Dissertation of J.F. Bernard Maria de Rubeis on the Writings and Doctrine of Theophylact

FR. J. F. BERN. MARIÆ DE RUBEIS OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS ON THE DEEDS, WRITINGS, AND DOCTRINE OF THEOPHYLACT, ARCHBISHOP OF BULGARIA, AND ON THE VENETIAN EDITION OF ALL HIS WORKS, DISSERTATION

I.

^A 1. Since I have been tasked with the duty of composing a preliminary dissertation on the works of Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria—all of which, whether heretofore printed or not yet edited, are being brought to light in the Venetian press in Greek and Latin—and since I am to do so to the best of my ability, I must first and most diligently address the time in which he lived and flourished in sacred learning and in his dignities. Various opinions of bibliographers and writers are circulated, which differ widely and broadly among themselves. There were those, cited in Labbe’s *Dissertatio historica*, who, by rashly invoking the authority of Eutropius, placed Theophylact around the year of Christ 760. To have pointed out this opinion is itself to have solidly refuted it.

Antonio Possevino, in the second volume of his *Apparatus sacer*, says: "He lived around the year 860, when the Constantinopolitan empire was held by Michael Porphyrogenitus, the third of this name." Marquard Freher, in his *Chronology*—which stands prefixed to the *Jus Græco-Romanum* drawn from many libraries and translated into Latin by Johannes Leunclavius—assigns him to the year 883, in the reign of Basil, called the Macedonian. It was also the opinion of Philippe de Mornay, in his *Historia papatus* (p. 187), that Theophylact flourished at this time. Finally, Sixtus of Siena, in the fourth book of his *Bibliotheca sancta*, lists the "year of the Lord 900, under Michael," as he says, "and Theodora,"—a most manifest chronological blunder, since Michael III began to rule the empire with his mother Theodora in the year 832 and ruled until 867.

2. Other writers have fallen into this error of two hundred or more years, while simultaneously indicating the cause of their gross mistake. Baronius, the father of annals, relates at the year 870, num. LII, that Ignatius, Patriarch of the royal city of Constantinople, with the aid of the Emperor Basil, sent into the province of Bulgaria, "as if it belonged to the diocese of the Constantinopolitan Church," a bishop created by him, along with other clerics, "whom they affirm to have been named Theophylact." Here, indeed, is the given and accepted occasion for error: namely, by rashly taking this Theophylact the bishop—if indeed he was called by that name—who was sent to the newly converted Bulgarians, for our Archbishop Theophylact, of whom we are treating.

This error is that of Robert Creighton, who, in Allatius, *Exercitatio* XV, says of this very heterodox man, without any hesitation, on page 251: "Photius (others have Ignatius)... sent Theophylact of Constantinople, a man most flourishing in all literature, and most eloquent from his perennial reading of St. Chrysostom, whom he had turned into marrow and blood... to Bulgaria." Petrus Pithoeus had previously fallen into the same error in his *Historia controversiæ de processione Spiritus sancti*: "Although concerning the age of Theophylact, in..." ^B 11 ^C

unable to provide, as no one, to my knowledge, has yet produced anything certain. However, I am led to believe—with greater probability—that he lived under Photius by a certain book of the Friars Preachers against the Greeks, which claims that Theophylact was sent to the Bulgarians by Photius, formerly patriarch. Photius held the patriarchate for the first time from the year 857 to the year 867. Ignatius ascended that see a second time, which he left in the year 877 when he departed this mortal life: and Photius occupied it again until the year 886. ^A The book of the Friars Preachers against the Greeks, mentioned by Pithou, was published by Petrus Stevartius in Ingolstadt in the year 1616, in quarto, under this title: *Treatise against the errors of the Greeks, edited at Constantinople in the house of the Friars Preachers in the year of the Lord MCCLII.* This is how the most famous man found it inscribed in the Bavarian codex which he was using. This work was included in the *Great Library of the Fathers* by the Parisians in volume IV, by the Colonians in volume XV, and by the Lyonnese in volume XXVII. The author is anonymous, on whom you may consult the excellent discourse of Jacques Echard in volume I of the *Writers of the Order of Preachers* for the year 1252. The words of the anonymous author in the Lyon edition, page 603, column 2, are: "Theophylact, archbishop of the Bulgarians, who was sent by Photius during the time of the schism into Bulgaria, so that he might recall the Bulgarians themselves—who at that time were devoted and obedient to the Roman Church—to the rites and obedience of the Greeks: which was done." And so this Theophylact, having abbreviated almost all the writings of the blessed John Chrysostom by his own talent, etc. This is the first author known who has called the bishop sent to the Bulgarians "Theophylact," and thought him to be the same as Theophylact the archbishop. ^B 3. But the bishop whom the Greeks sent to the Bulgarians, Baronius says, was not called by the name of Theophylact. He only indicates, "that he was named Theophylact, is affirmed by others:" for solid and ancient monuments were not at hand for that most learned man to confirm this appellation of his as bishop. The matter of this Bulgarian affair is treated at greatest length by Anastasius the Librarian in the *Life of Hadrian II*, who held the Roman see from the year 868 to the year 872, and the bishop sent to the Bulgarians from Constantinople is not called by the name of Theophylact. With that name omitted, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son of Leo the Wise, narrates the event in the *Life of Basil the Macedonian, emperor and his grandfather*, section XCV. "That nation of the Bulgarians," he says, "by the frequent exhortations of the emperor (Basil), and by splendid receptions and cultivation, as well as magnificent gifts and largesse, is persuaded to receive as archiepiscopate, archiepiscopum recipere suadetur: καὶ ἐπισκόποις καταπυκνωθῆναι τὴν χώραν ἀνέχεται, and does not refuse to have the province filled with bishops." In both places, the name of Theophylact is passed over in silence.

II.

the margin of the page. Either a mistake lies in one or the other place: or the error arose from the numbers themselves, corrupted by the transposition of a unit; namely, the number 61 being put for 16, or LXI for LIX. ^B Andreas Schottus later extracted the aforementioned Epistles of Theophylact from another manuscript codex of the Medicean library; and Johannes Meursius, having received them from him, was the first to publish them in Greek in Leiden in the year 1617, in quarto. When translated into Latin by Vincentius Marinerius Valentinus, they are presented in the Cologne *Bibliotheca Patrum*, volume XV, and the Lyon volume XVIII. There are exactly seventy-five of them; yet among these, some are missing which are produced from the Vatican codex by Baronius.

The father of the *Annales* builds an argument for his opinion from various epistles for the year 1071. For these words are contained in the epistle which is numbered seventeenth in the Vatican codex, given to the son of the Sebastocrator: «I pray, therefore, and, as if in person, I prostrate myself as a suppliant with these letters, that you may have mercy on the once most blessed Church, which that most Christian Borises, king of the Bulgarians, built as one and the same from seven catholic churches: do you renovate it.» — Baronius says, Since mention is made in it of Borises, king of the Bulgarians, who lived, as Zonaras and others show, a hundred years after (Photius and Ignatius), namely under the emperors Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces (or from the year 971 to 973, as Dufresne notes), it clearly appears that he did not live then under Basil (the Macedonian), but that Theophylact presided over the Church of the Bulgarians long after those times. But since he also mentions there the churches previously built by the same king, and proposes that one out of them which had been ruined after a long space of time be restored, he clearly demonstrates that the same Theophylact flourished long after that time. «No one could be wise who would remove Theophylact from the Photian age.»

5. Baronius determines that he lived under Michael VII Ducas, and Nicephorus Botaniates, and Alexius Comnenus. The first began his reign in the year 1071, the second in 1078, the third in 1081, down to the year 1118. He cites the first epistle of Theophylact to the Empress Maria, the wife of Michael Ducas and later of Botaniates. He adds the thirteenth epistle, which is stated to have been given to John Ducas, the emperor's brother-in-law; and in it these words are found: «As for the rest, O fortunate race of the Ducas, embracing everything that is right and honorable in yourself, persist in this goodness toward me.» He also adds the eighth epistle, where Theophylact says thus: «You see how easily the seal of the most venerable Comnenus has been subverted by Comnenus himself.» ^C Therefore, it is necessary to affirm, as Baronius says in the same place, no. XVIII, that Theophylact himself, archbishop of Bulgaria, administered that office at this time, when either the Ducas or the Comneni were reigning in Constantinople. To this most learned man, no one would fail to extend a hand.

6. Yet the periods of this time, in which Theophylact lived and flourished, have seemed to later bibliographers or writers to be better defined. Philippus Labbeus says in his *Dissertatio historica* on Bellarmine: «Around the year 1071 he was living (he says), in the time of the supreme pontiff Alexander II and of Romanus Diogenes (reigning from the year 1068), as is evident from his Epistles. He also reached the pontificate of Gregory VII and the reign of Nicephorus Botaniates... But in what year he died, I am entirely ignorant.» Dupin, Casimir Oudin, and Georgius Matthias König in his *Bibliotheca vetere et nova* transcribed the same words, asserting that Theophylact flourished under the emperors Romanus Diogenes, Michael Ducas, and Nicephorus Botaniates. Which words indeed seem to conclude his life within the times of the reign of the same Botaniates.

But rather that he lived his life under Alexius Comnenus, wore the Bulgarian vestments, and ^D flourished in letters, Carolus Dufresne Du Cange notes in his notes to book VIII of Anna Comnena’s *Alexiad*: «Theophylact flourished, he says, while Alexius Comnenus was emperor, and not under Romanus Diogenes or Michael Ducas, as Baronius desires: which is sufficiently evident from his own Epistles edited by Meursius. Some of which were written to Adrian, the brother of Alexius, to Nicephorus Melissenus the Caesar, to Gregory Taronites, to Nicephorus Bryennius, the co-father-in-law of Alexius, and to other princes of the Alexian and Comnena family. One even to Patriarch Nicolaus: the third of this name, who ascended the Constantinopolitan throne, as Anna Comnena testifies in book X of the *Alexiad*, in the seventh indiction, in the year 6592, that is, the common era 1084.

CAPUT III

Anthony Pagi agrees with Baronius that Theophylact lived also under Michael Ducas and Nicephorus Botoniates. His argumentation is evaluated, which is taken from the book of the Royal Institution. This same time is indicated by a letter to the philosopher John Italus: whose varied fortunes Anna Comnena narrates. Other letters confirm the Chronography. It is not possible, even with the most splendid and ancient monuments, to settle the disagreement among writers, however slight it might be, which would bring light to bear on a most accurate arrangement of the same Theophylact's Chronography. I must labor with all my strength so that I might reach, as diligently as possible, the times when he lived and flourished, with the light shining forth especially from the Letters, whether those which Baronius published or those which Meursius brought to press. But it will be a gain that, in excerpting these same Letters, we shall both recount many facts of Theophylact’s life worthy of being known, and also introduce not a few things which illustrate the Constantinopolitan affairs of his age.

"From these Letters, therefore" (these are the words of Anthony Pagi for the year 1071, no. XIII), "Ducange wrongly deduces that Theophylact flourished not under Michael Ducas, but under Alexius Comnenus: since it is certain from the book *On Royal Institution* that Theophylact lived even under Michael Ducas." What force belongs to the argumentation drawn by Pagi from the *Royal Institution* must be investigated with more accurate effort.

[7.] The person called Porphyrogenitus, *to Constantine Porphyrogenitus*, was the son of Michael Ducas and Maria, born of the kings of Alania or Iberia, born in the year 1074 approximately. Writers narrate that Helena, daughter of Robert Guiscard, was betrothed to him: and Lupus Protospatha defines the year 1077. Nicephorus Botoniates abruptly ended these marriage contracts, for he usurped the empire in the year 1078, having displaced Michael, and sent back to her father Helena, who had been brought to Constantinople, where she might come of age and be educated in the palace. In the Studite monastery, Michael and his wife Maria, and their son Constantine, lived in seclusion; when the same Michael, having had his hair shorn, was renamed Metropolitan of Ephesus; and with the laws of the Church trampled underfoot, Botoniates joined Maria to himself as his wife; and he brought her son Constantine back into the palace. Upon Alexius Comnenus occupying the empire in the year 1081, Constantine was called "participant of the empire," as Anna Comnena says in book III of the *Alexiad*, "and thus he wore the red buskins and the imperial crown, and his name was proclaimed with the name of Alexius." But in truth, Maria left the palace, and migrated to the house built by the Emperor Constantine Monomachus near the temple of the great martyr George, which in the common tongue is accustomed to be called Mangana: where she spent the remainder of her life among the nuns, and fulfilled her mortal life.

Theophylact describes these fates of Maria in the *Royal Institution*; from which it is gathered first, that this work was not published by Theophylact until the reign of Alexius Comnenus: and secondly, that the argumentation of Anthony Pagi is weakened, who conjectured from that same *Royal Institution* that Theophylact flourished under Michael Ducas. These are the words in chapter 7 of the first part: "What [is] to her (Maria) the glory of the kingdom, which, although she considered all things, as the Apostle says (Phil. III, 8), as refuse (stercora), she chose to gain Christ alone; from whom, even snatched from the death of the flesh, τὴν ἐν αὐτῇ κρυπτομένην ζωήν, she loved the life hidden in Him: and thus she considered the highest summit of royal dignity a pit, but the height of humility which is according to Christ, truly heavenly. So that on one hand such a transformation appears the more marvelous, and on the other, the highest degree of that same perfect transformation. To transfer oneself to the solitary life, καὶ τὸν μονήρη βίον μετενεχθῆναι, happens to many young women: but more womanishly, but more softly. Truly to have become poor in spirit so fervently was the study and exercise of the happy Maria alone." The times of Alexius Comnenus are without doubt defined by this retreat of Maria from the palace, this same access to the monastery.

To the same reign of Comnenus pertain the things which follow. Theophylact celebrates the excellent physical gifts of Constantine in chapter 4, and represents him as "leaping onto the horse," and "practicing himself in frequent races," and "in the hunt outstripping his companions." Anna Comnena praises these same things in the boy already seven years old, living his life around the year 1082, at the beginning of book II of the *Alexiad*: "It was that most just care of a mother," she says, "for a boy of admirable festive spirit and elegance, even at seven years old... Whose sweetness, whether in speaking, or in the varied kind of games which his age bore, or in moving his body most knowledgeably, in the judgment of the beholders, was superior to all by comparison."

That Theophylact offered his ^A *Royal Institution* to Constantine while Alexius was reigning is something no one will deny. But from this, in order that Pagius might provide an argument by which to persuade us that Theophylact had already flourished previously, under Michael Ducas, these perhaps were the proofs he had. For he says, in chapter 6, that “most known” to the Bulgar were the "ornaments of every kind, shining forth in their life and the deeds they had performed, of whose blood he was born"—namely, Constantine, the grandfather of Constantine Ducas, who held the empire from the year 1059 until the year 1067, and the father, Michael Ducas. Theophylact commends this man and his deeds in the empire in such a way that he shows himself to have been sufficiently conversant with him: “To your most divine father, he says, what species of virtue did not bind his soul? Or to whom else did he yield, either in the study of humanity or in the accurate research of sacred doctrine? To whom did the whole empire count for nothing more than the books and dissertations of learned men; to whom was it anything but a source from which to bring forth something worthy of knowledge from antiquity, or to hear it from another?” He also celebrates in the most generous terms the praises of Maria, whether dwelling in a monastery, or as formerly empress and Augusta upon the throne, and the mother who raised her son Constantine with such praiseworthy care that she set many teachers over him from his birth, some of whom fashioned his speech and formed his tongue, while others subjected his soul to the precepts of the disciplines, and others transmitted to him the knowledge of history,” as we read in chapter 13. Among these Theophylact counts himself: “I bring to you,” he says, “the gift of the ^B *Royal Institution*, I, your unbidden and volunteer teacher; for I am winged by the name… of being the Emperor’s teacher,” for I am overjoyed and pride myself on that name, that I am called the teacher of the Emperor. Therefore, Theophylact seems to have been chosen and designated as teacher to the son of Constantine by his parents, Michael and Maria.

9. His letter, which is numbered 45 among the Meursian collection, addressed to the philosopher lord John, indicates these same times. This is John Italus, who is called "Italus" by antonomasia in book V of the *Alexiad* of Anna Comnena, in that he was born in Italy. Conrad Gesner writes of him in his *Bibliotheca universalis*, as do Casimir Oudin in *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, and Antoine Pagi for the year 1083, to pass over the rest. He was first a disciple of Michael Psellus, then his rival, and most famous for his philosophical erudition. Theophylact’s words to him are: “We, for a long time now, have neither seen you, nor have you favored us in necessary matters.” Then he praises his philosophy, “of which he had already scaled the final summit,” most intensely: “To us, however,” he says, “continually exhibit that pure and, on both sides, constant benevolence of the invincible emperors.”

I mention the varied fortunes and fates of Italus briefly, so that the time of the letters addressed to him may become known. From Anna Comnena at the cited passage we learn that he stirred up quarrels against Psellus, and from these gained admiration and applause not only from the common people, but also from the nobles: that he possessed the favor of the Emperor Michael Ducas, and was sent by him around the year 1073 to the city of Epidamnus, or Dyrrachium, so that he might keep watch ^C against the warlike movements of the Normans in Italy: but being accused, as it were, of treason, he fled to Rome, yet was soon recalled to Constantinople, and there obtained the “principate of philosophical teaching”: this was the scene he played, finally, until Alexius, who seized the empire in the year 1081, suspected him of impious doctrine, and he was brought to the tribunal of the Church, struck with anathema, as if he had taught “metempsychosis,” “scorned the venerable images of the saints,” and spread other errors.

I conclude, therefore, that the aforementioned letter of Theophylact was not given in Alexian times; [VI] but it ought to be said that it was given when Italus was still acceptable to the emperors, and could obtain the benevolence of the emperors for Theophylact. Those emperors I would understand to be Michael Ducas and his wife Maria. Indeed, there was Maria the Empress, and Nicephorus Botoniates the Emperor: certainly, when Theophylact wrote this, he said that he had not been seen by Italus for “a long time”; so that from this one may take an indication of the empire, which Michael was administering at the time, until the year 1078, when Botoniates succeeded him.

10. The first letter to the Empress Maria confirms the *Chronographia* of the same, excerpts of which Baronius exhibits for the year 1071, no. XVI. The words are: “I descend, therefore, to the Bulgarians, in reality a Constantinopolitan, in hospitality a Bulgarian, reeking of rot and neglect, as one would of the filth of skins.” He was returning, indeed, to his Church in Bulgaria, whence he had come to Constantinople. He continues, indeed: “These things, therefore, we have jested with a senile mouth to your holy empire.” The title of empress Maria held under Michael Ducas, her first husband, and she held it after

the year 1078, under Nicephorus Botoniates, who took her as his wife; whence it is established that this letter was sent by Theophylactus around this time. In it, he calls himself an old man, that is, of advanced age; and this old age, or advanced age, doubtless reveals him flourishing in letters and dignity under Botoniates and Michael Ducas. Baronius offers other letters of his from the year 1078, from number LXXXIII, by which he thinks the incursions of the Croat people are indicated, which, as Nicephorus Bryennius, the Curopalates, and Zonaras attest, "in the third year of the reign (of Michael) set out to occupy Bulgaria and took certain places." It would be better to consult the most learned man about these matters.

IV.

He flourished, without doubt, under the Emperor Alexios Komnenos. The same Theophylactus has a letter to Nicephorus Melissenos Caesar, regarding the death of an emperor, either Constantine or Michael. Likewise to Gregory Camaterus. His *Royal Institution*, inscribed under the same Augustus to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, proves this, as we noted in number 8. A letter among the Meursian collection, addressed to the Lord Patriarch Nicholas, who ascended the Constantinopolitan see in the year 1084 and held it until the eleventh year of the twelfth century, makes the matter indubitable. Recall what was said in number 6.

He was proclaimed emperor (I use the words of Dufresne in his *Stemmata Comnenorum*, no. IV) and voluntarily ceded the power to his wife's brother, Alexios Komnenos, content with the title of Caesar. He was endowed with the Caesarian dignity on the 8th of April, on the fifth day of the week of Passover in the year 1082, and he departed from this life on the 17th of November, in the 13th indiction, in the year of Christ 1104. Thus, that letter was written by Theophylactus after the year 1082.

These words are contained in the same letter: "Regarding the death of your kinsman the emperor, whose holiness and virtues and graces I myself have most especially experienced, from which I judge him worthy of lamentation and perpetual mourning, if you also should receive that same ready promptitude of mind for anyone else, I say." Of which emperor, now deceased, the discourse is, is not so clear. Could it be Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the son of Michael and Maria, who was declared a co-ruler by Alexios Komnenos, and who, as Anna Komnena testifies in Book III of the *Alexiad*, "wore the imperial crown, and his name was proclaimed together with the name of Alexios?" The same Anna in Book VI narrates her own birth in about the year 1083, and adds that Constantine was designated as her future spouse, and that both were joined in public acclamations: "Which, she says, had taken place for a sufficiently long time, as I have often heard from my parents and others." The year of his death is not known; but that he was deceased after the year 1084 is indicated by the words of Anna: nor is the narrative of those who assert that he died in the year 1081, in the battle of Dyrrachium which was fought by Robert Guiscard, reliable. Thus, the time in which the letters were written by Theophylactus now shines through.

It may be that that deceased emperor was Michael Ducas, the father of Constantine, who was ousted by Botoniates, elected metropolitan of Ephesus after having his hair shorn, and later retreating into a monastery, [VII] working with his own hands, and always held in honor by Alexios. During the time of this emperor, he migrated from mortal life: whence it is concluded that that letter of Theophylactus pertains to the times of the beginning of the reign of Alexios.

13. A letter was written to Lord Gregory Camaterus, in which the following is read: "For the archbishop (that is, Theophylactus himself) forgave that man (Camaterus), around whom various examinations of the emperor's business always mutter with a loud whisper: *and letters from others are no less a nuisance than the task of writing the same to others*, and to whom the letters of others bring no less annoyance than the duty of writing to others is understood." The office of secretary is understood to have been entrusted to Camaterus.

Anna Komnena deals with this matter in Book IX of the *Alexiad*, before she embarks upon the history of the expeditions against the Saracens, which began in the year 1096: "And the scribe is called," she says, "with his tablets, Gregory Camaterus, who had recently been admitted to that office at the emperor's court." Therefore, at this time, Theophylactus was both living and writing. Later, the emperor elevated him to the dignity of Logothete; and to this same Gregory Camaterus the Logothete is inscribed 71.

It reaches even into the twelfth century, and the seventh year of that same century, in which the Norman Bohemond invaded Bulgaria, as Dufresne notes. The opinion of this most distinguished man is confirmed. Mention of the captivity of this same Bohemond is made in a letter to Gregory Taronites. Other letters confirm this same chronology. ^A

14. Worthy of note is the sixty-fifth letter, to the master and lord John Pantechnes. The words of Theophylact are: "All things, however, in which Achris is situated, are full of trembling fear, as is the region of Mocrus. For Mocrus is a portion of Achris, which, by [the] servant and apostate, is vexed by various plundering raids. And Mount Bagora is there, itself also immense, and rising up situated between the Bulgarian and Dyrrachian mountains, which [by] the rebel, is guarded by the tyrant... The Pansebastus, and the prince of the militia, Lord Michael, was sent by the emperor, under whom he decided to gather selected bodies of men, and to oppose this scoundrel, [the] scum, in battle... He, however, seeks the empire... nor will he appear worthy of the yoke to obey the emperor and to be his servant." The aforementioned Michael is of the house of the Ducae, reviewed by Dufresne in the second part of their Stemmata, number VIII; who, "having followed Alexius in almost all the military expeditions which he undertook, conducted himself bravely in them."

The cited author, examining this passage of Theophylact in his Notes to book X of the *Alexiad*, says: "Bohemond is described, who had professed faith and clientela to Alexius with an oath: and this having been disregarded, having become an apostate and oath-breaker, he had broken into the emperor's borders." Latin writers recount this incursion of Bohemond into Illyricum and Bulgaria, and link it to the year 1107. I refer to Fulcher of Chartres in his *Expedition to Jerusalem*, which exists among the *Gesta Dei per Francos*, stating: "From Brindisi he sailed into Bulgaria (in the year 1107) and put in at the port of Avalon: he quickly took Avalon, and besieged Dyrrachium." Consult Anna Comnena in book XII of the *Alexiad*. ^B

15. If this interpretation of Dufresne is true, it proves that Theophylact lived at the beginning of the twelfth century: a fact which seems to have escaped all other writers. I believe his interpretation to be true, and I confirm it with several points. Bohemond is called a servant, because in the year 1097, when he had set out for the holy war having taken up the cross, "by the counsel of Godfrey, he did homage to the emperor Alexius, and offered an oath of fidelity," as Bernard the Treasurer says in chapter 17 of his *De acquisitione Terræ sanctæ*. The writers of his history have the same, as does Anna Comnena in book X. In another similar oath, which Bohemond issued in the year 1108, he confesses in the end of book XIII at Comnena's that he would be "a liege man of your scepter: that is, to speak more clearly, a servant and subject."

Hence, being called an apostate, or a violator of his oath, is correct, as he invaded the borders of the empire in the year 1107. The aforementioned Comnena, in the cited tenth book, often accuses him of being suspected regarding the ambitions of the Constantinopolitan empire. Thus, of course, she was performing the defense of her own father, whose deceits, frauds, and obstacles placed in the way of the sacred expeditions against the Saracens, the Latin writers record. ^C

16. [VIII] It had already happened before that Bohemond, having been declared prince of Antioch, "while crossing the river Euphrates, had entered Mesopotamia (as the Treasurer says in chapter 102), and was approaching Melitene, had been captured through the ambushes of a certain emir of the Turks, Danishmend, and thrown into chains." These things occurred around the year 1100, on the testimony of Romuald of Salerno. Among the Meursian letters is the twenty-sixth of Theophylact, to Gregory, the prefect Taronites. The same is found in Baronius under the year 1073, number XC, inscribed to the Sebastus Bagurianus, Lord Nicholas, but it is incomplete at the end: from which it appears Theophylact gave the same letter to two men. Beware, lest you confuse many illustrious men, who were surnamed Taronites and Pacurianus in this age. In the first place he praises the military expeditions of both into Colchis and Pontus against the Turks. Then he says this concerning the Franks: "But truly the Frank, the iron-necked, now exists softer than tepid wax, and adores you with deep heart, and through you fears and honors our most powerful emperor. What will not come to pass, when you see him fallen at your knees with suppliant veneration... compelled to obey the will and statutes of the Taronites, and oppressed by their tyrannical force, so that he might at least obtain his own liberty by the favor of the emperors... Yours ^D

^A constrained by the powerful hands of the Turk... he strikes a bargain to deliver the Frank into the hands of our most powerful emperor."

These things sufficiently indicate that Bohemond was captured by the Turks. Moreover, Theophylactus relates that the transaction for obtaining his freedom was made "by the favor of the emperors," for already from the year 1091 John Comnenus had been declared co-emperor with his father Alexius. He also seems to indicate that, on account of various victories reported over the Turks, the Turks themselves would easily consent to deliver Bohemond, whom they held captive, to Emperor Alexius. Reiner Reineccius relates in his *Historia orientalis*, book IX, chapter 38: "Alexius the emperor, to whom Bohemond was always a suspect lest he expel him from the kingdom, had offered money—260,000 byzantines—through most frequent embassies of letters, to Doniman (who had made Bohemond captive and held him) so that he might hand over Bohemond himself to his own dominion, wishing to punish him either with eternal exile or perpetual damnation." The matter, however, turned out differently. Theophylactus indeed seems to allude to these things, although he amplifies them more than is strictly necessary and narrates them according to his own genius and wishes. Therefore, you see that this epistle of his was written in approximately the year 1100.

Epistle 22 was written to the bishop of Cercyra or Corcyra, where these things are held: "We ourselves, *Sennacherib the Assyrian crushed; he whom the middle of the rivers sent forth to us as bitter*, whom Mesopotamia sent forth against us as a harsh [enemy]." I should easily understand this one coming from Mesopotamia against the Bulgarians to be Bohemond. Bernard the Treasurer, in the aforementioned place, chapter 103, says thus: "Bohemond, after these things, delivered from prisons by the grace of God (either in the year 1102, or also 1104, as it pleases some or others), was joyfully received by the Antiochenes. He and others, having gathered an army, crossing the Euphrates, set out for the siege of the city Carrhae. Now Carrhae, or Charras, is a city... in Mesopotamia... The Christians fled... Bohemond came to Apulia... Meanwhile, Bohemond (in the year 1107), having found a favorable time for himself, wishing to avenge the injuries which he with his men and other Christians had suffered from Emperor Alexius at the first inception of the pilgrimage through various traps, with the soldiers whom he had hired from the Gauls, and with the whole army of the Apulians, with a maritime fleet prepared, he headed for Constantinople: and while passing through the maritime cities of the empire, he devastated them all with iron and fire, and was enriched with great spoils... And when he had arrived at Dyrrachium, the emperor, terrified by Bohemond’s forces, composed peace with him through legates." Anna Comnena treats this matter most extensively in her *Alexiad*, books X and XII. Regarding these movements of war, Theophylactus says that he and his Bulgarians were crushed by the "Assyrian Sennacherib," namely Bohemond, "sent forth from Mesopotamia;" because he was captured by the Turks in Mesopotamia, and also suffered defeat at their hands, and after his freedom in Mesopotamia, he returned thence to Apulia, and having collected an army, returned to Illyricum and into Bulgaria, devastating everything with fire and iron.

To these times belongs epistle 11, to Lord Theodulus, metropolitan of Thessalonica. Theophylactus says thus: "You are not indeed ignorant of *who this is who from the beginning is an apostate, and stiff-necked, the tyrant of the world*, who is this one who was an apostate from the beginning, proud and ferocious, the tyrant of the whole world. Against him, indeed, we invoke you, O man of God: and would that it might now come to pass for us, that with all of us pressed and shattered by his [IX] tyranny, we might find some end to our lamentation and grief by your aid." The Greeks commonly called Bohemond "an apostate from the beginning." Anna Comnena, in book X, where she treats of Bohemond’s oath: "For he says that a man brought up in contempt of religion, and by long use as if by a certain nature a perjurer, would regard it as ridiculous to deflect from an oath." Sangeles also says there to the Augustus: "Since Bohemond received perjury and deceit from his ancestors as a kind of inheritance, it is a great wonder indeed if he remains constant." Why he is called that one who "has lifted up his neck" and is "the tyrant of the world," Anna Comnena declares in the same place: "He indeed, she says, placed the mask of religion and of vindicating the Lord’s sepulcher over his greed: but by this occasion he had determined in every way to prepare for himself some principality somewhere. Nor would he hesitate, if the air of fortune should blow favorably, to contemplate the Roman throne itself and, having expelled Alexius, to make himself emperor." Thus did the Greeks depict Bohemond, to which Theophylactus clings.

Finally, to the same times I refer epistle 17, to the bishop of Cercyra. These things are contained: "Grace be to the Father of mercies, and God of all consolation; since *in these evil days, and in these unfriendly and bestial times*, in these evil days and hostile and savage times, he has granted your holiness, girded to us with paternal affection... That neither

hostile incursions, nor immense power, nor raging force... weigh me down with shameful ruin.”

It seems to me that I have sufficiently illustrated and confirmed Dufresne’s chronology; nor can it be called into doubt that Theophylact lived during the time of the holy expeditions against the Saracens and of Bohemund’s incursion into the borders of the Empire, at the beginning of the twelfth century. In what year he finally departed this life is unknown; it is known for certain, however, that he died at an age greater than seventy.

VI.

What was Theophylact’s homeland? Was it Constantinople, or Euripus in Euboea? He served as a deacon in the Great Church of the royal city. When was he promoted to the archbishopric of Bulgaria? He flourished in sacred letters and the humanities. His futile vow to resign from his office. He was declared Archbishop of Bulgaria, and we must now treat of the excellence of his letters.

