctor and relegated to his doubtful works. The expression itself makes its author manifest. For, just as Apollinarius, whose words Gregory of Nyssa recites in his *Antirrheticus* against him, says that the matter is his, against those who, in the manner of the Gentiles, would hold and adore a creature as God, and who, ^C with Jewish perfidy, felt that Christ was a naked man, not differing essentially from Paul of Samosata and Marcellus of Ancyra. Then he assumes the burden of proof and inculcates that one adoration is to be applied to the flesh and to the Word. He indeed denies two hypostases, two persons, and two adorations: but he never says "two natures," nor does he ever deny "one nature," and he does so in exactly the same way as Jobius the bishop, an Apollinarist, among Leontius's works, declares only an invisible nature, which is not defined by external appearance, ^D "nor to define his invisible nature according to the visible form." And again he says: "Slave…"

^A by appearance, who is God by nature." He accuses his adversaries, just as Apollinarius often accuses the Catholics, of introducing a quaternity in place of the Trinity. In the manner of Apollinarius he says: "I acknowledge him as God in truth, from heaven, impassible,"—truly God impassible from heaven—"I acknowledge him as from the seed of David according to the flesh, passible from the earth,"—passible from the earth according to the flesh: then he subjoins: "Whence, how is the same person both passible and impassible? I do not inquire how he, the same one, is both passible and impassible; how God and man,"—who is God and man—"lest by curiously prying into the how, I should suffer the loss of the good that is set before us." This was indeed the common and customary pretext of heretics, nor would it much trouble a man sincerely professing two natures. But he had already said earlier that it is Jewish infidelity to assert that Christ is "as one of us, passible," just as he teaches everywhere that the flesh, or body, was assumed by the Word, like the Apollinarists generally; [he excludes] the human soul, "the human mind" once, just as Apollinarius does in Nyssenus: "nowhere a rational and intelligent soul," which was a hallmark of the Catholics against the arts of the Apollinarists. He deems that the Redeemer did not receive the being of Adam, "not having taken the being of Adam," but a figure from Adam, "from Adam." What, moreover, is that being of Adam, if not the essence and nature of Adam, which the Lord ^B truly possessed intact? Finally, he indicates his heresy not obscurely in these words: "The body did not complete the divine hypostasis; but he who is truly perfect completed that which was imperfect." For these sectarians, as has been said often, wished the humanity of Christ to be mutilated in its noblest part, namely the mind, as if his divinity performed its functions. The author of this speech, surely, whether Apollinarius himself or anyone else from his disciples, seems to have proposed to himself to refute Athanasius—omitting his name—who, in his books against this heretic, when he received ^C nature, hypostasis, and person as the same thing, taught that there were "two persons" according to nature and according to hypostasis, which, as he and Cyril say, are conjoined by a union properly so-called and real, [inseparable]. Otherwise, I would affirm that this little work was written against Diodorus of Tarsus, who, in attacking Apollinarius, fell into the opposite error, so that he attributed to Christ two persons or hypostases just as he did two natures; whence it followed that Christ was not one. Today there survive some fragments of other works of Apollinarius against this Diodorus, from whom everyone knows the Nestorian heresy was prefigured.

XX. On the other discourse concerning the Incarnation of the Word of God against Paul of Samosata. — There will be, by a stronger argument, another little discourse of the same sect concerning the incarnation of the Word of God against Paul of Samosata, which is likewise reckoned among the dubious [XLIV] works of Athanasius. For the author acknowledge in Christ not the union of the Word with the flesh, so that just as man is one person, and "one animal from both spirit and flesh," so the Word and flesh are one person and one animal, just as Apollinarius speaks in Nyssenus: "The flesh of the Lord is one person, and one animal with him." He is afraid to say that the Lord was made such a man that he has the same nature as we: ^D "Fearing to say a man having the same nature as us." I would wish you to confer, Reader, this saying: "We have believed the Lord to be God by spirit, and man by flesh,"—we believe the Lord to be God in spirit and man in flesh—with those other things which we recounted from the booklet of faith to the Emperor Jovian, "We confess him to be the same, the Son of God, and God according to the Spirit, and Son of man according to the flesh": many similar things to which are recited by Nyssenus and Leontius; so that, indeed, according to the opinion of Apollinarius, Christ might be called a merely spiritual man, who, the human spirit or mind having been exploded, would not have another spirit than the divine, and would be obnoxious to depraved affections and to sin: truly you will acknowledge that the author of these lucubrations was either the same, or at least of the same opinion. But also in the discourse on the incarnation it is subjoined: "Even if the incredulous grumble that the birth from a woman is of the flesh, not of the divinity,"—this one of the flesh, and not of the divinity: than which nothing could be more expressive to signify the error of Apollinarius, who affirmed that the divinity was born from Mary and suffered through the flesh, because of the unity of nature, which would be divine only. Both these discourses, about which I intended to speak, and which were produced under the name of Athanasius the Great, I will have almost asserted to be Apollinarius's own because of the more refined and elegant style, which more learned critics have observed in them. For Apollinarius was the most articulate and most polished of the sophists of his time.

XXI. Why Athanasius's name was prefixed to these books. — Therefore the Apollinarists, when they understood that the name of Athanasius was venerable and of huge moment among the students of the right faith, and bore it ill that their errors had been agitated and proscribed by so great a man, and one so deserving of the Catholic Church, in various published discourses, they thought there was no other way, as far as can be conjectured, to raise or avoid this authority, unless they scattered other books, stuffed with their own errors, among the common people with the name of the same doctor prefixed to them, by which they might persuade at least the simple that Athanasius, the matter being more diligently inspected and examined, had not been far from that opinion which he had previously attacked: but rather that he had finally embraced and defended it as consonant with the truth. For from the often-lauded fragments of Apollinarius and the Apollinarists which are read in Leontius, it appears that they loaded that excellent champion of the faith with great praises, if not sincerely, at least in word. But Polemius, or Polemon, after the master was dead, Athanasius, who long before, as it is clear,

had set his mind to this too: for saying that he is both God and man, they are not ashamed to confess one single incarnate nature of the Word, as if it were one composite nature. For if the same is both perfect God and perfect man, then he is two natures, just as the innovation of the Cappadocians presents it, and the conceit of Athanasius, and the arrogance of those in Italy. And they indeed pretend, as if they were supposedly our own, to think the things of our holy Father Apollinaris; but they preach, just like those Gregorii, the duality of natures, enamored, as it seems, of nothing but the corruptible glory of this life, lured by the hope of the priesthood. What, then, have they to do with us? And what do they attempt to signify by that admirable word? And why do they pretend to be disciples of the divine Apollinaris? For he alone gave birth to this word for the purpose of destroying the duality of natures. By nature we say that the Lord is God, and by nature man, but one combined nature, both carnal and divine. ^A *From Apollinaris to Peter.* From Eunomius of Berrhoea in Thrace, from the letter to the governor Zosimus: “The will of the incarnate Word was not twofold, according to the synonymy of the Egyptians and Cappadocians Romans, but composite. For it was not increased in quantity of natures by the incarnation, but having been simple, it became composite, in no way departing from its own natural unity, and so that in its departure it suffered no departure; we preach clearly and distinctly with a loud voice his one nature and operation.” ^B I wished for you to correct this. For Erechthius never heard... (for something is missing here). The will of the incarnate Word was not twofold, according to the synonymy of the Egyptians, Cappadocians, and Romans, but composite. For it was not increased by the quantity of natures through the incarnation, but from a simple nature it turned into a composite one, in no way exceeding its own natural unity, so that in its excess it suffered no excess. Furthermore, we proclaim clearly and explicitly, with a loud voice, his one nature, will, and operation. Yet I have appended this passage from the testimony of Eunomius, whom Polemius refutes, so as to show that the Apollinarian error was propagated not only in Syria, but also in the neighboring regions of Greece after the death of the heresiarch, ending in the fourth century and in the beginning of the next: just as the Eutychian or Monophysite error later took such small roots there in the same fifth century, as we learn from various letters of the Roman pontiffs. Indeed, Liberatus the Deacon, in chapter 12 of his Breviarium, narrates that the Palestinians, Thracians, and Egyptians joined Dioscorus after the Robber Council of Ephesus. This is made certain from the acts of this conciliabulum, from the inspection of which it is gathered that Liberatus, by the name of Thracians, meant the bishops of Illyricum and Macedonia, and also of Greece. For among the chief aiders and abettors of Dioscorus, who stood against holy Flavian for Eutyches, were Erasistratus of Corinth, Quintillus of Heraclea, Vigilantius of Larissa, Atticus of Nicopolis, Lucas of Dyrrachium, Basilius of Trajanopolis, Solon of Philippi, Maximinus of Serrae, Hermogenes of Cassandria, Lucas of Berrhoea, Joannes of Messene, Athanasius of Opus, Domninus of Plataea, Eusebius of Topirus, Lucas of Dyrrachium, Antonius of Lychnidus, Marcus of Eurica, Claudius of Anchialus, Eutychius of Hadrianopolis, Docimasius of Maroneia, with others from Palestine and Egypt, and a few from Asia.

XXII. Concerning Erechthius. Besides the authorities concerning which I first proposed to speak, as having been produced by the Monophysites against the orthodox, Timotheus Aelurus, the spurious patriarch of the Alexandrians, had cited a certain Erechthius in his book published against the Council of Chalcedon. But Leontius, in the book *De Sectis*, act. 8, narrates that Cyrus, who held the rank of presbyter under Timotheus, wrote to him these words concerning the testimony of Erechthius:

^A I would rather you corrected this. For the name of Erechthius has never been heard among the Fathers. Ephræmius of Antioch, in Photius, cod. 229, includes Erechthius among those who said there is one incarnate nature of the Word of God. But he says that many men distinguished for their holiness observed that this man labored under an Eutychian ailment: *For many of the holy men perceived this man to be lying in the Eutychian disease.* But who this Erechthius was, and when he lived, we learn from a segment of a certain sermon of his on the Theophany, which was published in Latin in the Canisian collection, and subsequently in the Libraries of the Fathers after the works of Leontius and the Collectanea often lauded against the Severians. There, furthermore, we are taught that Erechthius was first bishop of Antioch in Pisidia, and that he delivered this sermon in Constantinople before Proclus, the prelate of the royal city. That fragment is the very one which the Monophysites commonly cited, as is evident from Ephræmius of Antioch, in whose excerpts in Photius the final part of it is presented. The passage, according to Turrianus’s translation, reads as follows: *“From the great prophet Isaiah we heard, when he saith: ‘A child is born to us, and a Son is given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called, Angel of Great Counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come.’ Do not, therefore, let any Jewish branch deceive you.”* For thus must they be called who follow heretics, as if he who was born were one, and he who inhabited him, God, another; and as if there were two natures of him who was born. *“For if anyone should dare to say this about Emmanuel, attach to him this name alone. The memory of this name shall be to him a bridle of silence. For the Virgin did not mystically bring forth two natures, but God incarnate, when the Holy Spirit had come upon her.”* ^B *For if the sprout of Christ were of human seed, I would agree that the fruit is according to the root; but if it is from the Holy Spirit, according to the archangel's voice, God was born; since God is also the cause of the generation.* For indeed, if Christ were the fetus of human seed, I would grant that the fruit imitates the root according to nature: but if he is from the Holy Spirit according to the archangel’s voice, He who is born is God; because God is the cause of the birth. These are the words of Erechthius, with which he signaled Eutyches, just as Saturninus of Marcianopolis, Acacius of Melitene, Theodotus of Ancyra, Antonius of Chalcis in Syria, and others with those certain men of the palace of Theodosius, whom Liberatus mentions; to whom it is proper to add Amphilochius of Side, who, although he had been present at both Ephesine synods and had subscribed, nonetheless, though he had likewise been present at the Chalcedonian, was unwilling afterwards, under the Emperor Leo, to hold his subscription as valid, as Evagrius (a) relates from Zacharias the Rhetor, in letters given to Leo ^C in which he repudiated this latest council. Although Photius, in the *Bibliotheca*, cod. 230, affirms that he finally came to his senses: *who not long after even he himself agreed by his signature.* All these had struck against this rock by using such locutions, as if they were familiar to Athanasius and other Fathers, not knowing that their genuine authors were the Apollinarists. From which it again came about that great strength accrued to the Nestorian faction [XLVI], when they understood that their opponents were using the words and sentiments of the heretic Apollinaris against them. But after Cyril, in his second epistle to Successus, explained in what sense he had said "one incarnate nature of the Word of God," and showed that he was an alien to the Apollinaristic error, and did not deny two natures in Christ, the Chalcedonian synod, and subsequently the fifth general synod, approved this dictum, not as having proceeded from Apollinaris, but as having been employed by an eminent champion of the faith.

XXIII. Concerning the epistle to Paul of Samosata, which bears the name of Dionysius the Alexandrian.

XXIV. It is shown that it was written by an Incorrupticola.

^A had been touched by the apostles, was not by nature man, but by nature God. Where Paul of Samosata is brought in asking whether the fact that God’s soul is troubled signifies God’s nature, he responds that this voice had been God’s, not that of a man like us, and concludes that it is not a man who was crucified, but one holy, one only-begotten Christ, the Son of God and the Word. It is not a man who was crucified, but the one holy, the one only-begotten Christ, the Son of God and the Word; as if the union of the human nature with the Word destroyed the unity of the person. Where it is objected that Christ was sorrowful and grieved, he denies that this is said of the man, but of God himself; just as the Holy Spirit is said to be grieved, or God is said to hate the Sabbath of the Jews. That saying of Christ to the Jews, “Destroy this temple,” he says should be understood concerning the holy apostles, not the human body which Christ possessed.

In his response to the fourth question, he is entirely occupied with establishing the incorruptibility of the Lord’s body and blood as he lived on earth before the resurrection. He naturally responds to the objection taken from those words of the Lord distributing his blood to the apostles: “Take and drink among yourselves”; because it is proper to a body to be divided, and from division follows corruption. On this and similar arguments taken from the mystery of the Eucharist, Catholics long waged war against the Eutychians and Incorrupticolists: as can be seen in Theodoret, *Dial.* 2, and Anastasius Sinaita, especially chapter 14, where he explains and pursues Ammonius the philosopher’s arguments against Julian of Halicarnassus, the father of the Incorrupticolists.

Those passages of Luke, where Christ is said to have increased in wisdom and stature, he judges to signify nothing other than the increase of the Church, which is the body of Christ. For indeed Christ was not subject to change, being God the Word: “For Christ is unchangeable, as God the Word.”

In his response to article 7, he denies that both forms existed in Christ in the same way, in subsistences, and proves from the transfiguration that the form of a servant was not subsistent.

To the fourth question, as to how the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and his parents searched for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances, he responds that Thomas handled him with his own hands, and was not deceived, in touching the Word's flesh—touching with his hands the Word, confounding the nature of the flesh with the Word.

To the ninth objection he makes no other reply than that Christ hungered in the same way that God dined with Abraham. These and other things of this kind, which ^B it would be tedious to set forth, are found in that epistle and its appendix, which point to a Monophysite from the sect of the Aphthartodocetae. I omit the fact that he disputes concerning the deity of the Holy Spirit in exactly the way the post-Nicene Fathers do: that he often and deliberately denies that the nature of God consists in his being *agennetos*, unbegotten, and declares this by the example of Adam, Eve, and Seth, just as the Nazianzen and others did against Eunomius, the suspicion of whose heresy, or one similar to it, he pretends to brush far away.

XXV. *Why it should be rejected as Dionysius of Alexandria’s.* But I do not think it out of place to demonstrate more fully that this epistle is not Dionysius of Alexandria’s; a point which some have wrongly alleged, from the fact that the author asserts the Word to be consubstantial with the Father according to the opinion of the ancients. For Dionysius himself had professed this to be his own faith before Pope Dionysius of Rome, as Athanasius proved in his singular work which he published concerning the sincere mind of his predecessor, Dionysius of Alexandria, from many genuine fragments of his own epistle. Of greater moment is the point they add, that in this pseudo-Dionysius, *hypostasis* is accepted for *person*; which was certainly not yet common in the third century of the Church, and indeed not even in the fourth among the Egyptians. But the beginning of this spurious epistle, which we are discussing, is convicted of falsehood. “We have written back,” it says, “to the things which you previously wrote, so that we might entice you to say openly whatever you have to say, and now we write to the best of our ability concerning those things which you have spoken of again, showing each individual word—which has been collected by you once more—to be frivolous and vicious,” etc. Indeed, Dionysius of Alexandria was so far from writing again and again to Paul of Samosata to refute him, that the Fathers who finally removed him from the Antiochene throne, in their epistle to Dionysius of Rome and to Maximus of Alexandria, clearly testify that Dionysius of Alexandria never deigned to give any letters directly to Paul, not even counting him worthy of a greeting, nor writing to him in person, but only to the entire parish. To these things nothing is more false than that which is added, namely, that Paul of Samosata rashly and precipitately said that there are two *hypostases* and two natures of our one Christ, and two Christs and two Sons—one by nature the Son of God, who was before the ages, and one equivocally called Christ and son of David, who was not before, and existed in time, and accepted according to the good pleasure of God. Nestorius may have taught these things, but certainly not Paul of Samosata, who acknowledged one *hypostasis* in God, not several, who stripped the Word of all subsistence, and taught that Christ was poured out from the naked essence of God the Father, which would be called the Word. Although I will not deny that some more recent authors wrote that Paul posited two Sons, and two persons and *hypostases*; because they had heard that he had been accused...

of positing a mere man as Christ. Besides, in this epistle, Samosatenus is criticized in various places because, regarding this statement of the Apostle in Philippians 2:6-7: *Who, being in the form of God... emptied himself, taking the form of a servant*, he judged that by the "form of God" and the "form of a servant," two natures, of God and of man, are signified; and he contended that the "form of a servant" signified only the exterior appearance of a man. But Chrysostom, in Homily 7 on the Epistle to the Philippians, observes regarding this passage of the Apostle that Samosatenus understood the "form of a servant" in the very same sense as the Marcionites: as referring to certain servile actions which Christ performed, such as washing the feet of his disciples; and against them he shows that the "form of God" and the "form of man" are the natures of deity and humanity. "The form of a servant," he says, "is by no means (the washing of feet), but a work of a servant. One pertains to nature, the other to function, duty, and operation. If that incorporeal nature did not appear in the flesh and was not in a body, who then washed the disciples?" Τί οὖν πάλιν πρὸς Παῦλον τὸν Σαμοσατέα ἐροῦμεν; καὶ τί ἐκεῖνος εἶπεν; Αὐτὸς τὸ αὐτὸ φησιν. "What, therefore, shall we bring against Paul of Samosata? What does he say? Clearly the same thing that the Marcionites say. But we hold this: that this is not his 'emptying,' that one who possesses a human nature and is a pure man should wash his fellow servants."

XXVI. The genuine author of the epistle seems to be either Julian of Halicarnassus or Gaianus. But in truth, the articles which pseudo-Dionysius the Alexandrian undertakes to refute were not written by Paul of Samosata, but were falsely attributed to him. To me, it seems quite likely that they should be ascribed to Ammonius of Alexandria, a doctor and interpreter and a man who was thoroughly Catholic. For he, as is reported in Anastasius Sinaita’s *Odegos*, ch. 14, in order to convict Julian of Halicarnassus of an erroneous dogma, assumed with ingenious art the persona of Paul of Samosata, proposing the same things that are found in the articles which that pretender Dionysius attempts to refute. Consequently, he may have inscribed the book in the name of Dionysius the Alexandrian—a former contemporary and adversary of Paul—in order to refute Julian or his associate Gaianus, as a result of a conjecture which, if I am not mistaken, is not absurd; or perhaps some other Gaianite or Julianite did so, in order to answer, as if he were an orthodox man who had likewise assumed the mask of Samosatenus, the *Incorrupticolas* whom he had also attacked. This method of impugning the Monophysites is highly approved by the Sinaite, who urges it to be followed in chapter 1, since Ammonius defeated and slew *ἐθανάτωσεν* the Halicarnassian.

XXVII. The age of Ammonius of Alexandria, interpreter of Holy Scripture. The age of Olympiodorus. Here, furthermore, Ammonius, who defeated the Gaianites under the Emperor Justinian, was—when he was prefect of the Alexandrian school—the author of various studies on Sacred Scripture, many fragments of which are read in the Greek chains. Anastasius II, Patriarch of the Antiochenes, makes mention of this Ammonius and of his explanations of the work of the six days, in the prologue of his own *Contemplations* or *Anagogical Homilies* on the first chapters of Genesis, which have thus far been published only in Latin, with the exception of the final one, which was produced at length in London along with the Greek text. Moreover, Anastasius testifies that Ammonius followed the sentiments of Cyril the Great in his commentary. He also mentions in Homily 6, and elsewhere, Olympiodorus the Alexandrian, who had been, in the Church, a teacher and interpreter—*ἐξηγητής*—and therefore older than Anastasius himself. Of this Olympiodorus, a *Commentary on Ecclesiastes* exists, and other excerpts of his works are frequent in the chains; and from the testimony of Anastasius it is gathered that both authors flourished not in the third or tenth century, as many have conjectured, but in the fifth and sixth.

DISSERTATION II.

XXVIII. Anastasius II of Antioch as author of the homilies on the *Hexaemeron*. Now, I have said that Anastasius II of Antioch is the parent of those homilies on the work of the six days, primarily because of these two points. Anastasius II translated the *Pastoral Rule* of Pope Gregory the Great from the Latin idiom into the Greek language, so as to satisfy the wishes of the Emperor Maurice, and therefore he was skilled in Latin. But the author of the homilies on the *Hexaemeron* also signifies that he was knowledgeable in the Latin language, where he cites the books of the Roman writers Cato and Labeo; ^A where he likewise reports excerpts from the books of Saint Ambrose of Milan, also on the work of the six days. Furthermore, Anastasius the younger of Antioch had so provoked the hatred of the Jews against him that he ultimately deserved to be killed by them with the most cruel death: likewise, the writer of the *Anagogical Contemplations* nowhere fails to attack, criticize, and assail the Jews on purpose; he mentions that he had frequent disputations with them, which he had published: "For many times and often we have composed the defenses of their lineage, which we have sketched out," he says in book vi. Subsequently, he relates that he wrote two books against the Jews: "These things are spoken of more broadly by us in the second book against the Jews." Moreover, the book against the Jews—which is also held in the *Collectanea* of Canisius and in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*—should not be attributed to this Anastasius of Antioch. For it is the work of a more recent Anastasius, who testifies most clearly that he was writing after the eight-hundredth year from the destruction of Jerusalem. And therefore he is not to be judged as that same Anastasius on whose account John of Damascus wrote the epistle concerning the Trisagion hymn to the archimandrite Jordan.

THIRD DISSERTATION. Concerning the epistle to the monk Caesarius, which is marked with the name of St. John Chrysostom, and concerning certain other books which are first found cited by John of Damascus.

At the end of the dissertation of St. John of Damascus against the Jacobites are appended many authorities of the Fathers who acknowledged and professed two natures in Christ, and the last of these cited is the epistle to the monk Caesarius with this inscription: ^A *Of the same (Chrysostom), from the epistle to Caesarius the monk*. This was subsequently cited by Nicephorus of Constantinople in his *Antirrhetici* against the Iconoclasts, and by others who disputed concerning the two natures of the Lord. The very ancient Latin translation of this epistle, which Petrus Martyr had once objected against the faith of transubstantiation, was discovered by the most illustrious Emericus Bigotius in the Florentine library of St. Laurence, and edited at the end of the *Life of St. John Chrysostom* written by Palladius, and was subsequently printed by a multiple press by Protestants in England and Batavia. Soon, the most erudite Joannes Harduinus, prefect of the library of the Society of Jesus college at Paris, produced a second, more comprehensive edition, illustrated with most sagacious observations, by which he might stop the mouths of his detractors. ^B But while I was reading carefully the fragment that my Damascene cited, and weighing the individual words, it entered my mind that this epistle had been ascribed to the great Chrysostom, and was the offspring of a writer at least somewhat more recent, although it is reported in the title to have been written by the holy doctor *during the time of his second exile*. Therefore, I considered that I would be doing a service if I brought forward the points here by which I am led to judge that this epistle should be stripped from the great Chrysostom.

I omit that no one prior to the Damascene is found to have cited it, although it contains most explicit assertions against the Eutychians and other assertors of one nature, and also of one will and operation, in Christ—not the Chalcedonian, nor the sixth general synods, nor the Lateran under Martin I, nor Theodoret, nor Leontius of Byzantium, nor Anastasius Sinaita, nor Maximus the Confessor, nor the defenders of Nestorius, ^C nor, in short, the others who did not bring forth other testimonies of Chrysostom so clearly. This epistle is plainly written not against the Apollinarists, but against others—for instance, the Eutychians—who did not sufficiently depart from the error of Apollinaris, denying in the same way two natures in Christ. Whence the author warns Caesarius to desist from that heretical doctrine which would differ nothing from the blending and contraction of Apollinaris, nor from that abominable opinion which is of Apollinaris, and of those who are called Synusiastae. Let him add that the book by which he had been seduced was by Apollinaris. For he asserted this by conjecture alone. For never is that heresiarch, or another of his disciples, whether in the fragments of their books that survive, or in the works which are marked with the names of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Julius, and Felix, Roman pontiffs, found to have spoken in this way, that from the divinity and humanity, or from two natures, one nature had been made after the union. ^D Yet the epistle reveals that those who had deceived Caesarius did hold this. Indeed, these words are worthy of note: *What hell vomited forth that one should say there is one nature in Christ after the union?* And: *They say again: After the union one ought not to say there are two natures.* And in the end: *Let us flee those who monstrously imagine one nature after the union.* It only began to be spoken of in such a way after Cyril of Alexandria wrote in his books against the heresy of Nestorius that the ineffable union was made from two natures, that substances are not to be divided after the union, that there is one nature of the Word of God incarnate after the union, and other things similar to these. Which the followers of Nestorius seized upon in such a way that, by saying "one incarnate nature," they judged that it was as if one had been made through the composition of the union; and also that "one nature after the union" was said by him to be composite in negation of the two. And yet, in order that such a meaning might be attributed to the holy doctor, many who, while presenting themselves as his disciples, obstinately inferred from his very words that one nature ought to be said in Christ, not two, so that they did not hesitate to attribute the sufferings of the flesh to the divinity itself because of its most intimate conjunction with the humanity, contributed not a little [to this error]. We read that Saturninus was of this opinion, who on that account, when he had been created bishop of Marcianopolis in Moesia in the place of the Nestorian Dorotheus, was driven from that city by the citizens. Thus Acacius of Melitene in Armenia, far from just teaching, having exploded the two natures, that there was one nature, he even openly taught that the divinity itself suffered.

^A Thus Erechthius, Metropolitan of Antioch in Pisidia, in a sermon before Patriarch Proclus, preached that there was one nature and by no means two. Perhaps Amphilochius of Side did the same, one of the Fathers of both Ephesian synods, who, as has been stated elsewhere, by the testimony of Evagrius, later disapproved of the Council of Chalcedon, at which he had nevertheless been present and had subscribed, just as he had disapproved of the unjust ordination of Timothy Aelurus and other crimes. Indeed, the Pontic prelates did the same, whom John of Antioch mentions in his letter to Acacius of Berrhoea. Thus, I say, all those whom Isidore of Pelusium censures in his letter to Count Dorotheus, as if they imagined God to be passible in the sense of the Theopaschites or Deipassians. Likewise, many from the palace of Emperor Theodosius, whom Liberatus the Deacon narrates in chapter 7 of his Breviary, were displeased that Cyril had accepted the confession of two natures from the Orientals. These were, in fact, the people about whom John of Antioch was writing to Alexander of Hierapolis: "But now those who have obtained power, enemies of God, propose that those who speak of two natures should be anathematized," which not even the one who stands out as the first of them dared to clearly state; he was, of course, alluding to Cyril, whom he therefore acknowledged—even before he was reconciled with him—to be a stranger to the error of those who denied the two natures. Thus Eutyches, having found such patrons, more explicitly affirmed before many bishops and synods that after the union there was made one nature from two. And though various heresies were devised to be bolstered by this phrase, those who used it did not speak like the Apollinarists, but only fell into their line of thought.

The author of the letter to Cæsarius was a patron of the Nestorian faction. In this very age of Cyril, not a few chapters were published, as so many dissertations, to which booksellers prefixed the name of Athanasius, which is why they were printed in volume II of his works. Photius indeed assigns them to Theodoret and numbers twenty-seven, while only seventeen survive today; that they are by Eutherius of Tyana, a very keen defender of the Nestorian party, Marius Mercator, his contemporary, testifies. Indeed, as far as I can conjecture from the preface, they seem to have belonged to the Tragedy of Irenæus of Tyre, in which were recounted the things that had been done by the authority of the princes against Nestorius and his followers, who had been unwilling to enter into peace with Cyril, and of which many records Christian Lupus released to the public from the Cassinese codex, and other learned men did later. Moreover, in these little dissertations, the very same points of doctrine are attacked that are in the letter to Cæsarius, such as: that God suffered in the flesh, that God bore and did not bear, or that He bore by suffering nothing: that God suffered as He willed, etc. That Eranista ^B, whom Theodoret refutes in three dialogues, aimed at the same opinion; in those dialogues, the same chapters are treated in the same sense as in the letter to Cæsarius. Nor should Theodoret be thought to have composed those dialogues against mere Apollinarists, as some have conjectured, but against those who, begotten from the root of Apollinaris, asserted that there was one nature of flesh and divinity, and attributed suffering to the divinity of the Only-begotten; whence grave discord arose among the people and among the priests: "and from this root there sprouted in the churches the one nature of flesh and divinity, and the attributing of the passion to the divinity of the Monogenes, and all the rest that has caused strife for both the people and the priests." "But these things, too," he says, "happened later"; that is, in his own age, when he was writing against those whom I have called disciples of Cyril, or against Eutyches himself, who, he reports in book IV of his *Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium*, chapter last, taught that the Word had taken nothing human from the Virgin, but *ἀλλ' ἀτρέπτως τραπέντα, καὶ σάρκα γενόμενον*, "but having changed without change, and having become flesh," from which doctrine he shows Apollinaris to have been a stranger at the end of each dialogue. Wherefore he testifies in the prologue that his adversary is called by him *Eranistes*, because he had cobbled together his dogma from diverse heresies: of Simon, Cerdo, Marcion, Valentinus, Bardesanes, Apollinaris, Arius, and Eunomius. But in the second dialogue, Eranistes denies that he follows Apollinaris; he says he confesses that the Word received flesh and a mind-endowed soul, and that he does not divide the soul into two parts: which had been the hallmark and special error of the Apollinarists. What need is there to say more? Theodoret himself, in dialogue 2 against Eranistes, fights with the authority of Cyril of Alexandria, whom, therefore, this heretic recognized and revered as a teacher of the right faith; which is a certain argument that he was a pupil of the Eutychian party, to whom Cyril was like the rest of the masters of the Church.

He wrote after the Council of Chalcedon. Indeed, it appears not only from these things which I have brought forward that the letter to Cæsarius the monk is more recent than the death of Chrysostom, and even than the rise of the Nestorian heresy: indeed, I would dare to affirm it was written after the Council of Chalcedon. For before that, it had not been heard among the holy Fathers that Christ exists not only of two natures but also in two. Cyril had first taught it, but the synod defined both [natures] against Eutyches, just as it was carried in that famous letter of Pope Leo to Flavian. With the Eutychians and Dioscorites murmuring, or rather protesting, on account of the novelty of the term, no other answer was given but that it was sufficient that it was being set forth as the faith and sense of the ancient Church and the Fathers, and especially of the great Cyril, who, in making peace with John of Antioch and the Orientals, [L] had professed Christ...

^A much less as consisting of two natures, but also as perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity. The orthodox did not find another passage of another Father that would have come closer to the definition of the council. But in the letter to Cæsarius it is undoubtedly established that the one Son, the one Person, must be acknowledged according to an inconfused and indivisible reason, οὐκ ἐν μιᾷ φύσει, ἀλλ' ἐν δυσὶ τελείαις, not in one nature alone, but in two perfect ones. This particle concerning the two was certainly not yet excogitated when Theodoret, most studious of Chrysostom and his books, in his letter to I know not what prophet [(a)], was carping at this statement of Cyril regarding the difference of natures, from which we speak of an ineffable union having been made. It would indeed have been easy for him to amend it to signify the permanence of the natures in which the union, etc., exists; but he says that it should rather have been said: "whose union we speak of, etc." For he thinks that the union was made not *from* the natures, but *of* them. But it greatly displeases me that the author of the letter to Cæsarius should have proposed to himself, especially, to impugn this: that God the Word made the things of the flesh His own, and that He can therefore truly be said to have suffered. Thus, furthermore, he explains his own mind a little before the middle of the letter: "When you speak of Christ, you join both (God and man), whence He Himself is called both passible and impassible; passible in flesh, but impassible in deity." The same are predicated of the Son, and Christ, and Jesus, and the Lord, for these are common names and susceptible of the two essences: the conjunction of which creates error in heretics, using the name of Christ as one for a common subject. For if you say that God has suffered, by whatever reasoning, you have said what is impossible, which is blasphemous, and you have fallen into the impiety of Manes and other heresies. If, again, you say it is the man who has suffered, you are found putting forward a "pure" man (that is, void of divinity), building a temple. The temple of the flesh is never said to be the inhabitant, because it is no longer a temple. I have recited this passage at length, which it is worth comparing with similar ones throughout that occur in the books of the vindications of Nestorius, or rather of Nestorius himself, where he was trying to diminish the odium of his own impiety. Thus, therefore, this heretic speaks in his letter to the Scholasticus, a eunuch of the Emperor Theodosius. "For when we say Christ, and Jesus, and Son, and Only-begotten, and Lord, this appellation signifies both (namely, God and man) as significant of two natures, that is, of deity and humanity. We have brought forth the name of Theotokos and Anthropotokos, so that it could escape no one that we can neither fall into the error of Manes, nor of Paul (of Samosata, who posited that Christ was a pure man), being fortified on all sides." And below: ^B What is worse, and is most of all at the present time, and provokes much indignation from the Lord Christ, and is worthy of a thousand thunderbolts and lightnings, is to call the deity of the Only-begotten violable, that the Lord Word died, and in the sepulcher was in need of consolation, and merited Resurrection with the flesh. Alexander of Hierapolis also, in a letter to Acacius of Berrhœa concerning Cyril, has this: "Let it be confessed that Christ, who is born of the holy Virgin (for God is man, one Son, one Christ, one Lord), suffered according to humanity, was crucified according to humanity, and was raised from the dead by the divinity of the Word, which said: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up 18." And again: "Let him say, therefore, that Christ died, the Son suffered, the Only-begotten suffered. Why does he add that the Word suffered in the flesh?" And having interposed a few words, he adds: "We find in the divine Scriptures that Christ died, the Son died, the Only-begotten died, the Holy One died, the Just One died. These names, indeed, show both natures; but the voice of God the Word sounds one nature." Many things can be read conformable to these in other letters extracted formerly from the *Tragedy* of Irenæus, in which Cyril is blamed for almost no other name, except that he brought forth that God, born in the flesh from the Virgin, died and was crucified: to which can be added the refutations of his anathematisms, and especially the twelfth, which Andrew of Samosata, in the name of the Orientals, and Theodoret, by the command of John of Antioch, edited. However, I will warn here in passing that today in the context of Theodoret it is wrongly read: οὐκοῦν οὐχ ὁ Χριστὸς παθών, ἀλλ' ὁ ὑπὸ Θεοῦ Λόγου ληφθεὶς ἄνθρωπος, "Christ therefore did not suffer, but the man whom God the Word assumed"; but that it should be amended: οὐκοῦν οὐχ ὁ Θεὸς παθών, "God therefore did not suffer, etc." For he is impugning what Cyril had said in the 12th anathematism: *εἴ τις οὐχ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου παθόντα σαρκί*, "If one does not confess that the Word of God suffered in the flesh." Nor did Theodoret ever deny that Christ suffered. I omit Eutherius of Tyana disputing in five chapters against those who, by any reasoning whatsoever, might affirm that God suffered.

^C *Dissent from St. John Chrysostom.*— But the opinion of holy John Chrysostom was entirely different, and he was far from thinking it blasphemous to say that God suffered for us. For in his Homily 26 (or rather 27) on John, in explaining this saying of the Lord: *No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven* 19, he observes, because of these last words, that Christ was accustomed to call Himself by the whole, sometimes from the deity, sometimes from the humanity, *καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο ἔθος αὐτῷ, πολλάκις μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς θεότητος, πολλάκις δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος τὸ πᾶν καλεῖν*, that is, sometimes to the man di-

of divine things to ascribe, sometimes human things to God himself: which is certainly the same thing as for God to make those things that are of the flesh his own. For just as Christ said that the man who lived on earth was in heaven, so God, who is immortal and incapable of suffering, is nevertheless said to have suffered, namely, by assuming flesh. Wherefore, ^A in other homilies, following this rule, he did not hesitate to teach that God was generated from a Virgin. Homily 34 on the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians: "Now we know," he says, "that God is everywhere; but how he is, we do not know. That he made things which are out of nothing, we know; but the manner, we are ignorant of; ὅτι ἐκ Παρθένου ἐτέχθη, πῶς [L] δὲ, οὐκ ἔτι. That he was born of a Virgin we know; but how, by no means." He speaks in the same way again and again in the homily on the Nativity of Christ, which begins with these words: "Α πάλαι πατριάρχαι, what the patriarchs of old: and after the middle of the prayer, he attacks the Gentiles, who, hearing from the confession of Catholics that God was born in the flesh, would receive this doctrine with ridiculous derision, not without scandal to the simpler folk: Ἐπειδὴ οἱ πολλοὶ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἀκούοντες, ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἐτέχθη ἐν σαρκί, καταγελῶσι διασύροντες. Therefore, he says they are like children, or grave men who are free ^B of serious and necessary matters, laughing mockingly (a). But whoever professed that God was in the flesh and born of a Virgin, in consequence acknowledged that God suffered in the flesh, and that other things of this kind ought to be said. And indeed, this same holy doctor, in his oration against the Jews, does not hesitate to charge them with deicide, from the fact that they nailed Christ to the cross, calling them God-slayers. I omit another passage which Cyril, in his book *On the True Faith to the Queens*, and in act 1 of the council of Ephesus, cited, extracted from another homily on the Nativity of Christ, which still exists. For this homily, however much it may have been praised by Cyril, as if it were Chrysostom’s, who had recently departed, was found by Savile not to be that of this holy doctor, or at least to be of doubtful authenticity. And indeed deservedly so: because it reflects neither the diction, nor the style, nor the genius of Chrysostom, whose orations flow more elegantly and evenly, and are more accommodating to the minds of those being moved to piety. Moreover, Cyril demonstrates in his defense of the twelfth anathema that the dogma of faith which the writer of the epistle to Cæsarius attacks was taught by other Fathers. But it would not be difficult to collect the authorities of more men, older than Cyril, who assert the same thing, but it is better to study brevity. On the other hand, the Acœmetæ monks, and certain others, who had not entirely washed away the filth of Nestorianism, recoiled from the Apollinarian error, as they called it, of professing God the Word, or one of the Trinity as having suffered, however much they might add "in the flesh"; that is, by any manner of thinking, just as it is said in the epistle to Cæsarius: for they did not admit the Council of Chalcedon except for the confession of two natures. And this was the cause that, when they were more ardently persecuting the Scythian monks, because ^C they preached one of the Trinity as having suffered, they were at last condemned first by the Roman pontiffs, then thereafter by the fifth general council. Why, therefore, would this epistle addressed to Cæsarius not have been fabricated in the name of John Chrysostom among the Acœmetæ, among whom other supposititious writings were found, by which the cause of Nestorius might be defended? For indeed, the Latin translator and compiler suspected that, among the documents which are brought from the *Tragedy* of Irenæus, some were spurious here and there. But especially that which is said to have been addressed to Hypatia in chapter 216 is judged by everyone, except Christian Lupus, to be adulterine; since it mentions Nestorius in exile, which did not happen before the year 436: whereas Hypatia, as Socrates testifies (lib. vi Hist. eccl., cap. 15), died at Alexandria, in the consulship of Honorius for the 10th time and Theodosius for the 7th, that is, in the year 415, or 21 years before Nestorius was led into exile.

In the annotations to chapter 13, book iv of *On the Orthodox Faith*, I explained in what sense the author of this epistle to Cæsarius said that, in the sanctified or consecrated eucharistic bread, the nature of bread remains; and where he adds, "and it is not called two bodies, but one body of the Son," he provided an occasion for John of Damascus, Theodore Graptus, or rather Nicephorus of Constantinople, to write in the same way that bread and wine are so converted into the body and blood of Christ that there are no longer two bodies, but one. Καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶ δύο, ἀλλ' ἐν καὶ τὸ αὐτό: or *et non duo haec vocamus, all' en kai to auto nooumen*. Which is clearly most effective for confirming the mystery of transubstantiation.

II. Concerning John Malalas and John who was surnamed *ho diakrinomenos*.—By a special annotation to oration 3 *On Images*, I proved that John Malalas, who is found cited at the foot of this dissertation among other writers, is not more recent than John of Damascus. But because certain Greeks did not distinguish John Malalas from John, who was called *ho diakrinomenos*, i. e., the waverer or the separated, I would like to say a few things here in a separate dissertation about the latter.

John the Waverer and John the Rhetor are the same. Distinct from John of Ægæ.—Photius in his *Bibliotheca*, cod. 41, mentions the Ecclesiastical History of a certain John, of which he says he has read five books, in which were contained the deeds from the reign of Theodosius the Younger and the rise of the Nestorian blasphemy, up to the emperor Zeno, as well as the ejection of the impious Peter, or the Fuller, from the Antiochene see; he added that John promised that he would extend the history to ten books. Evagrius in his *History* cites here and there John the Rhetor, whom the most illustrious Henricus Valesius, in the annotations to book 1, chapter 16 of the same Evagrius, gathers to have been of Antioch, and likewise that the affairs of Theodosius the Younger, Marcian, Leo, and Zeno's principate

have been set forth. Liberatus the deacon, however, in chapter 19 of his *Breviarium*, relates as if from John the Rhetor that Macedonius, patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed by the Emperor Anastasius at the instigation of the monk Severus, who occupied the Church of Antioch a short time later, as being a Nestorian. This was not because he would not admit the addition made to the *Trisagion* hymn by Peter the Fuller (as Catholic writers commonly hand down), but because he had falsified the Gospels, and especially that saying of the Apostle in 1 Tim. 3:16: *He was justified in the spirit*, by changing the letter ο to ω, to make it *ὡς*, that is, so that it would be "God who was manifested in the flesh." Since these events took place in the 21st year of Anastasius, who succeeded Zeno, there is no doubt that the Rhetor continued his history beyond the reign of Zeno. But I am certainly surprised that Valesius overlooked what Evagrius writes, that John brought his history to an end after relating the earthquake by which Antioch fell in the seventh year of Justin. Moreover, because this John the Rhetor showed himself unjust toward Macedonius, whom Catholics have venerated as a holy man, he ought to be reckoned among the crowd of those who strove to bring about the ruin of the Council of Chalcedon, just as Zacharias, another rhetor, whom Evagrius also frequently cites. Now, John, of whom Photius makes mention, belonged to the same faction—he who is recorded to have described the Ephesian council with the utmost diligence and in minute detail (λεπτομερῶς), just as he also described the events that took place at the robber-council of Ephesus, which he extols as divine, along with its leader, Dioscorus, and his principal associates; while he lacerates the Chalcedonian Council (διασύρων). From this I conclude that this John of Photius is not to be considered different from the rhetor. If these things are so, with too great a degree of carelessness Photius stated that this John was the presbyter of Aegae (τὸν πρεσβύτερον Αἰγεάτην). For in truth, John of Aegae, or the Aegaeote (from Aegae, a maritime city of Cilicia), was, by Photius’ own admission in codex 52, addicted to the sect of Nestorius (τὴν θρησκείαν Νεστοριανός), not to Dioscorus, who was an enemy of the Nestorians just as he was of the Catholics. The bishops of Syria testify to this in their petition to the Emperor Justin the Elder, *Concilia*, Vol. IV, col. 1544, as does Leontius, *De Sectis*, act 9, where he calls John the Aegaeote a "Nestorian presbyter" (πρεσβύτερον Νεστοριανόν). Cyrus, the Alexandrian prelate, a Monothelite, in his eighth anathema, curses Cyrus and John the Aegaeotes along with the rest of the Nestorians. Sophronius of Jerusalem, in his letter to Sergius of Constantinople, also says that Cyrus and John, the Cilicians, were propagators of the Nestorian impiety (προδόλους). Before all these, the monks of Palestine, in the letter to Alcison which Evagrius relates in his *History*, book 3, chapter 31, written around the 21st year of the Emperor Anastasius, had said that Xenaeas, or Philoxenus of Hierapolis, an eminent accuser of the Council of Chalcedon, had compelled Flavian of Antioch to say anathema not only to Nestorius, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas of Edessa, but also to Cyrus and Eutherius (of Tyana, certainly, not Eleutherius, as it is wrongly edited in the Greek and Latin), and to John and others, as being truly Nestorians, or at least suspected of the Nestorian stain. Victor of Tunnuna, a chronicler of nearly the same age who was long in exile in Egypt and elsewhere because of the Three Chapters, relates this in the same way. "Under the consulship of John," he says, "the Emperor Anastasius persuaded the prelates Flavian of Antioch and Philoxenus of Hierapolis to gather a synod at Constantinople and bring anathema against Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, Ibas of Edessa, Andrew (of Samosata, certainly), Eucherius (correct to Eutherius), Quirum (or Cyrus), and John, and the other bishops who preached two natures and two forms, and who do not confess the one from the Trinity to have been crucified; and [to bring anathema] against Leo of Rome and his Tome, and the Council of Chalcedon." From which it can be deduced that Cyrus and John the Aegaeotes were equal to Andrew of Samosata, Eutherius of Tyana, Theodoret, and Ibas. The most learned Garnier, indeed, thinks that the Cyrus and John of whom the Palestinian monks and Victor make mention are Cyrus, the monk of the island of Lesbos to whom Theodoret addressed letter 13, and John, the bishop of Germanicopolis. And he asserts that from that letter 13, as well as from 124 and 125, both are represented as having defended the cause of Theodoret more zealously than usual. But in these letters, and in others, there occurs no trace of that vehement zeal of either man toward Theodoret. Not in 13, in which Theodoret merely gives thanks for the gifts sent to him from Lesbos; not even in the two others, in which no mention of Cyrus or John of Germanicopolis has appeared, even in a dream; nor indeed in 135, which is the only one addressed to John of Germanicopolis, can that alleged distinguished patronage be inferred (a). Therefore, those authors spoke of John and Cyrus of Aegae. I had omitted the eloquent Facundus of Hermiane, who in book 11 of his *Defense of the Three Chapters* to Justinian, chapter 2, complains that the Greeks abhorred Theodore of Mopsuestia just as they did Nestorius, Cyrus, and John. But how could it have happened that John the Aegaeote, a Nestorian presbyter, wrote a history in which he followed Dioscorus and his sectaries—who were, as has been said, enemies of the Nestorians and of the Nestorian position—with the highest praises, as divine men, while he lacerated the Council of Chalcedon rather than the Ephesian one, by which Nestorius was proscribed? Nevertheless, John Vossius and William Cave followed Photius as he erred; although the latter of these, at least, did not wrongly acknowledge that the John of whom Photius discourses,

(a) See the preface, no. XX, where these matters are again revoked to examination.

