A forced, not being present, so that the difficulties are not resolved any more, or else they are bound together all the more tightly. And to the first of the difficulties, which we have already set out just now, he provides this solution:
ARGYROPULUS. While the Father begets the Son, by the generative power, as we were saying, the generation is joined to its own power, just as the Son is, and so forth.
AGALLIANUS. To these things we also make answer, saying thus: The Word knows how to call one generation in the Father and the Son, though it is not viewed in the same way in both. For that which is taken from "to beget" is active and corresponds to the identifying mark conjoined with it, the name "Father"; but that which is taken from "to be begotten" and corresponds to the name "Son," which signifies a begotten hypostasis, is not generative. B Therefore, in the same way, the power for begetting differs from the power for being begotten, even if the one is in the Father and the other is in the Son. And just as the being of the Father and the being of the Son is one and the same, but it does not befit the Son to be the Father, nor the converse; so, even if we posit that the generative power and the generation are in the Father and the Son with respect to all other things, yet they differ in their definitions, being distinguished relationally, just as all other things are one in the Father and the Son—the one according to the relation of the Giver, the other according to that of the Receiver. And thus, neither must the generation which is in the Father be in the Son, lest the Son be the Father, nor must the generation which is in the Son be in the Father, lest the Father become the Son.
ARGYROPULUS. As also the generative power.
AGALLIANUS. If, therefore, the Father were giving to the Son the generation by which he begets, and the power towards it, the Son would also have to beget. But if the Son does not beget, He does not give Him such power and operation, but rather, one might say, something of the opposites—namely, the power C of being begotten, and the passive generation. Therefore, while this man says that the generation is connected to its own power by which the Son is begotten from the Father, one must ask: which generation and which power are we to understand—that which is conceived actively, or that which is conceived passively? For if this is not defined, the argument is utterly hopeless. But according to the foundations of the faith, and as the truth dictates, it would be pious to say that when the Word looks towards the Father, one must receive the power and the generation actively; for it is the property of the Father to beget. But when it looks towards the Son, one must understand both the power and the generation passively; for it is His property to be begotten, according to the theologians. For by being begotten, He receives existence through generation, and for this reason, He is Son. It would not, however, be pious to say that He receives the act of begetting through generation, for He is not the Father.
D ... generative power is given to the Son, not as a power, but as a perfection. It is perhaps sufficient that he himself confessed that the generative power is not given to the Son as a power, but as a perfection. Yet he said afterward that the Son has the generative power—that is, the power to beget—contradicting himself. And not only that, but he also says that the generative and [the Spirit’s] productive [power] is shared with the Spirit. I do not know what happened to him or what moved him to fall into such an absurdity, and to dishonor the divine hypostases so, judging them worthy to be called participants in ineffective powers, in the same way that we speak of an infant as "potentially a grammarian." Thus, the Spirit too [is said] to have come forth from a power, which power, when the Son was being begotten, did not yet have the operation combined with it, but received it when the Son was begotten, and other such things he fabricated.
One might perhaps think that he arranged his argument this way for fear that the unity of the essence might be broken, and that, considering these powers as perfections of nature, he distributed them equally to the divine Trinity of persons; but [he does not do so] equally, if he gives them to the Father alone with the operation, but to the others he gives them as inactive and common. Wherefore he has fallen heavily into the very thing he was trying extremely hard to avoid: for how could things that do not operate equally with the same perfection be of the same essence? But if the Son’s having the generative [power] without operation is sufficient for the unity of the essence, because it is joined to the generation, and if the Holy Spirit has both [generative and productive] without the operations themselves—what is the necessity for the Son to have the productive [power] with the operation, given that many absurdities grow from this? For the unity of the essence, for which he seems to be contending, would be preserved even in this way, in addition to the fact that the absurdities would be kept silent.
But rather, if the generation is with its own power, and the generation according to operation is not given to the Son nor to the Spirit, then neither is the power of it [given] to the Son at the same time as the procession, as the Word was delivered through the saints. Then, as if overturning himself, he says, "The Father shares the powers with those who are from Him as perfections only, not as powers." And what perfection could there be in God that is not also perfected in act, or to which the operation—according to which He never ceases to act—does not belong? Which, then, would have been better: to isolate the productive powers of the divine persons in one person, the Father, so that He alone is producing, while the rest are, as he said at the beginning—rightly saying this—the ones being produced, and to assign the responding passive [powers] to these, which are no less capable of the logic of equality (for there is nothing to the honor of God, in being the begetter, [that is lacking] in being begotten from God), and likewise also concerning the Spirit? Or [is it better] to make the Son a producer only to establish the productive powers—which, as hypostatic properties, are constitutive of the Father’s person and are reckoned to the Father alone—[and] to give them to those who proceed from Him, and after having deprived the Father of His own? Then also [those] from Him...
calls him a philosopher most noble, and the same man most eloquent, and flourishing in every kind of field and excellence, and by this one thing confirms that no one in the whole Greek race was either more learned or wiser. He writes an opinion to the same effect about him to Donatus Acciaiolus (25), and he praises him and the rest of the Florentine youth because they yielded themselves to the discipline of such a great orator and philosopher. That Acciaiolus himself, however, praising this teacher of his (26), says: "For many years now, he has taught us doctrine with such abundance, with such manifold and varied discourses, that it seemed, in our times, to renew the memory of the ancient philosophers." By Cortesius (27) he is called almost a perfect Peripatetic and a truly tolerable writer; by Alcyonius (28), easily the prince of the philosophers of his own memory. How well Ang. Politianus thought of the same man, his teacher, we have explained above. I am silent about many more testimonies of learned men, by which they proclaimed his signal and exceptional erudition.
That common vice which many learned men possess, that the arrogance of the knowledge in which they flourish is a companion and comrade, and puffed up by this they think that they alone are wise and despise others in comparison to themselves, from this Argyropulus was so far from being free that he rather wished to appear as one who stood alone among all in every kind of learning, and he looked down upon the erudition of even the greatest men quite insolently. He was so completely different in this from his old companion, Theodorus Gaza, who gave a singular proof of his modesty toward him. For indeed, when Argyropulus had translated Aristotle’s *Naturalia* and *Moralia* into Latin, Gaza burned some works that had been translated by himself in like manner, lest, as Jovius says, they should hinder the growing fame of a most friendly man if they were to struggle in an odious comparison regarding emulation. For the Latin, he adds, was more eloquent in fruitfulness, and the most modest of the Greeks easily yielded this to the arrogantly ambitious man who was very desirous of greater fortune. Politianus records a shining example of his arrogance, where he relates that he argued that his own teacher, Cicero, was unskilled in philosophy as well as in Greek literature; and since he was the sharpest of all in disputing and, as Persius says, "washed his ear with biting vinegar," he says he easily persuaded himself and others, and even his followers at that time, that it should be taken for granted among them—a thing which is almost a sin to even say—that Marcus Tullius was neither a philosopher nor skilled in Greek letters (29).
But Argyropulus also cast a stain upon his own fame through drunkenness and voracity, if indeed Jovius is to be believed, who reports that he was equally greedy and capable of wine and food, and that he was pot-bellied with a large abdomen (30). According to the same author, he led his life at Rome on such rich stipends that his entire substance was equal to his daily expenses, and at the final act of his life, having joked, he left his wealthier friends as heirs to his debts in his prepared will.