17. Writers more frequently affirm that his homeland was Constantinople. This is truly deduced from his first letter to the Empress Maria, noted in Baronius under the year 1071. For he says: “I am descending, therefore, to the Bulgarians, in reality a Constantinopolitan, but by hospitality a Bulgarian.” Michael Lequien, in the second volume of his *Oriens Christianus*, among the Archbishops of Achrida, cites these words from a manuscript index of the royal library: “Theophylact from Euripus.” Geographers attribute this name primarily to the narrow straits of the sea between Achaea and the island of Euboea, commonly called the *Stretto di Negroponte*. These are of such a nature that the island is joined to the mainland by a bridge at the city of Chalcis; hence it is also called the Euripus of Chalcis. In the geographical Index of episcopal sees in Labbe and Hardouin’s *Collection of Councils*, Euripus is understood as Chalcis, “which is in Euripus, or in Euboea.” Should Theophylact, therefore, be called a man of Chalcis by homeland? But how then would he call himself a Constantinopolitan in reality? We read that the observant Cluverius notes: after those first straits of the sea, which they call the Hellespont, the *Stretto dei Dardanelli*, a certain narrow Euripus extends before the wider sea, called the Propontis, opens out, and again joins into a strait under the name of the Bosphorus. Or perhaps Theophylact had his birth in some place located on this Euripus? This reason perhaps appears more convenient, for which he might be able to call himself a Constantinopolitan in reality. And why, indeed, might he not have called himself so because of his long sojourn in the royal city, where he learned his letters, perhaps even taught as a professor, and performed other sacred duties? It seems better to me to leave the matter in the middle. ^A ...and deacon of the Great Church.” Dufresne, in *Constantinopolis Christiana*, book III, number 11, notes that the sacred edifice of Hagia Sophia, the seat of the patriarch, was accustomed to be called by the Greeks the Constantinian church, and the Great Constantinian Church, and likewise the Great Theodosian Church, and the Great Justinian Church, and finally the Great Church without addition.

19. He was raised to the archbishopric of the entire Bulgarian Church. He addresses himself in epistle 73, to Michael Pantechnes, the Emperor’s physician, as “Archbishop of all Bulgaria,” and in epistle 6, to Gregory Camaterus, he calls himself “Archbishop in the city of Achrida.” ^B When he obtained this dignity, clear monuments are lacking to reveal it. He appeared without doubt to have worn the insignia when he wrote a letter to John (Italus) the philosopher, the forty-fifth among the Meursian letters. We have noted at number 9 that this was given at the time when that philosopher flourished in Constantinople and was pleasing to the emperors—namely, Michael and Maria—whence Theophylact began to administer the Bulgarian Church under Michael himself, who held the empire until the year 1078. ^C

In another letter, which Baronius reports, to the Empress Maria, when he writes that he was “descending to the Bulgarians, in reality a Constantinopolitan, but by hospitality a Bulgarian,” it is already certain that he then possessed the dignity. But since in the same letter he calls himself an old man, that is, a man of more advanced age, it can easily be gathered that not a little time had been spent in the same dignity and the same office. As we showed at number 10, the letter was written, as one may conclude later, during the reign of Nicephorus Botoniates, and after Maria had already been joined in marriage to him after the year 1078. And so it seems to be said that the episcopal insignia were conferred upon Theophylact before the year 1078, while Michael Ducas was still reigning. ^D

BERN MARIÆ DE PUBEIS DISSERTATIO

20. The excellence of his letters flourished, and he acted as a rhetorician before he had obtained his dignity. That he excelled greatly in the disciplines, many excellent works of his, which are to be enumerated below, evince. But his Epistles also, and the varied erudition with which they are filled, show him to have been highly cultivated in the liberal arts. There are added his *Royal Instruction* to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and his *Oration to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus*, and finally his skill in composing poems, which he himself mentions in epistle 20 to the bishop of Mertomery, saying: "This indeed, which I alone had, I expressed in iambic verses, being compelled meanwhile to compose many elegies throughout the whole year." Hence, indeed, on account of the erudition in which he flourished, when Constantine, the son of Michael Ducas and Maria, was born, he was appointed and given as a tutor.

21. From the frequently mentioned Epistles we learn that Theophylact acted in Achrida in Bulgaria in such a way that he would frequently visit the royal city, either to transact his business or even to visit his royal pupil and his mother Maria, or one reigning with the emperors Michael and Botoniatis, or one living in the monastery under Alexios Komnenos. As time went on, his letters to John the Grand Domestic—found in Baronius at the year 1071, number XXI—reveal that the Bulgarian residence pleased him less; where these things are held: "I do not serve a rich queen, clean and beautiful, and so too a golden Venus: but barbarian slaves, impure and smelling of stinking skins... Release me from this shameful servitude, you who are able." The same disposition of his own mind is indicated in an epistle among those of Meursius, 21, to Anenius. For he says: "You tell me of my dream... believing that I am imitating the barbarian and rustic customs in the middle of Bulgaria. For behold how much I have drunk of the cup of rusticity and wildness, who, being absent from the places of wisdom for so many years [τοσούτων ἐτῶν τῶν τῆς σοφίας χωρίων ἀποδημῶν], am away from the places of wisdom for so many years." His prayers were in vain.

VII.

The beginning of the Bulgarian Church under its own kings. Contention concerning the right over it between the Roman pontiffs and the Byzantine bishops. It is not subject to the Constantinopolitan Throne. The province having been subdued by the Greek emperors, the Church preserves its autocephaly, and Theophylact defends it against the laws of the stauropegion. Morinus emended, and likewise Johannes Lonicerus.

22. The Bulgarian region, where Theophylact governed the Church as archbishop, took its beginning from peoples who were called Bulgarians after the river Bulga, or Volga. Passing over the irruptions of an earlier age into the borders of the empire, [XI] they crossed the Danube again in the seventy-eighth year of the seventh century and occupied the places in Thrace; and with the wars finished thereafter, they expanded the established kingdom by conquering the provinces which obeyed the Constantinopolitan empire, namely Dacia Mediterranea and Ripensis, Further Moesia, Dardania, and Praevalis, a part of Second Macedonia, and a part of Pannonia.

The Christian faith in these regions remained destroyed for a long time, until, that is, Bogoris, king of the new Bulgaria, who in the year 861 was washed by sacred baptism in Constantinople, and changed his name to Michael, by which also the emperor of the Greeks, Michael III Porphyrogenitus, was called. The Bulgarians received bishops and catechist presbyters from the Romans and from the Franks, and there exist to them the *Responses* of Pope Nicholas I concerning matters of faith and morals, given in approximately the year 866. These things are held there concerning the patriarch, whom they desired to be ordained and set over them, number LXXII: "You asked if it is lawful for a patriarch to be ordained among you: but concerning this we can answer nothing definitively before our legates, whom we are sending with you, shall have returned... For in the meantime have a bishop, and when, by the increase of divine grace, Christianity shall have been spread there, and bishops ordained throughout individual Churches, then one should be chosen from among them who, if not a patriarch, certainly is to be called an archbishop, to whom all may concur."

23. A dispute arose concerning the rights over the Bulgarian Church between the Romans and the Constantinopolitans. The eighth ecumenical synod having been concluded, celebrated against Photius, it was acted upon concerning the aforementioned rights in the year 869. The Greek judges, although they were protested against, delivered the sentence: "That the homeland of the Bulgarians had long been in the power of the Greeks (namely those provinces in which the new kingdom of Bulgaria was constituted), and had had Greek priests of the holy Church of Constantinople," and so, since "it had receded from it (the Church of Constantinople) through paganism, now it ought to be restored to the same through Christianity." Against the decree interceded

the legates of the Roman Pontiff, Adrian II. The same Adrian had designated a bishop for the Bulgarians, by the name of Sylvester; but the Bulgarians, swayed by the gifts of the Greeks, accepted an archbishop from the Emperor Basil and the Patriarch Ignatius. You may read the letter of the Pontiff on this matter, full of complaints, addressed to Basil and Ignatius, dated in the year 871, to be found in Baronius and the collectors of the councils. It was through the Photian schism that it came about that the Church of Bulgaria remained torn away from the Romans.

24. The archbishop of that region was subject to the Constantinopolitan throne. In the time of Leo the Wise, who assumed the empire in the year 886, he became ^A *autocephalous* and *sui juris*, as Lequien more plausibly supposes in *Oriens Christianus*, volume II, regarding the Church of Lychnidus. I quote his words: "This prelate of the Bulgarians was indeed at first subject to the Constantinopolitan see, while the Roman pontiffs reclaimed it in vain; but subsequently he became ^B *autocephalous*, or *sui juris*; since the Bulgarian princes, who were harassing the Greeks with perpetual wars, were not pleased that the affairs of their Churches should be managed by the Byzantines." I believe this happened under Emperor Leo the Wise, the son of Basil the Macedonian. For when he had incited the Turks and other infidel peoples against the Bulgarian nation, this was the reason that the Bulgarians, upon taking counsel, turned to the Roman pontiffs for the sake of seeking aid from there. Then the Byzantine patriarchs, in order to deter them from this alliance, thought it better to gift their archbishop with every kind of immunity, renouncing whatever jurisdiction they had over the Churches of Bulgaria. To this archbishop of the Bulgarians there were once subject six metropolitans and ten bishoprics; later, seven metropolitans and as many bishops. Consult Lequien in the place cited.

25. With these privileges adorned, the Bulgarian Church stood under its own kings until the year 1018, when Basil and Constantine subjected the Bulgarians to the Constantinopolitan empire; for this reason the former, who held the supreme power, was called *Bulgaroctonus* (Bulgar-slayer). Governors, administrators of public affairs, were sent into Bulgaria; their wickedness was the cause that, under Isaac II Angelus, who began to govern the empire in the year 1185, the Bulgarian kingdom was restored, the brothers Peter and Asan, of sufficiently royal blood, promoting the matter. Dufresne shows both lines of the kings of Bulgaria after the *Byzantine Families*. The Bulgarian Church returned under the second line of these kings into the patronage of the Roman see under Innocent III. But with the new and expanded kingdom of Serbia having arisen, it suffered decline at first, and finally succumbed to the Turkish yoke.

At the time when Bulgaria was subject to the Byzantine emperors and was administered by Byzantine governors, Archbishop Theophylactus sat in his chair. He strenuously defended his own ^C *autocephaly* against the patriarchs of the royal city. His 27th epistle to Michael, Bishop of Chalcedon, sets forth the whole matter. He says: "He had indeed endured with irritation only that the wealth of the churches was snatched away by wicked tax collectors: but he would by no means permit that the rights of his Church be violated." What happened, he narrates in these words: "Cittaba (he says) is a certain boundary of the place, distinct from our archbishopric." (Thus, indeed, in the Latin translation; but in Greek, *τῇ καθ᾿ ἡμῶν ἀρχιεπισκοπή διαφέρουσα*, belonging to our archbishopric). "In which (place), when a monk was building a temple and a sanctuary, he was hindered by us. *Ὁ δὲ σταυροπήγιον πατριαρχικὸν λαβών*, who, attaching a cross to it by patriarchal right, said that he had started the work in that way. But he was nevertheless bound by us with the chains of excommunication. For what participation and communion is there between the Bulgarians and the Constantinopolitan patriarch, *Κωνσταντινουπόλεως πατριάρχῃ μήτε χειροτονίας ἐπ᾿ αὐτῇ δίκαια ἔχοντι, λαχούσῃ τὸν ἀρχιεπίσκοπον αὐτοκέφαλον, μήτ' ἄλλο τι διαδεξαμένῳ κατὰ ταύτης προνόμιον*: who has no right of ordination in it, which is subject to an archbishop of its own right; and who has received no other authority over it whatsoever." Known is that right, called the *stauropegion*, by which the patriarchs of the East, each within the bounds of his own patriarchate, by the prior fixing of their own cross, subject churches, especially monastic ones that were being built, to their own government, with the power of the ordinary bishop set aside; or by which the Byzantines even dared to use this under the dioceses of other patriarchs. Theophylactus defends his own autocephaly, with the whole right of the Byzantine ^D *stauropegion* excluded.

26. Not grasping the sense and mind of Theophylactus, Joannes Morinus, in *De sacris ordinationibus*, part II, among the annotations, no. 147, says at the end: "Theophylactus in a certain epistle says that a certain monk had undertaken the building of a church in his diocese without his knowledge; but because he was doing this against the canons, he forbade it, until he had received a patriarchal *stauropegion*." Rather, against the patriarchal Constantinopolitan

stauropegion, which that monk boasts of, the archbishop of Bulgaria acts according to the canons and the autocephaly of his own Church.

A certain singular prerogative of power in Bulgaria seems to be attributed to Theophylact by Joannes Lonicerus, of the Lutheran sect, in his Preface to the *Commentaries on the Four Minor Prophets*, saying: "That he (namely, Theophylact) was archbishop of the Bulgarian region and flourished in princely power, the peroration of his exegesis on the prophet Nahum argues. Where he turns the exhortation concerning princes onto himself, as if he were a prince." The words of the indicated passage are: "These things, all princes hearing, let us consider God as the judge of our feelings toward those subject to us and of our disposition: and let us will that we be gentle toward those obeying us, so that we enjoin nothing harsh upon them." To princes, whoever they may be, this exhortation undoubtedly is fitting; which, however, in Theophylact indicates no other prerogative of power than the archiepiscopal one, and indeed one independent of the throne of the royal city, as we recounted in no. 25. If Lonicerus suspected anything more, he is egregiously mistaken.

VIII. The Archiepiscopal jurisdiction of Bulgaria, at first as it were shifting, then annexed to the see of Achrida. The location and founder of the city of Achrida. Warlike movements in Bulgaria in the time of Theophylact. The wickedness of the Byzantine tax collectors. His ecclesiastical solicitude.

27. When the kingdom of Bulgaria was founded and the Bulgarian Church was established there, the seat of the archbishop was not certain and fixed; but the archiepiscopal administration was wont to be entrusted to the bishops of various Churches, to others and others, at the whim of the kings. In the Royal Parisian manuscript, in the *Indiculus* of the Achridian bishops in Le Quien, after Gabriel and the other six archbishops of Bulgaria, follows Philip, no. VIII, "who is said to have sat at Lychnida, which is subsequently Achrida." The other archbishops held this seat, and likewise Theophylact. He himself calls himself in *Epistle 6*, to Gregory Camaterus, "archbishop in the city of Achrida."

28. In *Epistle 65*, to Master John Pantechnes, he says thus: "But all things, in which Achris is situated, are full of trembling and fear; and the Mocrus region, for Mocrus is a portion of Achrida." Anna Comnena reveals the founder and location of the city toward the end of book XII of the *Alexiad*: "The river Drymon (or Drinus)," she says, "takes its head and origin from the marsh of Lychnitis: which the language, now degenerating into barbarism, calls Achris from the prior appellation of Mocrus, king of the Bulgarians, he who was then called Samuel. He flourished under the emperors Constantine and Basil Porphyrogenitus (in the waning tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh), when he set out to divert and drain this marsh," etc. Therefore Achris, as Dufresne notes in his annotations to the fourth book of the *Alexiad*, stands out on a high hill near the lake, from which the Drynus, or Drymon, flows toward the north.

In that place where Achris is, some think that Lychnidus first existed, then Bederina, and finally Justiniana Prima, so called by the emperor Justinian. Others believe that Achrida was founded in a neighboring tract by Mochrus, or Samuel, the Christian king of the Bulgarians. The aforementioned Justinian Augustus had increased his Justiniana with most ample privileges in *Novel 15*, by which the former jurisdiction of the Thessalonian prelate remained diminished. Consult Le Quien at the cited place, and Joan. Peter de Ludewig in his *Life of Justinian*, and other writers.

29. Theophylact administered his Church of Achrida and his entire archiepiscopal jurisdiction at the time when the Norman princes, Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond, infested Illyricum and Bulgaria with their arms. Known are the wars that Robert waged from the year 1081 to the year 1085, according to Greek, Sicilian, and Venetian writers. The incursion of Bohemond pertains to the year 1107, when "the Bagora mountain, interjected between the Bulgarian and Dyrrachian mountains," was "held" by the "tyrant," namely Bohemond, as Theophylact himself testifies in *Epistle 65*. Here, truly, he shows himself in his epistles to be hostile to the Latins and to the expeditions of the Latins against the Saracens. But also that the Croats had depopulated Bulgaria under the Emperor Michael Ducas, we have noted in no. 10. Against the Dalmatians, who, at the end of the eleventh century, were meditating to stir up disturbances, Alexius Comnenus undertook an expedition: and he, "having marched upon Philippopolis, as Comnena says

ON THE DEEDS AND WRITINGS OF THEOPHYLACT.

^A book VIII, "there he received letters of the archbishop of Bulgaria, who was then," namely Theophylact.

30. Our Bulgarian archbishop laments most vehemently in many letters the grave injuries inflicted by imperial tax gatherers upon the people of Bulgaria and the churches. In the letter that is numbered twenty-three, addressed to the bishop of Corcyra, he says: "But you, in that place, put on bitter gall against those who strike us with a harsh blow. Against those, I say, who are ministers of insatiable greed, who are also execrable enemies of the evangelical profession, and the destruction and very slaughter of the Christian host." Letter forty-one is read addressed to the Panhypersebastos Briennius, where these things are contained: "Spewing the venom of asps against us, they have infected the most illustrious and mild soul of the emperor with deadly bitterness; and whatever our Church contained, they have destroyed with huge slaughter. And indeed the cause of all these things was the insatiable greed of the tax gatherers and a corrupt custom." Then he narrates the wicked deeds of a certain Lazarus, who "was a tenant of the Church: against whom, he says, they armed themselves with a bold heart."

Calumnies were also leveled against Theophylact himself, as if he were hoarding riches and was very wealthy from the spoils of the Bulgarians. "They formed a plan (he says in ep. 43, to Lord Adrian, brother of the emperor) to cast me down from my rank of honor: and, made wild with a thirst for slander, they flew to our most powerful emperor, your most beloved brother, and overwhelmed me before him with calumnies, as if I were invincible with many forces and relying on great power. And they accused me of being swelled into a rich substance of riches from such and so many gains." And in letter 73: "They turn their eyes... to the archbishop of all Bulgaria, and clearly listen to him counting gold coins all day long, and think he is accumulating them as if by full measures."

31. ... [The] letters show the vigilant and solicitous care of his office. From the one numbered thirty-two, addressed to the bishop of Triaditza, formerly Sardica, we learn that he willingly agreed that the same prelate, who was bound by the knot of excommunication because he had not attended the synod, should be absolved by the bishops of Pelagonia, or Heraclea, and Strombitza, or Tiberiopolis, and Melasoba. That bishop had set out for Constantinople, "the great city," "and he had left almost no one, whether greatest or least in age, who had not shut his ears, and made them deaf, to the bitter cursing toward us of your tongue (as Theophylact himself says)... Wherefore we lift our eyes to God alone, who is able to overcome all these things, and to the high mountains of his justice, from whence our help shall come."

[XIV] Concerning the celebrating of a synod, he writes letter 53 to Macrembolites, prince of Prespa. It was a town in Macedonia near Achrida. "Not yet have we been freed and released from that severe bedridden illness, he says: and yet the sacred voice of the canons has commanded a sacred synod for us... Do you receive us... For this will be our gathering."

Finally, I add letter 2, to the bishop of Corcyra, where, having mentioned Bohemond's incursion into Bulgaria, he pursues another "ignoble" man, "the more troublesome and harsh, the more insane and foolish he is. For this man, he says, considers it a matter of veneration and honor, that he either said something against the Church, or did something... For he himself did not deem the Mother of God worthy of adoration." Could he have been some Manichaean, or from the sect of the Bogomils, about whom Anna Comnena treats at greater length in book XV of the *Alexiad*? Truly, it is enough to have discussed these things concerning Theophylact’s chronicle, and his offices, and dignities, and chief deeds.

IX. Theophylact wrote Commentaries on the four Gospels, by the command, as it seems, of the Empress Maria. Lead manuscripts. The first Latin edition with the version of Joannes Oecolampadius from a mutilated Greek codex. An edition of the Greek text from the Vatican codex, which is examined. By its help, the Latin translation was revised by Philippus Montanus. Observations of Latinius. The Parisian Greek-Latin edition, whose defects are pointed out. Fabricius is noted.

32. Theophylact, who was imbued with distinct learning and excelled in sacred knowledge, left behind many monuments. He wrote Commentaries on the four Gospels. In the fifth book of the Imperial Library of Vienna, according to Petrus Lambecius, there exists...

codex 219, a parchment, very ancient, elegantly written in a beautiful uncial script, which formerly belonged to Cardinal Bessarion, was later bought by Johannes Sambucus, and was finally transferred to the Imperial Library, containing Theophylact’s Commentaries on the two Gospels of the holy Mark and the holy Luke. A metrical annotation in Greek precedes it:

The thought of the Empress Maria, Truly a work of a most noble soul. And he who culled the honey-sweet words Is Theophylact, shepherd of Bulgaria.

Montfaucon mentions the same words in his *Diarium Italicum*, chapter 6, page 78, at the beginning of a codex containing the aforementioned Commentaries of Theophylact on the four Gospels, written by hand among the Cassinese Paduan monks of Saint Justina. The first and fourth verses hold the same position in both; but what is second in the Vienna codex is third in the Paduan, and the third is read in the second place. That most learned man translates them into Latin thus:

Empress Maria caused these things to be done, A work truly of a most noble mind, But he who edited these honey-sweet Commentaries Is Theophylact, bishop of the Bulgarians.

From these words, and especially from the elegance of the codex, Lambecius notes it can be inferred that the Vienna codex, written in Theophylact’s own age, is the very one that the Empress Maria used. But the same words, if these alone are considered, "since they may have been transcribed from one codex into others (as Montfaucon very sagely notes), are not sufficient to assert the time and century in which the book was written." Nevertheless, the same Montfaucon pronounces that there is nothing doubtful about the fact that the Paduan codex was written in the twelfth century.

Lambecius lists the Imperial codices 217, 218, 219, 220, and 221, which provide Theophylact’s Commentaries either on all four Gospels, or on two, or on only one; he also advises that "it would be very useful to compare the editions published thus far diligently and accurately with these." Five codices are preserved in the Marciana Library in Venice; and the Royal Library of Paris preserves many very ancient and excellent ones, some of which are mentioned by Richard Simon in volume IV of his *Histoire Critique du Nouveau Testament*, chapter 28, and Michael Lequien in his *Dissertatio Damascenica VI, De azymis*, number XLIII. Casimir Oudin indicates other codices from other libraries in volume II of his *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, under the entry for Theophylact.

33. The first Latin edition appeared in the year 1524, translated by the heterodox Johannes Oecolampadius, with his own Epistle to the reader dated the same year. He used an imperfect Greek codex, as he himself warns in the Epistle: "A mutilated copy compelled me," he says, "to insert certain things in one place, for the page was missing: concerning which, however, as you will see, I have given notice, lest anyone accuse my fidelity in this matter." The location is in John, chapter xxi, from verse 15 to verse 22, where the translator noted: "Because the page was missing here in the copy, it seemed worthwhile to insert some things. You, my reader, take it in good part: and if you should happen upon a copy that is not mutilated, or if you possess something better, do not be unwilling to bring it forward." The supplement to the Commentary follows, which the translator closes twice with the words: "We have inserted these things, reader: and in this I think I have done you a service; now follow the things that were contained in the copy." We shall say below that Oecolampadius did not do the readers a service, inasmuch as he inserted an interpretation that is undoubtedly alien to Theophylact's mind. This Latin version of his, printed in various fonts, saw the light of day.

34. Possevinus, Labbeus, and Cave write that the Greek text, without a Latin version, was printed in the year 1542, as Gesnerus counts the year. Johann Albert Fabricius, in volume VI of his *Bibliotheca Graeca*, page 287, testifies that he has this edition in his hands, and that he has never encountered any other Greek edition with his own eyes. I also have this Roman edition in my hands, and with our eyes looking intently, these words appear on the front: Rome, MDXLII. A brief Latin Preface is prefixed, starting: *To the students of sacred letters. Since there are many things whose use is accustomed to be for our benefit and also for our adornment, etc.* In it...

^A the munificence of the Roman Pontiff Paul III is commended: "Clearly this benefit, however much it is, which is certainly most great, is owed to the divine virtue of Paul III. The Pontiff, distinguished by kindness, born to remove the discomforts of the human race, preserves ancient custom, excites the liberal arts; by whatever expense, by whatever reward, he ensures that we do not in this age at all lack those who are celebrated for the praise of pontifical beneficence."

Learned men have observed that the Roman codex, from which the text was produced, was in some places inferior to that which was available to Oecolampadius. Peter Arcudius proves that it was also corrupted by an interpolating hand in chapter 26 of Matthew, verse 17, where it treats of the first day of Unleavened Bread, by the authority of other codices of excellent quality as well as by the context of the codex itself. In the same Roman text, a lacuna is apparent in chapter 1 of John, verse 13, from those words, "You will understand rightly through the will of the flesh," up to those, "And in the copula, both necessarily precede." Yet Oecolampadius read these in his codex and translated them; and Richard Simon cites them in Greek in the aforementioned place, page 401, taken from a Royal Parisian codex. But that they are lacking in three codices of the Marcian Library in Venice, we have observed with our own eyes, with the assistance—given out of his kindness—of the illustrious man Antonio Zanetti, son of Alexander, custodian of the library. Hence Simon and Lambecius, in order to complete a more accurate edition of the works of Theophylact, most wisely admonished that there was need for a diligent inspection of the codices. Lastly, I will not omit to note that in the same Roman edition there stand the Eulogies of the four evangelists, which were taken from the Greek version of the book of Saint Jerome *On Illustrious Men*, composed by Sophronius.

35. Philippus Montanus Armenterianus edited the Latin version of Oecolampadius for the first time in the year 1545, and emended it again in the year 1552, as we read at the foot of the dedicatory Epistle to Claudius Dodeus, bishop of Rennes, and the Preface in the Basle edition by the heirs of Johannes Hervagius in the year 1554. The Greek Roman text served him as a resource. What he achieved in this revision of his, he explains by bringing forward some examples in the Preface to the reader. In general, he says thus: "These things, I say, and very many others of this kind, could be ascribed to the printer rather than to the translator (Oecolampadius). But that in very many places a great deal was omitted, on which the subsequent matter depended: I say not only some words, but very many verses, and even entire pages: and that very frequently a negative, against the mind of the author, ^B was either omitted, or introduced, bringing about a contrary meaning—whether this should be imputed to the scribe, or to the typographer, or to the translator, or to a mutilated codex, let it be the judgment of others... The translator himself certainly admits at the end of John that his codex was mutilated. Yet it may be that even that one was in some places more emended than ours (namely, the Roman): and therefore we have left some things untouched, either because they squared well with the sense, or because they were not of great moment, even if they do not entirely correspond to our (Roman) Greek codex [XVI]. Sometimes, however, we have added a different reading in the margin, and that especially when both could be defended: leaving the former in the text, but enclosed by notes of this kind † and ], leaving the judgment to the reader as to which he might prefer to follow."

No one fails to understand from this, as the most expert men have remarked, that a collation with the manuscript codices is absolutely necessary. Regarding this Basilean edition of the year 1554, Latinus Latinius of Viterbo published *Observations, corrections, and conjectures on Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, restored to the Greek faith* at Rome in the year 1677, at the expense of Pontius Bernardon, in his *Sacred and Profane Library*, page 184; some pertain to the text, others illustrate the things themselves.

36. In Paris, by Carolus Morellus, in the Via Jacobaea, in 1631, with the Greek text already long ago issued at Rome, and with the Latin version corrected by Philippus Montanus, the Commentaries of Theophylact on the four Gospels were published. The edition is dedicated to Carolus Albaspinaeus. The short preface to the reader is the same as that which is read in the Roman edition; and indeed it is ridiculous, as Simon observed, that in that place where the praises of Paul III are celebrated, the name of the Morelli family was substituted, who did only this: to reprint the Greek text printed in Rome. The interpolation reads thus: "Clearly this benefit, however much it is, which is certainly most great, is owed to the virtue of the Morelli. Men indeed distinguished by kindness, born for the utility and commodity of the republic, preserve ancient custom...

maintain [them], stimulate the liberal arts, and expend any sum, any reward, to ensure that the monuments of the ancient Fathers of Greece, which are held in high esteem, are not in the least yearned for in our own age.”

Opposite this, the Greek text is accompanied by a Latin version, which Montanus revised, incorporating into the Latin version those variant readings which he had previously cast into the margin. The Parisian editor is indicated by those initials, I.P., which are to be seen at the front of the work. Simonius offers a signal example of his negligence from the Latin interpretation of a certain passage in the *Eulogy of Saint Mark*. The words of the Greek text, which has Sophronius as its author, are: *Καὶ τῇ Ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀναγνωσόμενον αὐθεντίσας ἐξέδωκε*, which are translated into Latin thus: *and he delivered it to the Church [to be read] with the dignity of a lector by Peter.* That editor seems to have been unaware that Sophronius, the author of the aforementioned Greek eulogy, had dedicated his effort solely to translating Saint Jerome’s book *De viris illustribus* into Greek. Furthermore, Jerome says in his own Latin *Eulogy of Mark*: *which (the Gospel written by Mark), when Peter had heard it, he approved, and delivered it to the churches by his authority to be read.* Sophronius’s text expresses this same sense: namely, that Peter, exercising his own authority, gave Mark’s Gospel to the Church to be read, and by no means that Mark was appointed to the Church by Peter with the dignity of a lector. This is a lapse deserving of no indulgence. I add a second lapse, which occurs in the *Eulogy of the holy apostle and evangelist John*. Jerome had written in *De viris illustribus*, chapter 9, that *two Epistles are asserted to be John the presbyter’s... although some think them to be of John the evangelist.* Retaining the distinction of one John from the other, Sophronius had translated into Greek: *Ἰωάννου πρεσβυτέρου* and *Ἰωάννου τοῦ εὐαγγελιστοῦ*. But the Parisian editor rendered this Greek text into Latin incorrectly as *John the apostle and John the evangelist*, as if apostle and evangelist were two separate people named John. In the Venetian edition, the error has been removed.

Joan. Albertus Fabricius, in the sixth volume of his *Bibliotheca Graeca*, page 288, says: “Combefis expresses surprise that Theophylact is called in the title of the Parisian edition *Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν*. Certainly, in the Roman [edition] there is nothing else than *Θεοφυλάκτου ἀρχιεπισκόπου Βουλγαρίας ἑρμηνεία εἰς τὰ τέσσαρα Εὐαγγέλια*. But the Parisian edition provides these same words, and nothing besides. Yet Combefis is wrongly charged with what he never dreamt of; for, when inquiring into his own reviewed authors in the *Bibliotheca Patrum concionatoria*, he says: ‘I wonder who recognized, but did not fear to prefix to some little work of his, *Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Θεοφυλάκτου*, [that is] *Of our holy Father Theophylact*.’” Combefis was criticizing the prefixing of a certain short work, not the Parisian edition of the *Commentaries on the Gospels*—a work, I say, concerning the *Regal Institution*, doubtless, published long ago by Petrus Possinus under the title *Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Θεοφυλάκτου*, etc. He also says in a marginal note to the same Theophylact’s homily on the *Presentation of the Mother of God*, in the appendix to volume VIII of the *Bibliotheca concionatoria*: “This speech also reveals him (Theophylact) to be most wise: would that they did not abolish the title of ‘saint’ in other places as well!”

X.

[XVII] The method pursued by Theophylact in his *Commentaries* is, to be brief, that of reducing Saint John Chrysostom to a compendium throughout. He occasionally collects the expositions of others with a lighter hand. He abounds in allegories, regarding which it is investigated whether they all proceeded from him or were inserted. Some things are written by his own hand: he hands down the theology of the Greeks of his age.