^A Egeates, this is John Egeates. I would certainly not dare to call into doubt that this John Egeates published a pamphlet against the Council of Chalcedon; since Leontius, in book IX of his *De sectis*, testifies that he disparaged it, as if to imply that the whole Council was Cyrillian and stood by the opinion and tenets of Cyril, because he held that "this council is Cyrillian, and thinks as he did." But also the bishops of Syria, in a letter to Justin Augustus, relate that John vomited forth blasphemies against that council in like manner. Finally, Facundus of Hermiane, in book V, chapter 4, recites certain things from the work which John Egeates had published against this holy council. ^B Indeed, from codex 229, in Photius, it is gathered that at the time of Saint Ephraem of Antioch, that is to say, after the beginning of the sixth century, other Cilicians had attacked the same council with their writings, the chief of whom, it appears, were Domnus and the monk John, to whom the most holy patriarch wrote for the defense of this council, showing that it, by defining according to the dogma of Cyril the one hypostasis and person of the Word of God incarnate, professes consequently the two natures, from which one Christ was constituted—*apetelesthē* (not "created," as Schott translates not quite accurately); but others, more prudent or perhaps more crafty, judged it better to admit the Council of Chalcedon at least in pretense, as being sufficiently conformable to the doctrines of their own Theodore of Mopsuestia, so that in that name they might insinuate the Nestorian poison to the simpler sort. ^C This is testified by Leontius of Byzantium among many others at the beginning of the preface to his book against the Nestorian impiety, which has not yet been edited in Latin, but is found in Greek in the Royal codex 2505: "This discourse," he says, "aims at those who play the hypocrite regarding the great and ecumenical council, which was in Chalcedon, and those who champion the views of Nestorius." This book refers to those who pretend to receive the great and universal council celebrated at Chalcedon, while at the same time they defend the errors of Nestorius. Of this plan was Basil the Cilician, priest of Antioch under Flavian II, whom they deduce from Suidas to have been bishop of Irenopolis. Concerning him, Photius indeed says, in codex 187: "Although he is infected with the Nestorian taint, yet he nowhere claims Nestorius for himself, but praises Diodore and Theodore as Fathers." He adds that he attacked John of Scythopolis for no other reason than because he had defended the twelve chapters of Cyril, and especially the 12th, by which it is introduced that God suffered. ^D Whence it happened that John of Scythopolis, in the annotations or scholia on chapter 7 of the book of Dionysius *On the Celestial Hierarchy*, called the Nestorians also "Basilians," *Basileianoī*, that is, Nestorians. Later, the monks of the monastery of the Acoemetae emulated this man; and since they bore indignantly that the Scythians (who were other ascetics) preached, in order to eliminate the relics of Nestorian error, that one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh and was crucified, just as Cyril of Alexandria had already defined long ago, they sent some of their own to Rome, who might hold this proposition before the pon-

pontiff of Rome to be condemned. From the Breviary of Liberatus, ch. 20, and from the letters of Pope John II to the Emperor Justinian, we learn that the names of these legates were Cyrus and Eulogius, whom Agapetus, the successor of John, again testifies in a letter to the emperor were proscribed with anathema for heresy and obstinacy. That this Cyrus the Acoemete was distinct from Cyrus of Aegaea, the series of events and times makes evident. For long ago, as has been shown, Cyrus and John of Aegaea were reckoned among the notable figures of the primordial Nestorian age; whereas Cyrus the Acoemete, along with his followers, was not discovered to be a Nestorian until he manifested too obstinate a spirit in pursuing the condemnation of those who confessed that one of the Trinity was crucified. But the excessive zeal of their adversaries in this matter turned minds toward demanding, in turn, the condemnation of the Three Chapters: a thing which at length the fifth general council performed, and further defined it to be a proposition of right faith that the Son of God, one of the Trinity, suffered in the flesh and was crucified.

On Basil of Cilicia, and another lapse of Photius. — Since we have fallen into a discussion of Basil of Cilicia, I shall indicate here another lapse of Photius, which he admitted in codex 95, where he treats of the writings of John of Scythopolis, *against the Aposchistae*, that is, *against Eutyches and Dioscorus*, he says, or *against the Aposchistae*. For at the end of the fifth century and the beginning of the sixth, in Syria and Palestine especially, the Monophysites and Dioscorians were for the most part called ^A *Aposchistae* (i.e., schismatics), as is evident from Theodorus Lector, lib. II Hist.; from Ephraem of Antioch in Photius, cod. 228; from the Lives of the saints Euthymius, Sabas, and Theodosius, and other monuments of those times: Photius adds [LIV] that John was attacking a certain author in twelve books, who had not without deceit prefixed to his work a title of this sort: *Against Nestorius*, so that by the inscription of the work he might entice the simpler folk to read or hear it. Finally, he concludes with this conjecture: *Perhaps this is Basil of Cilicia, who later fabricated a dramatic dialogue against John, worthy of his own religion.* Perhaps he is the Basil of Cilicia who composed a fable, or dialogue, worthy of his own sect against John. This is Photius: than which nothing could be more absurd. For it is evident from the same text that Basil of Cilicia was a Nestorian, not a Eutychian or a Dioscorian, *infected with the Nestorian heresy*. he himself says below, cod. 107. How then is it to be believed that John, drawing his pen against the Aposchistae, or the cohorts of Eutyches or Dioscorus, was attacking the Nestorian Basil in these books? Therefore it is far more likely that that author, whom the Scythopolitan was attacking in twelve books, and who was besmirching the Catholic faith with the reproach of Nestorian heresy, was none other than Severus, who was the ringleader of the Acephali and subsequently passed as the Antiochene prelate. For in the 15th act of the sixth general council ^B and in the *Collectanea against the Severians*, ch. 13, a sufficiently ample fragment is read: *John, bishop of Scythopolis, from book VIII against Severus.*

III. On the questions of Athanasius to Antiochus. Athanasius the Younger was writing at the beginning of the eighth century.—Just as regarding the epistle to Caesarius the monk and the Chronicles of John Malalas, so too regarding the questions and answers of Athanasius to Antiochus, no writer earlier than our John of Damascus is found to have cited them. Indeed, at the end of the third oration *On Images*, he has cited at least once or twice the answer to question 39, in which mention is made of that monk enclosed on Mount Olivet, whom a demon of debauchery vexed because he venerated the image of the Mother of God. But this little narrative Athanasius had received from ch. 45 of the *Spiritual Meadow* of John Eucratas, or Moschus, which Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, published. Whence I gather that this Athanasius is at least more recent than Sophronius. But indeed, among the 152 questions and answers which were sent into the public by Jacob Gretser under the name of Anastasius of Sinai, there occur not a few which are held in the same senses and often the same words among those questions to Antiochus the commander, which were wrongly attributed to the great Athanasius. Because of this consonance, I finally thought it necessary to investigate which of these authors copied the other. ^C This difficulty, I judge, can be solved from a comparison of the 117th Anastasian question with the 44th Athanasian. It is asked in Anastasius: *Is there any compendious reason by which a man ignorant and rude can meet a heretic?* In Athanasius: *In what way can a man rude and unlearned be convinced that the Catholic Church holds the right faith before other sects, and is not deceived?* The Anastasius of Gretser thus responds: *Hear on this a brief little disputation conducted not long ago at Alexandria. For some Severians, Gajanites, and Barsanuphians were gathered before a certain man, unlearned in speech but prudent in the Lord, a follower of the Catholic faith, to dispute with him concerning the faith. He asked them, therefore, if any king had secret chambers and precious houses, where all his secret counsels were performed, to whom would he entrust them? To those faithful to him, or to the unfaithful? They answered that it was manifest that such places would be entrusted only to the faithful by the king. Then the orthodox man said to them: Learn, therefore, that no true faith is found on earth, except that which the Catholic Church professes. For this reason God has committed to us all the holy places and necessary dwellings in which, during the time of his pilgrimage, he performed his mysteries—that is, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, Bethlehem, Jordan, Mount Sion, Golgotha, the Resurrection; and not these only, but also Mount Sina. In a word, all other places of the New and Old Testament, we who follow the Catholic Church, possess. If, therefore, we speak ill of divine things*... ^D

yet God has not acted rightly, he who handed over his holy places to us. If you object that we hold these places by royal hand and tyrannical violence, it will be no difficulty to refute your falsehood. For behold, when Barbarians occupy the region in which the holy places are, God has not suffered them to be taken away from us. But if, as is likely, you intend to say that the Arians held the holy places not long ago, we answer that this happened plainly by the violence of tyrants: but they were in vain. For immediately the holy places were restored by God to us, the orthodox. This is Anastasius. ^A And the reply of Athanasius is this: Those who cannot hear an accurate and profound explanation of the Scriptures and dogmas, must from this be persuaded of the integrity and truth of the Catholic Church of Christ; namely, from this head, that the saving and venerable places of the Passion of Christ have been given and entrusted by God to our Catholic and orthodox faith and Church: namely, Nazareth, where Christ dwelt among us; Bethlehem, where He was born according to the flesh; Sion, where He wrought salvation for the world; the Jordan, where He renewed Adam; Thabor, where He prefigured the kingdom of the heavens; the Mount of Olives, from whence He ascended from us to the Father in the heavens. All these holy and venerable places of His, He did not commit to the Catholic Church rashly or in vain, but just as every other faith and Church named among Christians, as more pious and honorable. And just as an emperor commits and entrusts the precious chambers of his palace, and his treasuries, to the more faithful of all his ministers; so also Christ, from the beginning of His advent, ^B entrusted His venerable places, that is to say, to the Catholic Church. But if an adversary should respond that we possess them by tyrannical power, let him learn that even if Barbarians have often occupied Palestine, Christ did not permit His places to be handed over to heretics. For even if they attempted this for a short time, the Catholic Church soon drove them back, not as swine, from the holy abodes and places of Christ our God. Both responses sing the same note: but from the comparison of both texts, there is no one who does not perceive that Anastasius is the primary author, whom the other has copied and rendered by a paraphrase; and so the responses to the questions of Antiochus are more recent than those Anastasian responses. When their author subjoins that it is now the seven-hundredth year since the Catholics held the holy Jerusalem places, he is to be understood as speaking of approximately the seven-hundredth year from the birth ^C of the Lord. Which manner of speaking by synecdoche, when a certain chronological calculation is at issue, is not infrequent among authors; if I omit similar passages of Scripture. Nor should Gretser be heard, who thought that the seven hundred years began today from the time of Constantine the Great, and thus extended as far as the thousandth year of the Lord’s incarnation. For he is refuted not only by the fact that the questions [LV] and responses to Antiochus are cited by authors of the eighth and ninth centuries, and consequently Anastasius, whom the younger Athanasius followed and copied, must have lived before this; but also because in the response of Anastasius mention is made of the Barsanuphians, whose sect failed entirely about the beginning of the ninth century, under Mark the Jacobite patriarch of Alexandria, under whom they returned to the Jacobite Church with their bishops: just as is reported by Elmakin in book 2 of the *History of the Saracens*, p. 122, and in the *Chronicle of the Patriarchs of Alexandria*, which Abraham Ecchellensis published in Latin. That this Anastasius lived plainly after the year of Christ 647, in which year the island of Cyprus was captured by the Saracens in the seventh year of the emperor Constans, is certain. I might have inferred that he was Cypriot from the response to question 96, but many things here and there show that he lived for the most part in Palestine. But Athanasius, who answered the questions of Antiochus, is surnamed *Psilos*, the Exiguous, in the Caesarean codex 503, in which question 69 with its response is held, with this inscription: Αθανασίου Ψιλοῦ ἑρμηνεία, Athanasius the Exiguous's interpretation. ^D Wherefore Lambeck, when he recognized that the history of the image of the crucified one of Berytus, which had been attributed by bolder scribes to the great Athanasius of Alexandria, was first praised or alleged by the seventh council, pronounced with no light conjecture that this also should be restored to our Athanasius the Exiguous, or, as he says, the Younger, in many places. Moreover, learned men have recognized that the Questions and Responses which Gretser published are not all of one author. Gentianus Hervetus in the first edition published only 93 questions, inscribed with the name of Anastasius of Nicaea: by which name they are also distinguished in the Barocian codex of the Bodleian library, n. 206; in the Royal codices as those of Anastasius the monk; in the Colbertine 1450, as simply of Anastasius. But the author of these often signifies that he is more recent than the emperor Phocas; so that all were written in the seventh century, and thereafter, by various authors, as they may have been.

CHAPTER LVIII. On habit and privation.

^A Habit is called the act of the thing had and of the one who has it: for example, of weapons and of an armed man, or of the wearer and the garment. Secondly, regarding adventitious acts that are durable, whether these are natural or belong to the soul; natural, namely, like heat in those things which are being warmed; of the soul, however, like knowledge. Third, that which one does not yet possess, but is so disposed that it can possess it; which is indeed the first meaning of that which is in potentiality. Fourth, a natural quality, that is, a natural habit; as the heat of fire, or the sight of one who is asleep, which is the second meaning of that which is in potentiality (for although fire can burn, it does not burn in act), but the first meaning of that which is in act. Fifth, as the perfect act: as vision in the act of seeing, and heat which is already warming. To these is opposed privation. Privation is strictly a negation. Privation is the casting off of a habit. ^B Therefore it is opposed to the first meaning of habit, which is the privation of weapons or clothing. Secondly, to the casting off of adventitious habits; as when that which has been warmed grows cold. Thirdly, to that which is in no way disposed to have the genus of the thing; as we say that an infant is by nature disposed toward music, but a fig tree is not. The fig tree, therefore, is in a state of privation, because since it is a genus of plant it is not apt to receive music: this also holds place when the genus of the thing has an aptitude, but certain species do not: for example, an animal is apt for seeing; and yet the mole, which is a species of animal, lacks the aptitude for seeing. Fourth, the casting off of the power which is according to habit. Fifth, the casting off of the final and perfective act: which we have called above the contrary opposition that occurs through privation and habit; that is, of the power, both efficient and passive. ^C This, furthermore, is marked by these three notes: that it be something which by nature is disposed to have it, but is completely deprived of it; and both where it is disposed to have it, and where it is by nature disposed to have it: as for example...

what is first, is so in as many ways as what is subsequent. Furthermore, what is first and what is subsequent, as well as what is greater and what is lesser, are not among those things which are equivocal, but among those things which are from one source. [S] CAP. LX. On "together." The ways in which some things are "together." Those things are said to be "together" properly, the generation of which is in the same time; as when two people were born at the same moment. And this first manner of meaning is opposed to the first of those things mentioned [in the previous chapter]. Secondly, those things are said to be "together" which coexist with one another, yet so that neither is the cause of the other, nor does the one receive its being from the other; as the double and the half. For they coexist together, and mutually imply one another, and are likewise destroyed together. This manner furthermore stands opposed to the second and fifth manners of the prior mentioned. For in the second, they do not imply one another, nor are they destroyed together; whereas in the fifth, one is the cause, and the other has proceeded from the cause. Thirdly, those things are said to be "together" which are species of an opposite; these are called species divided by opposition, which have descended from the same division; as, for example, the rational and the irrational, from the animal. This manner stands opposed to the first, and to the second, and indeed to almost all three others. [T] CAP. LXI. On motion. What motion is. In which predicaments it exists. Six motions regarding place. Motion is the act of that which is in potentiality, in so far as it is in potentiality; for example, bronze is potentially a statue. For the bronze is able to receive the form of the statue. Therefore, the act of the bronze, which is potentially a statue, consists in being dissolved, and formed, and polished; all of which are motions. Therefore, in all those predicaments in which that which is in potentiality is considered, in those same [predicaments] motion will also be considered. Conversely, in those where that which is in potentiality is not considered, neither will motion be considered. It is considered, then, in substance, in quantity, in quality, and in the predicament of place. Namely, in substance, generation and destruction; in quantity, accretion and diminution; in quality, alteration; in the predicament of place, that which is moved in a circle (which is indeed called rotation), and likewise being moved in a straight line, which is called linear motion. Furthermore, there are six modes of that motion which is in a straight line: above, below, within, without, to the right, and to the left. Wherefore, with circulation added, there are seven local motions. For whatever is changed, is changed either by itself, or by those things which are in it, or by something of those things which are around it; and if by itself, it produces generation and destruction. But if from those things which are in it, or according to quantity, it produces; one part is the cause, while the other was the result. [V] NOTE. Motion is an act. Act: The act of specification is... [the definition]. The act is, that is to say, effect. The act: Aristotle calls this aptitude; aptitude is indeed an act in potentiality, an apti...

tude is indeed an act in potentiality; and rest is, of course, the contrary, such as habit and privation; but the opposite motion is properly contrary, as refrigeration is to heating. ^A

CHAP. LXII. Concerning "To Have."

"To have" is said in eight ways. For it is either as a habit or disposition, or some other quality; for we are said to have knowledge and virtue. Or as a quantity: for a piece of wood is said to have three cubits of magnitude. Or as substance about a substance; which is indeed the most universal genus. This furthermore is either around the whole body, as a garment: or around some part, as a ring on a finger. Or as a part in a whole; for we are said to have a hand. Or as in a vessel; as a jar is said to have wine. Or as a possession; for we are said to have a house, or a field. Moreover, we are said to have a wife, and the wife is likewise said to have a husband. But this way seems to be alien to "to have," since it admits of conversion. For it does not mean that the husband has the wife more than the wife has the husband. ^B For neither does one surpass the other; but they possess each other equally and without distinction. Although, however, a possessor may also be said to have a property, and in turn the property to have the possessor, and these convert between themselves; yet it is not so as in the case of husband and wife. For every right and dominion over the property competes to the possessor; and for that reason, the possessor is said to have, but the property to be had. But this is not in the least doubtful, that "to have" is to be counted among equivocal terms. ^C Some, furthermore, say that there are as many differences of that which is "to have" as there are of that which is "to act" and "to be acted upon." For just as those things which act and are acted upon are either animate or inanimate: in the same way here also, either that which has and that which is had is animate, or it is inanimate. By what reason, therefore, will the differences of different genera be the same? But it is possible to answer that "to have" is either about the whole body, or about a part. And this again is either for protection or for ornament. ^D

CHAP. LXIII. Concerning enunciation, affirmation, and negation.

Affirmation and negation. The one of contradictories is true. It should be known that both affirmation and negation are an enunciation. And an affirmation is indeed that which signifies what pertains to something, that is, what something is; as "Socrates is wise": "Socrates walks." A negation, however, is that which shows what does not pertain to something, that is, what someone is not: as, "this man is not wise"; "that man does not walk." Since, however, a negation is opposed to every affirmation, and an affirmation to every negation; that which is opposed to the affirmation, and the affirmation which is opposed to the negation, is called a contradiction. Furthermore, it is necessary that one be false and the other true.

CHAP. LXIV. Concerning the term, and the proposition, and the syllogism.

Demonstration of the logical office. What a term is.

of Theodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia were followers, and they would not admit the Council of Chalcedon except for the part where it affirmed two natures subsisting in Christ, and they boasted that their Theodore’s doctrine agreed with its definitions. Of all these, I have Leontius of Byzantium as a witness, in his book *On the Nefarious and Infamous Impiety of the Nestorians*, who in his preface says this: "This person has a complaint against those who feign the holy and ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, while holding the views of Nestorius." This speech refers to those who pretend to admit the great and ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, but truly hold the doctrine of Nestorius. Again, chapter 1: "But even that great and populous council, and instead of another, they propose [it] to the simpler ones, not holding the view consistent with it." To the simple, moreover, as it occurs, they proffer that great and most numerous council, while not following its meaning. Interjecting some things, he subjoins: "For these [people], having observed day by day the things directed against their godless doctrines and against the prime author of their impiety, by the faithful increase a deserved hatred, as if thinking some bitter thing against their life is in store. For in writing they say, 'Away with Nestorius for us,' but regarding doctrines, they hold him, and the one born of him, as their father." For they, considering that in the faithful the unrighteous hatred against their impious dogmas and the first author of their impiety grows day by day, have devised something destructive against their own life. For as if on stage and in a mask, "Farewell to us, Nestorius." But he is a parent to us who was a parent to his, namely Theodore. Accordingly, these are those whom Facundus of Hermiane ^A considers to be Catholics, to whom it seemed that one should not say "one of the Trinity suffered for us," but rather "one of the Trinity is a person." Who, I say, while communicating, thought that we ought not to accept this confession also—whereby we truly and properly call the blessed Mary Mother of God, since they confessed Nestorius, and for that reason he who denied her to be Mother of God ought to have been condemned. For he did not think that they were truly Nestorians, but disciples of Theodore, for whose honor he strove to write. Anastasius Sinaita testifies to the same thing in chapter 4 of his *Guide*.

Because of this fraud of the Nestorians, the fifth council was celebrated, as is declared in the fifth and sixth canons: "If anyone understands the one hypostasis, the subsistence of our Lord Jesus Christ, as though it meant the hypostases of many, and attempts to introduce into the mystery of Christ two hypostases or two persons, and introduces a one-person [concept] according to dignity, honor, and adoration, as Theodore and Nestorius said, ^B and slanders the holy Council in Chalcedon, and slanders the holy Council of Chalcedon as if it used the term of 'one hypostasis' according to this impious understanding," etc., let him be anathema. And again: "If anyone abusively and not truly calls the holy, glorious, ever-virgin Mary the Mother of God, or *kata anaforan*, according to relationship—referring, as they say, the birth of the human to God the Word, on the grounds that He was with the human being who was being born—and slanders the holy Council in Chalcedon, and slanders the holy Council of Chalcedon for calling the Virgin 'Theotokos' according to that impious notion which Theodore devised... and does not confess her properly and truly to be the Mother of God, and thus piously that the holy Council of Chalcedon confessed her to be such, let such [a person] be anathema."

Yet those guilty of such simulation were the Acoemetae monks, whose oblique sense, as I was saying a little while ago, had not long before been recognized by Pope John II, when they importunately insisted that this proposition of the Scythian monks, "One of the Trinity suffered," be proscribed by the Apostolic See. Wherefore, in the tenth canon of the aforementioned council, anathema was again pronounced upon those who do not confess the Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified in the flesh, to be the true God and Lord of glory, ^C "and one of the holy Trinity." From this, I conjecture that no others besides the Acoemetae monks—whose monastery Cnapheus had once presided over, and whom he had been forced to leave because of his crimes—forged those letters which I mentioned, marked with the names of Felix and other bishops. For they could not be ascribed to other Nestorians, who were equally enemies of the Council of Chalcedon and the Council of Ephesus, among whose principals was that John Aegae, whom, as Leontius of Byzantium [(b)] relates, Facundus of Hermiane [(c)] also reports to have dipped his pen against the Council of Chalcedon, as if it were entirely Cyrillian, and to have condemned the letter of Ibas to Maris the Persian and Theodore of Mopsuestia. My other suspicion also exists, and perhaps it is not vain, that the excerpted letters were from the *Ecclesiastical History* of Basil of Cilicia, presbyter of Antioch, which Photius, codex 42, relates to have encompassed the events from the reign of Marcian to the beginnings of Justin I: but [written] in an altogether disjointed style, which would bring weariness because of the letters of various bishops with which it was interwoven. Photius, in codex 107, relates that this Basil was addicted more to the Nestorian dogma than to Nestorius himself, while in the meantime he venerated Diodorus and Theodore as Fathers: "Being sick with the heresy of Nestorius, he does not claim Nestorius, but inscribes Diodorus and Theodore as fathers." Indeed, he does not even [desist] from thus shamelessly blaspheming the person of the divinely inspired Cyril: [for he does not] so cast aside shame as to openly load Cyril with insults: nevertheless, in those things which he wrote against John Scythopolita, the twelfth anathematism of Cyril against ^D

^A Nestorius was handled as if he were introducing the passion of God, ὅ εἰσάγει θεοπάθειαν. Naturally, because the canons of Cyril, which Eutyches had abused, had not been approved by the special decree of the Council of Chalcedon, Basil considered them either as completely ruined [LIX], or as antiquated, such that it was lawful for him to impugn them. But the Fifth Synod, in order to restrain the perversity of the Nestorian fakers, not only admitted in the sixth session the synodal letter of Cyril with the anathematisms annexed to it, but also proscribed the letter of Ibas to Maris for the very reason that the latter had called the twelve chapters of Saint Cyril impious and contrary to the true faith, and subsequently subjected it and its defenders to anathema, as well as those who say it is right, or any part of it, and presume to defend it, or the impiety inserted into it, in the name of the holy Fathers, ἢ τῆς ἁγίας ἐν Χαλκηδόνι συνόδου, that is, of the holy Council of Chalcedon.

Although I think I have demonstrated that those letters to Fullo are forged, the objection which can be taken from the *Laudatio* of Alexander the Cypriot monk on Saint Barnabas must nevertheless be solved. The author relates briefly, in essence, that Peter Cnapheus, having left the monastery of the Acoemetae, first betook himself to Chalcedon, then subsequently to Antioch, whose see he attempted to seize by courting the benevolence of Zeno the patrician count, but was prevented from accomplishing the deed by the Catholic Emperor Leo. When Zeno had succeeded him, having become master of the Antiochian Church through invasion of his vows, he immediately pronounced anathema against the Council of Chalcedon and adulterated the Trisagion hymn. When the bishops learned of this latter point, they rose up bravely against his ^B *kakodoxia* or evil opinion; καὶ πρῶτον μὲν ἐπειράθησαν διὰ παραινετικῶν γραμμάτων ἀνακαλέσασθαι αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ βαράθρου τῆς ἀσεβειας, and by hortatory letters they attempted to recall him from the abyss of impiety; but when they saw him resisting and refractory against the orthodox faith, they passed sentence against him, and all bishops throughout the world sounded the anathema. Then he narrates in a few words that, under Patriarch Proclus, while the citizens of Constantinople were holding sacred supplications in broad daylight, the holy hymn was delivered three times by angels. He adds that Peter, once proscribed by the bishops, Zeno being deposed by the tyrant Basiliscus, hastened his flight to unknown places: however, Zeno having recovered the empire, being searched for and immediately found, restored Cnapheus to the Antiochian Church, having expelled and sent into the Oasis the legitimate prelate, a pupil of the sincere faith, Calendion. This is what Alexander says, whom it is hardly possible to deny understood the other letters of the bishops to Fullo concerning the interpolated Trisagion, besides those which are now in question. Furthermore, men of most distinguished erudition make him a contemporary or nearly so of Zeno; because, they say, he inveighs against the clause introduced by Fullo as if it were a novelty newly devised. But the whole narrative of this author which I have just recounted is so ^C contrary to the monuments of ecclesiastical history and the testimonies of approved authors which I have already brought forward and set forth, that I do not hesitate to affirm that it was written by an author far more recent than the events described. Indeed, it is certain that the Antiochian see was snatched away from Martyrius the patriarch by Peter under Leo, which he nevertheless held for a few months. This deed was not the work of Zeno, but of the Caesar who was the son of the patrician Aspar and who had married Leontia, Leo’s daughter: the learned Pagi contends and proves this was committed by him, in his notes to Baronius for the year 471. And truly indeed: for by no means was he restored by Zeno, as Alexander fashioned for himself, when he had succeeded Leo II, but by Basiliscus, by whom Zeno had been deposed: and, Basiliscus having been reduced to order, Peter was again expelled by Zeno, who did not feel Zeno’s favor, so as to recover the Antiochian see a third time, until he had been deprived of communion and rank by Felix the Roman. Moreover, that Baronius and others say that the interpolation introduced into the Trisagion hymn is called by Alexander a novelty newly devised, is their error, into which they fell due to the negligence of the Latin interpreter. For those words, καινοτομίαν κακίστην ἐπενόησεν, signify nothing else than that Peter devised a most evil novelty. Which any writer of any subsequent age, even the eighteenth century, would have pronounced in the same way concerning the older dogmas of the heretics. Alexander the Cypriot, therefore, is not a writer of the fifth century, not a contemporary of the Emperor Zeno, but of a later age; so that by his testimony neither the sincerity of those letters to Fullo, nor the historical truth of the Trisagion canticle delivered to the child can be firmly established. Combefis conjectures that this Alexander is the one whose homily on the Cross exists, and whom he judges to be earlier than the Emperor Heraclius. Nothing prevents him from having lived while the sixth century was passing away, and thus he was more recent than Basil the Cilician. Indeed, in the same age Cyril, the Scythopolitan monk, was writing the *Life of Saint Sabas*, as well as that of Saint Cyriacus; naturally, as he himself testifies toward the end of both works, after the celebration of the Fifth General Council. This author, in the ^D *Life of Saint Sabas*, no. 32, narrates in the same way that Cnapheus διὰ τοῦ πάπα Φήλικος ἀναθεματισθῆναι διὰ τὴν ἑτεροδοξίαν, καὶ τὴν εἰρημένην ἐν τῷ Τρισαγίῳ προσθήκην, was struck with anathema by Pope Felix on account of his heterodoxy and the aforementioned addition to the Trisagion; which indeed Cyril, just like Alexander, called *kainotomia*, or innovation, shortly before. But by this testimony of Cyril, as well as that of Alexander, it is only proven that those letters of which we have spoken had already been forged before the middle of the sixth century; and that absolutely nothing prevents us from ascribing them to Acoemetae authors or their partners in error, and believing them to have been recited by Basil the Cilician in his history. Furthermore, it will not be out of place to observe here that Evagrius Scholasticus, a man who was entirely Catholic and a tenacious adherent of the right faith, nowhere introduces even a mention of them in his church history.

^A As far as the histories of Basil of Cilicia are concerned, however, he—as I have said—was a presbyter of the Church of Antioch; yet he cites other writers whom he had read, who are not few. Indeed, it may be gathered from the preface of Nicephorus Callistus to his History that in his age, that is, the fourteenth century, copies of those annals of Basil were still in existence.

II. *Concerning the Exposition of the Faith, which is extant among the works of Saint Justin.*—Since it has now been shown that all the letters concerning which I had proposed to pass judgment were fabricated by the defenders of the Nestorian factions, I have decided—setting aside the conjecture of certain critics who opined that the Exposition of the Faith which is extant among the works of Justin Martyr could be ascribed to that Justin, Bishop of Sicily—nevertheless to inquire what the genuine faith of that author was, concerning the mystery of the incarnate Word, whom we find cited by John of Damascus, Leontius, and other Fathers.

In my short annotations to the book of John of Damascus against the Jacobites, I referred to it as being of more recent origin, from the time of the rise of the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches: a point which scholars have acknowledged, because the author argues against heretics not unlike the Eutychians; and while he professes that the Son is one, he maintains that there are two natures in Him, and accuses his adversaries of being the introducers of a mixture and confusion, as if they taught that the Word was in one way turned into flesh, and in another that the flesh had been turned into the substance of the Word, "sometimes," he says, "the Word is turned into flesh, and sometimes the flesh is substantiated into the Word." Furthermore, he often repeats that the mode of the union of both natures is unknown and abstruse. For he does not suggest that the example of the union of soul with body applies in all respects, which some used to bring forward, but only in a certain degree: which he explains in no other way than that in which Theodore of Mopsuestia is cited by Facundus Hermianensis: namely, that just as one man has two distinct natures, one of which thinks and reasons, while the other carries out what has been thought, so there is one Son, possessing two natures, one of which performs miracles, while the other admits to humble things. For he holds that He worked miracles inasmuch as He is God from the Father; but inasmuch as He is man from the Virgin, He endured suffering and other similar things. And he thinks that the example holds good to this point. For he says that no third thing arises out of the deity and humanity, as happens in a man, who is a third thing besides the body and soul after their union; since neither the body is man, nor is the soul man; but he says that Christ is nothing else besides both natures, ^B *being no other than the two*. Furthermore, that the soul is affected by grief while the body is suffering, or indeed often while it is not yet suffering; but that it would be of extreme insanity to subject the deity to sufferings. But this was the coloring of the Nestorians, from whose gathering this Justin, who assumed a false name, came.

The author of the Exposition is a Nestorian. For since he repeatedly retreats from declaring to us the mode of the union of both natures, divine and human, as if it were an arcane and hidden thing, he nevertheless expresses no other mode everywhere, but that which consists in the mere indwelling of the Word in the man Christ, as in a temple. At the beginning of the second part of his Exposition, he says that the Word fashioned for Himself a proper temple, a perfect man, and that He bound a portion of our nature into the substance of His temple; but then, by undergoing that through the highest union, He came forth as the Son of God according to both natures. From that time forth, indeed, the Son is both God and man. From that time on, it came about that the Son was both God and man, who, performing the dispensation of our affairs, repaired the fall of Adam: who, after a life, as far as he was a man, instituted blamelessly, sustained death of his own accord, suppressing and destroying our depravity through the most exact rule of life; but inasmuch as He is God, raising up the temple which was broken. Whence he concludes that the Son is one, both He who was broken and He who raised up what was broken. With which final words he indeed quite clearly posits two sons, who nevertheless are or are said to be one Son: in which sense, namely, Theodore in the creed which was read and prescribed in the Synod of Ephesus, act 6, and in the fifth general, coll. 4, confessed one Son: "We do not say two sons, nor two lords." ^C Neither two sons, nor two lords do we say, because there is only one Son by essence, namely God the Word, the only-begotten Son of the Father, who, being conjoined to this one and partaking of divinity, shares in the appellation and honor of the Son, to whom this one, joined and made a partaker of divinity, is a sharer also of the name of Son and of honor. Whence, although according to the blessed Paul we are called many sons, he alone has this pre-eminence, because of the society and conjunction with God the Word, partaking of both sonship and lordship, he removes every notion of a plurality of sons and lords, and by participating in sonship and lordship, he takes away every thought of a duality of Sons and Lords. I add no more containing what follows, being entirely similar to these; nor do I repeat other things which occur both in the acts of the aforesaid fifth synod and in Leontius the Byzantine, lest I appear to be doing what has already been done many times. These are the voices of a certain Nestorian, or rather of Theodore himself or even Diodore, which Cyril cites at the beginning of dialog 8 *Ad Hermiam*, *the one indeed by nature and truly the Son* of his divine person, he removed for the sake of his supreme dignity.

^A

The Word [is] from God the Father: but the other [is Son] homonymously with the Son. For this one, indeed, is naturally and truly Son, the Word from God the Father: this one, however, is Son by the same naming as the Son.

The author of the *Exposition* judges that the Word was joined to the flesh through complacence. The persona of Justinus [i.e., Justinian] constantly inculcates no point more than this, nor strives to establish anything more, than that indwelling of the Word of God in human nature as in a temple; which, although Catholics have repeatedly said it, nevertheless certainly became a specimen of the Nestorian error. Wherefore, having suppressed the union which the Theologian had once termed *substantial* (οὐσιώδη), Cyril *natural* (φυσικήν)—or, as our people speak, *real*—and *according to hypostasis* (καθ' ὑπόστασιν), while others, whom the Fifth Synod in canon 4 similarly approves, [call it] *according to composition* (κατὰ σύνθεσιν): he signifies that he acknowledges no other [union] than that which Cyril in his synodical letter to Nestorius and in the eleventh anathema had proscribed as recently introduced and impious, whereby the dignity of divine nature was communicated to human nature on account of the good and favorable will and complacence of the Word of God. For if, he says, the body remained (for God is not a body) and *partook of divine dignity, but not of nature, by the complacence of the Word*, it was clearly a partaker of divine dignity, not of nature, through the complacence of the Word. Saint Maximus in his book *On the Two Wills* brings forward a passage of Theodore from book XI *On Miracles* (εἰς τὰ θαύματα), in which he said that the Savior showed the leper one will, one operation, proceeding according to one and the same [LXI] power, *not, I say, of nature, but of complacence* (οὐ λέγω φύσεως, ἀλλ' εὐδοκίας), I mean, not of nature, but of complacence. But more on this conjunction by complacence follows immediately from Theodore. To the adversaries who inquire by what special manner God, who is present to all things *according to essence* (κατ' οὐσίαν), is present in Him above other temples, the author of the *Exposition of the Faith* offers the example of the sun, whose light, although it is poured out everywhere, is not perceived equally by all, but differently by different people according as their eyes are affected: and thus, the temple which the Word of God built for Himself, having received the whole radiance of divinity, because it was formed by the Holy Spirit and separated from sin. And yet Theodore had understood the incarnation of the Word of God in no other way, ^B on account of that utterance of Paul: *In him it pleased all the fullness to dwell* (Coloss. 1, 9). For in the first place of his works, which Leontius of Byzantium cites in his book *Against the Nestorians and Eutychians*, he teaches that God, although He is present to all things by essence or substance, does not nevertheless dwell in each individually: for the indwelling of God is made by His complacence (τῇ εὐδοκίᾳ ἡ ἐνοίκησις γίνεται), and that from the complacence of God there is a different indwelling (ἡ εὐδοκία καὶ τὸν τῆς ἐνοικήσεως τρόπον ἐναλλάττει). Wherefore, in a certain singular manner, the Word dwelt in Christ, so that He might become the Son. *For thus it pleased Him to dwell* (Οὕτω γὰρ εὐδοκήσας ἐνῴκησεν), he says, *for thus He dwelt by complacence*, because by dwelling [therein], He united to Himself all that He had assumed. *And He caused him to participate with Him in the honor of which He Himself who dwells, being Son by nature, partakes* (Παρεσκεύασε δὲ αὐτὸν συμμετασχεῖν αὐτῷ τιμῆς ἧς αὐτὸς ὁ ἐνοικῶν, Υἱὸς ὢν φύσει μετέχει) — that is, He caused him to become a partaker of the honor, of which he who dwells is himself the possessor, as one who is Son by nature. Nay rather, he had established that the indwelling of the Word of God could not happen by substance, nor by operation, but by complacence alone (δῆλον οὖν ὡς εὐδοκίᾳ). I refrain from gathering many other excerpts of Theodore's works, content to add this one here, from his letter to Domnus, which I found with two others, ch. 36 of the *Collection against the Severians*. Therefore in the second place, having first exploded the union *according to essence* (κατ' οὐσίαν), when he had said that the one which is from complacence is better, he immediately adds: *For having been joined to the Word of God according to the manner of complacence (Κατὰ γὰρ τὸν τῆς εὐδοκίας τρόπον τῷ Θεῷ Λόγῳ συναφθείς), as we have said, the temple born from the very womb of the Virgin remained inseparable, having the same will and operation in all things; than which nothing is more joined* (τὴν ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτῷ ταυτοβουλίαν καὶ ταυτουργίαν ἐσχηκώς· ὧν οὐδὲν συναφέστερον). The temple, indeed, which was born from the womb of the Virgin, remained without division, copulated according to the reason of complacence to the Word of God, as we were saying, having the same will and action in all things: than which nothing is more [closely] joined. It would be pleasant to bring forward here similar statements of Nestorius, whom everyone knows to have been the disciple and pupil of Theodore, were they not very trite and common, and like those of other Nestorians. Rightly, therefore, did Theodore of Raithu write that the error of the Mopsuestian was that the Word of God in Christ, due to His eminent virtue, *by complacence dwelt* (κατ' εὐδοκίαν ἐνοικήσαντα), and by dwelling through complacence made Him a partaker of divine dignity and adoration. ^C Furthermore, Nemesius of Emesa had exploded that union *according to complacence* (κατ' εὐδοκίαν), equal to Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, in ch. 3 *On Human Nature*, when it pleased him more that it be called *natural* or *real*, as afterwards it did Cyril. *The mode of union, therefore, is not by complacence (Οὐκ εὐδοκία τοίνυν ὁ τρόπος τῆς ἑνώσεως), as it seems to certain of the famous men, but nature is the cause (ἀλλ' ἡ φύσις αἰτία).* Therefore the mode of union is not from complacence, as pleases certain illustrious men, but has nature as its cause. For he understood very well that by those things two persons, of the Word and of the man, and two sons are posited: which Gregory of Nyssa in his letter to Theophilus of Alexandria and Jerome on c. 53 of Isaiah also signified: so that from thence all might recognize that the profane meanings of Diodorus and Theodore were hateful to the sincere doctors of the Church themselves. Whence it displeased the Fathers of the Fifth Synod also that Ibas of Edessa delighted in repeating in his letter to Maris that Christ is the temple of the Word of God (ὃν ναὸν ἀποκαλεῖ). For this, as I said before, was like a symbol and sign of the Nestorians, on account of those words of the Lord,

"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19): from which, after their Theodore, they pretended that the nature of the temple was one thing, and the nature of the inhabitant in the temple another; and likewise, that the nature of the destroyed temple was one thing, and the nature of Him who raised up the destroyed temple another. Nothing is even now more familiar to the Nestorians who remain in the East than to call Christ, as a man, the temple of God.

Justinus is indeed mistaken in proclaiming this a "supreme union" (ἄκραν ἕνωσιν). But we have seen that Theodore acknowledged nothing more closely conjoined than that union according to the "complacency of indwelling," on account of the same will and action of God and man, ὧν οὐδὲν συναφέστερον (than which nothing is more conjoined). Furthermore, this unity of will and operation, by which God used the man Christ as a mere instrument, our author Justinus has not altogether disapproved: nor indeed would I affirm, as I once did, that he has repeatedly imitated this dictum of the Great Leo (a), "Each form acts in communion with the other what is proper to itself," by which, to be sure, a double action, divine and human, is signified: but he attributes action to God alone, and neither allows anything save passions to the man, so that through one nature miracles are performed, and through the other, passions are endured. For in that very place which the Catholic Monothelites have sometimes objected to more than others, I do not see that he describes a double action of Christ, but only the communication of the divine operation of the Word. The author declares the union of either nature by the example of the solar body, to which the light that was made on the first day was applied and added by God on the third day; and he adds: "Just as light, while it is one as light, has an operation inseparable from the body which received it, although by the consideration of reason one may discern the nature whose proper operation it is: so in the one Son of God, no one could separate His entire operation from the one sonship; while otherwise, from whatever nature that which is bestowed proceeds, he may know by reason." The Greek words are those which the learned reader should weigh: "And again, just as with light, in which light is one, one would not separate the operation from its body which is its receptacle, but by reason one will discern the nature whose peculiar operation it is; so in the case of the one Son of God, one would not separate every operation from the one sonship, but one would discern by reason the nature to which what is happening is proper." [LXII] Moreover, Pseudo-Justinus shows himself anxious that the terms of the Scriptures, by which both the divinity and humanity of Christ are expressed, should be distributed to each nature, κατάλληλως μέριζε ταῖς φύσεσι τὰ λεγόμενα (distributing the things said fittingly to the natures), and he reveals the same disposition as the Nestorians: namely, that by this pretext he attacks the fourth anathema of Cyril, by which nothing was vindicated save the most widely accepted "communication of idioms" (as our people call it), which he is so fond of calling an "inconsonance," τὸ τῶν φωνῶν ἀσύμφωνον (the dissonance of terms). Again, when he brings in the example of the conjunction of the solar body with light, he infers: "Just as neither the sun nor the light is called separately, but the light and the sun are called one, although the light is one and the sun is one, yet the natures are two; so too here, the Son is one, and the Lord, and Christ, and the Only-Begotten, but the natures are two," οὕτω κἀνταῦθα εἷς μὲν ὁ Υἱὸς, καὶ Κύριος, καὶ Χριστὸς, καὶ Μονογενὴς, φύσεις δὲ δύο (so likewise here, the Son is one, and the Lord, and Christ, and the Only-Begotten, but the natures are two). This smacks of the Nestorian affectation; since the men of this sect, hiding their depraved meanings with wondrous subtleties and arts, would most willingly and commonly attribute those four terms to Jesus Christ, while they would deny that He is, or ought to be called, God by nature truly, properly, simply, and absolutely. And when they conceded that the blessed Virgin was the mother of the Son, of Christ, of the Lord, of the Only-Begotten, as if by these terms the conjunction of natures were stated, they utterly denied that she was the Mother of God and of the Word properly speaking. "When it is said," Nestorius himself used to say (b), "Christ, and Jesus, and the Only-Begotten, and the Lord, this appellation signifies both of these (God and man)." Nay, in his second epistle to Cyril, he had interpreted the Nicene Creed thus: "We believe," they say (the Fathers), "in our Lord Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son." Observe how by placing Κύριος, Ἰησοῦς, Χριστὸς, καὶ Μονογενὴς, καὶ Υἱὸς (Lord, Jesus, Christ, and Only-Begotten, and Son) first, they lay the names of the Lord, Jesus, Christ, Only-Begotten, and Son as foundations common to divinity and humanity, and then build upon them the tradition of the assumed man, and of the resurrection, and of the passion. In the same way he had said in his second sermon: "In the New Testament you will nowhere find it said that God died, but that it is assigned either to the Son, or to Christ, or to the Lord." For Christ, and Son, and Lord, and Only-Begotten (thus I read, as the series of the discourse demands, and in a better sense than "in the Only-Begotten" as found in the printed editions) are accepted in the Scriptures as the signification of two natures. After having adduced various places of Scripture to this effect: "You have seen," he says, "how He is Christ and Son and Lord: when Scripture mentions the Only-Begotten, it wishes these terms to be significant at one time of the humanity, at another of the divinity, and at another of both." Alexander of Hierapolis (c) says: "Let Cyril therefore say that Christ died, that the Son suffered, that the Only-Begotten suffered: why does he add that the Word suffered?" Theodoret (d) also wrote similarly in the cause of Nestorius: "He called the assumed nature a temple, showing the difference between Him who receives and that which He assumed; because this is indeed God, but that is the temple. But Christ is one, the Lord is one, the Son is one, the same being the Only-Begotten and the Firstborn." I have observed similar locutions in the epistle to the monk Caesarius, and they are frequent in the monuments that remain of the Nestorians. Wherefore Cyril...

in his synodal letter, having first exploded that indwelling of the Word of God in man, warns that one must beware of the guile lurking under these words in the following manner: "There is then one Christ, and Son, and Lord, not as if he had a conjunction simply as with God, which he who is man has towards God by an equality of dignity, or else of authority." Therefore Christ and Son and Lord is one, not as it were a man having a conjunction simply with God through a unity of dignity or authority. For an equality of honor does not unite natures, etc. Thus, therefore, the author of this Exposition of the faith, while he frequently professes extraordinary modesty and a sincere zeal for the right faith, shows himself by the intricate ambiguities of his words to be addicted to the party of the Nestorians. ^A I deem it worthy of notice that, although the Catholics, with Proclus of Constantinople, confessed at least one hypostasis of the incarnate Word, "the one hypostasis of the Word made flesh," with the approval of the holy synod of Chalcedon, and, indeed, the Nestorians themselves repeatedly said "one person," nevertheless neither term occurs in this Exposition of the faith. Maximus, indeed, in his book *On the Two Wills*, brings forward an excerpt of a sermon by Paul the Persian, a deacon of the Nestorian sect, on the judgment, in which the heretic argued as follows: "If one nature has not come into being, Christ is not one person having one hypostasis." But if one nature has not been made, there is not one Christ of one person's hypostasis. From which he concluded further that the union was only from good pleasure, "therefore the union is by good pleasure," which is bound together by one and the same counsel and will. In what sense Nestorius, with his followers, professed "one person," is well known to theologians: and he had received it from his teacher Theodore, whom Leontius reports to have spoken thus in his eighth book *On the Incarnation*: "When we distinguish the natures, we speak of the perfect nature of the Word and a perfect person. For it is not necessary to call a person an hypostasis, but rather [to call] the nature of the person and the person itself likewise perfect; when, however, we look to the conjunction, we then say 'one person'." When we discern the two natures, we preach the nature of the Word and his perfect person. For it is not permitted to call an hypostasis lacking a person: yet we do the like [to] the perfect nature of man and his person; but when we look to the conjunction, then we pronounce [there is] one person. I omit transcribing other passages that repeat the same. ^B According to these perverse senses of Theodore, the Fathers of the fifth general council understood these words of his epistle to Maris the Persian: "Two natures, one power (or efficiency and operation), one person; which is what is, [the] Son, the Lord Jesus Christ." Two natures, one power, one person, which is one Son, Lord Jesus Christ. So, therefore, in the Exposition of the faith there are many signs and arguments of the Nestorian poison; but there is nothing of sincere and catholic doctrine. Nor does it avail to object that at least it is read in it that, after the union of the natures, the Son, namely the Word of God, is no longer separately, and the Son of man separately; but that one and the same [person] is understood as both at once, "but as one and the same, [he] will think of both," just as from a solar body and the light fixed to it, one sun and one light is conceived. For thus the Nestorians commonly used to speak, on account of the Nicene symbol, which teaches that one must believe, *One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God begotten, from the Father before all ages, incarnate, having suffered, etc.* Wherefore Nestorius, in the epistle to Cyril which I cited above, said that Christ was one and the same, God and man at once, who was to be understood as one at once impassible and passible. Alexander of Hierapolis also wrote to John of Antioch that it behoved one to believe that Christ is God and man, the same without doubt both Son of man on account of the nature which is from the seed of Abraham and David, and he himself without doubt the Lord of David according to his divinity. Nay, Theodore himself, in the symbol which was proscribed in the Ephesian synod, said: "We understand, therefore, one Son and Lord Jesus Christ, by whom all things were made, ^C indeed firstly and principally the Word of God, who according to his essence is the Son of God and Lord; but at the same time also embracing what was assumed, Jesus from Nazareth." So that, in truth, that unity might be conceived by the mind alone, but should not exist in reality. How much more, therefore, did the Acoemetae and Basilians, and other masked Nestorians, after the council of Chalcedon, which they boasted of defending, preach the same things with their lips, with the meaning of their Mopsuestian suppressed, which they wrapped in wondrous ambiguities? ^D I will here subjoin what I have noted already in another place, that before this Exposition of the faith there was prefixed by the author one or another dissertation against the Gentiles and Jews: which indeed the very first words of the Exposition clearly signify: "Having sufficiently and more than enough refuted the Jews and Gentiles." We have a fragment of the book against the Gentiles or pagans in the fifth action of the Lateran council under Martin I. Leontius also brings forward another in the end of the *Dialogue against the Aphthartodocetae* or Incorrupticolae, which the most learned man and most devoted to me, D. Johannes Ernestus Grabe, edited in Greek and Latin, volume II of the *Spicilegium* of the second century, p. 172. I do not doubt that this triple work of the pseudo-Justin is the very one whose certain fragments were also edited among the works of Saint Martin, tom. XI, p. 154, with this inscription: "Of the holy Justin philosopher and eventually martyr, from the discourse *Against Euphrasius the Sophist concerning Providence and Faith*, the beginning of which is: 'The Intemerate Word'—..." CHAPTER: Saint Justin the Philosopher and eventually martyr, from the book *Against Euphrasius the Sophist*, *On Providence and Faith*; whose beginning is, *Intemeratum verbum* (The Intemerate Word): so that the author, having overcome and demonstrated Providence in his disputations against the Gentiles and Jews, subjoined an Exposition of the faith concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation as an appendix. But there are three parts of this exposition. The first is concerning the Trinity: in the second, the mystery of the incarnation is narrated, and it begins from these words, page 381, A.: "Thus also concerning the blessed..."

and the correct profession of faith having been set forth. But since we have sufficiently, according to our ability, exposed our profession of faith, etc.