The principal monuments of Argyropulus’s learning and genius are the Latin interpretations of many of Aristotle’s books, which he produced in Florence, and he wished them to exist as witnesses of his gratitude toward the Medici house, that nurse of true virtue. From the Greek, he certainly translated into Latin Aristotle’s *Category*; the *De Interpretatione* book; the *Posterior Analytics* books; the eight books of the *Physics*; the four books *De Caelo*; the three books *De Anima*; the twelve books of the *Metaphysics*; the ten books of the *Nicomachean Ethics*; and the eight books of the *Politics*. These versions are read in the older Latin editions of Aristotle’s works, and some even in certain Greco-Latin ones. The manuscripts are preserved in the Laurentian Medicean library, and in it exist some parchment codices containing these, adorned with the most elegant portraits of Cosimo and Piero, the Medici, and of the interpreter himself (31). D The judgments of learned men concerning Argyropulus’s versions are diverse and contrary to one another (32). R. Volaterranus (33) thinks he translated Aristotle’s books more elegantly than faithfully. Contrary to this, Joach. Periontus (34) says they were translated by him more faithfully than ornately and elegantly. Petrus Nannius (35), however, believes that Argyropulus attended more to the words than to the meaning, and that his interpretations were therefore neither faithful nor elegant.
[JOSEPH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, CONFESSION OF FAITH]
...or that we should abolish those things with arguments, syllogisms, and reductions—which would indeed have been appropriate for the resolution of the difficulties that he poses as if coming from us; but rather, towards the assumptions by which he hoped to establish [his position] by proceeding step by step, we have added to the theology of the saints the views of the Latins that seem to accord with the truth, setting these forth. And may this be spoken with God. We have shown them to be discordant through the teachers and inadmissible, and concluding in certain absurd and blasphemous things; and rather [to be] in harmony with many of the heresies, or even as sources of heresies. It is sufficient, therefore, in the present case, to show that nothing necessary is assumed. But as for searching out the difficulties against the Latin view, they themselves have contrived solutions—a task that has been for many others, and perhaps will one day be for us.
CONFESSION OF FAITH OF JOSEPH, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
(Council of Florence, Session XXV. — Mansi, Vol. XXXI, col. 1007.)SENTENCE OF THE PATRIARCH AT THE END
Joseph, by the mercy of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch.
Since I have reached the end of my life, wishing now to pay the common debt, by the grace of God I write and subscribe my opinion openly to the community of my spiritual children. All things, therefore, which the Catholic and Apostolic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Elder Rome believes and defines, I myself also believe, and to these I grant my assent and offer my devotion. I confess also the most blessed Father of fathers, the supreme pontiff and vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope of the Elder Rome, to be the certain faith of all; and likewise the purgatory of souls. For the confirmation of these things, it was written on the ninth day of the month of June, in the year one thousand four hundred and thirty-nine, in the second indiction.
[List of Signatories:] The Great Sakellarios. The Great Skeuophylax, the Deacon of Xanthopolis. The Great Chartophylax, Michael Balsamon. The Great Ecclesiarch of Syropoulos. John the Cappadocian, the Protekdikos. Gerontios, abbot of the Pantokrator. Athanasios, abbot of the Kaleos. The Abbot of Saint Basil. Pachomios, abbot of Saint Paul of Latros. Moses, hieromonk and representative of the Lavra. Dorotheos, representative of Vatopedi. Constantine, representative of Wallachia. The representative of Trebizond. The representative of Iberia.
PROLOGUE OF JOB THE MONK TO THE PSALMS. AN EPITAPH OF PATRIARCH JOSEPH.
(Acta conc. Florent, ab Horatio Justipiano collecta. Romae 1638, fol., p. 284.)
I, who was the great prelate of the Church of the East, Lie here, great in religion, Joseph. I have desired this one thing, inflamed by a wondrous love, That the worship of Europe be one, and the faith be one. I sought Italy; we struck a single covenant; And under my guidance the Greek faith was joined to the Roman. Delay was not long; I passed away, and now Florence guards me, The city where the holy council now flourishes. Happy is he who is gifted with such a reward while living, Who dies having attained his own prayer.
A NOTICE BY JOB THE MONK.
The Turin Codex CLXXVIII b, II, 32, on paper, consisting of 70 leaves, of the sixteenth century. 'Iὼβ ἁμαρτωλοῦ ἠθικὴ θεωρία εἰς τὰς ἁγίας φωνὰς τοῦ προφήτου Δαβίδ. * The moral theory of Job the sinner on the holy voices of the prophet David. * It is, indeed, a commentary on the Psalms, not all of them, but merely the first fifteen. Its author is called Job the sinner. But as to who this Job the sinner was, although we have applied great diligence, we have not been able to find out from any of those who have written about the interpreters of Scripture, whether Greek or Latin. At the beginning, a prologue is set before it, which is of this sort:
PROLOGUE OF JOB THE SINNER TO HIS COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.
A Our aim in taking it upon ourselves to rub together once more the holy Davidic voices, as if searching for a certain aromatic fragrance of incense, an aim by which the soul, the mind, and the entire sense might be exhilarated, is not that the ancient teachers and theologians of the Church had explained them deficiently alongside other things, or that they had considered and contemplated them in any way carelessly, and passed them on to us who come after them. Not at all; that is far from their wisdom and grace. For they have been spoken and recorded by them fully, completely, and in a way that could not be better, and the missing parts, according to this promise of the Master, have been fulfilled by them through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. But since I have determined to breathe of and speak of nothing else after the canonical Scriptures, or these in particular, and to revolve them in my mind, and to dwell in them through my whole life, and to have nothing else...
A to do in this time and state, if not to spend the remainder of the time partly in investigating these matters and partly in prayer (which I would that other Christians also performed), led me to illustrate the words of eternal life and the precepts of that first and true light illuminating every man coming into this world, and, relying on the prayers of those men, I launched my own rotten and small vessel of the mind into the sea of their spiritual knowledge; and because of this, I now sail swiftly and am borne along, secured by their useful and very grand B ships and burdens. And someone may say that this current method of ours of treating the subject will perhaps seem more elegant to some. Therefore, I have trusted in the most wise helmsman and Lord of all things, God, and in His Word, and in those very ministers whom He uses as instruments, and who are leaders and guardians of our reason and soul, and in favorable winds, as well as in the help and grace of the Holy Spirit, by whose power and by whose prayers I have been brought into the harbor in both work and word of the divine will. Whence it is not likely that anyone would easily condemn us if we have proposed anything with such confidence, and if, after many and excellent men who have followed them until now, we too have sufficed for something. B
EPISTLE OF BARTHOLOMEW OF JANO, OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR, CONCERNING THE CRUELTY OF THE TURKS
(From codex 1130 of the library of St. Michael in Venice.)To the venerable religious and excellent preacher, brother C Albert of Sartiano of the Order of Friars Minor, preaching in Venice, his most beloved father in Christ Jesus. For a long time, venerable father, I have desired to see you, to speak with you likewise, and to embrace your person, but this grace has not yet been granted to me. For while I dwell in the parts of the West, you proceed toward the East; seeking you in the East, you return to the country of the West. But I should think that all this was done by the counsel of God, since, as I have heard, your preaching was not a little useful in Venice this year, as it is accustomed to be. But now I would desire vehemently, provided that by the favor of the Lord the union of both Churches is celebrated, that you visit these and further parts, with the usual magisterium of your preaching and likewise of your knowledge and life, since we perceive that a very great fruit of souls can be made there through the friars. For with Greece omitted, and furthermore all of Turkey, which was otherwise called Asia, where those seven churches are which are read in the Apocalypse, and where the enemy of Christ, the Teucer, reigns, there still remain for the present countless Christian peoples beyond the Moorish sea, under the Greek rite even to...