37. The unanimous and consenting observation of bibliographers is that Theophylact reduced the golden discourses of John Chrysostom into a compendium in his *Commentaries on the Gospels*. Sixtus Senensis, in his *Bibliotheca sancta*, book IV, speaks thus: “Long and deeply versed and worn out in the reading of divine Chrysostom, he reduced to a brief and manifest compendium, according to the historical understanding, whatever that admirable Father had poured forth from his golden mouth, as if from a most abundant fountain, in explaining the holy Scriptures, with the omission of the *loci communes*, in which he was accustomed to run with the full sails of eloquence.”

Hence, in the manuscript codices, inscriptions of this kind are ready at hand: *Θεοφυλάκτου... Ἐπιτομὴ τῶν τοῦ Χρυσοστόμου Ἐξηγητικῶν εἰς τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν Εὐαγγέλιον*, *Theophylacti... Compendium Commentariorum Chrysostomi in Evangelium secundum Lucam*. Or *Ἐπιτομὴ τῶν Ἐξηγητικῶν εἰς τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον Εὐαγγέλιον*, *Epitome Commentariorum* (understand, *Joannis Chrysostomi*) *in Evangelium Matthaei*.

38. But there are also others, albeit with a freer hand, that the scribes [attribute to] the ancient interpreters [translated] by him

that they were at some time excerpted, there should be no doubt: since in some very ancient Catenae, as Simon notes on page 400, several things are encountered which similarly occur in Theophylact. The aforementioned Simon cites a manuscript of his Commentaries on the Gospel of John, inscribed with these words: Ἑρμηνεία τοῦ ἁγίου μου δεσπότου καὶ αὐθέντου μακαριωτάτου ἀρχιεπισκόπου κυροῦ Θεοφυλάκτου, συντεθεῖσα ἐκ διαφόρων ἁγίων εἰς τὸ κατὰ Ἰωάννην Εὐαγγέλιον, *Interpretation of my holy master and author, the blessed archbishop, the lord Theophylact, compiled from various works of the saints, on the Gospel of holy John.* Observe the title of "holy" and "blessed" prefixed by the Greek scribe; and learn that titles of this kind could also have fallen under the eyes of François Combefis, who was examining manuscripts, as well as the words "among the holy." See no. 36.

39. Theophylact abounds in allegories. Oecolampadius passes judgment on this in his Preface: "In allegories," he says, "although he is not everywhere sound, he is nevertheless pleasing." So also Sixtus of Siena says in the cited passage: "He also supplemented allegories—when he had found none or few in Chrysostom—from the commentaries of others, and adapted them most aptly to their places." Simon, in the place cited more frequently, page 392, thought that most of these had crept into the text from marginal scholia. For instance, near the beginning of his Commentary on Matthew, we read that the four Gospels were written, "either because we learn from them the four universal virtues... Or also for another reason, because they are the pillars of the world... And also for another reason, since these four encompass dogmas, precepts, threats, and promises." But in truth, with Simon as witness, a manuscript exists in the Royal Parisian Library where the second and third allegorical arguments are missing; and another exists in which neither the first nor the third occur, and only the second is read. I myself have also seen Theophylact’s Prologue to the Evangelists, copied from the Imperial Viennese manuscript, in which the allegory drawn from the four parts of the world is not present. Nesselius mentions this manuscript in his Catalog, part IV, no. 271. Two Venetian Marcian manuscripts, the thirty-first and the thirty-second, omit this same allegory; and thus, multiple allegories of this kind in this place and in others appear suspect. But why should one not rather suspect the imperfection or mutilation of the manuscripts due to the carelessness of the scribes? A correct judgment depends upon an accurate evaluation of many ancient and good-quality manuscripts.

40. That he inserted not a few things of his own accord into these Commentaries of his, either in his interpretation of the Scriptures themselves or in the defense of the true faith against heresies, which he mentions and refutes whenever the opportunity arises, is not to be doubted. For this reason, Combefis also, in the list of authors of his *Bibliotheca Concionatoria*, warns [XVIII] that he had inserted many things from Theophylact into that same Library, "where especially either Chrysostom’s exposition is missing, or the Archbishop of Bulgaria himself abounds." Finally, he embraces certain peculiar doctrines which had become prevalent among the Greeks, but which are less approved in theology; and he stirs up controversies that were flourishing in his own age. We shall provide examples below.

XI.

...in book V is numbered 222, there was published *Theophylact’s, Archbishop of Achrida in Bulgaria, Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles, in Greek and Latin*, by the study and labor of Laurentius Sifanius Prunsfeld, J.U.D., Cologne, at the heirs of Arnold Birckmann, in the year 1567, folio. The Preface is read addressed "To the noble and generous magnificent men, the lords Marcus and Johannes Fugger, brothers, sons of Antonius, barons of Kirchberg and Weissenborn." Beside this Viennese manuscript, Bernard de Montfaucon mentions the Medicean Laurentian manuscript in his *Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum mss*. No other occurs to me among the bibliographers that provides the same Commentary: and Simonius testifies that he could not find any in the Royal Parisian Library.

^A Possevinus mentions the Latin edition alone in these words, in his *Apparatus Sacer*, volume II: “The *Enarrationes* on the Acts of the Apostles... in Latin, by the translators Philippus Montanus and Laurentius Sifanius, in the year 1570, at Basel.” The learned man is mistaken. This Basel edition of 1570 in folio, which appeared from the press of Hervagius by way of Eusebius Episcopius, comprises not only Theophylact’s *Enarrationes* on the Acts of the Apostles, but also his *Commentaries* on the Gospels and on the Epistles of Paul, and on the four minor prophets, and last of all on the Acts of the Apostles. The care and work of Philippus Montanus pertains uniquely to the revision and emendation of the *Enarrationes* on the Gospels and Epistles of Paul, but Joannes Lonicerus is the sole translator of the *Commentaries* on the prophets, and Laurentius Sifanius is the sole translator of the Latin version of the *Expositions* on those same Acts of the Apostles. Hence, the title in that same edition is: *Theophylacti, Archbishop of Bulgaria, Explanations of the Acts of the Apostles, collected concisely and briefly from the Fathers, by the translator Laurentius Sifanius Prunsfeldius, Doctor of Both Laws.* A commentary collected from the Fathers is what is called a *Catena*; and the Fathers themselves are called by their own names: Chrysostom, Didymus, Severus, Severianus, Cyril. The Prologue placed before the work is the same as the Prologue of John Chrysostom; hence, the authenticity of Theophylact himself confirms this work to be his own, which Erasmus had judged to be from that same most holy man. Consult the Prefaces of Savile and Montfaucon. Richard Simonius thought that Theophylact applied less diligence in this work than in his other *Commentaries*; and indeed, it seems it should sooner be classed among the *Catenas*, in which the scholia of various authors are gathered. Sifanius used a Greek codex that was mutilated and swarming with errors; and he indicates those mutilated, corrupt, and doubtful places in the margin, which he endeavors to supply or correct, so as to consider the utility of his readers. He employed a new version of the sacred text, and employs at the edge of the margin variant readings, which he takes from the Vulgate version, and also from those of Erasmus, Sebastian Castalio, and Theodore Beza. Indeed, at the beginning of the work, this little 'Admonition to the Reader' is read: “The reader is to be advised that where a diverse translation is placed in the margin, it is signaled by V. for the Vulgate, E. for Erasmus, C. for Castalio, B. for Beza: that this is different from the version of the translator Laurentius Sifanius.” Now the Catholic Reader has it, so that if any chaff has crept in, he may know it and be on his guard.

^B 42. F. Christophorus Porsena, a Roman, Prior of S. Balbina, translated the *Commentaries* on the Epistles of the holy Paul from a Greek codex into Latin under the pontificate of Paul II, in the year 1469, and published it with the types at Rome in the year 1477, and dedicated it to the Supreme Pontiff Sixtus IV, with the title of Athanasius as the presumed author, prefixed to the *Commentaries*.

43. Joannes Lonicerus revised the translation of Porsena, and published it under the name of Theophylact. That this is the offspring of Theophylact, and not of Athanasius of Alexandria, is confirmed by the authority of Erasmus, Joannes Faber, and Joannes Beraldus. “These *Commentaries* of Theophylact on Paul (he says in the *Preface to the Friendly Reader*), hitherto wrongly inscribed to Athanasius, Erasmus attests to more clearly than light, and more truly than truth itself, in his *Annotations* on that passage of Paul to the Romans, *Who has been predestined*.” This, of course, is the opinion of Erasmus in the cited passage: “With these words (cogniti pro Filio Dei) does the translator of this work, falsely inscribed to Athanasius, make use; when we have discovered, presently having compared the Greek and the Latin, that it is actually Theophylact.” The words of Joannes Faber follow: “This same (Theophylact) wrote *Commentaries* on the Epistles of Paul, which Christophorus Porsena translated... under a false title, as if they were by Athanasius of Alexandria. Whereby many were deceived, which I candidly confess happened also to me; nor would I have corrected my own error, had I not, while collecting Greek and Latin codices here and there, found something else; although I always doubted, because Basil, and also Gregory of Nyssa, were cited in them.” Finally, Beraldus has similar things: “These *Commentaries* on the Epistles of Paul,” he says, “which for some years now have been circulated under the name and title of Athanasius, some vindicate and assert as Theophylact’s. Nor do I doubt that they are moved by the best reasons, especially those who have read the Greek.” Hence, the Latin translation of the work, whether the one that Lonicerus revised, or the one that Porsena first produced, appeared in print in many places under the name of Theophylact.

The Latin edition or revision by Lonicerus is said to have seen the light at Paris in the year 1542, in octavo. I have seen many later ones. Philippus Montanus compared this with the Greek codex, which formerly belonged to Erasmus, with new care in the year 1552; and he himself published it under the name of Theophylact, corrected in very many places. His dedicatory Epistle to the reverend in Christ

^A Father Carolus de Croy, Bishop of Tournai, is dated from Paris, from your house in Tournai, on October 12, in the year of our Lord 1552 (add five hundred). These things are held therein: "Through friends, I have finally obtained an ancient (Greek) exemplar which Erasmus had used; and from it, not without great labor, we have diligently emended our Latin version in almost infinite places, as best we could." I use the Basel edition of 1554, in-folio. In the Preface to the Reader, the judgment regarding previous versions is stated as follows: "The version of Porsena, an educated man, I suppose, and elegant, departs much from the Greek—not to say that it frequently disagrees with it—in that it is rather paraphrastic and even excessively free, as it frequently adds things not contained in the Greek, and conversely, in many places, omits several verses which are nevertheless clearly contained in our ancient Greek manuscript. Having omitted that version, I say, we have seized instead upon the interpretation of Lonicerus, and have retained it here and there wherever it was tolerable." Regarding other things which he prefixes, I offer his words: "We have followed the fidelity of the Greek codex—which D. Erasmus had once used—as diligently as we could, according to our own mediocrity, unless where the scribe seemed to have dozed off. For it would be extremely absurd to embrace the scribe with too much good faith, that is, together with his errors themselves: which Lonicerus is often caught doing." ^B Then, truly, he exhibits specimens of the errors he corrected: he diligently relates what, besides, he thought ought to be provided so that the edition might be clear and useful. It would be worth the effort to note one thing: the Vulgate version in the Pauline text, which the Church uses everywhere, is almost entirely retained by Montanus himself, unless where the interpretation of Theophylact forced him to alter it; although this was not observed everywhere. In this edition, the Observations of Latinus Latinius are provided.

44. The same Latinius, in the year 1557, in which he sent an Epistle from Rome, 3 Nones of October, to Andreas Masius, says: "Those things which have been published under the name of Theophylact on the Epistles of Paul are—as Sirletus has confirmed—clearly not his, but those of a certain Athanasius, a Byzantine monk who flourished three hundred years before our age; and in that matter, I not only agree with you, who cite those Commentaries under the name of Athanasius, but also with those who for many years past have most constantly acknowledged that name, and have taken care for it to be placed before the books being transcribed." ^C (XX) A new author of the Expositions of which we are treating is foisted upon us: Athanasius the Byzantine monk, who is said to have flourished three hundred years before the age of Latinius, namely in the thirteenth century. What motive the most learned man might have been induced by to adjudicate the work to an Athanasius of a later age is not known. But who was that Athanasius the Byzantine monk? Various Greek writers under that name occur in Fabricius’ *Bibliotheca Graeca*: nor is there anyone ready to whom you might ascribe the aforementioned Commentaries. At the end of the thirteenth century, Athanasius, monk of Gani, flourished, and was patriarch of the royal city after Gregorius Cyprius. Fabricius and Oudinus exhibit a catalog of his works, which are quite numerous: and in it, there is no mention of the work of which we are treating. The aforementioned Oudinus thinks that the Commentaries on the Psalms, which Montfaucon published under the name of Athanasius of Alexandria, are the offspring of the same man.

But what of the fact that the most ancient and high-quality manuscripts most constantly attribute the work which is called into doubt to Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria? I mention the codex of Erasmus and others examined by Joannes Faber. In Lambecius, book V, three are numbered: 221, 222, 223, in which the Commentaries on all the Epistles of Paul are ascribed to our Theophylact. The codex, in fact marked 221, was written by the hand of Leo de Rhaul in the month of August, indiction II, in the year of Christ 1139. Among the manuscripts of the Royal Taurinensis library of the Athenaeum, volume I, there appear under number 273, under the same name of Theophylact, Archbishop of Achrida in Bulgaria, Commentaries on some of the Epistles of divine Paul: and the authors of the index note, "The Proemium to the first Epistle to the Corinthians is very different from that which is in the published editions:" which they produce there in full. ^D Simonius, Casimirus Oudinus, and others count similar codices, including the Royal Parisian, the Augustan, the Bavarico-Monacensis, the Anglicans, and the Florentine Medicean. These things are sufficient for every doubt regarding the true author to be dispelled.

45. The Greek text had not yet appeared in print. Light was seen on it at London in the year 1636, fol., from the Arundel manuscript and two other Oxonian ones, according to the care and study of Augustinus Lindsellus, Bishop of Hereford, whom death carried off before the edition. Added to it is the Latin version on the opposite side, which, as the editors profess, "is indeed that of Philippus Montanus, but everywhere so interpolated by us, and recalled to the truth of the Greeks, that if it had been permitted by the typographical operations, which were importunately hurried, there would have been less tediousness..."

BERNARDI MARIE DE RUBEIS DISSERTATIO

had the typographical labors been allowed to proceed with less unseemly haste, there would have been less tedium, and it would have been better to produce something new; this will be clear to those who commissioned the work. Furthermore, as Simonio notes, the reason why many errors were left in this review of the interpretations of the ancients is that they were teeming with them. The lauded Simonio commends a more meticulous diligence in these Commentaries of Theophylact than in others. Minor digressions are absent, nor do allegories occur frequently. Chrysostom is plucked throughout: his name occurs occasionally—the blessed John, the all-great John, John among the saints—but it shows that other ancient writers were also excerpted, as the inscription of Codex 222 in Lambecius indicates: *Exposition... collected from the works of Saint John Chrysostom and other ancient Fathers*. Theophylact pursues heretics throughout these Commentaries and hands on the theological doctrines of the Greeks. ^A

XII.

The Commentary on the canonical Epistles, which has not yet seen the light in either Latin or Greek, is contained in the Vienna and Paris codices. The Exposition on the four minor prophets ^B appeared in a mutilated state, under the editorship of Lonicerus, translated into Latin: Christoph Heinrich Ritmeier supplied its defect. The Venetian Marcian and Vienna codices contain the exposition on five minor prophets; the entire work, the Bavarian-Munich codex, was prepared by Theophylact at the command of Empress Maria.

46. The Imperial Vienna codices, which we often mention, 220, 221, and 222, present Commentaries on the canonical Epistles under the name of Theophylact. Labbe mentions the Paris codex in the *Nova Bibliotheca mss. librorum*, part ii, § 1, page 80. Another appears in Supplement x, page 386. The work has not yet been published in print, in either Latin or Greek.

47. Through the translation and editorship of Johann Lonicer, the Latin *Exposition on the four minor prophets* [XXI], Habakkuk, Jonah, Nahum, and Hosea, was published in Frankfurt in the year 1534, in 8vo. Several later editions were produced. In the Preface to the Reader, which is dated in the same year, 1534, Lonicerus recounts: "Friar Angelus of Lucca, vicar of St. Anthony, gave to be copied, in the most illustrious Venetian library, Theophylact's *Exegesis* of these four prophets mentioned a little earlier, which had been commended, and he collated the copies with the autograph... Therefore, he says, they will be grateful to the angelic mind of this Angel ^C who will derive at least some pleasure for their spirits from these lucubrations." Angelus of Lucca presided over the Venetian cenobite order of Canons Regular under the title of St. Anthony. Domenico Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, had placed his own notable library there, which was later consumed by fire.

Concerning the defect of the codex, Lonicerus complains: "Because the prophet Hosea is *acephalous* (headless), *lagaros*, and *meiouros* (truncated). Therefore, at the beginning, we have added what was missing from the Greek Bibles (namely, the first chapter and the first ten verses of the second chapter). In the middle, if anything was missing, we did the same, and asterisks * * will indicate it. From the eleventh chapter to the end, it perished, corroded by moths and bookworms; for which reason it also seemed appropriate to omit the context of the prophet, which can be seen by anyone in the Bibles."

This defect was, to some extent, remedied under favorable auspices by Christoph Heinrich Ritmeier, who published the Commentary on the beginning of the second chapter of Hosea—copied in Greek from the transcript of Jo. Andreas Bosius from the Strasbourg codex—together with his own version and notes at Helmstadius in 1702, through Johann Albert Fabricius.

48. The Venice Marcian codex contains the entire Exegesis on the same four prophets, and furthermore upon Micah. The first leaf is partially torn; which is certainly to be lamented. Similar is the Imperial Vienna codex 216 in Lambecius, in which the Commentaries are contained on Hosea, Habakkuk, Jonah, Nahum, and Micah. The title of the codex is: *Exegesis on the twelve prophets*: from which it appears (Lambecius says) that Theophylact illustrated all twelve minor prophets in his Commentaries. ^D

The Bavarian-Munich codex comprises the entire work. The Commentaries appear in it in the following order: On Hosea, Habakkuk, Jonah, Nahum, Micah, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Joel, Amos, Obadiah. The first chapter of Hosea lacks a commentary, as does the first verse of the second chapter. In the exposition of chapter iv, a gap is evident from verse 3 to verse 6. The last three chapters, XII, XIII, and XIV, are perfect and complete, with their

49 DE THEOPHYLACTI GESTIS ET SCRIPTIS 50

commentaries, which are lacking in Lonicer’s edition. Others appear in a small blank space in the codex. However, by collating the codices we have mentioned with one another, the entire loss can be repaired.

The aforementioned Venetian Marcian codex provides the first prologue to all of the Minor Prophets, from which we learn that the work was labored over by Theophylact at the command of the Empress Maria. We received a Greek transcript from the most gracious and learned man Antonio Zanetti, son of Alexander, the custodian of the library. The beginning is: [Greek omitted] — fulfilling the command of the Empress, who loves God and learning, that is to say, that I should produce a shorter and clearer work from the commentaries already made on the prophets, I pray, etc. And further below: [Greek omitted] — if, then, anything has been accomplished according to the intention of this woman, the best among women (whose eyes and mind are like a dove’s), it will be the work of her own clearly divine spirit, intention, and faith. Johann Albert Fabricius hoped in his *Bibliotheca Graeca*, vol. VII, pag. 765, that these full Commentaries, culled from the monuments of the older Fathers, would soon be brought to light by the learned man Johann Heinrich Lederlin, professor of Oriental languages at the University of Strasbourg, who had copied them from a Greek codex in the public library of that city and had promised to publish them in both languages. That pledged faith came to nothing; but the Venetian edition will provide what has heretofore not been able to be obtained.

XXII. XIII.

Eleven homilies on the same number of Matutinal Gospels of the Resurrection of the Lord are attributed to Theophylact in the codices. Indeed, they are entirely the very Commentaries of Theophylact himself on the same gospels, with the exception of the final part of the eleventh homily. It seems that some later Greek [author] added this final part and then arranged Theophylact’s commentaries into the aforementioned homilies.

49. There are other works of a sacred nature produced by Theophylact. The Caesarea-Vienna codex, which Lambecius reviews in book V as number 263, exhibits eleven homilies on the same number of gospels for the Matutinal Office of the Resurrection of the Lord. These eleven gospels are usually called *anastasima* [resurrectional], by which the memory of the Lord's Resurrection is celebrated: and they are also called *eothina* [morning gospels], because the Greeks read them in the morning Office. They are indeed taken thus: the first from Matthew, the second and third from Mark, the fourth, fifth, and sixth from Luke; and the remaining five from John.

Goarius, in his *Euchologion* on page 722 of the Venetian edition, provides their beginning and end from Greek books. To be sure, the first begins at chapter XXVIII of Matthew, v. 16: *But the eleven disciples went into Galilee*; and ends at v. 20, *unto the consummation of the world*.

The second begins at chapter XVI of Mark at v. 1: *And when the Sabbath was past*; to v. 8, *they were afraid*.

The beginning of the third is in the same chapter at v. 9: *But being risen early on the first day of the Sabbath*; the end is at v. 20, *with signs following*.

The fourth begins at chapter XXIV of Luke at v. 1: *And on the first day of the week, very early in the morning*; it ends at v. 12, *departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass*.

The fifth is in the same place at v. 13: *And behold, two of them went*; to v. 35, *And how he was known of them in breaking of bread*.

The sixth is in the same place from v. 36: *And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them*; to v. 53, *praising and blessing God*.

The beginning of the seventh is at chapter XX of John at v. 1: *The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene*; the end is at v. 10, *Then the disciples went away again unto their own home*.

The eighth is in the same place from v. 11: *But Mary stood without at the sepulchre*; to v. 18, *That she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her*.

The ninth begins in the same place at v. 19: *Then the same day at evening*; it ends at v. 31, *That believing ye might have life through his name*.

The beginning of the tenth is at chapter XXI, v. 1: *After these things Jesus shewed himself again*; the end is at v. 14, *This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself*.

The eleventh begins in the same place from v. 15: *So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter*; to v. 25, *I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written*.

^A The Typica and Canons teach which Gospels are to be read on these weeks and days. Consult Dufresne in his Greek Glossary. In the same place there are eleven Gospels, and the same number of homilies by Theophanes Kerameus exist among the bibliographers.

50. I was writing these things, when there came into my hands a copy of a Caesarea-Vienna codex, which contains the aforementioned eleven homilies under the name of Theophylact. It is written: *in the year 7015, in the month of June, on the 28th*, that is, in the year of Christ 1507. A diligent collation having been made immediately with Theophylact’s *Commentaries on the Four Gospels*, it became clear and certain that all these homilies were transcribed from them word for word, except for the latter part of the eleventh homily.

The situation is as follows: That eleventh homily begins at v. 15 of the twenty-first chapter of John, *So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter*. There follows Theophylact’s Exposition, exactly the same as in the *Commentary* up to v. 23, *If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?* However, in the *Commentary*, the exposition ends thus: «Others, however, affirm that he has died (John :) and that when he says, *If I will that he tarry*, they understand it as we have interpreted. We have stated all the opinions, so that scholars might not be ignorant of any. But it pleases us that *Till I come* should be understood, as seems best to that divine and golden-mouthed one, Chrysostom, not regarding his life: but that he is not to be joined to Peter.» ^B After this follow the last two verses of the Gospel, *This is the disciple* [XXIII] *that testifieth*, etc., and with these words begins Theophylact’s interpretation: «Wherefore, since no other of the evangelists offered testimony concerning himself, this one testifies concerning himself, etc.»

But this last part of the Exposition differs greatly in the homily; and many things precede it which are missing from the *Commentary*. The discrepancy begins from those words, «Others, however, affirm.» Namely, «Others, however, affirm» (I use the Latin version, which my learned and skilled colleague in oriental languages, Bonifacius Finettus, has prepared) «that he had properly fallen asleep, that is, died. For after Domitian, Nerva reigned for one year, who, having recalled John from the island of Patmos, permitted him to live at Ephesus. When he had remained here alone, surviving all the disciples, and had written the Gospel, he rested in peace.» Concerning this matter, the testimony of Eusebius is brought forward in *Ecclesiastical History*, Book III, chapters 1 and 31, and likewise that of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, in Eusebius himself, Book V, chapter 24, and finally that of Hippolytus the Roman, or Portuensis, in his tract *On the Preaching and Death of the Apostles*, which Francis Combefis published and illustrated with notes. All these bear witness that John departed this life at Ephesus.

The sayings of these three witnesses in the homily are followed there by an interpretation of the Gospel passage, *If I will that he tarry*, which is attributed to Caesarius, the brother of Gregory Nazianzen, in his *Questions or Dialogues on Weighty Matters*. These are found in the Lyons *Bibliotheca Patrum*, vol. V. At the end of the first dialogue, these things are held, which are the same as those in the homily: «How is it that the Lord says to Peter concerning John the evangelist, *If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?* which indicates that he lives until the consummation of the age. RESP. John himself declared this in his Gospel toward the end, saying: *And when he had said to him*—that is, to Peter—*Follow me: then Peter, turning, etc.*: for since he had hindered them while fishing, he warned Peter to follow him. But he wished also to have his fellow disciple go with them, and says to Jesus: *Lord, and what shall this man do?* Jesus, wishing to indicate whom he meant, namely that he ought to remain by the sea (fishing), says: *If I will that he tarry* (to fish) *till I come* (or return hither), *what is that to thee?*» ^C In the passage of the *Dialogues* cited in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, they are attributed to Caesarius, «at the time when he was a secretary, and was staying in Constantinople teaching for twenty years.» In the homily it reads thus: *Κααισαριος ερωτηθεις εν Κωνσταντινουπολει επι συκρετου (σεκρετου) περι τουτου*, «Caesarius, being questioned concerning this privately and familiarly, answered.» Those words *επι συκρετου*, or *επι σεκρετου*, taken together, signify «secretary» or «one of the secretaries»: but in our codex they are written separately, and signify «in secret,» or «privately and familiarly,» as Peter Lambeck most learnedly notes in Book IV, page 37, where he corrects the other words that follow: and he vindicates that work with much erudition as the genuine offspring of Caesarius.

51. But did Theophylact, in his *Commentary on John*, add these parts—in which the resurrection of the Lord is discussed—a second time, and reduce them into the eleven aforementioned homilies? I am inclined to judge that some later Greek transcribed the homilies for the eleven matins Gospels of the Resurrection from Theophylact’s *Commentaries*, and then inserted the last part into that very Theophylact...

increased by interpolation. Following his custom, the Bulgarian archbishop refers to various opinions of others in the Commentary, and prefers to them the exposition of John Chrysostom. Contrary to this custom, the interpolator—for such he is—has inserted and added the testimonies of Eusebius, Polycrates, and Hippolytus concerning the death of John the Evangelist; and he introduced a new interpretation by Caesarius. Then, indeed, by way of confirmation, he notes: that the disciples frequently erred in many respects regarding the questions and answers of Christ. And finally, that opinion which Theophylact had mentioned earlier and left in the middle—concerning John the Evangelist being kept alive together with Enoch and Elijah to announce the advent of Christ—he calls to examination, and refutes it by the testimony of John himself in the Apocalypse, chapter XI, verse 3 and following, where there is mention of only two witnesses. These things certainly do not at all savor of the method most constantly observed by Theophylact.

There follow two final comments on the Gospel according to John: *This is that disciple who bears witness of these things*, etc. In the commentary, one reads a grave, solid, and historical interpretation: that John bears witness of himself, since no other of the [XXIV] evangelists has done this; that he was the last to write the Gospel, having been awakened by Christ; and for this reason he often makes mention of the love with which the divine Master had vouchsafed to honor him in a special way. There is another exposition in a homily which seems quite forced: "I, that disciple beloved by the Lord, and who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, confirm that I am to die according to the law of nature. Or alternatively: He who was proclaimed by the apostles as not to die, is the very one who bears witness of these things." No one could see any consistency in such an interpretation. The rest are said excellently in the commentary and are explained at greater length. But the things contained in the homily are lightweight, crawl on the ground, and are comprised in few words. If I am not mistaken, the offspring of some more recent Greek appears most clearly.

XIV.

52. I now turn my discourse to other minor works of a sacred nature. Jacob Gretser transcribed from the Bavarian-Munich codex the homily on the Adoration of the Venerable Cross at the middle of the Lenten period, translated it into Latin, and published it in Greek and Latin in volume II of *De sancta cruce*, and also illustrated it with notes. The same Gretser notes in Book I, chapter 67, that the Greeks celebrate a feast day on the third Sunday of Lent, on which they propose the cross for adoration, in almost the same manner as the Latins expose the cross for adoration on the day of the most sacred Good Friday. He brings forward the ritual books of the Greeks, the Book of Saint Sabbas and the Triodion: and he cites George Codinus Curopalates, and the Fathers whose homilies for this feast exist: Chrysostom, Sophronius, Theodore the Studite, Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople, Philotheus, Xiphilinus, Theophylact. It is called by the simple term in Codinus, σταυροπροσκύνησις. In this year 1733, it is celebrated on the 14th of March, according to the old style; but according to the Gregorian correction, on the 25th of the same month.

The homily on the Presentation of the Blessed Mary in the Temple, translated into Latin, exists in Combefis, in volume VIII of the *Bibliotheca concionatoria* in the appendix. In the minor work entitled *Recensiti auctores Bibliothecae Patrum concionatoriae*, published at Paris in 1662, the aforementioned Combefis speaks thus: "Beyond the common Works of Theophylact, there came into my hands, when this *Bibliotheca concionatoria* was nearly finished, from a manuscript codex of the distinguished Raphael Dufresne, of blessed memory, that learned and pious oration of his on the Presentation of the Blessed Mary in the Temple, to be favored by many for that subject over others, which in the end we have decided to present as an appendix." I shall not pass over his words also, which we read in the short preface to the appendix of volume VIII of the *Bibliotheca concionatoria*, saying: "Late, indeed, having arrived from Italy, through the care and diligence of the distinguished man Raphael Tronchet Dufresne, of Bordeaux—of blessed memory—[there arrived] Greek manuscript codices, neither few nor to be despised; and while the catalogue for the auction of his library was being sent to the typesetters, while they were yet immature and owing to the tenderness of his own offspring; made [possible] by the propense and generous kindness and liberal nature of his wife, a copy of them at such a time, occurs among other things. . . . . clear"

Bern. Mariae de Rubeis Dissertation, 55–56: ...after having brought forward sufficiently and in many ways a more serious treatise on that subject (on the Presentation of the Mother of God in the temple), I have decided, like an addendum to the pile of all things, and with my preaching library already brought to a conclusion, to render it here.

^B 53. Under the name of Archbishop Theophylact, there exists in the Imperial Library of Vienna, in codex 224, *Προσλαλιὰ τινὶ τῶν αὐτοῦ ὁμιλιτῶν περὶ ὧν ἐγκαλοῦνται Λατίνοι*, a Dissertation (or Address) to one of his familiars regarding those matters for which the Latins are reproached by the Greeks. "Lambecius mentions," he says, "this Dissertation of Leo Allatius in book II of *De Ecclesiae Occidentalis et Orientalis perpetua consensione*, chapter 10, § 2, in these words: 'Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria... wrote to Nicholas the deacon and *castrensis*, who was later Bishop of Melesoba, a Treatise on the errors of the Latins.' A Colloquy [XXV] by the same person exists in the Bavarian library regarding the accusations of the Latins... Whether this is something other than the treatise he wrote to Nicholas, the curators of that library will explain."

Some fragments of the Epistles to Nicholas the deacon are reported by Demetrius Chomatenus, Archbishop of Bulgaria, in his *Responses to Constantine Cabasilas, Archbishop of Dyrrachium*, in Leunclavius's *Jus Graeco-Romanum*, book V, page 318. Indeed, these fragments are found in the aforementioned Dissertation in the same words. In Greek it is inscribed *Προσλαλιὰ*, an Address, or Colloquy: from which it does not differ, because the Bavarian library preserves a *Colloquium*. We learn all these things from a transcript of the aforementioned Dissertation, which, having been copied from the Viennese codex and sent to Venice, we have seen and evaluated.