FIFTH DISSERTATION

Concerning the oration titled: "On those who have fallen asleep in faith," and concerning purgatory according to the sense of the Oriental Church.

I. The common opinion of the Greeks is that the oration, "On those who have fallen asleep in faith," is a product of John of Damascus. ^A Thus do Philip the Solitary, a writer of the eleventh century, in his *Dioptra*, Zonaras, Glycas passim in his epistles, Theodore Balsamon in the 4th canon of the apostles, and other Greeks of a later age, hold and affirm; in whose ecclesiastical books it is read with the name of our author prefixed to it. Arcudius, in his book *On Purgatory* against Barlaam, hesitated, being uncertain what judgment to render concerning it. But Allatius, in his diatribe *On the Writings of John of Damascus*, willingly confesses that this work was attributed to him: a fact which he himself had already asserted in his second dissertation on the ecclesiastical books of the Greeks. But because Combesis, in his *Bibliotheca Concionatoria* on the second of November, where he edited that oration in Latin just as he did others, seems to disagree with him, it is helpful to recite his preface in its entirety here.

II. I hesitated for a while in my mind as to whether I should represent this oration, or book, in this place. A conjecture had long ago taken root (indeed, it is but a conjecture) that the author was later than the Damascene, and one who lived, and attributed this product of his own to him, about the time of the emperors Theodora and her son Michael; since at that time there was a struggle for the sake of the pious Augusta, so that Theophilus her husband, who had died, might be released from his punishments through the entreaties of the saints and confessors, he who was otherwise by no means evil, and most tenacious of what is right and just: demented only in this one thing, that he proscribed sacred images and visited their worshippers with dire tortures and death. The very composition of iambics, as though thrown together haphazardly in a most serious matter, also displeased, for in things which appear under his meter, the Damascene is more accurate. ^B Leo Allatius, in his diatribe *On the Writings of John of Damascus*, having discussed many of the reasons for which they think this work should be denied to the Damascene—because it does not sufficiently agree with his books on the faith in its doctrine, relies much upon the history of the Maccabees, whose canonical faith he does not acknowledge in those books, and introduces the fables of the liberated infidels Falconilla and Trajan, and the skull of Macarius—all of which, however, the Greeks have inserted into their ritual books, whether this author preceded them or they themselves [did]. Having discussed and in part solved these reasons, I say, he decides that it is in vain to inquire whether it is the product of the Damascene in an uncertain matter. Yet, bringing forward what he had edited, in his more severe censure during his examination of the Greek ecclesiastical books, in which he perhaps excessively disparages the author and the work, when Greece has looked up to such great lights, and the orthodox themselves have piously venerated [it], and in no controversy among them is it read as having been written in the most ancient books everywhere, nor is it marked anywhere, as other apocryphal books are wont to be; and I myself have read and noted it in ancient codices. The Latins also have for the third (or rather, fourth) time rendered it and dedicated it to men of the highest standing, and have not held it entirely badly. The very subject matter itself, the iambics, as if a dirge or monody, could shake [one's confidence], because the Greeks more easily indulge themselves in their epigrams, and think that they are not acting as knaves, but are inclining their style to affection and sorrow as the occasion demands. ^C It came to mind that Michael the Syncellus, who himself relies much upon the Maccabaean [histories] in that most ample oration on the holy angels, which I represent again on the feast of St. Michael. But perhaps the style does not suit him either. Allatius's saliva, subtler than mine, so that I do not detect as many faults as he: nor does the oration, gaping and rising rashly (unless perhaps when [it uses] the words of Dionysius), [become] a thing that coheres or concludes nothing. I also noticed that many flaws had been added by interpreters who were badly officious, and among them Billius, a man otherwise most learned, and as far as I was able, I removed them, and in some places I also noted [them]. Nor is the file superfluous in casting the other Latin [versions] of the Damascene, and the collation of the copies, of which Billius, whom I also think to have served his apprenticeship more in the Damascene, was almost entirely destitute. Would that those things of Allatius might be supplied to his labors, sent from Rome, aids namely for the publishing of the books of a man of such great scholastic works; and would that either Aubert had carried out the matter, or those who had the mind for it, with the illustrious and most reverend archbishop of Toulouse, Charles de Montchal, prompting [it], and the bookseller offering the expenses, he would not have begrudged it. Nor by their shipwreck or suppression (whoever's [fault] that might finally be) would the literary and sacred cause have suffered so great a loss. ^D

III. The judgment of Leo Allatius is preferred, and is confirmed

by the observations I made in the forewarnings to that edition. Moreover, this author, whoever he may eventually be, can be freed from the suspicion of error on account of what Saint Thomas [(c)] wrote in his defense, to which other theologians also gave their assent, especially those who, by order of the Council of Basel, examined the revelations of blessed Bridget; for in these examinations, the exemption of Trajan from the infernal regions is likewise affirmed.

IV. Concerning certain opinions of the author of the letter. Regarding the tales of the liberation of Trajan and Falconilla, the author adds in the [following] iambics that many were liberated by Christ when He descended to the underworld, not only from among the Hebrews but also from among the Gentiles, who believed in Him when He preached to them. But he says that he does not write this [ἀποφαντικῶς] (dogmatically), but [συλλογιστικῶς] (syllogistically), [διὰ τὸ φιλάδελφον] (for the sake of brotherly love), out of mere conjecture and the affection of charity, and also for the sake of the opinion of certain pious Fathers. But whom, I pray, does the author consider to have been snatched from the underworld by Christ? Doubtless, not those who had departed from this life conscious of idolatry or other crimes—these he denies in explicit words to have been affected by such a benefit; but rather those who, although they did not have a perfect or, as they say, explicit faith, through no one teaching them, yet in the sincere worship of the one God and in purity of life, not without His singular gift and grace, excelled. Of these, he says, some recognized the mystery of the Trinity in a certain way, while others foretold the incarnation and deeds of Christ. He points, indeed, to the Sibyls, Trismegistus, Hydaspes, and others, whose names were used for the various works of Gnostics and Montanists, which some of the Fathers often praised in good faith as genuine. He believes all such to have been instructed with the gift of faith, which the Apostle explains in these few words: "For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to those who seek Him" [*]. And I would by no means deny that such men sometimes existed among the Gentiles. For the hand of the Lord is not shortened [LXVI], so that He has not saved certain chosen ones in every land; of which kind were Job and his friends, Naaman the Syrian, and others. Saint Thomas [(d)] freely and explicitly concedes this fact. Far be it from me, however, to assert that Socrates and other philosophers, whom Justin Martyr celebrates in his First Apology as worshippers of the true religion, were deemed worthy of this grace. For since their morals did not accord with the right doctrine they had received concerning God, the Apostle relates in chapter 1 of the Epistle to the Romans that they were most lost and delivered over to a reprobate mind. I have stated in the annotations to the twenty-ninth book of *De fide orthodoxa* what the Greek Fathers thought concerning Christ's descent into the underworld, his preaching in those places, and concerning those who from him were...

they have been delivered. Here, I will not omit to mention that in the Questions which Gretser edited under the name of Anastasius of Sinai, it is asserted (a) that Christ did indeed lead out from the underworld those who listened to him preach and believed, among whom—the text relates, following I know not what vision of some scholastic—was Plato; but that no one whatsoever has been delivered from there since that time. By this, at least, the error of certain more recent Greeks is eliminated, who claim that the souls of sinners, whom hell holds because they refused to do penance, are nevertheless snatched away again and again by the prayers of the faithful. The patrons of this opinion are said by Allatius to be, above all, the corrupters of the Triodion, Glycas, Gabriel of Philadelphia, and George Coresius, whose testimonies he cites in *Dissert. 2 de lib. Eccl. Græc.*, where he further praises various writers who refuted such profane trifles, no different from the Origenist ones.

V. Furthermore, in the very title of the discourse with which we are now dealing, the author’s intention is declared; namely, that the souls of the faithful departed are relieved by masses, prayers, almsgivings, and other works of the living. Innumerable monuments from both ancient and modern times are available to us, by which it is confirmed that this has been the perpetual faith of both the Eastern and Western Church. Before the collation held at Constantinople in the year 1252, which Stevartius published in his *Collectanea*, I have not found any dispute among the pupils of either Church concerning purgatory. But when those of our own side who were among the Greeks noticed that nothing was being taught by them concerning the fire by which souls are purified for some time after death—for they were indulging in the hackneyed dogmas of the schools—they did not hesitate to charge them with error on this head as well. Hence it happened that, in turn, the schismatics, having heard the opinion of the Latins concerning purgatorial fire, cast upon them the charge of the revived Origenist heresy. There is certainly nothing to be found among the Greeks by which a species of punishment, and especially the purgatorial fire of the Latins by which souls are cleansed, is defined or designated; but the Council of Florence did not define either, nor indeed did the Council of Trent, which forbade anyone to teach or preach on this head anything other than what is explicitly stated in Scripture and by the Fathers. On which matter one should read first and foremost the little book, clearly golden, of the most illustrious Bishop of Meaux, which he published in the French language on the exposition of the doctrine of the Catholic Church, lest there be attributed to the Roman Church dogmas of faith which it itself never taught must be held as faith.

VI. The doctrine of the Orientals regarding purgatory. — But it is necessary to explain what is the doctrine of the Eastern Church in this part: and to accomplish this, I choose one from many authors, Mark Eugenicus, Metropolitan of Ephesus, who held two orations at the Synod of Ferrara on this subject, in which, just as he excludes the purgatorial fire ^A of our theologians, so he also professes that the souls of the faithful are aided after death by liturgies and other pious works, when they have departed this life without having fully completed their penance for graver sins, or having not yet sufficiently expiated their lighter ones. And he relates that this was handed down by many Fathers of both Churches and confirmed by ancient custom: “That souls are delivered from cleansing punishments by such helps,” he says in his first oration, “and that such a power belongs to a temporary fire, we no longer find expressly written.” We have nowhere hitherto found it expressly written that they are delivered by such subsidies from cleansing punishments and some temporary fire which might have this power. He repeats the same in his second oration. Furthermore, in both he asserts that the souls of sinners who are consigned to eternal punishments sometimes receive a slight relaxation from the prayers of the faithful. It is in this same sense that Augustine himself, in the *Enchiridion*, ch. 110, says that supplications and sacrifices profit the departed, to those indeed who, not being very evil when they died, receive full remission, and to the very evil, so that their very condemnation may be made more tolerable. Wherefore, in chapter 112, having first exploded the error of Origen, who, whether from an insane affectation of mercy or because he believed that a rational creature could change its sentence by its own free will in whichever state it might exist, had feigned that there would be an end to torments, he nevertheless interprets this verse of Psalm LXXVI: “Shall God forget to be gracious? Or will he shut up his mercies in his anger?” (Ps. LXXVI, 10), in such a way that, if these words are thought to pertain to all the deceased, the punishments of the damned are thought to be mitigated to some extent at certain intervals of time, since it could also be understood in this way that the anger of God, that is, the condemnation itself, remains in them. For this, he says, is called the anger of God, not a perturbation of spirit: so that in his anger, that is, while his anger remains, he does not nevertheless shut up his mercies; not by giving an end to eternal punishment, but by applying relief to the torments. Augustine allows that men may suspect these things. Marcus, however, strives to prove the same by a certain passage, as he thinks, of the great Basil, from a homily which the Greeks read in the paschal office of Pentecost; in which, indeed, Christ is entreated in this manner: “In this all-perfect and saving feast, vouchsafing to receive suppliant reconciliations for those who are held in Hades, and offering great hopes that rest will be sent to them from you, and relief [from their surrounding troubles] to those who are held by the things that contain them.” ^B And even in this most solemn and salutary festival, you vouchsafe to receive propitiatory expiations for those who are kept in the inferno: and you offer great hope, that there will be granted to them a relaxation of the punishments by which they are afflicted, and a certain refreshment. To which if

Chrysostom refers in various homilies, as does Dorotheus the monk in his sermon *On Conscience*, and indeed the Nazianzen, who asserts that a sharper punishment for souls than all others is to be cast out by God; ^A *To those with the others are torments, but more so, to be cast away from God.* Hence he calls upon the various prayers of the saints, and especially those of Theophanes Graptus, in which there is no mention of souls being tormented by fire, but only of tears and groanings, *of tears and of the groanings* of those in the infernal realm. But if any fire is expressed in those same books, he knows this to be no other than that perpetual one which is prepared for the devil and the wicked, and from which the saints, in the overflowing affection of their charity and compassion, desire that the departed faithful be delivered, ^B seeking that which they know can be granted for no other reason. As an example, he introduces the prayers and *troparia* or verses of Theodore the Studite, by which it is requested that souls be snatched not from a purgatorial fire, but from perpetual misery; in the same way as we for the departed say: *Deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the hand of the infernal realm and from the deep pit, deliver them from the mouth of the lion*, and other things of that kind. For the saints are taught by the Lord to pray for all, and even for their enemies. And if it is said that such prayers are not heard, *Be it so*, says Marcus; *but we are doing everything that is within our power; yet we fulfill all that is our part.* Moreover, some of the saints, when they prayed for the impious, ^C have delivered them from eternal punishment; Gregory did this for Trajan, and Thecla for Falconilla. Others, as Maurice and Theophilus the emperors, [a story] which the excessive credulity of the Greeks invented as being snatched from the infernal realm by the prayers of holy men. Since, however, the discussion *Concerning those who have fallen asleep*, for which cause we are arguing, was especially followed (whose author he thought to be Damascene) by the history of the skull or cranium of some pagan sacrificer which is said to have conversed with the Abbot Macarius, he did not omit it. This is indeed contained in the *Apophthegmata* of the Fathers which Cotelier edited, Vol. I, *Monumenta Ecclesiastica Graeca*, p. 546; and the whole sum of this conversation is this: that even those who are in the infernal realm are at times slightly relieved and have consolation by the prayers of holy men. Furthermore, those pagans who were ignorant of God have a lighter punishment than those who, when they had known God, denied Him. When Marcus had recited these little narratives in his two sermons before the council, Emperor John took this ill, and forbade him thereafter to bring forth such fables before the Latins: which, indeed, is testified quite sincerely enough by Syropulus (b) in his *History of the Council of Florence*. For these reasons, therefore, Eugenicus concluded that for all the faithful departed, admitting no exceptions, sacrifices and prayers are offered by the Church: for the saints, indeed, not so that we might pray for them—since they now abound in good things—but that we might offer thanksgivings to God, who ^D has rewarded them for their merits: and in this way the sacrifices…

^A perform in a certain way a service for them, and pass over to them. For others, however, we pray that we might obtain a full remission, or at least some relief.

VIII. Next, he resolves the points by which our theologians used to construct the argument for purgatorial fire. From the second book of Maccabees, chapter xii, he teaches that it can only be gathered that sacrifices, prayers, and good works benefit the departed. He argues that this further oracle of Christ—"But whoever speaks a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in the age to come"—only implies that certain sins are forgiven after death, but not a remission of the kind of purgation that is effected through fire. For what is common to ^B both indulgence and purification through fire and punishment? Indeed, what does indulgence have in common with cleansing by fire and punishment? Then he opposes to himself these words of the Apostle: "If, however, anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw: the work of each one will be made manifest. For the day of the Lord will declare it, because it will be revealed in fire; and the fire will test what sort the work of each one is. If anyone’s work remains, which he built upon it, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work burns, he will suffer loss. But he himself will be saved; yet so as through fire." From these last words, Augustine (a) had gathered that some believers are saved through a certain purgatorial fire, the sooner or later, according to how little or how much they loved perishable goods. And again, Gregory had approved this on account of the same words of the Apostle. But the Ephesian, with his fellow Greeks, embraces rather the exposition of Chrysostom; namely, that the fire of which Paul speaks has the power of testing, not of purifying—it is *dokimastikon*, not *kathartikon*. Through it, indeed, good works are to pass, which do not need purification. For the day, which will be revealed in fire, will be that supreme day, after which it would be absurd to posit a purgatorial fire. Therefore, the Apostle would not have admitted any fire other than the fire of the extreme conflagration, of which it is ^C said elsewhere: "Fire will blaze in his sight," etc. "Fire will go before him." This fire, indeed, will render the saints more splendid; but it will burn the sinners and reduce all their evil will and action to nothing, so that they themselves will nonetheless remain saved; that is, it will keep them incorrupt and whole, lest they perish together with their malice, which is called straw, hay, and wood. These things, he says, are handed down by Chrysostom, who was the mouth (*stoma*) of Paul, just as Paul was the mouth of Christ (*stoma Christou*). This, indeed, has been embraced by almost all who have been subsequent to Chrysostom in the Greek Church, the more they receded from the Origenian error regarding the restoration of the universe through fire. Indeed, the Theologian had insinuated the same exposition before Chrysostom in Oration 43, where, attacking the Novatians, he said: "Perhaps there they ^D will be baptized by fire, by that final, and by far more troublesome and long-lasting baptism, which consumes the grass and the matter, and burns up the lightness of all wickedness," which the Apostle had signified by the name of straw. Therefore, Marcus says that the authorities of Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and other Latins ought to be recalled to the sense of Chrysostom. But the words of Gregory are too clear to suffer such an interpretation.

IX. But because deceased believers who were still subject to certain faults are reported to have been seen in the midst of fires, he thinks these are to be taken in a figurative sense, not a literal one. Finally, he remonstrates with the Latin theologians, because they have consulted little for the reputation of Gregory of Nyssa, by alleging a certain place of his, by which they would induce not his own, but rather Origen’s purgatorial fire: namely, the total purgation and restoration of the universe, so that demons and the impious might eventually become better and emerge as possessors of salvation. He adds that Maximus and other doctors of the Oriental Church, in order to excuse the most holy prelate, had argued either that his works in these places had been corrupted by heretics, or that he, being human, had fallen into this error before the Church had rendered a judgment on that head: which, indeed, had happened to other Fathers, for instance, to Irenaeus and to Dionysius of Alexandria. These things Marcus of Ephesus, the metropolitan, wrote in both his orations to the synod, at a time when he had not yet intended to separate himself by a perpetual schism from the Roman and Catholic Church.

X. From these things I infer many things; the first of which is that the Greeks agree with the Latins in establishing a certain place for the purification of souls after death. Both decree infernal places or even those near the earth. For although the Greeks say "only hell," yet they acknowledge that in it there are different recesses according to the merits of each. Thus, indeed, Gabriel of Philadelphia, in Allatius, in the book *On the Consent of Both Churches in the Dogma of Purgatory*, speaks in his work on the same subject (page 216): "From what has been said before, it is apparent," he says, "that there is one place in which souls are tormented, and not many: *plēn to topos houtos echei pollas kai diaphorous monas, kai polla eidē timōriōn*. Nevertheless, this place has many and various dwelling places, and many kinds of torments, which respond to the diversity of sins." Into these kinds of torments are cast the souls, both of the impious and of the heretics, in the same way as...

as the Christians who have not repented, and those Christians who are sustained by the hope of the divine liturgy, the alms, and the prayers that are offered on their behalf, so that they may receive relief and freedom from punishment, which God, moved by his tender mercy, grants by his nod ^B to mercy, as well as Christians who are sustained by hope, through the sacrifice of the Mass, and alms, and prayers, which are done for them, to receive remission and liberation from torments, when God, having pity, has inclined toward mercy. These places, furthermore, to which souls are sent so that they may pay particular penalties according to the measure of their faults, and in which they may experience the mercy and kindness of God—these places, I say, this author does not say are called Purgatory by himself, lest anyone should think that he agrees with Plato, who in the *Phaedo* says that the souls of sinners are purged, but he calls them satisfactory, or places that make one worthy: that is, a place in which souls are tormented in proportion as they are worthy of punishment, and in proportion as the mercy of God has willed. ^C Otherwise, the Greeks would, by a much stronger right, be guilty of the Origenist error, who taught that at least some souls of the departed are liberated from the very abyss of hell, in which the souls of the impious are held.

XI. The second point is that the Orientals recognize various kinds of purgation of souls, which, however, they do not define, on account of the silence of Scripture, and because nothing is established about them by tradition. The third is that both Churches have always taught with one mouth that sacrifices, prayers, vigils, alms, and other such offices of piety greatly benefit the departed, and that they are either relieved or entirely liberated by these subsidies; the fact that this has been a most certain head of Christian faith from the very [LXVIII] foundations of the Church itself is confirmed by clear and invincible testimonies of all ages.

XII. When the Ephesian had finished speaking about these things in the synod with a double discourse, as if in the name of the Oriental Church, and, as had been requested, had added an exposition of certain passages of both discourses, the Latins willingly approved of them; with the sole exception of those in which he had asserted that the punishments and torments of the damned and the impious, as well as the crowns of the blessed, are deferred until the day of judgment, and had denied that the saints could contemplate God or the divine essence. Wherefore, with no mention made of an expurgating fire, it was determined in the decree of union in the very same sense as it was later in the Council of Trent: Item, if truly penitent persons have departed in the charity of God, before they have satisfied with worthy fruits of penance for what they have committed and omitted, their souls are purged by purgatorial punishments after death; and that they may be relieved from punishments of this kind, the suffrages of the living faithful benefit them, namely, the sacrifices of masses, prayers, alms, and other offices of piety, which are accustomed to be done by the faithful for others, according to the institutions of the Church. Although it must not be omitted that the purgatorial fire, which Latin theologians defend, ^D has not been very displeasing to the more judicious Greeks. Gabriel, the schismatic bishop of Philadelphia, shortly after the words which I just cited above from his book on Purgatory, adds: "Placet mihi nihilo minus sententia nonnullorum doctorum occidentalis Ecclesiae, qui asserunt ignem hunc aeternum esse, in quem animae immissae puniuntur ad tempus, sui natura aeternum, sic a Deo factum: dici vero temporarium, non sui natura, sed ob animas, quae liberantur; propter eas autem, quae eo absque ullo fine cruciantur, aeternum et perpetuum." Lest anyone imagine that Gabriel wrote this because he was well-disposed toward the dogmas and customs of the Latin Church, and contrary to the opinion of his own Greeks, I will here add as a witness someone who, I hope, is suspected by no one, namely Mark of Ephesus, whom Syropulus narrates, having heard what Julian the cardinal had declared concerning the purgatorial fire according to the sense of the Latins, to have declared sincerely: "We heard the Roman Church think differently concerning purgatory than you have now explained it; and now we have heard it differently. For from the narrative of your reverence, I find little difference between us in this chapter." I will here briefly warn the reader that Mark and other schismatic authors, whose arguments against the purgatorial fire I have read, hold to one opinion: that after the resurrection and the final judgment, the bodies of the impious are to be tormented; and that they do not admit only a metaphorical fire there, such as our Damascene suggests here and there in his *Dialogue against the Manichaeans*, so that they might rather put faith in the more express testimonies of Chrysostom and other Greeks.

XIII. Finally, so that the faith of the Greeks concerning the souls of the faithful who are in need of purgation may be better known, I will add the response of Manuel the Rhetor to a certain Francis of the Order of Preachers, the first part of which, which concerns the state of the blessed spirits

Leo Allatius once edited in a dissertation addressed to Lord Johann von Boineburg. The latter part, which pertains to our present subject, is this: ^A *The souls of those who occupy some intermediate state, neither dying bound by mortal curses, nor entirely free from any culpability, are carried to a place which the Lord knows. But they have found, through the prayers and sacrifices of the holy Church and through almsgiving, the divine mercy from the only merciful God, and these also ascend to heaven, and thus they ascend into heaven—some more quickly, those who are already perfectly purged, and others more slowly, through the cooperation of the holy Church's sacred rites, prayers, and almsgiving, as we have said.* ^B The souls of men, indeed, who hold an intermediate place, and who have not died subject to mortal sins, nor are yet absolved from every guilt, are carried to a place which the Lord Himself knows. But having obtained divine mercy from Him who alone is a merciful God, through the supplications and sacrifices of the most holy Church, and also through almsgiving, they too proceed into heaven; and so that they might ascend into heaven—some more quickly, those, of course, who are perfectly purged, others more slowly—they contribute the sacred rites, prayers, and almsgiving of the holy Church, as we have said. That these things are consistent with the definition of the Council of Trent, no one who is of sound mind will fail to perceive.

XIV. On what days and with what rites the Greeks pray for the dead. — Regarding prayers for the dead, apart from the customary commemoration of the departed, which is recited in the holy liturgy, they spend the first day after death, the third, the ninth, and the fortieth, and finally the anniversary, pouring forth prayers for the departed and performing other pious works, just as it is reported to have been ordained in the Constitutions which are attributed to the apostles. That this rite was, at least in the middle of the sixth century, in use, is testified by Eustratius, presbyter of the Great Church of Constantinople, in a book whose title is *Refutation of those who say that the souls separated from their bodies do not work, nor are they helped by the prayers and sacrifices that are offered for them*; which Leo Allatius edited in Greek and Latin, after his treatise on Purgatory; I wish it were not mutilated at the end. Nay, Palladius, who, at the beginning of the fifth century, wrote his *Lausiac History*, mentions in Palladius the commemoration which was made on the third and fortieth day after the death of the departed. In addition to these, every year on the Saturday before the Sunday which they call τῆς ἀπόκρεω, that is to say, the Sunday of Carnival, or our Septuagesima, they hold a solemn commemoration of all the faithful: which office begins from the Vespers of the preceding Friday. They spend that whole night and the Saturday in prayer, both in the Narthex of the Church and in the cemeteries, [LXIX] as well as at the altar. They celebrate a nearly similar commemoration again on the eve of Pentecost. Also, on every Saturday, in the nocturnal office, they recite the *ve- ^C sprina* for the departed: of which custom mention is made by Damascene in his letter to Cometas ^D *On holy fasts*. On the third, ninth, and fortieth day from the death of the departed, they make an oblation of *Colyba*, the office of which Leo Allatius edited in book I, *On the Consonance of the Western and Eastern Church*, ch. 18. Indeed, our Goar narrates how this *Colyba* is produced in the *Euchologion*: The Greeks lightly boil wheat, and heaped up on platters, they sprinkle it with various fruits, such as pounded peas, hazelnuts, almonds stripped of their husks, nuts cut into small pieces, Corinthian grapes, and pomegranate seeds, in distinct circular patches and figures like rays with parsley leaves, and a heap of this kind, prepared with the aforementioned art, they call *colyba*; which indeed, whether in honor of some saint, or in memory of the souls of the departed, or when with the approaching beginning of Great Lent they renew their common prayers for the souls of the dead, they are wont to offer, placed upon the graves of relatives, to be bestowed later for the use of the priest and the ministers. The learned man omitted the measure of wine, which however Symeon of Thessalonica mentions, ch. 371. Afterward, however, Goar observes that these things are offered in imitation of the ancient Christian custom, where they placed food on the tombs of the dead to feed the poor: nay, even that the needy and the ministers of the Church were wont to be received by the rich at a more sumptuous banquet. But not even men of lower standing, he says, consider themselves exempt from a similar duty towards the dead. For they offer bread cut into long fragments, dipped in wine, to anyone passing by and not refusing to taste it; that upon receiving it, he might offer in return a prayer for their parents, having heard this desired voice: ὁ Θεὸς μακαρίσῃ τοὺς αὐτούς, that is, *May God make them blessed*. In Syria and the East, the Melkites, Jacobites, Nestorians, and Maronites celebrate the third and ninth day after death, but for the fortieth they hold the thirtieth, because the children of Israel mourned for Moses for thirty days; which custom the Latins are also said to have received from Gregory the Great.

XV. On the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem. — Since a little while ago I made mention of the book of Eustratius of Constantinople *On the souls of the departed*, it will not be out of place to note here that the author also employed the testimony of Cyril of Jerusalem from his fifth mystagogical Catechesis, to show that it was an ancient and most accepted custom to offer prayers for the faithful departed during the celebration of the divine mysteries: *Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, agrees with these things*, he says, *in the mystagogy, the beginning of which is "The love of God to man," and he says this: "Then we make mention also of those who have fallen asleep," etc.* Consistent with these are the things which Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, in the fifth mystagogy, the beginning of which is "Dei humanitas," pronounces in these words: *“Then we make a memory of those who have fallen asleep before us,”* etc. Just as, therefore, it is confirmed by the testimony of Jerome (a)

that Cyril composed these Catechetical Lectures in his youth, and that those of Theodoret and John of Damascus are but earlier than his own, or rather, the *Catecheses of the Enlightened*, for he brings forward a fragment from the fourth, and this man from the fifth (to which may be added Leontius of Byzantium in his as-yet-unpublished work against the heresies)—so it is found through Eustratius that he is the same parent of the mystagogical ones. This is furthermore testified to by the manuscript codices: the Bodleian, no. 142, and the Memmian, from which Guillaume Morel brought forth the seven *Catecheses of the Enlightened* and the five mystagogical ones; the Vatican, from which Joannes Grodecius adorned his edition; also the monastery of the Greeks of the Blessed Mary of the *Hodegetria* in Calabria, which Cardinal Sirlet states in his letter attached to the Liturgy of Saint Mark, directed to John a Sancto Andrea, a canon of the Parisian Church, he himself saw; and others from various libraries of the world. Finally, after the response of Anastasius, both in ancient manuscript codices and in the editions of Hervetus and Gretser, a fragment is read of the first mystagogical catechesis with this inscription: *Of Cyril of Jerusalem, from the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem*. Nevertheless, Simler deceived our Combefis, writing thus in his epitome of the Bibliotheca of Gesner: "In the index of books which the Augustan republic bought from Antonius, the prefect of Corfu, are named the *Catecheses of the Enlightened* of John, Bishop of Jerusalem, and five Mystagogical ones." And a man otherwise of most commendable erudition was led by this to believe, in the list of authors of the *Bibliotheca of Preaching Fathers*, that the Mystagogical ones should be taken away from Cyril of Jerusalem and attributed to John. "They appear not to be of one author," he says, "the *Catecheses of the Enlightened* and the Mystagogical ones, of which the ancients also made no mention." Simler suggests they are attributed in the Augustan manuscript to John of Jerusalem, the Enlightener—he who was Cyril’s immediate successor, a contemporary of Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustine, and of an authority not greatly inferior to Cyril’s. I was stunned by the judgment of a most famous critic who did not turn his attention to the passage I brought forward from the oration of Eustratius, which he himself, however, had edited along with others in that very same *Bibliotheca of Preaching* on the 2nd of November, adding also these words in the margin: *Cyril of Jerusalem*. But will Eustratius not be counted among the ancients, whom even Combefis himself, in his own Review of the authors of that *Bibliotheca*, acknowledged to have lived under the Emperor Justinian? This is, moreover, made plain from another passage in Eustratius's oration, where he signifies that he was joined in the closest ties of intimacy with Eutychius, the prelate of Constantinople: *“More clearly, even the great Eutychius, Archbishop of Constantinople, who is to me in all things a precious and holy head.”* I omit now that Photius made mention of Eustratius and his sermon upon the souls of the departed. It is established, therefore, that the ancients remembered both sets of the Catechetical Lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem. Furthermore, Simler was deceived by the architect of the Augustan index (this was Marcus Welser, whose catalog Possevinus added to his own *Apparatus* with others), who, having found the Catecheses of Cyril without an author’s name in a handwritten codex, imagined they should be attributed to John of Jerusalem. I have discovered that the matter is indeed so, from two other manuscript catalogs of the same library, the first of which David Hoeschel published at Augsburg most accurately in the year 1605, and the second Antonius Reiser in 1675. In the index of Hoeschel, codex 23 reads: *Catechetical instructions of the Bishop of Jerusalem*, whom I believe to be Cyril. After the inscriptions of the first nineteen catecheses, he adds: "I consider these which follow to be also by the same author, five mystagogical catecheses." Reiser, however, p. 13, has: *Institutions of John of Jerusalem for the enlightened, and mystagogical ones*. David Hoeschel ascribes them to Cyril; but he whose index of the manuscripts of this library was published first a hundred years ago, ascribes them to John, and since then Ehinger followed suit. From which, if I am not mistaken, it appears clearer than mid-day light that the author's name was either added by the librarian to the Augustan codex, or perhaps had faded away: so that some were led to attribute the Catecheses to Cyril, others to hypothesize that they were John’s.

XVI. That neither John, nor anyone else more recent than Cyril, composed the *Catecheses of the Enlightened* is proven from the sixth catechesis, where the author says that seventy years had passed since the Manichaean heresy had emerged, under the Emperor, to wit, *“who began… of late.”* *“For before all, seventy years… the error.”* Here, then, the seventieth year falls around the year of Christ 347, at which time Cyril was not yet Bishop of the Holy City, but a presbyter under Maximus the pontiff, under the reign then of Constantius, son of Constantine the Augustus. In the eleventh catechesis, where he discourses on the end of the world, he explains the scandals of his own time in such a way that he must be speaking of the matters in the Church as performed under the Emperor Constantius the Arian: "If you hear," he says, "that bishops are struggling against bishops, clerics against clerics, and peoples against peoples, even unto blood, do not be disturbed. Treachery was found among the apostles, and do you marvel if fraternal hatred is found even among bishops? But now men have truly departed from the right faith, so that some, indeed (namely, Marcellus of Ancyra after Sabellius), preach filiopaternity; others, indeed, say that Christ was produced from non-existence into being (Arius, to be sure, with his followers). Now the mystery of iniquity is at work. The wars of the nations terrify me; the schisms of the Churches terrify me; I am terrified by the hatred..."

of the brothers. Far be it that they should be fulfilled in their own time!

Moreover, it should be observed in these Catecheses, where there is a discussion concerning the Son and His eternal generation, that it is nowhere explicitly stated that He is ^A *homoousion* (consubstantial) with the Father; although he often declares the Christian faith to many, by which the meaning of this word is expressed, and the Arian impiety is shattered: where, indeed (catech. 4), he teaches that one must profess that the Lord Jesus Christ is "God from God begotten, Light from Light begotten, the one like in all things to Him who begat," not having a beginning in time, but before all ages ^B "eternally and incomprehensibly begotten of the Father" (cat. 7), and begotten in an incomprehensible manner from God the Father, who is Father by the abuse of many terms, but "by nature and truth alone the Father of the only-begotten Son" (cat. 12); so that "the perfect Father begat the perfect Son," neither deliberating, nor begetting later, but "he begat eternally" (cat. 16). And he did not beget by intervals, but he begat perpetually and eternally. For he says elsewhere, "We do not separate the Trinity as some do" (the Arians, of course, whom he avoids naming), "nor do we contract it," like Sabellius. Naturally, therefore, in the time of the Emperor Constantius, in order to avoid the error of Marcellus of Ancyra, it was not freely permitted in Palestine and in the East to affirm the Son is consubstantial with the Father. Indeed, Cyril was advanced ^C to the Jerusalem see by Acacius of Caesarea, because he was not thought to favor the Nicene faith. But afterward, until the Synod of Seleucia, he always cherished the communion of those who were called Semi-Arians, and who professed that the Son is of a substance similar to the Father's, "following," says Sozomen (a), "those who introduced the 'similar in substance to the Father' for the Son"; nor did he freely and openly confess the consubstantiality of the Word until the Emperor Theodosius the Great: when, indeed, this began to be the certain and inviolable token of the Catholics, which for that reason was handed down and explained with the greatest care to the candidates for baptism. Wherefore, in the end of that same letter of Cyril to Constantius Augustus concerning the sign of the cross appearing in the sky from light at Jerusalem, where we read, "always praising the holy and consubstantial ^D Trinity," the word *kai homoousion* ("and consubstantial") must be utterly deleted, which neither could Cyril have appended to the letter to Constantius, nor could Constantius, being more addicted to the Arian faction, tolerate it. For although Cyril was afterward harassed and expelled from his see by Acacius and the Arians, it was not on account of the explicit faith of consubstantiality, but because he approached it as closely as possible. These things are well known to those skilled in ecclesiastical history, and should not be repeated here senselessly.

XVII. With regard to the Mystagogical Catecheses: in the last one to the Illuminati, he had promised that after the day of Pascha or the Resurrection had passed, he would for an entire week give such catecheses, by which they might be instructed concerning the mysteries or sacraments which they had received, and their rites, taking demonstrations from the pages of both Testaments: which indeed one may observe was performed in the Mystagogical [catecheses]. Thus, in turn, in the first of these, regarding these words of the confession of the baptized: "I believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in the baptism of repentance," he says that he has already discussed these things at length in the preceding ones. Moreover, in this first Mystagogical catechesis, the author signifies that he lived at a time when festive and solemn celebrations of false gods, *panegyreis*, were openly held, sacrifices were slaughtered, and all the cult of idolatrous superstition still flourished: which indeed all pertain more to the age of Constantius than of Theodosius, by whose exceptional solicitude they were proscribed and extinguished. Furthermore, just as in the 3rd catechesis of the Illuminati he had argued concerning the bath of baptism: "For as those things which are offered to idols, though pure by nature, become impure by the invocation of demons; so, on the contrary, simple water, receiving power [LXXI] through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and Christ, obtains holiness": in a similar method of reasoning, in the first Mystagogical [catechesis], he uses [the same argument] against meals offered to idols, which he considers to be the pomps of Satan: "For just as the bread and wine of the Eucharist," he says, "before the holy invocation of the adorable Trinity, was bread and wine merely; but when the invocation has been performed, the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ: so also foods of this kind [offered to] the pomp of Satan, while pure by their own nature, are rendered impure by the invocation of demons." Who would not now perceive the author to be the same in both, so that no room for wrangling remains concerning a diversity of style? I omit many other locutions which occur likewise in both sets of catecheses. Add to these that the titles of the Mystagogical ones do not differ from the inscriptions of the others. Grant that these are shorter than the prior ones: but there was no need for a long discourse to recount what had to be held concerning the mysteries and their principal rites. Other catecheses of the Fathers which survive for us are no longer than these. Finally, lest I seem to waste time by doing the deed, the fifth Mystagogical catechesis explains no other liturgy than that which is called of Saint James, or the Jerusalem one: and from these words which are read at the beginning of the catechesis concerning the washing of the hands of the presbyters by the deacon pouring water, "for we did not enter the Church initially having the filth of the body," he signifies not obscurely, if I am not mistaken, that he had been co-opted among the presbyters at that time. Furthermore, men of the most respectable learning compelled me to underline these things somewhere regarding the catecheses of Cyril, for whom it seemed to be to my advantage that I myself, and not some stranger, should correct the error of a brother, lest any strength should accrue to the insane critique of Cocceius and Rivetus from it.

DISSERTATION SIXTH. Concerning unleavened bread, and also concerning the final Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ.

^A 1. The small treatises concerning unleavened bread which appear under the name of Saint John Damascene himself, the first of which exists in the Royal Codex 2982, and also in the Seguierian, and the second, which is like a compendium of that longer one, in a manuscript codex of the library of the Monastery of Saint Remigius at Reims, a copy of which was provided to me by the Rev. Father Dom Bernard de Montfaucon. Regarding the first, another royal codex, no. 2935, exhibits it with a short preface which indicates its genuine author, namely a certain Meletius. And indeed, where it is denied in both treatises that the Lord Jesus ate the Mosaic Passover on the very day before He suffered for us, nothing could be more contrary to the sincere opinion of John Damascene. For in the book *On the Orthodox Faith* [c. 13], we read in express terms that the Lord, when He had eaten the old Passover with His disciples, *τὸ παλαιὸν Πάσχα μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ φαγών*, immediately instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist. And in the book *On the Two Wills*, he infers human operation with Saint Maximus from the fact that His teeth crushed the Passover, and His throat conveyed it into His stomach, and finally His liver turned it into blood: *οἱ ὀδόντες, οἱ τεμόντες τὸ Πάσχα, καὶ ἡ φάρυγξ ἡ τῷ στομάχῳ παραπέμψασα τοῦτο, τό τε ἧπαρ τὸ ἐξαιματῶσαν*. Where it appears that Damascene is alluding to the final supper of Christ, which the evangelists record. Furthermore, the author of the treatise *On Unleavened Bread* confuses the Trullan Synod, which is said to have been celebrated under Justinian II, with the Sixth General Synod, which was convened under the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, whereas our author has distinguished both perfectly in his *Exposition of the Faith*, which I provided in Latin from an Arabic translation, in the booklet *On the Correct Doctrine of the Faith*, and at the end of the third oration *On Images*. For these reasons, both works must be adjudged away from the same holy Doctor; and all the more because it is rashly asserted in them again that the paschal lamb was accustomed to be eaten by the Jews without unleavened bread, and that such bread was not brought to the table before the fifteenth day of the first month: a thing which is abhorrent to the doctrine of the holy Fathers, and consequently to our Damascene, nor can it consist with the prescription or context of the Mosaic Law. ^B Although, through the greatest stupidity, Peter of Antioch maintains this opinion to the patriarch Dominic of Grado: "Behold," he says, "Luke says that Christ likewise took bread, not unleavened bread. For it was not yet present, since it was the fifth day (of the week), and indeed during that fifth day the thirteenth continued, nor did the unleavened bread appear, because the distribution of bread had not occurred." *Τὰ γὰρ ἄζυμα τῇ ι' τῆς σελήνης γίνεσθαι νενομοθετημένον ἦν, τῇ δὲ ἰδ' ἄμνον καὶ μόνον θύεσθαι*. For the law of the precept was that unleavened bread should be made on the fifteenth moon; but that the lamb alone should be slaughtered on the fourteenth. Whence the Law calls the fourteenth moon of the first month the Passover; but it names the fifteenth the first day of unleavened bread. Soon this exclamation follows: *φευ τῆς ἀνοίας τοῦ ἀγραμμάτου!* O the madness of the unlearned! Which indeed, in a single sequence in the context, Cotelier edited, though he warned that it was missing in the other codex. Yet this is nothing else but a marginal note of some learned and sagacious Greek, which, through the imprudence of librarians, as often happens, has been translated into the text. For the patriarch writes from the very Gospel of Luke, in express words, that this final supper of the Lord had been performed on the very day of Unleavened Bread on which it was necessary for the Passover to be killed: *Ἦλθεν ἡ ἡμέρα ἐν ᾗ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ Πάσχα*. Again, it was established by the Mosaic Law, and has been perpetually observed by the Jews, that the Paschal lamb should not be eaten except with bread completely unleavened, *καὶ φάγονται τὰ κρέα τῇ νυκτὶ ταύτῃ ὀπτὰ πυρί, καὶ ἄζυμα μετὰ πικρίδων ἔδονται*. Furthermore, when the fourteenth was ending, or the fifteenth beginning, they would begin to eat the unleavened bread, up to the twentieth day inclusive (a): *τῇ τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ μηνὸς τοῦ πρώτου ἀφ' ἑσπέρας, ἕως ἡμέρας μιᾶς καὶ εἰκάδος τοῦ μηνὸς ἕως ἑσπέρας*.

II. When, therefore, the occasion is given to speak of unleavened bread, it is fitting to argue this point more laboriously on account of the accusations of the Greeks, by which they burden the Roman and Western Church, with which

they claim to have separated themselves, because it uses unleavened bread for the sacrifice of the Mass. The Romans defend their rite by the example of Christ, who, after having eaten the Paschal lamb according to the prescription of the ancient law with unleavened breads, handed down his body to his disciples under the species of such bread. But many of the Greeks among the schismatics, in order to weaken the force of this argument, which is most firm, have stubbornly denied that the Lord ate the legitimate Passover in that final supper. ^A Indeed, they have had two authors as patrons of their assertion, whom Photius mentions in his *Bibliotheca*, cod. 115: but they are anonymous and obscure, one of whom perhaps was that John Philoponus, the architect of the Tritheite heresy, who in a peculiar little book, which Balthazar Corderius published to the world with his exposition on the creation of the six days, championed the same fabrication. Photius, however, thought that they were by no means to be agreed with: nay, he noted that the opinion of these writers is contrary both to that of John Chrysostom and to the tradition of the entire Church: "For Chrysostom," he says, "and the Church at that time, declare that he performed the legal Passover before the mystical supper." ^B Truly, besides Chrysostom, among the Greek Fathers—Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Theophilus and Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret, Anastasius II, the Antiochene, our own Damascene John, and others (to omit Jerome, the scribe of the Greeks, and our own Latin writers)—hand down the same. In our own age, indeed, among some scholars in our Gallic lands, through various dissertations from one side and the other, there has been an argument concerning the final Passover of our Lord Jesus Christ, with some affirming that the Paschal lamb had been eaten by him at the last supper, while others denied it. But to one weighing the moments of either side, the testimonies of Divine Scripture seem more eloquent to me, by which the first and more ancient opinion is constructed.

III. John indeed, chap. XII, v. 1, narrates: *Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany*, where they prepared a supper for him. In the Greek text for "supper" is read *deipnon*, which also signifies a meal, or any banquet whatsoever. Whence Matth. XXIII, v. 6, the Lord says of the Pharisees: *They love the first places at suppers*, *en deipnois*, that is, at banquets; Mark VI, v. 21, Herod on the day of his birthday made a supper, *deipnon*, that is, a banquet, for the princes of Galilee, etc. But if it were a supper strictly so called, this took place at the expiration of the Sabbath. For that sixth day before the Passover was a Sabbath, and the great one, which the Jews are accustomed to celebrate more festively than the others, on account of I know not what miracle which they report occurred to their fathers in Egypt on this very day. ^C Furthermore, at the arrival of the end of the Sabbath, before the sun

had set, they are accustomed to begin the third banquet. For they are strictly held to banquet three times on the Sabbath. Nor should it be thought that Mary, in anointing the head and feet of Christ, was about to violate the scrupulous law of observing the Sabbath of her fellow-tribesmen. For, besides that the Jews are accustomed to bring aromatic boxes to their noses at the third Sabbath banquet for the sake of delight, in the Jerusalem Talmud (a) the anointing of a living man is permitted on the Sabbath, but not of one who is dead; for it is for the sake of delight. ^D What is this which is promised to the living, and not to the dead? It is anointing. Although also at the beginning of the Sabbath (b) it was permitted to anoint a dead corpse, provided it was not moved. Nor was the Sabbath postponed by the breaking of the alabaster, just as it is not violated by the breaking of a small jar or flask, whose parts will be of no use. Nay, Mary broke the alabaster, so that by extracting the stopper, with such a tiny amount of effort applied, she would not be deemed to have sinned against the Sabbath law. How much less did she violate it by wiping the Lord's feet with her hair! For the anointing of hair, as for men, so for women, was permitted on the Sabbath. A woman can also anoint hair on the Sabbath day that she might offer it to a woman in danger of childbirth, if she cannot carry enough ointment in the palm of her hand. Moreover, that it was the Sabbath when Jesus (by all means from a place not too distant) had come to Bethany and was received at this banquet, these circumstances of the banquet which I have mentioned indicate, and it is also proven from the enumeration of the subsequent days. For the Evangelist John, after he told of many of the Jews, when they had heard that Jesus had arrived in Bethany, and that he was banqueting with Martha and Mary, had gone there, not only because of Jesus, but that they might see Lazarus, etc., soon adds, v. 12: *On the next day when he had entered Jerusalem after the manner of a triumphal procession, with jubilant crowds*: a thing which has been done by the perpetual consent of all the Churches of the world on the first day, or the Lord's day, which the Greeks for that reason call *ton Baion*; the Latins, of Palms; the Egyptians and Syrians, the Lord's day of Hosanna. Indeed, on that very day of his triumph, when it was evening hour, says Mark, *he went out to Bethany*, with his disciples; where he remained, or spent the night. On the other day (the following, that is) in the morning returning to the city he was hungry, cursed the fig tree, argued against the perfidy of the Jews, etc. And when evening had been made, to him leaving the city the disciples showed the withered fig tree. On the following day they come again to Jerusalem, where the Lord met with many discourses with the priests, and also the Scribes and Pharisees; which was the cause that they, on the 4th day, which followed next, deliberated about capturing him: whence through almost all the Churches, the Roman one at least ex-

^Bcepted, it was determined that they should fast on Wednesdays. As Jesus leaves the temple, the disciples show him the structure of the sacred edifice. He answers them that shortly there shall not be left here one stone upon another. Then, having left the city, as Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives facing the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him: Tell us when these things shall be. Wherefore he spoke many things concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the final judgment, and the necessity of watching, which Matthew, Luke, and Mark narrate at length. Having recounted these things in order, Matthew adds: And it came to pass when Jesus had finished these discourses, he said to his disciples: You know that after two days the Passover shall be, and the Son of Man shall be delivered up to be crucified. But Mark says: It was the Passover and the Unleavened Bread after two days; and the chief priests sought, etc. Therefore, from that day forth, Christ was to be delivered to the Jews. Since he was delivered up at the end of the fifth day, it is beyond doubt that this was foretold by him himself on the evening of the third day, and that consequently he cursed the fig tree on the second day, and flourished in Jerusalem on the first or Lord's day. But when, on the day before his triumph, he arrived at Bethany, and was received at a feast, six days before the Passover; and, two days after that evening on which he had predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, he was seized, it follows entirely that in that year the feast of the Passover and Unleavened Bread was to be inaugurated on the very evening of the fifth day, on which he was delivered to the Jews.