the ten or fifteen thousand—I say fewer, so that you may believe—captures souls! I would say fifty thousand, if you would believe it, and compels them to deny Christ Jesus both by threats and by blandishments? Indeed, no small wonder arises in me if even one Christian is still found in those parts. For Corinth alone sends out thousands and thousands of ducats as toll for captives passing from Gallipoli into Turkey. Oh, therefore, sins of the Christians, A whither do you tend? Whither do you lead yourselves, to what servitude, to what disgrace do you compel yourselves to submit? But why do I delay longer, most humane Father? Why do I defer telling of the new—not new, but too often practiced—calamitous and tearful slaughter of Christians, which we have seen in these days? My hand trembles, my eyes weep, my mind today creates horror. First, of the Georgians, B that is, the kingdom of Georgia is not small, where King Alexander reigns today, beyond Trebizond. Who can travel through the homeland of the Russians and the Ruthenians up to the Maeotic marshes, which is called the sea of Abbachuc? I omit the Circassians and the Voguls, Mingrelia, Wallachia, and Patras near the sea, yet under the Greek rite. I am silent about the Armenians, whom I hope you will see coming to Italy at present together with our father, Brother Jacob, to be reduced to the Catholic faith; they are far easier to convert and more eager to grasp the truth than other nations, and are most benevolent to the Latins. Furthermore, you will have known of countless Christians in the Gray Mountains, and dispersed here and there in Persia and Scythia, where the places of our brothers stand empty of brothers, C even today living among the Tartars themselves. For which reason I deem it not useless, but rather most opportune, for your person and those like you to be in those parts, provided, however, that the holy union has first been celebrated, if God permits. But, alas! alas! why do I commemorate these things, when it is far more pleasing to weep than to have hoped for anything good through the aforementioned? To weep, I say, from the depths of my heart, and to cry out to the stars, that the Almighty, having mercy, may some day oversee the liberation of these parts, in the midst of which we are as it were, nor look upon the sins of the peoples for so long, until the name of Christianity is extinguished in the parts of the Orient and the North. Christians are failing, alas, daily, and the followers of the devil are increasing both in number and in the strength of their arms. For there is scarcely a city, castle, or village, and there is scarcely a day, in which—both in Turkey and in Greece—the most holy name of Christ is not denied, not only through fear or threats, but much more through delights and honors; and Mahomet, the son of the devil, is carried to the heights; and what you will perhaps wonder at, at times by those who were enjoying riches, honors, and worldly prudence. But that I may be silent about past evils, for the telling of which I think no tongue can suffice, I will touch briefly on what I have recently seen with my own eyes, so that you may know and weep with me, and if you find any who are not stripped of all piety, you may compel them also to weep. My paper and pen note these things. Where is that prophet Jeremiah, who would lament not one single city, but three, but four, but innumerable castles and villages, a great and notable homeland, I say, most opulent in inhabitants and riches, now destroyed and reduced to ashes, in the month of August of the present year, indeed? I speak of the homeland of the faithful peoples, who are called Saxons in the Transylvanian country, which, as a brother who was redeemed from the booty narrates to me, extended eight days in length and three in breadth, which was previously called Septemsolia, but now I know not what it is called, unless perhaps a place of lamentation and wailing. Who, therefore, will give water to my head, that I may weep day and night, D not for walls and buildings destroyed, but for innumerable souls carried away, and now handed over to the devil to be devoured, which, as it is said, extend to the number of thirty, and perhaps forty thousand? Oh! who would give me not the eloquence of Maro or Tully to write it—for it would surely succumb in these things—but rather the voice of thunder and the wings of the winds to ascend, and to fly over the homeland of the Christians, so that not only stony hearts might be terrified by the magnitude of the voice, but the mountains and valleys themselves? The wretched Christians do not hear these things, and perhaps, if they had heard, they would not believe. I believe they heard, and more willingly believed, that the Teucer had been defeated; that this is not true is manifestly demonstrated by the fact that he has already sent his army to those parts twice or three times up to now, after his return. And if it is also true that many of his men have not died—rather from labor, plague, and hunger than by the sword—what, I ask, is there of wonder in the death of some in an army of three hundred thousand men, whom you know to be Christians for the greater part? For which reason, wherever you turn, you have abundant material for weeping. Where now, therefore, are the churches in that homeland, the crosses, the chalices, the missals, the vestments? Where are the relics of the saints? And, which is greatest of all, in many places, the consecrated body of the Lord? Alas! by what disgrace, by what derision, by what great illusion have they been cast down and trampled underfoot? Where is that Almighty God now, who was angry at King Balthassar, who basely abused the vessels of the temple of the Lord? Certainly, as it manifestly appears, if you can be mindful, as I believe, beloved Father, when we, having been sent by our most holy Lord the Pope to those parts, departed from Venice—where you also unexpectedly arrived upon returning from Jerusalem—how it was rumored there in recent days that the Hungarians had burned some of the Teucri's ships, and furthermore had killed very many of them. These things, I say, were all true. But if you have not heard afterwards, I know not, that the Teucer himself, having been angered by this, approached that place in person with a great army and carried away more than sixty thousand souls, as it is said, from the kingdom of Rasia, neighboring Hungary; of whom, if any still remember Christ at present, it is uncertain. Do you wonder at this? But you would wonder and grieve much more that, for twenty-five and thirty years now, he has brought upon himself no small damage and shame.
A And those things given by Another do not exist in the Son and Spirit without a beginning, nor without a cause. For the Father alone is the source of the supersubstantial divinity, and he alone is cause and causative, because he alone is causeless and without beginning. For he himself is not from anyone, so that he might himself be in a way caused, or that the things belonging to him might be from another and not without beginning, nor as from a source. For he alone is the beginning of the Son and of the Spirit, without beginning and without cause, as we were saying.
6. [6.] Drawing forth, therefore, the Son, the Father gives to him the divine essence, and as many perfections as belong to it, so that he gives also the generative and producing power together. For the persons of the same essence possess the same perfections, as has been demonstrated; and intellect, indeed, and will are perfections. Besides, who does not know that intellect and will are the same altogether and in every respect in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Spirit? But yet, when the Son was produced from the Father as Father, the Holy Spirit is not understood to be produced from the Father as the Producer. For the Father as Father is considered before the Producer as Producer, as was said. Moreover, with paternity subsisting—which is one of the properties—the paternal hypostasis B is constituted, just as sonship constitutes the Son, and production the Spirit; paternity and the production that is in the Father cannot be the same at the same time. For paternity will be considered before that which is in the Father—that is to say, before the active production. Therefore, also C when the Father as producer brings forth the Holy Spirit, the Son, having the same power from the Father through generation—namely, the productive power—will be considered together with the Father in the procession of the Spirit, which is one from the Father through the Son, namely by one power and principle, which is in the Father and the Son, being in the former as in a source, without beginning and not from another, but in the Son being given through generation from the Father, as from an unoriginate principle and source and cause, from which both the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed. So that the Holy Spirit is aptly said to proceed from the Father through the Son, according to the condensed theology. For it is not from the Father alone, lest the Son be thought unlike him, not having the same perfections as the Father, and for this reason not even consubstantial, which is in no way different from the heresy of Arius, which despoiled the Son of the divine nature of the Father; for if their powers were different, then the essences themselves would also be different. Nor, again, is it only from the Son, lest the Son be thought again a principle without beginning, and thence again alien to the paternal essence and nature; and besides, lest the Holy Spirit be thought the grandson of the Father, and the Son, in turn, the son of the Son of God—for the Son would have been, in turn, a Father. And furthermore, lest we suppose that something resides in the Son, such as the productive power of the Holy Spirit, which would not be numerically the same in God and Father. For this also imports, again, the unlikeness of essence, D all of which are impious and atheistical.