...[*κα]στρίσιον*. The Latin interpreter translates it as "to Nicholas the deacon and *castrensem*," with this last word being translated poorly and ineptly. Petrus Pithoeus, in his *Dissertation on the history of the controversy regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit*, warns that it should be translated as *canistrarium*. It can also be translated as *canstrisium*, correctly in either way. Among the ecclesiastical offices in Codinus, in the second group of five, we find *ὁ κανστρίσιος, εἰς τὸ κανστρίον, καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀλλάσσειν τὸν ἀρχιερέα*. The *Canstrisius* is the one in charge of the *canistrum*, and he serves the patriarch when he changes his vestments. Goarius teaches more in his notes: "You will also find *Κανστρήσιος* written, as well as *καστρίσιος* and *καστρήνσιος*, and because of various Greek characters, it is variously rendered in Latin (canstresius, castrinsius, castrensius). The sense must be sought where the character hardly helps. I see that *Κανστρίσιον* is said to be from *κανστρίου*: (which) I interpret as the tray for blessed bread, or rather the box for incense, or finally the basket suitable for receiving the patriarch's vestments."

I add the useful observation of Jacob Gretser: "Bonefidius in his *Jus Orientale* calls it *castrensem*, incorrectly. For there is no place for a *castrensis* in the Church and ecclesiastical offices. Therefore, he is called a *canstrisius*, as if *canistrius* from *canistrum*. His right was *εἰς τὸ κανστρίον*, says Codinus, 'to the basket,' and his duty was *καὶ εἰς τὸ ἀλλάσσειν τὸν ἀρχιερέα*, also to assist and dress the patriarch or bishop when the vestments had to be changed for the performance of the divine rite, together with the *hieromemnon* [another official, the assistant of the canstrisius]. Therefore, *canstrion* seems to be nothing other here than the vestry, or the place of sacred vestments: and the *canstrisius* himself is nothing other than he who is called the *vestiarius* among palatine dignities."

^C 55. In the same Epistle to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius*, or Dissertation, or Address, or Colloquy, all the arguments against the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son are found expressed in those very words, which John Beccus, Patriarch of Constantinople, brings forth with his Refutations in *Oration 1 on the union of the Churches*, in Allatius, volume I of *Graecia orthodoxa*, from page 215. From this, there is no need to doubt or suspect in the future regarding the unity of the work, which until now, on account of the various aforementioned titles—Epistle, Dissertation, and Colloquy—was distributed into several small works.

XV.

The Royal Institution to Constantine Porphyrogenitus edited in Greek and Latin by Petrus Possinus, and the Oration to Emperor Alexius Comnenus in the Bavarian-Munich codex. Unpublished poems and Epistles published by Baronius and Meursius. Doubtful and supposititious works.

56. Regarding the class of humanities, I consider what follows, the lucubrations of Theophylact. In the first place, I review the *Royal Institution* to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the son of the Emperor Michael IV Ducas and Maria, born of the royal blood of the Iberians. The most illustrious work was first brought to light by Petrus Possinus from the Florentine Medici library.

as he advises in the dedicatory epistle to Louis XIV, the Most Christian King of France and Navarre, printed at the Royal Press in Paris, 1651, in quarto. A Latin version appeared in volume XVIII of the *Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum*, and Banduri published it again with the Greek text in his *Imperium Orientale*. The work is divided into two parts: the former a panegyric, the latter paraenetic. The time when Theophylact wrote it, we have mentioned in no. 8.

[XXVI] The Latinus Latinius mentions an oration to the Emperor Alexius Comnenus in his *Bibliotheca sacra profana*, where he treats of Theophylact, in these words: "His Oration to the same Alexius is extant, and thus Laurentius Sifanius wrote from Joannes Sambucus in the preface to Theophylact’s Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles." I have a transcript before me, described from the Bavarian-Munich codex, which the praised colleague Bonifacius Finettus translated into Latin.

The author composed this panegyrical oration after the Scythian war, and the many victories reported therein by the Emperor Alexius. Anna Comnena describes it at length in the whole of book VII of the *Alexiad*, and at the beginning of the following book VIII, where she reports the entry of the Augustus into the royal city, celebrated "with all joy and congratulation." In the same book VII, we read that Robert, Count of Flanders, who was giving aid to the army increasing against the Scythians—returning from Jerusalem (*Jerosolymis revertentem*)—had come to Alexius. He had undertaken this pilgrimage a decade before the holy expeditions, namely in the year 1085; Meyer, in book III, cited by Dufresne in the notes to book VII of the *Alexiad*, is the authority that he had not yet returned in the year 1089. Therefore, the Scythian war ended after the year 1089, and at that time the panegyric was written by Theophylact.

In it are these words of his: "Why do you not acknowledge the king, your son, as king (*cur regem filium non renuntias regem*), but delay the desired proclamation (*sed desideratam detrectas renuntiationem in regem*?)" These words sufficiently indicate that John had not yet been assumed by his father Alexius into the partnership of the empire. This was indeed done in the year 1091, as Pagi states, when he was four years old: whence around the year 1090, Theophylact celebrated the Emperor Alexius in his encomium.

In Labbe’s *Nova Bibliotheca mss.*, part IV, page 137, a royal codex is reviewed along with the consolatory verses of Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, in calamity. Indeed, he mentions the poems which he himself sang in the letter among the Meursian collection, 20: "I warded off with iambic verses the need to sing many elegies throughout the year (*propulsavi carminibus iambicis multas elegias per annum canere coactus*)."

Finally, two manuscripts of the letters are known, the Vatican and the Florentine Medicean. From the latter, 75 of Theophylact’s letters were published in Greek under the care of Joannes Meursius, Leiden 1617, in quarto, and in Latin in the Cologne and Lyons *Bibliotheca Patrum*, translated by Vincentius Marinerius of Valencia. Fifty-nine letters exist in the Vatican codex, Baronius attesting, which, rendered into Latin by Jacobus Sirmondus, have not yet seen the light of day, except for a few and fragments of some, which Baronius cites for the years 1071 and 1073. Recall what was said above in no. 4.

Labbe had promised in the *Nova Bibliotheca mss. librorum*, part III, page 102, "that he would compare the Greek Leiden edition of Joannes Meursius with the manuscript codex, and edit the interpretation long ago prepared by the Reverend Father Jacobus Sirmondus;" which he himself, either prevented by death or occupied by more pressing business, did not perform. Would that it could at last be completed.

A fragment exists in the *Bibliotheca Patrum* under the name of Theophylact, entitled *On Laughter and Shouting*. It is available in the Lyons *Bibliotheca Patrum*, vol. V, page 1214. Indeed: "Nay, he introduced this custom which prevails today, that in splendid and solemn festivities, toward God and the remembrance of the saints, insult is done through foul songs, and laughter, and insane clamors, to the accompaniment of which holy hymns are sung." Philippus Labbe, in his historical *Dissertatio* on ecclesiastical writers addressed to Bellarmine, says thus: "Whether the fragment *On Laughter and Shouting in the Feasts of the Saints* belongs to him [Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria] or to another Theophylact, perhaps Simocatta, is ambiguous." Joannes Albertus Fabricius treats of Theophylact Simocatta more diligently in his *Bibliotheca Graeca*, volume VI, and notes that he flourished in the final times of the Emperor Heraclius and thereafter. Finally, the praised Labbe gives his judgment on the Archbishop of Bulgaria in the *Addenda*, saying: "Archbishop of Achrida, rather, than the other Theophylacts..."

^A The same Labbe mentions another fragment of Theophylact concerning Nicephorus the Confessor, as if it were inserted into the *Bibliothecae Patrum*: which (says Fabricius in *Theophylacto Simocatta*) I find nowhere. Understand this to be the holy Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, who, having been sent into exile for the sake of the veneration of sacred images, departed this life in the year 828. The continuators of Bollandus treat of him at the 13th day of March; nor do they indicate anything that Theophylact might have written concerning him.

Possevinus, reviewing his works in the *Apparatus Sacer* in volume II, says as follows: "Commentaries and Enarrations on the prophets, joined with an explanation of David's Psalter, were in manuscript in the imperial library at Vienna in Austria." Let these words not deceive anyone; it is necessary to note that they refer to manuscript 216 in Lambecius, book V, in which first occur the *Expositions on the five prophets*—namely, the minor ones, Hosea, Habakkuk, Jonah, Nahum, and Micah—by Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria. Next, from folio 218 onwards, is the *Exposition on the Psalter of David* by Nicephorus Blemmydes; and from folio 356, an exposition by the same Blemmydes on the Appendix of the Davidic Psalter, namely, on the Odes. Let him, therefore, who reads the words of Possevinus be careful not to attribute to our Theophylact any exposition on the Psalms ^B and Odes.

In the Venetian library of Saint Mark, there exists manuscript number 26, in which, after Theophylact’s *Commentaries on the five minor prophets*, there appears: *Nicetae episcopi metropoleos Naupacti Syntagma in Evangelium Matthaei, collectum praecipue ex interpretationibus Chrysostomi aliorumque diversorum* (A compilation on the Gospel of Matthew by Nicetas, bishop of the metropolis of Naupactus, collected chiefly from the interpretations of Chrysostom and various others). But the names of neither Chrysostom nor other ancient interpreters are expressed, as is usually the case in *Catenae*. The prologue begins: "Εδει μὲν ἡμᾶς μὴ δεῖσθαι τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν γραμμάτων βοηθείας" (It was fitting that we should have no need of help from writings). This is identical with that which is read prefixed to the *Catena of the Holy Fathers on the Gospel according to Matthew*, published by Petrus Possinus in volume I of the *Symbola Graecorum Patrum*. But the *Catena* which follows in this place differs entirely from the *Syntagma*. In the beginning of this latter, some things occur which are exactly the same as in Theophylact’s *Commentary*. How the matter stands is revealed by a note written in Greek on folio 64 of the same manuscript, which, as being most worthy of notice, the illustrious editors of the Greek *Bibliotheca Divi Marci* have made public in their review of the same manuscript, with both Greek and Latin. The Latin interpretation is: "In another book I found the present exposition under the name of the bishop of Bulgaria, namely, the lord Theophylact: but what was in that book agreed with this one principally at the beginning; in its progress, however, it diverged. Wherefore I judge that this was attributed to the bishop of Naupactus, who borrowed many things from Theophylact or Chrysostom: ^C since he was also later in time than Theophylact." It is now clear that in some manuscripts *Expositions* appear under the name of Theophylact which were falsely attributed to him.

The author of the *Syntagma* is called in the note Nicetas, bishop of the metropolis of Naupactus. In Montfaucon’s *Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum MSS*, volume I, page 27, column 2, the following inscription is read among the codices of Queen Christina of Sweden in the Vatican: *Nicetae episcopi nuncupati expositio in quatuor Evangelia* (The exposition of the so-called bishop Nicetas on the four Gospels); where the esteemed editors of the *Marciana Veneta Bibliotheca* note, by a likely conjecture, that the word *nuncupati* ("so-called") was put in place of *Naupacti*. There is no mention of this Nicetas, bishop of the metropolis of Naupactus, in Michael Lequien’s *Oriens Christianus*, volume II, column 198 and following, in the same Church of Naupactus: nor is this a wonder, since the complete series of their bishops is missing. Contemporary with Theophylact flourished Nicetas, bishop of Serrae, and later of Heraclea. To him was sent the ninth of Theophylact’s letters among those of Meursius, namely: "Τῷ διδασκάλῳ κυρίῳ Νικήτα, τῷ τῶν Σεῤῥῶν" (To the master lord Nicetas, [bishop] of the Serrae). He is the one who wrote scholia on the Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. The first words of the praised letter are: "Καὶ σὺ, ὃ τοῦ Εὐαγγελίου τῆς ἀληθείας ἐξηγητὴς..." (Even you, who were an interpreter of the Gospel of truth, have been convicted of falsehood, etc.). Did he, therefore, write a *Commentary* or a *Catena* on the Gospels? Possinus attributes to him the *Catena* which he published in volume II of his *Symbola*. But, in fact, the first among the authors cited in the same work, whose sentiments are gathered as flowers, is Nicetas. Compilers of *Catenae* of this kind are frequently obscure.

It would not be a wonder if there occur in the *Syntagma* cited above not a few things that agree with the genuine *Commentary* of Theophylact: for either Nicetas was excerpting Theophylact—

[LATIN COLUMN]

61 DE THEOPHYLACTI GESTIS ET SCRIPTIS. 62 that man, who lived in a later age, or both of them were condensing the one John Chrysostom. This was also observed by Petrus Possinus in the *Catena*, which he published in print, in volume I, without the name of the collector, whom he professes in his Preface that he does not know, because "the title of the work, being inscribed in less adhesive red lettering, he could by no means trace." He notes, however, that the many things which the compiler, whoever he is, attributes to Chrysostom, are almost all to be found in Theophylact, if you look at the meaning: for the words, as far as I have noticed, are always different. Sometimes our author (the author of the *Catena*, that is) is more verbose, even where he compresses Theophylact into fewer words: though if indeed he ever saw Theophylact, he perhaps drew them from the same source whence Theophylact himself entirely depends, the common fountain of both, Chrysostom.

XVI. A review of Theophylact’s doctrine, in which some chapters are discussed with a special examination: and first, he disapproves of the pretext of the schism of the Greeks, which is derived from the difference in rites. He treats particularly of the oblation in unleavened bread, and of the fast of the Sabbath. The eating of strangled meats, which he condemns, is vindicated as harmless. Petrus, Patriarch of Antioch, and Demetrius Chomatenus, Archbishop of Bulgaria, favor the Latins.

59. These works of Theophylact, which we have reviewed thus far, though they are excellent, are nevertheless not without some flaws and defects. I do not mean those interpretations of the divine Eloquence which more skilled interpreters, having discussed them with a more accurate examination, do not approve or indeed reject, as being less consonant with sacred history or the mind of the sacred writer. I mean the particular errors of doctrine into which he stumbled, whether out of human infirmity or out of a prejudice common to his countrymen. But there are also certain chapters of doctrine in him, some of which—setting aside partisan zeal—he handed down, illustrated, and defended against the opinions prevailing among the Greeks: others he taught most clearly, providing a magnificent testimony of the true faith of the Greek Church against the heresies of the Lutherans and Calvinists which later arose in the West. From the documents of both classes we select a few, which are to be illustrated in this place.

Concerning the sacred oblation of the Latins in unleavened bread and the fast of the Sabbath, as well as other rites, the judgment of Theophylact himself is milder and more kindly than that of the rest of the Greeks of his own age and of the following age. In the eleventh century of the Church, in which he was born and lived his life, and flourished in learning and positions of dignity, the pitiable and unspeakable Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, together with Leo of Bulgaria, Archbishop of Achrida, and Niketas Pectoratus the monk, had stirred up a schism: and he held out as the causes for kindling and fostering it the consecration in unleavened bread, the fast of the Sabbath, the eating of strangled meats, and the diversity of other rites. It is the most manifest opinion of Theophylact that this was in no way a cause for promoting a schism. He reveals and vindicates this in his *Epistle to the Deacon and Canstrisins Nicholas*, which we possess in Greek from a Cæsarean-Vindobonensian manuscript, translated into Latin by Bonifacius Finettus. That deacon had asked Theophylact to refute briefly, as far as possible, the errors of the Latins concerning ecclesiastical matters. "Since, you said (the words are Theophylact's own), they are many, and have no small power to rend the Churches. We, however, although we know that many, or rather almost all, think so, do not think so at all: nor do we acknowledge that their errors are many, or such that they are fit to rend the Churches apart: ^A οὔτε σχίζειν Ἐκκλησίας δυνάμενα." ^B He proceeds to recount the errors of the Latins which the deacon accused: "In many things, indeed, the Latins seem to err. Specifically, they offer unleavened bread, they fast on the Sabbath, they do not count the days of the fasts before the Passion as we do, they dissolve the marriages of clerics, but permit those of the laity indiscriminately: they shave their beards (let it not make you laugh), not only others, but also those who are in holy orders; and their hands shine with rings, and they wear priestly vestments interwoven with silken threads, and adorned with various colors: and indeed they even eat meats, and when they adore the Lord they fall to the ground."

Note those words, *let it not make you laugh*; and safely conclude that most of the accusations of this kind against the Latins appeared to Theophylact worthy of laughter. Accept his judgment: "I, indeed, think that of these (which are called errors), some deserve no amendment; others, however, are in need of a mediocre one; if anyone should accomplish this, he might indeed render some, though but a small, benefit to the Church; if, however, he cannot obtain this, it should not be reckoned among the damages of the Church."

60. He discourses at length on the oblation in unleavened bread and the Sabbath fast. He disapproves of it, and recommends that they ^C accept the rite of consecration in...

body of Christ out of blind self-love." He also says [XXIX]: "Therefore we shall not act more harshly toward the inflexible stubbornness of the nation, neither on account of unleavened bread, nor on account of fasting."

He calls the Latins stubborn in their rites: yet he does not approve of the hardness of the Greek nation toward them. I refer to these other words of his: "And it matters little, regarding the other things enumerated (rites), which they (the Latins) acknowledge themselves to observe (except for the eating of suffocated things: for the very name of this seems unendurable even to the more prudent Latins...), to be seen as committing many unforgivable sins. It is the mark of a man experienced in ecclesiastical history, I think, not to assent to their arguments; for he knows well that not every custom has the power to divide Churches, but only that which introduces a diversity of dogma. Diverse customs, or even those which appear as errors to these illustrious judges (he criticizes the more fastidious Greeks), have arisen partly from piety and religion, as for instance kissing the sacred pavements (for we do not admit that Satanic slander that the Latins reject the veneration of images); partly indeed from a certain provident dispensation on account of infirmity, perhaps of the soul, but certainly of the body; such as that monks eat meat during their infirmities."

61. Regarding the eating of suffocated things, Humbert, cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of Silva Candida, legate of Pope Leo IX in Constantinople, at the time of Cerularius, testified that according to the discipline of the Roman Church, "a grave penance is imposed upon those who, outside of extreme danger to life, ate of blood, or of any dead carcass, or of that which was strangled." Hence Theophylactus used to say that the very name of "suffocated things" seemed unendurable to the more prudent Latins. A departure has been made from the original rigor: since "where the Church of the nations (as Augustine says in book XXXII, *Against Faustus the Manichaean*, chapter 13) has become such that no carnal Israelite appears in it; now the Christian does not observe this (which had indeed been commanded for a time), that he should not touch thrushes or smaller birds, unless their blood has been poured out; nor should he eat a hare if it was struck by hand on the neck and killed without a bloody wound." Consult the polemical writers who treat this matter more clearly.

62. In the same place, Theophylactus proceeds to exhort them in a longer discourse that they should put aside their enmities and excessive hardness, that they should love the unity of the catholic Church, and that they should not rend it on account of harmless, discrepant customs, or even on account of errors, if there were any, which it is better to forgive. The same mind had once been that of Peter, patriarch of Antioch, in his epistle to Michael Cerularius, which exists in Greek and Latin in Cotelerius’s *Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta*, vol. II. He weighs the accused rites of the Latins, and says in num. VI: "For what does it matter to us if the priests shave their beards, and in sign of betrothal with the holy Church of God wear a ring? We also make the tonsure (coronam) upon the head... But we too wear gold, being clad in gloves, maniples, and stoles interwoven with gold."

He deals in num. VII with the consumption of meat among monks: "But as for the fact that they consume polluted things, and their monks eat meat and pork fat; you will find that these things also, if you should investigate, are done by some of our own people."

He had fought bitterly for fermented bread in the epistle to the patriarch of Grado, Dominicus, which stands in the aforementioned place in Cotelerius. But in this one to Cerularius he says in num. XV: "The question of unleavened bread... is overturned, unless, relying on this canonical dictum (the Latins) asserted: 'It has seemed good to all that ancient customs should be used,' they maintain the ancient tradition of unleavened bread among themselves." And the Latins prove this to be indeed ancient, and strengthened by the example of our Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Antiochene denied this; truly, Theophylactus willingly confesses it, as will be told below. He says finally in num. XVII: "See, most honorable lord, how we do not attend to the things in which our own people sin, or even connive at them; with greater care we sow vain words and curiously investigate the things of others:" those which are either harmless ancient customs, or, if they have contracted any fault, the Roman or Western Church has never admitted it. May the Greeks hold this most prudent counsel of Peter before their eyes!

The same sentiment was held by Demetrius Chomatenus, Archbishop of Achrida in Bulgaria, in a letter to Constantine Cabasilas, Archbishop of the metropolis of Dyrrachium, [XXX] in Leunclavius’ *Jus Graeco-Romanum*, book V. Chomatenus administered his Church in the thirteenth century. He is the one who, in 1222, after Thessalonica had been captured by the Latins, placed the diadem upon Theodore II Angelos as he assumed the imperial insignia; he claimed for himself the right, for the sake of his Church’s autocephaly, to anoint kings or emperors whomever he wished, wherever and whenever he pleased. Consult Lequien on the Archbishops of Achrida. In his responses to the interrogations of Cabasilas regarding Latin errors, he replies according to the mind of Theophylact. His words are: "According to the judgment of this most wise writing (which is Theophylact’s letter to the deacon and *canstrisius* Nicholas, of which some fragments are brought forward), it is clear that in every nation that has received Christ’s preaching, the slightest failings—even if there were any—of their customs are to be regarded... since customs do not have the force to separate one from God in the way that perverse dogmas do. Therefore, we shall not consider the bread consecrated by the Latins unholy and polluted, nor the vessels used by them for sacrifice, nor, consequently, their sacred stoles, or anything of that sort."

XVII.

Theophylact teaches in his letter to the deacon Nicholas that the holy Eucharist was instituted by Christ the Lord in unleavened bread. He teaches the same thing in his Commentaries on Matthew and Luke. He does not contradict this in the Commentary on John, where he teaches that Christ had anticipated His Passover. The passage in Matthew is corrupt in some codices: the source of the corruption. There is also, perhaps, a corrupt passage in Mark, which, however, can be defended.

63. On that question which is argued between the Greeks and the Latins, whether Christ the Lord observed the legal Passover at the legitimate time and whether He performed the eucharistic mystery in unleavened bread, Theophylact opposes his own Greeks and favors the Latins. The Greeks were once attempting, and today still attempt, to wrest from their hands the example of Jesus Christ, who transformed unleavened bread into His own body—the very example by which the Latins defend their rite—by introducing various opinions according to their own leaning.

A certain Meletius in a sermon *On Unleavened Bread*, which stands under the name of John Damascene in Lequien, volume I, contends that "the Jews were accustomed to eat the paschal lamb without unleavened bread," and that such unleavened loaves were not brought to the table "before the fifteenth day," for example, reckoned from midnight of the first month. Peter of Antioch, patriarch, stumbled into this error—which is undoubtedly contrary to the prescription of the Mosaic Law—in a letter to Dominic of Grado, found in Cotelerius’ *Monumenta Ecclesiae Graecae*, volume II. Two anonymous authors took a different path, whom Photius reviews in his *Bibliotheca*, cod. CXV and CXVI; they thought "that Christ the Lord did not eat the legitimate Passover at that final supper." From this, either he or they seem to conclude that the bread which Christ used at the mystical supper was not unleavened. Finally, there were others, whom Euthymius Zigabenus followed, saying that "Christ had anticipated the Jewish Passover by one day," and that on the thirteenth day, not the fourteenth, He ate the paschal lamb in the evening with wild lettuce and unleavened bread, while standing and holding staves in His hands; and that after that supper was finished, common bread, or leavened, was brought in again; "and that in it He instituted the eucharistic mystery."

Theophylact rejects all these views in the aforementioned letter to the deacon and *canstrisius* Nicholas. His most clear words are: "As regards the Latins, we shall not interpret them perversely by saying that the first day of Unleavened Bread is the tenth day of the month, on which the lamb was taken. For we know from the Law that the first day of Unleavened Bread, τὴν ἑσπέραν, is called the fifteenth day, upon which the night of the eating of the Passover dawns, νὺξ ἐπιφώσκει τῆς τοῦ πάσχα βρώσεως." Indeed, there is an evening, or night, which completes the fourteenth day and initiates the fifteenth, according to the custom of counting days from evening to evening. "Whence also some of our holy doctors (who is praised even by Chrysostom himself in his Commentary on Matthew), explaining that which is called by the Evangelist the first day of Unleavened Bread, says that the day which precedes the Unleavened Bread is called the first day of Unleavened Bread by Matthew, [XXXI] πρὸ τῶν Ἀζύμων, knowing indeed to which day the law assigned that name, but indicating that this was said by the Evangelist in a new sense." Nor shall we affirm that Christ either did not perform the legal Passover, so that from this...

^A we should infer that it was not to be performed, or that He did it indeed, but before the time that the leaven was exterminated, so that fermented bread might also be found at that time. For some have said this far too boldly. Therefore, I shall not bring forward again any of the things that have been said in this way; for it is not permitted to confirm the mysteries of the truth with a lie. What, then, is my opinion? It is this: that the Lord Jesus Christ ate the Passover, ἐν καιρῷ καὶ ὡς ἐγένετο, in its proper time, and when the hour came, prepared by the disciples and the master of the house, κατὰ τὸ ἔθος δηλαδή, καὶ οὐκ ἄλλως, that is to say, according to custom, and not otherwise. Otherwise, the Gospel would have noted that novelty. He ate the legal Passover first, and then also delivered the mystery of His own Passover to the disciples from the bread which was found then. Εὑρητο δὲ τηνικαῦτα ἄζυμος, and unleavened bread was found. » The Greeks have Theophylact as being diametrically opposed to themselves.

64. He holds the same mind and opinion in the Commentaries on Matthew and Luke. I bring forward first what are his words on chapter XXVI of Matthew, v. 20: « Now when evening had come, he reclined, etc. From this, some think that Christ did not eat the Passover that year. For they say that they were eating the lamb standing: but Christ reclined; therefore He did not eat the Passover. We say, therefore, that He ate the (legal) Passover first, standing: then, reclining, He delivered His own sacrament. » He now opens up his mind: yet he shows himself less skilled in the customs of the Jews. Their teachers teach that His own ate the lamb standing, and with staves in their hands, on that night on which they were about to depart from Egypt; but that those rites were not required to be observed in subsequent times, nor are they performed today. See Leo of Modena, part III, *On the Rites of the Hebrews*, Buxtorf in the *Synagoga Judaica*, chapter 18, Simon in the *Critical History of the New Testament*, volume IV, chapter 28, page 398, and Lequien in *Dissertation VI on Damascene*, number XXXVIII.

To verse 17 preceding, these are the most lucid words of Theophylact in the Latin version, which Oecolampadius compiled from his own Greek codex: « Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached. He calls it the first day of Unleavened Bread, which precedes the day of Unleavened Bread. So that I may say: on the fifth day they were to eat the Passover, after which follows the Preparation. It was called the first of Unleavened Bread in the Law, because the feast began from the evening on which they would eat unleavened bread. The Lord, therefore, sends the disciples on the fifth day, which the Evangelist calls the first of Unleavened Bread: because it was the first evening (al. it was before the first evening) on which (evening) they were eating unleavened bread.... He wished, however, to perform the Passover, so that He might not seem to be contrary to the Law. » Things of the same kind are what he teaches on chapter XXII of Luke, v. 7: « Now the day of Unleavened Bread came. But now, what day of Unleavened Bread does He call this, must be stated. He calls the fifth day the day of Unleavened Bread: to the evening of which the Passover is to be sacrificed. Therefore the Lord, perhaps on the fifth (day) in the morning, sends the disciples. » These are clearer than to require a commentary.

63. I hold it as certain and known that he held no other opinion than that ^B which the Greeks think, chapter XVIII of John, v. 28. The words are: « And they themselves did not enter the praetorium, ^C that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. » But what is it, that they might eat the Passover? Certainly, the Lord performed it on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Therefore, let us understand by the Passover either the feast of seven days: or that they were indeed to eat the Passover on the Preparation (day), but the Lord Himself forestalled it by one day (or, delivered it one day before, πρὸ μιᾶς αὐτὸ παρέδωκε), reserving His own slaying for the Preparation day, when the Passover also had been of old (or when the old Passover was made, ὅτε καὶ τὸ παλαιὸν ἐγένετο πάσχα). »

There are two interpretations of the word Passover which Theophylact puts forth. And firstly, if Christ the Lord ate the paschal lamb with the Jews; by the name of the Passover, which the Jews were careful not to be defiled so that they might eat it, must be understood the paschal victims which were offered in the temple during the seven days. If the Passover properly so-called, that is to say, the eating of the lamb, must be understood, it must be said that the Jews, or the pontiffs and leaders, had postponed the Passover to the Preparation day: and that Christ ate it one day earlier, when the old, that is to say, the legitimate one, was being made, and indeed ought to have been made. Hence, the words of Theophylact must be read in this way: The Lord Himself delivered and ate the Passover one day earlier (reserving His own slaying for the Preparation day) when the old Passover was also being made, and the Jews ought to have done it. It is clearly evident that not only the former, but even ^D the latter interpretation consists with the institution of the Eucharist in unleavened bread. For this latter one differs far

from that opinion of the Greeks—that Christ anticipated the legitimate Passover and returned to leavened bread after its celebration. Nay, he celebrated his own Passover at the legitimate time, during a period which the Jews or their high priests and leaders did not observe; and thus there was no reason for Christ to return to leavened bread. This latter interpretation seems to have pleased Theophylact more. For he had already maintained in his Commentary on Matthew, chapter XXVI, v. 39: "They lead Jesus to Caiaphas, he says, for he was the high priest of that year: where also the rest remained overnight, *not eating the Passover at that time* [μὴ φάγοντες τότε τὸ πάσχα]; but waiting to kill the Lord, *and transgressing the law* [καὶ παραβάντες τὸν νόμον]. For the Lord ate at the appointed time; but they, only that they might kill the Lord, despise even the law [ὁ μὲν γὰρ Κύριος κατὰ τὸν νενομισμένον καιρὸν ἔφαγεν; ἐκεῖνοι δὲ, ἵνα μόνον ἀποκτείνωσι τὸν Κύριον, καταφρονοῦσι καὶ τοῦ νόμου]." He reveals his mind without any ambiguity.

66. In the place we are examining, a massive corruption occurs in the Commentary on Matthew in some manuscripts, and in the text edited at Rome and Paris. "He calls the *first of Azymes* the day which precedes the day of Azymes. For example, I say: *On the evening of Preparation they were to eat the Passover* [τῇ παρασκευῇ ἑσπέρας ἔμελλόν ἐκεῖνοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα], *and this was called of Azymes* [καὶ αὕτη ἐκαλεῖτο τῶν ᾿Αζύμων]. Our Lord therefore sends his disciples on the fifth day, which the evangelist calls the *first of Azymes*, as one which was *before the Preparation* [πρὸ τῆς Παρασκευῆς], *on the evening of which Preparation they ate the azymes* [καθ' ἣν Παρασκευῇ ἑσπέρα ἐσθίοντο τὰ ἄζυμα]." Who does not see the immense error? Surely that reasoning is most inept: that the fifth day is called the *first of Azymes* because on the sixth day, or Preparation, in the evening, azymes were eaten. Who would not detect the word "Preparation" as being rashly inserted?