IV. Since these things are so, where it is read in Matthew and Mark, ^C τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν Ἀζύμων, that very first day of the Unleavened Bread, which they call natural, no other day prior to it is signified: the very day, I say, the fourteenth of the first month or Nisan, which the law, by the slaughtering of the lamb as the sun was setting, had prescribed, so that the Passover, having been immolated at the beginning of the evening, might be eaten with unleavened bread. Wherefore Luke, who at the beginning of chapter XXII had said, ἤγγιζεν ἡ ἡμέρα τῶν Ἀζύμων, the day of the Unleavened Bread approached, which is called the Passover; having narrated immediately after the counsel of the chief priests to hand Christ over to death, and the pact of Judas, he writes at once: Ἦλθε δὲ ἡ ἡμέρα τῶν Ἀζύμων, ἐν ᾗ ἔδει θύεσθαι τὸ Πάσχα. Now there came the day of the Unleavened Bread, in which it was necessary for the passover to be killed. Not, as before, that it was in preparation, or near, but it had already arrived; that natural day, I say, in the post-meridial hours of which the passover was to be killed, and in the evening hours after sunset was to be eaten with unleavened bread, leaven having already been proscribed since midday; so that the day of unleavened bread, or the fifteenth according to the law, might begin as the fourteenth natural day was ending. Luke continues: And he sent James and John saying: Go, prepare for us the passover that we may eat. And they said: Where wilt thou that we prepare? He is not anticipated by the disciples, as those might infer who might bring forward only the texts of Matthew and Mark, but he himself anticipates the disciples, and commands them to say to the master of the house: Where is the refectory, where I may eat the pasch with my disciples? Therefore, he had it in mind to eat the Pasch. Whence Luke, after having written, And they went and found as he had said to them, and they prepared the pasch, adds at once: And when the hour was come, now of the beginning of the paschal supper, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him, and he says to them: With desire I have desired to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer. For in the two other years from his baptism he had not celebrated the Pasch with the apostles. For in the first year of his preaching he had not yet chosen them. In the second year, at the very time of the Paschal solemnity, he was staying in Galilee, as John testifies, where he narrates the miracle which the Lord performed across the Sea of Galilee, which is Tiberias, multiplying five loaves: It was, he says, the Passover, the festival day of the Jews. Whence on the Sabbath ^D δευτεροπρώτῳ, the second-first, which followed most closely after the great Sabbath, it fell within the week of the unleavened bread, and Jesus walked in the same region through the cornfields with his disciples.

Luke soon relates that Jesus, as soon as he reclined, having taken the cup from his hands, and having blessed it, had offered it to the disciples to drink, and thus accomplished the supper; by the very rite which the Jews observe in the paschal supper. Finally, Matthew and Mark add: and a hymn being said, they went out. They call the hymn here the psalm, *In exitu Israel*, together with certain others that follow, which the Jews are accustomed to recite after the supper of the Pasch.

I confess myself overcome by these arguments, so that I might agree with those who, with the ancient Fathers of the Church and teachers, affirm that the Lord Jesus celebrated the Mosaic Pasch with his disciples on the same evening on which he was delivered to the Jews. Now it is necessary that I satisfy the arguments of those who defend the opposite opinion.

V. Objections to the contrary opinion. Three things in particular are usually objected, of which this is the first, that John, in speaking of the final supper of the Lord, begins: Before the festival day of the Pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, etc. But the festival day of the Pasch began at the supper: the evening of the Pasch had not yet arrived then. Then, when the Lord had said to Judas as he was leaving, What thou dost, do quickly, some of the disciples thought that it had been enjoined upon him to buy what was necessary for the festival day. "The paschal solemnity," they say, "had not yet been inaugurated, on the first day of which it was forbidden to buy or sell anything."

^A Furthermore, they bring forward another piece of testimony from John the Evangelist, who narrates that those who had led Jesus to Pilate did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the passover. From this they conclude that the paschal lamb had not been eaten by the Jews on the previous evening, and consequently not by the Lord either. They confirm this in another passage, where John says that the Jews were troubled that the bodies should remain on the cross on the Sabbath, because that Sabbath day was a great day; ^B this is the festival of the paschal day itself, or that most holy solemnity to the most high Lord. For the Hellenist Jews used to call the most important solemnities of this kind *megalai hemerai*, "great days," as is apparent from many passages of the Gospels and the Greek version, which is commonly reputed to be that of the seventy interpreters.

VI. The trite response of the theologians. This final argument is more powerful than the others, and with it solved, hardly any other difficulty will remain. That passage of John: "But they themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled; but that they might eat the passover," theologians in the schools interpret in such a way that the evangelist means by the name of *Passover* in that place not the festive lamb, which had been eaten on the previous day during supper, but the victims which were offered in the Temple on the first day of Unleavened Bread. For Moses indeed named those sacrifices the *Passover*, just as he did the paschal lamb, Deut. xvi, 2, where it is written: "You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, of the flock and of the herd," etc. Moreover, for the paschal supper, it was not bovine meat, but ovine or kid that was prepared. But this response does not solve the knot; for the Hebrew text of Scripture offers nothing of such a kind, nor does the translation of the LXX interpreters; but it says only: "You shall sacrifice the Passover (or *Phase*) to the Lord your God, sheep and oxen in the place which the Lord shall choose." By which words nothing else is signified except that in that place which God had chosen, and not in another, one must sacrifice at the festival of the month of Abib first the lambs, [LXXIV] which are signified by the word *Passover*, and subsequently sheep and oxen for peace offerings and burnt offerings, during the seven days of Unleavened Bread. Furthermore, the Mishnic Jews relate that, besides the meat of the sacrificed lamb or kid, it was lawful to use others, whether veal or any clean animal sacrificed to God, for the table at dinner, if the lamb or kid did not suffice to satisfy the hunger of the guests.

VII. The judgment of the most learned Petavius concerning the last Passover of Christ. Dionysius Petavius, a man of exceptional learning, in his annotations to Epiphanius’ *Panarion* on heresy 51, which is that of the Alogi, embraces the assertion of his author; namely, that in that year in which our Lord suffered, the Passover was celebrated on two days by different people: because the cycle of fourteen years, which was then in use among the Jews, according to Epiphanius as observed after Kepler, was not entirely accurate: "On account of this, therefore," says Epiphanius, "then having erred, they not only anticipated—being in turmoil—the two days by having eaten the Passover, but also, having added a transcendent day, they erred in all respects." Because of this, therefore, they stumbled at that time, so that, with the order confused, they ate the Passover on two days; but they added yet one more day, stumbling in every way. He affirms that the Jews added one day because, since it was the tradition of the Church that the high priests and the council of the Jews had reached the decision on Wednesday to put Christ to death, he therefore imagined for himself that Christ was apprehended and judged not on Thursday, but on Wednesday, and put to death not on the following day, but on Friday. Petavius did not hesitate to correct this error. However, that most learned man observes (a) that the Jews sometimes erred on account of the falling away and defect of the cycle, and that this could be clarified by the example of the Christians. "For, as they, when they attempted to bring the celebration of the Passover into line with the *psephismoi* (calculations) of the moon, as much as civil usage permits, and this had been decreed in the Nicene Council, were nevertheless, in such great light and skill of astronomical matters, unable to avoid propagating to these our times the error of years collected over several centuries, so that in the motion of the sun they differ by ten full days, and in the lunar by four. Wherefore I have no doubt that it happened to the Jews that their New Moons, by a day or two or three, would sometimes deflect from the mean motions of the moon and even from the true ones. Concerning the cycle and the circle of years into which they inserted their New Moons, although I do not define anything at all, I nevertheless consider it likely, as Epiphanius explains in this heresy, that in the time of Christ the Jews used a certain period of XIV years, or rather LXXXIV." Having set forth these things and others which tend toward the same point, the great man, p. 172, *Concerning the year in which Christ died*, continues to speak in this manner: "At the same time, for a certain reason, which will be treated a little later, the Jews transferred the Passover to the day following the legitimate one, that is, to the Sabbath, or the 31st of March, and did not celebrate it on the same day as Christ. For he celebrated it on the *he d'ei thuein hemera* (in which day it was necessary to sacrifice), that is, on the 14th moon by civil and political count, and not certainly by the celestial one, and as derived from the mean and astronomical calculation of the stars, about which nothing was prescribed by the lawgiver. But the Jews performed the Passover on the following moon. And indeed Christ does not appear to have done this alone, so that he might prefer the legitimate time and that established by God to the others; but also many others, more tenacious of their ancestral tradition and rites: whence *thorubos*, and confusion, arose in the celebration of the Passover itself. The words of Epiphanius himself demonstrate that he could not have had another intention when he wrote these things." Then, after Petavius has noted the errors of Epiphanius, he subjoins a diagram or table of the moons and festivals in the year

on the Lord’s Passion, from which it may be gathered what error the Jews of that time could have admitted. Finally, on page 183, having weighed the moments of various opinions concerning the Lord’s final Passover, he concludes: It is likely that a certain extraordinary and singular perturbation occurred, which happened specifically in the month in which Christ suffered: so much so that not He Himself alone with the apostles, but others also celebrated it on a day different from the rest. Indeed, the very words of Epiphanius declare this, when they signify that a ^A confusion and dissension fell upon the observance of the celebration. In this way, the common opinion, explained and defended by us, seems much more probable, on account of the clear and express testimonies of John, which no caviling can elude.

VIII. Certainly the most learned author had refuted the opinion of those who affirmed that the Passover was never celebrated on the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week, and likewise of those who thought that it was the custom of the ancient Jews, just as they do today, to observe the New Moons and major festivals of that kind for two consecutive days. And as for the former, because, by the admission of the Hebrews themselves, and especially R. Moses Maimonides, that invention is long posterior to Christ: and because, if that rule for rejecting or accepting festivals had been the ordinary one, and accepted by all, neither the Lord, nor indeed any Jews at all, would have celebrated New Moons and feast days other than on the one day prescribed by the law. But as for the others, because the custom of celebrating New Moons and festivals for two days belonged only to those Jews who lived far from Jerusalem, and in the dispersion, to whom messengers, or couriers, who were sent from the great Synhedrion to signify the new moon, could not arrive. For it is a tradition of the Jews that their ancestors, while the temple stood, considered the first day of each month to be that on whose evening the horns of the rising moon appeared and had been seen by men assigned to this observation; so that, after at least two witnesses had been heard and approved who had confirmed that they had seen the rising moon, the New Moon would be sanctified, and on that very first day messengers would depart to announce it throughout Palestine. Moreover, the power to delay the first month by having made an intercalation of the thirteenth month, which was called Veadar, or the second Adar, resided with the high priests and the senate; and that for various reasons which Maimonides reports in the tract *Kiddush hakkodesh*. For this reason, in the more remote regions, the New Moons were accustomed to be celebrated for two days, because in these places the Jews were uncertain ^B which day the Jerusalem Synhedrion had prescribed based on the vision of the moon. Leone de Modena, once a Rabbi of the Venetian synagogue, offers the same cause for this two-day period in the booklet he published in Italian concerning the rites of the Hebrews, part III, chap. 2.

Obiter, however, I shall say that the Jews who dwelt in the dispersion, by their consecration of the two days, sought in no way to heal that other disadvantage which had arisen from the arbitrary intercalation of the pontiffs [LXXV]. Although Paulus Middelburgensis, from his surname Burgensis, says that the tradition of the Jews is different; namely, that Ezra once ordained that the principal festivals should be celebrated on two days, and therefore R. Raba exhorted the Jews of his own time not to omit the custom of their ancestors which Ezra himself had commanded.

IX. But whatever may be the truth regarding that command of Ezra—that the nation of the Jews established the beginnings of the months solely by the phase of the moon, with no account taken of astronomical calculation, and that the intercalations of years rested with the judgment of the elders—I am not entirely persuaded; nor, indeed, were the more sagacious of the Jews, who, by certain places of the Divine Scripture, also argued that in the most remote ages the knowledge of the seasons, or chronology, was cultivated by their ancestors for the purpose of establishing solemn days. And they record that this task was in the first place imposed upon the sons of Issachar, to whom Moses, when he was close to death, had prophesied this: *And Issachar in thy tents* [Deut. xxxiii, 18]. *Peoples they shall call to the mountain, there they shall sacrifice sacrifices of righteousness*. Which Onkelos, reading with cabalistic license, rendered thus: *In thy journey to establish festivals in Jerusalem*. Now this interpretation relies upon that passage, 1 Paralipomenon 12:32: *And of the children of Issachar, (there came) men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do*. The Chaldean Paraphrast translated this verse in more expanded speech in this manner: *From the children of Issachar, those experienced in the knowledge of the seasons, learned in fixing the beginnings of years and months; ^C experts in new moons *—in the revolution of the sun and the knowledge of the stars and constellations— *in defining and fixing festivals at their time*. Wherefore Rashi also explains the verse of Deuteronomy which I cited, from that passage of Paralipomenon, in the same sense: *Issachar will prosper by dwelling in his tents, and studying to regulate the months by intercalating years*: as it is said (1 Paral. xii): *And of the children of Issachar, who were men of understanding, the princes of the Synhedrion were those giving effort to defining the times and their intercalation*. People or the tribes of Israel will be called to the mountain, that is, they will gather to Mount Moriah, to celebrate the stated solemnities. And R. David Kimbi interprets that passage in Paralipomenon in the same sense, saying: *They are experts in knowing how to intercalate years and months, and this is what he said, "To know what Israel ought to do," that is, they had understanding of the times, meaning, of the seasons of the world, which were…*

knowledgeable in calculating the intercalated years and the fixing of the New Moons. ^A Hence it is added: "To know what Israel ought to do"; that is, being instructed in the knowledge of times, specifically chronological, they knew how to compute the changes of the seasons of the world and the revolutions of the stars. Bekius, who first published the Chaldean paraphrase of Chronicles, praises other rabbis in his notes who agreed with this same interpretation. Nay, Selden, in his book *On the Year of the Hebrews*, reports that Maimonides, in the tract *Kiddush ha-Chodesh* 17, § 25, said that his ancestors, especially the Issacharites, possessed knowledge of the times, knowing what the Israelites ought to do. Furthermore, that saying also of R. Samuel, in Abraham Zacuth's *Juchasin*, fol. 40, that "Issachar ascended into the firmament, and brought down with him (for the use of mortals) six parts, or 1080 scruples." "Those, namely," says Selden, "no less famous than the sexagesimal parts among the Greeks and Latins." This is a manifest hyperbole regarding that tribe's singular skill in astronomy. Yet the Issacharites would not have possessed this, if they had restricted themselves only to the speculation of the phase or the horn of the moon. As if some extraordinary science were needed to observe the phases of the moon, when the Talmudists themselves admit that men of rather dull Minerva were employed for this purpose.

X. To these more recent Jews I shall add Josephus, who, in *Antiquities of the Jews*, book iii, ch. 1, narrates that the festival of Tabernacles was established by Moses to be celebrated on the fifteenth of the seventh month, "when the season turns toward winter," that is, after the autumnal equinox, but that the Passover was sacrificed "on the fourteenth according to the moon, when the sun is in Aries," with the sun constant in Aries. ^B Yet it could by no means come to pass that, from the mere speculation of the moon's horns, with some arbitrary intercalation or other, and no comparison of the lunar course with the solar by astronomical calculations, the Passover was celebrated every year when the sun was in Aries. Besides Philo and Museum—I know not whom—who had established the same as Josephus, Anatolius of Laodicea, in his paschal canons, cited by Eusebius (a), cited other older Jews, namely, Agathobulus and Aristobulus, who had all proved by most certain demonstrations "that the festival of the Passover must by all means be celebrated after the equinox." Wherefore Petavius, in the place already cited by me (183), after he reported from Maimonides how the Sanhedrin acted toward witnesses who reported the phase of the moon, immediately adds: "It is manifest from this passage that, in the time of Christ our Lord, the New Moons were not so certainly established, so that, if even the month shifted or was retracted, it was lawful [to change them], and thus the solemnities themselves, which depended on the beginning of the month, fell on other days." ^C Wherefore, since this whole business was being administered perversely by most foolish magistrates and contrary to the rites of the ancestors, while superstition was already spreading, and in the most corrupt times, it is likely that some were found who were eager to amend this perturbation of ceremonies and rites, as far as was in their power, and who performed the sacred rites which they could privately [conduct] at the legitimate times. Such was the supper of the Paschal lamb; which Christ chose to perform with the apostles, and perhaps even with other Jews, on the day before the rest did so preposterously. Nor ought this difference of one day or another be more surprising than what happened among the Christians themselves before the decree of Pope Victor, or the Council of Nicaea, but even for several centuries afterward, in the most religious celebration of Easter, [where] they differed from one another usually by one month, sometimes by seven days, regarding which we noted some things long ago in the *Protheoria* to Nicephorus's [LXXV] Breviary, etc. I have not regretted writing out at length here the texts of the great Petavius, whose authority regarding chronological matters will always be greatest among the learned, and whose vain suspicion I shall soon show not to have been [well-founded].

XI. "But," says some more recent writer, "whoever attributes both the use and the invention of cycles to others than the Greeks will certainly be much hallucinating here." ^D As for the Greeks and all gentile disciplines, the Jews were always the greatest, not only not very studious of them, but haters of them, as long as the Jewish state stood secure. Nor certainly, until many centuries after their dispersion among the gentiles, did they begin to have the use of such gentile arts, as is easily agreed upon among all those who have examined the customs and rites of the nation more attentively.

XII. But indeed, were the Jews obliged to learn astronomical calculations from the Greeks, and not rather from the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who were the masters of the Greeks, and with whom the Jews had more frequent association? But neither did Caesar consult the Greeks to establish the Roman year, nor Sosigenes, nor Augustus, nor the Nicene Fathers, nor the Roman and Catholic Church; but rather the Egyptians and Orientals. Was not Aristobulus, master of King Ptolemy, from the race of the priestly Christians (a Jew, indeed), to whom the epistle of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin exists, c. 1, book II of Maccabees? This man certainly did not hate the arts of the gentiles, he who had been set over the task of educating a gentile king. Nor is there any doubt that he himself is that Aristobulus who, as Anatolius asserts in Eusebius, was skilled in Peripatetic philosophy and equally in astronomical science; to whom he joins as associates two others of the same nation, the Agathobuli. Was not Jesus, son of Sirach, a Jew, who in chapter xxxix of Ecclesiasticus, says that his wise man will have leisure not only for reading the books of the ancients and the prophets, but also [for traveling] into the land of a foreign…

^A nation, so that he may make trial of what is done among them? I omit Philo, Josephus, Museus, and others, who labored in the letters and philosophy of the Greeks. Epiphanius relates that the Pharisees, who ascribed all things to fate, applied themselves primarily to astronomy. Long before the Hillelian cycle which Jews throughout the world now use, R. Samuel, head of the school at Nehardea, published an astronomical period in Babylonia, which his followers, having abandoned the old one, adopted: whence he was surnamed Jarchiani, or the Moonist, flourishing after the beginning of the third century from the birth of Christ. In about the same century, as it was passing, R. Adda, son of Ahaba, brought forth in Palestine a calculation somewhat more emended. Origenes, a writer of these times, in homily 23 on Numbers, where he sets forth the various festivals of the Jews, testifies that they regulated their moon based on the course of the sun. The third, he says, is the festival designated as the day of the New Moon, in which an offering and a sacrifice are presented. However, it is called *Neomenia* (new moon) when the moon is renewed. It becomes new when it has been brought closest to the sun and is very conjoined to it, so that it lies hidden under its brightness. And with a few words intervening, he asks: For what benefit to religion is it, at the new moon—that is, when it is conjoined with the sun and adheres to it—to observe a festival? Ptolemy, that noble Alexandrian astronomer, who wrote during the second century of the Church in the time of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and nearly a hundred years before R. Samuel, extolled the Jews' nineteen-year cycle of intercalations wonderfully, as if it had been devised and handed down by men inspired by the divine Spirit and by prophets; this indicates that it is very ancient, ^B not recent. But why do we seek other witnesses of the astronomical erudition of the ancient Hebrews, when the Mishna, chapter 1, tract *Rosh ha-Shanah*, provides us with not a few arguments that Gamaliel the Great cultivated it? His calculations and various periods are recorded in a book which, from its kind, was inscribed *Pirkei Eliezer*, that is, *Chapters of Eliezer*, namely of the son of R. Hyrcanus. In chapter 6, he establishes a solar cycle of twenty-eight years, consisting of seven minor cycles of four years, or, in other words, twice fourteen-year periods. In chapter 7, Jochanan, Gamaliel, and others together with Eliezer say that the great lunar period is composed of twenty-one years; and they discuss this at length. And finally they recognize that the greatest circle of the sun is completed in eighty-eight solar years; that is, in three solar cycles and four lunar ones. Furthermore, they relate the cycle of embolisms, which we have said was praised and celebrated by Ptolemy, in no very different way; and Gamaliel himself in the Mishna, tract *Rosh ha-Shanah*, chapter 1, states that it is of nineteen years and has seven minor cycles, some of which consist of three years, others of two. All of which they explain by astronomical calculations in such a way that they appeared to the most illustrious Morinus, who first pointed out this ancient cycle of the Jews to the literary world from the same book (exercit. 1 on the Samaritan Pentateuch, chapter 3, and in a letter to Godofredus Vindelinus, thirteen years before Henricus Vorstius published the *Capita Eliezer* in Latin), to draw closer to the Calippic period. Wherefore this learned man observed furthermore that this was the very period which Epiphanius had written that the Jews used in the time of Christ, page 51. ^C However much, therefore, the *Chapters of Eliezer* may appear to be furbished or augmented by a writer from a later age, that calculation which they exhibit, due to its conformity with the Epiphanian and the Mishnic epilogisms, ought to be considered as older, and because it is much more imperfect and deficient than the Samuelian and the Addanian—and much more than the Hillelian—constructed with cruder force, as that ancient age was wont to do. From this I truly conclude that Petavius did not guess badly that in the age when Christ was on earth, there were not wanting among the Jews those who would study to emend and refute the method of calculating months based solely on the appearance of the horns of the moon; from which even among them that *thorubon* (tumult) arose, which Epiphanius reports; and to me it appears very similar in manner. To Petavius subscribes another chronologist, not undistinguished, from the same society, Bucherius, in his treatises *On the ancient Jewish cycle*, especially in chapters 5 and 6.

XIV. Nor indeed does it avail to object that Gamaliel, in a solemn decree which he once issued in the name of the Sanhedrin concerning an intercalary year, makes no mention of astronomical computation: but [speaks] of broken bridges, and of crops not yet mature, and of lambs and doves that were too tender, as they could serve for offerings to God. For this was a primitive formula, in which were alleged certain primary indications by which [LXXVII] the necessity for intercalation was proven, not its primary ^D ratio. For instance, the state of the bridges still being firm signified that winter was still in force due to rains and the overflowing of torrents, and that spring was not yet imminently at hand, at which time, with the clouds [cleared] from the sky, not only were bridges to be repaired, but also the crops were to be harvested, and lambs were to be fit for sacrifices, after a full year had passed from the other spring. Wherefore Eliezer, chapter 8, says that the year is to be intercalated for three reasons: for the sake of the trees, for the sake of the herbs, and for the sake of the solstices, so that beyond such popular reasons, that which relied on astronomical calculation might always be preferred.

XV. R. Abarbanel defends the authority of astronomical calculations against the Karaites. Rabbi Abarbanel, whom everyone knows to have been the most learned of the Jews, in his commentary on chapter 12 of Exodus, purposely and at length refutes his fellow countrymen, the Karaites or *Karrai*, as they are commonly called, and shows that the Israelites, while Jerusalem stood, by no means first began the month from the evening in which the first phase of the moon appeared, but from its conjunction with the sun, according to astronomical calculations. Having therefore thoroughly examined the opinions of various people, after he had defined the first natural beginning of the year, after he had determined the first month according to the motion of the sun in

the sign of Aries; but that it was arbitrary and according to an institution of Tishri; that indeed the Israelites might remember their Liberator, God—he continues, and confesses that it was within the power of the Great Synedrion to establish the beginnings of the months and to intercalate years. And that the Law provided that Nisan should be the first month when the sun was in the sign of Aries, just as it is said: Observe the month of Abib ^A (or the ripening of the fruits), which, since it depends upon the sun, therefore the motion of the moon ought to be adjusted to the course of the sun. Hence, that lunar months are sometimes twelve, sometimes thirteen, because the solar year exceeds the lunar one by about eleven days. Whence, for the seventeenth year, an intercalary month was needed: that in every 19 years, seven should be intercalated; namely, the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th. Therefore the wise men of the Synedrion were accustomed to interrogate witnesses regarding the phase of the moon in various ways, so that they might better confirm their astronomical computations. Then the Karaites, who contend that months in Palestine should begin from the phases, bring forward this argument: In the Law it is commanded that months be sanctified according to the first appearance of the moon. For the cause of this thing it is said: This month is for you the beginning, etc. Since, indeed, the month is not called ^B by any other name, except for the innovation of the moon, of which it is said in Psalm LXXXI: "Blow the trumpet in the new moon," that is, in the innovation of the moon. Truly, therefore, it is false to say (by the Rabbanites) that the vision of the moon was removed after the Great Sanhedrin (Synedrion) was removed. That all Israelites, up to the time of Rabban Gamaliel, fixed the months according to the phase. Regarding this point, Abarbanel sets forth many things, of which these are the stronger: that it would be impossible for the month to be sanctified from the phase of the moon; since it often happens that the sky is cloudy at that time and rainy. It would be marvelous if the Israelites in their own land were thought to have had nothing by which they could define their years beyond the testimony of certain people regarding the sight of the moon, and were destitute of the method of calculation, as well as the courses of the sun and moon, which other peoples and languages knew. Hence, Rabbi Hannanael wrote: "The fixation of the months among the Israelites was not only by the vision of the moon, but also by calculation." Since they could be in the desert for 40 years, where they were covered by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night, so that they could not see the sun nor the moon. Why then would Moses have ordered [the months] specifically to be consecrated by the mouths of a few witnesses, who for various reasons could be mistaken or fail, rather than by a calculation which is arithmetical and infallible? But certainly when David was saying to Jonathan: "Tomorrow is the new moon," and I shall sit with the king; whence could he know this, unless the new moons were already fixed by calculation? For perhaps the moon was not to be seen; nor, therefore, ^C would the New Moon have had to be fixed. Indeed, from the same passage it is further argued that they designated two days for the New Moon, when it is said: "And David hid himself in the field, and it was the New Moon, and the king sat down to eat," etc. It happened, however, on the second day of the New Moon, that David's place was empty. Where no other New Moon can be understood. Furthermore, the Scripture adds that Saul said: "Why did the son of Jesse not come, neither yesterday, nor today, to eat?" Then immediately: "Jonathan rose from the table in the heat of anger, and did not eat bread on the second day of the New Moon." Does this not clearly show that two days of that New Moon were holidays at the beginning of the month, just as is accustomed to be done today? The same R. Isaiah clearly observed regarding this same place: "The first month had passed, and it was full, as we do, and we sanctify the second day of the New Moon." The beginning of the month consisted of two days, because the past month had been full (namely, of 30 days); in that way, we who make the calculation sanctify the beginning of the month for two days, so that it may be sanctified at its proper time. For it happens very often that, because of the conjunction of the moon with the sun, the beginning of the month pertains to two days as it were, namely to the end of the previous one, and to the beginning of the next. That which Leo of Modena did not omit, part III, chap. 2, n. 3. This, furthermore, did not happen to those who calculated the month by the phase; since the horns of the rising moon can only be seen after midday: and thus the phase could only be the beginning of one Jewish day. I would add the things which are read in the book of Job, in which specimens of every kind of erudition shine forth here and there, regarding the various signs of the sky and the stars, as an argument that the ancient Hebrews were not at all ignorant of astronomical matters: just as also what Scripture reports, IV Kings XX, 11, regarding the sundial of Achaz, king of Judah, delineated according to the motion of the sun. Finally, the Jewish years were never, even in that primeval age, merely lunar and wandering, but such as were reduced to solar ones, by the interjection of the thirteenth Embolismic month from time to time. This intercalation, however, could not be done rightly without astronomical calculations, [rather than] by the mere choice of the great council and the prince.

XVI. Abarbanel therefore concludes that all the ancient Israelites were accustomed to set the New Moons by calculation, with which they reconciled the vision, since the calculation was the primary consideration. Wherefore it is explicitly written in I Paralipomenon XII, 32: "Of the children of Issachar, expert in the knowledge of times, so that they might know what Israel ought to do," etc. But there is no need for science and intelligence (he says) to fix the solemnities ^D without calculation; which is the mystery of intercalation. For the vision of the moon

(a) Our Vulgate interpreter renders, in the second day of the Calends. Very rightly indeed.

^A The matter is clear and most easy to perceive, since calculation belongs only to the wise. Wherefore the Israelites were accustomed to do so, until Antigonus the Echmalotarch, prince of the Sanhedrin, whose disciples were Sadock and ^A Boethus. Since, therefore, the wise men of Israel were perfectly skilled in the art of intercalation, which they had received as a distinguished science by tradition, those degenerate disciples began to shake off from themselves the yoke of oral tradition, and to oppose the fixing of months, or new moons, saying that the sense of the precept was not that the new moon should be fixed according to calculation—nor was there need for such sublime learning—but according to the vision of the moon, from the mouth of two witnesses, whether they were learned or unlearned. Whence the wise men of that age found it necessary to refute their frivolous reasons with solid arguments; among which R. Gamaliel said: "Do not trouble yourselves to see the moon, for calculation is the essence; thus we have received from the house of my father's father that the new moon is not less than 29 days and a half and 793 parts." This teaches us that Rabban Gamaliel did not rely on the phase of the moon. This is further confirmed by two texts of the Mishnah, tractate *Rosh Hashanah*, cap. 3, in one of which it is read: Sometimes two came and said: "We have seen it at its time, on the thirtieth day," and on the night of intercalation, which is the evening of the thirtieth day, it did not appear, and Rabban Gamaliel accepted them. From which passage it is concluded that Gamaliel, who did not accuse these witnesses of lying, disregarded their testimony, and clung rather to the calculation for intercalating the year. He adds, moreover, that in the same chapter of the Mishnah it is read that Gamaliel had figures of the moon in his upper room on a tablet on the wall, which he would show to the ignorant, so that he might convince the Sadducees and Boethusians that he was acquainted with the movements of the moon, and its figures as it was renewed for every month, which he showed to his disciples on that tablet. He could have added to these a third text of the Mishnah, where it is narrated that the new moon was sanctified whether the moon had been seen at its time or not. ^{B D} I deduce many things from this dispute, which the adversaries were objecting against. These and other things are pursued by Abarbanel, though it is quite strange that he omitted the most ancient canon of Eliezer, and even the calculations which Eliezer cites, along with those of Gamaliel.

XVII. The first point is, by which it is more and more proven that it was not an empty conjecture of the most learned Petavius, that at the time when the Lord died in Judea, there was no agreement among the Jews concerning the regulation of the Paschal day, nor was there a lack of those who did not approve of defining months solely by the phase of the moon, nor, I know not by what testimony of witnesses, but rather that months were defined by astronomical calculations, and the year was intercalated accordingly: since even the Karaites themselves admit it certain that Gamaliel, with his Pharisees, collected the Mishnaic rites and customs; and stood by calculation. For this is the very R. Gamaliel of whom Luke makes mention in Acts v, 34, a man honorable to all the people, and whose disciple the holy Apostle Paul was. The Talmudists hand down that it was granted to him by a singular privilege that his sons and grandsons should be steeped in the language and disciplines of the Greeks. And they add, moreover, that R. Simeon, his son, finally obtained from the Sanhedrin that beginning from then on, new moons should be determined by astronomical calculation: which is clearly another argument for the previous dissension. A second point is that from the earliest age, astronomical calculations were in use among the Israelites, which none but the Sadducees, who were the originators of the Karaites, contested.

XVIII. But this is also especially deduced again from the fact that at the time of Christ there was no agreement among the Jews concerning the appointment of new moons and the assigned solemn days, since the Sadducees commenced the months by the phase of the moon, and the Pharisees, under Gamaliel's leadership, by the sun; hence it came to pass that the Sadducees celebrated the Passover not on the same, but sometimes on the second, or even the third day after the Pharisees. Wherefore it is not without reason that Epiphanius wrote that in that year when the Lord suffered, there was a *thorubos*, or commotion, concerning the designating of the Paschal day; so that the Passover was sacrificed and eaten on two different days.

XIX. The efforts and deceits of the Sadducees, such that the Sabbath might be entered upon... But in order that the faith of Epiphanius may be more and more reconciled in this part, I will add in a few words what the Talmudists of Jerusalem themselves hand down in tractate *Rosh Hashanah*, cap. 2, § 1, where they explain this text of the Mishnah; in the Babylonian Mishnah it is held that they received testimony concerning the new moon from any man whatsoever, until the heretics corrupted the situation; then they decreed that they would receive it only from those who were known, and who sanctified it whether or not it was seen at its time, R. Eliezer the son of Sadoch in vain resisting: wherefore it is manifest, says Abarbanel, that the foundation of this matter does not consist in the vision, but in the calculation: and that at the same time they were refuted, who [alt-version omitted]

The Jerusalem Gemara narrates the nature of such a deception: It recounts that our masters held the Boethusians were attempting to lead [the Sanhedrin] into error, and had hired two men—one from among us, and another from among them—to bear false witness concerning the new moon. But as for why they had performed this fraud, the Glossators offer the following cause: ^A There occurred a day of Adar on a Sabbath, and the new moon did not appear at its proper time; the Boethusians desired that the first day [of the month] should happen [on a day] such that the waving of the omer would fall on the first day of the week, [i.e., Sunday]. Because it fell on the thirtieth day of Adar on a Sabbath, and the new moon did not appear in its proper time, the Boethusians wished for the first day of the month to fall on a Sabbath, so that the offering of the sheaf might be made on the first day of the week, [the day] which is taken from the word "Sabbath," Lev. xxiii, 11 and 15, rather than the Sabbath properly so-called, as in chapter 11 of Genesis (not the festive and holiday [one]) and in [LXXIX] the Pentecost of the first week. Yet this is the very thing which Epiphanius reports to have happened in the year of the Lord's passion: namely, that Christ ate the Pasch with many of the Jews on a different day, while others ate it only as it began, so that the sheaf offered on the first day of the week immediately following would coincide in that same year with the feast of Pentecost on a similar day, that is, a Sunday. Moreover, all the Jews affirm that the Boethusians had coalesced into the same sect as the Sadducees. Why should they not be those who are called by the corrupted name of Masbotheans in Eusebius from Hegesippus, and whom we learn from the Const. Apost. lib. vi, c. 6, to have been associates of the Sadducees, since they denied the immortality of souls and Providence? Since these things are so, no difficulty will remain in reconciling John with Matthew, Mark, and Luke. ^B

XX. When John wrote, in chapter xix, 28, that those who had brought Jesus to Pilate did not enter the praetorium, "that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch," he signified the senator-pontiffs of the Jews. Now these were for the most part Sadducees, just as Holy Luke expressly testifies in Acts v, 17, with these words: "Then the high priest rising up, and all they that were with him (which is the heresy of the Sadducees) were filled with indignation." And that this high priest was Annas (as can be gathered from chapter iv, 6), or at least of the lineage of Caiaphas. I have, moreover, discovered from Josephus, in Ant. lib. xx, where he narrates that Ananus the younger, son of this great Annas—who delivered James the brother of Jesus Christ to be executed—was of the Sadducee sect, ἡ μετῄει τὴν Σαδδουκαίων. That this can also be observed in the things reported to have been done by this same Ananus against Paul, Acts xxiii and xxiv. Josephus also writes in more than one place that the Sadducees were as many as were preeminent in origin among the Jews. The Talmudists relate that it happened around these very times that the daughter of a priest, having committed adultery, was burned by the sentence of the Sanhedrin, with bundles of shoots placed around her against the law sanctified by the ancestors, according to which a burning alive was done in no other way than by casting and pouring molten lead into the mouth of the condemned: of which severe judgment they report this to be the cause, that at that age the Sanhedrin was crude and unskilled in the statutes and ancient customs: that is, as Rabbi Joseph interprets, the entire Sanhedrin consisted of Sadducees. ^C Indeed, Josephus in the passage just cited reports the character of that sect, that they were more cruel than other Jews, οἵπερ εἰσὶ περὶ τὰς κρίσεις ὠμοὶ παρὰ πάντας τοὺς Ἰουδαίους. Since, therefore, the pontiffs and chief men of the Jewish race were Sadducees, they deferred the pasch, which others had eaten the previous evening, to the following day, which was for them the beginning of both the Sabbath and the fifteenth day of the month, commencing the month from the appearance or vision of the moon.

XXI. Nor is there any reason why anyone, following a recent author most skilled in evangelical history, should deny that the pontiffs themselves brought Jesus in bonds to Pilate with their ministers and the Roman cohort. For Matthew, chapter xxvii, 1, wrote: "And when morning was come, all the chief priests (οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς) and ancients of the people took counsel against Jesus, that they might put him to death, and they delivered him bound to Pontius Pilate the governor." So Mark, c. xv, 1: "And straightway in the morning, the chief priests holding a consultation with the ancients and the scribes and the whole council, binding Jesus, led him away and delivered him to Pilate." Matthew likewise, verse 11, says that Jesus stood before the governor, and answered nothing when he was accused by the chief priests and ancients. Mark, chapter xv, 3: "And the chief priests accused him in many things." Matthew again, chapter xxvii, 20: "But the chief priests and ancients persuaded the people, that they should ask for Barabbas." Mark, chapter xv, 11: "But the chief priests stirred up the people, that he should rather release Barabbas to them." While the Lord was hanging on the cross, the chief priests were there with the ancients mocking him (Matt. xxvii, 41). In a similar manner Luke, chapter xxiii, 1, speaks of the entire Sanhedrin over which the pontiff had presided: "And the whole multitude of them rising up, led him to Pilate." When Christ was sent to Herod, verse 10: "The chief priests and the scribes stood by, constantly accusing him." They returned to Pilate: for (verse 13) "Pilate, calling together the chief priests and the people, said to them: You have presented to me this man, etc." But neither was John silent about that, chapter xix, 6, when the Lord, brought out by Pilate, came forth with the crown of thorns and purple garment, and when the pontiffs and the ministers (of the Sanhedrin) saw him, they cried out saying: Crucify him. Verse 15: To Pilate denying that he would crucify their king, the pontiffs answered: "We have no king but Caesar." Verse 12: The Jewish pontiffs resisted, lest Pilate write in the title of the cross, "King of the Jews." Therefore, the pontiffs had gone to the praetorium, intending to pursue Christ with a judgment.

XXII. In the same way one could address another

difficulty which adversaries raise: that the Apostles supposed it had been enjoined by the Lord to Judas at the Last Supper to buy what was necessary for the feast day—a thing which could not enter their minds if the paschal solemnity had already begun, since on Sabbaths and feast days it was forbidden to buy or sell anything. For I could answer that it was lawful for Judas to buy the sacrificial offerings on that very evening, which would not be considered solemn by all the Jews; especially since the pontiffs had postponed sacrificing the victims prescribed by law until another day or the Sabbath, with more elaborate pomp and ritual, so that they would not offer the sheaf of first fruits until the day after the Sabbath.

^B XXIII. But the Mishnaic sages suggest to me another answer, tract. *Sabb.* c. 23, § 1, where they say: [original-script column: see facsimile] "A man may request from his neighbor jars of wine or jars of oil, provided he does not say 'Lend me.' So a woman from her neighbor, loaves [of bread]. And if he does not trust him, he leaves his cloak with him and settles the account after the Sabbath. And so on the eve of Passover in Jerusalem which falls on a Sabbath, he leaves his cloak with him and takes his Passover [lamb] and settles with him after the day of the feast." In this way, every Israelite in Jerusalem on the actual day of the Sabbath could buy or acquire for himself the paschal lamb; surely, he could also [buy] any other sacrifice which he was about to offer by standing before the Lord according to the prescription of the law. For it was provided by law that no one should appear in the sight of God empty-handed during the paschal celebration and the other two [feasts]; that is, without a gift. Nay more, such offerings were commonly sold and bought in the temple or the temple courtyard, which was considered part of the temple, as is evident from the multiple text of the Gospels and the Talmudists themselves. And yet, in the tractate *Korban Pesach* or *Paschal Offering*, cap. 1, § 16: "The same works which were performed in the temple and were prescribed on workdays were also performed on the Sabbath (and *a fortiori* on feast days, according to the rule: 'as on a workday, so on the Sabbath')." So that if the fourteenth of Nisan had fallen on a Sabbath, with the three groups of Israelites having gone out with their paschal lambs, the courtyard would be washed on the Sabbath itself, because the law of the Sabbath [original-script column: see facsimile] does not bind in the temple, unless perhaps in matters where it was absolutely not necessary to work. Whence, because it was permitted that oxen, cattle, doves, and other things necessary for sacrifices be sold in the courtyards of the temple on other days of the week, and that money changers or bankers sat from the 25th of the month of Adar every day until the Passover, to receive from all Israelites ^C the customary half-shekels, it was allowable also on feast days; this was permitted even by the pontiffs, when far more victims were to be slaughtered by each male, and then by those from whom vows were to be discharged, or sacrifices to be offered for purification, as well as the substitutes for the firstborn. For these feast days, such offerings were reserved, when all were bound to be present at Jerusalem, as is handed down in the Babylonian Talmud at tract. *Sanhedrin*, fol. 11, col. 1, and in the Jerusalem [Talmud] at tract. *Rosh Hashanah*, fol. 56, col. 2. Wherefore it was necessary that victims be ready and at hand in the temple courtyard, which they could not bring with them, who quite frequently arrived from a more remote region. And certainly they were not guilty of violating the Sabbath on the Sabbath itself, which had happened the day after the first day of unleavened bread, [at the time when] they would reap in the fields the sheaf of first fruits to be offered: just as they could not travel a longer road than the Sabbath permitted, [even if] they had completed the seventh day to report the sighting of the moon. Likewise, not a few things on these days were lawful, which would have contributed to the worship of God or the keeping of the law.

XXIV. But if anyone were to object that it was not lawful for the Jews to pass judgment on solemn days, and thus to punish anyone with a death sentence, perhaps this answer might suffice: that Jesus was pronounced guilty of death not so much by others as by the pontiffs and the magistrates of the nation, who, since they were for the most part Sadducees, had not yet eaten the Passover, nor did they hold this a holy day. Moreover, Lightfoot in *Horae Hebraicae*, on cap. xxvii [of] Matthew, cites the Babylonian Gemara, cap. 4, tract. *Sanhedrin*, fol. 35, where it is declared that capital judgments could be exercised on the vigils of Sabbaths, which had begun in the previous days, where no writings were to be released. Thus, however, the pontiffs, who had decreed that Christ should be adjudged to death on the fourth day, made it valid without writings at the beginning of the feast.

XXV. I omit mentioning Drusius in cap. xxvii of Matthew, *Pesach*, fol. 75, col. 4, regarding the tradition of the Jewish elders: When some were condemned to death, like the rebellious elder or an impostor, they held them, deferring the punishment until the solemn feast, which they call *Regel* (or one of the three [festivals]), in which all from everywhere were in Jerusalem; then they would kill them at the time when Israel was gathered; to establish that which all shall hear and fear. Indeed, Rabbi Solomon on Deut. xvii, 13, has the same: [original-script column: see facsimile]; hence it is that they looked to the feast day, in order to kill him on the feast day. These things, I say, I omit, because it is not clear whether on the actual solemn days, or rather on the eve or the day after, impostors and blasphemers were to be punished, when the people had not yet departed the city. For the Talmudists relate that Jesus [was killed]

in the judgment of the Sanhedrin at Lydda Diospolis on the day before the Passover. Indeed, James the Apostle was killed by Herod the day before or two days before the feast of the Passover; and Peter was to be killed on the day after, had he not been led out of prison by an Angel. ^B

XXVI. And yet it is well worth observing that that judgment which the chief priests passed against our Jesus was not a decree, but merely a declaration. Hence, both by Mark and by the oldest interpreter, Matthew, it is called *symboulion*, that is, counsel or deliberation, not *krima* or *krisis*. The Fathers of the Church thought that the Jewish chief priests, who had brought Jesus to Pilate, said to the procurator that they themselves might receive him and judge him according to their own law, and therefore he replied: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," because the power of life and death had been taken away from them by the Romans. Plainly, Josephus, in *Antiquities* book 18, ch. 8, relates that certain Jews met Albinus the procurator as he was arriving in Alexandria, demanding an accounting of Ananus the high priest, the son of Annas the elder, because contrary to his sentence he had convened the Sanhedrin and had forced James, the brother of Jesus, and others to be stoned, *hos ouk exon en Anano*—which means it was not lawful for Ananus. But perhaps the state of affairs under Pilate was different, since shortly after the death of the Lord, Stephen was stoned while the Sanhedrin was sitting.

XXVII. Therefore, let no one let the reasoning of the chief priests regarding that response cause him trouble; it is gathered from the Talmudists. For they say that forty years before the destruction of the temple and the city, because of the frequency of homicides and robberies, capital judgments ceased to be carried by the Sanhedrin, unless by chance the culprit had associates or patrons by whom he could be protected. For that reason, the Sanhedrin had moved from the "Hall of Hewn Stone" (as that room was called, from the cut stones of which it was built) in which alone, because it was built next to the sanctuary, they could carry out capital judgments. Which indeed must have occurred some eighteen years or so before the Lord's passion. The chief priests and the senate, therefore, fearing that the people—especially the Galileans—would stir up sedition, preferred to get the case against Christ before Pilate, so that the Roman procurator, by pronouncing a definitive sentence, might restrain the tumult by his own authority. Note [LXXXI] that Pilate still held the power of capital judgments over them, even though he signified that he was not at all anxious about destroying Christ: "Take him," he says, "and judge him according to your law." By saying "judge," he was implying that he had been declared worthy of death by the Sanhedrin, though not judged by decree. For after some years they also stoned Stephen with impunity, when the people did not yet fear them. Although ^C that deed was performed by the impulse of those who stood by, as Scripture indicates, rather than by a previously pronounced solemn judgment of the senate. About the same time, the daughter of the priest of whom we have already spoken was burned by the decision of the Sanhedrin for adultery. Furthermore, in that trial where our Jesus was declared worthy of death by the chief priests and elders, you will find nothing that violated the feast of the solemnity even in the slightest. He was indeed arrested, but by a Roman cohort. And if the ministers of the chief priests and senate were truly present, it was not prohibited by law to arrest a man, who was considered a blasphemer and impious, on a feast day. For Moses once ordered that a man who had gathered a few sticks on the Sabbath be placed in custody on that very day, and indeed perhaps by divine response, be stoned without delay before sunset. Nay, not long ago, on the last great day of the feast of Tabernacles, which they call Hosanna Rabba, and which they hold as equal to a solemn Passover, the chief priests and Pharisees sent ministers—not Roman soldiers—to arrest Jesus. Thus Herod Agrippa, than whom no one showed himself more studious of the law, sent Peter to prison on the feast of Unleavened Bread, to be brought forth to the people after the Passover. Moreover, when the elders had arranged for Jesus to be led to Pilate by a Roman cohort, they did not conduct themselves as judges who had already passed a death decree, but as accusers; and subsequently they performed nothing beyond their shouts.

XXVII. Let no one be troubled that the Lord’s body was taken down from the cross, anointed, and buried on the very day of the Passover. For these things were not prohibited *in toto*, especially when the Sabbath followed immediately, whose feast days were always more sacred to the Jews. And why should it not be taken down from the cross by Roman soldiers, and likewise by Gentiles, who were present on the spot? For the Jews, when it concerns aliens, whom they call ^D *goyim*, inconstantly employ them to perform things which they consider not permitted to themselves. Regarding the anointing, in the tract *Shabbat* ch. 23, § 5, it is held thus: [original-script column: see facsimile]. They perform all things necessary for the dead (on the Sabbath); they anoint him and wash him, provided that they do not move a limb on him. They pull out the pillow that is under him, and put him on sand so that he may wait (for the end of the Sabbath). They tie his jaw, not so that it may rise, but so that it may not fall (open). Finally, the Jews, when the Sabbath follows a feast day, bury the dead on the feast day itself, and entomb him. They only take care that the tomb is opened and closed by a *goy* or Gentile. Therefore, nothing concerning the Lord could have been carried out by any violation of customs.

