CIRCA ANNUM DOMINI MCCXL MANUEL MAGNUS RHETOR CONSTANTINOPOLITANUS. QUESTIONS OF FRIAR FRANCIS AS HE WROTE TO THE MAGNUS RHETOR QUERIES OF FRIAR FRANCIS BY LETTER TO THE MAGNUS RHETOR
A These chapters and dogmas of religion I believe and profess, and I ask of you, great rhetor, that where it happens that I err, you would not disdain to instruct me.
Theological and orthodox conclusions of Friar Francis the Preacher.
First. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Second. Rightly were these words, "and from the Son," added. Naturally, to the Constantinopolitan Creed. Third. In unleavened and in leavened wheaten bread, the body of Christ is perfected. Fourth. A purgatorial fire is to be believed and admitted before the last judgment. Fifth. The souls of the saints straightway tend toward heaven, and once received into heaven, they must see God purely. Sixth. The first throne of the hierarchy is the Roman pope. Seventh. The baptism of the Franks, or Latins, and of the Greeks, is one and the same. Eighth. He who puts away his wife for any cause other than fornication, or who, after having put away his wife because of fornication, joins another to himself in marriage, committeth adultery. Ninth. Christ in the Supper gave unleavened bread without ferment. Tenth. Only the words of Christ, "Take, eat, this is my body," make the body of Christ, and nowhere the prayer and liturgy of Chrysostom, in which it is said, "And make this bread," etc.
APOLOGIA AND REFUTATION OF THE CHAPTERS OF BROTHER FRANCIS
AManuel, Great Rhetor of the Great Church, to Brother Francis, preacher of old Rome, greeting.
Your written letter reached us and at the same time revealed the triviality of your mind everywhere, as much concerning other matters as concerning Greek grammar; for you err in words, letters, and accents, and you declare that which is far removed from established true theology. In your writing, indeed, chapters are contained, and certain problems already many times agitated and explored, yet you entitle them "Theological Conclusions," when they are rather heterodox and most evil, and utterly alien to the truth and to right doctrine. For a conclusion, to say this in passing, is the proof of a determined and demonstrated matter. But these questions of yours are rather assertions, iniquitous theses, and propositions of a mind not coherent with itself and deceiving, which have been sufficiently treated many times, and at various and diverse periods, both by ancient and more recent divine men, adorned and excellent in perfect wisdom and holiness; and because they are blasphemous, contrary, and opposed to the truth itself, namely Christ our God, they have been reprobated and rejected. Wherefore we, being armed with the light of truth and true B theology.
We declare your first question, which asserts that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, to be blasphemous and heretical. For our Lord does not speak so in the Gospels, but that He proceeds from the Father only, where He says: "When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me." Yet mission and procession are not the same. For procession imports the mode and concept of existence, while mission denotes a sending and apostleship. And according to procession, the Holy Spirit has being from the person of the Father as from an immediate cause; but according to mission, the Son and the Father together send the most holy Spirit into the faithful and those—
A who are worthy of his grace. In the three persons there is one will, and power, and operation, as there is one essence in number and one divinity. Whence also the holy Spirit sends the Son according to the temporal generation, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me, he hath sent me to preach the gospel to the poor;" 1 so that only the person of the Father is not sent, as the root and fountain of the divinity; but the person of the Son and [the person] of the Spirit are sent to one another by the good pleasure of the Father—the Son indeed according to temporal generation, and the holy Spirit according to temporal procession, and the visitation upon the faithful; not, however, according to that timeless procession, which is immediately from the paternal hypostasis, according to which he has his being by way of procession, just as the Son eternally has his being from the same hypostasis by way of generation. Wherefore also the divine apostle Paul, declaring the temporal and communicative procession from the Father through the Son of the Spirit, says: "God our Father saved us," B clearly through the washing and renewal of the holy Spirit, whom he hath poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ. 2 If, therefore, those things which are nearer to the principles, which are by nature most manifest, ought to be more recognizable, clearer, and plain, and the principles of our faith are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, to which the apostles and the teachers surely adhering agree; it is manifest that both the truth and the correctness of the dogmas of the faith are in us, and in our catholic Church, and in her instructors and teachers, and her prelates. The first of whom was Dionysius the Areopagite, who in the second chapter concerning united and distinguished theology says thus: "Hear that, 'Thus saith the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, and the Almighty, and thou thyself art, and the Spirit of truth who is, who proceeds from the Father.'" And the great Athanasius in his letter to Serapion: "They therefore who do not think rightly concerning the holy Spirit, do not think correctly concerning the Son either; for if they thought rightly concerning the Son, they would also have a sound sentiment concerning the holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, and is proper to the Son, C who is given by him to the disciples, and to all who believe in him." See the two processions of the most holy Spirit, which the best and correct theology teaches: one from the Father's hypostasis alone, that eternal and ineffable and existential [procession], just as the Lord had said in the Gospels, and the one under time and communicative, which is through the Son. The same [author] also in his treatise concerning the Trinity [says]: "God is the principle of all things, according to the Apostle saying: 'One God, the Father, from whom are all things;' for the Word indeed [is] from him by generation, and the holy Spirit by procession." And the divine and great Basil in his letter to his own brother Gregory says thus: "Since, therefore, the Spirit D
is the source of all things which pour forth upon the creation, He is indeed enumerated as coming from the Son, as being conveyed without interval; but He has His existence explained from the Father, from whom also He proceeds. This He has as a distinctive mark of the property according to hypostasis, that He is recognized with the Son and exists from the Father. But the Son, recognizing that the Spirit is from His Father, and having shone forth from the unbegotten light solely and uniquely, has no communion of peculiar characteristics with the Father or with the holy Spirit, but is recognized by the aforesaid marks."