The passage of Theophylact on the Gospel of Luke, chapter XXII, v. 7, opposes this reading: "He calls the fifth day the *day of Azymes*, on the evening of which they were about to sacrifice the Passover"; that is, he calls the fifth the day of Azymes, to whose evening the Passover was to be immolated. The Greek manuscript which Oecolampadius used also opposes this reading. The Roman editions by Arcudius, in Book II of *De sacramento Eucharistiæ*, chapter 5, and the Paris editions by Lequien in *Dissertatio VI Damascenica*, no. XLIII, also oppose it when more carefully inspected, in which it is read thus: "To say it thus, *on the evening of the fifth day they were to eat the Passover; after which dawns the Preparation. It was called the First of the Azymes by the law, as the feast began from the evening on which the azymes were eaten* [πέμπτη ἑσπέρας ἔμελλον ἐκεῖνοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα· μεθ᾿ ἣν ἐπιφώσκει ἡ Παρασκευή. Πρώτη τῶν ἀζύμων ἐκαλεῖτο παρὰ τῷ νόμῳ, οἷα δὴ τῆς ἑορτῆς ἀρχομένης ἀπὸ τῆς ἑσπέρας, καθ᾿ ἣν ἐσθίοντο τὰ ἄζυμα]. On the fifth day in the evening they were to eat the Passover, after which the Preparation dawns. It was called the *First of the Azymes* in the law, because the feast began from the evening on which the azymes were eaten." Everything agrees perfectly. The aforementioned Lequien observes in the cited place that the Royal Parisian manuscript, which he collated, "approximates as closely as possible to the age of the author." Among the manuscripts of the Marcian library in Venice, two—29 and 30—have the true reading, and manuscript 31 provides the corrupted text.

Perhaps similar texts gave an opportunity to an interpolator, which he might have read in other expositions of Matthew, or in Catenae, to deprave the passage of Theophylact. Indeed, in that exposition of the same evangelist, which in manuscript 26 of the Saint Mark library of Venice is attributed to Nicetas, bishop of the metropolis of Naupactus, and is also said in some manuscripts to be attributed to Theophylact, as we noted at no. 58, almost the same words are read: "Matthew here says the *First of the Azymes* is the day before the Azymes (the thirteenth of the month, the fifth day of the week). What I mean is, on the evening of the Preparation the Jews were about to eat the Passover, and this was called [the First] of the Azymes [Πρώτη οὖν τῶν ᾿Αζύμων ἐνταῦθα φησὶ ὁ Ματθαῖος τὴν πρὸ τῶν ᾿Αζύμων ἡμέραν (τὴν τρισκαιδεκάτην μὲν τοῦ μηνός, πέμπτην τῆς ἑβδομάδος). Οἷον τι λέγω, τῇ Παρασκευῇ ἑσπέρας ἔμελλον οἱ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα, καὶ αὕτη ἐκαλεῖτο τῶν ᾿Αζύμων]." Matthew calls the *First of the Azymes* in this place that which precedes[ the day of] the azymes (the thirteenth of the month, the fifth day of the week). To say it thus: On the evening of the Preparation, the Jews were to eat the Passover, and it was called [the day] of Azymes. Without doubt, this is the opinion of those who held that Christ anticipated the legitimate Passover by one day, and celebrated it himself on the thirteenth day. Moreover, the words in this place are the same as those which occur [XXXIII] in the corrupted text of Theophylact. We read things not unlike this in the first Catena on Matthew by Possinus: "He calls the *First of the Azymes* that which precedes the first day of the Azymes. For the Jews were accustomed to count the days from the evening: and to have a reckoning of that day, in counting the feast of the Passover, in which the lamb was sacrificed under the evening, when the azymes were prepared." Thus far all things agree. The text follows: "*For on the evening of the Preparation they were about to eat the Passover* [Ἐν γὰρ τῇ Παρασκευῇ ἑσπέρας ἔμελλον ἐκεῖνοι φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα]." Behold, again words inserted into Theophylact's text. It is clearly evident that the intention of the bold interpolator was to deflect the words of Theophylact—by an introduced corruption—into that Greek opinion which held that Jesus...

he holds that Christ anticipated the legitimate Pasch by one day and celebrated it on the thirteenth day, which fell on a Thursday; and that the Jews celebrated it at the end of the fourteenth day, and on the evening of the Preparation, or Friday—the time from which the festival day of unleavened bread, the fifteenth, began—which fell on the Sabbath in the year of Christ's passion. Yet nothing is more repugnant to the mind of Theophylact, who, in his individual commentaries on the evangelists and in his letter to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius*, teaches most consistently that the legitimate time of the Pasch was observed by Christ, and that the Jews transgressed the law.

67. The Latin version of the commentary which we are examining, at the beginning of chapter XIV of Mark, is: "He calls the first day of Unleavened Bread the fifth day, which was before the Unleavened Bread: for they ate unleavened bread on the day of Preparation." The Greek text is: *Πρώτην ἡμέραν τῶν ᾿Αζύμων τὴν πέμπτην λέγει, ἥτις πρὸ τῶν ᾿Αζύμων ἦν· τὰ γὰρ ἄζυμα τῇ Παρασκευῇ ἠσθίοντο* ("He calls the fifth day the first day of the Unleavened Bread, which was before the Unleavened Bread: for the unleavened bread was eaten on the Preparation"). It is the suspicion of laudable Arcudius that the passage is corrupt. For the first day of Unleavened Bread, in the year in which Christ suffered, began from the evening of the fifth day: and this was before the Preparation, which was called the day of Unleavened Bread. But how could that fifth day be called the first day of Unleavened Bread, since the unleavened bread was eaten on the day of Preparation? It was called the first day of Unleavened Bread, rather, as Theophylact says in his commentary on Matthew and Luke, because "the feast began from the evening of the fifth day, on which the Jews partook of the unleavened bread," and they continued to eat the same for seven days. Hence Arcudius thinks that the true text should have been: *τὰ γὰρ ἄζυμα ἑσπέρᾳ τῆς πέμπτης ἠσθίοντο* ("for the unleavened bread was eaten on the evening of the fifth day"), or something similar.

May I be permitted to add that the corrupted passage in Matthew is far different from the passage in Mark. The former has: "The evangelist names the fifth day the first of Unleavened Bread, because it was before the Preparation; on which Preparation they ate unleavened bread in the evening." The latter has: "He calls the fifth day the first day of Unleavened Bread, which was before the Unleavened Bread: for they ate unleavened bread on the day of Preparation;" where it is said that the unleavened bread should have been eaten not on the evening of the Preparation, but on the day of the Preparation. Furthermore, the evening of the Preparation in the obvious sense indicates the evening of the natural day of the Preparation, or the sixth day, as it is ending; but the day of the Preparation, or the sixth day, can also in an obvious sense include the evening of the natural day of the fifth, as it is ending, from which the feast of Unleavened Bread took its beginning in the eating of the paschal lamb. Therefore, the passage in Mark can have a legitimate meaning; nor is it necessary to change it unless the variant reading of manuscripts of good quality demands it. But in that one reading which we have adduced, the codex which Oecolampadius used agrees with the Greek text edited in Rome: and entirely similar to these are three Venetian codices from the Marcian Library, and one Paduan codex among the Cassinese monks of Santa Giustina, which have been inspected and collated with accurate study.

The words of Theophylact in his letter to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius* seem to confirm this indicated meaning: "A certain one of our sacred doctors," he says, "explaining that which is called the first of Unleavened Bread by the evangelist, says: The day which precedes the Unleavened Bread is called the first of Unleavened Bread by Matthew (and likewise by Mark)." He had previously stated how this day is said to precede the Unleavened Bread: "For we know," he says, "that in the law the fifteenth day is called the first of Unleavened Bread, in which, specifically, the night of the paschal meal dawns." Which night, in the year of the passion of Christ, completed the fifth natural day of the week, and began the first festival day of Unleavened Bread, which fell on the Preparation. I consider this the most convenient interpretation of the passage in Mark. ^B

XVIII.

68. Although Theophylact admits with the Latins that Christ the Lord instituted the mystery of the Eucharist in unleavened bread after the supper, perfectly performed at the right time: "But it was not done by design," he says in his letter to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius*, "that that bread should be unleavened: but the necessity of the law did not allow there to be any other bread at that time." He excludes, of course, the law that Christ might have imposed to celebrate the consecration in unleavened bread. This is also the sentiment of the Latin Church, which performs its mysteries in unleavened bread, not in obedience to a law laid down by Christ, but solely for the more significant commemoration of his example. ^D

[Chapter XVIII]

Just as He neither prescribed unleavened bread by a broad law, nor rejected leavened—and vice versa—so it could have come about that from the very beginning of the faith, the Western and Eastern Churches practiced diverse rites in the celebration of the Eucharist. St. Irenaeus, in a fragment of an epistle in Eusebius (*Hist. Eccl.*, book V, chapter 24), relates: "Blessed Polycarp, in the times of Pope Anicetus, came to Rome; and there was a mild controversy between them regarding the Pasch, as well as certain other rites; but they immediately embraced one another with the kiss of peace and communicated with one another." Behold a most ancient diversity of rites in both Churches. Why should it not be a matter of conjecture that among these rites there was a difference regarding the Eucharistic bread, which each Church employed differently? Thus do most illustrious men among the Latin writers feel; and no wise man would despise the weight of their arguments, which are very numerous.

There are others, however, who, knowing well that no law was laid down by Jesus Christ on this matter, opine that in the earliest times of the Church the use of bread was promiscuous, whether unleavened or leavened, as the occasion arose, until eventually the custom of unleavened bread prevailed in the Western Church, and it was undoubtedly in force before the Photian times. This was the same opinion held by Nicetas, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, in the Colloquy which was held in the first half of the twelfth century between him and Anselm, Bishop of Havelberg, in the royal city of Constantinople. Indeed, Nicetas freely confessed, as is found in book I of the same Colloquy, chapter 14, in Luke Dacherius: "The Apostles did not seek after leavened or unleavened bread with excessive zeal; and whatever came to hand, whether the one or the other, they offered with devotion. The Roman Church gradually laid aside the one, namely leaven, and the Eastern Church likewise abandoned the unleavened." Since Christ the Lord established no law on this matter, it must be admitted that various rites were able to arise.

It is with superfluous labor that the Bulgarian Archbishop, in order to show that this law does not exist, proposes that we note that not all the circumstances in which the Lord perfected His supper can be reduced to the force of a precept: for example, that they were reclining, or eating supine, and suchlike. He also says: "It is likely that that bread which Jesus changed into His body was of a viler quality, and perhaps barley." The matter stands thus; and so it belongs to the authority of the Church to define those circumstances which, according to the standing tradition, should be considered either adiaphora or constitutive of the substance of the thing. Yet there is no reason at hand for Theophylact that might make it likely that it was barley bread which Christ used in the institution of the Eucharist. Both Churches have used wheat bread from the beginning of the faith; nor should the more subtle opinions of the schoolmen of this place be called to examination.

"Perhaps," he says, "someone, hearing mention often made in the book of the Acts of the Apostles of the 'breaking of bread,' and finding the same also in Paul, might conclude therefrom that the bread which was then mystically broken was of the same sort as that which was present for simple eating at the table. But the bread that was eaten was undoubtedly not unleavened; for this was destined solely for certain days and for sacrifice. Although these things are not necessary, for [XXXV] they also incline toward the other side, yet the scale grants more to me; which is enough for victory." He refutes his own countrymen: Michael Cerularius, Leo of Achrida, Nicetas Pectoratus the monk, Peter of Antioch, and others, whose opinion it is that leavened bread was used by Christ in the institution of the Eucharist, and that this alone is called true bread. In order to assert this, they had to introduce enormous errors: either that Christ did not celebrate the legal Pasch, or that He did not perform it at the legitimate time, or that He did not use unleavened bread at the legal supper, as we noted in number 63. Theophylact holds that the legal Pasch was performed by the Lord at the proper time, and that the Eucharist was instituted in unleavened bread. He also holds, through Scriptural passages taken from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul, that it is not necessarily concluded that the Apostles celebrated the Eucharist in leavened bread.

Yet he favors his countrymen, saying: "The scale grants more to me." But what was the weight that would cause the scale to tip to your side? In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, v. 42, the first Christians are said to be persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, and in the communion of the breaking of bread, *tñ κλάσει τοῦ ἄρτου*. The evangelists use equivalent words in the institution of the Eucharistic mystery: "Jesus," they say, "took, *τὸν ἄρτον*, the bread, and blessing, broke, *ἔκλασε*; which bread, as he himself teaches, was unleavened." The Apostle Paul also says in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 10, v. 16: "The bread which we break, *τὸν ἄρτον ὃν κλῶμεν*, is it not..."

the participation of the body of Christ? But in the same manner, the same Apostle in chapter 11, v. 24, says that Christ instituted the Eucharist, taking bread, and giving thanks, and breaking it, *λαβὼν ἄρτον, καὶ εὐχαριστήσας ἔκλασε*; which bread you understand to be unleavened. But nothing prevents that in a common meal, where the Eucharistic sacrifice happened to take place, sometimes leavened bread was found, sometimes unleavened, as Nicetas of Nicomedia used to say, according as the will of the hosts or the guests required, and as their modest means, or a more delicate custom, or the circumstances of the time demanded. Nothing also forbids that for the commemoration of Christ’s example, unleavened bread might be brought for the consecration, which could be prepared quickly and, as it were, on the spur of the moment. For Sacred Scripture calls both kinds of bread, *ἄρτον*. But these things, which we leave in the middle, are enough for it to be understood that the scales do not favor the Greeks more than the Latins.

* "But what ought to persuade you more (says Theophylactus) is the multitude of Eastern priests of God, and the dignity of the Church of Jerusalem. Add to this the Indians, the Ethiopians, Egypt, and the parts of Libya." We do not despise the authority and customs of the Eastern Christians: but why do you look down upon the customs and authority of the Western Churches, and especially the Roman? We have already noted that between the Easterners and Westerners, in the second century of the Church, in the time of Pope Anicetus and Polycarp, Bishop of the Smyrneans, there was, as witnessed by Irenaeus, a Father of that same century, some difference both concerning the Pasch and certain other rites, and surely concerning the Eucharistic bread, as is most probable. The Bulgarian archbishop suppresses this with silence. What of the fact that Michael Cerularius, in the cited letter to Peter of Antioch, no. X, reports "that he had heard that the aforementioned two patriarchs (of Alexandria and Jerusalem) not only receive others who eat unleavened bread, but even themselves sometimes celebrate the sacred sacrifice in unleavened bread." Leo of Achrida also, in the *Fragments* in Allatius, book III *De consensione*, chapter 14, says: "The Armenians and Egyptians agree with the Jews regarding the offering of unleavened bread." Lequien deals with this matter most accurately in his *Dissertation* among the Damascene treatises, *De azymis*.

I report the fact that Cerularius and Achridanus narrate: but that an agreement with the Jews is derived from this is a calumny. "Otherwise," said Cardinal Humbert, legate of Leo IX, "if unleavened bread through Christ and His Gospel was cursed, rejected, and abandoned, and therefore should henceforth not be offered in the sacrifice of the Lord because it was established for the Jews by Moses, know that leavened bread was also established for the Jews by Moses (Leviticus, ch. 7, v. 13, and ch. 23, v. 17)... Therefore, if unleavened bread should not be offered by us because it is Mosaic, then leavened bread and salt should not be offered by you, because they are equally Mosaic... The unleavened bread of Christians is far removed from the leavened bread of the carnal Jews, [XXXVI] whom only the promise of earthly happiness invited to observe and grasp at the shadow of the truth: but we, duly venerating and retaining the body of the truth from the unleavened and in the unleavened, already taste with mouth and heart how sweet the Lord is; asking and seeking from Him this one thing, that we may remain in Him, and He in us forever." That many things were gathered in the New Law that were in the Old is obvious: but not to the same end, because whatever that ancient people had received from heaven for the worship of God has been transferred through Christ to the new; from shadow to truth, from signs to realities, from fear to love, from servitude to freedom, from children of wrath to children of grace.

* "But consider also the Church of the Corinthians, which surely you will not accuse of not keeping the traditions: for he who is the author of the tradition (the Apostle Paul) commended it as keeping them... You hear, I do not doubt, your Sardinians too, bearing witness against the oblation of unleavened bread." I acknowledge the use of leavened bread in the Church of the Corinthians and the rite of unleavened bread rejected by those wise prelates who administered it, and I do not therefore consider the Westerners reprehensible. The Apostle praises the Church for keeping the traditions: why, then, in early times, might the Lord's body not have been offered at times in unleavened bread, at other times in leavened, according to the tradition received? What that testimony of the Sardinian Church against the oblation of unleavened bread might be, no proven history reports. But why does Theophylactus dwell on the special mention of the Church of the Corinthians and the Church of the Sardinians? I think I have understood the reason. It is the Trullan canon 11, which warns "that the faithful should not eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiarity with them, nor summon them in cases of illness." This canon, as having been established by the sixth synod,

the Greeks have long since opposed to the Eucharistic rite of the Latins; and they seek to derive authority for it from the presence of the legates of the Apostolic See of Rome, the bishop of the Corinthians, and the bishop of the Church on the island of Sardinia. But this is a fable, composed of many fables, as I shall presently explain at greater length. Beyond doubt, Theophylact was alluding to this. Meanwhile, the true sense of the canon produced does not in the least concern the rite of the Eucharistic sacrifice, but forbids communion and association with the Jews to Christians.

70. Next follows the fast of the Sabbath, regarding which this is the opinion of Theophylact: "If it were permitted to us to discuss the fast even on the Sabbath more severely, we would surely show that it is consistent neither with the doctrine of the Apostles nor the Fathers. The Apostles decree against those who fast on Sunday or Saturday, with one exception, excommunication if they are laymen, and deposition if they are clergy. And do not judge these canons to be illegitimate, for the sixth synod venerated them; there were present at the definition of its dogmas your legates of Agatho; and at the bringing forth of the canons, there was present as an instigator Basil, so assiduous that he failed no congregation (or session in the sixth synod). Moreover, the Fathers of the Council of Laodicea, whom also the sixth synod held in the highest honor, decreed that in Lent bread should not be offered, except on the Sabbath and Sunday; which they would certainly not have ordained had they recognized the Sabbath as a day of fasting," etc.

This argumentation is teeming with errors and fables. Later, Balsamon, the patron of schismatics, added other fables to the Nomocanon of Photius, asserting regarding the aforesaid canons that "The Archbishop of Ravenna, representing the Roman synod, and the bishops of Thessalonica and Sardinia, Heraclea and Corinth, who were then legates of the pontiff, subscribed to them." I now call the sayings of Theophylact to examination.

71. He begins to finish his peroration with a pseudepigraphical monument, which is canon 65 among those that are called the Apostles'. Any more learned men have no doubt about this spurious offspring. As to whether or not fasting on the Sabbath was prescribed by the Apostles, Augustine searched most diligently, and he finally concludes in his letter to Casulanus that "this is an interminable question, generating disputes, and not finishing them." Gelasius I, the Roman pontiff, in his most celebrated decree, relegated those canons to the apocrypha; and it is most likely that they were composed according to the circumstances of the first three centuries of the Church. Consult William Beveridge, who argues excellently on this topic.

72. If, lacking origin, Theophylact tries to acquire authority for them at least "from the sixth synod, which venerated them: at the definition of whose dogmas were present the legates of your Agatho; and at the bringing forth of the canons, there was present Basil, so assiduous that he failed no congregation." Many errors! The sixth ecumenical synod is confused with the Trullan, which does not enjoy the authority of an ecumenical synod. That one was held in the year 680 against the heresy of the Monothelites, while Agatho held the Roman see, and Constantine Pogonatus administered the empire: in it, canons concerning customs and discipline were not established. But since neither the fifth nor the sixth ecumenical synod established such canons, Justinian the Younger Augustus ordered a synod to be gathered at Constantinople, which would deal with ecclesiastical discipline and the reformation of morals. It was held in the year 692, according to the better chronology, while Sergius I was sitting at Rome. Balsamon, however, calls this the Quinisext; others call it the Trullan, as it was celebrated in the Trullus of the great palace.

Theophylact either did not know this, or certainly feigned it. Canon 11 is cited as one to be accepted, among those that are called the Canons of the Apostles, without any critical discussion of the question of their origin, and without any regard for the Roman Church, which never approved all of them.

73. Many things follow concerning the legation of the Apostolic See ^A in the errors of Theophylact. In the Acts of the sixth ecumenical synod, there are read as subscribers: "Theodore, humble presbyter of the holy Roman Church, and holding the place of Agatho; George, humble presbyter of the holy Roman Church, and holding the place of Agatho... John, humble deacon of the Roman Church and holding the place of Agatho..... John, by the mercy of God bishop of Thessalonica, and legate of the apostolic see of Rome... Theodore, humble presbyter of the holy Church of Ravenna, and holding the place of Theodore the archbishop; John, unworthy bishop of the holy Portuensis Church, legate of the whole council of the holy apostolic see of Rome; Stephen

^A mercy of God, bishop of Corinth, and legate of the apostolic see of ancient Rome. Basil, by the mercy of God, bishop and metropolitan of the city of Gortyna of the island of Crete, and legate of the whole council of the apostolic principal see of ancient Rome. Abundantius, humble bishop of the holy Tempsan (Paternensian) Church, legate of the whole council of the holy apostolic see of Rome; John, unworthy bishop of the holy Rhegitan Church, legate of the whole council of the holy apostolic see of Rome.» Note that some legates were from the Roman clergy, while others were bishops of Italy or in the West; and attached to these were the bishops of Thessalonica, Corinth, and Gortyna in Crete. It was, of course, the custom that the Roman pontiff would transmit some legates with a special delegation to synods held in the East: there were other legates of the synod, which had previously been accustomed to be celebrated at Rome; and to these were joined those who were appointed as vicars or *responsales* of the Roman see in the East for the time being. That Basil of Gortyna is the one whom Theophylactus mentions as so assiduous that he was absent from no congregation, session, or action; for he is read to have subscribed to all the Acts of the Sixth Synod.

The matter did not proceed in such a way in the Trullan Synod. The page stands empty and blank where the place for the Roman pontiff subscribing was, with these words: «Τόπος, place of the most holy pope of Rome;» likewise, «Τόπος, place of the bishop of Thessalonica;» and likewise «Τόπος, place of the bishop of Heraclea, of Sardinia, of Ravenna, [and] of Corinth.» Then truly: «Basil, bishop of the Gortynians, metropolis of the island of Crete, and holding the place of the whole synod of the holy Roman Church.» Legates of the holy see who had been instituted by special mandate appear nowhere. No history reveals that a synod was celebrated at Rome at this time which any sent legates might represent. Hence, the title «holding the place of the whole synod of the holy Roman Church» is wrongly and falsely attributed to Basil of Gortyna, which he had surely held long ago in the Sixth Ecumenical Synod. Yet Theophylactus indicates his legation, being deceived, of course, by the corrupted subscription.

That the Roman see had its own vicars, or *responsales*, or ordinary legates in the East at this time as well, I do not doubt. For these, when business arose, represented the person of the pontiff and insinuated to the prince what seemed necessary, although the power of deciding was reserved to the pontiff himself upon the report of the *responsal*. On this matter, Petrus de Marca and Antonius Pagi write learnedly for the year 692. There were, therefore, at the time of the Trullan Synod, ordinary legates: the bishops of Sardinia, Ravenna, Thessalonica, and Corinth; but these were absent, as is evident from the blank space, or at least they did not wish to assent to those canons. Only Basil of Gortyna is read. He may have been an ordinary legate, but his presence confers no authority upon the Trullan canons, with the other legates absent or objecting.

^B [XXXVIII] Lequien, in his *Panoplia contra schisma Græcorum*, volume VII, chapter 2, weighs many other things that undermine this synod. I do not omit the alleged legation of the bishop of Heraclea, who is nowhere found in approved monuments to have ever functioned in this office. I add Anastasius the Librarian, who in the *Life of Sergius I* clearly testifies that the apostolic legate, who was that Basil of Gortyna, subscribed to the Trullan canons by deception. What of the fact that the praised Roman pontiff, Sergius, rejected and repudiated the aforementioned canons (according to the same witness, Anastasius), choosing death rather than to consent to the errors of innovations? Theophylactus, although these things are most well-known, says nothing of them. He is likewise silent about Justinian the Younger, who, after Tiberius Absimar and Leontius the Patrician, again obtained the empire in the year 705, and sought in vain to have Pope John VII receive the same canons. He is silent about Pope Constantine, who, having been summoned to Constantinople in the year 710, at the urging of the emperor Justinian himself, approved only those Trullan canons which did not oppose the decrees of the Roman Church. Finally, he wrongly narrates that the Council of Laodicea was approved in the Sixth Ecumenical Synod; and he opposes its canons with a vain effort, by which we admit some rites of the Greek Church are indicated; but no one, unless he be insane, would say that other rites of the Western or Roman Church are rejected [by them]. The Trullan Synod arrogated this authority to itself by putting forth canon 55, in which the fasting on the Sabbath is condemned in the Roman Church; but we have already shown that it was devoid of legitimate authority.

XIX. ON THE DEEDS AND WRITINGS OF THEOPHYLACT.

He inveighs with too much audacity against the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. A refutation of his arguments by John Beccus, with our own observations; where the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit is discussed at length. Did Theophylact finally reduce the sum of the Latin error, as they call it, to merely the addition of the word FILIOQUE to the Creed? Some of the Greeks felt this to be the case. ^A

74. In this controversy, which concerns the eternal, substantial, and hypostatic origin of the Holy Spirit, Theophylact, occupied by a prejudice shared with his own people, attacks the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son more audaciously than is proper. He deals with this matter most stubbornly in three places.

Regarding the Gospel of John, chap. 15, v. 26 [sic], he says this: "It would not be untimely to say here how the Son possesses the Spirit, and how the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son. For the Apostle (Gal. 4) also says: 'God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' And again (Rom. 8): 'But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.' Surely, the Latins, expounding these poorly and understanding them less than correctly, say that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son. But we, for our part, say first to them: since it is one thing to be from something and another thing to be of someone; as the Spirit is indeed without doubt the Spirit of the Son, and it is approved by all Scripture: however, to be from the Son, no Scripture testifies, lest we introduce two principles of the Spirit, the Father and the Son. Truly, they say: for (John 20) he even breathed (insufflavit) onto the disciples and said: 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' O the foolishness! If he gave the Spirit to the disciples at that time, when he breathed, how afterward did he say to them (Acts 1): 'You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, not many days from now'? Or how do we believe the descent of the Spirit happened at Pentecost, if he gave Him on the evening of the resurrection? For then he breathed. But these things are indeed very ridiculous. For it is manifest that he did not give them the Holy Spirit at that time, but one gift of the Holy Spirit—namely, the remission of sin. For he immediately adds: 'Whose sins you shall forgive.' But the Son has the Spirit substantially, as consubstantial to himself: not from whom he might receive an operation, just as the prophets do. For the Spirit is said to be of the Son, according to the fact that the Son is truth, and power, and wisdom; and the Holy Spirit is described by Isaiah (chapter 11) as the Spirit of truth, and of fortitude, and of wisdom. And in another way: because he is given to men through the Son; therefore he is called the Son's. Believe, therefore, that the Spirit proceeds indeed from the Father, but is given to the creature through the Son. And let this be to you the canon of orthodox doctrine." ^B

Another existing passage is towards the same Gospel of John, chap. 15, v. 26: "Whom I will send to you from the Father." Now, that he says, "whom I will send," signifies equality toward the Father. [XXXIX] For in another place concerning the Father he said that he sends the Spirit: but in this place, that he himself sends; certainly they signify equality. But lest he appear to struggle against the Father, as if he sends the Spirit from another substance, he added, "from the Father." For I also indeed "will send"; but "from the Father," that is, with the Father approving and at the same time sending. For I do not myself first send from my own bosom: but he is provided through me from the Father. But when you hear that *ἐκπορεύεται*, he proceeds, do not understand *ἀποστολὴν* [as] *τὴν ἐκπόρευσιν*, mission as procession, as the ministrant spirits are sent; but [as] the natural subsistence and procession of the Spirit. ^C

He handles this controversy with broader language and excessive overconfidence in the often-cited epistle to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius*. What an inimical spirit he bears, he immediately reveals at the beginning: "Εστιν οὖν τὸ μέγιστον ἐκεῖνο σφάλμα, καὶ τοῦτο δὴ τὸ τοῦ Σολομῶντος, ᾅδου πεταύρου ποιοῦν συναντᾷν, ἡ ἐν τῷ τῆς πίστεως Συμβόλῳ καινοτομία, ἣν ἐποιήσαντο, ἀνακηρύττοντες τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεσθαι." "That greatest error, therefore, which according to the saying of Solomon makes one incur the snare of hell, is the innovation which they introduced into the Symbol of faith, proclaiming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son... Τοῦτο μὴ διορθώσεως ἀξιούμενον συγχωρῶν ἀσυγχώρητος, he who does not concede this to be worthy of correction is unworthy of pardon."

Learned and erudite men, for the rest, should let these statements of the archbishop not disturb you in the least. "For during the time of the schism he became famous (which Michael Cerularius had inaugurated) and so his statements are not to be thought worthy of much consideration." Thus John Beccus once judged in his work against the observations of Camaterus, where the aforementioned passage of Theophylact's is adduced on chapter 15 of John, in volume II of Allatius's *Græcia orthodoxa*, page 519. It would have been worth the effort to bring the arguments which he produces to a new anvil, even those opposed [to him]. ^D

^A Beccus’s refutations, which are found in his discourse *On the Union of the Churches* in Allatius, volume I, page 215, and to confirm them with our own observations as far as we are able.

73. (1) The first argument: Jesus Christ teaches about the Spirit who is akin to him, from whom and in what manner he has his being: and he says that he proceeds from the Father. If he also proceeds from the Son, what prevented him from saying, "because he proceeds from the Father and from me"? From this, he thinks it should be concluded: that the Spirit proceeds *ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρός*, from the Father alone. In the place cited, the refutation by Beccus is number 69: "By no other logic, the Latin, returning his own words to him, will say: If the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, what was the impediment to Christ that he did not say, 'Who proceeds from the Father alone?' And since [Theophylact] reproaches the Italian for not following the footsteps of Christ, the evangelist of the poor, by adding 'and from the Son,' he himself will be subject to the same reproach for adding 'from the alone.'"

The Roman and Latin Church holds and teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both: first, because "it must be regularly held (I use the words of St. Thomas, pt. I, qu. XXXVI, art. 11, ad 1) in Holy Scripture, that what is said of the Father must be understood of the Son, even if an exclusive term is added, unless solely in those cases where the Father and the Son are distinguished according to opposite relations. For when the Lord says in Matthew XI: 'No one knows the Son, except the Father,' it is not excluded that the Son knows himself. So, therefore, when it is said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, even if it were added that he proceeds from the Father alone, the Son is not excluded thereby. Because, insofar as it pertains to being the principle of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are not opposed; but only insofar as this one is the Father and that one is the Son." Secondly, because in the divine utterances there are words which are completely equivalent to the process from the Son, or through the Son. Frequently the person of the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son, and the Spirit of Christ the Lord, and the Spirit of truth, which Christ is; certainly in the same sense in which he is also called the Spirit of the Father. The Lord himself also says of his Spirit: "Because he will take from mine." But why? Because, "All things whatsoever the Father has, are mine." The wisdom, power, divinity, and other absolute attributes that the Father has, are indeed Christ’s. The Holy Spirit without doubt has these same things from the Father, proceeding from him; but he receives the same also from the Son, by no other means certainly than his procession from the latter. Finally, the Son teaches us: that the Paraclete himself, who proceeds from the Father, is sent by him, and is sent by the Father. From which it follows that the mission cannot be understood without the eternal procession: which procession is spoken of insofar as the Spirit receives from both what he is and what he is able to operate *ad extra*; and mission is spoken of by reason of the efficacy which takes place in time. These theological and Christian dogmata will be explained more fully below.

^B [XL] (2.) Theophylact presses the same argument, derived from the silence of the Scriptures, in his *Commentary on the Gospel of John*, chapter III, and he adds another as well: "That he is from the Son," he says, "no Scripture testifies, lest we introduce two principles of the Spirit, the Father and the Son." Regarding the silence of the Scriptures, enough has been said. "Lest we introduce two principles of the Spirit," you say. You tremble, indeed, where there is no fear: "because, insofar as it pertains to being the principle of the Holy Spirit (as Aquinas said, instructed by the authority of the Scriptures and the documents of the Fathers), the Father and the Son are not opposed; but only insofar as this one is the Father, and that one the Son;" whence in the former they are one and the same in reason, two persons and one principle. Relevant to the matter is Beccus’s observation on that same passage of Theophylact in the fifteenth chapter of John, where the Archbishop of Bulgaria teaches that the Father sends the Holy Spirit, and that he is also sent by the Son, on account of the latter’s equality toward the Father. "If the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son (replies Beccus), on account of the Son’s equality toward the Father; it is not as if he is sent from two, for by what logic could he be one and indivisible, if he were not sent from one cause of mission, but from two causes of mission, of the Father and the Son? By the same reasoning, naturally and essentially existing from the Father and the Son, he exists not as from two, but as from one God, naturally and essentially."