XXVIII. It remains to speak now of that Joan-

^Anis passage, chap. xiii, 1: *Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that his hour was come*, etc. By this it seems to be suggested that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples before the Jews began their paschal solemnity with the eating of the lamb. But why should this be interpreted as signifying only that Jesus knew, before the feast of the Passover, that the hour had come for him to pass over to the Father, just as he had announced to his disciples two days before? Anyone who has experienced the complexity of New Testament narratives and locutions will understand that this is not absurd, and that those things which are gathered together at the same time require accurate and diligent consideration to be distinguished. Moreover, Bochart (lib. De animalib. Scrip. sacr. cap. 50), where he treats of the paschal lamb, most wisely observed that the words *πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ Πάσχα*, "before the feast of the Passover," signify nothing else than the very beginnings of the paschal feast: just as if the evangelist had said, *in proortio* (in the pre-feast), for just as *prologos* (a prologue) precedes an oration, yet remains a part of it, so the *proortios* (pre-feast) was also the first part of the solemnity. Furthermore, as we have noted before, even though the festival was considered to begin with the eating of the paschal lamb, that first day on which Christ ate it was not so solemn as the following one, which the priests held more established and valid; whence it is called "great" by John. *For that day of the Sabbath was great* ^B, he said, that is, most festive. On this latter day, in fact, they were to sacrifice the festal victims, so that they were to offer the sheaf of first-fruits only on the very next one. And let it suffice to have said this concerning Christ's ultimate Passover, having collated the writings of the Jews with the reports of the evangelists, so that it is established that the Lord consecrated the Eucharist with unleavened bread. Now it remains for us to speak of the use of unleavened bread among Christians.

XXIX. *Unleavened bread was not formerly admitted by all to the Eucharist; why it was by the Ebionites.* Although the Lord first transformed unleavened bread into his own body, such bread was not subsequently admitted by the entire Church for the sacrifice. Epiphanius (Haeres. 30) relates that this was a peculiar rite of the Ebionites, namely, that in imitation of the mysteries performed in the Church, they celebrated the Eucharist with unleavened loaves once a year, at the paschal time. Naturally, as these heretics were most tenacious of the Jewish law, and would eat no other bread but unleavened bread during the Passover, they could not use other breads for the Eucharist. The fact that Epiphanius subjoins that the Ebionites were accustomed to consecrate with mere water without wine, he claims they learned from the Elxaites or Sampsaeans, with whom they later coalesced, having learned it from them after. The Elxaites indeed, along with ^C all animals, also abominating the wine of the Encratites and others after the manner of the Gnostics. Epiphanius, therefore, argues that this was the custom of the ancient Church, that even leavened bread should be offered at the Lord's altar. Whence John Philoponus, who wrote in the middle of the sixth century, attempts to confirm that Christ did not consecrate his body with unleavened bread, because it was by no means observed in the Church, at least in the Alexandrian or Oriental [churches].

XXX. *Whence the rite of the unleavened bread was accepted among the Armenians.* First of all, the Armenians among the Orientals are known to have excluded leavened bread from the Lord's sacrifice: although they refer this rite of theirs to Saint Gregory the Illuminator, by whom they were instructed in the Christian faith, it is argued to the contrary [LXXXII] that Combetis in his notes on the *Narration of the affairs of the Armenians* (b) says that Gregory received fermented bread from the Greeks, and that those who later became Julianists changed it to unleavened bread, as a sign of some Eutychian heresy. He says that this Gregory was not sent from Rome, but from Cappadocia, by the order of Leontius the metropolitan of Caesarea, as is read in his *Life*. I agree with him, therefore, who reports that some disciples of Julian of Halicarnassus, when they infected this nation with the errors of the Eutychians and Incorruptibilists, were also the authors of this, that in the divine mysteries, having removed leaven from the bread and water from the chalice, [they claimed] it signified that [Christ] existed without any corruption, with one nature and one operation. This Nicephorus Callistus (c) and other Greeks hand down, and the aforementioned author of the *Narration of the affairs of the Armenians*, which Combetis edited, affirms it. And certainly Anastasius Sinaita, page 10 of the *Odegos*, observes that the Monophysites offer wine without water (*οἶνον ἄκρατον χωρὶς ὕδατος*), and by this they are apprehended as confessing that Christ consists of a bare and simple Divinity. But this cannot be understood of all [Monophysite] matters, since the Jacobites, as well as the Syrians and Egyptians, used fermented bread in the sacrifice of the Lord, and added wine. It does not refer to the Armenians themselves, whom he mentions nowhere else, although he is mindful of the two natures of Christ which he often debated with those who impugn them. Wherefore, he speaks of the disciples of Julian of Halicarnassus or Gaianus, that is, the Incorruptibilists. Whence it is gathered that the Armenians did not receive this rite of unleavened bread and wine without water from elsewhere than from the Julianists and Gaianites, whose other errors they have embraced. Galanus, vol. I, *De Ecclesia Armenorum*, exhibits the chronicle, by a man—

of the orthodox faith in his native tongue, in which, in chapter 17, it is read that John of Ozun, a Catholic or patriarch, at the command of Homaris, prince of the Saracens, having convened a synod of Armenian and Assyrian bishops in the city of Manazkert, ^A defined that there is one nature, one will, one operation, in Christ, and that the sacrifice had been performed with leaven and water. From which it can be deduced that the Armenians, just like the Greeks, offered leavened bread at times, as long as the peace and union lasted, which they had covenanted under the Emperor Heraclius with the Constantinians.

XXXI. A few years later, the Fathers of the Quinisext synod, in canon 32, with the azymes omitted, find fault with the Armenians solely by this name, because they offered wine in the mass without any mixture of water, a fact which, although it was a token of that time, in no way suggests that those Trullan Fathers established that they had excluded leaven from the Eucharist as a heresy. In canon 11, indeed, it is provided that the faithful should not eat the azymes of the Jews, nor be of Jewish mind and rite; no one, it is said in the sacred canon, either among the clergy or laity, may eat of the Jews' azymes, nor have any familiarity with them, or summon them for illnesses. Therefore, it is surprising by what front schismatic Greeks—not only the Armenians, as our Meletius, but also the Latins—dare to object this canon of the synod, so-called, as they wish to know, when they are most alien to the sentiment and ceremonies of the Jews. No author of note, up to the present, who has written about the affairs of the Armenians, is older than the work praised above, which was written in the eighth or ninth century. Cotelerius in his notes to the *Constitutions of the Apostles*, p. 237, edited a profession of faith in Greek, which was ordered to be recited by the Armenians who had abjured their heresy, in which an anathema of this kind is found: "If any one does not put leaven and salt into the bread of the oblation, nor mix water with wine in the holy chalice, let him be anathema." This formula, ^B although it shows mention of the seventh synod, can hardly be thought to have been composed after the Oriental Church was sundered from the Occident through the agency of Michael Cerularius, as was lately argued by a learned man. For, within the space of two hundred and fifty years, which elapsed from the seventh synod up to the Cerularian schism, the Greeks openly professed that the Armenians were using unleavened bread. As a witness to this matter, in addition to the writer of the narrative often cited, I bring forward the holy Nicon, an Armenian by birth, who, although he had taken up the monastic life in the island of Crete, spent the tenth century accusing his own people because they were using azymes and were not pouring water into the holy chalice. Nor do I think the one called Meletius, whose work De azymis sancto Joanni Damasceno attributus est is more recent. For when he names the Armenians and Jacobites, who performed sacred rites with bread without leaven, he omitted the Latins: a thing which surely does not fall to a Greek man who would have written after the schism was confirmed by Cerularius.

XXXII. A certain man of our age, being quite learned, in a certain lucubration which he wrote concerning azymes, advises that it should be observed that the Armenians fell into the Eutychian heresy under the Emperor Theodosius, as the epistles of Proclus, bishop of Constantinople, teach us, and Dionysius Exiguus, who translated the Latin epistle of Proclus. He adds that, from that time, they seem to have used azyme bread and wine alone in sacred matters, as the Armenians relate. Proclus, indeed, held the Constantinopolitan see under Theodosius (the Younger, of course, not the Elder); but under Proclus the Eutychian heresy did not yet exist, as Eutyches did not bring it forth except under Flavian, successor to Proclus. Nor, again, did Proclus write letters to the Armenians, except for them to avoid some error that was similar to the Eutychian, ^C but rather so that they would not admit the Nestorian, which some were striving to insinuate into them by translating the books of Theodore of Mopsuestia into the Persian and Armenian languages. The Armenians were not polluted by the Eutychian plague until under Justinian the Elder, specifically by the disciples of Julian of Halicarnassus, as was said above. Finally, the Armenians nowhere handed down that the use of azymes began among them from the times of Proclus or Theodosius the Younger; since they bring it that this was received from Gregory, whom they worship as the apostle of their race, and who flourished under the Augusti Diocletian, Maximian, and Constantine the Great.

XXXIII. Our Meletius, not only regarding the Armenians [LXXXIII] but also the Jacobites, says they were accustomed to perform sacred rites with azyme bread. Moreover, the Jacobites are some Syrians, some Egyptians. As regards the Egyptians, John Philoponus of Alexandria, himself a Severian or Jacobite, is a rich witness that all the Churches, and indeed the Egyptian ones, used leavened bread for the liturgy in his century. Michael Wanslebius, who accurately examined, and delved into, the mores and ceremonies of the Jacobite Copts or Egyptians, testifies that their oblations consist of nothing but leavened bread, where, indeed, he recites the rite of baking the bread for offering: "Il doit y avoir du levain," says that author, "excepté un seul jour de l'année, qui est le 12 de leur mois de Juin, la nuit duquel il tombe la goutte, qui fait le même effet, que fait le levain." The Abyssinians, who follow the custom of the Jacobite patriarch of Alexandria, offer leavened bread as well throughout the whole year, except for the Thursday of Holy Week, as the renowned Job Ludolf explicitly testifies (a). That the Syrian Jacobites also use leavened bread is gathered from Demetrius of Cyzicus, whose opuscule regarding the Jacobites,

and the Charzizarii, Combefis edited in the second volume of his *Auctarium*. For since he asserts that by both parties wine is offered without water, where he treats of the Charzizarii or Armenians, he observes that they used unleavened bread, and, after the manner of the Jacobites, did not mix water with the wine, so as to signify that the Armenians, in matters regarding the liturgy, agree with the Jacobites only insofar as they offer wine in no wise tempered, but not likewise in the consecration of leavened bread. ^A Abraham Echellensis, in a letter to Jean Morin (a), writes that in the canon of the Jacobites and Nestorians these words may equally be read: "and he received from that leavened bread." The same Echellensis, in his treatise *De origine nominis papæ* (p. 477), again counts the Jacobites and Copts among those who put leaven into the Eucharistic bread. Nay, he adds that the Jacobites, like the Nestorians, add salt and oil just as the Greeks do, and finally he testifies that the Latins, Melkites, Maronites, Jacobites, and Copts temper the wine in the chalice, and that only the Armenians exclude water. But what some say, that the Nestorians who are inhabitants of the Malabar region sacrifice with unleavened bread, is built upon witnesses that are not sufficiently trustworthy. It is certain that the Maronites offer unleavened bread since they were joined with the Roman Church: but whether it was habitual for them to do so from ancient times is a matter still in doubt. For the volumes inscribed with the names of various authors which more recent Maronites bring forward are of suspect, nay, of dubious authenticity.

XXXIV. Leo, Archbishop of Bulgaria—namely of Achrida—in a letter whose fragments Allatius cites in book III, *De consens.*, chap. 14, says that the Italians, Armenians, and Egyptians agree with the Jews regarding the offering of unleavened bread, and therefore he and his Greeks flee the *τὸ δυσσῶδες ἅμα καὶ δυσειδὲς τῆς Αἰγυπτιακῆς κακίας ἄθεον φύραμα*, the foul-smelling and deformed impious mass of Egyptian wickedness. Some might think that those Egyptians against whom Leo inveighs with such vehemence were not the orthodox Melkites, but the heretical Jacobites or Copts. But Michael Cerularius, whose partner in schism this Achridan prelate proved himself to be, declares clearly enough that those Egyptians were none other than the professors of the right faith. For he speaks thus in his letter to Peter of Antioch, n. 10: "And, indeed, this does not only reach our ears (namely, that the Alexandrian and Hierosolymitan patriarchs have the name of the Roman pontiff inscribed on the diptychs), but also that the two mentioned pontiffs not only receive other men who eat unleavened bread, *ἀλλ' ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ αὐτοὶ δι᾿ ἀζύμων ἐκτελοῦσι μυσταγωγίαν*, but they themselves also sometimes celebrate the divine mysteries in unleavened bread." Whether this rumor was true or false, I would not dare to say for certain. There are indeed those who assert that Humbert of Silva Candida, who at that time, when Michael and Leo were railing ^B against the Roman Church on account of the unleavened bread, was the legate of the Apostolic See at Constantinople, wrote in his anti-heretical book against the objects of Nicetas Stethatus—commonly called Pectoratus—that this had been the custom of the Church of Jerusalem.

But if one examines Humbert's words more attentively, he will find that they imply something else. Wherefore it is worth bringing the whole passage here, so that the learned reader may be better able to judge the author's meaning. "He also gives the evident cause," says the Greek—that is, Humbert—"of that circumcision, by which the little crown of bread, when lifted with iron for the sacrifice, corresponds with the immaculate host, the more aptly to signify the immaculate body of the Lord, and the integrity of the bread signifies the integrity of the Church. Finally, that you are accustomed to take the holy bread, steeped in the chalice with a spoon, into the 'eternal life,' what do you object to this? For the Lord himself did not steep the bread in the chalice of wine and thus give it to the apostles saying: 'Take, and eat with a spoon. This is my body.' But after they had dined, he reached out the chalice, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you.' Which institution, which is reverenced by angels and men, holy Zion, namely the first Church, has retained right up to modern times, just as it received it from the apostles; insomuch that certain pontiffs of Jerusalem signified in given letters how much that institution differs from the Greeks. For thus they wrote and left behind: 'From the holy city of Jerusalem, which is holy Hierosolyma, departed the Christian faith: in it also are holy Zion and the holy first resurrection of the Church, and they are truthfully held to be so. In this holy and venerable place the divine and immaculate oblation of our Lord Jesus Christ is fulfilled, and so forth in order.'" And I think they do well, because they place on the holy patens nothing but whole and sound oblations, and not, as the Greeks do, have an iron lance with which they cut the offering in the shape of a cross, that is, the *proscomita* (in Greek ^C *προσκομιδή*). Furthermore, in the aforementioned holy Churches, with the paten itself they lift up the holy anaphora, that is, the oblation. For the oblations themselves ^D are true and suitable, and the loaves are made from flour, but they do not know the iron lance. There is no talk here of unleavened bread, but Humbert attacks the Greek rite, by which they cut a segment of square shape with a lance, as they say, or with a holy knife, from a sufficiently large loaf, and mark it with a cross as an offering to God: whereas the priests of the Hierosolymitan Church offered a whole host, or bread that is thin and sound, just as the Romans do. Humbert does not say that this bread lacked leaven: nay rather, it is allowed that it was leavened, after the manner of the Alexandrians, or the Melkites, or the Jacobites, who, just like those of Syria, consecrate round little cakes made from leaven. Yet such were the [LXXXIV] hosts in the time of St. Epiphanius, who relates that the external Eucharistic figure was round (b): *Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἐστι*

ἐστι* ^A *στρογγυλοειδὲς*, inquit: "Now this roundness, and what is not perceived by the senses," etc. Why did not Leo of Achrida and Michael Cerularius, on account of the offering of those thin and round cakes, likewise accuse the Alexandrians and Jerusalemites just as they accused the Latins of consecrating unleavened bread? It is certainly true that the *chartophylax*, or the one who was in charge of writing letters for the Patriarch Cerularius, showed his own amazement and ignorance in a remarkable way throughout his letter to Peter of Antioch, and stumbled shamefully at every turn. That the Antiochene himself indicates this sufficiently in his responding letters to the Constantinopolitan. But if indeed I should by no means deny that the Alexandrians, or the Melkites, or the Jacobites, on a certain special day of the year, for instance on Maundy Thursday, sometimes performed their rites with unleavened bread—in memory, obviously, of the loaves of unleavened bread with which the Savior instituted the Eucharist on this very day, just as we said that the Abyssinians are accustomed to do after the illustrious Ludolf—since those Ethiopians received their faith and sacred rites from the Alexandrians. What then, if the Greeks did not grant the Egyptians that that water of the twelfth of June possesses ^B the power of leaven, and thus considered the host consecrated by it to be unleavened nonetheless? By these or other similar interpretations or conjectures, a reason could be given for why Michael Cerularius and Leo of Achrida thought that the Egyptians and Palestinians performed the divine service with non-leavened bread.

XXXV. But now we must speak concerning the antiquity of unleavened bread among the Latins. Pope Leo IX, in opposition to the accusations of Michael Cerularius and his followers, unhesitatingly affirmed that their use had flourished in the Roman Church from the very beginnings of the Christian religion: "Who would not be amazed," he says, "that after the holy and orthodox Fathers, for one thousand and twenty years from the passion of the Savior, you have emerged as a new calumniator of the Latins' Church, anathematizing all who take part in unleavened bread?" Cardinal Humbert, the legate of Leo, asserts the same in those things which he wrote against the same Cerularius and Nicetas Pectoratus. Hugo Etherianus asserts the same again, in book II, chapter 27, as do other tractators of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

XXXVI. Martinus Polonus in his *Chronicon*, where he treats of Alexander I, Roman pontiff, has these words: "He also decreed that water should be mixed with wine for the designation of the union of Christ with the Church, and that the oblation should be made in unleavened bread, and in a small quantity, saying: 'The oblation is the rarer, the more precious it is.'" The first epistle, which under this pontiff's name was forged by Isidore Mercator, orders that water be mixed with wine; but nothing is read concerning unleavened bread in it, nor in two others. Where Martinus drew these things from remains unknown. Platina, however, adds that this was decreed by Alexander to remove from the Ebionite heretics the occasion for calumny. This passage of this historian, indeed, Nectarius, the recent patriarch of Jerusalem, seized upon most avidly, so as to summon the Roman Church to judgment, as if it had fawned upon the heretics—nay, even the Jews—by usurping unleavened bread. But who would allow the Roman Church to be accused of Judaism by the schismatic Greeks on account of unleavened bread, when they themselves in the Jewish manner strictly took care that salt would not be lacking from the Eucharistic sacrifice? For they require the bread which they offer in the divine liturgy to be not only leavened, but also seasoned with salt, just as it is decreed in the law of Moses: "And every offering of your sacrifice you shall season with salt. You shall not leave out the salt of the covenant of the Lord from your sacrifices. On every offering of yours you shall offer salt to the Lord your God" 63. Therefore, either let them remove salt from the Lord's oblation, or let them spare the Latins, who offer the loaves to be consecrated without leaven with a mind entirely alien to Jewish rites.

XXXVII. The scholastic doctors of that early age, such as Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, Durandus, and St. Thomas in their commentaries on book IV of the *Sentences*, dist. XI, transmit—I know not from what author—that Pope Leo reported: "The custom of consecrating unleavened bread was interrupted for some time by the holy Fathers while the Ebionite heresy was raging." Who this Pope Leo was, no one indicates, nor is anything of the sort read in the writings of any Roman pontiff who bore the name of Leo. There is deep silence concerning this in the epistles of Leo IX. But the subtle doctor ^C (a) saw more and more perspicaciously, whose words I am pleased to recite here. "Under Pope Leo," he says, "there was a heresy observing the Law along with the Gospel. And then, so that the Latins might not seem to observe the law of the Jews, it was commanded to make the sacrifice in leavened bread. But when faith returned and prevailed, the Latins used unleavened bread." To have recited these inanities is to have refuted them.

XXXVIII. Elsewhere the schismatic Greeks deny for the most part that the use of unleavened bread is older than Charlemagne, and they prattle that it was introduced into the Roman Church by the Franks. Thus Epiphanius of Constantinople in his book *On the Dissension between the Greeks and the Latins*. Thus Nicetas Seidus, who wrote under Alexios Komnenos. Thus other authors whom Leo Allatius cites in exercise 28, *Against Creyglonus*. Thus that Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, in an epistle (as the title claims) *To Saint Theodore the Studite*. Which Germanus, indeed, is to be judged entirely different from the most holy pontiff Germanus I, who long ago experienced the first fires of the Iconoclast fury when Leo the Isaurian was roaring. For Saint Theodore the Studite was scarcely born when this divine Germanus left this life. Wherefore this epistle, which is found handwritten in various European libraries, and especially ^D

in the Royal codex 2982, must be attributed to Germanus II, a most bitter enemy of the Roman Church, who wrote it to a certain Theodore of the monastery of Studium. Unless, perhaps, for Theodore the Studite we should read Theodore Stilbes, who served under the same patriarch Germanus II, around the year 1255, as chartophylax of the Great Church, as may be seen in volume 11 of the Monumenta Eccl. Græc., p. 474. To this same Germanus must also be assigned that exposition of the divine liturgy or mass, which is read in volume II of the Bibl. PP. Græc. and elsewhere. ^A It is reported that other small-minded Greeks have increased that erratic opinion of theirs with a new delusion, in the same exercise of Allatius which we have praised. For they feigned that the Vandals, when they were imbued with the impieties of Arius and Apollinaris, had handed over unleavened bread to the Romans, when they plundered their city under the leadership of their king, Charles; and that Pope Felix, who at that time drew his origin from the Jews, favored them greatly. But Simon, the patriarch of Jerusalem, whom Allatius cites in the same place, wrote in a similar manner that Pope Lucius, or rather Felix, Λεύκιος τούνομα, μάλλον δὲ Φῆλιξ, [LXXXV] while suffering from the error of Apollinaris, and thus robbing Christ of a rational soul, had removed leaven from the Eucharistic oblation. I would think this the cause of this latter delusion, because, as we showed in dissertation 2, a certain epistle, either of Apollinaris or of some Apollinarist, had once appeared inscribed with the name of Pope and martyr Felix. However, suffice it to have recited the trifles and fictions of the Greeks; it is shameful to refute them. Here we shall at least observe that Michael Cerularius, Leo of Achrida, Nicetas Stethatus, and Peter of Antioch, who disputed against the unleavened bread of the Latins in the very beginnings of the schism, did not object to anything of the sort, when Leo IX and others of our people were, on the contrary, holding up apostolic tradition. Nicetas, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, when he was defending the cause of the Church in a colloquy which he held at Constantinople with Anselm, Bishop of Havelberg (a), confessed ingenuously: ^B that the apostles did not too studiously look for either leaven or unleavened bread, and whatever was at hand, whether it was this or that, they offered it indifferently with devotion; the Roman Church gradually laid aside the one, namely leavened bread, and assumed only the other, namely unleavened; the Oriental Church also dismissed unleavened bread and chose leavened, yet that on account of this, neither the ancient wise Greeks nor the ancient wise Latins thought that they should despise one another. "But these scandals arose," he says, "from the time when Charles, king of the Franks, arose, who violently invaded the Roman empire, and caused himself to be called Patrician of the Roman city. Thence it is that while the Latins blaspheme our leaven, and judge the sacrifice of the altar unworthy, and we, rather from the pride of their arrogance than from an assertion of truth, call them heretics; that we, being irritated by them and answering them equally, do not by any means care for their leaven, and we judge it unworthy of the sacrifice of the holy altar, we call them heretics not out of pride, but in the name of just retribution." In this way Nicetas was trying to soften the forward slanders of his people against the Latins. ^C But with the peace of this ecumenical teacher, our people showed themselves much fairer towards the Greeks' leaven. Dominic of Grado, in a letter to Peter of Antioch, approved of both oblations. And although, as Wibert testifies in the Life of Leo IX, some among the Latins called the Greeks "leaven-users" [Fermentaceos], when they were denounced as heretics by them on account of the use of unleavened bread; yet Humbert himself, with his fellow legates, in the bill of excommunication which he left upon the altar of Saint Sophia, blames only Michael and his cohorts by name, because he had closed the churches of the Latins, and by calling them "Azymites," he had attacked them everywhere in words and deeds; which Nicephorus, the patriarch’s sacristan, had finally done by trampling upon the Latin sacrifice in the presence of everyone. Hence Gregory VII (b), to whom Leo IX had created a cardinal deacon, in a letter to the Armenian Archbishop of Synada, after narrating the slanders of the Greeks against us, ^D subjoins: "But we, defending our unleavened bread according to the Lord by reason, do not disparage nor condemn their leavened bread, following the Apostle who says*, 'to the pure all things are pure.'"

XXXIX. James Sirmond, a critic of excellent learning, in a singular opuscule which he published *On Unleavened Bread*, undertook to prove that the Roman Church at one time, for a while after the death of Photius, performed divine service with unleavened bread, having put aside leaven; and he inferred this from the silence of Photius, who, although he maliciously carped at the many rites and customs of the Latins, did not stir up a dispute with them because of unleavened bread. Perhaps some may oppose to this most learned man the authority of Nicetas Stethatus, a schismatic man, who in his *Thesaurus* confessed of his own accord that the tradition of unleavened bread was very ancient among the Latins, nor had there existed any quarrel between either Church regarding this head of discipline until the times which arose between him and Pope Nicholas, as he sought to show himself superior in abundance, concealing the article about the procession of the Holy Spirit, the use of unleavened bread, the celibate life of priests, and other similar things. This place of Nicetas appears in the Latin translation of his *Christian Thesaurus*, and for this reason, it was published in its entirety in Greek and Latin by Leo Allatius in his dissertation to Christian de Boinebourg. But whatever is brought against Choniates by learned men proves them to be false.

^A The monuments of the Photian schism have been read in their entirety, both Greek and Latin, whether printed or in manuscript, in which not even a single "iota" appears concerning unleavened bread. Photius, certainly, was the first to invent the claim that the rite of offering unleavened bread was confirmed by the very institution of the divine Eucharist, which he writes in his *Bibliotheca* was performed by Christ without leaven, according to the tradition of the whole Church. For not yet was invented the escape of those desperate Greeks who, when questioned by Cardinal Humbert as to where the Lord Jesus obtained leaven in the Supper, when it could not be found anywhere within the borders of Israel, replied: “If one believes in the Almighty, He could have suddenly produced leaven from anywhere, or certainly could have leavened the unleavened bread itself by blessing it.” ^B Nor, again, that other [excuse] which Euthymius Zygabenus later at length invented for his own, namely, that Christ and his disciples had anticipated the Jewish Passover by one day, and on the thirteenth day, not the fourteenth, in the evening, had eaten the paschal lamb with wild lettuce and unleavened bread, standing and holding staffs in their hands, and then, this meal having been performed with the ceremonies sanctioned by the law of Moses, [they ate] again ordinary bread, properly called leavened, and broth; from which bread He made His body and gave it to His disciples. [He claimed] that it was not forbidden to anticipate the paschal supper, and when the evening of the fourteenth day had not yet arrived, to eat leavened bread again. How vain these things are, anyone who has diligently scrutinized the laws and customs of the Jews, which the Lord followed even unto death, will discover without trouble. For how could Christ have anticipated the Passover, which it was by no means lawful to eat on any day of the month other than the fifteenth; so that if anyone by chance, through uncleanness contracted by a funeral, had not eaten it at the beginning of the fifteenth day of the month, they could celebrate it only on the other fifteenth day of the second month? ^C And why those staffs? As if Christ and His disciples had dined standing and holding staffs, when such a ceremony, by the testimony of the Jews themselves, was observed only on that night when the sons of Israel were about to depart from Egypt, but in subsequent times, they have performed it — and perform it still today — either by reclining in the manner of the ancients, or of the Greeks, or of the Romans, or by sitting. Truly, the Jews have not departed at all from the ancient rite of eating the paschal supper, although they do not dare to eat the whole lamb, because the Mosaic law prohibits it from being eaten except in the place which the Lord has chosen, that is, Jerusalem. But also the evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke say that the Lord Jesus, when evening had come on the first day of unleavened bread, reclined to celebrate the Passover. John agrees, where we read that Christ arose from supper ^D to wash the disciples' feet, and reclined again. From where, then, did Euthymius derive [the notion] which he himself constantly suggests, that on the days of unleavened bread, it was not permitted for broth to be served to the Hebrews? Leo of Modena, book 1, *On the Ceremonies of the Jews*, ch. 3, is a most wealthy witness that a vessel with broth or sauce was customarily used at the paschal supper. Thus Buxtorf, *Synagoga Judaica*, ch. 13: “They place another bowl full of vinegar,” he says. Therefore, in such a bowl the Lord dipped the morsel which He gave to Judas Iscariot. Nor let anyone object that the Jews even now anticipate the fifteenth day for the paschal supper annually, and celebrate the Passover in the evening on two days. For they by no means ought to be considered as anticipating the evening of the Passover: but since the law orders that the lamb be sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the first month, at the evening declination of the sun, and eaten on the fifteenth day of said month, and it is otherwise not sufficiently established which should be held as the fifteenth, whether that which is counted from the meeting of the sun and moon, or that which is from the first phase or appearance of the moon; so that all scruple might be removed, they have considered it proper to celebrate the Passover on two days which are equally reckoned as the fifteenth. Vain, therefore, are the conjectures of Euthymius, which nevertheless Symeon of Thessalonica (a) and other Greeks have embraced more greedily.

XL. Unleavened bread was offered by the Romans at the altar before Photius. I do not dispute here whether leaven was so perpetually omitted by the Western Church that only unleavened bread was ever offered. Far be it from me to preside as arbiter over this difficult question which has been agitated among the learned of the first rank. The author of the books *On the Sacraments*, whom it is thought was Ambrose the Great of Milan, and who lived at least in the sixth, or rather the fifth, and perhaps the fourth century in a province which followed customs different from the Romans, testifies that common and therefore leavened bread was customarily used for the Eucharist (b): "You perhaps say: My bread is common bread." It is sufficient, however, for me to inquire into the custom of the Roman Church, which was in force at the time of the Photian schism. Leo IX, in his responsive epistle to the accusations of Michael Cerularius and Leo of Achrida, quite clearly indicates that no one had caused trouble for the Latins before the patriarch Cerularius on account of unleavened offerings, indeed, that this rite of the Roman Church was not so much newer than his own age, as that it had begun from the time of Photius, that is, since not even two hundred years had passed. It will not displease [me] to repeat here the words of Leo, which I have already adduced above: "Who would not be amazed," he says, "that after so many holy and orthodox Fathers, for one thousand and twenty years from the passion of the Savior, you have emerged as a new calumniator of the Church of the Latins, anathematizing all those who participate in unleavened bread." But also unleavened breads—

^A—those accustomed to being consecrated in the Mass by the Romans before the time of Photius, Rabanus Maurus has testified in book 1 of *De institutione clericorum*, chapter 31, where he determines that nothing else should be offered in the sacraments except what the Lord himself prescribed by his own example; then he adds: "Therefore, it is necessary that unleavened bread and wine mixed with water be sanctified in the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ." Yet, in chapter 33 of that same book, Rabanus declares that he has described the order of the Mass which the Roman Church and almost all others throughout the West observed. Moreover, he had published the books *De institutione clericorum* around the year 820, while he was still acting as a monk at Fulda, about forty-seven years before Photius had begun to level insults against the Roman Church. Alcuin, under Charlemagne, at the beginning of the nascent heresy of Felix of Urgell and Elipandus—that is, before the Council of Frankfurt—wrote a letter (a) to the people of Lyons in which he reproves the custom of certain Spaniards who used to put salt into the bread of the oblation, which, he says, neither the universal Church observes nor Roman authority maintains. Then he continues immediately: "There are three things that are to be offered in the sacrifice of this testimony: bread, water, and wine. The bread, which is consecrated into the body of the Lord, must be most pure, without the leaven of any other infection." From which words it becomes clear that in the time of Albinus Flaccus (that is, Alcuin), only unleavened bread, not leavened, was used by the Roman Church at the altar. It is very strange that some contend that Albinus meant the rite of the Gallican Church, or rather his own Anglican one, instead of the Roman, when he himself explicitly names the authority of the Roman Church, of whose ceremonies he was both very knowledgeable and very tenacious, as is evident from his work *De ritibus Ecclesiæ*.

XLI. Indeed, even before the sixth synod, offerings ^B were made. The Roman Church had already long exhibited leavened bread in the sacrifice, as Nicetas and other Greeks tried to prove by the authority of the eleventh canon of the Council in Trullo, by which it is forbidden that Christians eat unleavened bread with the Jews: for they claimed that this canon was sanctioned with the approval of Pope Agatho after our Meletius. They attributed the canons of that synod, which is called the Quinisext, to the sixth general synod that was celebrated under Pope Agatho, although they are many years more recent. On the contrary, Cardinal Humbert opposes this fabrication with the history of the sixth synod, in which it is reported that the legates of Agatho, when asked by the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus what order the Roman Church held concerning the sacrifice of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, replied: "In the cup of the Lord there should not be offered only wine, but water mixed with it. For if only wine is offered, the blood of Christ begins to exist without us. And if pure water is offered, the people begin to exist without Christ. When both are mixed, that is, wine and water, then the spiritual sacrament is perfected. But the oblation which is offered for the sacrifice of the altar must have no mixture [LXXXVII] or corruption of leaven, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived and gave birth to Christ without any corruption. Hence, the custom prevailed in the Church that the sacrifice of the altar not be celebrated in silk or dyed cloth, but in clean linen, just as the body of the Lord was buried in a clean shroud. Thus, the oblation must be without leaven, according to what we read in the pontifical acts was established by the blessed Silvester." Humbert relates this in his book *Contra Nicetam*, and these things appear to have been taken from the same author and book which Paul the Deacon had before his eyes when he wrote chapter 4 of book VI of his *History of the Lombards*. For Humbert continues with the same words as Paul the Deacon in the parts that immediately follow what I have just related. And yet Paul flourished as the century was ending; which is one hundred years after the celebration of the sixth general council, and long before Photius attempted to create the schism of the Churches.

XLI. Saint Thomas in his *Catena aurea* on Matthew, chapter xxvi, and elsewhere (b) strives to confirm the use of unleavened bread by the testimony of the blessed Gregory, who taught in his *Register* that it is equally lawful to offer both unleavened and leavened bread. He writes somewhat more fully on the same subject in his ^C treatise *Contra Græcos*, which was held in Constantinople in the houses of the Friars Preachers in the year 1252, and edited by Stewart. But the passage in this treatise is not said to be taken from the *Register* of Gregory, but from his *Life* written in the Greek language. And by this method, the authors of the treatise adduce the words of Gregory. "Let the Greeks listen," they say, "concerning what and how, in the Dialogues (read *Dialogues*, as the Greeks say, or something similar, so that the context of the work holds together) ^D the blessed Gregory replied to those arguing about the sacraments, when he was performing his embassy across to the Greeks." For he says that a question was raised because in the Church some offer leavened bread, others offer unleavened bread. "We know the Church is distinct in four orders, namely: Roman, Alexandrian, Hierosolymitan, and Antiochene; which are generally called Churches, even though they hold one catholic faith. Yet they use different mysteries in their offices. Whence the Roman Church offers unleavened bread, because the Word took flesh without any mixture: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' Thus, therefore, by unleavened bread the body of Christ is brought about. For the other aforementioned Churches offer leavened bread, for the reason that the Word of the Father is clothed in flesh, and is true man: so that the leavened is mixed with the flour and is brought about as the body of our Lord Jesus Christ (c). But both the Roman Church, and the others, for the sake of the ineffable mystery, whether we receive the leavened or the unleavened, are brought about as one body of our Savior." These are the words of Gregory, which in his *Life*...

(c) A little word is missing here, or it should be read: *unum corpus Salvatoris nostri efficimur*.

one body of our Savior." These are the words of Gregory, which in his *Life* of this holy Roman pontiff, from which perhaps these things that I have just recited are taken, Photius in codex 252 reports as excerpts. Let it suffice for me to have cited the entire passage to which those Greeks seem to have looked, who wrote that leavened bread was offered in the Roman Church up to the times of Gregory the Dialogist. From these are cited Gregory of Corfu, in Allatius’s work *De Gregoriis*, and Symeon of Thessalonica, book *De templo*, no. 5, to whom the philosopher Theorianus can also be joined, as we shall presently show.

Immediately, therefore, in that same treatise of ours of the Preachers against the Greeks, added by Stevartius, it says: "But also John Chrysostom, wishing to remove a controversy of this kind from the midst, in a certain letter of his which he sent from Constantinople to the Greeks doubting about the sacrament and other customs of the Latins, says thus: 'With us willing,' etc." They cite, to be sure, as if it were of Saint John Chrysostom, the letter which is to be adjudicated to the philosopher Theorianus, as is gathered from certain fragments which Leo Allatius brought forward in his dissertation to D. de Boinebourg, p. 690. Wherefore I thought I would be doing a useful thing if I gathered and joined together the elements of this letter, both Latin and Greek, from each work, until the complete text is unearthed from some European library.

The opinion of the philosopher Theorianus on the azymes of the Latins. — Leo Allatius and Turrianus testify that this letter of Theorianus was written to priests living in the mountains. But the authors of the treatise against the Greeks recite it in Latin thus: "With us willing to speak concerning the holy communion, whether it was made from azymes or from leavened bread at the holy Lord’s Supper, we require a space of greater time and also a more perfect writer (perhaps, writing). But leaving these things aside, that which is useful and peaceful, nay, I will say, that which is more according to the dispensation and is necessary, and which more contains the truth, must be said. The divine ^A bread, before it is consecrated, whether it be azyme or fermented, is indifferently bread, and is so called by the sacred oracles, as we shall show later. But after it is consecrated, it is neither called nor is it azyme nor fermented, but it is the Body and Blood of the Lord, the very same, and not one for another: for it is one and the same as that which was taken from the incorrupt Virgin and Theotokos ^B by the Word of God, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and is mystically partaken of by us, the orthodox [and Catholics]; for which reason it is also called a mystery, as a secret, ^C as something hidden to the many, as that which is not comprehended by the multitude. It is transmuted by divine power, by the Holy Spirit, into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, according to what the holy secret itself indicates, and also manifests. For we say: 'We beseech thee (a), Holy of holies, that by the good pleasure of thy goodness the Holy Spirit may come upon us and upon all these thy gifts or offerings, and may bless, and sanctify, and show this very bread to be the precious body of our Lord and God and Savior' (they omitted these words which the series of the prayer requires: *Transmuting by thy Holy Spirit*, μεταβαλὼν τῷ Πνεύματί σου τῷ ἁγίῳ).

[XXXVIII] And again: If, therefore, the divine ^D power, or the divine numen, transmutes the proposed gifts into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, it is superfluous for the rest to contend whether it were from azymes or from fermented bread, or from white or perhaps red wine, and to agitate such like foolish and unnecessary curiosities about the tremendous mysteries. Since, however, some of them wish to show from the mere etymology of the name *azymum* that it is not *artos*, that is, bread, we shall dispute briefly about this. For *artos* is derived from *artheos* (read *artios*), that is, from perfection. But *azymum* is not perfect, because it lacks leaven: therefore it is not *artos*. But the Lord blessed *artum*. Such is their marvelous syllogism. But we, to the machinery of this syllogism—since it is of no value, infirm and weak—shall make no response, lest we seem to speak much and uselessly for the demonstration of that rational science (b) which is in us. Yet from the holy Gospels we shall prove or show that the azyme was called *artos*, and the mendacious etymology of those men will appear. For in Luke it is written: "And it came to pass, when he sat at meat with them" (62). And after a few things: "They knew him in the breaking of *artou*" (63). Behold, there he called the *azymum* *artos*. That the one which was then given to Cleopas and his companion in Emmaus was *azymum*, is manifest from this. After the offering of the lamb, the Jews ate azymes for seven days, during which days fermented bread was not found among them.

And again: "Therefore bread is called that which is shown to be *azymum* [unleavened]." For the name "bread," being a genus, is predicated equally of both the fermented and the unleavened, since they are species of it. These things are for our own people who contend that unleavened bread is not called bread. But I feel great wonder regarding the Latins, if there be any among the learned who disparage fermented bread. For I have conversed concerning the divine communion ^A with the best of the Latins, who also possess no small degree of philosophy and theology, and with the most holy Patriarch of Venice, Henry, who is most philosophical, as he possesses no small zeal and care for divine things; but I never heard anyone let slip a word against our communion. For how would any of the wise dare to utter a blasphemy against the all-holy communion, hearing the blessed Gregory, who composed the Dialogue, in his discourse on the divine communion?

Gregory the Great’s pronouncement Allatius omitted: but I would be an empty speculator if Theorianus had not cited the most holy pontiff as a witness, because of that ample passage which our preachers, as if it were Gregory’s and taken from his *Life*, have alleged in treatises against the Greeks, and which we have already reported in full. But when I cited a large part of Theorianus’s letter, I considered it would not be unwelcome to the readers if I added its epilogue (as I suppose), which the same Allatius published toward the end of his dissertation.

^B And first we exhort you not to accept contentions. For we do not have such a custom, nor does the Church of God, but [we are] to pursue peace with all, having Christ as peace, who makes both one; and love the Latins as yourselves. For they are Orthodox, and children of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, just as you are. For their questions are certain customs, touching in no way upon the faith. For all things are good, if we do them for the glory of God; for neither is any Latin ecclesiastical custom, nor ours, taken and maintained outside of what is good and becoming. But they hold to a more divine purpose and understanding. To those, therefore, who are sound-minded, all things are right, but to those who are not so [minded], they are a scandal and an offense. ^C

These last words of Theorianus’s letter Turrianus recites, both in Greek and in Latin, in his lucubration on the *Apostolic Canons*, p. 70, where he suggests, according to the opinion of this author, that the Greeks do not fast on the Sabbath, because on that day the souls of the just, when the Lord had descended to the lower regions to them, were freed from there. For Theorianus had written not only concerning unleavened bread to the priests and monks inhabiting the mountains, ^D but also concerning the fasts and other Latin customs, which the schismatic Greeks were carping at, just as Turrianus and Allatius have testified. Yet in the fragments of that letter which we have brought forth, it has been permitted to observe not only the most wise and most equitable judgment of the writer concerning unleavened bread; but also an elegant testimony concerning the Eucharistic transubstantiation, by which the mouths of those recent heretics are stopped, who formerly dared to affirm that the Eastern Church disagreed from the faith of the Romans on this head. Furthermore, this philosopher Theorianus is by no means to be considered another [person] than that one whose *Legation to the Armenians* exists, to whom [the task of being] sent was given by the Emperor Manuel Comnenus.

^A Theorianus, therefore, since he was well disposed toward the unleavened bread of the Latins, for that reason, in entering a pact with the Armenians, did not judge it necessary to dispute at all about their unleavened bread. Hence, contrary to the novel opinion so widely accepted by his fellow Greeks, he acknowledges that Christ ordered the legal Passover to be prepared and eaten at the Last Supper, intending to signify that He was subject to the Law insofar as He was man. He says: If the eating of the Passover pertained to those who were subject to the Law: but the Lord, insofar as He was man, and not insofar as He was God, was subject to the Law: therefore, insofar as He was man, He wished to eat the Passover. This author borrowed that same argument from the dialogue of Saint Maximus with Pyrrhus. From which it can consequently be gathered that he would voluntarily concede to the Armenians that the Lord had consecrated the Eucharist with unleavened bread, not leavened. But the Catholic Nerses pronounced ^B more soundly on faith than on these rites in the dialogues. Furthermore, in the following century, Gregory Silensis, another Catholic of the Armenians, refers to a letter to Hethum (b), who, having resigned his kingdom, had chosen the monastic life, [reporting] the precept of Nerses (who had dealt with Theorianus concerning the making of a union) that water was to be mixed with wine in the Mass, and that unleavened bread ought to be kept by the same law because of ancient custom; so that, however, they might not be reproached by those who used leaven. Indeed, seven years after the legation of Theorianus, that is, in the year 1177, at the Council of Tarsus, whose acts Galanus published, when the Greeks had proposed, in Article 6, that in the assembly of the Armenians, *if bread with leaven and wine to which water had been added was used, henceforth the Eucharist among them should be made [that way]*, the answer given by them was: *Regarding this article, we advise your Reverence that, accordingly, you should be made in accord with the Apostolic See of Peter and with our humility, and thus, being submissive, you should restore the law of charity. For they are, no less than we, disciples of this apostolic tradition, with whom we also consecrate unleavened bread in the sacrifice of Christ. But if such humility is granted to you by us, that you agree with us in this matter, it will be due to us that no obstacle be placed against the unity of the Church, by mixing water with pure wine to the glory of God.* ^C XLIII. Long before Theorianus, Theophylact, and afterwards Demetrios Chomatenos, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Bulgarians, voluntarily admitted that the consecration of unleavened bread was not of such importance that for that reason the Church of the East ought to be cut off from the Western [Church]. The testimonies of both are common and trite, and they exist in Greco-Roman law, where they can be read. But when the discussion happens to turn to the mind of Theophylact regarding the unleavened bread of the Latins, here I cannot omit the fraud of a certain Greek copyist, who foully corrupted his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, where the supreme Passover of Christ was being discussed. This depravation appears in the published editions at chapter XXVI of Matthew, where we read thus: *He calls the first of the Unleavened Bread the day which precedes the unleavened bread.* Just as if I should say: They were about to eat the Passover on the eve of the Parasceve, and it itself was called [the day] of the Unleavened Bread. Therefore, the Lord sends the disciples on the fifth ferial day, which the evangelist calls the first of the Unleavened Bread, because it was before the Parasceve, on the eve of which they were eating the Passover. And as if Theophylact had judged that the unleavened bread had not begun to be eaten by the Jews on the eve of the fifth ferial day, but only on the sixth: which, however, is by no means true. For in his exposition, chapter XXII, according to Luke, he writes clearly: *Therefore he calls the fifth day the day of the Unleavened Bread, on the eve of which the Passover was to be sacrificed.* Therefore, the Lord sends the disciples, Peter and John, on the fifth day, namely in the morning. Wherefore Arcudius, having made a comparison of both places with manuscript codices, discovered that the commentary ^D of Theophylact had been vitiated. Indeed, in the Royal codices, one of which approaches as closely as possible to the age of the author, I found it written in the same way as Arcudius [found] in his, namely: *He calls the first of the Unleavened Bread the day which precedes the day of the unleavened bread.* Namely, that they were to eat the Passover on the fifth ferial day, after the Parasceve had dawned. It was called "the first of the Unleavened Bread" in the Law, because the feast began from the eve of that day on which they were fed with unleavened bread. Therefore, the Lord sends the disciples on the fifth ferial day, which the evangelist calls the first of the Unleavened Bread, because it was before the eve on which they were fed with unleavened bread.

^A Theophylact, therefore, did not only judge that the Latins were to be permitted to perform the sacred rites with unleavened bread, but he did not depart from the opinion of St. John Chrysostom and the ancient Fathers regarding the Lord's final Jewish Passover, but taught instead that Christ had celebrated the paschal meal on the same day as the Jews according to the Mosaic rite. In the same library, codex 1945, there is preserved another Greek explanation of the Gospel according to Matthew, which they attribute to Theophylact, even though the earlier and later pages have perished. But there is nothing to be found in this commentary that does not favor our Latins. For thus it is read regarding these words of Matthew: *Prime Azymorum*. "He calls the *First of the Unleavened Bread* that day which preceded the Unleavened Bread. For they were accustomed to count the day always from the evening. And he mentions that evening on which the Passover was to be sacrificed; for on the fifth day of the Sabbath they came, and this day the one calls [the day] before the Unleavened Bread, naming the time when they came. The other says thus: 'The day of the Unleavened Bread came, in which it was necessary for the Passover to be sacrificed.' By saying this, he means it was near, it was at the doors; he was mindful of that evening, clearly. For from the evening they used to begin. Therefore each adds, saying: 'When the Passover was being sacrificed.'" *Prime Azymorum* means the one that preceded the unleavened bread. For they were accustomed always to count the day from the evening. And yet the evangelist mentions the evening in which the Passover was to be sacrificed. For on the fifth day of the Sabbath, or week, they approached: and Matthew calls this the one that preceded the unleavened bread, where he indicates the time when the disciples came to him. But the other (that is, Luke) says thus: "And there came the day of the Unleavened Bread, in which it was necessary for the Passover to be killed." What he says, "came," is the same as "it was near, it was at the doors." Where he is certainly mentioning that evening. For they used to begin from the evening: and for this reason each of them adds when the passover was being slaughtered. The author of this commentary also followed and transcribed John Chrysostom. The first of the interpreters, Euthymius Zygabenus, departed from the trite and common opinion, so that he might more easily assault the unleavened bread of the Latins and Armenians. This he attempted to do in his *Panoplia*, in which, among various chapters on the heresy of the Armenians, he also placed this one, that they performed sacred rites with unleavened bread. But those who edited this book of Euthymius in Latin omitted these things, as they also did with those things he had collected against the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from Photius and other authors. Moreover, what he wrote against the unleavened bread of the Armenians is nothing but a warmed-over cabbage, many times repeated: otherwise it would not have troubled me to recite them in this treatise. But even those things which the schismatic Greeks have objected to the Latins in this matter have seemed so futile and trifling to the more prudent that, as often as there has been action concerning the restoration of the union of the Churches, no question, or a very slight one, has been raised concerning unleavened bread. In the Council of Florence, ^B although Mark of Ephesus had declared that union could not be restored with the Romans, unless the clause *Filioque* were excluded from the Symbol of faith, and that from bread not leavened for the sacrifice, nevertheless little effort was expended by the Greeks on this latter article. Nor were there any but the lowest of the populace and desperate men who were accustomed to persecute us with the name of "Azymites." These George Scholarius despised, who, having put aside squabbles over the customs or rites of the Latins, concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit with them to dispute, thought it better and more capable, more useful in the Preface of his first book against the Latins.