A 7. For this reason the teachers of the Church and the seventh B universal synod declared that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, not as if the Son were a cause, and an absolute principle, and the producer of the Spirit’s hypostasis; but as a co-cause and a principle from a principle; nor as if the Father were not able to produce the Holy Spirit by Himself alone. For the Father could not have generated the Son even without the help of another person, since both of those who are produced possess the same perfection and power. For the Father Himself sufficiently generates the Son by Himself, and produces the Holy Spirit; and when He is, both the Son and the Spirit will also be. And if He were to be absent in our thought, there would be no Son at all, nor any Spirit from the Son, nor indeed any of the persons, let alone a procession or operation toward the existence of the persons. The Son, however, as one who produces, in a way also brings forth the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and He produces Him as one who proceeds from the Father, and as one who produces, He is dependent upon the Father—not as being generated, but in that He is producing; since by generation He has partaken of the same power of the Father as a producer, and He also produces, together with the Father, that which is produced from the Father. For if, in our thought, the producer—the Father—were to precede, and the Holy Spirit were somehow to be produced before the Son from the producer, then the Son would be from the producer through the Spirit; and the Spirit, by that C same power which is in the Father—that is to say, the generative power of the Son—would Himself have produced the Son from the producer as if from a Father. Not that the producer, in that He is Father, would not be sufficient to generate His own Son, since even now He generates Him sufficiently alone—just as He would have then, alone and sufficiently, produced the Holy Spirit—but because He would have possessed the same generative power as the Father, given to Him by means of spiration as a perfection and power from the Father, while the Son had not yet been produced in our thought. The Roman Church, having unfolded this compressed theology, also taught that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, desiring to denote by this the "through the Son from the Father," in order that it might proclaim the Father as the cause, and fountain, and principle from a principle, and the fountain-head of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit; and, according to the word of the Word of God, proclaim the Son as a co-cause, and a fountain from a fountain, D and a principle of the same hypostasis, because He possesses from the Father the productive power—as we were saying—by which the Father brings forth the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father primarily and conceptually, I might say, and as the cause of causes, and as the principle, and strictly. But from the Son, it is not so, even if He is brought forth from Him by the same power and production. For the Son is not a cause without a cause, nor an unoriginate principle of the hypostasis of the Spirit.
8. For this reason, the Church has ordained that it should also be said from the Son...
signifying by this the Holy Spirit, which is revealed thereby from the Father. For just as by the Son it places the Father before, and pre-conceives Him as the primary cause and fountain and unoriginate principle of the same action, so also it makes manifest that the expression “from the Son” implies the Son as a co-cause and a principle from a principle, but the Father as the simple cause and unoriginate principle of the Spirit. Hence, even if in some place it calls the Son a principle and cause, or permits it to be said, regarding the hypostasis of the Spirit—as is written in the definition of the holy universal eighth council held at Florence—it does not wish Him to be an absolute principle nor a cause, but a principle from a principle, and a cause—that is to say, a cause with another. Just as again, that which is contained in the same definition, that the Spirit is likewise produced from the Son in the same manner by which He is produced from the Father, does not understand this according to the mode of procession, so that in like manner, namely, as from a fountain and without origin and without cause, and as if from the Son Himself the Spirit is brought forth, just as from the Father Himself: for it would contradict itself B if it understood those words in this way, and proclaimed the Spirit from the Son, but rather relates it to the identity of the power, which is one in number in the Father and the Son, distributed through generation, as we have said, from the Father to the Son, just as the essence itself is distributed. Therefore it also declares that the Son brings forth the Spirit from the Father, and that He is one who brings Him forth from the Father, and whatever else is of such power.
9. If anyone, however, has doubts about these things stated by us, first: How is it that the Son does not beget, just as He also brings forth, since He is a partaker of the same generative power as the Father? Or how is it that the Holy Spirit neither brings forth nor begets, when both these powers reside in Him in the same manner as in the Father and the Son? Second: How will there not be two principles, when there are two who bring forth? Or how will there not be a contraction, while two concur into one principle? In the first place, let him learn regarding the first point, that since the Father begets the Son with the generative power, as we have said, the generation is joined to its own power, by which the Son is begotten from the Father. Similarly, while the Father brings forth the Spirit through the Son, the procession is joined to its own power, by which the Holy C Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Therefore, neither does the Son beget for these reasons, nor does the Holy Spirit beget or send forth anything. For the Father imparts the aforementioned powers—the generative one to the Son, and the generative and productive ones to the Holy Spirit—already joined to their own operations, as perfections only, and not as powers. Moreover, both powers are infinite, and commensurate with those which are from the Father, and are themselves infinite with one and the same infinitude, and are always being brought forth according to the voice of the theologians. And therefore the Father, with one generative power, begets no more than one filial hypostasis, nor with one productive power does He produce more spirits. On this account, no more than three hypostases are reckoned in the D
EPISTLE AGAINST THE TURKS
A Brother, I fear that the time of the final tribulation has already arrived. I am vehemently distressed, my beloved, to revolve these things, since very many matters equal to or greater than those already spoken of remain, which I pass over out of the very weariness of the narration. Yet I have taken care to indicate these few things—of which I have spoken as if by way of a prelude, without explaining them—to you, for this purpose: first, that you may know these things to be true as related by a faithful reporter, and knowing them, may be moved to compassion, and may proclaim and announce them to others who do not believe these things. And [I wish] that you may induce faithful souls—if any are found in the world bearing the bowels of piety—to pray, to cry out, and to weep before the feet of the Divine Majesty, so that He may deign to succor His faithful in such great danger, or at least to succor His own Name. For if our help does not come from Him, it is sought in vain from man, in whom salvation is empty, and who trusts in him is rather cursed.
But this also is the most potent reason that prompted me to write these things to you: that you, clearly, who are kindled with the piety of Christ and with a zeal for souls, and who are distinguished by your knowledge and eloquence, might direct, garnish, and compose this letter which I am fashioning for you with due piety and gravity, so that it may become worthy to appear in the sight of kings and princes, if perchance they might hear and be converted at some time to avenge the injury of Christ Jesus. Unless, rather, you judge the contrary—that it is more apt to win belief for itself B the more everyone recognizes it to have been written not in composed or adorned speech, but in a simple style; leave all this to your judgment. I pledge my faith with words, not with tears or grief, which are rather renewed every day, praying and protesting to you by the bowels of Jesus Christ that you write these things, that you say these things, that you proclaim these things to the whole world, to both small and great lords and prelates, so that those who can may assist by fighting, and those who cannot may at least assist by praying. Which if they were willing to do, by the permission of the Lord, it would be as easy to succor such a great malady as it would seem incredible, or even impossible, to him who has read the aforesaid.