And Gregory the Theologian in his treatise on the holy Spirit says: "Tell me, where will you place the 'proceeding'?—somewhere between the parts of your division, and introduced by one much more excellent than you, the Savior Himself. Unless, on account of your third Testament, you deem that these words from the Evangelists should be removed: 'The holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father,' who, in so far as He proceeds from there, is not created, and in so far as He is unbegotten, is not the Son." And in his first discourse concerning the Son, the same author says: "Therefore, standing by our own boundaries, we introduce and assert the unbegotten, the begotten, and the proceeding from the Father, as the Word Himself speaks elsewhere." And in his discourse against the Sabellians, the great Basil says: "For the Father has a perfect existence and is in need of nothing, being the root and the source of the Son and of the holy Spirit. There are three names of the source that represent it: being the beginning, being full, and being unceasing. He, therefore, who is truly and principally the source, contains these three in Himself. For He is the beginning of the Son naturally, because [the Son] proceeds from Him, and exists, and has His being; and He is full of [the Son]: for He contains the whole [Son] completely, and [the Son] is unceasingly emitted from Him, and [the Father] produces Him in an infinite and eternal invisible manner of generation, and [the Son] cannot depart from Him according to nature, though He is distinguished from Him supernaturally according to existence and person." D
Furthermore, the divine Cyril in his exposition on the Gospel according to Luke says: "Just as a finger is attached to the hand, and is not distinct from it, but exists naturally within it, so the holy Spirit is joined to the Son and, by reason of consubstantiality, is united with the Son, but proceeds from God the Father." The holy Damascene asserts the same. "We speak," he says, "of the Spirit of the Son, but not of the Spirit from the Son." And the most holy Gregory of Nyssa in his book on the divine name: "There is one person of the Father from whom the Son is begotten and from whom the holy Spirit proceeds." And the holy Nilus in his discourse on the holy Trinity: "The Catholic Church teaches one Father who is unbegotten, one Son begotten from the Father, and one holy Spirit proceeding from the Father alone, and not from the Son." And all the great doctors of our Catholic Church and
masters think and preach the same, rightly following in the footsteps of Christ and his disciples. B This is what Damasus himself, the most holy Pope of Rome, says in his letter to Bishop Paulinus: "If anyone does not assert that the holy Spirit is from the Father, truly and properly, just as the Son and God the Word, let him be anathema." Finally, the Seventh Synod also asserts the same, saying: "We, observing the decrees of the Apostles and Fathers, and insisting on the ancient laws of the Catholic Church, cast out of the Church and bind with the chain of anathema those who add or take away anything." You hear the declarations of the saints and the synods, and what they decide and assert: that the divine Spirit proceeds immediately from the person of the Father alone, while shining forth and being granted to the sons of adoption through the Son, because of the conjunction of essence and the unity of will. The divine and great apostle Paul also appears to consign to anathema those who are seized by such temerity as to add anything to the dogmas of the faith which were first received and handed down by Christ our God, and then by him and the remaining apostles and teachers. But you yourselves are those who make additions, and indeed an addition that is vehemently erroneous, heretical, and contrary to God. Do not, therefore, dare in the future to act sophistically, and to forge false dogmas on a subject C and hypothesis, the truth of which shines upon us like a great sun, which borrows its light first from the very words of our Lord, then from the words of the holy apostles, and of the most wise and holy theologians, who have shone like stars in the world, holding forth the word of life. And this is our defense against your first and second question.