XLIV. For an epilogue to this dissertation, I am pleased to subjoin something concerning the form or figure of that oblation which the Greek priests, having cut it from the whole loaf, place on the sacred disc to be consecrated. Certain learned men, whom I need not name, say that the fragment removed is in the manner of a little crown, that it is a small crown taken from the thick and whole bread, and is therefore round and circular. They certainly err, and did not examine the rite of the Greeks with the diligence that the matter required. I think the occasion for erring was provided by Humbert of Silva Candida, the legate of Leo IX, when, responding to the objections of the Greeks, he demands the cause of that circumcision, ^C whereby they lift the little crown of bread for the holy sacrifice with an iron [instrument], when the immaculate host would seem to signify more aptly the immaculate Body of the Lord, and the integrity of the bread the integrity of the Church. But either Humbert used the word "little crown" less properly, or he did not investigate with sufficient diligence the rite of preparing [the host] among the Greeks of Constantinople: unless perhaps one would dare to affirm that they had departed from the ancient use and ceremony afterwards; which, however, he could not easily prove. For Simeon of Thessalonica, in his book *Against Heresies*, chapter 87, where he disputes about the rites and rubrics of his Church, bitterly rebukes the Latins because they do not consecrate a square, but a round host: for the square form signifies the Body of the Lord consisting of four elements, and also human nature as a whole, while the circular [signifies] divinity. Likewise our Goarius, on page 117 of the *Euchologion*, where he shows a sample, both of the whole bread from which the host to be consecrated is taken, and of the host itself, writes thus clearly: "Whatever the figure of the bread may be, whether circular or square, it is always excavated and lifted out by the lance in a square." Where that man, most skilled in Greek rites, testifies that the whole and thick bread, as they say, whichever it may please him [to use], whether round or square, the segment which is removed from it [and] consecrated is always square, as can be seen from the imprint which he had cut in copper. Nor do the words of Leo Allatius, which are objected by those who think to the contrary, mean anything else. Although not dil-

- ^B igently examined by some in more recent codices. How far our Damascene was from believing that Christ did not eat the typical Jewish Passover with his disciples on the day before he died, I have proven at the beginning of this dissertation from two locations in his genuine works. To these I shall now add a third from his second oration on the Dormition of the blessed Virgin:

Sion, I say...

Blow the trumpet at the new moon.

Lord Jesus Christ, it had exceeded the sixteenth day, so that it might testify to him who was crucified that he is the true God and life eternal. The Jews celebrated the Passover with ^A a triple material, and with three witnesses, just as it had been constituted by the Law. For the material was, in fact, threefold: a lamb, bread made with absolutely no leaven, and bitter herbs. And there were three virtues, namely, that they should be girded, that they should have their feet shod, and that they should hold staffs in their hands. Moreover, the witnesses standing at the table were those who would diligently observe the time of the moon’s radiance through the chalice which was moved, and gave the sign, while the priest played the trumpet, that it was the Passover of the Lord. Consequently, therefore, when the voice of the trumpet was heard, they prepared bread without leaven for seven days. However, before the sign of the chalice and the trumpet, it was in no way permitted to them to prepare either the lamb, or the leavenless bread, or the bitter herbs. For so the divine David says: «Blow the trumpet at the new moon». ^B Yet our Lord Jesus Christ kept the mystical supper on the fifth day, and delivered the divine mysteries, at our sixth hour. But the beginning of the unleavened bread was on the Preparation [Day] toward evening, when the Lord was already buried. Wherefore the four evangelists say that he gave perfect bread in the mysteries, and not unleavened, so that he might also create faith that he, the perfect man, had assumed from the holy Virgin [that which was] endowed with soul, I say, and mind, and not, as the Laodicean Apollinarius impiously taught, [a] body merely without mind and soul. Therefore, we call it perfect bread, which consists of flour, leaven, and salt, just as the soul and mind are joined to the body. For a body that lacks a soul is dead. And unleavened bread, because it is devoid of leaven, is dead, and not living bread; since leaven provides life and unity to the mass, just as the spirit does to the body, and salt to the mind. ^C And for this reason we celebrate the divine mysteries with perfect bread, so that we may not fall into the impiety of the profane Apollinarius. The moon’s effusion occurred in fourteen and a half days, and three hours. But in the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, it exceeded the sixteenth [day], so that it might testify that he who was crucified was the true God and eternal life. It is not worthwhile to refute these trifles, nor to prolong this dissertation any further.

DISSERTATION SEVEN

Concerning the Christian Nazarenes, and their faith, and also concerning the Ebionites.

[XCII] I. Since in the annotations to the book of Saint John Damascene ^D *De Haeresibus* I have spoken only a few things, strictly and briefly, concerning the faith and customs of the Christian Nazarenes, and since more [material] which ought to be discussed on this subject was available, it has been enjoined upon me by men who are highly distinguished, both in doctrine and in their zeal for the Catholic religion, to recount it more painstakingly and in a separate dissertation—men whose advice and inclinations it would have been a sin to oppose.

II. The ancient Christians of Judea were called Nazarenes. Epiphanius, in his books *Concerning Heresies*, purposely distinguishes the Nassaraeans from the Nazareans or Nazarenes, the former of whom were pure and simple Jews, and perhaps older than the age of Christ, while the others were Christians from among the Jews. Indeed, the ancient Christians of Judea, who gave their name to Christ at the preaching of the apostles, were first called Nazarenes by their own countrymen, because the Lord Jesus was brought up in the town of Nazareth and had spent a great part of his life there, whence also he was called a Nazarene. Wherefore Tertullus, the orator and advocate of the Jews, about to speak before Felix, the governor of Judea, against the apostle Paul, said that he was the author of the sedition of the sect of the Nazarenes. The pages of the Acts of the Apostles testify that these Christians were most addicted to the ceremonies of the Mosaic Law; not only in chapter xv, verse 1, where it is narrated that certain of them had come to Antioch, and had attempted to persuade those who believed in Christ from the Gentiles that salvation could not be obtained if circumcision, in particular, were omitted; but also primarily in chapter xxi, verse 20 and following, where we read that James, the brother of the Lord, bishop of Jerusalem, and also the elders of the Church addressed Paul thus: "You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law. Now they have heard about you, that you teach the apostasy from Moses of those who are among the Gentiles, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, nor walk according to the custom of the law. What then is it? It is necessary that the multitude gather; for they will hear that you have arrived. Do therefore this which we tell you: There are with us four men having a vow upon themselves: take these, and sanctify yourself with them, and pay for them that they may shave their heads: and everyone will know that the things which they have heard about you are false; but that you yourself also walk, keeping the law." But shortly they add things which it does not shame one to produce here: "But concerning those who have believed from among the Gentiles, we have written, judging that they should abstain themselves from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication."

III. Across the Jordan, before the siege of Jerusalem...

DISSERTATION VII.

Those who were Christians from among the Jews, when they understood that the holy city was soon to be surrounded and besieged by the Roman army, fled from Judea, as they had been forewarned by the Lord, across the Jordan into Decapolis and primarily to Pella, ^A where they lived in tranquility, immune from the calamities by which the rest of the Jews were occupied and afflicted. Then indeed, the most holy James had suffered martyrdom, as Josephus reports, and in his place Simeon, son of Cleopas, had been subordinated as also the Lord’s kinsman. Their successors were thirteen in number, all from the circumcision—"from the circumcision," tell us Hegesippus, if ^B I am not mistaken, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, and others. Furthermore, Epiphanius, in heresy 66, which is that of the Manichaeans, hands down that this succession of Jewish bishops lasted until the tenth year of Antoninus Pius. But Eusebius does not extend it beyond the times of Hadrian; which I consider to be clearly more true, namely that that Jerusalem Church consisted of Jews only, until the war ^C which their fellow-countrymen waged against the Romans, as rebels against both Christ and the Emperor, with Barchocheba as their leader. Once this was accomplished, Hadrian, having expelled all Jews whatsoever from their native soil, brought colonies into the new city, which he had called Aelia after his own name. Whence it happened that the bishops of Jerusalem were henceforth drawn from among the Gentiles and the Greeks who had embraced the faith of Christ, and they, together with the new ^D city, composed the Church, and no longer from the circumcision.

IV. Epiphanius's narrative regarding the restored Church of Jerusalem. — Epiphanius, in his book *On Weights and Measures*, writes further that those Christians, who were disciples from among the Jews, returned to the ruins and rubble of the holy city, and that they had gathered in that upper room in which the Apostles had once gathered after the Lord's ascension, and in the huts and shacks upon Mount Sion, and that there, having built a small church, they taught the faith of Christ just as before. But I refrain from this narrative, which has seemed to learned men to be relegated to fables, although Epiphanius himself testifies in heresy 29 that the greater part of those Christians from the Hebrew race had remained in Transjordan in Decapolis and Basanitis, and even in certain towns of Coelesyria.

V. Thebutes attempts to infect the Church of Jerusalem. — Meanwhile, however, while Simeon was governing the Church after the death of James, a certain Thebutes I know not of, because he had been passed over in the petition for the episcopate by the Church—which, because it was stained by no blemish of perverse doctrine, was called a Virgin—sought to infect it with errors. He, according to Hegesippus in Eusebius, gave his name to the seven sects that had been sown in Judea; namely, the Simonians, the Cleobians, the Dositheans, and others from whom the ^A Menandrians, Saturnians, Carpocratians, Valentinians, and Basilidians were born. I would not dare to affirm that this Thebutes was the same person as Ebion, from whom the Ebionites drew their name. But I shall say later that the Ebionites held certain tenets of the Gnostics. Indeed, Justin Martyr, in the fragments of his work *On the Resurrection*, which we provide from the *Rupefucaldini Parallels*, is a most abounding witness [XCIII] that the ancient heretics, who departed from the Catholic faith, did not spring solely from the Samaritans, like the ^B Simonians, Dositheans, Menandrians, and Saturnians, but especially from the Jews who were called Christians: Ὁ τῆς πονηρίας ἄρχων ἐξέπεμψε τοὺς ἀποστόλους αὐτοῦ κακούς, καὶ λοιμώδεις διδασκαλίας εἰσάγοντας, ἐκλεξάμενος αὐτοὺς ἐκ [τῶν] σταυρωσάντων τὸν Σωτῆρα ἡμῶν, οἵτινες, τὸ μὲν ὄνομα τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἔφερον, τὰ δὲ ἔργα τοῦ πέμψαντος αὐτοὺς ἐποίουν· The prince of wickedness sent out his evil apostles and introducers of pestilential doctrines, chosen from those who crucified our Savior, who indeed bore the name of the Savior, but did the works of him who had sent them. And yet I do not deny that Corinthus and Ebion were among these. ^C

VI. From whom the Ebionites had this name. — Origen, at the beginning of his second book *Against Celsus*, observes that the name "Ebion" sounds to the Hebrews the same as both "poor" and "needy," and that those from among the Jews who had received Jesus as the Christ were called "Ebionites" by their fellow-countrymen: because, indeed—as certain men not entirely unlearned have conjectured—following the precepts of their divine Teacher, after casting off the dominion of their possessions, they cultivated poverty above all else. From which one might suspect that the name "Ebion" was not the proper name of a certain man, ^D but a surname and epithet. Which, however, Origen does not sufficiently indicate; but only that those who, while saying they received Christ, were nevertheless observers of the ceremonies of the Law, were on account of the littleness and poverty of their understanding entirely and aptly called Ebionites or Ebionaeans. "Celsus did not understand," he says, "that the Jews who believed in Christ did not depart from the customs of their fathers: Βιοῦσι γὰρ κατ' αὐτὸν, ἐπώνυμοι τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἐκδοχὴν πτωχείας τοῦ νόμου γεγενημένοι. Ἐβιὼν τε γὰρ ὁ πτωχὸς παρὰ Ἰουδαίοις καλεῖται· For they live according to him, having become namesakes of the poverty of the law according to [the] interpretation. For 'Ebion' is called 'poor' among the Jews." For they live according to their prescription, drawing their surname through succession from the poverty of the law. For "Ebion" is called "poor" in the Jewish tongue, and they are called Ebionaeans by the other Jews, as those who have received Jesus as the Christ. But Tertullian and the author of the Appendix to his book *On Prescriptions*, as well as Epiphanius, Jerome, Theodoret, and others, hold that a certain Ebion was the founder of the sect of the Ebionites.

VII. The twofold type of Ebionites. — But Origen writes again, in book V *Against Celsus*, that the Ebionaeans are of two types, of whom some confessed that Jesus was born of a Virgin, while others denied it: Οὗτοι δέ εἰσιν οἱ

οἱ ^A Ebionaei, that is, those who confess Jesus, like us, to be born of a Virgin, and others who do not admit things to have happened in this way. Finally, at the end of the same book, he adds that the Ebionaeans of both kinds reject the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, just as the Encratites do: Εἰσὶ γὰρ αἱρέσεις τὰς Παύλου ἐπιστολὰς τοῦ ἀποστόλου μὴ προσιέμενοι, ὥσπερ Ἐβιωναῖοι ἀμφότεροι καὶ οἱ καλούμενοι Ἐγκρατηταί. This passage of Origen was transcribed by Eusebius of Caesarea, and he discoursed upon it at great length. It is clear that Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Theodoret, and others have asserted that both kinds of Ebionaeans abhorred the apostle Paul, as if he were a deserter of the ancestral laws. They add, moreover, that in their assemblies they were accustomed to read only the Gospel of Matthew, written in Hebrew, but that it was mutilated and corrupted, especially in that part where the nativity of Christ from the Virgin is declared. In addition to this, Epiphanius testifies that all the Ebionaeans were addicted to Pharisaic washings, immersions, and, consequently, to minor traditions. Finally, in many places he asserts that they passed over to the Elcesaean or Samsaean heretics, so that they all merged into one sect. A proof of this is that they used unleavened bread for the Eucharist, but mere water, after the manner of the Encratites.

The Samsaean heretics called from the place Samsa

^B VIII. The chief dogma of the Ebionaeans. — The chief head of the doctrine or impiety of the Ebionaeans was that the Lord Jesus did not exist before Mary, and is therefore not true God, but only an eminent man. For which reason, in our own age, the Socinians and Antitrinitarians hold them as their patriarchs, to whom they would not hesitate to join the Nazarenes. Indeed, Grotius, Johannes Gerardus Vossius, and other Protestants, not sufficiently resisted by Catholic writers, have favored them in this part, if you except one most illustrious and truly most learned prelate of Avranches, Pierre Daniel Huet, who in his time, in his annotations to the works of Origen published in Greek and Latin, warned that the Nazarenes and Ebionaeans agreed only in this, that they were observers of the Mosaic law, and not in denying the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

IX. The faith of the Nazarenes from Jerome. — The Nazarenes, therefore, as they retained circumcision and other customs of their nation, as had been granted to them long ago by the apostles, so also they retained the right faith in the Lord Jesus which they had received from them. Which fact can certainly be discovered by no better witness than Jerome, who used them most familiarly and consulted them himself concerning the meaning of various places of Holy Scripture. [XCIV] From the narrations, therefore, which the holy doctor reports as accepted from the Nazarenes in his commentaries on Isaiah, we learn, first, that they, contrary to what pleased the Ebionaeans, had held the novel traditions of the Pharisees in contempt and had rejected them entirely. Likewise, that they were most excellently disposed toward the apostle Paul, and also toward Christians of the other Gentiles; and thus the Nazarenes differed from the Ebionaeans as much as the whole heaven is from the earth. When I have demonstrated this, I shall also evince that the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the true substance and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ was never called into doubt by the Nazarenes.

X. They were hostile to the traditions of the Scribes. — Jerome, therefore, in chapter VIII of Isaiah, verse 19, upon the words of the prophet, *And when they shall say to you, seek*, adds this to his explanation, as accepted from them: Moreover, the Nazarenes interpret this place thus: When the Scribes and Pharisees shall say to you, that you should listen to them, because they act for the sake of the belly, and roar in their incantations after the manner of the magicians, and deceive you, this you must answer them: You should not follow your traditions, since every nation should consult its own idols. Therefore, we should not consult your dead on behalf of the living. Rather, God has given the law, and the testimonies of the Scriptures, which if you be unwilling to follow, you shall have no light, but darkness shall oppress you, which shall pass through your land and doctrine: so that, when they see themselves deceived by you, and [are] enduring the famine of truth, then they may be saddened, or grow angry at you, whom they [formerly] treated as their god.

^A They thought they were kings, and in vain they looked toward heaven and earth, when they were always in darkness and could not escape from your snares. These are clearly most shameful words against the Scribes and Pharisees, and they do not stem from men of that sort—who, being Scribes and Pharisees themselves, hold their own fables and traditions, as the Ebionites did, in high esteem—but rather they were execrated, as if they were little or not at all different from the worship of idols.

Of the same character and tendency are those things which the same Jerome recites regarding these words of Isaiah, chap. xxix, v. 20: "The mocker is brought to an end," etc. These things, the holy doctor says, we have understood concerning the devil and his angels; the Nazarenes, however, interpret these statements against the Scribes and Pharisees, because they failed in their *deuterōseis*, who formerly were *deuterōtai* [repeaters/tradition-mongers] for the people with most pestilent traditions, and watched night and day to deceive the simple, causing men to sin by means of the Word of God, so as to deny Christ as the Son of God. He attempts to interpret in the same sense those other words of the prophet, chap. xxxi, v. 6: "Be converted, as you have receded even into the deep, O children of Israel," etc. The Nazarenes, says Jerome again, understand this passage thus: "O children of Israel, who with very evil counsel have denied the Son of God, return to him and to his apostles. For if you do this, you will cast away all the idols which were previously a sin for you, and the devil will fall away from you—not by your own powers, but by the mercy of God—and his youths, who fought for him, will become the carriers of the Church, and all his strength and his rock will pass away. Philosophers also, and their perverse dogma, will turn their backs to the sign of the cross. For the sentence of the Lord, whose fire or light is in Sion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, [stands]."

XI. They thought highly of the faith of the nations. ^B These things again show sufficiently with what hatred the Nazarenes loathed the traditions and trifles of the Scribes and Pharisees; but, on the other hand, they commended the faith of the nations in Christ the Son of God and as God, to which the empty philosophy of the Greeks had been subjected under the yoke of the cross. But with how benevolent a mind they were disposed toward other Christians of the world, and with how much honor they followed Paul, the apostle of the nations and teacher, they indicate more clearly in two other interpretations of the earlier verses of chapter ix of the same prophet, which Jerome reports in a similar manner: "The Hebrews believing in Christ interpreted this passage in this way. By the first *tempus* [time] these two tribes, Zabulon and Nephthali, were taken by the Assyrians and led into a hostile land, and Galilee was made a desert, which the prophet says was 'made light,' because it sustained the sins of the people. Afterward, not only two tribes, but also those who lived across the Jordan and in Samaria were led away into captivity. And this, they say, is what the prophet says now, that the region whose people was the first to be led into captivity and began to serve the Babylonians, which was previously immersed in the darkness of error, first saw the light of Christ the preacher, and the Gospel was sown among all nations." These things indeed look to the calling of the gentiles and the praising of their faith; but the things which he soon subjoins are more expressive and stronger: the Nazarenes, whose opinion I set forth above, strive to explain this passage thus. With Christ arriving, and his preaching shining forth, the first land of Zabulon and the land of Nephthali was liberated from the errors of the Scribes and ^C Pharisees, and shook off the most heavy yoke of the Jewish traditions from its neck. Afterward, however, through the Gospel of the apostle Paul, who was the last of the apostles, the preaching was weighted—that is, multiplied—and to the ends of the nations, and the way of the whole sea, the Gospel of Christ shone. Finally, the whole world, which before was walking or sitting in darkness and was held in the bonds of idolatry and death, beheld the clear light of the Gospels.

XII. They worshipped Christ as God. — That other exposition of the Nazarenes—by which the preaching of the apostle Paul, which the Ebionites and Cerinthians loathed just as much as the Jews did, and, together with it, the faith of the nations are wonderfully extolled—doubtless signified that they approved of the doctrine of the whole Church which had been spread throughout the whole world, and did not, after the fashion of the Ebionites and their perfidious fellow-members, label the Christians from the nations (by whom Christ was worshipped as the true God, consubstantial with the Father, with the heresies of Samosatenus and Photinus extinguished, and the Arian one recently suppressed, according to the faith delivered by the apostles and especially by Paul) as idolaters or Anthropolatrists, nor consequently strip him of his deity. This is what is deduced still more clearly from their other exposition, which Jerome thought should be inserted into his commentary on chap. viii of Isaiah, regarding these words, v. 13: "The Lord of hosts, him you shall sanctify, and he shall be to you for a sanctification; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of scandal to the two houses of Israel." Which indeed, since they were pronounced by the prophet concerning the supreme God of all, the Lord of hosts, the Nazarenes received without hesitation as applying to the Lord Jesus Christ, and interpreted them: "The two houses," says the holy doctor, "the Nazarenes who receive Christ in such a way that they do not lose the observances of the old law, interpret [them] as two families, Sammai and Hillel, from whom arose the Scribes and Pharisees, whose school Akibas, whom the proselyte Aquila [is said to] esteem as his master, took up... Sammai therefore and Hillel, not long before the Lord was born, arose in Judea, of whom the former is interpreted as 'the dissipator,' the other as 'profane'; because through their traditions and *deuterōseis* they dissipated and stained the precepts of the law. And [these] are the two houses which did not receive the Savior, who became for them a ruin and a scandal." See, by the mind of the Nazarenes, as also of the rest of the Christians, the Lord Jesus our Savior is the Lord of hosts himself, not a mere man or a simple creature.

XIV. The same is proven from their Gospel. — And certainly we learn from the fragments that in their own Gospel the deity of Christ was most explicitly expressed.

Specifically, Jerome, who had translated that Gospel from the Hebrew or Syriac idiom into Latin, cites it in his commentary on chapter 11 of Isaiah in this manner: "It came to pass, when the Lord had ascended from the water, the fountain of the entire Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him, and said to him: My Son, I was waiting for you in all the prophets that you might come, and that I might rest in you. For you are my rest. You are my firstborn Son, who reigns for ever." According to the standard of speaking familiar in the Scriptures and among the Jews, such a phrase, "who reigns for ever," "who is blessed for ever," refers only to the true God, and not to any created substance. Whence, in the same Gospel as it was read by the Ebionites, nothing of the sort was found in that place, as is made certain from the excerpt which Epiphanius recites in heresy 30, § 15.

XV. ^A Regarding other expositions of theirs as well. — To this, the same Jerome brings forward an exposition on chapter 3 of Habakkuk, of these words, "God will come from the south," etc., which he testifies he received from a Hebrew, and certainly a Nazarene, not a pure, unadulterated Jew opposed to the Christian faith, by which the divinity of Christ is most explicitly proclaimed, and his existence prior to his birth in the flesh: "I have heard," he says, "a Hebrew explain this passage in such a way: that Bethlehem is situated to the south, in which the Lord and Savior was born, and that he is the one about whom it is now said: 'The Lord will come from the south'; that is, he will be born in Bethlehem, and proceed from there: and because he himself who was born in Bethlehem, once gave the law on Mount Sinai, he himself is the holy one who comes from Mount Pharan. For Pharan is a place on Mount Sinai." Manifestly, as the first interpretation of the beginning of chapter 9 of Isaiah, which is said to have been accepted from the Hebrews, belongs to the Nazarenes who believed in Christ; and again where Jerome says, in chapter 11, that the learned among the Hebrews think that which is written in the Gospel of Matthew, "because he shall be called a Nazarene," is taken from the beginning of that chapter, he wished the Nazarenes to be signified there; so too that Hebrew who, from the words of Habakkuk, "God will come from the south," was proclaiming the supreme deity of Christ, must be judged to have been entirely from among the Nazarenes, from whose method of interpreting the Scriptures he did not in any way depart, as becomes clear from comparison. Also of this kind were those Hebrews whose exposition of the seventy weeks of Daniel the same most holy interpreter of the sacred books brings forward in chapter 9 of this other prophet. For these were Christians, not opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ.

XVI. ^B From another place in Jerome. — Finally, when Jerome speaks of the Ebionites, he is accustomed commonly to interject that they did not recognize Christ as existing before Mary, but nowhere did he insinuate this about the Nazarenes; rather, [he says] they believe Jesus to be the Son of God: so that they severely censured others of their own race, because they had denied the Son of God, as it is found from their own annotations which I quoted before: and he blames only this one fault in them, that while they believed in Christ, they none the less retained the ceremonies of the Law. Furthermore, he states their faith in Christ again briefly in Epistle 80, which is to Augustine, after he had said of the Ebionites that they pretended to be Christians, to the Nazarenes he adds: "Even to this day through all the synagogues of the East there is a heresy among the Jews which is called that of the Minaeans, and by the Pharisees they are cursed even now, whom they call Nazarenes, who believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and they say that he is the one who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again, in whom we also believe: but while they want to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither Jews nor Christians; on account of circumcision to wit and certain Jewish rites to which they adhere more than is right." But according to the simpler profession of the faith of the ancient Christians, which the Nazarenes, whether in lineage or in customs, separated from others, observed among themselves as received from the Apostles, as the Apostolic Symbol exhibits, it was exactly the same, to believe Christ to be the Son of God, and to believe that Christ is truly and properly God, begotten of the Father. Whence Jerome adds, "in whom we believe," so that he might signify that the faith of the Nazarenes and of our Catholics is the same: for that, as has been recited before from the holy doctor himself, the faith of the Nazarenes is of those by whom Christ is worshipped and adored as true God, and they deserved to be praised as immune from the crime of idolatry.

XVII. ^C They were alien to the synagogues of the Jews. — Moreover, in that Jerome, in his letter to Augustine, began his remarks about our Nazarenes with these words: "Even to this day throughout the synagogues of the East there is a heresy which is called ... of the Minaeans," etc., it is by no means to be thought that he meant that the Nazarenes were accustomed to assemble with the Jews in the synagogues, and were mixed together with the perfidious ones, so that they did not separate themselves from them, as some more recent ones have misunderstood Jerome's words: but this is the genuine sense of the holy doctor, that the Nazarenes were throughout the synagogues of the East judged by the Scribes and Pharisees and the rest of the Jews and thus proscribed as heretics and Minaeans. For ^D *Minin* means the same among the rabbis as "heretics" does to the Greeks and Latins. For how could the Nazarenes in fact attend the synagogues for prayers with others, whom they acknowledged and abhorred as the most intense enemies of their Lord and Savior Christ? How, again, could there have been any communion between the Jews and the Nazarenes, as far as divine matters and religion were concerned, when the Pharisaic Jews, by Jerome's own testimony [XCVI], judged and cursed them as heretics and profane? Even to this day, he says in chapter 5 of Isaiah, the Jews persevere in their blasphemies, and every single day in all their synagogues they anathematize the name of Nazarene. Which he testifies to again in chapter 52.

Epiphanius even asserts that the Nazarenes were most hostile to the Jews: ^A *they are entirely enemies to the Jews*, so that in the morning, at midday, and in the evening, when they fulfill their prayers in their synagogues, they cast curses upon them. This is a very sure argument that the Nazarenes did not join the Jews in prayer.

XVIII. *Theodoret did not sufficiently distinguish the Nazarenes from the Ebionites.* From all these things, the doubt of Epiphanius remains resolved, for he had written that it was unknown to him whether the Nazarene Christians believed the Lord Jesus to be the true, own, and natural Son of God. And since Theodoret wrote that they venerated Christ only as a mere man, it is apparent that he attributed to the Nazarenes errors of the kind that were proper only to the Ebionites. And certainly he himself, being otherwise a most learned man, subjoins that the Nazarenes were accustomed to read the Gospel of Peter. But from a fragment of a certain ^B letter of Serapion of Antioch, which Eusebius recounts in *Book VI, chapter 12*, we learn that the Gospel of Peter was used in Syria by some who were imbued with the dogmas of the Docetae. The Docetae, moreover, were joined to the Encratites, whose customs the Ebionites emulated, especially after they had crossed over to the Elkesaites or Sampsaeans. There are those who think that this Gospel was the same as that which was called "according to the Hebrews"; which, indeed, as I have already said, the Ebionites used, but mutilated in exactly that part which had been omitted in the *Diatessaron* of Tatian, the leader of the Encratites. Others, again, with whom I can scarcely agree, think it the same as the *Preaching of Peter* (Kerygma Petrou), which was likewise either forged or corrupted by the Ebionites, as most learned men have concluded from a certain passage of it which the author of the treatise *On Baptism*, among the works of Cyprian, brought forward: "In which book," he says, "you will find Christ confessing against all the Scriptures, and about His own sin, He who altogether committed no sin, and that He was compelled, almost against His will, by His mother to receive the baptism of John: also, that when He was being baptized, fire was seen upon the water." Which things indicate the depraved sense of the Ebionites concerning Jesus Christ, not that of the Nazarenes. The same author, concerning the same preaching, adds: "After so much time, Peter and Paul, after a conference of the Gospel in Jerusalem, and a mutual altercation, and the settling of the order of things to be done, finally in the city (Rome), as if for the first time they were known to each other," and other absurd and shameful things of this kind were forged according to the mind, as it appears, of the Ebionites. Epiphanius, however, narrates similarly that the Ebionites highly valued a book whose title was *Circuits of Peter* (Periodoi Petrou), or *Journey of Peter*, which still exists today, and which was either written or corrupted by the Ebionites ^C together with the epistle to James, which learned men have likewise noted. Concerning this matter, one should first read what the most learned and to me dearest man, the illustrious Joannes Ernestus Grabe, wrote in his *Spicilegium Patrum of the First Century*, page 60. To this, since Theodoret adds that the heresies of the Ebionites and the Nazarenes, of which he had spoken, arose under the Emperor Domitian, and that Eusebius of Caesarea wrote about them, and that they had been refuted by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Origen, he signifies enough and more than enough that he by no means distinguished the Nazarenes from the Ebionites: although, as I think I have shown more clearly than light, they differed from each other as much as heaven is from earth.

XIX. *Eusebius distinguished them.* Eusebius indeed seems to indicate the Nazarenes where he disputes about the disagreement of the evangelists Matthew and Luke in narrating the lineage and birth of the Savior, and confirms from their account and testimony that Joseph was the natural son of Nathan, and by law, the son of Heli. He adds then that he had learned this from those who, for the closeness of kinship by which they were joined ^D with our Lord, were called *desposynoi* (the Lord's kin), who from the villages of Nazaris (perhaps Nazareth) and Cochaba in Judea, scattered into the rest of the region, and explained the aforementioned series of kinship from a book of Chronicles as faithfully as possible: *from the villages of Nazaron and Cochaba in Judea, having spread into the rest of the land, and having explained the aforementioned genealogy from the book of the days as far as they were able*. These, however, were not Ebionites, who indeed would have cared nothing for the Gospel of Luke, a disciple of Paul, to reconcile it with the Gospel of Matthew which they read. Eusebius also mentions what Hegesippus narrated happened to the relatives and kinsmen of our Savior under the Emperors Domitian and Trajan, who it is not to be doubted were therefore Nazarenes: but that they kept the true faith in Christ is most certain from the same Hegesippus. Nowhere else does Eusebius, nowhere at all does Irenaeus, nowhere does Origen mention the Nazarenes: indeed, nowhere does Justin, as I boldly infer from those things that survive of theirs and from the books of other writers older than Epiphanius. Nor were those ancients said to have refuted the Nazarenes in any other way by Theodoret, except insofar as they argued against the Ebionites on account of their Jewish observances.

XX. *The Ebionite Symmachians.* Those also who, by the same error as Theodoret, did not distinguish the Nazarenes from the Ebionites, are they who, by the testimony of Augustine in his book *Against Cresconius*, chapter 31, called them Symmachians, from Symmachus, if I am not mistaken, the Ebionite interpreter of the Scriptures. Furthermore, others were called Symmachians from a certain Symmachus, the son of the patrician heretic Priscillianist: but since these were thoroughgoing Gnostics, they by no means obeyed the rites of the Law with the scrupulous superstition of the Ebionites.

XXI. *The Nazarenes followed the rites of the Law with a different mind than the Ebionites.* But indeed, the Ebionites followed the rites of the Law with a different mind…

and those who wished for the observation of these rites to be necessary for everyone for the attainment of salvation, to the point that they cursed the Apostle—who had taught that Gentile Christians should be exempted from this yoke—as an apostate and a renegade. The Nazarenes, however, while they esteemed and commended the same Paul, also embraced with sincere love the Gentiles who had given their name to Christ, even though they did not admit them to the circumcision of the flesh and the other precepts of the Law. For this reason, the Nazarenes were not in the least bit zealous for their rites, as if salvation could not be obtained without them; but they professed that they themselves were of the progeny of Abraham, and therefore the brothers and kinsmen of the Lord Jesus according to the flesh. ^A

XXII. *Justin's opinion concerning the observation of circumcision and Mosaic rites.* Yet Justin Martyr deems such observers of Mosaic rites worthy of pardon in his dialogue with the Jew Trypho, a little before the middle. To Trypho’s question whether, if someone believes in Christ and also observes the precepts of the Law, he can be saved, Justin responds: "As it seems to me, my Trypho, I say that such a one will be saved, provided he does not strive with all his might to persuade other men—I mean those from the Gentiles who have been circumcised from error through Christ—that they will not be saved unless they keep these things; which is what you were doing at the beginning of our discourse, declaring that I would not be saved if I did not keep these things." Soon Trypho, resuming what Justin had said, asked whether there were those among us who would deny that such persons should be saved, provided that he who kept the Law was so disposed that he did not censure those who omitted it. Justin answered to this: "There are, my Trypho, some who have not dared to have communion of social life or hospitality with such persons, whom I by no means approve. But if they, on account of the infirmity of their mind, wish to believe in Christ, and to keep that eternal and natural justice and piety, and—insofar as they are able—to observe those Mosaic precepts which we understand were given to the people because of the hardness of their heart; and if they do not disdain to have contact with Christians and the faithful, not demanding that they be circumcised, or keep the Sabbath, or observe other such things; ^B I believe that such should be embraced, and all the duties of humanity should be shown to them as to uterine and flesh-and-blood brothers. But if those who are of your race, having confessed this Christ, force those who have converted to the Faith from the Gentiles to observe whatever the Mosaic Law prescribes, or alienate themselves from those who refuse to perform that, I do not approve of them either."

XXIII. In this passage, Justin, if I am not mistaken, points both to the Ebionites, those haters of the Gentiles, and also to the Nazarenes, who, although they held to the observations of the Law with a not entirely evil, but rather a pusillanimous, intent, were nevertheless not admitted by other Christians. I believe this began to happen in the very age of Justin, after the conclusion of the war which the Jews fought against them under their leader Barchocheba. For from that time on, since the Church of Jerusalem, and indeed of all Palestine, consisted entirely of Gentiles, those ancient Christians who were from the circumcision, and who continued to admit circumcision, were cast off and not held worthy of their communion. But because these men held the right faith in Christ, Justin deems them worthy of pardon, and far from rebuking them; nor does he judge them to be excluded from salvation, except for those who, in the manner of the Ebionites, would wish to have Gentiles circumcised and bound by the precepts of the Law. ^C

XXIV. Finally, in order to impress more firmly what he had established up to this point regarding this head, he adds again: "But those who follow them in such a way that, while they institute a way of life according to the prescription of the Law, they nevertheless keep the confession of Christ at the same time, I believe that these will attain salvation." From which, indeed, he thinks those fall away who, when they have acknowledged and confessed Christ, have nevertheless for some reason turned back to the Mosaic Law, denying that he is the Christ, unless they repent before death. Soon he declares that the Jews, however much they may be begotten from the seed of Abraham and live according to the precepts of the Law, will never attain eternal salvation unless they believe in Christ. But he declares this above all to those who have cursed and do curse Christ in their synagogues, and he anathematizes those ^D who curse Christ.

Christ. By these words he signifies also the curses which, according to the testimony of Jerome and Epiphanius, the Jews used to pronounce three times a day in their synagogues, not only against the Lord Jesus, but also against Christians, and especially against the Nazarenes. Justin, moreover, uttered these things in his dialogue, after he had established with the strongest arguments against Trypho the Jew that the precepts and ceremonies of the old law had been obsolete and suppressed through the death of Christ. Otherwise, Jerome refutes the associates of the Ebionites, who judge that these things are to be observed by the Jews alone, and those of the Israelite lineage: where, if I am not mistaken, he signifies the Nazarenes.

LIFE OF OUR HOLY FATHER JOHN OF DAMASCUS

LIFE OF OUR HOLY FATHER JOHN OF DAMASCUS

^A 1. Men are accustomed, in honor of those who have kept the image of God pure from every stain and blemish, whether they have preserved it in its original integrity and elegance, or, if it had become obliterated and defiled by filth, have restored it, to fashion their divine likenesses. Moreover, those who wish to appear as lovers of a more august kind of worship [do]... ^B.

NOTES

^A

If therefore they think that they discharge their duty of reverence toward the saints by being so eager for splendor regarding their outward form, what then must be said if we neglect the history of their deeds and leave the accounts unrefined? Assuredly, there is no place for this. For while those of more rustic judgment may be forgiven if, according to their ability, they recount in a rough style the deeds of those who were pleasing to Christ—as for them, the study of eloquence is not required—it will not at all be pardonable for those who have devoted themselves to the study of rhetoric to write the lives of the saints in a hurried and tumultuous manner, especially of those men whose spirit and life it was to apply themselves to letters, and to purge their minds from ignorance and oblivion, and their souls from every turbulent emotion. Those men, I say, by whom the world has been graced, and whose books have illuminated the minds of all, by emitting not only the bare elegance of secular ^B wisdom, but also the light of the Paraclete in abundance.

II. John Damascene is to be reckoned among the first doctors of the Church. He flourished when the Iconoclast heresy emerged. Leo the Isaurian was the author of the heresy.

One of these, and indeed to be reckoned among the first, is the great and renowned John, who derived his surname from the city of Damascus, the place of his birth. For he did not prove to be a small star in the firmament of the Church, but truly a maximum and most brilliant one, so that he not only shone when heresy was spreading its darkness everywhere, but also dispelled the entire night of perverse doctrine with the shining light of his own studies. For indeed, night had settled upon the whole world, by which the glorious figures of the venerable images were obscured, and there was a profoundly deep darkness. But he who was pouring it forth, and who was at work, was no man of the common sort, who would sow evil in some small corner, but one who, so to speak, held the ends of the earth in his own hands, inasmuch as he held the scepter of the Roman empire. ^C Whence it happened that, breathing forth destruction in every direction, he attacked the venerable images with great violence, and as for those by whom they were honored, some he devoured—for he was, as his name and the disposition of his mind indicated, a lion, a ravening and roaring lion—while others who were tenacious of the true faith he scattered here and there, and compelled them to hide in subterranean retreats. And many indeed preferred to dwell with lions and dragons than with him and his ministers; ^D while others, for fear, fled to the distant borders of the earth; for the lion shall roar…

and who will not fear? and they fled from before the face of the serpent. ^B

III. The name of John is expressed in Hebrew as "the grace of God." But this man, filled with spiritual grace, while he burned with anger against the serpent alone—so that his anger was transformed into zeal and virtue—did not flee to the Sarmatians from the Thrace which he then inhabited, nor did he escape to the Pillars of Hercules from Byzantium for the sake of safety, nor did he retreat from the palace into the wilderness because of the roaring of the Lion. Rather, while he was dwelling first in Damascus and then in Palestine, living a monastic life in the desert, he fought most courageously against Leo. Although this heroic athlete of mine was separated from him by an immense distance, yet with books forged by the fire of the Paraclete and tempered and hardened by the living water, he pierced his heart as if with a triple spear. But these things the narrative shall make known more clearly in their proper place. Is it then right for us on this account to despise the life of such a great man, written in a rustic manner, or, worse, in the Arabic language and script? Certainly not. Wherefore, it must now be narrated from what noble root this flourishing sprout has sprung, and what native land boasts of having produced it.

IV. Damascus. This is the very city of Damascus. For as it is magnificently extolled by Paul, insofar as it was the first to see that him who traveled the heavens, when he had cast off impiety and had become a friend of Christ from being an enemy, so also does it proudly exalt itself on account of this man—not as if he had come from elsewhere or had passed to the ^C true faith from another religion, but because it brought him forth from its own root, and having brought him into the light more by piety than by physical birth, and having nurtured him with teaching, it boasts greatly and rejoices in its own sprout. It prides itself and rejoices more in him than in other splendours which bring it renown, whether you speak of the mild temperate air or the flow of sweet, transparent waters with which it is abundantly irrigated. Nor does the abundance of excellent fruits bring so much glory to this city...

^A nourished by the waters, and having yielded its fruits in due season, the fruits of the Spirit, some of which are perpetually fresh among us, as beautiful to the eye as they are sweet to the taste, and which not only delight those who touch and taste them, but also nourish and increase those who eat them, leading them on and perfecting them into a man perfect in the Spirit—as does the fact that it has produced this man. Thus has the city of Damascus been glorified on account of this offspring of hers, as well as for all the other good and delightful things with which it has been enriched. This, then, is the city that brought forth this man.

V. The religious parents of John.

seized the city. Hence, indeed, their virtue made them prominent in the midst of the impious, so that even their enemies revered it; or rather, as God glorified Daniel among the Assyrians because of the piety that he openly displayed, and Joseph in Egypt, by making those who were captives in a foreign and hostile land stewards and masters, so, too, here He makes the ancestors of John stewards of affairs among the Saracens themselves; and here again the pious captives rule over the impious who had made them captive. O the wonders of God, great and miraculous! Nothing is higher than virtue; nothing is more precious or exalted than piety. For as a standard upon a hill, or rather as a lamp in the night, and as a seed for Israel, and like a spark in the ashes, the race of John's ancestors was left in Damascus, so that it might bring forth this bright torch, which would shine upon all the ends of the earth. Such were the ancestors of him whom we have undertaken to praise.

VI. His father was a man devoted to virtue.

and for a sufficient livelihood for those of the redeemed Christians who had preferred to settle in those places, while he allowed the others to travel with free heart and foot, wherever they wished. Such was the man’s philanthropic virtue. For possessng much, he acted as one possessed of nothing, night and day rendering unto God what he possessed. ^B

VII. John is born and baptized. His education. Being such a man, he received as a reward, not indeed for hospitality like Abraham, but for philanthropy, a wonderful interest—if not by promise, yet by divine foreknowledge and predestination. For God foreknew what manner of person John would be, and He predestined him to be born of this man, as a reward to him for the philanthropy he was accustomed to show to those who had exchanged their freedom for a harsh captivity. ^B This illustrious child is therefore born to him, and while he was still of tender body, through the regeneration of the spiritual mother, the father makes his son a child of light—an act truly not easy at that time, nor one which many in the midst of those nations would have dared to attempt. Thereafter, the father’s care for the boy was not to teach him to race horses, nor to wield a spear skillfully with his right hand, nor to shoot an arrow with perfect aim from a bow, nor to fight with wild beasts and change his natural gentleness into beastly cruelty, as happens to many who are frequently agitated by anger and rush forth in a mad and frantic way. For these arts, John’s father did not seek another Chiron, raised on mountains, to feed his pupil on the marrow of deer; ^C but a man was sought who was polished in every form of learning, who was skilled in every kind of doctrine and science, and who would pour forth good words from the depths of his soul, so that he might nourish his own son with such food and seasoning. And God fulfilled this holy desire for the man, and he who was sought was found by him who sought him. The manner, however, in which that which was sought was found, was as follows. ^D

VIII. Cosmas the Elder, taken captive, is brought to Damascus. He was a priest and a monk. The barbarians of Damascus, making their usual incursion to the seashores, had taken a great spoil of Christian people, and descending to the sea in ships, they brought back a great number of captives; and having brought them into the city, they offered some for sale to buyers, while some they reserved to be slaughtered by the sword. Shares in this lot fell also to a certain man, clad in the habit of a monk, who had come from abroad, [of such] as those who come from other regions.

^A a man of Italian origin, handsome in face, but more handsome in soul, Cosmas by name, on whose countenance a certain gravity shone, which indicated the man’s internal composure. Those who were being dragged to slaughter threw themselves at his feet: they besought him to render God propitious to them, and by his earnest prayers to obtain for them from His benevolence towards men the forgiveness of their sins. Wherefore the barbarians, observing the reverence with which those who were on the point of death turned toward a man adorned with such gravity of character, approached him and asked what dignity he held in the world, and by what honor he was distinguished among Christians. He replied: "I possess no other worldly dignity, but only a priestly one. For the rest, I am an unprofitable monk, who have devoted myself to philosophy, not only that [philosophy] which is our own and concerns the love of God, but also that which has the pagan ^B sages as its authors." When he had said this, his eyes were suffused with tears.

[VI] IX. Not far from there stood the father of our John, who, having seen the man weeping, approached to console him in his sad plight, and said, "What is the reason, O man of God, why you are lamenting the loss of the world, to which you long ago sent word of your departure, and, as I judge from this habit, have long since been dead?" Then the monk replied, "I do not by any means lament the loss of this life. For I, as you have said, am dead to the world. But I am distressed by this one thing: that I have pursued all human wisdom in vain, having laid that circle of, as they call them, the sciences, as a kind of foundation. I have exercised my tongue in rhetoric; ^C I have cultivated my reason with dialectic precepts and demonstrations; I have accurately investigated whatever pertains to the science of morals, whether handed down by the Stagirite or by the son of Ariston; I have inspected the whole nature of things, as far as it is accessible to man; I have learned the principles of arithmetic; I possess geometry to a nicety; I have sufficiently grasped the harmonies and proportions of music; I have not omitted whatever pertains to the movement of the heavens and the revolution of the stars, so that from the magnitude and beauty of created things, I might be able, in proportion, to grasp the theory concerning the Creator." ^D

^A For whoever has acquired a clearer knowledge of created things, understands their Creator more clearly and admires him more fully. From there I progressed to the mysteries of theology, both those which the Greeks or the Gentiles handed down, and that which has been explained by our own theologians with the surest reasoning. Filled, therefore, with these sciences, I have not yet imparted the utility that is gathered from them to anyone, nor have I, through philosophy, brought forth a son like his parent. For just as many long to beget natural children, thinking that in this way their lineage will be maintained, so too do those who have devoted themselves to philosophy desire to beget children through teaching and initiation, so that the golden race of philosophers might be preserved among the living forever; and those who are the authors of this marvelous offspring obtain immortal fame and praise. ^B Moreover, it is a property of goodness to impart to others those good things in which one abounds. He, therefore, who is not so disposed in mind and will, in no way dwells in the good, but in evil, as one full of pride and envy, which makes it so that he does not want to communicate with others if he has obtained any good through the benefit of the Divine. Wherefore, even that which he seems to have will be taken away from him, as happened to the servant who did not invest the talent ^C with the money-changers. But I, having chosen the good portion, vehemently desired to impart to others the doctrine I have acquired; yet since I have not obtained my wish to be numbered among those faithful servants who, by investing the talents they received with others, doubled them, nor have I brought forth any offspring through philosophy, I depart, as one might say, childless and miserable; and, as you see, I hang my head and am cast down with grave sadness. »

X. When he who desired such a treasure heard these words, he replied: « Cease, blessed man, and lift up your soul for a while; for perhaps the Lord will grant you the petitions of your heart. » ^D Having said this, the father of John ran with all the speed he could to the prince of the Saracens, and falling at his feet, asked that the most accomplished Cosmas be given to him. He did not meet with a refusal of his petition, but brought back his gift—the man of great price, Cosmas—whom, having brought into his own house, he consoled, refreshing him after his long tribulations. Then, adding certain words to this effect, he said, « You are not only free henceforth, but I also make you a member of my household, and

^A a sharer with me in every joy and affliction, in equal measure. This one thing, however, I ask of you, honorable sir: that you would most diligently instruct my son, whom I have received from nature, and this other one, who shares the same name as you, and whom, since he arrived from Jerusalem and was bereaved of his parents at a tender age, I have adopted as my spiritual son—instruct them in all learning and philosophy, both foreign and that with which the grace of the Holy Spirit imbues those worthy, the knowledge of which you possess. » Hearing this, the philosopher was like a horse that has at once broken its bonds and runs across the field, or like a stag thirsting, allowed to go to the fountains of water. You would have said that, like some Midas, he had fallen upon a great treasure of gold. With such alacrity of spirit, therefore, was he moved to undertake the work; he receives the youths, and is set as the master of both.