(3.) But it is written (the words are in an epistle to Nicholas the Deacon): *Spirit of the Son* and *Spirit of Christ*. And I concede it. Since he is also the *Spirit of truth*, and the *Spirit of life*. I will add, and of wisdom, and of fortitude. But not as though he proceeds from him, *ἐξ ἐκείνου προϊών*, but that he is proper to him (for he is kindred, not foreign), in him he reposes. And also because he is sent by him to those who are worthy, and is distributed and given to them. "It seems to me," says Beccus, "that Theophylact accepted that phrase *οὐχ ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνου προϊών*, not as though proceeding from him, in that sense; as if he had said, *οὐχ ὡς ἐξ ἐκείνου ἐκπορευόμε-*

ἐκπορευόμε-* ^A ve", not as though proceeding from him. For the induction sufficiently indicates this, in which he says: "but rather as one who is sent, provided, and communicated by Him to the worthy; for all these things," according to Theophylact, "are to be distinguished from the one who proceeds..." How, therefore, will the Bulgarian be able to contradict the Latins who assert that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, if we have shown that among the principal and most celebrated theologians it is openly and publicly asserted that the Spirit comes forth from the Son, *τὸ Πνεῦμα προϊὸν ἐξ Υἱοῦ*? However, that the Spirit comes forth from the Son has been sufficiently demonstrated by me before (in the oration *On the Union of the Churches*, in the *Epigraphs*, and elsewhere). For some of the Fathers say that the Spirit has existence from the Son... another says [He is] from the Son: yet another, that He is from the Son naturally and essentially: and another, that He has His hypostasis from the essence of the Son; of which words, I say, he [Theophylact] makes no mention.” This is the sum of Beccus's refutation.

(4.) The Bulgarian also brings forward this doctrine of his, delivered in this place, in his commentary on the third chapter of John: "We say," he says, "that it is one thing to be from someone, and another to be of someone... But the Son holds the Spirit substantially and as consubstantial to Himself." In both places, many points are raised which, when divided into parts, must be discussed with more diligent study. The distinction introduced is refuted by Manuel Calecas in his book *Against the Greeks*, chapter 22, where he proves this excellently: that these things cannot be said, that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, or the Son's own, unless the relation of cause and that which arises from the cause intervenes between the two. ^B "First," he says, "because *ἀναφορικῶς*, that is, according to relation, these things are used: but there is no relation in the divine, except what is sought from the origin. Furthermore, when one is said to be of another, or this to be the proper one of that, in the divine (when matter, of course, is rejected, and those things which follow matter are rejected), it cannot be affirmed either as a member, or as a possession, or by reason of any excellence, or anything else: but by the reason alone of the cause, and of that which is from the cause, in which we grasp that the one is distinguished from the other; it is evident that when we say the Holy Spirit is the Son's own, that can be understood as said by that reason of cause alone. For we do not speak thus because they are mutually *ὁμοούσιοι*, that is, of the same substance: for if this were the true reason, the Son could no less be said to be the Spirit's own, or the Spirit's property, than the latter [is thought to be] the former's; which is unheard of.”

The holy Fathers of the Greek tongue favor this most openly. Athanasius in Epistle 1 to Serapion, num. 25: “Moreover, if the Son,” he says, “because He is from the Father, is on that account of the same ^C substance, it is necessary likewise that the Spirit, who is said to be from God, is also the Son's own according to substance.” As the Son is the Father's own according to substance because He is from the Father, so the Spirit proceeds from the Son, because He is also the Son's own according to substance. And indeed the Spirit is said to be from God: but the Father and the Son are one in the reason of divinity; and so the Spirit is from the Father, and likewise from the Son.

Cyril of Alexandria is entirely given to illustrating this opinion. In the tenth book *On John*, page 910, he says: “Behold, when (the Son) said the Spirit of truth, that is His own Paraclete, He says He proceeds from the Father. For just as the Spirit is naturally the Son's own, and existing in Him, *δι’ αὐτοῦ προϊὼν*, coming forth through Him (or proceeding), so also [He is] the Father's.” It is without doubt a question of the Spirit naturally the Son's own, and existing in Him: and thus it is a question of His natural, and eternal, and substantial procession from the Father through the Son. And page 925: “The Holy Spirit is in no way understood to be alien from the substance of the Only-begotten. But *προεῖσι φυσικῶς ἐξ αὐτῆς*, He comes forth naturally from it (from it, he says, the substance of the Only-begotten: which is the same as from the Only-begotten Himself), by the identity of nature existing as nothing other than Him, although He is understood to subsist in His own person.” Where he changes the preposition used in the previous place into *ex* (from) in this latter place.

(5.) Because the Holy Spirit is given to men through the Son, therefore He is called the Spirit of the Son and the Son's own. This is another interpretation of Theophylact, who distorts the words of the Scriptures toward a temporal mission, or the giving of charisms, in his cited commentary on John. But this cannot stand (replies Doctor Aquinas in his first booklet *Against the Greeks*). For Cyril says *On John*: "The Holy Spirit is the proper [Spirit] of God the Father: but He is no less of God the Son; not as if it were one Holy Spirit and then another." He says the same in the *Exhortatory Sermon to the Emperor Theodosius*: "The Holy Spirit, just as He is the Father's own, so in truth is He also the Son's own." (Recall the testimonies alleged above.) If therefore He is the Father's, not only because He is given and sent by Him temporally, but also because He exists from Him eternally; by the same reason He will also be the Son's, as existing from Him eternally.

(6.) "And I concede," says Theophylact in his Epistle to Nicholas the deacon, "that the Spi-

Spirit of the Son, and of truth and life. I will add also of wisdom and fortitude." What may be hammered out from this? He believes it must be gathered that this is a matter of given charisms, such as wisdom, fortitude, fear of the Lord, and others. There are many things to be observed which he was either ignorant of or feigned to be. And first, John Chrysostom, or the author of the homily on the Holy Spirit, number 4, teaches that the names of this same Spirit must be distinguished: and that there are indeed names of the ineffable nature, ^A namely: Spirit of God, Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of the Father, Spirit of the Son, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of life, Spirit of truth: but that there are created gifts, such as: spirit of virtue, spirit of charity, spirit of temperance, spirit of promise, spirit of revelation, spirit of the adoption of sons. Why, therefore, does Theophylact mix these names? Why, in the Scriptures expressing the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of truth, should he understand created gifts?

Certainly, when it is said Spirit of the Son, or Spirit of Christ and of the Lord, no other correct understanding has a place than that which compares the Spirit to the Son as His principle. But also when you say Spirit of wisdom, and Spirit of fortitude, in an obvious and most fitting sense you express the Holy Spirit as a cause, which produces wisdom, and fortitude, and similar charisms in us. The Bulgarian archbishop passes over all these things.

From this, however, it is gathered that those names—Spirit of wisdom, Spirit of fortitude, and likewise [Spirit] of prudence, of counsel, of knowledge, of piety, of the fear of the Lord—signify not only the charisms communicated to us, as the author of the cited homily intimates, but also the person of the Holy Spirit: and not this alone, as the cause of the gifts, as we were saying: but also as one who, by reason of these same charisms, is rendered present in us in a new way, and also indwelling as in a temple, when, that is, He grants sanctifying charity. This we call the mission of the Holy Spirit properly so-called, which then follows His procession also from the Son, and which completely crushes the fabrication of Theophylact and the Greeks. On which matter, more below.

(7.) Let another interpretation of the Greeks be added, though it is inept. [XLII] Aquinas brings it forward in the place cited: "Someone might say that He is the Spirit of Christ: as if dwelling plenarily in the man Christ, according to that in Luke IV: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan: of whose fullness we have all received, as is said in John 1. But this response cannot be sustained; that is to say, that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ for this reason alone. For it is found in the doctors of the Greeks that the Holy Spirit is the natural Spirit of the Son. (We have brought forward above some testimonies from Athanasius and Cyril, bishops of Alexandria, and there occur in both many more which are equivalent.) But the Spirit is not natural to the Son according to His humanity, because it does not pertain to the nature of humanity: but is poured out freely by God into human nature. Therefore, He cannot for this reason be called the Spirit of the Son, because He filled Christ excellently according to His humanity."

That also must be more diligently observed, that the Holy Spirit so filled the man Christ that not only should the charisms poured out into Him be considered; but even the person of the Holy Spirit Himself, who is said to be sent to Christ as He is man, holds the principal place. Hence those Greeks are now in vain who think that there is nothing else in the mission of the Holy Spirit than the efficacy of a created gift. The person of the Holy Spirit Himself ought also to be understood: so that He may be said not to be sent in any other way at all, except through the eternal procession, which has the efficacy of the gifts in time. I now proceed to set forth and defend Christian and theological doctrine.

(8.) You suppose that to proceed is the same as to be communicated and given (the words are in the epistle to Nicholas the deacon). And because it is found that the Spirit is sent by the Son, you do not think you are in error in saying that He proceeds also from the Son. But the matter does not stand so. For to proceed declares the mode by which the Spirit has His being... and to be sent signifies an abundant giving of gifts, or an outpouring of goodness; which is indeed from the Father, but is poured out by the Son into those who are worthy, to whom He is also said to be manifested through the Son. Thus Theophylact, who ineptly explains the doctrine of the Latins. For we do not think that to proceed is the same, if we wish to speak properly, as to be given, to be communicated, to be sent: even though a divine person cannot be understood to be sent without an eternal procession. The Latins teach two things which concur in the mission properly so-called: one, which is the sempi-

- ternal procession of the person who is sent; and the other, which is some external efficacy, whether it falls under the senses, as when the Word appeared to men with human nature assumed, or whether it is inward and invisible, as when the Holy Spirit is sent unto each of the faithful or the righteous. Hence the Father, who has that from which He proceeds from no one, is nowhere said to be sent; and the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to be sent, because they proceed. Again, mission, donation, and communication express authority and power in the sender, the giver, and the communicator. But what power or authority does the Father have over the Son, and the Father and Son over the Holy Spirit, save that which is the notion of principle and origin? Therefore, for the Son to be sent by the Father is for the Son to be begotten, about to assume the nature of man, and assuming it in His own time; and for the Holy Spirit to be sent is for Him to proceed with the efficacy of an external work, which is fulfilled in time. Truly, it is established how the eternal procession concurs in the mission properly so-called.

But you ask, the procession declares the mode by which the Spirit has existence. Thus, clearly, that by procession the Spirit may have existence, or receive the divine essence: and may also receive that which is the performing of the external works of the charismata. But you add, mission signifies an abundant largesse of gifts. Indeed, the eternal procession, under the name and respect of mission, is in a certain way completed by an external efficacy or an actual largesse of gifts in time.

This external efficacy, if it be considered by itself and as it were separated from the procession of the person who is sent, the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the theologians call mission less properly so-called; by which understanding of mission, we find it stated that the Son is sent by the Holy Spirit, and that the Son and the Holy Spirit send themselves. However, note two things which are primary in this place: first, that this notion of mission is improper and too broad; then, that in this same kind of improper mission, the Father is nowhere read to be sent in the Scriptures, and scarcely even among the Fathers. So truly must it be held as certain that mission properly so-called must be referred to the eternal [XLIII] procession of the divine person. For why would the Father be said to be sent nowhere? For that very reason, because He proceeds from no one. Theophylact viewed the bark of the matter; he did not touch the marrow of the sublime doctrine.

(9.) The Lord is said to breathe the Holy Spirit after the resurrection: not indeed as if He were its producer.... And otherwise, neither was the whole given at that time, but a single charisma or the gift of the remission of sins: for it was decreed only that it be given at the time of Pentecost.... If the Lord’s breathing upon the disciples was not of one charisma only, but a donation of the whole Holy Spirit: then He gave them the Paraclete at that time. How, therefore, does this stand: *If I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you*? If the descent at Pentecost was of the same Spirit, it was superfluous: but if of another; tell me, who was he, and what sort was he? These things are in the letter to the deacon Nicholas.

There are similar things in the commentary on chapter III of John: "Indeed, they say: for (John xx) He breathed on the disciples, and said: *Receive the Holy Spirit*. O folly! If He then gave the Spirit to the disciples, when He breathed, how did He say to them afterward (Acts 1): *You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, not many days from now*? Or how do we believe that the descent of the Spirit happened at Pentecost; if indeed He gave Him on the evening of the resurrection? For then He breathed. But these things are truly ridiculous. For it is manifest that at that time He did not give them the Holy Spirit, but the gift of the Holy Spirit, namely, the remission of sin. For He immediately adds: *Whose sins you shall forgive*, etc."

Indeed, Theophylact’s argumentation is ridiculous and shows itself to be ridiculous, repugnant to the doctrine which Cyril among the Greeks, and Augustine among the Latins, most excellent Fathers, hand down. Thus this man has it in book II, otherwise III, *Contra Maximinum*: "The Son is from the Father, the Holy Spirit is from the Father; but the former is begotten, the latter proceeding: therefore, the former is the Son of the Father, from whom He is begotten; the latter, however, is the Spirit of both, since He proceeds from both. But for this reason, when the Son spoke of Him, He said *He proceeds from the Father*: because the Father is the author of His procession, who begat such a Son, and by begetting gave to Him that the Holy Spirit should also proceed from Him. For unless He proceeded also from Him, He would not say to the disciples: *Receive the Holy Spirit*; and by breathing, give Him, so as to show openly by breathing, signifying that He proceeds also from Himself, what He was giving secretly by spiration."

Similar are the things which Cyril of Alexandria discusses in book XII *In Joannem*: He immediately…

^A sanctifies, bestowing the Spirit upon them by a manifest breath; so that we, too, might firmly believe that the Spirit is not alien to the Son, but consubstantial with Him, and "proceeding from Him—that which is from the Father—proceeding through Him from the Father." And in book IX, preceding chapter XIV of John: "For this reason Christ breathed bodily, showing that just as breath proceeds bodily from a human mouth, so, consistently with the Godhead, from the divine substance, the Spirit who is from Him (the Son) is poured forth." Another reading has *ἐξ αὐτῆς*, from that divine substance, to wit, the Son's. Clearly, these two Fathers—with whom Theophylact cannot be compared—teach not only that created gifts are distributed by the Son in the mission of the Holy Spirit, but that the very divine person of the Holy Spirit is given: and thus they prove by consequence that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son by an eternal procession.

(10.) In that inbreathing, he says, there was a donation of one charisma only, not of the whole Holy Spirit. Otherwise, how would that statement stand: *If I do not go, the Paraclete will not come to you*? This is too crude and ridiculous. For as often as the Holy Spirit is sent and given, He is given and sent in His entirety, since He is one and most simple. It is the diversity of charismata that returns to Him: for not all His charismata are distributed to everyone, or at all times; but these, and not others, and of greater or lesser excellence, according to the gratuitous favor of God. You infer that the advent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is superfluous. "Saying this, he is ignorant that these are the ^B inventions of a contentious mind (the words are those of John Beccus, no. 68). For whence does he gather that, on the day of Pentecost, there was an advent of the Spirit, if it was of the same Spirit, that it was superfluous? For if he judges the advent on the day of Pentecost to be superfluous, if it is the same Spirit as the one breathed before Pentecost, many redundancies of the same Spirit will appear, which is of extreme absurdity. For from the moment He was breathed into the first created man as a living soul, He descended afterwards to the worthy by diverse advents; and yet, although He descended to many and more often, never was any advent of His considered superfluous.

[XLIV] But the Bulgar, if he wishes to say that the advent of Him in Pentecost, after what was breathed before Pentecost, is either superfluous or the advent of another Spirit: not only will he affirm that the Spirit descended to the disciples superfluously, but also the arrival before in Pentecost; and when He was associated with this or that prophet, at different times and in diverse modes, descending. For if He arrived now in the form of fiery tongues, then in truth to those receiving Him by a different reason: nevertheless, the same Spirit arrived, and none of the various advents of the Spirit will be called superfluous by those who direct their own steps along the straight paths of the Scriptures." ^C

How, he replies, does that statement stand: *If I do not go*, etc.? "This he announces (this is Beccus's response), ignorant that the advent of the Spirit was promised to the disciples by the Savior in the corporeal appearance of fiery tongues. For there was need, when the Savior had dwelt with us in the body, for the Spirit also to appear in a body, to use the words of St. Gregory." Add the more abundant bestowal of charismata which the arriving Spirit brought at Pentecost.

Finally, have this clearer exposition of this mission. God is present intimately to all things by essence, and presence, and power: and this God the Son has from God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit has from the Father and the Son. Through the bestowal of charismata, there arises a new mode, as it were, of presence: which is more or less special according to the condition and excellence of the given charisma. Hence the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father and by the Son, is said to be present in a new, absolute, and simple way, as they say, and to dwell in those who receive the charisma of sanctifying grace: but also in another new way by faith He exists in faithful sinners, and in penitents through love, to a degree and imperfectly. Understand all these things, in short, in such a way that with the Holy Spirit Himself, who is sent, the Father ^D and the Son have the new presence itself and indwelling by reason of the gift conveyed, which the most holy Trinity works together *ad extra*: and furthermore, in that indwelling through sanctifying grace in just men, something is found which is proper to the person of the Holy Spirit Himself, as a certain special application of that same person to the soul of the just man. This is what Latin writers teach more frequently. Consult Aquinas above all, and Petavius, and Franciscus Sylvius.

(11.) I put forward other arguments which Theophylact accumulates in his epistle to Nicholas the deacon: That which has need of two principles in order to exist is either greater than that which is from one principle, or equal, or less. But it cannot be equal: for it would be from one

principle, and not otherwise. It remains therefore that it is either greater or less... Thus the Holy Spirit will be greater than the Son (who is from one); and behold a new impiety. Or He is less than the Son, and thus Macedonius revives... If the Father is greater than the Son in that which is His cause: the Son Himself will also be greater than the Holy Spirit for the same reason... Where have you found it said that the Son is greater than the Spirit? How finally can a property be common?

To this last argument, the solution of Beccus—found among his refutations of Photius in the same Oration on the Union of Churches, no. 42—is: "You say, if the production of the Holy Spirit is a property common to the Father and the Son, how will the common be a property? I, for my part, say: by what reason does it seem to you most absurd that there is something common to the Father and the Son, considered properly in them alone, which is not common to the Spirit? For there is that which is common to the Father and the Son, which is not common to the Spirit: and that which belongs not to one, but to two persons, this is called common, and is; but that which is considered properly in them, and of which the Spirit is not a participant, is called their property. Namely, so that the Spirit may be distinguished from them... [The] Nyssen, in his Homily on the Lord’s Prayer, clearly asserts this: For when the Son went forth from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from God and the Father. But just as to be without a cause, since it belongs to the Father alone, cannot be adapted to the Son and the Spirit: so, on the contrary, to be from a cause, which is the property of the Son and the Spirit, is considered foreign to the nature of the Father. But since it is common to the Son and the Holy Spirit not to be without origin; it is again easy to find the difference that is in their properties. Turn your mind... [to] how he called the property of two persons only [the fact of their] being from a cause; and how he represented that [which is] common to these same two persons, that is, [the fact of their] not being without origin."

[XLV] That the rest of the arguments might have a place, it had to be invented by Theophylactus that the Father and the Son are constituted as two principles of the Holy Spirit: whereas, on the contrary, just as the Father and the Son, insofar as they are the principle of the Holy Spirit, are not opposed, so they are not in the least distinguished, but are two supposita with one and the same power of producing the Holy Spirit.

(12.) "The Son, therefore, you say, will be greater than the Holy Spirit?" "Consider," Beccus replies, no. 67, "lest this doubt be turned to your shame, if an Italian produces for you the great Athanasius in his Oration I Adversus Arianos (no. 50), teaching this: 'The Lord, showing to the disciples His divinity and greatness, did not signify Himself to be less than the Spirit, but greater and equal,' he was transmitting the Spirit, and saying: 'I send Him, and He shall glorify me, and whatsoever He shall hear, He shall speak.'" In the Parisian edition of Montfaucon, the word μακρότερον, *greater*, is missing. Other editions, and some manuscript codices, have it. Regarding this passage, the praised editor notes that the following is marked in the margin of the Basle codex: "See how the Son is equal and greater than the Spirit: equal indeed according to divinity, but greater by reason of cause, just as the Father is greater than the Word Himself. That word indicates one dignity by reason of origin."

76. Most worthy of observation are the words of Theophylactus in the epistle frequently mentioned, to Nicolaus the deacon and chartophylax: "If you say that you affirm the Spirit proceeds from the Son, insofar as He is distributed and given by Him... and that to speak thus you are forced by a scarcity of words and the poverty of the Latin language... I will easily grant pardon, provided that in other matters, that is, in common and even ecclesiastical sermons, you use words as your language allows, with a previous convenient declaration, so that those who hear may not be ignorant of the double understanding of the word (of procession, namely, according to which He has being from the Father alone, and of the effusion or communication of the Spirit). But in the Creed, express the procession from the Father alone."

Joannes Beccus, without doubt, indicated this passage among his refutations of the same Theophylactus, no. 66: "I meanwhile give thanks to you, Theophylactus, for your good intention; when I find you to have hung the union of the Church, as they say, by a subtle thread in those things which you insinuate to the Italian: 'In other matters, I grant you the word of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is to be used, as your language permits: namely, in common ecclesiastical sermons and conversations, if it pleases you; but in the Creed alone, I do not grant it.' I kiss the candor of your mind, and I acknowledge that you have added great weight to the union."

These two things in turn, which Theophylactus transmits in the cited place and which Beccus observes, seem less accordant: nor at first sight do the words of the archbishop show a good intention. For he had taught that by the name of procession is declared the mode by which the Spirit has being: and

the term "mission" signifies an abundant outpouring of gifts, which is indeed from the Father, but is poured out by the Son upon those who are worthy. He then introduces the Latin or Italian [view], saying at least this, and nevertheless affirming, that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, insofar as He is distributed and given by Him, as if—to put it this way—forced by a poverty of expressions and the scarcity of the Latin language. Theophylact, of course, thrusts this fiction upon us. For no Italian or Latin has ever, on this subject, complained of the poverty of his Latin language or the scarcity of terms, nor can he so complain. But with this poverty of language presumed, the Bulgarian says that he would grant pardon to the Latin, if, the Creed excepted, in other familiar and even ecclesiastical conversations, he were to assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son: provided, however, that this caveat is applied: that the mission, donation, and distribution of the same Spirit through the outpouring of charisms be understood. These things seem to evince that it was by no means Theophylact’s intention that the sum of the controversy could be reduced solely to the addition of the word "Filioque" to the Creed, or its omission therein. Be that as it may, Beccus recognized some good fruit in the archbishop: as one who would allow the Latin to affirm that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son outside of the Creed; when, on the contrary, most of the Greeks would execrate this locution worse than a snake. That also was to our advantage: for when he permitted the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son to be understood and accepted as His mission through the outpouring of gifts, he was preparing the way for a true understanding of that same mission, which, as we have often noted, cannot consist without the eternal procession of the person sent from the other.

[XLVI] 77. There were, moreover, Greek doctors of his age who reduced the weight of the controversy between them and the Latins to the single addition of the word "Filioque" to the Creed. At the beginning of the twelfth century, Nicetas, who was first bishop of Maronea in Thrace, governed the metropolitan see of Thessalonica. A lengthy passage from the books which he compiled on the procession of the Holy Spirit is produced by Leo Allatius in his *Against Hottinger*, page 467, where, having discussed the question more diligently, he finally concludes it thus: "Wrap the addition of the word (Filioque) in silence, nor pronounce it henceforth in the Creed: but as the Fathers did, so say with us, 'Who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified'; which will sufficiently reconcile love between you and us, and us and you, through the grace of the Holy Spirit; since we shall be in concord with one another when we say and profess, 'procession from the Father through the Son'." The same seems to have been the mind of Peter of Antioch in his letter to Michael Cerularius, where, in number XI, he calls the addition to the Holy Creed an evil and the worst of evils: and nevertheless, in number XXII: "If they are corrected in the addition to the Creed," he says, "I shall demand nothing further." You see now the very slight weight of the question. The whole matter is reduced to a head of ecclesiastical discipline, in which there was too much audacity in the Roman pontiff and the Western Church to so restrict its authority that it could not, due to urgent circumstances, augment the Creed by one word: which, indeed, was done by the Greeks in the East at the first synod of Constantinople. Concerning this Addition, and concerning the Dogma itself, consult our two dissertations, which we published in print this year, 1753, with the Life of George, or Gregory Cyprius, Patriarch of Constantinople, at the press of Giambattista Pasquali.

XX.

Luke XII, 5, on those words: *Fear him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell*. His words are: "You see that he did not say, 'Fear him who after he hath killed, casts into hell', but, 'who has the power to cast'. For they who die as sinners, *οἱ ἀποθανόντες ἁμαρτωλοὶ*, are not always cast into hell; but they are in the power of God, so that they may even be forgiven. This, however, I say on account of the offerings and distributions which are made for the deceased; which contribute not a little even to these, *τοῖς καὶ ἐν ἁμαρτίαις βαρείαις ἀποθανοῦσιν*, who have died in grievous sins. Therefore, he does not entirely, after he has killed, cast into hell: but he has the power to cast. Let us not, therefore, cease, through alms

and intercessions, to render propitious Him who has the power to cast, yet does not always use this power: but is also able to remit something.» ^A

To these words in the edition of Philippus Montanus, there is added in the margin a note: *The assistance of the departed, the assertion of purgatory.* Bellarmine uses this same testimony of Theophylact to confirm the Catholic truth concerning purgatory in Book I of *De purgatorio*, chapter 10. But the Catholic truth is, as Bellarmine himself admits in Book II, chapter 1, at the end, that Purgatory is only for those who die with venial sins: and again for those who depart with the debt of punishment, their sins already remitted. Among these, who could count those who, according to Theophylact, have died in grievous sins? These too, that they might satisfy divine justice, God sends and casts into a place of punishments—whoever that may be, and whatever those punishments may be—even if he does not always use the power of sending, as the Bulgar states. ^B

He had set forth the plain meaning of the passage regarding Matthew chapter x, v. 28: *He teaches that death is also to be despised, for, he says, the punishment of Gehenna is more terrible. For those who kill only destroy the body: but perhaps they do the soul a favor. But God, casting into Gehenna, punishes both soul and body.* And when he says Gehenna, he signifies eternal punishment. That power which is attributed to God in Luke includes jurisdiction, force, and efficacy. The error of Theophylact lies precisely in this, that he separates that power from its act [XLVII]: and he errs by designating the condition of the departed, to whom the prayers of the faithful can be of service for salvation. ^C

It is worth the effort to weigh what is held in this regard in the *Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church*. This was prepared for the Church of the Russians by Peter Mogila, Metropolitan of Kiev; and it was published in the same Greek and Latin types at Wroclaw by Joan. Jacob Korn, 1751. It is divided into two parts, and in the second part, question LXIV says thus: *Are there any who depart this life such that they are intermediate between the blessed and the damned?* Answer: «No such men are found. But this much is clearly certain, that wicked men (ἁμαρτωλούς) are snatched and liberated from the dungeons of the underworld not in small number: not indeed by their own repentance or confession... but through the pious offices of the living and the prayers of the Church for them, and especially through the unbloody sacrifice.» ^D

Question LXV. *What then must be thought concerning the alms and pious offices which are performed for the refreshment of the dead?* Answer. «On this matter Theophylact, on chapter xi of Luke, explaining the words of Christ v. 5... comments as follows. (His earlier words are brought forward.) Therefore, we deduce from the teaching of this Father: that it is absolutely necessary for us to conceive prayers for the departed, and for unbloody sacrifices to be offered, and for alms to be distributed with a liberal hand; since they themselves cannot perform such pious works on their own behalf.»

Many absurdities are brought forward. Why should those who depart from this life with only venial sins, or with the debt of temporal punishment, their sins already remitted, not be intermediate between the blessed and the damned, in whatever place they might satisfy divine justice? When you say that wicked men, dying in grievous sins, are snatched and liberated from the dungeons of the underworld not in small number by the suffrages of the faithful, you fall into the error of Origen, who said that there would one day be an end to the punishments of hell. That some traces of this comment are found in the ecclesiastical books of the Greeks, whether it was done through the fraud of Origenists or others, Leo Allatius noted in his dissertation II *De libris ecclesiasticis Græcorum*.

But you will argue with Theophylact that those wicked ones, who are to be liberated, are not cast into Gehenna by God; but that this is situated in the power of God, just as granting them pardon is. But the Catholic faith, established in the Council of Florence in the decree of Union, opposes this, where we read it defined: *Those souls which depart in actual mortal sin, or in original sin, immediately descend into hell, etc.* By what moment, then, of the Scriptures or of the tradition of the Fathers, supported by what authority, do you separate the power of God to cast into Gehenna from the act? Christ said in Luke chapter v, v. 24: *But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic: I say to thee, Arise.* Did he not then in actual fact forgive the sins? But in v. 20 he had said: *Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.*

...fables concerning the liberation of Trajan from the underworld, and Falconilla, and the Emperor Theophilus, and the like. I would prefer not to waste time and effort in refuting these, which others have rejected as untenable.

many arguments of learned men. Consult Allatius, *De perpetua consensione in dogmate purgatorii*, Natalis Alexander, century II, Dissertation 1, and Michel Lequien, Dissertation V among those on Damascene.

81. Saint Thomas Aquinas, having given these reasons for a scholarly discussion, devised some probable modes, compliant with sound theology, by which the common belief in the deliverance of human sinners from the lower regions might be understood. I adduce his passage from the *Supplement to the Third Part*, q. LXXI, art. 5, ad 5: “Regarding the fact of Trajan, it may be estimated in this way, with probability: that through the prayers of blessed Gregory he was recalled to life, and thus obtained grace, through which he had the remission of sins, and consequently immunity from punishment. As also appears in all those who were miraculously raised from the dead, of whom it is manifest that many were idolaters and damned. For concerning all such, it must be said that they were not finally consigned to hell, but [were judged] according to the present justice of their own merits. But according to the higher causes, by which they were foreseen to be recalled to life, it was to be disposed otherwise concerning them. Or it must be said, according to some, that the soul of Trajan was not simply absolved from the guilt of eternal punishment, but his punishment [XLVIII] was suspended for a time, namely until the day of judgment; yet it does not follow that this happens commonly through suffrages, because there are things which happen according to common law, and others which are granted to some individually and by privilege.”

This doctrine of Thomas differs widely from the comments of the Greeks; for in these cases which do not pertain to the common law, either there is no force or utility in suffrages, or those sinners who are liberated return to mortal life, intending to do penance for their offenses.

XXI.

Chapter XXI

It is the opinion of Theophylact that the spirits of pious men, who, released from the body, no longer require any purgation, are received into the kingdom of heaven. Whether he also taught that they are endowed with the divine vision is investigated. He withdrew from the Virgin Mother of God the privilege of immunity from all sin, even venial; which [opinion] is common to certain other Fathers of the Church.

82. Concerning the spirits of pious men who incurred no stain of sin after having received baptism, or who expiated it either while living in the body or after death, no one is ignorant of the various questions of the Greeks concerning their state. Theophylact rejects many absurd opinions and teaches most clearly that the same spirits are received into the kingdom of heaven. A notable passage is on Chapter XXIII of Luke, v. 43: *Remember me when you come into your kingdom... Today you will be with me in paradise.*

The words of Theophylact are: “But some ask how, when the Lord said to the thief, ‘Today you will be with me in paradise,’ Paul said (Hebrews, chapter XI, v. 39) that none of the saints had received the promise? And some say that the Apostle does not assert this concerning all the saints, that they had not received the promise, but [only] concerning those whom he himself enumerated (Abraham, Enoch, Noah, etc.). But he enumerated many others indeed, yet he did not mention the thief. For hear what he says: *all these*, pointing to those whom his discourse enumerates, among whom the thief is not counted.” This is the first interpretation, which did not admit that all, but only some specific saints, were received into paradise.