3. We come now to your third question, in which you say that the body of Christ is perfected in unleavened bread, a statement which is as remote from the truth as can be. For you do not know that the holy Gospel, where there is mention of unleavened bread, clearly and straightforwardly calls them unleavened, but where there is bread and leavened dough, it manifestly mentions and designates bread. Therefore it is said: "It was the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread." D At the time that the Jews were celebrating the Passover, Christ was seized and raised up on the cross; and the evangelical words must be heeded. "They did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover." The Jews were regulated by law to eat the Passover standing. But the Lord, preceding them and as it were anticipating them, in the mystical supper, performing the true Passover mystically and handing it down to the disciples, reclining with them, ate, just as the holy Gospel explains. In the evening he reclined with the twelve; and while they were eating, Jesus took bread, and having blessed it, he broke it and gave it to the disciples, thereby manifestly showing that it was not the Jewish Passover, in which unleavened bread was wont to be used, but the true and mystical Passover. "With desire," he says, "I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer," declaring this very thing manifestly
and demonstratively. Hence it is established that it was truly bread, or a lump leavened with ferment, even if you heap up against it numberless inanities of words, trifles, and futilities.
4-5. As regards purgatorial fire, it does not exist at all after death, or following one's migration and departure from here. A For this is an offspring of the heresy of Origen, and for this reason our holy and orthodox Church rejects it as blasphemous and contrary to divine truth; and those who hold such an opinion we justly subject to anathema. "For in Hades who will confess to you?" says the Psalmist, meaning, "no one." But those temptations which are brought upon those who still enjoy this present life, with God permitting them on account of certain sins, and which are borne with patience and referred to God with thanksgiving, these we affirm to be a certain species of purgatorial fire. For by the long experience of such temptations, which are brought on for disciplinary purposes, it happens that some are cleansed of their sins; as it is said: "We passed through fire and water," and "You brought us out into a place of refreshment." B But if there were such a purgatorial fire after death for souls before the day of judgment, as you mistakenly think, all souls would have been cleansed in such an infinite length of time, and none would be found at the time of judgment subject to punishment and torments. So that it would have been said in vain by the Lord: "And these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." An "age" (*aion*) is that which partakes of eternity. And eternity is neither time nor a part of time, for it is not measurable. Whence it is said to be without end and limit. You see, therefore, that in this also you openly contradict the Lord.
Response to the fifth interrogation, which is C concerning the primacy of the pope, we omit by design.
6. But Baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, administered with three immersions, according to the custom of the Apostles and Fathers, we admit, which is not the same as that which is practiced among you. For we say in the formula of administering baptism: "The servant of God is baptized," by this manner showing the spontaneous, free, and voluntary motion of the one being baptized toward the holy baptism; but you, with vanity and pride, say: "I baptize you, N.," which certainly does not aim at the same goal and purpose as we do. How, then, could it be one and the same baptism, since you most certainly do and say these things?
8. Furthermore, that which you reproachfully bring against us, that we separate a wife from her husband who has fallen into adultery and fornication, is an indication that you do not know what you are saying. D For we do this rightly, and according to the laws, and led by charity and reverence toward God. For so the Lord himself speaks in the Gospels: "Whoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery." So that it is just to put her away, if she has fallen into fornication.
According to the decision of the Lord and following it, we segregate and separate from the husband the wife who has fallen into the stain of fornication. But you, through your remarkable equity, sanctity, and justice—or rather, it is better to say, through your folly and hypocrisy—impudently and shamelessly contradict the Lord himself, because you do not separate the wife from the husband on account of fornication, allowing the man to sin against his own body, which the divine Paul condemns and forbids. B
8. Regarding the divine and mystical symbols—that is, the divine and Lordly body and blood—you say that only the words of the Lord, "Take, eat, and drink," transform and perfect them, and not the divine prayers of the saints and their sacred invocations. But we say that the divine and Lordly words indeed contribute to their perfection, yet the power of the priesthood is also exercised through the divine prayers and liturgies, such as those of the holy Chrysostom or of the great Basil. For the divine gift of the priesthood was on this account given by Christ to the apostles, and from them by succession, and through us to the sacred ministers, for the perfecting of the divine gifts through the invocation and coming of the all-holy Spirit. Thus we think and speak concerning these things in an orthodox manner, and in accordance with the tradition of the apostles and Fathers, not as you think and speak according to the dictates of your arrogant pride, opinion, and presumption. But concerning these matters, enough and sufficiently has perhaps been said. It is time, as we may now say, to indicate what opinion we hold concerning the souls [of the departed] and their state after death.
Cætera desunt.