As for the rest, brother, have compassion on us who see and touch the aforesaid daily; have compassion even more on the miserable captives whose danger of soul is far graver than the very servitude of the body. But let your heart melt with the piety of compassion most of all over the remaining Christians, whom we see destroyed by such miserable circumstances. Finally, the brothers who are with me, nine in number between novices and professed, commend themselves to your prayers and those of the other fathers. Moreover, may it please you most zealously to pray, and to commend to others, this city, which fears the Teucrus most vehemently for the coming year; and in the judgment of all, it is greatly to be feared, since he has conducted three thousand and more young Christians to the sea, and has had them instructed most thoroughly in rowing, and is continuously preparing galleys for battle. But if he should capture this city, which God avert, C alas! alas! for the remaining Christians whom he could easily attack afterward, both by sea and by land, since at present he can only direct his hand to one place. It must be that if the event of a siege occurs, God Himself should help, since from Italy—whence he might perhaps have feared that this city would be succored, especially by the Venetians—he is entirely secure; as to which it is believed that at no time in his life has he been so strongly spirited, and so disposed to this, as he is now; which other signs already mentioned clearly demonstrate. For he has ordered thirty thousand pickaxes, and the same number of hammers and large iron stakes to be prepared in this manner. You yourself, consider: for what are these? Furthermore, he never eats, and speaks rarely with his men, when the city of Constantinople is brought into the discussion with a sigh. And not undeservingly, since through its power of the sea he could easily acquire [the world]. Add, if there is any weight in it, that from all the villages, cities, and castles subject to his empire—which are perhaps one hundred thousand—he has recently taken a tenth part of the boys from the Christians, which he had never done before, from ten to twenty years of age, and has made them his special Slaves and Armigers, and what is worse, Saracens. Whence it clearly appears, to conclude the sum of all in a brief word, that the times are now infallibly at hand where either he must destroy the Christians, or he must be utterly deleted by the Christians; the former of which I vehemently dread, the latter may God Himself rather grant.
Which nonetheless is not to be despaired of. For the public rumor spread among the Saracens and the Teucri is reported, that the time of their destruction is at hand, and has already passed, as certain of their prophecies declare. But because of their alms and piety toward the poor, which is true, and because of the chastisement of our own, which is truer, it has been delayed until the present, and is yet to be delayed still longer. D O where now is that most Christian duke, brave, pious Godfrey, Bohemond, Baldwin, and the remaining princes glorious for infinite ages? Who liberated the sepulcher of Christ Jesus from the hands of the infidels? And to repeat a little further back, where is that noble Charles, king of the Franks, whose celestial and eternal glory no age shall erase, nor any oblivion? Who not only by courage and arms, but much more by prudence and piety, avenged the injury of Christ Jesus, and whose faith and worship he amplified in the parts of the West and the East? And so great is the glory of him and his followers even now, that the very name of the Franks seems terrible even to barbarians, and all the Christians of the Western regions are called by the name of Franks throughout the whole East. O therefore kings and Christian princes, arise now, because it is time. The example is present, the honor is present, the necessity is present; justice, religion, faith exhort you; behold the common enemy is in sight, who has raised his head against Christ, brave against the timid, cowardly against the bold, what are you doing? Strengths that would suffice not only for resisting the pagans, but for amplifying the name of Christ, you consume among yourselves, and it has pleased you to wage wars that will have no triumphs. Whence, I ask, to Alexander of such great glory to him? Whence Hannibal...
11. Thus, therefore, it remains manifest that no division or contraction follows from this, nor anything absurd, nor anything impossible; for A in a single productive potency, just as in the one essence, Pater and Filii and Spiritus sanctus are divided hypostatically—not being two producers, but one; though two as to the manner only. For the former refers to the faculty, which is one, and not plural in both. Therefore, he is one producer: in this one way the hypostases are, as it were, separated. And therefore we call them producers, according to the teaching of this very theology. This is what the Roman Church—which is the same as to say, that of the universal faith—holds concerning the procession of the Spiritus sanctus in its piety. We have been educated and instructed in these dogmas, not by sophisms, as some babblers say, following humanly conceived and naked reasonings, but by the theologians of the Church B and as they spoke from God. Hence, one can conclude and judge that the holy Fathers pronounce in agreement with themselves, and do not hold to different or contrary things, nor do they contradict themselves, in which opinion those who are ignorant of theological matters err, when they either transfix with an obelus the pronouncements of the saints, or corrupt them, or deny them, or interpret them badly and ignorantly, and as it pleases themselves.
12. But you, whom I esteem above all others and especially hold to be truly fortunate in your exquisite study of piety and in the integrity of right dogmas, will suffer none of this. And, weighing matters carefully with a diligent mind, follow rather those who treat theological matters with reason, than the ignorant who give no reason for what is said, but rather avoid judgment C and obscure the truth, and miserably lose the Greek race both in deeds and in words. I desired to extend the present discourse and to compose much more concerning these same things, but I have judged that what is enough for the present has been said, which from very few things can conjecture and grasp much more. In the future time, if you permit, we shall have a broader discussion of divine things, reviewing the theological sentiments more accurately. For it must be that I be persuaded by you in everything, just as by a father and guardian of the race. D
JOANNES ARGYROPULUS’ EPISTLE TO DOMINICUS ROBOREUS, CARDINAL OF TURIN
In the Turin codex 455 (Pasini Cod. Taurin. p. 102) is held Aristotle’s work *De anima*, translated by Joannes Argyropulus in his latest and more elegant revision for Dominicus Roboreus, Cardinal of Turin. On the front of the whole most elegant work is held Argyropulus’ epistle to Cardinal Roboreus, whose grace for this interpretation I have accepted. It will not be useless to place it here, as it commends the Cardinal’s wonderful propensity for letters and sciences.
Joannes Argyropulus to Dominicus Roboreus, Cardinal of Turin, sends greetings and eternal happiness.
My love and highest benevolence toward you, most wise Father, compel me to do this as my supreme duty; since, if I were not to do this, there would be no man who would not think that I either ignore or neglect or set aside my duty and office, both of which would bring no small shame upon myself.
For it is well known that nobody is ignorant of what love expresses, and what benevolence calls for; to be ignorant of this is surely characteristic of a person who is exceedingly dull, or excessively thoughtless. And to neglect or set aside what the nature of benevolence requires—that which emerges from the very depths of love—is, in truth, the act of one who is pleased and displeased by the same things, and who, in the most important and honorable matters, fails of his own accord. I omit to recount the mutual merits and duties of benevolence and mutual love; if anyone, as far as his strength allows, should not respond to these, he would not unjustly be held liable to the charge of ingratitude or injustice—things from which human decency and noble character are especially averse. B You have instituted such a beautiful course of life, whereby, having arranged your domestic and private affairs well and sumptuously, you live in part for the duty and office of a high magistrate for other men; and in part provide for yourself through studies of letters and most noble doctrines, having embraced both as the sum of a way of life. In this, you have taken me as your companion and associate: not unaware that the studies to which we apply ourselves can be accomplished more expeditiously, more accurately, and better in this way. I, who have always thought that all human affairs, if the best end is removed, are vain and to be held as nothing—whose constant sentiment has been that a man who has embraced either way of life is like someone with a body endowed with both eyes but blind in one, possessing a superior right view but an inferior left, and is almost completely like one who is blind in both eyes. C And our most holy religion, which was divinely offered to us, pleases me vehemently for this very reason: because it endeavors to render men adorned and perfect in both ways of living, according to its own most beautiful laws and institutions, to nature and to its Creator alike; for, finally, since nothing delights him except virtue and the pursuit of wisdom, what, I ask, should I do towards you? What course should I take that would be most adapted to us both—both by the urging, pressing, and compelling love we share, and also by our way of life, which moves just as nature moves, and as if right reason were commanding it? Would this not be all that you desire, provided we have the means at hand, so that we do not appear inept or completely ignorant of reason, offering other things