Others, however, said that the thief had not yet obtained conversation (or transportation into paradise, *diagogēs*) in paradise. But because the Lord’s promise is unchanging and He cannot lie, it was therefore said: *Today you will be with me in paradise.* For this species of phrasing exists in the words of the Lord, so that He speaks of future things as if they were already happening. As when He says (John, chapter III, v. 18), *He who does not believe is already judged.* This second interpretation commands that the beatitude of the saints, or paradise, not excluding the holy thief, be deferred.

Others twist the word, placing a point after *today*. So that the sense of the saying is: *Amen I say to you, today.* Then, adding: *You will be with me in paradise.* This third interpretation also defers paradise to a future time.

A fourth distinguishes paradise from the kingdom of heaven, and establishes beatitude in the kingdom of heaven, which is deferred. But some, who seem to have arrived at the sense most [accurately], explain it thus: The goods promised to us are not the entry into paradise, or the ascent, but the kingdom of heaven. Whence we also pray, *Thy kingdom come*, not, *that conversation in paradise*. For neither

^A should anyone say to me: that paradise and the kingdom are the same thing. For the good things of the kingdom neither ear has heard, nor eye has seen, nor have they ascended into the heart of man (Isaiah chapter LXIV, v. 4, and 1 Corinthians chapter II, v. 9). But the eye of Adam saw paradise, and the ear heard about it... The thief therefore obtained paradise: but he has not attained the kingdom. He will attain it, however, when all those whom Paul enumerated also do. But this person, at this time, has paradise, which is a part of spiritual rest. Now many ^B have often said these things. Those interpreters admit that a certain part of spiritual rest is granted to the saints immediately after death: and in the earthly paradise, as some say. They contend that the kingdom of heaven is deferred until the consummation of the age.

Not so Theophylactus. “But it must be said (he says) ^C that even if the kingdom of heaven and paradise are the same thing, nothing prevents the Lord from speaking the truth, and Paul as well. For the thief is indeed in paradise, that is, the kingdom: and not only he, but also all those whom Paul enumerates. And yet he does not enjoy the perfect participation of good things, the perfect inheritance of good things.” He brings forward the example of those condemned, who are not in the royal palaces, but are held confined in prisons under assigned punishments: whereas the honorable ones both enter into the royal palaces and move about in them; and when the time for the distribution of the royal gifts comes, they obtain them. “So also the saints, he says, even if they do not yet perfectly enjoy the good things, are yet already dwelling in bright and fragrant places, and finally in royal halls, even if they have not yet perfectly attained the distribution of the royal goods. Thus also the thief was in paradise, even if he had not yet perfectly received it, so that he might not be perfected without us. And this, I think, is the most true of all.” The opinion is most clear, that paradise and the kingdom are the same: and that the saints live having been received into the kingdom of heaven.

Then he seems to admit a distinction between paradise and the kingdom, understanding by the name of kingdom the entire felicity and the perfect attainment of all good things; but he immediately returns to the former interpretation, which holds both to be the same. “So that I may not say,” he says, “that the grace of the saints in the daily operations of miracles is deservedly called paradise: and all the saints, as many as have become partakers of spiritual gifts, and who have the earnest of the Spirit, are in paradise; even if they have not yet been made perfect, and received the kingdom, as the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: *Even though they have not yet received the promise.* For by saying the promise, he declared the ^D whole inheritance (or felicity). But they have not yet received it in its entirety. And they are in the kingdom, and paradise; though they are in the kingdom and in paradise.” He reduces himself to his former interpretation.

83. It does not follow: the saints are in heaven, therefore they see God. The objection of some is in Bellarmine, book 1 *On the Beatitude of the Saints*, chapter 3. He replies: “It follows rightly; for by heaven we understand the seat, and as it were the royal hall of God, where God is always seen... For although God is everywhere, yet he is properly said to be in heaven, because he shows himself present there through his manifestation; and he is seen by those who are worthy of that heavenly seat.”

But what was the mind of Theophylactus? I think it most likely that he thought the saints enjoy the vision of God in the kingdom of heaven. He teaches that paradise is the same as the kingdom of heaven, which the fourth interpretation distinguished. But the good things of the kingdom are called those which neither ear has heard, nor eye has seen, nor have they ascended into the heart of man. Who indeed among these good things of the kingdom, in which Theophylactus says the saints dwell, would not enumerate that chief one, which is the clear vision of God? He affirms most eloquently that they enjoy the participation of good things in the kingdom of heaven, though not yet perfectly; which words it is fair to understand in such a way that they certainly see God, and are to receive the perfect distribution of gifts when the body is resumed after the judgment at the consummation of the age. The example which is brought forward, of those who enter into the royal palaces and move about in them, favors this most of all. Have they never seen the king? Indeed they see him; and when the time for the distribution of the royal gifts comes, which is the consummation of the age and the resurrection of bodies, they will perfectly attain them. Having admitted the distinction of the kingdom of heaven from paradise; by the former, Theophylactus understands entire felicity; and by the latter, felicity indeed, but not full, and also the participation of spiritual gifts and the earnest of the Spirit; and without doubt the clear vision of God. May it be permitted to add his passage at chapter 1 of the Epistle to the Philippians, v. 21: “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But to die is gain, because then I shall dwell more openly with him (Christ, the Son of God).”

84. There is a flaw in Theophylact’s doctrine at chapter XII of Matthew, v. 46: *As he was still speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to him.* He appends this exposition to it: “He wished to show something human, ^A that the Mother might have power over the Son: for she did not yet understand anything great about him. On account of this, while he was still speaking, she wished to draw him to herself, being somewhat ambitious, seeing as he was a Son so submissive to her.” V. 50: *Whoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother.* “It was not in insulting the Mother that he said this: but in correcting her mind, which was avid for glory, and human, her glory-seeking and human judgment.”

In his own edition, Joannes Oecolampadius had noted in the margin: *Read with caution, see the end.* At the close of his *Enarrationes on the Gospels* he says: *Because he may have exceeded in his words.* [L] In the edition of Philippus Montanus these things are added: “Chrysostom says almost the same things on that passage; noting the importunity of the Mother and the brothers. Whom he also says were moved by ambition and ostentation.” Then, first he levels a censure, and then the most prudent doctor Aquinas, in P. III, Q. XXVII, art. IV ad 3, explains the words of John Chrysostom with a benign interpretation: “It must be said that in those words Chrysostom exceeded. They can, however, be explained so that it is understood: that the Lord was restraining in her (the Virgin Mother of God) not an inordinate movement of vainglory, insofar as she herself was concerned; but that which might be estimated by others.”

85. There were some ancient writers, whether Greek or Latin, who attributed a slight flaw of some sort to the Mother of God: Ambrose, Arnobius the Younger, the author of the *Questions on the Old and New Testament* under the name of Augustine, Origen, and the praised Chrysostom. Sixtus Senensis adduces their words and weighs them in book VI of his *Bibliotheca Sancta*, no. 103 and 151, and in book VI, no. 56, 138, 139, 140, and 185, ^B where he either clears the Fathers he mentions with some more benign interpretation, or certainly admits they have exceeded: “lest we defraud the Virgin Mother of God (as he says in the cited book VI, no. 68) of that signal privilege of her integrity, which the canon of the Council of Trent attributes to her (Sess. VI, *On Justification*, can. 25): If anyone shall have said that a man once justified can avoid all sins throughout his whole life, even venial ones, unless by a special privilege of God, as the Church holds concerning the blessed Virgin Mary; let him be anathema.” The praised Aquinas delivers excellent theological reasons in the cited place, where Franciscus Sylvius, in his Commentary, weighing the Tridentine canon, remarks: “Although it may not expressly define that the Church holds this as a dogma of faith, and consequently does not condemn the contrary opinion as heretical, it must at least be rejected as temerarious.”

XXII. De electione divina, ac prædestinatione, et gratiæ necessitate perplexe et ambigue disserit. OEcolampadius et Simonius notati. Regula prima, quam statuit Sixtus Senensis, Theophylacti dictis applicatur. Hanc illustrat Petavius. Ejusdem Senensis regula secunda. De præscientia divina, quam admittunt Græci Patres scriptoresque, animadversiones Petavii. Cura præcipua ipsis erat, liberum arbitrium tueri : notio ejus.

86. Things that are almost common to the Greek Church Fathers, and passed around by Theophylact himself, must be called to an examination; there are not a few statements about divine election, and predestination, and the necessity of grace, which are less than accurate at first glance, and are perplexed and ambiguous. Regarding chapter XXII of Matthew, v. 14: *Many are called, but few are chosen*, the Archbishop of Bulgaria says thus: ^C “For few are those who are saved, and who are worthy to be chosen by God: so that while it belongs to God to call, it is ours to become chosen or not, *to be chosen is ours*.” Regarding that saying of Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans, chapter VIII: *Whom he foreknew, he also predestined*, his opinion is this: “God foreknows, or foresees, those who are worthy of the calling: then he predestines in this way. Therefore, foreknowledge is prior, predestination follows afterwards. But you will understand predestination as the immutable good will of God. Thus he foreknew that Paul was worthy of the calling of the Gospel: and so he predetermined, or predestined, that is, he immutably decreed; and thus he decided to call him.” There are similar things in his Commentaries. It seems to be known that 1) foreknowledge is attributed to free actions: predestination to those things which are not subject to free will; 2) that one is chosen by God who is already worthy and devout, or is foreknown as such; 3) that for one to become worthy, and thus also chosen, is ours: that is, a work of free will, not of grace.

87. Joannes Oecolampadius, at the end of the *Enarrationes* of Theophylact himself on the Gospels, remarks thus: “Since becoming chosen can be understood as the very predestination or fulfillment of divine election, which by no means happens without the cooperation of man, according to that...”

word of St. Peter: *Make your calling and election sure by good works* (2 Pet. 1:10). Wherefore, the assertion made by the author, that it is up to us whether we are made the chosen or not, can admit of that sense." We embrace this Catholic sense. But in his Preface to the Reader, he had said thus: "Theophylact follows Chrysostom regarding free will and faith, and certain other matters; and therefore, he is more insistent ^B in interpreting certain things. I have said this so that you might apply your own judgment here, you who know yourself to be devoted only to the canonical Scriptures." He calls only upon the canonical Scriptures, rejecting the tradition of the Fathers, imbued with a heterodox error; for this reason, Richard Simon, in his *Critical History of the New Testament*, Tome IV, Chapter 28, page 395, noted that he was preoccupied by this, and that he dared to prefer his own judgment to the universal judgment of the Fathers in expounding the divine Oracles.

But Simon himself vindicates Theophylact’s doctrine concerning divine election, predestination, and grace in this way: that the Bulgarian brings forward the ancient faith of the Greek Church, which is indeed distant from the teachings of Augustine, and even contrary to the errors of the Pelagians; and he teaches that the general grace of vocation is conferred by God, by which every good disposition in men and the salutary will is anticipated; and that this is sufficient, once the free will is anticipated, to cooperate with the calling God. That Simon thus makes the ancient Greek Fathers contend with Augustine, and characterizes Augustine's doctrine as entirely new, has already been censured by others among the most learned of theologians.

88. Louis Thomassin should be consulted, who in Book IX of *On God and the Properties of God* discusses most extensively and excellently the necessary concord of the Greek and Latin Fathers who preceded Augustine with that same Augustine and his followers in theological disputes concerning predestination and grace. Hence, Thomassin himself, and before him Dionysius Petavius in Book IX of *On Predestination*, chapters 3, 4, and 5, prescribed guidelines that are highly useful for rightly interpreting the ancient Greeks, especially on this subject. Sixtus of Siena anticipated these in *Bibliotheca Sancta*, Book VI, annotation 251, who proposed Saint Thomas Aquinas to himself as a guide for entering upon this path. I, too, follow in the footsteps of these most learned men.

The words of Sixtus of Siena are: "In the works of the elect, foreseen by divine predestination, a twofold causality can be considered, namely, the meritorious and the final. Hence, the first rule: If we consider the meritorious cause, one must know that the order of divine providence towards the elect is distinguished by a twofold variety of degrees: some of which precede the reception of justifying grace, such as love, election, enrollment, predestination, calling, and the beginning of justification; others, however, follow the reception of justifying grace, such as the increase of grace, the growth of righteousness, and the attainment of eternal happiness. If, therefore, it is asked whether the foreknowledge of our works is the meritorious cause of the preceding degrees, it must be denied entirely, lest we appear to connive with the Pelagians, who say that God chose our merits in His foreknowledge. And according to this sentiment, all the Fathers are to be interpreted who define the eternal election and predestination of God from the grace of God alone, with no merits foreseen. But if anyone should ask whether the subsequent degrees of the divine order have a meritorious cause in divine foreknowledge, it must undoubtedly be answered that God decreed from eternity that He would give the increments of more ample grace to those who would make good use of the first gift of justifying grace, and then, on account of the merits of well-kept righteousness, he would render to them the crown of eternal ^C blessedness. And to this sense we shall endeavor, as far as possible, to accommodate some of the preceding sentences of the Fathers, which seem to ascribe election and predestination—that is, the complement of predestination and election, or the subsequent and later degrees of the divine order—to the foreknowledge of merits. Which the Fathers sometimes call election or predestination, naming the whole from a part."

To this Catholic sense, many of Theophylact’s sentiments can very easily be recalled. Regarding chapter XXII of Matthew, 14, he says: "For we are all called by grace alone, both the good and the bad." In the first vocation, which is situated in an interior movement of the soul—whether it be an illumination of the mind or an inflammation of the heart—only the gratuitous gift of God shines forth, without any preceding good and free salutary disposition on our part. But yet, he says this in his commentary on chapter VIII of Romans: "God foreknows those who are worthy of the calling." There are, indeed, other callings to more ample gifts; and these are conferred by God upon those whom He foreknows to be worthy, fit, and predisposed by the good use of prior grace. The words we read regarding chapter VI of John, v. 37, yield this meaning: "Showing, however, ^D that...

^A faith in Christ is not some common thing, but a gift of God given by the Father to those who are worthy and upright in heart, He says that "all that the Father giveth me shall come to me," that is, those whom the Father gives me shall believe in me. "But you [LII], O Jews, since you are unworthy, are not given to me by the Father; therefore you neither come to me, nor have you an upright heart, so that God, loving you, would lead you to my faith." It concerns the excellent gift of faith, which is called the gift of God in the highest degree. But this is not given except to the worthy and upright in heart, namely to those whom the Father gives, and whom He makes worthy and upright in heart, that is, well-disposed, by preceding aids of grace. Regarding v. 39, he says: "For if the Father gives, as something great, a worthy faith in Christ, and they themselves do not have it, it is manifest that they have fallen away from the gift of God." Namely, they either rejected the gift of God when received through incredulity, or they placed obstacles in the way of receiving it, abusing the preceding supports of grace. And regarding v. 44, the words are: "No one can come to me, unless the Father draw him. But he says this, not to do away with the freedom of choice; far from it; but to show that he who is about to believe needs much cooperation from God. And otherwise: The Father draws those who have the aptitude of will; but those who do not make themselves fit, he does not draw to faith." This sublime gift of faith is granted to those who make themselves fit: but this previous aptitude and free and good disposition are present in those who make good use of the earlier gifts of grace; whence Theophylact excellently teaches that much cooperation from God is needed by him who is about to believe, both that which imparts faith itself, and that which inspires pious desires and disposes the mind well.

89. Petavius, in the 9th book cited, illustrates this first rule established by Sixtus Senensis and explains some other sayings of Theophylact. I bring forward those words, which are contained in chapter 4, no. 8: "Not rarely do the ancients, when they speak of grace, understand the full and perfect gift, not the incipient and raw one, which is called the first, and of which they usually make no mention... But it is certain that, just as the first grace is bestowed for no merits, so its accession and increment, and finally its full possession, are acquired by the price of merits and labors... The passages of the Greeks, which show that God, in bestowing his grace, takes an occasion from us, and from our endeavor and purpose, seem to have this meaning: such as Theodoret, Photius, Oecumenius, Theophylact, and Chrysostom himself also... For they do not count the first movement of will and reason as grace, such as pious desires, by which we are stirred to seek a fuller faith and knowledge and love of God; which are excellent gifts of grace, and therefore deserve the name and title of grace especially." I believe the observation of that most learned man, which is read in no. 1, to be most true, in these words: "Usually those older writers, when they treat of the grace of God and vocation, do not speak so much of an interior movement of the soul, and either of the illumination of the mind or the inflammation of the will, as they do of some external benefit of God, such as the preaching of the Gospel, or some state of life, to which they are then drawn by a secret instinct of the soul... That certain men deserve such benefits of this kind by their piety and virtue, is most true." In this sense, Theophylact writes of Paul regarding chapter VIII of the Epistle to the Romans, that he could have had merits, not absolute and perfect (as Petavius notes in the same place, no. 4), but such, however, as could elicit the office (namely, of the apostolate) from divine goodness. Consult the most celebrated man, who discusses another passage of Theophylact excellently in no. 3.

90. Sixtus Senensis proposes another rule with these words: "Again, if we turn to the contemplation of the final cause, we shall rightly be able to affirm that the foreknowledge of subsequent works is the final cause of the reception of divine grace, [that is] of election and predestination. For God, as Paul says, chose us before the foundation of the world, and predestined us that we should be holy and immaculate before him in the praise of the glory of his grace. That is, he claimed us for himself from eternity as his own, and prepared for us the grace of vocation and justification, to that end, namely, that we might use it well, and through its good use attain the glory of eternal happiness. And there is no doubt that some of the aforesaid Fathers, according to this mode of speaking, declared that our works are the cause of divine predestination foreseen by God, a final cause indeed, but not a meritorious one." The words of Theophylact brought forward above can be subject to this meaning. For in those who, since [LIII] they are worthy and fit, are called to faith, faith itself, and also a good free disposition, or a good use of vocation and grace, was foreseen by God as an end; and to this end...

^A he prepared the grace of the vocation itself. You see now that the good free use of these, not of course as a meritorious cause, but as a final one, was the cause both of the grace of the first vocation and of the other more abundant ones. But from this sense of such expressions, a conclusion is gathered that is most worthy of note: that the aids of divine grace were understood by the Greek Fathers in such a way that they not only confer possibility, but are also endowed with a power, energy, and efficacy undoubtedly descending from God; and that they lead certainly and infallibly to the end foreseen by God, which He Himself wills. St. Thomas ^B sets out this matter most splendidly (1 p., qu. xxiii, art. v): “There were others who said that the merits following the effect of predestination (or following the grace which, just as it is given by God, is so predestined and must be called the effect of predestination) are the reason for predestination. So that it is understood that God therefore gives grace to someone, and predestined that He would give it to him, because He foresaw that he would use it well. Just as if a king were to give a horse to a soldier, whom he knows will use it well. But these men seem to have distinguished between that which is from grace and that which is from free will, as if it could not be the same from both. But it is manifest that that which is from grace (and not only grace itself and its collation) is an effect of predestination. And this cannot be posited as a reason for predestination (or a meritorious cause) since this is included under predestination. If, therefore, something else on our part were the reason for predestination, this would be outside the effect of predestination. But that which is from free will is not distinct from that which is from predestination, just as that which is from a secondary cause is not distinct from that which is from a primary cause; for divine Providence produces effects through the operation of secondary causes. Whence even that which is through free will is from predestination.” Whence the good use of grace foreseen (as is said in the first point) is not the reason for the collation of grace, except according to the sense of a final cause. In this same sense, the aids of grace which God prepares are such in God’s foreknowledge that they lead infallibly to the execution of the good free work, which God from eternity foresees and wills as an end. This foreknowledge does not differ from the predestination which Augustine and Thomas teach; and this is, contracted into a few points, the sum of both doctrines.

91. Nothing prevents some of the opinions of the Greek Fathers from being explained with the same sense. Petavius, in the ninth book cited, chapter 3, no. 9, calls them to examination and collects many things worthy of knowledge, namely: 1) That the ancients did not think that men are chosen for the first grace because of certain merits and beginnings of good will, as those of Marseille opined. 2) That the error of others cannot be imputed to them, as if God had decreed to give the first grace to men because He had foreseen that they would use His grace well; as if the foreseen good use of grace must be called a certain meritorious cause. 3) That the Fathers did not take refuge in that which they call conditional knowledge, as if He foresaw a good disposition of the soul or a free merit that would not absolutely happen, but would do so only if He decreed to confer the necessary aid for it. 4) But that it is precisely in this that men are constituted as chosen, worthy, and fit; because God not only foresees that which is contributed by their will (the good use of grace, and the good free salutary work), but He also foresees His own grace, by which He aids them and makes them worthy and fit; and He works their good works, and effects the good use of grace. 5) That this foreknowledge is finally absolute, and a certain knowledge of the thing as not otherwise than present and existing.

Those ancient Fathers are accustomed to distinguish foreknowledge from predestination: and to refer the former to free acts, the latter to those things which are not subject to free will, such as the first collation of grace and the retribution of rewards. They speak, of course, in a sense that is perhaps too strict and circumspect, regarding the predestination of those things which God alone does without us. But their foreknowledge, as they call it, of things which we also do freely, since it is absolute, is equivalent to predestination, as we have heard Thomas teaching impressively. The Fathers themselves also seem to have established predestination to glory from the foresight of merits; which is a question of lesser moment here, provided that predestination is admitted to grace and to the effect of grace, which is the free consent of the will or the free good use of the grace given. Keep the doctrine of Thomas before your eyes.

[LIV] Finally, the praiseworthy Fathers and Theophylact say not infrequently: that God chooses those men whom He has foreseen to be compliant and tractable to divine vocation; and likewise those who would consent at this or that time and in these or those circumstances. You should not understand such dicta as if divine foreknowledge takes from these internal and external circumstances of men some cause and reason for divine election and predestination. According to the second re-

such must the matter be understood, that this consensus is foreknown by God, as an end; and that Divine Providence, for the counsel of its own wisdom and for the condition of rational souls, may obtain this, beyond the interior aids of efficacious and operating divine grace, it links these also with other internal and external circumstances of time, place, and like things, by which it may finally attain the foreseen consensus, at the time, in the place, and in the manner which God wills to be appropriate for rational and free men.

92. Thus indeed the Greek Fathers spoke, and surely less accurately: partly because the Pelagian heresy had not so invaded their Churches that there was an urgent reason to measure words and to correct locutions when dealing with grace and divine election and predestination. Moreover, because they had to be on their guard concerning free will, since Manichaeans and other heterodox groups were attacking many people. Hence, among them and in Theophylact’s own commentaries, there are most frequent admonitions: this or that is said, so that the freedom of the will may be shown; this or that was by no means said, so that free will might be taken away.

To Matthew, chapter XVI, v. 24, the words are: «If anyone wishes to come after me. He says, however, *wishes*, ἵνα δείξῃ ὅτι αὐτεξούσιον, to show free will, and not forced virtue, καὶ οὐκ ἀναγκαστὴ ἡ ἀρετή. On Mark chapter IV, v. 26: «So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth.» For we are of free will: and it will depend on our election whether the seed (the preaching of the Gospel) grows or not. For we do not bring forth fruit forced and by necessity. On Luke, chapter XXII, v. 27: «Let the Manichaeans be confounded, who say that some are by nature indocile, and that a change of life is impossible.»

John, chapter V, v. 40: «For he did not say, You can come, but *You will*. Let the Manichaeans hear: that evil consists not by nature, but by the will.» But that there is a need for divine aid so that free will may produce salutary acts, he delivers most clearly in many places. Take this passage on Luke, chapter XXII, v. 31: «In this place we learn a great doctrine: that the purpose of man is not sufficient χωρὶς τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπικουρίας, without the assistance of God.» Just as Peter, when little abandoned (on account of a certain temerity of his, as below), although he seemed to have charity and fervor, when God abandoned him, was tripped up by the enemy. Οὐκ ἀρκεῖ ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπικουρία, μὴ καὶ προθέσεως ἀνθρωπίνης οὔσης, the assistance of God does not suffice, if human purpose is not also present: just as it profited Judas nothing, although the Lord did everything (which would suffice) to win him over, when good will was absent in him (which is at any rate to be had by divine aid).

What indeed was the notion of free will among Theophylact and the other Greek Fathers, Michael Lequien, most versed in their writings, explains most diligently in his notes to chapter 25 of book II of John of Damascus's *De fide orthodoxa*: «Some modern theologians, he says, understand free will in such a way that, in whatever way the will is drawn to desire some one thing, it is nonetheless most free, by willing spontaneously... Damascus, they say, teaches that man is free because he is rational, that is, because the consideration of reason accompanies every movement of his will, however necessary it may be. But have they not read the whole context of the author? For why does he prove that man is free because he is rational, unless because by using reason man deliberates, and when he has deliberated, he finally chooses what he judged to be better for himself? Whoever deliberates (he says in chapter 27) deliberates precisely as if the power over the things to be done were in himself: so that he may choose what, by deliberating, seemed better; and when he has chosen, he may execute it... So that therefore a man may be free, mere attention to what he wills is not sufficient; it is necessary that, master of himself, he embrace one thing, putting the other aside.» That this is also the most constant doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, and this the most clear mind of Augustine, will be asserted without doubt by all who are wise.

XXIII.

Most clearly, and without any ambiguity, he discourses concerning the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and concerning transubstantiation. The trifles are most trifles which the heterodox object, Salmasius, Albertinus, and Claudius.

[Theophylact,] regarding the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and the transmutation of the substance of bread and wine, testifies with such splendid sentiments that no one could employ fuller, clearer, or brighter words. I bring forward first the passage from his commentary on Matthew, chapter XXVI, v. 26: «Further saying, This is my body, he shows, Ὅτι αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Κυρίου ἐστὶν ὁ ἄρτος, ὁ ἁγιαζόμενος ἐν τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ, καὶ οὐχὶ ἀντίτυπον. Οὐ γὰρ εἶπε, Τοῦτό ἐστι ἀντίτυπον, ἀλλὰ, Τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου. Ἀρρήτῳ γὰρ ἐνεργείᾳ, μεταποιεῖται, κἂν φαίνηται ἡμῖν ἄρτος·

ἄρτος· ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἀσθενεῖς ἐσμεν, καὶ βδελυττόμεθα ὠμὰς ἐσθίειν σάρκας, μάλιστα δὲ ἀνθρωπίνην σάρκα· διὰ τοῦτο ἄρτος μὲν ἡμῖν φαίνεται, αὐτὴ δὲ ἡ σάρξ ἐστι.» It is clearly evident that bread and wine do not become solely by the words of consecration antitypes representing the body and blood of the Lord, but are transmuted into the body and blood themselves.

There are two passages, and those most explicit, which are found at the sixth chapter of John, verse 52: «The bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world.» Manifestly, however, he speaks to us in this place concerning the mystical communion of his body... But pay attention, because the bread which is eaten by us in the mysteries is not only a certain configuration of the flesh of the Lord, but the very flesh of the Lord, ^B not an antitype of the Lord's flesh, but the Lord's flesh itself. For he does not say, The bread which I shall give is a figure of flesh, but, It is my flesh. For that bread is transformed, μεταποιεῖται, by arcane words, through mystical benediction and the accession of the Holy Spirit, into the flesh of the Lord. And let it trouble no one that bread is to be believed to be flesh. For indeed, with the Lord walking in the flesh, and taking nourishment from bread, that bread which was eaten was changed into his body, and similarly became his holy flesh, and contributed to growth and sustenance according to human custom. Therefore, even now, bread is changed into the body of the Lord. And how, you ask, does it not appear as flesh to us, but as bread? So that we might not shrink from eating it. For if it had appeared as flesh, we would have been unfavorably affected toward the communion. But now, the Lord condescending to our infirmity, such mystical food appears to us, as we are otherwise accustomed to.

94. Claudius Salmasius, under the name Simplicius Verinus, in the work *De transsubstantiatione* against Hugo Grotius, evaluating Theophylact's opinion, first saw the truth handed down by him; then he closed his eyes, so as not to see it. His words are on page 10: «If the bread, having cast off its proper substance, should put on the substance of the body of Christ, it could no longer be called its figure... Whence also those who believed that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were converted into the body and blood of Christ by a change of substance; they denied that the bread and wine were a *typos* or *antitypos* of the body and blood of Christ, like Theophylact.» He notes his passage on Mark, regarding which we shall speak below. This is the faith of the Catholic Church. This is without doubt the opinion of the Archbishop of Bulgaria. But what is this? Salmasius, closing his eyes to the most splendid light, carried away by the prejudice of a sect, says that Theophylact understood nothing else but a certain transmutation of virtue.

Edmund Albertin contends in *De Eucharistiae sacramento* that this one thing is taught by him, and he contends that support can be sought from the commentary on the fourteenth chapter of Mark, verse 22: «This is my body. This, I say, which you take. For the bread is not a figure and a certain exemplar of the Lord's body, but it is converted into that very body of Christ. For the Lord says: The bread which I shall give, is my flesh. He did not say, It is a figure of my flesh, but, It is my flesh. And again: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man. And how, you ask, is the flesh not seen? O man, this happens on account of our infirmity. For because the bread and wine are of those things ^C to which we are accustomed, we do not abhor them. But seeing our own blood and flesh, we would not bear it, but would abhor it. Therefore the merciful God, condescending to our infirmity, preserves the appearance of bread and wine: but by *transelementation*, μεταστοιχεῖωσις, it into the virtue of flesh and blood.» Behold, they say, transformation, conversion, transelementation, which Theophylact teaches, namely into the virtue of flesh and blood, εἰς δύναμιν σαρκὸς καὶ αἵματος. Joannes Claudius also embraced this interpretation in his responses *ad Perpetuitatem fidei Ecclesiae*.

Arnaldus refutes this lightest, most futile, and iniquitous interpretation in a most ample discourse in volume I of *De la perpétuité de la Foi de l'Eglise*, book 2, chapter 2, and in volume II, book 4, chapter 5. For even if those latter words of Theophylact on Mark were not so clear and were in some way ambiguous; what equity is it not to extract their correct understanding from those things which are held to be most clear and explicit there and elsewhere, but to darken these—if there is any ambiguity in the amplest of a single word, that is, "virtue"? If the entire transmutation which is taught by Theophylact in the Eucharist were only a transmutation of virtue, or into the virtue of the body and blood of Christ; that would be nothing other than that the virtue of the Lord's body and blood had been attributed by God to the consecrated and blessed bread and wine, or the virtue of nourishing and vivifying the souls of the faithful through spiritual grace. The eucharistic bread, therefore, and the eucharistic wine would be a simple figure, having the virtue of the body and blood of Christ.

^A And yet it does not contain the body and blood of the Lord itself. Why, therefore, has the Bulgarian so carefully observed that the Lord did not say, "This is a figure," but, "This is my body and my flesh"? Why does he urge that bread be converted into the very body of Christ, and transformed into the flesh of the Lord?

Hearing these things, the reason and senses of men are disturbed. But lest they be disturbed, why should one have had to flee to these arcane words, to the accession of the Holy Spirit, to the ineffable operation that transmutes, transforms, and transelementates? Why should that same transmutation, which is understood to be possible for God in some manner, have been compared to that bread which was eaten by the Lord while walking about, and was changed into his body, becoming similar to that flesh through substantial conversion? ^B

But human reason and the senses of men still resist: "The bread," it says, "does not appear as flesh to us." If the substance of the bread remains, and it undergoes merely a mutation of virtue, or obtains from God the virtue of vivifying souls, which the bread and its substance do not have of themselves, why should we have had to observe that we consume and drink in the Eucharist the body and blood of Christ, and not simply receive a figure of them? We would certainly abhor the consumption of raw human flesh and the drinking of human blood; but God wished to indulge our infirmity. Thus, he prepared his flesh and blood as food and drink for us, such that they would appear similar to the bread and wine to which we are accustomed. And so, the bread and wine appear to us, but in reality they are flesh and blood? That is to say, he finally preserved the species of bread and wine, but transmuted the bread and wine themselves into flesh and blood?