XI. The talent, progress, and theological skill of John and Cosmas the Younger

although he discoursed only a little on the intervals, configurations, and the uniform movement of the retrogradations, for the brief instruction of beginners, his writings signify clearly enough how great John proved to be in that field. Such indeed was Cosmas, but I leave it to others to speak his praises, for it is my proposal to weave together the praises of John. ^A

XII. *Especially studying theological matters. The humility of John.*—Who, furthermore, would not recognize and admire the exact knowledge and precision of his theological tenets, derived from his elementary—or rather, to speak more correctly, his most absolute—book on dogmas? If one were to call it a sanction of all right doctrine and Mosaic tablets, one would not stray at all from the truth. ^B Although I know well that I ought to have woven the praises of that book at an earlier time, and not in this place, I have nevertheless mentioned these things for this reason: that it might be made manifest by what doctrine he was instructed, and with what erudition and diligence he pursued this entire field.

But this is worthy of admiration: that his soul was not at all inflated by knowledge; rather, just as the branches of a noble tree, weighed down by an exuberant abundance of fruit, bend down toward the earth, so too the illustrious John—when once the manifold fruit of literature and doctrine had accrued to him—inclined downward. This was not such that he remained with eyes fixed upon the ground, but rather that he looked toward the most deep sea of philosophy; ^C through this, though he was still carried, as if in a ship, by human affections, he nevertheless desired to unload that ship itself from this world, and, having stripped off thoroughly the garments of bodily affection, to traverse the deep with a naked mind and go down to the bottom, that he might find the pearl of great price hidden therein.

Since this, therefore, was his desire and his aim, he descended to the very depths of the abyss, and was not carried away by his erudition with pride, but became more humble through a desire for a certain more secret wisdom. Thus, therefore, the intellectual lamp of his soul abounded with the oil of worldly wisdom, so that he might move it toward the light kindled from above—which corporeal fuel does not nourish—and John might appear entirely as one made of fire. ^D

XIII. *He is returned by his master, who withdraws into a monastery, to his father. John becomes a protosymbulos.*—Finally his master, led into this desire by his disciple, as is likely, approached the father of the boy

^A and said, “You have received in full what you desired. These boys have surpassed me in wisdom. For it was not enough for them to have equaled their master, but by the magnitude of their talent and unyielding labors—and perhaps with the gift of wisdom being increased in them by God—they have flown up higher than me to the heights of philosophy. ^B Therefore, my service to them is no longer of any use. Let this be my reward, that through you it may be permitted for me to withdraw to a life of solitude, in which I might with certain rules investigate that highest wisdom. For the philosophy I have been taught previously sends me on to that; and it is more blessed for me to grow rich in two goods, and to add to my previous possession of wisdom that which is most removed from matter and surpasses all thought, and into which the mind, stripped bare and separated from the body, can be initiated.” The father of John was deeply moved by this speech from the philosopher. Yet he could not hold him back, for fear that if he did, he might seem to have repaid the man with an unjust reward for the instruction in learning he had given his son. Therefore, having prepared him with a very generous allowance for necessary expenses, he let him go with good grace. And he set off toward the laura of Saint Saba, which is located in the desert, and remaining there until his death, he migrated to God, who is wisdom itself. John’s father also departed this life. For this reason, the prince of the Saracens, having summoned John, ^C adorned him with the dignity of his chief advisor. And although John refused, he was compelled by much urging and could not resist any longer, and he is established by him in a higher office than his father had held.

XIV. The insanity of Leo the Isaurian against the holy images. John writes against him. At that time, Leo the Isaurian held the reins ^D of the Roman empire, who against the venerable

images, and the orthodox body of the Church, raged and acted like a ravenous and roaring lion, consuming them with the fire of his fury, and seizing their worshippers, destroying them in a miserable manner, torn by the teeth of his impious tyranny. As soon as these things reached the ears of John, then, imitating the zeal of Elias and of his namesake the Baptist in his freedom of speech in reproving (for the Spirit had invisibly anointed him, since he was ordained for resisting impiety even before his anointing), he drew forth his discourse as the sword of the Spirit, with which he was to cut down and sever the doctrine of this beast-minded man like a head. He therefore [composed] epistles ^A in defense of the venerable...

[NOTE: ...]

[Translation of the Note's content:] ^B... [He] began to treat of the proscribing of the images of Christ and the saints. Hence, in the following year, the peoples in Greece and the Cyclades rebelled; although Leo repressed them, he did not change his mind, but attempted first to win over to his side Gregory the Roman pontiff and the chief pastors of the Church. And thus I believe that in this year, 727, or the following, 728, our John began to write for the defense of the images.

"Would that those epistles still existed," say the continuators of the Bollandist collection. But they do truly exist today. For of the three orations that have appeared many times in both Greek and Latin, the first was indeed written by John of Damascus to the Byzantine orthodox, when he had not yet brought forth anything for the defense of the Church's cause, as is evident from the entirety of its preamble. He wrote this when Germanus was administering the Church of Constantinople by patriarchal right. This he signifies clearly when he says: "I pray the whole people of God, ^C together with the good shepherd of the rational flock of Christ, who describes within himself the hierarchy of Christ," that is, together with the good shepherd of the rational flock of Christ, who expresses in himself the supreme priesthood of Christ. He later composed a second one, for the sake of friends who had found some obscurity in the first. This he did in the year of Christ 730, when Germanus was thrust from his throne by Leo. Regarding this crime, our author complains in these words: "Now also blessed Germanus, shining both in life and in doctrine, has been afflicted with blows, and became an exile," and was driven into exile: even many other bishops and Fathers. This oration was indeed written when the first rumor of the deposition of the patriarch Germanus had spread in Palestine, and it was not yet known there that Anastasius had been intruded into his place; which latter crime was not committed until fifteen days after the expulsion of Germanus. For the Damascene would not have omitted this in silence. Moreover, those orations ^D were published at an age when the bishops of the East had hitherto abstained from pronouncing anathema against Leo. For in those three orations he threatens Leo with this condemnation alike. "Although," he says, "the Apostle Paul, or an angel, preach to you beyond that which you have received," the part that follows, "we shall be silent for now, sparing those whose conversion we hope for. But if, which God forbid, we see them obstinate in their perverse opinion, then we shall pronounce that which follows; namely, 'let him be anathema'." The same he also insinuates in the course of the second and third treatises, where the same saying of the Apostle is thus softened: "Even if an angel, even if an emperor preach to you beyond that which you have received, stop your ears." For he had abstained from that which the Apostle subjoins (namely, "let him be anathema"), because there was still a long space for hoping for their amendment. He did not use such threats, either in his own name or in that of John, the bishop of Jerusalem, with whom he was most closely joined by friendship. For these other words, which are had at the end of the first and second, signify this: "That a new faith not be taught... For out of Sion shall go forth the law; the Spirit, prophetically, spoke of the Holy Spirit, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; we shall not permit," etc.

Furthermore, although the Damascene looked to the Patriarch of Antioch, he did not pronounce anathema against the Iconoclasts in the name of the Church of Jerusalem, although he had immense possessions in Palestine, because he was in some measure subject to the throne of the holy city. Indeed, there was hardly any Patriarch of Antioch except a Jacobite, nor was there one of Alexandria, since both those Churches, until the years of the Caliph Hesham, were for a long time deprived of the power of having their own bishops, as we learn from Theophanes for the third year of the reign of Pronymus, in which Hesham died. Whence the same chronicler, for the 15th year of Leo the Isaurian, reports that John of Jerusalem, with the bishops of the Orient—namely, of both dioceses, Syria and Palestine—struck the impious emperor with anathema, "and John, with the bishops of the Orient, subjects the impious one to anathemas," just as our Damascene had previously warned in his orations. Where Theophanes makes no mention of either patriarch, Antiochian or Alexandrian. Yet almost an entire century had elapsed since, after the death of Sophronius of Jerusalem, the faithful of Palestine, since it was in no way permitted by the Saracen princes to elect patriarchs, had, as they had been advised by Sophronius, surrendered themselves to the authority of the Roman pontiff; Pope Theodore and his successor Martin appointed the Metropolitan of Philadelphia, who in those most turbulent times might take care not only of Palestine, but of the entire Orient, against Macedonius of Antioch and his successors, the most ardent patrons of the Monothelite heresy. Wherefore, when the opportunity was returned to the Jerusalemites [to elect] first and before others, yet the Antiochians did not yet have their own, the Church of Jerusalem remained in a way subject to the Jerusalemite prelate, until Hesham of the learned...

^A, demonstrating most philosophically that the adoration of divine images is necessary. He instructed those others to say similar things, and to show his epistles to everyone. And the new athlete of truth ^B strove throughout, as if by a circle, to cause his own epistles to pass from hand to hand among the faithful, and to strengthen orthodoxy; and according to Paul, he hastened like a circle around the earth, if not with his feet, then certainly by the preaching of the truth being promulgated.

XV. The treachery of Leo against John. An epistle is forged as if from the person of the Damascene to Leo. When the Emperor Leo became aware of this, he summoned some of his own party, and since he could not endure the condemnation of his impiety, which the letters of John clearly set forth, he ordered them, donning the mask of piety, to make a great effort and conduct negotiations, to find a letter handwritten by John. These satellites of wickedness, leaving no stone unturned ^C, concealing their deceit, made search as they were commanded, until, having found it, they delivered it into the hands of the Emperor. But he, having summoned certain scribes, proposed the example of the letter for them to imitate, so that they might represent the character of the handwriting as well as the meaning and the phrasing. He found, therefore, a company of many who would do his bidding, to whom he gave orders that they should write a letter as if to himself, the Emperor of opprobrious name, the sense of which was this: "Hail, Emperor. I congratulate your Majesty that you hold the same faith as we do, and I follow your royal excellence with such affection of mind and veneration as is fitting, which is why I make you aware that this city of ours is guarded very negligently, and the garrison of Agarene soldiers is small and weak. Wherefore I beseech you by God, that you would pity this city, and having sent unexpectedly a bold and numerous ^D force, you will have the city un...

LIFE OF ST. JOHN DAMASCENE.

der your hand, and [I will do] all that is reasonably requested. For I also am striving towards this end, that under my hand all the region, and the city, is carried out.

XVI. ^A *Letter of Leo to the Caliph.* Having adorned this letter, that impious man writes another with equal malice to the prince of the Saracens who held Damascus, to this effect: "Just as I know nothing more blessed than peace, nor anything more fortunate than friendship, so I consider keeping the treaties of peace both praiseworthy and pleasing to God. Therefore, nothing is more important and ancient to me than that I should keep inviolate the peace agreements which I have entered into with your Excellency, although I am incited to clandestine dissolution of them and to astutely break my faith by a certain one of the Christians who live under your empire, who repeatedly affirms to me in many letters that he will render me much help, in order that I may occupy your city, provided that I send a copious army there. Wherefore ^B I have sent to you one of the letters which he wrote to me, which may substantiate the matters of which I write to you, and at the same time so that you may understand who I am, and how truthful and integral I am in keeping friendships, and furthermore so that you may have a clear view of the malevolence and fraudulence of him who dared to write these things to me."

XVII. ^C *The right hand of John is amputated.* This Leo, who was as well named as he was instructed in serpentine craftiness, sends both of these letters by one of his own men to the barbarian [prince]. Having received these, he calls John to himself, and presents to him the letter fabricated in deceit. When John had run through it, he confessed that the type and forms of the letters were indeed similar to his own, but as for what was contained in them, he was utterly ignorant and it had never come into his mind. He never once thought, as he read the letter, of the guile and snares which were being plotted against him by the emperor. But that prince, since he was an enemy of Christ, behaved towards those things which were alleged by John just as the proverb goes, like an ass to the lyre: he remained silent to the good and true words; but he did not likewise remain silent, but ordered the wicked deed, ^D and immediately commanded the right hand of John to be amputated. And when he requested that a short time be granted him to clear himself, and to expose the fury of the impious emperor against him, the barbarian refused and did not permit it, since he was struck with anger and no longer in possession of his senses. Therefore, his right hand was cut off, the hand that had attacked the men who hated the Lord, and in place of the ink with which it had formerly been stained when it defended the worship of images in its letters, it is stained with its own blood. And they hung up this severed hand of the Lord, if it is right to say so, in the forum.

XVIII. *The supplication of John to the holy Mother of God that his hand may be restored, in verses of Ana...*

Anacreontic meter.*

As evening fell, when John supposed the spirit of the tyrant had now calmed, ^A he sent a supplicant embassy to him with these words: “My pains are worsening and agonizing me in an intolerable manner, nor will the sharp sting of the affliction slacken so long as my severed hand hangs in the air; therefore, I pray you, order it to be given to me so that I may bury it in the earth, and the intense suffering may cease.” The tyrant immediately yielded to the petition, and the hand was granted to the righteous man. Having received it, he went into his house’s oratory, and, falling prostrate before a certain divine image of the Mother of God, and placing the severed right hand against its former joint, ^B he entreated that most compassionate one from the depths of his heart, calling out with groans and tears:

“Lady, most pure Mother, who didst bear my God, On account of holy images, my right hand was cut off. Thou knowest not the cause for which Leo raged; Succor me, therefore, as quickly as I pray, and heal my hand. That right hand of the Highest, which took flesh from thee, Performs many miracles through thy intercession. Let this my hand also be healed now at thy prayers, That, as thou hast granted, it may praise thee and the Son incarnate of thee, In rhythmic harmony, O Theotokos, And become a helper of the orthodox faith. Thou canst do whatsoever thou willest, as thou art the Mother of God.”

Saying these things, John, with tears, fell asleep, and beheld the holy image of the Mother of God looking upon him with compassionate and joyful eyes, ^C and saying: “Lo, your hand is made whole; henceforth do not delay, but make it, as you have promised me just now, the pen of a scribe writing quickly.”

XIX. *John sings hymns of thanksgiving to God.* Awakening, therefore, and being healed, and then carefully examining the severed and now healed limb, he rejoiced in spirit in God his Savior, and in his Mother, because he who is mighty had done great things for him. And rising to his feet, he stretched out his hands and sang a divine melody, suitable to the time. ^D And he passed the whole night with his entire household, rejoicing and singing a new song of thanksgiving to God, saying: “Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorified in strength: thy right hand has healed my broken hand, and through it thou shalt break the enemies who despise thy venerable image and that of thy Mother. In the multitude of thy glory thou shalt crush the adversaries, the breakers of images, by my hand.” That night, therefore, was day to him, and it was light, and not darkness, and thus I shall speak the prophetic

word by means of hypallage: there was there a pure sound of those celebrating, and a voice of exultation in the tabernacle of a just man. ^A

These things were not done in secret or in silence, but that admirable sound and harmonious jubilation were diffused throughout the entire vicinity. Soon some of the Saracens, the enemies of Christ, approached their prince, asserting that John’s right hand had not been amputated at all, but rather someone else’s, such as that of a servant or one of his attendants, who had surrendered himself in his benevolence toward the Lord; and that those to whom the order for the cutting off of the hand had been given had commuted the punishment for money. For John, they said, sitting at home, sings and takes his delight in such a way that you would think he was celebrating a wedding feast and producing some kind of epithalamial song. Nay, more, his exultation seems even greater than joys of that kind.

^B XX. The barbarian acknowledges the miracle. — Upon these things being reported, John is summoned; and when he had come, he is ordered to show his restored hand. When he held it out, a certain thin line, by the arrangement of the Mother of God, appeared, which was a manifest indication of the most true excision. Wherefore the barbarian said: “Who is the physician, John, that has healed you?” he asked. “And what were the medicines applied to the wound?” Then he, with a clear and high voice, proclaims the miracle: “My Lord,” he said, “is the most omnipotent physician, whose power and efficacy accompany His will by equal measure.” To this the barbarian replied: “As far as I can conjecture, O man, what you have suffered, you have suffered without any crime of yours. But forgive us for having inflicted punishment upon you through an ill-considered and precipitate judgment. Now, however, you shall administer your former office, and you shall hold the rank of first among our counselors. For we shall do nothing henceforth except by your counsel and decision.” ^C

XXI. John with difficulty obtains permission to withdraw to a monastery. — But John, falling to the ground, worshiped, and lying prostrate for a long time, he implored that the prince might grant him the opportunity to enter upon a different path, one much more desirable, and to follow Him who said: “I am the way.” The barbarian, on the other hand, refused the permission to withdraw, and it was possible to see, as I might say, both of them contending in a duel, this barbarian and that just man. For the one was striving with many arguments by which he might entangle and retain John in the snares of the world; the other, on the contrary, was applying all his strength and effort so that he might break them and fly away on angelic wings. ^D A huge field then lay open, in which Christ sat as the arbiter of the contest, and the angels were spectators. Nor would it be unfairly said that the evil spirits standing on the left side had hardened the mind of the barbarian and incited him to persuasions. But my combatant wins with great acclaim, and all the arguments of his opponent

as though they were the arrows of children. And my combatant departed, having conquered with great praise, and all the arguments of his adversary to persuade him were held as the arrows of children. Victor he departed, his head bound with a glorious fillet, and with a joyful countenance he enters the house, he who had gone forth before sorrowful and sad. ^B

XXII. He distributes his faculties and goods. Furthermore, since two declarations of the Lord had been proposed to him—the one commanding that he sell his property and distribute it to the poor, the other prescribing that he leave behind houses and fields and all other things for the sake of the Lord—he expended no time regarding the former, lest perhaps he be distracted by a longer delay; but as for the prescription of the latter, he did not act in such a way that, by rashly abandoning his possessions, quarrels and many disputes should arise among those who were related to him, as others advanced different claims to the right of inheritance: but, walking a middle path between both, he divided his goods among the poor and the captives, and the servants whom he endowed with liberty, and finally among his kinsmen, yet in such a way that a portion was also consecrated to the temples. Just as he had come forth naked from his mother's womb, so he departed from the world, retaining only the necessary garments. Such a one he sought Jerusalem, where, having adored with the reverence that was fitting for the majesty of those places, thirsting for God himself like a deer, he repairs to the wilderness and reaches the laura of the God-bearing Saba, having as his companion and associate both in the journey and in his purpose that Cosmas, whom he had had as a sharer in the same education and training. You would have said that they were a sacred yoke, which was running together to the yoke of Christ, that they might submit their necks to it. ^C

XXIII. John is received by the pastor of the monastery. John, therefore, who is the subject of my narrative, having entered that divine sheepfold, casts himself at the feet of the pastor, beseechingly asking that he might be admitted among the sheep that were shepherded there; as one who had lost himself, and just now returning from the desert mountains to

^A Christ, the Shepherd. The superior of the flock was pleased by this, and he praised his preference. And it seemed good to him, because of the brightness of his life and his surplus of knowledge, to entrust the newcomer to one of the great elders, so that under such a guide, as if appointed under a leader, he might walk the path without stumbling, that of God; whom he thought, among the monks of the monastery, to be distinguished in all good things, he calls first, and attempts to entrust John to him. But he excused himself, claiming that he was by no means capable of guiding such a man, who had already acquired a great reputation for wisdom. The shepherd dispatched this elder, and after him calls another. And the second said the same things as the first. A third was then brought in after them, and others again, not a few; all with one voice began to refuse the care of instructing John.

XXIV. He is handed over to an elder to be instructed. — After many, at last another elder is summoned, simple in manners, but adorned with much knowledge, who, receiving the ready John with a ready mind, goes off with him to his own cell. ^B Therefore he lays down that excellent foundation: that he should do nothing by his own will, but should offer to God the sweat produced via the struggle of prayers like a victim, and express tears from his eyes, by which the stains of his former life might be washed away; for these are reckoned as a pure sacrifice before Christ, sweeter than any other incense. And this was the first of those things enjoined upon him which are performed with the aid of the body. But regarding those things ^C which pertain to the soul, he commanded him neither to paint any worldly image within himself, nor to silhouette the forms of things that are not fitting; to keep the mind intact from all vain tumor; and lest he be carried away by the magnitude of his learning, to consider that he had not yet fully grasped all those things to which he had applied himself; not to seek after visions or secret manifestations; not to be so proud as to live in the opinion with excessive confidence that he had attained a kind of knowledge that is immune to error, until the division of the soul from the body takes place; but on the contrary, to consider his thoughts to be timid and anxious, and his provisions and rational acts uncertain ^D. Therefore he warned him to strive so that his thought might not be scattered, but to collect it with the greatest care, so that in this way the mind might be infused with divine light, the soul might be purged, and the body might become clean, and then finally the body with the soul might be so coupled with the mind, that this tripartite thing, by reason of its conjunction with the most simple Trinity, might thereafter be made simple; and that man might no longer be carnal, nor animal, but altogether spiritual, now that the two had been transformed by the leading of the will, into the third and first—I mean the mind. Thus, indeed, the father, acting as teacher to the child, his disciple, further enjoined upon him, saying: "Do not mail letters to anyone, nor utter anything at all of secular education.

Cultivate silence prudently. You know, indeed, that this is the precept not only of our own philosophers, but that Pythagoras the Samian also imposed many years of silence upon his disciples whom he initiated into the arcana of philosophy. And do not think it good to speak of good things out of season; but rather let David be the author of this document for you, where he says: 'I was silent regarding good things' (Ps. XXXVII, 3). And hear what subsequently happened to him, as he relates: 'My heart grew hot within me' (ibid., 4)—clearly with the fire of divine love. Moreover, the fire was kindled in the Prophet by constant meditation." ^B

XXV. The old man, making these injunctions to John, was not writing on water nor sowing on rock, but on good soil. A considerable time passed, therefore, while John was being trained by the old man in every kind of trial, and was demonstrating obedience that was beyond reproach in all things. There was no gainsaying on the part of John in the things he was ordered to do. There was no murmuring on his tongue, nor disputation in his heart, questioning at all within himself what the master was prescribing for him. But he had this one thing—as if engraved upon tablets—fixed in the center of his mind: that, according to the counsel of Paul, whatever he did or was ordered to do, he should perform it without complaint and without disputes. For what benefit is it to one who does a good thing, if murmuring sits upon his lips, or an evil reasoning, like a serpent, ^C lies hidden in his heart? When would the soul of one who obeys in such a manner reach perfection? When will he advance further toward better things? This, indeed, is the reason why many perhaps labor in the exercise of virtue, yet labor in vain, making no progress toward those things that are prior or anterior.

XXVI. John is sent to Damascus to sell hampers. After these things, when the old man was accustoming his champion to greater contests of obedience, what finally does he contrive? Gathering many ^D hampers, which they had woven with their own hands, he makes use of a pretext such as this, addressing John with these words: "I have heard, my son, that in Damascus hampers are sold at a higher price than in the parts of Palestine; and, as you know, we are in need of many things; therefore, take them all, set out for there as quickly as you can, and do not sell them for a value any lower—not even by a little—than that which I set for you," having fixed the price at more than double their value. He did not gainsay him, nor did he examine the word of the one who ordered him.

But, as if furnished with wings by his obedience, and with the burden placed upon his shoulders, he makes for Damascus, dressed in rags covered in filth and mud, he who was formerly so visible and splendid in that city, and he paced the marketplace to sell his baskets. Since, however, he priced them far higher than was reasonable, he provoked laughter and became an object of mockery and insults to everyone. ^A One, then, of those who had been in his service when he was prominent and distinguished in that city, standing not far off, and recalling his face to mind, recognized the man, so abject and dressed in rags—who he was and what he had once been. Struck to the heart, he approached as if he did not know the man he knew so well, and bought the baskets at the price he asked. Having received the payment, John returns to the one who had sent him, having cast his adversary, the parent of vainglory and pride, to the ground. Up to death obedient ^B, he takes up the burden...

XXVII. He is asked to compose a funeral hymn.

^A XXVIII. John is cast out by his master. The master of John happened to be away from the cell, and in the meantime John was singing the aforementioned poem harmoniously inside the cell, when the elder arrived outside and caught that sweet sound. Moved by deep anger, he said to John: "Have your initial promises thus slipped from your memory, and are you sitting there relaxed and indulging in melodies, instead of mourning and being sorrowful?" John explained the cause to the elder, pleading the sorrow of him who was being constrained, and falling face down on the ground, he begged for forgiveness. But the elder, standing like a stone or an anvil, did not yield at all to the petitioner, and immediately cast him out of the cell.

^B XXIX. That admirable man immediately brought to mind the disobedience of our first parents and their expulsion from paradise on account of it. He did not know what to do or where to turn, and he was pressed by a grief heavier than one who had lost a brother. He said to himself, "He indeed lost a brother, but I have destroyed my own soul through disobedience." Finally, he approached other elders, whom he knew to be exceptional in virtue, and sent them as ambassadors to the elder, to soften him and entreat him to be appeased and grant forgiveness to John for his offense. They went away and besought him earnestly; but he, remaining motionless like a statue, was barring the disciple from entry into the cell.

^C XXX. Because of this, one of the monks said, "It is possible to give another command to him who has sinned, instead of cutting him off entirely from your company; this carries no fairness." Then the elder, finally swayed, said, "I therefore impose this command upon John, if he wishes his disobedience to be pardoned: let him walk around the entire perimeter of the laura, and with his own hands clean out all the little places of filth and refuse in the monks' cells." When the monks heard this, they went away blushing with shame, ^D with sad faces, and astonished at the elder's unyielding nature. John, meeting them and performing the customary prostration, asked what decision had been passed regarding him by the Father. They replied that they were astonished at the elder’s austerity, the judgment of which they were ashamed to utter. But John urged them again and again to reveal it; and being overcome by his entreaties, they told him about this squalid cleansing. When John heard this, he rejoiced even more than they had expected, and said that the task was easy to perform and, for him, most pleasant. Immediately he set out, and having sought the tools for such cleaning, and having received them, he approached the cell of the neighbor of the elder, and entering into it, to defile his hands...

^A which he formerly had perfumed with many ointments, and that Christ-healed right hand—oh, the great humility of the man!—he did not hesitate to soil with filth and dung, which Christ had healed, he did not hesitate to defile with mud and dung. ^B

XXXI. The elder admires the obedience and humility of John. — But the elder, as soon as he heard of that most prompt obedience of John, and his sincere and profound, nay rather, sublime humility, he ran, embraced him, and clung about his neck, kissing his hands, his eyes, and his shoulders. "O what and how great an athlete and champion of blessed obedience," said he [XVIII], "have I begotten in Christ!" But John, blushing all the more at these words of the elder, fell prostrate to the ground, and as if casting himself at the feet of God, watered the pavement with a shower of tears: so far was he from being puffed up by the Father’s words or swelling with the elder’s praises, that he was the more abased and his soul was the more thoroughly crushed—as is the way with wise and sensible men, who, when praised, humble themselves and reject the commendations, while keeping their hearts lifted up toward God. Therefore, the Father raised up the son, and taking him by the hand, joyfully entered his cell. One would have said, had he seen John, that he was being restored again to the paradise of Eden. For he who by disobedience had previously portrayed the figure of the old Adam, now portrayed the new, that is, Christ, through that singular and ultimate obedience, the same he rendered again. ^C

XXXI. The Mother of God warns the elder in a dream to allow John to engage in writing. — Not much time passed before the all-praised and all-immaculate (Virgin Mary) offered herself to the elder in a dream, and said: "Why have you stopped up that fountain, which is able to pour forth such sweet, limpid, abundant, and truly nectarean waters? Water for the refreshment of souls; water more miraculous than that which gushed from the rock in the desert; water which David longed to drink; water which Christ promised to the Samaritan woman? Let the fountain flow. It will flow most abundantly, and with that plenty will pervade the whole world, so that by its mighty flood it may overcome and cover the seas of heresies, and convert them into an admirable sweetness. Let those who thirst come with speed to this water; and let those who do not have the silver of a pure life, having sold their passions, buy from John ^D the purity of doctrine and works. He has received the prophetic harp and that Davidic psalter, and he will sing new songs, songs to the Lord God. He will surpass the ode of Moses in his compositions."

It will also surpass the dance of Mary. The fables of Orpheus will be refuted as useless melodies. He will sing a spiritual and heavenly melody. He will imitate the Cherubic hymns, and he will make all the Churches, the daughters of Jerusalem, into adolescent cymbal-players, singing a new song to God, announcing to them the death and resurrection of Christ. He will rightly teach the dogmas of the faith, and he will transfix ^A the perversity and obliquity of every heresy. He will pour forth good words from his heart, and he will declare the works of the King to be above all wonder.

XXXII. The old man, moreover, having been taught these mysteries, calls John in the morning and addresses him with these words: "O son of the obedience of Christ! Open your mouth now, that you may draw in the Spirit; or rather, pour forth through your mouth that which you have already received in your heart. For your mouth shall speak wisdom, since you have had much meditation on understanding in your heart. Open your mouth, not in parables, but in truths; not in riddles, but in dogmas. Speak within the Jerusalem which sees God—I mean the peaceful Church—words not vain or futile, which might flow away through the air, but words which the Spirit has inscribed upon your heart. You have ascended to the Mount of Sinai to receive the visions and revelations ^B of God, however much you may have lowered yourself to the abyss of supreme humility. But now ascend to the mount of the Church, and preach, bringing good tidings to Jerusalem: lift up your voice with strength. For glorious things have been spoken concerning you by the Theotokos. But further, I would wish that you forgive me for any hindrance that may have come to you from me, for I have performed this for you in my rusticity."

XXXIII. John's various canticles. Sermons. The Book of Dialectics, on heresies, and on the orthodox faith. Other treatises. At this time, therefore, John began his divine canticles and sang honey-sweet songs, which gladdened the Church and made it a place of the tabernacle of God, ^C where the pure sound of those feasting is heard. ^D

^A Furthermore, he published not only these things, but he also issued to those at the feasts discourses, and the sacred book 27 and "the divinely-inscribed tablet," so to speak, in order that—to speak thus—he might provide to all, both the wise and the unlearned, a tempering, and a doorway of introduction into the mysteries of theology and the other dogmas of the true faith, and into the brief contemplation and knowledge of existing, intelligible things, and those shining with the clear and scientific proofs of the Scriptures. He who looks not to the heavens and to the one who is within it—not covering, nor being filled with its own light—is blind, or in darkness. And I would call wretched one who is squinting ^B toward the reflection of its divine radiance. Moreover, he composed long discourses 28

VARIOUS READINGS

NOTES

^A heaven does not look upon, nor is delighted by its beauty, even if he were blind or enveloped in darkness, yet I would not hesitate to call him wretched who is blinded to this divine splendor. Furthermore, John composed other lengthy treatises, in which he argued concerning the adoration of divine images. And just as he had expressed more perfectly in himself from the beginning the beauty of the divine image, so he also discoursed more elegantly and sublimely concerning the worship and honor of the venerable images.

XXXIV. In writing books he had Cosmas as an encourager: in publishing songs, as a partner. Cosmas is declared Bishop of Majuma. John becomes a presbyter of the Church of Jerusalem.

[index: entries preserved] the pseudo-synod was convened by Copronymus, which some deny to be his offspring. But Stephen the Deacon, in the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, indicates that other treatises were published by John of Damascus against Copronymus, where he refers to this holy man speaking thus: "But the honored and most wise presbyter Damascene, whom this tyrant called Mansur (we, however, call him 'God-bearer'), did not cease from writing to him, and calling him a heresiarch, and a follower of Mahomet, and an image-burner, and a hater of God; and those bishops under him, he called 'darkened' and 'gluttons,' and especially those horse-racers, and lovers of fighting, and lovers of spectacles, Pastilas, Tricacabus, Nacoliatas, and the demon-possessed Atzypius, like new Core, Dathan, and Abiron, he called them as their leaders, and the assembly of the ungodly under them." John therefore, taking up his own cross and that of Christ, and following Him, sounded the trumpet for Christ and Christ’s [people] from the East; not deeming tolerable the innovation of terms that had been introduced in a foreign land, and the iniquitous faction and rabid madness which had been armed against the holy, catholic Church of God; but publicly denouncing this, and exhorting and admonishing all, he rendered them cautious, lest they suffer themselves to be led away with the workers of iniquity, seeking that the laws established in the Churches from the beginning should prevail, and the peaceable state which the Lord bestowed upon his disciples as a sign for those called by His name, saying: "My peace I give unto you; My peace I leave with you."

^A Cosmas, however, is ordained bishop of Maiuma by the patriarch of Jerusalem, not of his own will, but compelled by force to yield; and having shepherded his flock well, and having lived as one dear to God, he departed in a good old age to his fathers, or rather, he migrated to God.

As for John, Peter, of the same faith and name ^B as he of Maiuma, was manifested at the same time as a martyr for Christ, of his own choosing. For, having been seized by an illness, he summoned the leaders of the Arabs, who were acquaintances of his, since he served as a Chartulary of the public taxes, and says to them: "May you receive from God the reward for your visit, even if you are infidels and friends; but I wish for you to be witnesses of my testament, such as it is. Everyone who does not believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the consubstantial Trinity in Unity, is blinded in his soul and is worthy of eternal punishment; and [your] Muhammad is a false prophet, and the forerunner of the Antichrist. Depart therefore, if you obey me as I testify to you today before heaven and earth, from his mythology. For I mean well to you today, that you may not be punished with him." Having heard him speak these things and much more—and being seized by astonishment and madness—they deemed that they should be patient, thinking that he was being deranged on account of his illness. But after he recovered from the illness, he began to cry out more loudly: "Anathema to Muhammad, and to his mythography, and to all who believe in it." Then, having endured the punishment of the sword, he was manifested as a martyr. Our holy Father John, well surnamed Chrysorrhoas (Golden-flowing) on account of the stream of the Spirit that flowed in him, both in speech and in life—the grace of golden light whom the impious king Constantine subjected to an annual anathema on account of the surpassing orthodoxy in him; and instead of his parental name Mansur, which is interpreted as 'redeemed,' he called him Manzer, in Jewish sentiment—honored him with eulogies of words.

NOTES

^A ...having guided the helm 30, transferring from divine inspiration—and in his turn, as it were, entering his own rightful place—the high-flying eagle, he did not set his mind upon that injunction of the Apostle, that elders are worthy of double honor, but, as if turning the saying to his own interpretation, he would say: "It is incumbent upon elders to strive for double humility: [that is] that elders should make a double..."

XXXV. Nevertheless, having returned to the laura of the divinely inspired Sabas, and once again (so to speak) re-entering his nest, this high-flying eagle did not in any way bring himself to accept that dictum of the Apostle that presbyters are worthy of double honor, but, turning that saying in another direction, he would say to himself, that it is for presbyters to strive for double humility: that they must [be]... ^B

NOTES

(30) "Having guided the helm of the Jerusalem Church..." John of Damascus was ordained presbyter of the Jerusalem Church by that John, the patriarch with whose friendship he was intimately joined, as he writes in his epistle on the Trisagion hymn. For who better than I knows the mind of the most blessed patriarch John? Nobody, indeed: for, as one who never breathed any dogmatic spirit in vain, which he did not entrust to me as his disciple... ^C ...and he closed his final day in the year of Christ 735, if any faith is to be placed in the chronological annals of Theophanes. Yet, it has escaped me—and also eluded the most learned Hensch and his associates while they were compiling the chronology of the Holy City—that Theophanes mentions this Jerusalemite. It is uncertain, moreover, who his successor was, or by what name he was called. Theophanes merely asserts this: that in the year of Copronymus, Theodorus of Antioch, Theodorus of Jerusalem, and Cosmas of Alexandria—each individually in their own churches—on the day of Pentecost, along with their suffragan bishops, anathematized Cosmas, the bishop of Epiphaneia, because he had been the first to embrace the Iconoclastic heresy. Clearly, the Theodorus of Jerusalem who celebrated the council against the Iconoclasts, as the Synodical scroll written under Basil the Macedonian testifies in these words: "Likewise also Theodorus, the bishop of Jerusalem, having gathered a God-inspired synod, proclaimed the six holy ecumenical councils by number and in the diptychs, and anathematized the recently sprung-up heresy of the Iconoclasts." There is no doubt that John of Damascus was a great part of this other synod of Theodorus; for... ^D ...he fought for the defense of the holy images until his dying day. Yet this Theodorus of Jerusalem is none other than Theodorus, that patriarch of holy memory whose encyclical epistle was read in the second session of the seventh synod. For Pope Adrian I most clearly testifies to this in his epistle to Charlemagne concerning the seventh synod, chap. 2. For by no right could that epistle of Theodorus be attributed to another Theodorus, that most wicked man who for some time snatched the Jerusalem see from the most holy patriarch Elias through the basest arts and occupied it. For the memory of this Theodorus was not holy, but execrable to the faithful on account of this crime, as Leontius the monk, the writer of the Life of Saint Stephen the Sabite, and a contemporary of those events, narrates and testifies: "Ambitious and rashly bold, Theodorus was subjected to just execrations and anathemas." It would be helpful to narrate all these things more fully elsewhere, whereby the greatest light might shine upon the history of the ecclesiastical affairs of those times, and especially of the seventh synod. As for the ordination of John of Damascus, he is also called a presbyter by Stephen the Byzantine, in the Life of St. Stephen the Younger, the martyr: "Among them was also the most celebrated John of Damascus, presbyter." In almost every inscription of any of his works, the hand-copied and published codices proclaim him to have been a presbyter. In some, he is even called "presbyter of the holy Church of Christ's Resurrection in Jerusalem," or "Hieromonk." By these, Possevinus is refuted, who in his *Apparatus* denied that he had ever been a priest or presbyter. Furthermore, there has been published by me a sufficiently long and elegant *Exposition of the Faith*, which he possessed when he was appointed by his patriarch to a certain peculiar church (as perhaps we call it a "parish"). Moreover, his many homilies that survive are proof that he was adorned with the rank of the presbyterate; for it belonged only to presbyters and bishops to preach in the churches. But as for what John of Jerusalem writes later, that our John, after the death of patriarch John, returned to his laura to devote himself entirely to the exercises of the religious life, this obtains credence to a certain extent. For it appears from the most holy man's homily on the Dormition of the Theotokos that those three homilies were delivered by him when he was already elderly and of advanced age. For this is what he signifies where he says: "And we, in the winter of our years, offering flowers to the Queen, and arming our aged speech for the contests of the eulogies," etc.

^A ...religious life, that priests must perform their exercises with double the effort than before, and must undergo double struggles, not only against the passions of the body, but also against the turbulent and hidden movements of the soul; for these often escape those who are devoted to the ascetic life, unless they have kept watch with great effort. Whence it happens that their inward man becomes defiled, while they themselves are hardly aware of it. These states are: guile, envy, conceit, hidden arrogance, a pursuit of vainglory under the guise of humility, a curious prying into the affairs of others—to which many vices of the tongue are related—elation, wandering of the mind, craftiness of character, pride masked by bodily submissiveness, continence conjoined with softness and luxury, the defending of one’s own will, a vicious greed for money in matters of no importance, and dress sought outside the prescribed custom, from which difference from one's brothers arises, and the hidden bait of pride is born.

XXXVI. ^B *John reviews and corrects his works and books.* Striving to root these things out of his soul, John added labors to labors in the first place, and gathering his mind completely from every side, he reviewed the books he had previously produced. He was engaged in checking them, adorning and polishing them, and most accurately correcting the diction, the sense, the rhythm, and the composition. And wherever the beauty overflowed into excessive flourishes or seemed to exceed due measure, he brought it back to gravity with prudent judgment, so that his books might not carry with them any display, frivolity, or baseness. Indeed, whoever with discernment directs his mind to these lucubrations of his, will admire the loftiness of the thoughts and the elegance of the diction conjoined with majesty. And who would not extol with divine praises, from his books, that burning zeal of his for piety and religion? And how he distributed the riches of wisdom to all, from which, having received a talent, he did not multiply it twofold, but tenfold? For I fear to increase the number, lest I be thought to have exceeded the evangelical bounds; all the more because it is not fitting to state immoderate things in a moderate way.

XXXVII. ^C *Stephen the Younger, a eulogist of John of Damascus.* Furthermore, divine zeal drove John even to this: that by contending for the laws of God, he was led—first from Damascus, and then afterwards from Palestine—to launch his rebuke against those in Constantinople ^D [who were] the destroyers and abusers of the icons. For he was a child of the great city, a son of the capital...

^A, ^B, ^C, ^D and he initiated this task.

NOTES.

Regarding the matter of the Menologies and Synaxaries, the accounts are far too unreliable for us to place faith in them without discrimination. That he wrote invectives against Copronymus and that he was cruelly anathematized by the seventh synod, as the author of the Life of Stephen the Younger and Theophanes attest, is passed over in silence in the accounts of his exiles, and the Greek Menaea themselves, which do not even hint that he was buried separately by a disciple. It suffices that he ceased to live in his one-hundred-and-fifth year; but that he ended his life in the laura of St. Sabas in Palestine, and was buried in the same place, is maintained by far more reliable testimony, namely Joannes Phocas, in the brief description of Palestine published by Leo Allatius in the Symmicta. For this author, who lived in the century under the Emperor Comnenus, asserts that in his own age the tomb of our John Damascene was usually seen in the monastery of St. Sabas in the outer atrium of the tomb of St. Sabas himself: “[By the] tomb of the great Sabas] and roundabout, as well as under the earth of the holy Fathers who lived the solitary life, [they were] held to be illustrious, and together with them the tombs of the holy poets Cosmas and John are viewed.” What could be clearer? Or who are those holy poets Cosmas and John, if not Cosmas of Maiuma and John Damascene, with whose poems and canticles the Oriental Churches resound? It has been shown already that our Damascene, even at an advanced age, delivered orations on the Dormition of the Virgin in Jerusalem, from which it can also be gathered that he ended his days in Palestine. Nor does it matter that no mention of his tomb is made in the Life of Stephen the Sabaitic. The Life does not mention the tombs of other most illustrious men who died in the same laura, except for John the bishop and the hesychast, who flourished in the age of Sabas himself. He was buried, says Leontius, the writer of the Life of Stephen: “In the urns of our most pious Fathers, where the venerable relics of holy John the bishop and the solitary are deposited.” Furthermore, that the body of St. John Damascene was preserved at Constantinople under Andronicus the Elder Palaeologus, is testified by George Pachymeres in the Andronicus, book 1, chapter 13, where he relates that those who stood against Joseph on the side of the former patriarch Arsenius wished to make a pact with their adversaries, and that a scroll deposited under the body of Saint John would be found in his hand on the following day, and that the cause of those whose scroll was judged just [would be proven]—from which they (the Arseniani), emboldened, dared to promise that God would show through him a miracle similar to that which was once reported to have been shown at Chalcedon in the body of the holy virgin and martyr Euphemia, and that through this the truth of their doctrine and the justice of their sect would be proven. They asked, therefore, that some body of a saint long dead be given to them, asserting that they firmly trusted that God would demonstrate through it whatever they had done, as long as He willed and commanded it hitherto: this having been seen, it would then be fitting for their adversaries to yield to divine authority and comply with them. The Emperor agreed, and handed over the sacred body of the divine Father John Damascene to them for this experiment. But concerned lest any fraud intervene in it, and because it was easy to suspect that the matter was done by trickery (for they wanted, by libels placed upon the body, for the case to be submitted to the risk of a miracle), he soon orders that beside the chest in which the saint’s relics were kept, another larger chest be prepared, by which the same chest might be contained. Moreover, that the outer chest could easily be secured with bolts and keys and seals, so that not even Daedalus could contrive any fraud in it. He himself was of such a mind, that if one of the libels placed at the feet of the saint were held in his hand, that he would stand by what was written. While these things were being done, the Arseniani were applying themselves to fasts, prayers, and nights spent in hymnody: when the emperor, whether fearing the outcome of the attempt on his own part, or warned by someone, as he turned the matter over in his mind, lest anything should be called into controversy as much regarding his empire as regarding the promotion of Arsenius (for they were said to be raising questions about both), desisting from his purpose, he seized both confessions, and as they say, the potsherd, and sent men to prohibit the execution of the matter. From this narrative it can be gathered that the body of our John had been preserved incorrupt and whole at Constantinople until that day. Hence it is that in some Latin Martyrologies, which the most learned continuators of Bollandus have brought forth for the 6th of May, it is read: “At Constantinople, the deposition of the holy memory of John Damascene, an eminent doctor, no less famous for his life than for his miracles.” And likewise: “At Constantinople, of St. John Damascene, priest, most famous in morals and doctrine, in the time of Theodosius the third.” The Greeks, however, celebrate his feast annually on the 4th of December, which for them is also the sacred feast of the holy virgin Barbara, whose praises the Damascene himself had celebrated in a special oration. In some Menologies or Synaxaries his commemoration is found on the 29th of November, as can be seen in Ughellus in the Italia sacra, vol. VI, or which is the same, in the Synaxary of the Emperor Basil. In the Roman Martyrology mention is made of him on the 6th of May. That John Damascene lived beyond the pseudo-synod of Copronymus, which was held in the year of Christ 754, we have it as certain that he is mentioned in the Life of Stephen the Younger the martyr, writ

ten as the namesake of the martyr, ^A and stoned with stones, as he was, for the sake of Christ, in the same way he himself, for the sake of His image, having been stoned and overwhelmed, departed to heaven; he then makes mention of John’s books, and of his struggle from afar against the impious, calling him a venerable man and one full of God, even though he had not been anointed with the unction of the high priesthood. Therefore, one must not deny the truth, and he who beholds the man crowned with the ribbon of testimony. For because of his zeal for piety, slander was fabricated against the pious man, from which came the amputation of his hand.

[XXIV] XXXVIII. After he had completed such a course of life and monastic exercise, having kept the faith, or rather, having propagated and established it with his books and his own doctrine—which he did not cease to confirm, cherish, and defend up to this present time through those things which he himself elaborated—he hastened to go to Christ whom he had loved. And now, indeed, he no longer contemplates Him in an image, nor does he worship Him in an effigy, but he beholds Him face to face, gazing with unveiled face upon the glory of the blessed Trinity. For these reasons, he had to be the athlete of religion, the ascetic, the ornament of the Church, the announcer of the truth, the athlete himself. ^B

NOTES. Concerning the war against this synod and its leaders. That he died before the seventh general synod is hinted at by the acclamations of that same holy synod: but in what year, the matter is obscure. For no monument exists from which we might be able to fish it out. I found this in the Life of Stephen of St. Sabas by Leontius the monk, who is said to have been the son of our John’s brother: that this holy inhabitant of the desert passed to Christ on the first day of April in the year of the world 6286, according to the Alexandrian computation, that is to say, 794 of Christ, when he had been led to the Laura of Saint Sabas by his most holy uncle in the tenth year of his age; that is, while he was ^C in his fourteenth year, and had passed fifteen years subsequently under his guidance and instruction in all obedience, namely, up to the year 750, or that of Constantine Copronymus.

(33) The text indicates Stephen the Younger, who suffered a distinguished martyrdom under Copronymus for the defense of the holy images, and whom we mentioned above. Stephen the Deacon testifies in his Life that he held John Damascene to be like a holy and God-filled man, where he introduces the illustrious martyr speaking thus: "Among whom [is] also the most honorable and most wise John Damascene the presbyter, whom this tyrant named Mansur, but we [call] holy and God-filled." Even though Stephen the Younger may have occasionally read and praised John Damascene and his books, I would hardly concede whether the saint was ever known to him face to face. ^D

LIFE OF ST. JOHN DAMASCENE

^A and cultivator of life, ornament of the Church, guide to the truth, outstanding in struggles and doctrine, and instructor of the simple, it was fitting that he be celebrated with the greatest praises we could offer; not that we might add even the slightest bit of glory to him, but that he, in turn, might remember us in the heavens, and that we might be filled with his heavenly glory; that glory, indeed, which David testifies to as residing within the king's daughter—that is, the royal soul—by saying: *All the glory of the king's daughter is from within.* [Ps. XLIV, 14.]

XXXIX. I would have you grant me pardon, O thrice-blessed man, and be a most fervent and constant intercessor for me before God, since I have obtained this excellent collection—which another, as he was able, had delineated in a simple style, written in the Arabic language and characters—and I, who have been allotted the same name as you, compelled by love for you, and by your own beckoning, nay, by your own commands, if God grants it, have translated it. Make me to become a worshipper of the Trinity without the contagion of matter, wholly outside the body, wholly carried away into contemplations, wholly consecrated as a holocaust through the ardor of divine love, as long as I dwell in the body; so that, with the stirrings of my soul quieted, once I have cast off the flesh, I may with good confidence be presented together with you to God: to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

The end of the Life of Saint and Great John of Damascus. This copy was collated with its exemplar.

[XXV] After the Life of Saint John of Damascus described by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and after the Menaea and Synaxaria, I submit another narrative concerning the life and conversation of the same John of Damascus, which our Henry Gravius published, just as I found it in a Latin codex. The phrasing and locution, which are entirely Greek and not Latin, suggest that this narrative was written first in Greek, not Latin; just as six hundred words found here and there, which are pure Greek, indicate. From the inspection of this other study, it will be apparent what was circulated in the East concerning our John of Damascus: to which I shall also add other things, far different from these, from the *Speculum Historiale* of Vincent of Beauvais, and from Saint Antoninus, who also transcribed them.