than those which are necessary? Would this not be everything that can conduce to the easy attainment of that desired human end D toward which you are already pressing with all your study and effort? Furthermore, I decided it was worth the effort and my duty to help you as far as my powers allow in your most excellent and honest studies, and to give you frequent assistance, with other matters neglected and set aside; and I thought that I should demonstrate the ways and paths by which one proceeds straight to human happiness and beatitude. I judged that the writers and authors of the liberal arts should be read through with you. I thought that the truth enclosed within them should be brought to light. Finally, I decided that the formulas and methods of the art of disputation should be sampled and not set aside; without these, the investigation and perception of the truth A cannot be rightly achieved at any cost. For this reason, I judged that it should not be neglected—a thing which will undoubtedly confer upon us no small benefit toward that which we strive for most keenly. I refer to the works of Aristotle, that most excellent philosopher of ours and supreme artificer, some of which are, in my judgment, the sole fonts of all good things, from which the human end emanates; these I have now translated more elegantly in order to offer to you, taking as our starting point that from which the science of the soul is handed down. From this, we can most accurately understand not only the nature of all other living things, but also our own, and the origins, causes, principles, and sources of human happiness. For as it does not escape you, we have long since decided that both are objects of our concern—the knowledge of things, I mean: both those which do not need our effort and those of which we are the authors, and which are placed under our power; and the elegance of language: the method of speaking, the choice of words, the ornament, charm, and abundance, so that the subject matter and thoughts may be convenient and accommodated to the style, and the style to the subject matter and thoughts—if the speech is to be accommodated to the senses, and the senses to the subject matter—just as the reason and nature of those things themselves, and the institution of wise men, requires, demands, and expects. For those are not to be proposed to us as models who use fine words without knowledge of things, or who are endowed with knowledge but lack skill in the art of speaking. It is surely a mark of distinct shame to do both, to speak as vainly as one speaks wickedly, although the latter, whether by misfortune of impotence or by reason of sloth, is the one that should be avoided. Let us join together things that must absolutely be joined, and not those which no one can ever join without his own disgrace, and let us not separate wisdom from elegance, and the charm and grace of words and speech. This task, therefore, I decided in my own mind to be not dishonest, not useless, not unpleasant, and not dissenting or contrary to our common goal or our mutual benevolence, and I decided by a sort of law that it should be given to you by me frequently and assiduously; and, consequently, that unless the necessity of nature intervene, no force could take it away from us. Since these things are so, proceed with good fortune to read the work of Aristotle on the soul, which has now been translated more elegantly, with the latest revision and more polished for your sake, as the subject matter allows, and as the method of interpreting prescribes (for a wide scope is not conceded in such things), and offered to you by us. In this reading and perceiving, you will also have us—since we so wished and intended—as companions, helpers, and guides, not indeed idle, not stagnant, not sluggish, but most ready for the undertaking of every labor, the fruit of which is the end for you to attain, for which nature brought you into being, and God, the Creator of things, endowed you with so many and such great powers and faculties. Farewell, more than half of my soul, and persuade yourself that you are dearer to me than anyone.
NICOLAI BARBARI PATRICII VENETI AD CONSTANTINOPOLIM OPPUGNATAM DIARIUM
April 14. Satan’s torment against the walls A armed with two triremes. But he places opposing quadripartite structures for the Genoese (cf. Phrantzes, who writes: "In fourteen places the walls of the City were struck"). Then three bombards were directed at the Emperor’s palace in Blachernae; likewise three against the Gate of the Spring; two at the Golden Gate, and four at the Gate of St. Romanus; among which that huge one of 1200 pounds and another of 800 pounds are mentioned.
April 12-17. On the twelfth day of April (according to Phrantzes, on the fifteenth) the Turkish fleet dropped anchor in the region of the port of Constantinople; its number, according to Barbaro, was 145, of which 12 were fully armed triremes, 70-80 were larger liburnians, 20-25 were parandariae (cargo ships for war use), and the rest were light craft. Add to this a cargo vessel (more veritably, however, filled with stone projectiles) laden with war material from Sinope. The Turkish fleet holds the Anatolian shore far from the city. Those besieged in the city wait constantly in arms for the enemy’s aggression. Within, besides the cannons fired incessantly and slight skirmishes against the Janissaries, nothing worth mentioning happens.
April 18. The aggression of the Turks on the night preceding the eighteenth of April is repelled, first by the Greeks who were slightly shaken; more than two hundred Turks died.
April 20. On the twentieth day of the siege, four Genoese auxiliary ships entered the Hellespont, which after a battle of 2 or 3 hours, aided by luck, repelled the Turkish aggression; as the sun set the defenders' triremes met the Genoese and brought them into the port with joy and a concert of music.
April 21. Mahomet proceeds with 10,000 horsemen to the fleet, rails bitterly against the naval commander, and orders him to resign his office with his life intact; the son of Piero Loredan, of boastful memory (perhaps some defector of the Venetian cause), is placed in charge of the fleet. On the same day, a dire devastation was wrought by enemy projectiles in the western region, with the ruin of the tower situated at the Gate of St. Romanus; the attempts of the besieged to repair the damage are recorded.
April 22. On this day, which was Sunday, 5,000 Italian ships C were transported by land from the Bosphorus into the port of Constantinople. Our author records, not without grief of soul, that 72 armed ships were placed on rollers and dragged by hand by the Turkish camp-followers and plebeians over the mountain upon which Pera sits to the north. The Constantinopolitans enclosed in the city, for whom danger impends from the enemy fleet even with few ships, place one trireme as a guard post at the strait that adjoins Pera, to give a signal to the naval commander where the enemies might attempt an aggression.
April 23. In the church of St. Mary (of the Hodegetria, as it seems), men summoned for this purpose deliberate on how the ships of the enemy ought to be driven from the port.
April 24. Lord Jac. Cocus, patron of that Trapezuntine trireme, two cargo ships, the prefect of those living in Pera, informs the Sultan about that matter; and the Genoese themselves, most treacherous men, together with the Venetian captains, persuade them to reserve the proposed attempt for another night, promising their own help, but in reality intending to bring help to the Turks with all their might.
April 25-27. In this interval of time, in which nothing worth mentioning happened, Barbaro opines that the further misfortunes are an action of the divine Godhead due to the sins of which that age was guilty.
April 28. That night two triremes, commanded by Gabr. Trevisano and Hier. Morosino, knight, and Jac. Cocus, are disappointed in their hope of burning the Turkish ships in the port with fire. Barbaro narrates this attempt more extensively than all the others.
April 29. The navigator Diedus names Dolphinus to the place of the Trapezuntine trireme’s captain, in the vacancy left by Cocus; Jo. Loredanus is substituted for him in guarding the Blachernae gate. The damages that the besiegers inflict on the besieged are immediately repaired by them. Besides this, nothing worth mentioning was done in the month of April.
May 1, 2. The same must be said of these two days. A shortage of food in the city.
May 3, 4. The Constantinopolitans oppose two bombards to the enemies in the port; the Turks place two machines of the same kind. Then for ten days and as many nights, cannons work on both sides without any remarkable effect. By the Emperor’s order, a light ship is sent toward the island of Negroponte to seek out the Venetian fleet and to ask J. Loredanus to help the city, which was in extreme peril, without delay. And this, indeed, travels through the Archipelago under a Turkish banner and disguised in Turkish clothing, but returns to Constantinople with the business unsuccessful.
May 5. The Turks set up more bombards on the mountain looming over Pera, and from there they shoot at the enemy ships in the port throughout the entire length of the great chain with cannon fire. And indeed a third bronze ball, thrown, sinks a Genoese ship full of merchandise and provisions to the depths of the sea. The ships of the Christians then return to the walls of Pera not without damage. The Turks, after having directed the same cannons toward Kynegion without effect, finally added those that were covering the inner walls.
May 6. On this Sunday also, the cannons thunder perpetually.
May 7. A nocturnal aggression made by 30,000 Turks is bravely repelled; in which stupendous cries reaching as far as the Anatolian sea caused the defenders of the city to gird themselves for battle by land and sea. Nevertheless, nothing further was attempted by the Turks, except that in departing they set fire to the Palatine gate; which the Greeks then blocked with a wall. The ships took up their previous station around the chain.