What is this that you object, that it was said by Theophylact that a transelementation into the virtue of the body and blood of the Lord had taken place? ^C Certainly, in that place on holy Mark, Theophylact says what he teaches regarding holy Matthew and John: that bread does indeed appear to us, but in reality it is flesh; and that that bread is transformed by the arcane words, even if it appears as bread to us, into the flesh of the Lord: and that the bread is changed into the flesh of the Lord, even if such mystical food appears to us as those things to which we are otherwise accustomed. The context in that same place on holy Mark clarifies this matter. For the archbishop says that the bread is not a figure and a certain exemplar of the Lord’s body, but is converted into the very body of Christ. He adds that, indeed, the flesh is not seen, but that this happens on account of our infirmity, since we abhor the eating of human flesh and the drinking of blood. Finally, he concludes that the species of bread and wine are reserved, but that the bread and wine are transelementated into the virtue of flesh and blood. Who has understood this virtue as opposed to the truth?

Indeed, Albertinus answers that the species of bread and wine are transelementated into the virtue of flesh and blood, according to Theophylact: which is nothing other than a transmutation of virtue, or into virtue. ^D I, however, say that Theophylact is most explicitly dealing with the transelementation of the substance of bread and wine, as all sound [LVII] senses will agree. For if his words are weighed with a sane mind, the archbishop’s opinion is this: The bread which the Lord is about to give is not a figure of his flesh, but his true flesh; the flesh is not seen, however, because the Lord, indulging and condescending to our infirmity, since we abhor the eating of raw flesh and the drinking of human blood, reserves the species of bread and wine, but transelementates the bread itself and the wine into the virtue of flesh and blood. For the doubt was raised because flesh was not seen, and bread appeared. But the solution is: flesh is not seen, yet the bread is nonetheless transelementated into it, with the species of bread reserved.

Why then, answer the heterodox, does he use the word "virtue" in that same commentary on Mark? Truly, so that he might teach that this transelementation takes place, and the transformation, or transmutation, into the body of Christ, which is full of virtue and vivifies us. He exclaims this matter most lucidly in Chapter VI of John: "Now, however, the Lord condescending to our infirmity, such mystical food appears as those things to which we are otherwise accustomed. But for the life of the world he gave his flesh and death." And further down: "When the Jews heard about the eating of that flesh, they depart... He, wishing to show that this is not impossible, but even highly necessary, says: Life cannot be had otherwise, unless you eat my flesh... For the flesh of a mere man is not what is consumed: but that of God, and which it has the power to deify, as being tempered to the deity... Again, the flesh of a mere man is of no avail: but because God united to himself the flesh according to an ineffable contemperation, the flesh is vivifying." Euthymius expresses the very same sense in Matthew: As he supernaturally deified the assumed flesh, so he also transmutes these (bread and wine) into that same vivifying body...

and into his precious blood, and into their grace. Jean Claude opposes some other most trifling trifles, which Arnauld refutes excellently in volume II, book IV, chapter 5.

XXIV.

95. What was Theophylact’s opinion on the primacy of Saint Peter among the apostles needs to be weighed in a few words. Antonio Possevin, in his *Apparatus Sacer* volume II, warns that in Theophylact’s Commentaries, the passages which pertain to the power of the supreme pontiff had been falsified by them (the translators Oecolampadius and Lonicer). Regarding this crime, as Simon notes, Philippe Montano does not accuse those heterodox translators, who only say in the Preface to the Commentaries on the Gospels that many errors occur in the printed editions, which—whether they are to be imputed to the scribe or the printer, or to the translator (Oecolampadius) or a mutilated codex—let it be a matter for the judgment of others. And in the preface to the Epistles of Paul: "We have changed," he says [in Lonicer’s version], "those things especially which seemed either not to grasp the mind of Theophylact, or not to explain it sufficiently. In addition to these, we have added certain things to the margin in many places, without which one reading the Latin could hardly ever understand what Theophylact means: namely, while he either addresses the variable reading of the Greek text, or the composition of the Greek diction, or a different significance, or anything else of this kind." But in truth, Oecolampadius would not have been so bold as to deliberately give the Greek text of Theophylact to the Latin world with errors: yet in it there were lacunae, which were evident in his codex at chapter XXI of John, v. 1, and in the supplement, he leaves the primacy of Peter, about which it was necessary to discourse, untouched: indeed, he discourses on things which conflict with it. The words are: "Why does Christ, who is the searcher of hearts and is ignorant of nothing, ask? (Diligest thou me, lovest thou me?) He does not do this to learn, as we do, but to teach and manifest the faith of others. Just as when he asks: 'Whom do men say that the Son of man is?' he indicates what faith and confession he requires from us. Thus here, about to give to the world masters and doctors, he inculcates well by a triple interrogation what kind he wishes them to be. And it seems to me that to love Christ, and to pursue the things that are of Christ, is previously insinuated [LVIII] by the casting of the net into the sea: but to pastor, by the finding and the capture. Meanwhile, about to approve Peter, who had believed more than others and was of greater fervor, and was worthy that the ministry be entrusted to him more fully, he calls him by his own name three times, that he may not doubt that his sins were forgiven." These are his words, and others which follow are in harmony with them.

96. But how separated indeed from the Greek text of Theophylact—printed at Rome—is what Montano translates into Latin! "When he had made an end of eating, he entrusts to Peter the care of the sheep of the world; and not to another, but to this one does he give it. First, indeed, because he was chosen above all, and was the mouth of the whole choir. He committed the prefecture of the whole world to Peter: he does not entrust it to another, but to this man. First, indeed, because he excelled all, and was the mouth of the whole assembly; then, showing that he himself was to take up confidence, with his denial as it were erased and consigned to oblivion... And three times he asks him, at the same time declaring indeed what great care he has for believers: and that he loves the sheep so much, that he places this as the proof of love toward himself, if he undertakes the care of the sheep." An excellent opinion for the primacy of Saint Peter, or the prefecture of the sheep of the whole world. Similar are the things that follow: "He was indeed entrusting the care of all the faithful. For even if James received the throne of Jerusalem, yet Peter received that of the whole world." He indeed committed to Peter the prefecture of all the faithful. For although James received the see at Jerusalem, yet Peter [received] the prefecture of the whole of the world. And further down: "The work," he says, "which is entrusted to you, finish and follow me, I who lead you to preaching, and I entrust to you the whole world into your hands. As for that man [John], if I wish him to remain in this place, namely Galilee, and not be sent with you, what is that to you?" Can any suspicion of heresy, adverse to the primacy, be insinuated from chapter XXIV of Luke, from verse 15 to verse 29, where Peter and Paul are mentioned by Theophylact four times,

and since Peter himself always appears preferred to Paul in the Greek text; why did Ecolampadius represent Peter as placed before Paul twice, and Paul before Peter twice in his version? Montanus and the Parisian editor suspected no evil, yet if there were anything in the heterodox interpreter, it was my whim to hint at it. Moreover, Theophylact offers a most lucid account of Peter’s primacy in his same Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, chapter XXII: *From which I hold you the prince of the disciples, after you have wept for having denied me, and have come to repentance, confirm the others. For this is fitting for you, who after me are the rock and the firmament of the Church.* Difficulties pertaining to another argument, which Launoius introduces while discussing Bellarmine in part V of his letters, the second letter to Antonius Varillaus, number 55 and following, are pertinent here. For, he says, he enumerates the names of the apostles on account of the pseudo-apostles: but he puts Peter and Andrew first. For the reason, and in that sense, he says those two were put first in this place, because they were also called first. It is an order of time, not of dignity.

Philip Mornay in his *History of the Papacy*, in the ninth century, opposes Theophylact himself, whom he introduces in his Epistle to the Galatians, chapter II, saying: *Paul shows himself to be equal to Peter.* Lonicerus translates: that he is of the same price and honor as Peter. The Archbishop of Bulgaria ^A deals there with the office of the apostolate, and concerning the preaching to the Hebrews committed to Peter in a special way, and to the Gentiles to Paul. Yet, with equal honor still preserved intact, his most eloquent sentiment is that the prefecture of the sheep of the whole world was entrusted by the Lord not to another, but to Peter. That all the apostles were peers, no Catholic denies, as far as the power of the apostolate is concerned, which some call intrinsic and essential, and others extraordinary; but they teach that what is called ordinary, and joined as it were to the apostolic office, was conferred upon Peter alone: and in this government, they hold all believers, and the apostles themselves, to be inferior to Peter.

Mornay adds that no mention is made of the Roman bishop in these places by Theophylact. But why should he have inserted a mention where neither the place nor any cause demanded it? But Catholics say that Christ founded the Church to last forever, and thus instituted a perpetual form of government from Him, which would shine forth not only in blessed Peter, when the Lord entrusted the prefecture of the sheep of the whole world to him, but also in the Roman pontiffs, his successors. And this is proven by the perennial and most constant tradition of all centuries.

98. With truly overweening confidence, Mornay and other heterodox writers might have opposed a passage of Theophylact, which is found in his letter to the Deacon Nicholas and the *canstrisios*. He states: ^B "Therefore, if the Westerners err regarding some dogma which attacks the faith of the Fathers [LIX], such as that which they added to the Creed concerning the Holy Spirit, where the peril is greatest; if he who does not correct this overlooks it, it cannot be forgiven him: even if they speak from the throne, which the sublime propose as sublime: even if they bring forward Peter’s confession: even if they adduce the blessedness obtained from that (confession): even if they brandish the keys of the kingdom of heaven against us, by which, as much as they think they honor him, so much do they dishonor themselves; since they dissolve those things which he (Peter) established, and undermine the foundations of the Church, which were entrusted to him to be sustained. In this matter, if you are anything... prick and strike, as a Levite and minister of God, those who wage war for the phantasms of their own thoughts, and lift up their head in adoration, and wish for all to be subject to the breadth of their rule."

On these words, which Petrus Pithoeus brings forth from the *Responses* of Demetrius Chomatenus in his *History of the controversy concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit*, he thus remarks: Which invectives, he says, were directed against Nicholas (to whom he was writing) rather than against anyone else, who does not see? Indeed, let no one see it. I say first: the primacy of Saint Peter, and also of the Roman pontiff, holding Peter’s see, is acknowledged here by Theophylact: and indeed, the foundations of the Church, or dogmas, were entrusted, by the same author, to Peter’s see, so that they might be sustained. I say next, that the Archbishop of Bulgaria abuses these privileges of the primacy, and that they are thrown at the Latins after the manner of one inveighing, as if they, by teaching that the procession of the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, were overturning the foundations of the Church. For so persistent ^C was he against the dogma, that he thought those holding the contrary view were acting against the authority of Peter’s throne, against his confession commended by Jesus Christ, against the keys of the kingdom of heaven entrusted to the same. He adds even more bile ^D...

movements of complaints against the sacred expeditions which were being undertaken at that time, with the approval of the Roman pontiffs. This is the genuine mind of Theophylact, preoccupied by prejudices against the Latins, to be sure, but excessively hostile toward heterodox men.

99. That the famous prophecy of Micah, regarding the illustrious man born in the city of Bethlehem, had been twisted to apply to Zerubbabel by Theophylact, and likewise by Chrysostom and Euthymius, was noted by Petrus Daniel Huetius in his *Demonstratio evangelica*, proposition VIII, number XXVI. That the most learned man nodded off while claiming this, Richardus Simonius was the first to see and point out in the place cited above. Against the Jews who thrust Zerubbabel forward, the archbishop argues with these words in his commentary on Matthew, chapter II: "The Jews say, he says, that this refers to Zerubbabel; but they lie manifestly. For Zerubbabel was not born in Bethlehem, but in Babylon... But also the prophecy manifestly convicts them, saying: 'His coming forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.' Whose coming forth, however, was from the beginning and from the days of eternity, other than Christ’s, who had two comings forth, that is, his nativities? Let the Jews say, therefore, whether Zerubbabel was from the beginning? But they have nothing that they can say." We read the same words in John Chrysostom and Euthymius on the same passage of Matthew. What is more? That even in that same prophecy, Theophylact understood no one but Jesus Christ in his *Commentary on Micah*, as it is held in the Bavarian-Munich codex: “For out of you shall come forth Christ, who shall rule Israel.” The interpreter Theophylact excellently adapts the other words of the prophecy to Jesus Christ alone.

XXV. The New Testament codex used by Theophylact; it is complete in the final chapter of saint Mark. It is mutilated in John, where the passage regarding the adulterous woman occurs. A specimen of interpolations and genuine readings. What the division of the codex is into chapters and smaller sections.

...commentaries, it may be permitted to weigh it in the last place and indicate its notation. He read in the sixteenth chapter of Mark the ninth verse along with the subsequent ones to the very end; and he indeed explains them. "This section, or part of a chapter, we do not receive [LX](Jerome used to say in his epistle to Hedibia), because in various gospels it is reported, with almost all the books of Greece not containing it; especially since it seems to relate things different from and contrary to the other evangelists." The observation of Gregory of Nyssa in his second oration *On the Resurrection*, and of Euthymius Zygabenus, is the same regarding this place. It would be better to note with John Mill: "The manuscript copies, as well as the versions in general, Irenæus also, Ammonius in the *Monotessaron* (Tatian in his *Harmony*), Eusebius, as appears from the Tables of Canons, Athanasius, Augustine, Theophylact, recognize this chapter, so that there is nothing for us to doubt about its authority. Especially since the reason for which it was once omitted, namely that it seems to relate things different from and contrary to the other evangelists, is no reason at all, as the commentators on this place show." Theophylact himself removes the apparent contradiction. Matthew chapter XXVIII, v. 1, says thus: "And in the evening of the Sabbath, which begins to dawn on the first day of the Sabbath... Christ rose." But Mark's words are: "But rising early on the first day of the Sabbath." Take the interpretation of Theophylact: "When Jesus had risen. Place a period at this point. Then say: Early on the first day of the Sabbath he appeared to Mary Magdalene. For he did not rise early. For who saw when he rose? But he appeared early, on the Lord's day, which is the first of the Sabbath, that is, of the week." Consult Augustine and Calmet on the hour at which Christ rose from the dead.

101. The chapter of John, which is numbered as the eighth, starts with these words of the archbishop of Bulgaria: "They answered and said to him: Are you also a Galilean? Search and see that from Galilee no prophet has arisen." That verse is the 52nd in the common editions in the seventh chapter. Then, in Theophylact himself, there follows: "Again therefore Jesus spoke to them: I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life," which is the 12th verse in the eighth chapter. Thus, it seems that the 53rd verse, with which the seventh chapter closes, was missing from his codex: "And they returned every man to his own house." As for the integral text, which is read in the same place in the Vulgate editions, the history of the adulterous woman was missing: and the Bulgarian does not explain this in his commentary. On this matter, the interpreters of sacred Scripture and the critical writers treat it with language befitting its dignity.

Many writers mention the Greek codices and the Armenian and Syriac versions in the Parisian and London Polyglots, where those passages are omitted; nor do Origen, Chrysostom, Nonnus, and others expound upon them. That such codices were mutilated, or that Theophylact’s codex was mutilated, must be held as certain. This part is supplied by the Latin version of the Vulgate interpreter, which is preserved in the Cambridge codex, as Mill notes, such as it existed before Jerome’s correction. Jerome himself testifies in book II *Against the Pelagians*, no. 17, that in the Gospel according to John, the passage regarding the adulterous woman is found in many Greek and Latin codices. Tatian, a writer of the second century, and Ammonius of the third, inserted the history of this into their Gospel Harmonies. All Latin codices which the most learned men have examined contain it; and a great many Greek codices, which Theodore Beza, Robert Stephanus, and John Mill examined, also have it. Augustine reveals the cause of its omission in some codices in book II *On Adulterous Marriages*, chapter 7: "Some of little faith, or rather, enemies of the true faith, fearing, I suppose, that the impunity of sinning might be granted to their wives, removed from their codices that which the Lord did regarding the indulgence of an adulteress."

Mill’s conjecture is different: "They struck this history with an obelus long ago, especially in public books, because, as it seems, they did not think it expedient for it to be read before the people. But that the copyists soon passed over the marked text, and for that very reason held it as suspect, of that I have no doubt. Hence it is not surprising if it was missing in some codices even before the times of Jerome and in the commentaries of the Greeks. But there is no doubt that this chapter, established by the authority of the Vulgate version and the most ancient exemplars, ought to be reckoned among the genuine writings of Saint John." Consult him at greater length, as well as Augustine Calmet and Pierre Sabatier in his *Old Italic Version*.

102. There were in the same codex which Theophylact used some interpolated and corrupt places; and there were also genuine readings, from which other codices and editions diverge. John Mill offers many examples of both classes in his *Prolegomena to the Greek New Testament*, from number 1059. I bring forward a few specimens, so that this observation may become better known.

[LXI] In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter IV, v. 24, among those who were affected by various ailments and were doing poorly, in the Vulgate version the lunatics are distinguished from those who had demons. In Theophylact there is no mention of τῶν δαιμονιζομένων, but he himself understands the same lunatics in their place. The words of the commentary are: "He calls the lunatics demoniacs, etc." In Mark, chapter I, v. 29, *ἐξελθὼν*—he coming out—instead of *ἐξελθόντες*—they coming out. Christ alone is mentioned immediately before; but the reference is to the preceding verse 21, where the matter concerns the disciples and Christ together. In Luke, chapter I, v. 73, *ὅρκον*—of an oath—instead of *ὅρκον*—oath; the former is used by Theophylact for the sake of syntax. And in chapter XII, v. 23, *πλεῖον*—greater—because of the preceding *ψυχὴ*, for the word *πλέον*—more. In John, chapter I, v. 41, *πρῶτον*—first—when it should be read *πρῶτος*—first. And in chapter X, v. 33, *ὅτι*—that—with the *καὶ* omitted, and *quia tu* (because thou). And in chapter XI, v. 12, *εἶπον οὖν... αὐτῷ*—therefore they said to him—where *αὐτῷ* is added. There are very many similar instances in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, and the Catholic Epistles in Mill.

But nor are there few instances of genuine readings in Theophylact’s codex, he says in the cited place. I will offer a few. In Matthew, chapter XXIV, v. 2, in the printed editions and some manuscripts, *οὐ βλέπετε*—do you not see: without the *οὐ* in Theophylact. In Mark, chapter I, v. 38, *Εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ἐλήλυθα*—for to this I have come: not *ἐξελήλυθα*—I have gone out. In John, chapter VII, v. 21, 22, *Ἓν ἔργον ἐποίησα, καὶ πάντες θαυμάζετε διὰ τοῦτο. Μωϋσῆς, κ.τ.λ.*—I have done one work, and you all marvel because of this. Moses, etc. Thus, indeed, Theophylact punctuated it, and it seems to not a few that the reading is genuine. See the remaining readings of this kind in Mill.

It would have been satisfying for us to have brought forward some examples of both classes, so that in new editions, which are being prepared with care, the editors might understand that it is not right for them to introduce changes into the Greek text based on their own judgment, or to substitute the Vulgate here and there and indiscriminately in the Latin version. Simonius brings forward an example in the frequently cited place from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter IV, v. 19, where the Greek text in Theophylact reads as follows: *Οἵτινες ἀπηλγηκότες*, indolentes: but in the version of Philippus Montanus it is read with the Vulgate, *desperantes*, in Greek *ἀπηλγηκότες*. Regarding this matter, Jerome himself left a note in his commentary: "But when he says, 'who, despairing themselves,' that is, *ἀπηλγηκότες ἑαυτούς*, it signifies something very different in Greek than in Latin. For those who despair are called *ἀπηλπισκότες*; but the *ἀπηλγηκότες* are those who..."

once they have sinned, do not feel grief, and who, having no sense of their own ruin, are carried headlong; and like animals seeing the iron, they rush toward death... Let us express it, if we can, word for word, and say *ἀπηλγηκότες*, painless or without pain. Montanus renders Theophylact’s interpretation into Latin thus: "For those who despair," he says, "that is, those who have become sluggish, unwilling to labor to find the good." Here, without doubt, Theophylact was explaining the word *ἀπηλγηκότες*, not *ἀπηλπισκότες*. For his words are: *ἀπηλγηκότες* indeed, he says, that is *κατεῤῥᾳθυμηκότες*, which is to say, those who have become idle, sluggish, and neglectful.

103. In the published Commentaries of Theophylact on the Evangelists, the same division of the Gospels is found that is in use among the Latins even today. For the chapters of Matthew are numbered 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 21. Joannes Croius, writing to Laurentius Alexander Zacagnius in the preface to the *Collectanea monumentorum veterum Ecclesiæ Græcæ et Latinæ*, no. LVI, thought this to be the most ancient division; and he believed that Theophylact, who flourished among the Greeks in the eleventh Christian century, had used this same distribution into chapters.

Zacagnius refutes Croius in the same place: "Indeed," he says, "that which the same author puts forward from Theophylact's Commentaries on the Gospels is proven false by the authority of the manuscript codices. For the ancient Vatican codex of Theophylact, no. 645, has the same chapters as the Alexandrine and other Greek codices of the Gospels. They are numbered, of course: in Matthew *ξή’*, 68; in Mark *μη’*, 48; in Luke *πγ’*, 83; in John *ιη’*, 18. The same is observed in another codex, no. 1221 of the same library, written... on the 3rd day of April in the year 1154, the second indiction. But in codex no. 644, there are not the Greek chapters, but numerals which serve the Eusebian Canons, placed in the margin next to the individual passages of the Gospels expounded by Theophylact... From all of which it can be concluded that Theophylact expounded the Gospels not in an uninterrupted series of text; but that the divisions, which are found with the same commentaries, were added by the librarians to look after the convenience of the readers; finally, that the chapters of the Vulgate Latin edition were applied in the codex, which was at hand for the editors of Theophylact's Commentaries, by some recent librarian."

[LXII] So that these things may be understood more easily, I add finally the premonition of Walton which is found in vol. V of the *Biblia sacra*: "The Greeks divided the Gospel into certain *κεφάλαια*, that is, chapters; but the chapters themselves [were divided] into *περικοπάς*, or minor segments, as if subdivided into more particles. They made such minor sections themselves in Saint Matthew *τνε’*, 355; in Mark *σξϚ’*, 236; in Luke *τμβ’*, 342; in Saint John *σλβ’*, 232. According to these minor sections, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, prepared the 10 canons for finding the concordances of the Gospels more easily; by the help of which, places in which two, three, or four of the evangelists, treating the same subject, coincide with one another; or where one of them has certain things which are not in the others, are found without any trouble. For example, in Matthew chapter III, v. 11, *Ἐγὼ μὲν βαπτίζω*, 'I indeed baptize,' this note *ι̃α* is placed in the margin, along with *α* subscript: which refers the reader to the first canon (indicated by the letter *α* subscript). In which (first) canon, once the numeral letters *ια* are found, the places in the other evangelists that coincide with this are immediately shown in the same table in a direct line: namely, under Mark *ζ’*, under Luke *δ’*, and under John *ιθ’*."

Nor are the words *κεφάλαια* and *περικοπαί* used with constant consistency in Greek codices, as Simonius notes in *Historia critica in N. T.*, volume II, chapter 33: since in some they are called *τίτλοι*, in others chapters; and some call [the chapters] *περικοπαί* or minor sections. These things are learned by inspection of the codices. But there also occurs in these a varying number of such minor sections, especially in Saint Mark, where in some manuscripts only 234 are numbered: which happened for this reason, as Simonius notes in the same place, because the final twelve verses of Mark are missing in them. Consult the statements at no. 100.

Finally, as regards the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of Paul, and the Canonical [Epistles], divisions prevailed among the Greeks, which Euthalius devised. Bibliographers more frequently call this deacon, whom Zacagnius calls Bishop of Sulci, flourishing in the year 458, who distinguished the Epistles of Paul with verses. Oecumenius followed this division in his Commentaries, which is preserved in the editions. Theophylact, who flourished later, likewise followed this. Consult the most learned Zacagnius in the cited Preface. And enough has now been said concerning the New Testament codex which the same Archbishop of Bulgaria, Theophylact, made use of.

XXVI. On the Venetian edition of all the works of Theophylact.

104. Regarding the Venetian edition of all the works, which is attributed to our archbishop of Bulgaria, although it concerns my own labors not at all, the order of the Dissertation and the condition of the edition itself require that, at the very last, I render an account gladly and willingly. Hitherto we have reviewed many of his works that have come into the light: namely, the Commentaries on the four Gospels, and on the Acts of the Apostles, and on the Epistles of Paul, in Greek and Latin; as well as the Royal Instruction, and the Homily on the Adoration of the Venerable Cross, and the Epistles in Greek at Leiden and in Latin in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*; and in Latin only, the Commentaries on the four minor prophets, and the Homily on the Presentation of the Virgin Mother of God in the temple, to pass over the aforementioned earlier studies, which—only in Latin—have been repeatedly reprinted by the presses. But since these works were edited in diverse places, with different types and formats, and even separately—some according to the translation of the first interpreter, others according to later revisions and corrections—it was an extremely difficult and taxing business for those in charge of libraries and others who collect books to acquire and possess them, even if one wished to. The Venetian edition offers all these collected together; and this is its first, and not insignificant, value.

The value is increased in the greatest degree by not a few—truly illustrious and highly desired—monuments of Theophylact, left in writing, which now for the first time are coming into the light, either in Greek and Latin, or at least in Greek. The first is the work he himself compiled on the Catholic Epistles, with the text provided by the Imperial Viennese manuscript. The Bavarian-Munich manuscript offered another work, which is the complete Exposition on the twelve minor prophets, promised more than once, long sought after with vain prayers, now at last printed by our presses, collated not without benefit with the Venetian Marcian manuscript. [LXIII] A few fragments of the Epistle to Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius* were read among the Responses of Demetrius Chomatenus, Archbishop of Bulgaria, in Leunclavius’s *Jus Græco-Romanum*: and there was no learned man who did not strongly desire that it—having been found whole somewhere—should at last be made public. The wishes of all have been sufficiently met in this Venetian edition, which provides the fine, perfect, and complete little work, taken from the Imperial Viennese manuscript: from which it is also permissible to learn that the little works of Theophylact, which were distinguished by bibliographers as various and diverse, differ not at all from that one epistle which we knew to have been inscribed to the lauded Nicholas the deacon and *canstrisius*. We used to read, under the name of Theophylact, according to those same bibliographers, eleven homilies on as many morning Resurrection gospels. But what then? When they were transcribed from the Imperial Viennese manuscript and weighed more attentively, they were found to be the same in meaning and words as the very Commentaries of Theophylact himself on the same gospels, except for the last part of the eleventh homily, which the Venetian edition will provide. By the benefit of this [edition] also, there will hereafter be available to readers the Panegyrical Oration to Alexius Comnenus, composed by the same Theophylact after the Scythian war, which was brought to an end by the report of many victories, and unearthed from the Bavarian-Munich manuscript. Also available will be the Poems which he himself composed, preserved, so it is said, in the Royal Parisian manuscripts, and from them, for the sake of the supreme diligence which is undoubtedly applied, they are to be extracted for the ornament of this Venetian edition. With the Greek text of so many works of Theophylact, which we have mentioned as having lain hidden in libraries until now, will appear simultaneously Latin interpretations, fashioned with more attentive study by most learned men. And conversely, for the Latin translation of the Homily on the Presentation of the Virgin Mother of God, adorned by François Combefis, there will appear the added Greek text from the Royal Parisian manuscript, with a new and undoubtedly more polished Latin interpretation also added. These are the principal benefits and ornaments of the Venetian edition, enriched by so many and such great additions. One man, however, was able to promote all these things and bring them to a happy conclusion: Francis Foscarus, a Venetian patrician, a most esteemed senator, an expert in public affairs, a cultivator of letters, and a patron who, by the splendor of his own nobility and the great authority he wields at home and abroad, was able most easily to achieve this—that the Vatican, Imperial Viennese, Royal Parisian, and Bavarian-Munich manuscripts (not to mention the Venetian Marcian and the Paduan of Saint Justina) might be more diligently searched, so that if any works of Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, existed, they might be transcribed by experts and printed.

transmitted to Venice and rendered into Latin, they might at last see the light in both Greek and Latin. Who could duly give thanks to the great man who bestowed such ample benefits upon the nation of letters?

But truly, now that those works of Theophylact, which have already been published—either in Greek and Latin, or in Latin only—are being reprinted by the Venetian presses, will they appear more accurate? Men of the greatest learning have noted that an edition could undoubtedly be made more perfect, whether you look to the Greek text or the Latin version: namely, by the Greek codices preserved in libraries being more diligently collated, and by the Latin version being expressed more elegantly and accurately in accordance with the truth of the Greeks. Oecolampadius used only a single Greek codex, which was indeed mutilated in the *Commentaries on the Gospels*, and Philippus Montanus saw no other than the Roman one, which was likewise imperfect: and the learned desire a better one than the Latin interpretation first produced by him and even twice revised by him. Has anything of study been achieved in the Venetian edition that might wash away the earlier stains? Hear in a few words what I know. The Roman text and the earlier Latin interpretation are being reprinted according to the Parisian types: at the foot of the volume, not a few variant readings have been added, which have been taken from the Marcian codices of Venice: omissions of many words have also been supplied in the Latin version, other expressions have been brought to the level of the Greek truth, and whole periods have often been replaced by more elegant ones. Some examples stand in the margin below, which indicate not so much that the version has been castigated and corrected where there was need, but rather that it is everywhere in need of the emendation that ought to be provided.

The *Commentaries on the Epistles of Saint Paul* used to be circulated with a double Latin version: one by Christophorus Porsena, paraphrastic and excessively free; the other by Joannes Lonicerus, which is everywhere teeming with errors and only tolerable in some places. The former being passed over, Philippus [LXIV] Montanus revised the latter, having found and evaluated the Greek text which had once been Erasmus', and the London editors brought it to light emended by his final efforts, with the Greek text added from the Arundellian codex, collated with two others from Oxford. The Venetian presses are to reprint this edition, to which is added a collection of variant readings, the Venetian Marcian codex providing them. In the Latin interpretation of the *Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles*, which Sifanius compiled, a new version of the sacred text of his own appears, differing greatly from the Vulgate which the Church uses everywhere: and various readings occur which were taken from Erasmus, Sebastian Castellio, and Theodore Beza—men who are suspect and heterodox. Oecolampadius for the sacred text of the Gospels, and Lonicerus for the *Epistles of Saint Paul*, offer versions which they thought were more conformable to the Greek text, yet they do not depart much from our Vulgate. In the former case, Philippus Montanus used in his *Recognition* the version of the evangelical text that he found; and in the latter case, he substituted and retained the common text of Paul used in the Catholic Church, unless the interpretation of Theophylact compelled him to change it. It will be the business of those who are managing the Venetian edition, that in the aforementioned new version of the Acts of the Apostles, if there is anything offensive, they should remove it: or, following the plan of Philippus Montanus—and indeed even of the London editors—they should substitute the Vulgate, except in places where Theophylact’s interpretation demands it be changed.

Finally, concerning the very many Epistles which the Archbishop of Bulgaria wrote, the Greek text and the Latin version of Vincentius Marinerius have hitherto appeared separately; but the Venetian edition will provide this and that together. We know very learned men who lament this version as being less accurately compiled and teeming with errors: and we have given some examples at number 25 and elsewhere; but the Venetian editors will adorn this task as well. There are therefore many things which highly commend this Venetian edition: first, not a few unpublished works of Theophylact which are now coming to light; then, all of his lucubrations, which, although they had hitherto vanished, being printed in various forms and dispersed, are now presented collected together: then, many other additions of variant readings which have been taken from codices of good quality: then, finally, a more diligent censure and a certain judgment concerning these works.