Translator’s Prologue to the books of John of Damascus, containing eleven chapters, that is, a discourse on the Philocosmoi, that is, lovers of the world, and on the Philothei, that is, lovers of God: and since it is fitting to pass through the books with diligent labor and intention of the intellect, in which [there is mention] also of the extreme humiliation of our Savior, and His poverty and crucifixion, and of the conversation of the holy Father, John of Damascus, in Damascus, and of those things which were [accomplished] in monastic life, a small account, and how his book itself was composed by him.

Just as the joy of the gardens (that is, of orchards) is sweet to the lovers of the world, and to the lovers of God the desirable meditation of the intellectual paradise of divine Scriptures is likened; the lover of the world is delighted by the sensible ^C variety of flowers, and the beauty of foliage, and the rustling leaves of cedar trees, and the cries of birds, and the flow of waters having the appearance of crystal, and the well-sounding voices of musicians: the best of which is useless; because they bring the end of their joy to drunkenness and luxuries; and what is even more difficult, to vanity.

^A ending their own life, and instead of gladdening and beautifying, they blackened and darkened their wretched soul, expelled it from the primordial beauty, delivered it to torments, and made it a stranger to God, a miserable thing. What evil retributions do the lovers of the world reap from worldly delights, under the deception of the Pope? Yet one ought not to call these joys, but sorrows, since they kill the governing soul. In this way, the lovers of the world, that is, the lovers of the world; but in the intelligible paradise of the Divine Scriptures, the lovers of God, that is, those who love God, yielding themselves to exercise, and persevering in divine meditation, and approaching God with vigils, prayers, and tears, possess instead of sensible trees, venerable fathers, covered with leaves and blooming with divine virtues: ^B the one like a fruitful olive; another like a blooming palm; one like a cedar, and another like a cypress; others like the lilies of the field blooming, and like a tree planted by the streams of waters; others, and the divine modes of them, and virtuous commendations, and a most delightful and mild pedagogy towards us, with diligent labor, and perseveringly and well-compunctiously meditating, like flowers they are beautified with the good odor and good resonance of dogmas, and the divine sayings, and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, eating as the fruit of trees, and drinking from waters unpolluted and beyond the appearance of crystal, namely, the charisms of the Spirit, they approach God incessantly, and possess true joy and interminable exultation. Their end, however, is eternal life, unending joy, joy without sorrow, interminable rest. For having abandoned earthly things, they have departed into the heavens, becoming fellow-citizens of the angels, they are truly dignified with the glory of God, namely, the intelligible paradise: and they have become participants in the good things which the Lord has prepared for those who love Him: but what is indeed more pleasant, they have been made children of God and heirs, and in no way will they be separated from the glory of God, but will reign with Him for interminable ages, as those who live well, and enjoy well, receiving what is worthy of their labors.

CHAPTER II. On those who set fire to the Holy Scripture.

Let us knock, therefore, most beloved, at the best paradise of the Divine Scriptures, sweet-smelling, most sweet, most beautiful, altogether delightful, echoing our ears with the songs of intelligible bird-bearing birds of all kinds, inflaming our hearts, and filling them with eternal joy, and comforting the sorrowful, and pacifying the angry, and strengthening them with divine fear and causing our mind to ascend to the gold-shining backs of the divine dove, and with her most manifest wings leading us back to the only-begotten Son and heir, the planter of the intelligible vineyard, and through him to the Father ^A who brings the lights. Let us not knock slothfully and uselessly, but rather promptly and perseveringly: nor let us become weary knocking: for so it is opened to us. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Let us therefore take delight insatiably in divine eloquence, and be over-delighted in the conversation of the holy Fathers. For divine grace [XVI] possesses an inexhaustible [grace] and enters into those who sincerely desire it without guile. If therefore we read once and twice, and do not understand what we read, let us not become slothful, nor neglect, but let us persevere, exercise ourselves, and ask. For ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will tell you. For the knowledge is not of everyone. Let us drink, moreover, the ever-flowing waters, from the fountain of this paradise gushing into eternal life, and purging away the filth of sins, and stilling the thirst of carnal pleasure, and washing clean the darkened eyes from our offenses, and working correctly to behold the divine light purely, and if we thus prepare ourselves completely, we shall attain salvation, and be filled with joy without sorrow, and shall obtain eternal life.

CHAPTER III. On the divinity of the Savior.

The power and mercy of the philanthropist and merciful God of ours, who for the sake of our salvation humiliated His own insubmersible height, and was clothed in mortal flesh, and in all things ^B became like us without sin, assuming what He was not, and not laying aside what He was, and yet delivered Himself to extreme humiliation on account of His excessive love for us: but rather His pedagogy, which is, not to be wise in high things: because He did not even have any base dwelling for a habitation, as He Himself testifies saying: Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Nor was there any arable land of the earth for Him, nor one sprout, nor any extra tunic, but that which He was wearing alone. And what indeed was greater than this humiliation and vileness? For as one of the poor, according to all things He was salvation, and whom He called friends and poor brethren, He lived with them, always choosing humble things. But ^C O ineffable endurance and long-suffering of Him, but rather of incomparable wisdom! For in what miserable figure did He deceive the crafty one? Nor giving any occasion to him for the consolation of glorying, as must be said, since He was taken not from a naked man, but from a lowly and poor man. Therefore, wishing to show ^D the perfection of the love He had for us, He endured to be delivered and scourged by His own servants, and buffeted, and spat upon, and treated as a malefactor. For they bound His hands and neck with a rope, and led the malefactor outside the city, and fastened Him to a cross. But He, as an innocent lamb, and as

^A one led before the shearer, so fared He forward, uttering no word: seeing whom, the immaculate lamb, as she was wounded in her inward parts and tearing her hair, together with other women following their own lamb from afar, moved her head this way and that, and spoke mournfully.

CAP. IV. On the lamentation of the Blessed Virgin.

Woe is me, most sweet Son! Woe is me, my sole Son, beloved of a mother who is a stranger, and, among strangers, as a stranger unjustly put to death: why did I not die before Thy passion? And as Thou diest, why dost Thou pass me by in silence, and not speak a word to her who gave Thee birth? My inward parts are torn within me, seeing Thee without cause, as a malefactor, bound and crucified. For whose sake dost Thou finish Thy course so swiftly, and speakest not to her who gave Thee birth without sorrow? But, O my destitution of offspring and my burden hard to bear! For I lose the comforter of my pilgrimage, and I am left alone and destitute among strangers. But, O my Son and my God, do not abandon me. And with other words did the Lady herself, worthy of grief, speak with tears, consumed by sorrow. But from the grave our merciful God, rising on the third day, and snatching the handiwork of His hands from the bonds of hell, ^B bestowed resurrection upon us all.

CAP. V. On John of Damascus.

I shall therefore transfer my discourse, and return to our excellent teacher and father, and master of the dwellers of the world, a narrator of most great utility, John of Damascus. And according to the narrowness of my mind and the poverty of my tongue, having been granted by him that which is of him, I shall recount his own deeds. This man was indeed formerly conversant in the city of Constantinople. But he was envied because of his supreme love of discipline by his fellow citizens, and he withdrew into exile in Damascus: in which place, being instructed most excellently in the letters of the Hagarenes, because of his great discipline and humility of election, and his gentle and sweet manner of speaking toward all, he became manifest to the king, and was honored by him with the greatest honor, and when he went with him as one beloved to the den—I shall not say the sepulchre—of his Mohammed. And everything which he saw there done fittingly, and held for nothing, he kept all in his heart for the refutation and confusion of those who venerate these things, and he spoke little of the hundredth heresy of the Ishmaelites. But being constrained there by the king to adore the things venerable to himself, and to bow down to the stone, and to preach Mohammed, who, on account of fear, or rather on account of the desire of telling us what was there, bowing himself to the stone, spat, and did not adore, and ascending to the preaching, he said, "The Lord is a great God, and there is no God except our God." But he did not say the testimony of Mohammed, because he is a prophet; but he said it with a high voice, having testified to the obscure thing which these men speak of; but with a loud voice, because he is an apostle of God. And in the rest, rebuking them, he descended from the pulpit, no one understanding what he said. But as they returned to Damascus, he was honored by the king and his magnates magnificently, ^C as one preaching the polluted thing entirely, but rather also expounding to them many most wise discourses, both from grammar, and medicine, and the rest of the other simple wisdom. For he did not cast holy things to dogs, nor did he pollute or change the pure faith, but as a diamond stone dwelling in the midst of dark and polluting stones, he did not change his substance. But not long after, his tutor, to whom he also succeeded, envying him because he surpassed him in all wisdom, and not enduring to see him prospering in his own order and being praised by all, sent letters full of scandal, as if from his person, to another king, as if he wished to betray his own lord and to transfer him and his kingdom to himself. But the king, reading the letters, writes back to the king of Damascus for the sake of friendship, and [sends letters] vituperative toward John, as to a traitor and a deceiver, and at the same time sent the letters dispatched to him for his own refutation. As therefore the king saw these, and was struck with ecstasy, he immediately calls John, and shows him the letters deceptively sent against him, and reading them he was amazed: the letters indeed, he said, were as my own; but the discourses were not mine. For his letters were greatly assimilated to those of the master. And, to speak briefly, because of the love and friendship which the king and the magnates had toward him, he ordered the thumb of his right hand to be cut off. This being done, the greatest sadness seized John among the strangers: and running, he went away to the image of the Lady which he possessed in secret, having with him the severed finger: and bending his knees, he besought her with tears and most profound groaning, that she might grant him health. This, moreover, he did for three days, when he remained alone.

CAP. VI. On the restoration of the thumb.

The immaculate Lady, the swiftest protection of the faithful, being moved by his supplications, caused his finger to adhere from where it had been cut off, and in the name of her herself, the immaculate one, and of the Lord our Jesus Christ born of her, it was restored sound as the other. But the king, knowing these things, as he became sound and rejoicing, was inquiring from him who indeed he is, and who had healed him. Which also learning, he was struck with astonishment at the glorious and unthinkable miracle. Later indeed, learning a little that his tutor had devised this treachery against him, ^D with the worst penalties...

he sent him into exile; and thus it was fulfilled in him that which is written: "He opened a pit and dug it, and fell into the hole that he made." And of the just man: "The Lord guards all who love Him." And, "You shall not give Your Holy One to see corruption." Once again, therefore, John was honored more highly by the king, and by all the princes, and by everyone, so that he was revered and glorified as a coregent with the king.

CAP. VII. Of the perfect conversion of John of Damascus.

He himself, however, reckoning all things of this deceptive life as if they were a dream and nothingness, and putting away small vain-glory, and contemplating the eternal and immortal world to come, after the death of the king ^B giving all he possessed to the poor, and leaving behind the muddy delights of this life, followed Christ; and going off to the gymnasium, he became a monk, cutting and shearing his hair, adorned by a venerable life and virtuous comportment. For giving himself to the meditation of the Divine Scriptures, and with diligent labor occupying himself in fasts and vigils, and persevering in prostrations to the ground and incessant prayers, he besought God. And he imitated the zeal of this father, the meekness of that one, the endurance of another, the pedagogy of one, the doctrine of another. And what more shall I say to these things? He gave himself so much to extreme abstinence, and to an altogether laborious love of discipline, that he was deemed worthy to possess the grace of the Holy Spirit, ^C and was established as a minister of the divine mysteries of Christ, and became another, as it were, a second theologian: and the absolute rectitude of the discourses set forth by him shows how excellently he manifested to us the pure and undefiled faith, and handed down the manifest solution of many ineffable questions.

CAP. VIII. The method of the book edited by John.

I shall begin from here to relate the method of this book edited by himself. For while he was in the monastery where it was being compiled, crowned with all virtues and inspired by discourses of doctrine, there were altogether most grave and numerous questions among the orthodox and the heretics, concerning which many of the orthodox also doubted. Being in the most grave questions and in doubt, by the nod of God Almighty, who by no means permits those who hope in Him to be overcome, they heard of this excellent man, and of his philosophy and great discipline, and how he obstructed the mouths of the heretics by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and how very many of the heretics came to him, ^D regarding him as one who wins through these grave questions.

He, however, by the good pleasure of the Father and the power of the Son and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit of the holy and undivided Trinity, moderately and meekly obstructed these, and led them to the faith that is in Christ. Those who were lovers of God, once certified of him, and at the same time of his intellect, asked the holy bishop of Majuma, called Cosmas, that he might send messengers to him, announcing to him the heresiologies [35] of the tares springing up in the immaculate Church, and that he might send to them, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, a manifestation of the solution to all their questions. The holy bishop, inclined by the supplication of the people, sent to him to pose the questions, seeking that all things be set forth subtly and by his manifestation. Receiving the letters, ^B the holy John, altogether reading and recognizing the magnitude of the questions, did not immediately begin to write, but gave himself to extended and prolonged prayer: at the same time, both he and the college of brothers—and the most holy bishop and those honorable men under him—wrote back, praying that the Lord might grant him intellect in all things, and that the opening of his mouth might be filled with speech in the Holy Spirit. After having persevered for a short time in prayer, he began to write this book thus:

CAP. IX. How he composed the entire book, consisting of logic and one hundred heresies and opinions.

First indeed, beginning from the Existent, he set forth those questions which are best and useful among the Greeks. Subsequently, he wrote the babblings of the heretics, that by knowing the lie, we might obey the truth. Later, he edited the third book, having the truth inscribed with wisdom and intellect and pure faith. Then, therefore, because of the magnitude of the third book, and because of the perfection of the faith in it—from this, namely, that "no one has ever seen God," ^C he introduced, as a witness of the truth, the one who made the book for us [XXVII], saying: "The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has recounted him." And who would not admire those who pass through his books with diligent labor, his total philosophy, and the rectitude and purity of his intellect, how he began these questions from above?

CAP. X. The matter of the book of opinions.

First indeed, saying to us that we ought not to demand and search out things not handed down to us by the holy prophets, and apostles, and evangelists, teaching that not all things are speakable, nor are all things unspeakable. Then...

[Inasmuch as he confirms that God is one, and unconfused and inseparable, and without beginning, and endless, and self-existent, and the immortal holy Trinity, and confirms us in this faith, he consequently began to tell of angels and demons, and of the heaven and the luminaries, and of the earth and water, air, and fire. And at the same time, showing the planting of the entirely delightful paradise, and its twofold nature, and writing of the preparation and composition of man, he skillfully narrated all these natural things; and after the transgression of the commandment, and the increase of the race, and the cleansing of the flood, and the captivity in the destruction of the second generation, he began the annunciation, and he narrated clearly and diligently those things concerning Christ, and the incarnation, and the union of the natures, and the increase of age. At the same time, he also [narrated] of wisdom, and grace, and operations, and the duality of wills, and that which happened on the cross, and in the passion, and in death, concerning the coupling of soul and body and divinity. For the divinity, being impassible, though the flesh suffered, remained itself impassible. It was, however, passible, with neither divinity Suffering with them. For the tree, illuminated by the sun and cut by an axe, the tree indeed, which is born to suffer, is cut; but the solar ray is not cut, but remains unharmed. If this seems possible in creatures, how much more easily is it so in the uncreated and impassible nature? After that narration concerning the resurrection and the appearance to the disciples and the ascension into heaven, he extended both the discourse, and [the account] concerning the genealogy of the Mother of God, and the assumption of the ^A immaculate mysteries, and the holy relics ^B of honor, and adding very many other things, and narrating the coming of Antichrist, he arrived at the second advent, in which he also placed the end of the book.

CAP. XI.

Concerning other works of John

And he composed many well-sounding rules, after this and *eukatanykta*, that is, well-compunctual and sweet canticles, and well-sounding melodies, and he published the dissolutions of sins and ignorances, and hagiopolitical sayings, that is, the conversations of the saints, and adding many other things, our entirely excellent father—a well-talking swallow, and a well-sounding nightingale, an irreproachable turtledove, and a simple dove, an entirely delightful partridge of the Church, an immovable column of the faithful, and glory and firmament, but to heretics an obstruction, and subversion, and obstacle. Leaving us, therefore, the sweet and delightful narrations edited by him, and works full of grace, existing in faith and wisdom, and his own virtuous life, having become an imitation and guide for us, he migrated in his deepest old age to the Lord, leaving behind earthly things, he ran back to the heavens, he reached the desired Ruler, to the endless splendor, to the supreme of desirable things, to the true kingdom of the heavens, he has been made a consort to the angels, a cohabitant of the Fathers, a fellow-contestant of the just, whose lives and manner he emulated, gazing unceasingly upon the glory of God, and standing in ineffable joy.

Coloniae, from the workshop of Peter Quintel, in the year of Christ's birth 1546, in the month of January.

Another narration concerning the life of Saint John Damascene, from Vincent of Beauvais’ *Speculum Historiale*; for it is different from the previous two, although it does not differ so greatly from the second.

Concerning John Damascene

As to his deeds. At that time flourished John, the presbyter of Damascus. From infancy he was learned in Greek letters, and before his twelfth year he had apprehended the knowledge of all the liberal arts: exercising himself in the love of God and of his glorious Mother, he assumed the monastic habit, and remaining a virgin, he sang the hours of the Queen of virgins daily most studiedly: and having become a presbyter, he celebrated masses in her honor most devoutly and frequently. Furthermore, he was also accustomed to make prayers, antiphons, responsories, and proses, which he sang most sweetly at her solemnities to her praise. Noble men used to entrust their own sons to him to be educated, whom he did not only instruct most studiedly in letters, but also diligently informed in the fear and love of God, and in every honesty of morals. ^C One day, when he had gone out beyond the walls of the city to walk for a little while with his students, the Saracens, suddenly rushing in according to their custom, with a multitude of men and animals, seized him also, and carried him off with them into Persia. And when a division of the plunder was made among the robbers, it happened that John fell into the portion of one who was very wealthy among them; who, while others were assigned to the works of servitude, by divine nod acted more mildly toward him, on account of the merits of the blessed Virgin. For the captive did not neglect to render his accustomed weight of servitude, but also, insisting on fasts and vigils, he daily addressed prayers to the blessed Virgin most devoutly. Which the gentile noticing, being convinced by his good conversation as if by a spiritual sermon, permitted him to go and come freely wherever he wished within the spaces of the palace: ^D and on a certain day, he spoke to him thus: "My John,

^A dearest friend, I have marveled at your prudence, your facility in composition, your usefulness in writing, and the sweetness of your singing and orchestration, as well as your holy purpose and manner of life. I have a son, no less dear to me than myself, whom I beseech you to instruct in the liberal arts; and in composing, writing, reading, and singing, strive to fashion him after yourself, so that if by chance you should one day depart from us, you might in some way remain with us in him." He, having received the boy with obedience and humility, and beginning to instruct him from the first elements, within a few years rendered him so well-trained in all the liberal arts that, if masters and students were to consider his rhetorical style of composition, or if you were to look upon the formation of his letters, or hear the melody of his voice, you would declare that there was no difference between the two.

Furthermore, when John seemed necessary to Emperor Theodosius for certain matters due to the merit of his life, the honesty of his character, and the brilliance of his eloquence, he sent an embassy with a mandate under pain of death that he be sent to him as quickly as possible. John, not daring to contravene the imperial order, caused himself to be honorably escorted to Constantinople. The Emperor received him with honor and gave him a monastery in the city, where he might serve God quietly with the brothers; the Emperor himself frequently came there, and they spoke familiarly concerning the state of the realm and the salvation of his soul.

Of the false crime for which he was punished.

But in order that the good John might be proved for the increase of his merits, while he was still in the furnace of tribulation: that young man whom he had taught in Persia, [having learned] his style of composing and his own manner of writing, and being agitated by a spirit of wickedness, composed a letter by his own sense and wit, and sent it stealthily to Constantinople, and commanded that it be cast in the place in the palace where it might most quickly be found by the imperial ministers. And it was as follows: "To the beloved friends who are in Persia, John Damascene, the least of monks, greetings. Know that the Emperor has sent the strength of his army to various wars in distant nations, and the royal city and its surroundings remain void of men. Since, therefore, you are wise, come safely, and obtain the victory prepared for you without delay, manfully."

The letter was found by the ministers and read before the Emperor. Treason is shouted by all, and inquiry is made as to who was the author of this betrayal; the form of the letter and the style of handwriting are examined, and it is reported to the Emperor that it is John's. Immediately John is sought, and he is dragged with much injury into the Emperor's presence, the Emperor himself marveling whence such a sudden tumult and conspiracy against him could have arisen. The entire populace, hurling a thousand insults, proclaimed him not a priest but a traitor, not a monk but an apostate, and in their fury could scarcely keep their hands from his eyes. Then the Emperor, having made silence, sighing, said: "O most wicked John, ungrateful for my benefits, you have repaid evil for good. You have betrayed your country, and you have cast me and mine from liberty into the worst captivity; and you have betrayed our homeland." And the letter having been shown to him, he responded thus: "Truly, my lord, I recognize the form of the writing and the composition, and my style; but God is my witness that I did not do it." And while everyone was clamoring against him, because he seemed to wish to hide the truth, they proclaimed from every side that he should be punished with death without delay. The judges, having taken counsel and with equal assent, said that he, because he had been a special friend of the Emperor, ought not to be put to death, but that the hand which had perpetrated so great a crime should be cut off. Which being done, John, from the pain of the wound and the diminution of his body, gave thanks to God, and because he could no longer offer sacrifice in His honor, he mourned a little. The hand, therefore, being severed by the office of the executioner, by order of the Emperor was hung in the monastery of John himself as a testimony to so great a crime.

Of the miracle demonstrated in him through the blessed Virgin.

He soon arriving before the image of the special mistress of the Lord, with his wound uncovered and his arm extended, argued piously with her, saying: "Are these, O Lady, the rewards of our merits? Is this the blessedness of your servants? Let it be, Lady, that I have been scourged worthily for the merits of my sins; but to what end did you allow the instrument of your service to be utterly cut off? Truly, this hand was often preparing hymns of your praise by writing them, and many times in your honor it offered the most sacred body and blood of your Son for the salvation of all sinners."

And when he had often lamented such things there, it happened on a certain night that, weary on his bed after such lamentation, neither sleeping nor waking, he rested entirely; and behold the Queen of Virgins appeared with great light, with a joyful face, comforting him with such speech: "What are you doing," she said, "my most faithful boy?" "Alas," he said, "Lady, why do you ask me?" "Nay, I ask you: where were you when I might have suffered? Behold, at my own [hand], the disgrace of your client hangs in the church, severed." But she: "Take comfort," she said, "my son in the Lord; He who fashioned the whole man from nothing can restore your hand to you." With these words, while he was watching, she sought the church, and having brought the hand from there, she restored it to his arm in a moment with wonderful kindness. Then he, giving ineffable thanks, as the light of day returned, rose up, and having called the brothers, he showed his hand, and animated them to glorify with him the great works of God. Soon, solemnly vested, he celebrated Mass with a loud voice in honor of the most holy Virgin. The Emperor, having heard of the miracle, came to him on foot, and kissing his hand with his own mouth, after the praise of God and the glorious Virgin, he diligently inquired of him if he recognized anyone anywhere who had his style of dictation and form of writing. Which he indeed reported to him, and thus the truth of the matter was more diligently inquired into and became known.

LIFE OF ST. JOHN DAMASCENE

FROM THE MENOLOGION for the 4th of December.

This man lived under the reign of Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine, from the city of Damascus, of illustrious lineage, and distinguished by orthodox faith. Possessing, moreover, a virtuous father, he was educated in all the Greek encyclical learning, and he thoroughly investigated the depths of the divinely inspired Scripture. He undertook the solitary life along with the most blessed Cosmas, who had been raised with him and who later became Bishop of Maiuma. Both of them, therefore, were educated by one teacher, who was also named Cosmas—a man of incomparable reputation—whom his father had redeemed and liberated along with other captives. Having obtained such a teacher, they reached the pinnacle of wisdom. It is said that the most holy Theotokos appeared to him in a dream and asked, “Why does John still remain under a master?” Or rather, she commanded his disciple, John, to compose hymns to the glory of Him who was born of her without seed, as a boast for those who, from the bottom of their hearts, are bound to honor her. And he did so, making this the theme of his writing. Having likewise pursued the ascetic life, the blessed Cosmas, having left many writings to the Church, fell asleep in peace; but the renowned John, having himself accomplished many such works and many more, and by the power of his words and by learned proofs from the Scriptures, vehemently attacked the impious heresy of the Iconoclasts, who fought against the holy images, and left many monuments to the Church of God, by the help and support of which a clear knowledge of every subject that comes into question is obtained; he ended his life in ripe old age, having lived one hundred and four years. ^{A B C}

FROM THE MS. SYNAXARION OF EMPEROR BASIL, at Grottaferrata, for the 29th of November.

Commemoration of our Holy Father John, Monk and Presbyter of Damascus.

He lived under the reign of Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine, from the city of Damascus, of illustrious, honorable, and faithful lineage. He had a father who was a lover of virtue, and he was educated in all the learning of the Greeks, and furthermore in the divine Scriptures. Afterward, out of love for Christ, abandoning his paternal wealth, he became a monk along with Cosmas [XXXI], who is most celebrated for his poems and canticles for the holy feast days, and especially for the Great Week of Pascha. Now, the holy John, by the power of his words and

confounded the heresy of the Iconoclasts. Whence, having been variously banished by heretical emperors and delivered into prisons, he reached his end in a noble confession, and was buried by his disciple.

^A Eodem die commemoratio sancti Patris nostri Joannis Damasceni.

He lived under the emperor Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine; he was born in the city of Damascus of illustrious parents, and was excellent in his observance of the orthodox faith. Since his father was very studious of virtue, by his care and diligence he was taught the entire encyclopedia, and learned to search well the divinely inspired Scriptures. And so, inflamed with zeal for the Christian faith, leaving behind his paternal riches, he embraced the monastic life together with Cosmas, whose praise is most celebrated in those melodies and canticles which he wrote for feast days. He was indeed a partaker of all erudition and monastic training, just as saint John, who, by his faculty of speech and the testimonies of the holy Scriptures, vehemently confuting and refuting the impious heresy of those who attacked the holy images, left behind many learned and accurate writings: in which the solution to almost all questions is found. But when he had arrived at a great and laudable old age, the blessed John departed from this life, previously called Mansur, by which name his parents also were called.

SELECTED TESTIMONIES OF THE ANCIENTS CONCERNING JOHN OF DAMASCUS AND HIS WRITINGS

The seventh general synod which was celebrated at Nicaea in Bithynia, Act 6. Epiphanius against the anathemas of the pseudo-synod concerning John.

^C But John, who is reproachfully called Mansur by them, having left all things, and having emulated Matthew the evangelist, followed Christ, deeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasure of the Arabs, and choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to have the temporal pleasure of sin. He therefore, taking up his own cross and that of Christ, and having followed Him, sounded the trumpet for Christ, and for those of Christ, from the East through Christ; not enduring the innovation of words which had been made in a foreign land, nor the prevaricating passion and rabid insanity with which it was armed against the holy catholic Church of God. But making this public, he rendered all cautious by exhorting and admonishing them, so that they should not be led away with those who work iniquity; seeking that the ancient legislation and peaceful constitution should be held in the Churches, which the Lord gave to His disciples as a ^D mark of those who are called by His name, saying: Peace I give to you, My peace I leave with you. Having therefore [been...]

[Note: The Greek text continues from the last line: "Τούτων οὖν", which is the beginning of the next sentence, "Of these, therefore..."]

rebellious slander against them, and how monstrous it is, such that one can scarcely bear it? Truly, the wretches have been ignorant of their own ignorance, shamelessly laying bare their own language, calling Germanos, that minister of the mysteries and priest of Christ, a double-tongued man and a worshiper of wood, and likewise George and Mansur, etc.

Actione septima ejusdem synodi.

May the memory of the Orthodox Germanos be eternal. May the memory of John and George be eternal. May the memory of the heralds of the truth be eternal. May the Trinity, who glorified these three, and whose disputes we strive to follow, ^B grant us this through the mercies and grace of the first and great High Priest, Christ our God, by the intercession of our undefiled Lady, the holy Theotokos, and all the saints: Amen.

Stephanus monachus Byzantinus auctor Vitae S. Stephani junioris martyris, Stephanum de Joanne Damasceno sic locutum refert.

Among them, the most honored and most wise John of Damascus, presbyter (whom this tyrant calls Mansur, but whom we call holy and god-bearing), did not cease to write against him, and did not hesitate to call him a heretical babbler, a Mahomet, an icon-burner, and an enemy of the saints; and he called those bishops who were subject to him, that is, those darkness-dwellers, slaves of their bellies and gluttons. ^C In particular, the lovers of the circus and spectacles, Pastilas and Tricacabus, the Nicolaitans and the friend of demons Atzypius, he called new Oreb, Zeb, Zebee, and Salmana, and Dathan, and the gathering of Abiron, the people subject to them.

Nicephorus Constantinopolitanus in history, where he speaks of the conciliabulum of Emperor Constantine Copronymus.

In that council they set forth a canon of faith concerning the overturning of the holy images, to which all signed with impious and nefarious consent, and these were childishly condemned with anathema in the forum. The same sentence was pronounced against Germanos, Patriarch of Constantinople, and George of Cyprus, and John of Damascus, by the name Mansur.

Theophanes in Chronographia ad annum 13 Leonis Isauri.

Then indeed John Chrysorrhoas of Damascus in Syria, son of Mansur, an excellent teacher, shone forth in both life and word.

Item for the year 19 of Leo, concerning Peter of Maiuma.

Our holy Father John, who was rightly surnamed Chrysorrhoas because of the grace of the Spirit flourishing in him, ^D shining like gold in both doctrine and conduct, was honored with this eulogy; whom the impious emperor Constantine subjected to an annual anathema because of his excellent sentiment regarding the true faith;

and for "Mansur"—which is his ancestral name, meaning "redeemed"—he called him by the altered name of "Manzer," a new master of the Church, with a Jewish mentality.

These same things, like the rest, Paul the Deacon has in his *Historia miscella*, from the translation of the works of Theophanes by Anastasius the Librarian.

John Zonaras, Book XV, § 6, concerning the conciliabulum of Copronymus.

After a few days, the tyrant came into the forum with ^B his patriarch and the bishops of his party, who in the presence of all the people forbade the veneration of the holy icons, calling those who worshiped them idolaters, and they subjected to anathema the illustrious Germanus, who had been Patriarch of Constantinople, and George of Cyprus, and the great John Damascene, who was great in doctrine and virtue, and who frequently convicted this enemy of God and his father of impiety through his letters.

Cedrenus, in his Compendium of History, at the tenth year of Leo the Isaurian.

In Damascus of Syria there was John, a monk and presbyter, surnamed Chrysorrhoas, the son of Mansur, which in Greek signifies "Redeemed," whom the impious one, with a Jewish sense, called "Manzer." ^C This holy John, together with Cosmas, Bishop of Majuma, and Theophanes, brother of Theodore the Branded, were surnamed "melodists," or singers, because with melodies they had composed those hymns which are sung in the churches of the Christians. For this holy John was a master excellent in both life and speech, filled with all divine and human knowledge.

Suidas on John Damascene

John Damascene, by the surname Mansur, was a most illustrious man, second to none of those who were famous in doctrine in his time. His writings are very numerous, and especially those touching on philosophy, as well as select parallels on Holy Scripture, and canons of hymns, both in iambics and in prose. At the same time also flourished Cosmas of Jerusalem, ^D a man of great genius, and entirely breathing that sweet musical modulation. The song-canons of John and Cosmas permitted no comparison with the songs of others, nor will they admit any until the end of this age.

From the Menaion for the 4th of December.

Whom shall we call you, O saint? John the Theologian, or David singing songs? A cithara resounding with the Spirit, or a pastoral pipe, while you soothe at once our ears and our minds, and while you adorn with your melodies the assemblies of the Church;

^A you gladden all with your honey-sweet voices, you who illuminate the ends of the earth, pray that our souls may be saved.

What shall I call you, divine John, sweet-speaking one? You are a most luminous star, radiating with the splendor of the Trinity; you who penetrated the spiritual mists with your discerning virtue; you who, initiated into the ineffable mysteries of the Divinity, just as another Moses, set forth your musical art: pray that our souls may be saved.

What shall I call you, renowned one? A torchbearer of light, an illustrious leader, a minister and spectator of the mysteries of God, a star illuminating the Church, a lamp shining upon those who are in darkness; or a very resonant instrument; or a most sweet pipe? Pray that our souls may be saved.

John, most wise Father, you have gladdened the Church of Christ with your songs, which you composed through divine inspiration, most renowned of singers; acting by the power of the Spirit, O Father, striking your lyre, you have emulated that most harmonious one of David, by the sound of whose divine melodies you have charmed all.

*From the Roman Martyrology, on the 6th day of May.* The birthday of the blessed John of Damascus, celebrated for his holiness and doctrine, who fought strenuously for the veneration of holy images in word and writing against Leo the Isaurian: by whose command, when his right hand had been cut off, he commended himself to the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he had defended, and immediately received his right hand back whole and sound.

*In the Additions of the Carthusians of Cologne to the Martyrology of Usuard.* At Constantinople, the deposition of the blessed memory of John of Damascus, an egregious doctor, no less famous for his life and miracles.

*From the Martyrology of Maurolycus in the years 1564, 1570, and 1578, published at Venice.* At Constantinople, the blessed John of Damascus, presbyter, most famous for his morals and doctrine in the time of Theodosius III.

*Sigebert of Gembloux, in his book On Illustrious Men, chapter 75.* John, presbyter and monk, of Damascus, ^C famous for his life and doctrine, by surname Chrysorrhoas, animated by the writings of Pope Gregory, opposed the impiety of the Emperor Leo and himself wrote in Greek against the Emperor Leo.

*Hugo Etherianus, On the heresies which the Greeks charge against the Latins, Book III, chapter 7.* John of Damascus also, in like manner, while he imitates the footsteps of the Fathers, writes thus: The Image of the Father is the Son, and of the Son is the Spirit.

*Item, book III, chapter 12.* Therefore there is an order in the Trinity, even if it is impossible for man to know what it is like. And immediately: The Son is from the Father, the Spirit however proceeds from the Father through the Son. For Damascene says: Through the Son the Spirit is given, and is participated in by every creature.

*Again, chapter 12.* But John of Damascus alone, referring to the custom of the Greek Church, seems to differ from the great Cyril and other holy Fathers, ^D inasmuch as he confesses that the Spirit is not from the Son, even up to the present day. For if we name the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, as this holy man asserts, it must be confessed either equally and similarly that the Spirit is of both, or unequally, or dissimilarly, etc.

*Ptolemy of Lucca, of the Order of Preachers, Bishop of Torcello, in his manuscript Ecclesiastical History, where he treats of Pope Eugenius III.* At this same time, John of Damascus was translated from Greek into Latin.

*NOTES.* (37) The Master of the Sentences, Saint Thomas, and others of the school of theologians, cite John of Damascus [col 510 cont.] throughout their theological treatises, the places of which it would be too long to weave together.

^A

TESTIMONIES OF THE ANCIENTS. From the book of John Beccus, Patriarch of Constantinople, on the procession of the Holy Spirit, ch. 12, n. 19, t. II, Graecia orthodoxa.

But if you examine the praised expositions and the mutual conciliation of the Scriptural sayings, the statement made by the theologian of Damascus, "We do not say the Spirit is from the Son," will not cause disturbances. For by those who take the voice "from the Father alone" in the sense of the Basilian exposition, it will be discerned—just as we have admitted at the beginning of the discourse—in what manner this theologian of Damascus also asserts that the Spirit proceeds not as from him, but as through him; and he declared in other places how it is that "we do not say the Spirit is from the Son." For since the entire causality is referred to the Father, the Father is asserted to be the first cause, and since he is the first cause, he is therefore also believed by fair-minded judges who define the decrees of the faith to be the sole cause. No place for doubting remains, therefore, for us to understand that for this reason the Damascene said "we do not say the Spirit is from the Son," lest anyone should imagine the Son to be the first cause and principle of the Spirit. For if, as some opine, he said "we do not say the Spirit is from the Son" for the reason that he might separate the Son from the Father, he would never have added, "not as from him, but as proceeding through him." For the separation of the Son from the Father, as I have said, will never admit that "through the Son" in the existence of the Spirit from the Father. ^B

From the same John Beccus's Oration 11, in the volume of Cyprius. Greek Orthodox T. II.

Nevertheless, the Damascene, who has filled the orb of the earth with his theology, would by no means approve of this. "For," he says, "the Father is the Producer through the Word": and where will that expression "contiguously" find its place in that which is produced? ^C

Ex Volaterano.

John of Damascus, born at Damascus, a Hebrew, came as a boy to Constantinople, where he was legitimately imbued with the liberal arts, and, having converted to Christ, he assumed the monastic habit, and at the same time he was teaching. He was later captured on the seashore by Saracen pirates, but was afterwards ransomed by Theodosius and became his master of letters. Falling under suspicion of treason, his right hand was cut off. But after the person who had forged the letters to imitate the style of the Damascene was truly apprehended, he was in honor before the emperor. But he returned to the monastery and died there. His useful writings are received by both Churches. ^D

From the book of Johannes Trithemius, On Ecclesiastical Writers.

John, monk and presbyter of Damascus, a learned and holy man, of whom wonderful things are told, on account of the excellence of his doctrine and the sincerity of his life, was held in great esteem at Constantinople, being appointed superior of the monks; he turned many away from iniquity. He wrote in the Greek tongue not a few booklets of profound sense, but few of them have come to our hands. I have read only that distinguished work of his,

The Orthodox Faith, in IV books, which no one has seen...

And somewhat further down from the same book of his.

John, monk and presbyter, by surname Chrysorrhoas, by nation a Damascene from Syria, a man learned in divine Scriptures and in secular letters, and no less bright in life than in knowledge.

LETTERS OF VARIOUS PERSONS

^A anima-ted and provoked by the writings of Pope Gregory III, against whom he fought the error of the Emperor Leo, he himself wrote to his Greeks in the Greek tongue.

* * *

From the epistle of John, Canon of Nuremberg, of the Order of Preachers, to the blessed Rhenanus of Sélestat, concerning the book of Gregory of Nyssa, *On the Creation of Man*.

He amended the ^B Hexaemeron of Basil the Great from the Greek, and likewise many chapters of Gregory of Nyssa, with the Cretan Elias and John Damascene, who, as you say, although much later, intertwined his own sentiments; whom your preceptor James Faber, having recently adorned with a more cultivated Latinity—would that it were not, as he himself says, amidst the tumult of courtiers and the corners of diverse persons—he nevertheless deserved greater praise for his easier labor than the Burgundian.

*Rursum, circa finem epistolæ.*

John Damascene, a most renowned philosopher and theologian, pursued this man with such honor and veneration that, while writing his theological works, he did not hesitate to excerpt many verses frequently, nay, entire chapters from this book of ours, and insert them into his own text, along with the sentiments of the Fathers who were before him.

*Ex beati Rhenani epistola ad Jacobum Fabrum Stapulensem præceptorem suum.*

Who would not praise philosophy, or most of all, when it brings man to the knowledge of himself? Yet I consider that which flows from Christians, and which touches upon those things that concern the salvation of man, to be more praiseworthy, as it admonishes, ^A in the way these most subtle discussions of Gregory of Nyssa do; for his doctrine, which refutes the errors of many, leans upon solid truth. And from his storehouse, the most holy Father John Damascene did not ^B gather a few things, when he was collecting the sentiments of the Fathers; he restored what you, in previous years, had long ago recognized as unknown and half-ruined, to the utility of scholars. But I would wish, most distinguished man, that just as the most celebrated academy of the Parisians has long since favorably received Damascene, so it might not hold in neglect Nyssa, who is older than Damascene.

NOTÆ

(38) Trithemius understands this well, though he mistakenly posits two Damascenes. Leo Allatius eruditely refutes his trifles, as well as those of Volaterra, which were taken from the *Speculum* of Vincent of Beauvais, in his work on John Damascene and his works, which we place at the beginning of our edition in place of a Prolegomenon.

LETTERS OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST LEARNED PRELATES DD. CHARLES MONCHAL, ARCHBISHOP OF TOULOUSE AND JOSEPH MARIA SUAREZ, BISHOP OF VAISON, ON PUBLISHING THE WORKS OF SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE

Epistle the first, which, if I am not mistaken, was written to the most distinguished man Leo Allatius, custodian and prefect of the Barberini Library. I obtained a copy of this from the very Reverend Father Bernard de Montfaucon.

I received on the 6th day before the Ides of August two codices of the *Exegesis* of Origen on Matthew and John, transmitted to me through you from the Barberini library; for which I owe you much, for you, at the behest of a most eminent Cardinal, pursued it with such study and diligence that you seem to have mastered it, let alone looked through it. You added that you have in your possession his book, *On Philosophumena*, which you rightly suspect to be among those that he wrote against the heresies; and furthermore, that you have other Greek monuments not yet published, which you promise to continue to send, if I shall signify our plan for printing their works. Know, therefore, that an edition is being prepared by the care and at the expense of the Gallican clergy, but of this [edition] very few Greek [texts] are available, and those are mutilated. However, you have injected hope into us that the *Exegesis* which you sent, found quite complete, is indeed so, and from these which we have already tasted, they have seemed to us wide-ranging, nor do I know if there are any yet more extensive that are sounder than those which the Roman codex contains. Therefore, we rightly seek and hope for your aid, O most distinguished man, in which category there is nowhere any more ready and certain; if you know that any unpublished works of this author lie hidden anywhere, do not be loath to indicate them to us. As for those that are already in your possession, whether they be of Origen or of some ancient Father, since you deal with us so prolixly and kindly, I pray you, transmit them. What you advised, that the codices should be returned once the edition is finished, I will faithfully and studiously perform, and if I can in any way remunerate these services, I would have you persuaded that I will always be ready for you. Paris, etc.

LETTER OF THE SAME MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ARCHBISHOP TO R. P. FRANCIS COMBEFIS OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS

Reverend Father: The letter which you took the trouble to write to me last July mentions a previous one which has not been delivered to me. When you take the trouble to write to me, you have only to wrap your letters well, and send them to the Courier of Toulouse, or to Monsieur de la Mare, a bourgeois of Paris, living on rue Saint-André-des-Arts, at the Black Horse, who will see that they reach me. I was very pleased to see in the one I received, your praiseworthy designs, to which I have only to encourage you, and to offer you all that

can depend on me to further them. I am sure that Monsieur Aubert, who has much merit and kindness, will readily communicate to you what he has, and will be very glad for you to have a share in the glory of giving to the public the whole of St. John Damascene in Greek and Latin. There is also Origen, St. Ephrem, Maximus, and many other Fathers who wait for some helpful hands to bring them to light. I await with impatience what you have of St. Amphilochius. The chains of the Greeks have preserved for us fragments of him which make one desire his complete works. Father Poussines, of the Society of Jesus, transcribed from my library in recent days a chain on St. Matthew and St. Mark to bring it soon to light, and there are some fragments of this Father there; but that is all I have. As for Symeon of Thessalonica, I have never seen him printed, although several learned people cite him. Casaubon makes mention of him in one place as being written by hand in the King's library, and Arcudius reports long passages which make one desire to see him entire. Regarding St. John Chrysostom, Father Fronton du Duc believes also that he has translated everything of his that we have printed, and that what remains in the Savile edition was by some other authors, such as Severianus and some others. Still, it would be good to print them separately with the translations. I formerly saw Father Sirmond with thoughts of making a corpus of everything that could be found of Severianus, of whom I even believe he has some piece, beyond those that are in the Savile edition of St. John Chrysostom. If someone thought of giving all the works of St. John Chrysostom anew, to have them printed one volume after another as they are finished being sold—for I learn that of the first six volumes by Father Fronton there are very few copies left, and that Cramoisy will reprint them one after another to complete the works that will remain for him—a better edition could be made than everything we have of them. I have two large manuscript volumes in which something could be found to improve the edition, and for the fourteen volumes, the Greek could be made better by taking it from the English edition, which is more complete than that of Commelin, and by redoing the versions entirely. But Morel did not concern himself with the quality. He had them printed from the Commelin edition, to which he added many errors. I complained of this formerly; and it deserves a public reprimand. If I were not so far from you, I would take pleasure in fostering your studies; but I can only applaud from afar. I would like to have some manuscript copy of the Euchologion to aid Father Goar in his design; but I have only a few prayers from a very recent hand. It would also be to be desired that someone should collect and give in one body all that Procopius has done on the Scripture. I have seen a Greek manuscript in Paris on the Pentateuch, of which we have only the Latin printed. It is found on the Books of Kings and on Isaiah. I have a manuscript on the Canticle. There could be found something else as well. I have several treatises of several Greek Fathers that I would give freely for the public if we had people here who wanted to translate them. There are few people who are capable of it, and fewer who want to labor. I pray God that He gives you health and courage for this, who am, Reverend Father, From Toulouse, this 12th of August 1642. Your very affectionate servant in Our Lord, Charles, Arch. of Toulouse.

THIRD LETTER OF THE SAME TO THE SAME

OF THE SAME TO THE SAME

LETTER OF THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND LEARNED D. JOSEPH MARIE SUAREZ, BISHOP OF VAISON, TO THE REV. FATHER FRANÇOIS COMBEFIS, ORDER OF PREACHERS.

My Reverend Father,

I will eagerly await the return of that good father from Armenia, and if you communicate to me what you have rediscovered in the fragments of Eusebius of Caesarea concerning the two Magdalenes, I shall hold it in great favor. St. Cyril in his commentary on the Gospel of St. John discourses at length on the two Magdalenes. I possess it in Latin, and the version of George of Trebizond in the Paris edition by Hopylus of the year 1520, and in the title of this 8th book, there is *Commentariorum adjectorum liber octavus*. I have seen the Latin edition of M. Aubert, and I have not found this in the Greek version. I have therefore doubted whether it might be a work attributed to another than St. Cyril. Indeed, Cardinal Bellarmine in his book *De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis* notes that books 5, 6, 7, and 8 were added by Clictoveus, and that those of St. Cyril are lost. I shall search through all these quarters to assist in the edition of St. John Damascene, and I rejoice in this illustrious employment, and in the choice that the Lords of the Assembly have made of your person, to whom, wishing a thousand blessings, I offer myself entirely to be forever,

My Reverend Father, From Vaison, 1 October 1646. Your most affectionate servant, JOSEPH MARIE, Bishop of Vaison.

ANOTHER LETTER FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

My Reverend Father,

I have delayed so long in answering your ^A letter because I was in some confusion, seeing myself favored with this fragment on the holy Magdalenes taken from the King’s manuscript, which I believe is a more ample chain, and I was in a strong passion to compensate for it in some way. I have carefully searched for the means, and since you have communicated your designs regarding St. John Damascene to me, although hindered, I address to you these memoirs, which I received ten years ago from Monsignor Sommaja, a Florentine gentleman. I had begged him to send me what could be found of Burgundio, a judge and citizen of Pisa, who flourished under Eugene III, and who translated from Greek into Latin 4 books of the *De Fide Orthodoxa* of St. John of Damascus, and read most of the works of St. John Chrysostom according to St. Antoninus, Naucler, and Gesner. For in the Library of his Eminence Cardinal Barberini, I had seen a manuscript of the books of St. John of Damascus, interpreted by this Burgundio; he sent me these remarks which I address to you. As for the various Greek pieces of sermons, here are various ones that I have read in Rome, in the Barberini Library, and with Monsieur Holstenius. I am quite displeased not to be able to communicate the whole Homilies to you: but his Eminence being in Paris, as he contributes willingly and liberally what he can for the Public, if you entreat him, he will grant them to you. Meanwhile, I render you a thousand thanks for the favor with which you have anticipated me, and I await that of the good Armenian Father, but above all your commands, to the ends that I may be able to testify by my services that I am truly,

My Reverend Father, From Vaison, 21 June 1647. Your most affectionate servant, JOSEPH MARIE, Bishop of Vaison.

SAINT JOHN DAMASCENE PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL WORKS PREFACE TO THE DIALECTICS.

We provide the *Dialectics* of St. John Damascene first, then the treatise *On Heresies*, and after that the book *On the Orthodox Faith*; having followed the order which he himself determined in the letter of dedication addressed to Cosmas, Prelate of Maiuma, which he placed before this tripartite work. "First," he says, "I shall set forth the most excellent things of the wise men among the Greeks, then those things which cling to these, the ravings of the heretics... then the destroyer of error and the destroyer of falsehood, which, like a necklace, I shall present to you, having adorned and decorated the truth, which is embellished and adorned with the sayings of the God-inspired prophets, of the God-taught fishermen, and of the God-bearing shepherds and teachers, with God and by his grace." Therefore, I shall first of all explain the best of those who were distinguished among the Gentiles for the praise of wisdom... and soon after the nonsense of the heresies hostile to God in another volume... and thus at last the truth, the destroyer of error and the eliminator of falsehood, adorned and decorated, as if with golden fringes, by the sayings of the divinely inspired prophets, as well as of the scholars taught by God, the fishermen, and also the divine shepherds and teachers, with God and by His grace providing the inspiration. Since these things are so, one wonders what the cause might have been, why