May 8. It was decreed by the Twelve-Man Council that the Tana ships, having been unloaded, should be transported into the arsenal. With the ships thus being unloaded by armed hand
how great a mass of arrows they cast into the city, so that those who were inside were affected with extreme fear. The captains said that for them the ships were their homes; that they should not endure life or death on the mainland. This opinion prevailed; and both they and the admiral remained on the shore at Pera. Engines around the gate of St. Romanus perpetually threw balls.
May 9. On Sunday, Gabriel Trevisano, by the will of the Twelve-Man Council so ordering, employed 400 soldiers fetched from two triremes to guard the land wall.
May 10. In a meeting held by the Twelve in the church of St. Mary, Lord Diedo is designated admiral of the fleet, on the condition that he should manage the care of the port and all maritime matters at his discretion.
May 11. The same deadly toil of the engines.
May 19. At this time at last, a bridge constructed by joining ships began to exist from Galata to the Kynegion, as Barbarus says; according to Phrantzes, however, it took place after the ships were transported, that we may be silent about the more confused chronology of Leonardo, who judges it to have been made before the naval battle with a difference of a whole month. Certainly Ducas agrees more closely with our Barbarus in this matter. The Turks do not cease to hurl bronze balls at the enemy and fill the air with shouts; the besieged repair the damage inflicted.
May 20. Barbarus reports the efforts of the besieged to repair the gaping walls, for which work women, children, and old men, even the clergy, were expending their strength. Mention is also made of that huge machine emitting 1200 lb stones, by which, when inflamed, not only the walls but the pavement of the city and the ships in the port were most violently shaken.
May 12. 50,000 Turks, with the usual shouts and the dissonant noise of drums and pipes, assail the wall situated around the palace; but the mercy of Jesus Christ averted extreme destruction from the city this time, because, as Barbarus opines, the destruction of Constantinople according to the prophecy of the holy Emperor Constantine was reserved not for the present, but for a further phase of the moon.
May 13. Lord Trevisano, prefect of the fleet, with his soldiers arrives at the land to defend the damaged walls. He does not retreat from that place until the city was taken. According to Phrantzes, he behaved as a shepherd, not a hireling, between the Kynegion and the Caesarean palace. Throughout that time, there was an uninterrupted fire of engines against the western wall.
May 14. The Turks, as we have already seen, drag the engines from the mount of St. Theodore through Pera towards the Kynegion gate from the direction of the harbor and afterwards place them behind the gate of St. Romanus, where the wall was suffering badly, although the besieged were eager to remedy the damages inflicted with all their might. Three hundred men, for the most part pyrotechnicians and archers, occupy that gate, all foreigners, except the Greeks, whose cowardice our author severely chastises.
May 15. The restless explosion of the engines and the assiduous repair of the parts damaged therefrom; otherwise, a truce.
May 21. The whole host of the enemy threatens an aggression long before sunrise; but after they had seen the ships of the besieged prepared for battle around the great chain, they attempted nothing, indeed they withdrew. When they had detected a mine dug by the Turks near the Caligarian gate, they blocked it and slaughtered the diggers. Nevertheless on this day the wall and the tower near it were quite badly damaged, and those who were inside the city had sick bodies from tireless labor and hardships.
May 22. A mine near the Caligarian gate, blocked again, frustrated the hope of the diggers. But a wondrous celestial spectacle having been seen (Barbarus calls it a common eclipse of the moon), the Constantinopolitans, mindful of the prophecy of Emperor Constantine, saw it as a sign of imminent ruin, and the Turks as a pledge of victory.
May 23. A third mine, furthermore, found near the Caligarian gate and the emperor's palace, was the reason why some of the artificers of war machines were taken prisoner; who, after they had said under orders where other mines had been built, were beheaded and thrown over the walls into the Turkish camps. On this same day, an actuaria ship, sent on the fourth day of that month to seek the Venetian fleet in the Archipelago, having escaped the ambush of the Turkish ships, returns to the port. The city is continuously harassed by the labor of the engines.
May 16. Some Turkish actuaria ships approach the chain around the port and attack the ships of the besieged; but suddenly, for fear that they might be repelled, they unwillingly withdraw. The mines dug by the Turks around the Kaligarian gate were detected and frustrated by the Grand Duke.
May 17. Five Turkish ships proceed as far as the chain of the port for the sake of exploring, but having been received by 70 shots, and those ineffective, they flee with the greatest speed they could. But everyone fears that the enemy might attack the city with all his forces, which everyone despaired of being able to resist.
May 18. The Turks, throughout the space of the night, construct those turreted machines, also mentioned with admiration by our Barbarus; nor could he wonder enough that the Turks finished in four hours what all the Christians living in Constantinople could not have done in the space of a whole month. From this great tower the Turks [cast] a huge...
May 24. A fourth mine, which they detected again near the Caligaria gate, damaged the wall not a little. Fierce shouting and jubilation thence from the Turkish camps because of the gambling-like battle now instantaneous.
The last mine found near the aforementioned gate terrified those shut up in the city the most. The war machines do not cease to emit fire and stones into the city.
May 26. Festal fires extending widely and jubilation in the Turkish camps because of the city to be assaulted the next day. The Constantinopolitans, with prayers and supplications to the Theotokos...
and all the saints, prostrated themselves, and cried out with groans and tears as they fervently begged for liberation from the hands of the pagans. But God our Lord decreed, in accordance with His inscrutable will, that on that very day the head of the Greeks should fall into the hands of Muhammad (and our Lord God of harsh judgment against the Greeks, who willed that this city should go on this day into the hand of Muhammad!).
May 29. Barbaro recalls ancient prophecies concerning the destruction of the Greek empire, the fulfillment of which, according to many signs, was reserved for this very day. In the third hour before sunrise, the Sultan ordered three armies, each of which numbered 50,000 armed men, to move against the city. The first cohort, in fact, consisted of Christians whom the Turks had forced into the company of the battle; the second was a rabble of untrained men (a disorganized crowd, that is, low-class people); the third, however, was composed of the Janissaries and the elite of the army; behind these finally the Sultan took his place. And the first of his troops when they tried to move their ladders to the walls, were repelled with great loss, but they were driven to the walls with such violence by those following behind that they had to perish in one way or another. As Barbaro notes, the Sultan had positioned those Christians in the first rank so that they would be exposed to certain death, while he spared the lives of the Turks, and so that he might wear out the defenders of the city through their futile aggression; this indeed happened in reality, although the second line of battle was repelled with much bloodshed by the arrows and the artillery of the city. Then the third line of the Sultan, with new strength and with a shout heard far and wide, the Janissaries and the flower of the army broke forth like lions. Not even the prayers and lamentations of the urban throng, especially the women, could stop them, and although the defenders fought most bravely on the walls, at sunrise the Turks, covered by the dust from that greatest cannon, were the first three hundred to cross the walls. But after these too had paid for their boldness with death, and the same stratagem had been repeated, finally up to 30,000 soldiers burst into the city with an assault, such as is the wont of wild beasts, through the parts of the wall that had been destroyed around the gate of St. Romanus. So many Turks fell in that slaughter that, if one trusts Barbaro, 40 merchant ships could barely suffice to transport the corpses. He reports further that Justinian was wounded and, shouting that the Turks were already taking control of the city, he became the cause of flight for all. Once the city was taken by force, the Turks poured out blood without any regard for age or sex, until they judged it better to sell the unarmed, among whom were the Venetian merchants who had hidden themselves in cellars. The standards of Saint Mark and the Emperor were torn down from the towers, and the dog of the Turks, as they call it, was substituted in their place. Thus, once the conquest of the city was known, whoever held the 70 ships in the harbor and the great fleet present through the Hellespont, lest they be frustrated of the huge spoils which at that very moment of time had begun to be placed on the ships, all joined in. Barbaro relates that the Turks placed a little flag on every house, monastery, or church that they had entered, which called back those who followed behind for the sake of plundering from proceeding further. More than 200,000 such signs seem to have been affixed throughout the city, inasmuch as a great part of the houses were decorated with ten such signs. The slaughter of the Christians thereafter was so great that the public streets were inundated with blood as they are after a rain with water, and the corpses thrown into the Propontis floated on the sea like fruit. Our author says that nothing certain was discovered concerning the life and death of the Emperor, except that, as some relate, his body was found among those who had been crushed by the Turks entering the gate of St. Romanus. Barbaro also reports that the surviving Venetians strove to place their property, especially their ships, in safety. Among those who escaped with their lives...
the author of these Ephemerides provides the names: 1) of the Venetian nobles who fell in the battle against the Turks; 2) of those who escaped unscathed with their ships (33); these were redeemed at a price of 800 up to 2000 gold pieces; 4) of all the Venetian nobles who were present in Constantinople on the very day of the invasion (68); 5) of those who perished throughout the entire duration of the siege (60-68). You have there the most illustrious names of the Venetian Republic: Bembo, Contarini, Mocenigo, Cornaro, Naui, Gritti, Loredano, Pisani, etc., though allowing for errors perhaps committed by the copyists. What is reported concerning the slaughter of the Greek magistrates there seems to be relegated to the apocryphal accounts. The prefect of the Tana galleys, Diedo, who was equal in fidelity to the author of these Ephemerides and to the admiral Fiurianus, paid his ransom with gold; others report a lower number. In the end, the Genoese commander at Pera, who was later set free, and he who reached the sea with a broken harbor chain on his galley, escaped. The galley of Hieronymus Morosini, and the Trapezuntine under the command of Dolphinus, who had succeeded to his place, and which had lost its own on April 28, escaped. Those who fled safely were the galley of Gab. Trevisani, which had been captured by the Turks, and three Cretan ships which escaped because of the absence of the Turks, who were dispersed throughout the higher regions of the city. Less is known regarding the Genoese ships that were saved, and the imperial vessels were denuded and fell as prey to the enemy. There is brief mention of a Venetian prefect who was led to execution. The number of captives, as Barbaro writes, is 60,000; the booty taken by the Turks amounts to 200,000.
ANONYMOUS NARRATION ON THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED
(From the Rehdiger Codex, ed. Dr. W. Gass in the Appendix to *Gennadius and Pletho*.)A The thrice-cursed and godless Mohammed, who is also called Mahomet among the Hagarenes subject to him, and who is considered a great prophet by them and is honored as if by God, appeared indeed in the days of the Emperor Heraclius. Born in a certain part of Ethiopia of Ethiopian parents, he was brought up and reached this point, progressing toward the worse in truth, in the following manner. A certain monk named Gerasimus, an extreme Arian and a *Pneumatomach* as they say, coming from Isauria, having been reared both in Constantinople and in the city of the Romans, when pressured by the pious to renounce Arianism and the other heresies by which he was held, would not be persuaded. Therefore, so that he might not be a source of ruin to many—being otherwise a learned man—he was exiled by the Orthodox to the regions of Coelesyria. Living there in a cave by a royal road in order to beg for his sustenance, since he was hated, he occupied himself mostly with astronomy and the method of prognostications. Viewing the passersby, he saw one day, among other travelers, a certain young man, namely the aforementioned Mahomet, driving a few camels and descending from Mesopotamia to Jerusalem for trade. This aforementioned Mohammed, having been orphaned while still quite young, went about to everyone’s door, feeding on what was left over. A certain very wealthy widow named Fatuma, seeing him, took him into her own house and raised him, and sent him B every day to pasture her own camels. When he matured, the woman fell in love with him and had sexual relations with him. Being caught and wishing to escape the disgrace of such a thing in the eyes of many, she openly made him her husband. Giving him a portion of her own possessions, she sent him out to trade. She was troubled, however, because he was subject to fits of epilepsy and caused her no small amount of mockery, so she commanded him to seek and inquire, wherever he might happen to go, if he could perhaps find a physician capable of freeing him from this affliction. Therefore, the aforementioned monk, sitting on the road and seeing Mohammed passing, asked him from what city he was coming; and after much questioning on his part as to why he was waiting by the road—but simply as one questioning another—when Mohammed, in the presence of others, heard that he [the monk] also practiced medical science, he became overjoyed. Having reported his epilepsy and hearing that the monk could free him from such an affliction, he gave him a portion for his expenses and let him go, saying, "Upon my return from Jerusalem, I shall take you up with me to my house in Mesopotamia for the sake of your treatment and that of many others, since the country is completely destitute of a physician, so that you may gather wealth and lead a relaxed and painless life." Having descended to Jerusalem and conversed with some of the heretics, and especially with the Jews and Nestorians, as he was very fond of study—but indeed also with the learned Jews...
A of our nature, and that our understanding and word are able to conceive and speak of those things all at once. For it is not even the case that, in the act of conceiving and speaking, we can say that this thing is at once, and that this thing is, without one of the two being conceived and brought forth before the other, since they are two in their hypostases. For this reason, he handed down this order in the discourse concerning baptism, with the Son’s hypostasis being set prior to that of the Spirit, according to the great Basil, who asserts in his letter B to the canons: "It is written that the Holy Spirit is from God; but if He is from God, how is that from which He is, older? And what is the folly, when the unbegotten is one, to speak of someone being above the unbegotten, or even prior to the Only-Begotten? For there is no mean between the Son and the Father."
Where C he also renders another cause for not saying that the Spirit is prior to the Only-Begotten, and it is not the same which he spoke of regarding the Father. "For there," he says, "the cause is an obstacle, for that from which something is cannot be prior (to it); but here there is nothing of the sort," he says, "but rather the immediate relation of the name of the Father to the Son." Then he adds: "So that the innovation concerning the order involves the negation of the very subsistence itself, and the denial of the whole faith." And he received such an order from the divine Scripture. For he had previously said: "It is ordered as we have been taught in the Gospels by the Lord, who said, 'Go, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'" They say, therefore, that this order, which comes about for the sake of the mentioned divine names, must be un-innovated, and neither in baptism nor elsewhere is it to be altered.
The teacher, however, did not speak of the order, nor does any other of the theologians, that this new theology has discovered, which is composed of certain degrees D and precidences, in that the production of the Son, as he himself says, is prior to the hypostasis of the Spirit, because the generative power—which is the principle of the Son—precedes in the Father, while the propletic principle is that of the Spirit, and because the generator is prior to the propletic (source), because the mind, or memory, precedes that which the word spoke of concerning the will.
For these things did not even enter the minds of the theologians; for how could they, when they lead to countless absurdities? And yet, while he himself boasts of avoiding absurdities, there are places where he gilds [E] (them) with a prior conception. The saints do indeed say that the Father is conceived prior to the Son as a cause, so that they might eliminate the precedence of time; but they do not say He is the cause of the Son because of this prior conception. But that He is the cause is posited, and that it is set in order as a cause is likewise (posited), but they refute the time being prior by the priority of the mental conception. But in cases where the order according to cause is disputed, a prior conception is not sufficient to demonstrate this. And regarding the powers which he speaks of, a prior conception is much more useless for his need, even if one were to grant that there are these two powers in the Father.
INDEX: AUTHORS OR EDITORS, BOTH PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED, CITED IN THE ANNALS OF GLYCAS
[index: entries preserved]