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Nicolò Barbaro, Venetian PatricianNicolò Barbaro · PG 158
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Nicolò Barbaro, Venetian Patrician

Nicolò Barbaro · PG 158 · cols 1033–1103 · machine translation (AI, from the page scans)

Contents — 17 sections
Nicolò Barbaro158
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such great glory to the Great? Whence to Hannibal the African, to Scipio, and to Caesar? Truly, not because they waged most famous wars, but because they brought them upon foreign nations; but, alas! woe is me! such is the lust for dominion in our princes at present, that they perceive neither the losses of the faithful nor their own dangers. They swell with pride in themselves; but let them go forth for a little while into the field, and let them teach the barbarian nations what their virtue is; but if no other cause were to invite them to take up arms, such as faith, liberty, and glory, it is surely a wonder if temporal gain itself does not seize their hearts, since these nations, of which we speak, are full of gold and silver and precious stones; they themselves, and their women especially, are clothed in nothing but silk, and walk about adorned to their feet with pearls and gems; and they make use not only of cups and dishes, but of silver tables and chests, and golden bridles and saddles, and, what is horrible to hear, countless numbers of them drink from nothing but gilded chalices taken from the temples of Christians, to the reproach of Christ and to their own exaltation. Why, therefore, do we delay any longer? Behold what you seek. But why do I consume both time and words on such things? Since, unless God himself illuminates their eyes and moves their hearts, all exhortation of man is in vain. Wherefore, O my fathers and brothers, when these things have reached your ears, strike God, I beseech you, with cries, entreat, run through cities and camps, call the people, gather the assembly, prick the hearts of small and great concerning these things, so that they may at last abstain from sins, persist in diligent prayers, and strive to the best of their ability in works of piety, so that God himself, pious and merciful, moved to wrath on account of the sins of men, may be mitigated by their contrary good works, and may look for a little while with an eye of piety and clemency upon the Christian people, may infuse charity into their hearts, and may grant holy union and peace to prelates and princes, so that the devil, the inventor and instigator of all evils, who has sown so many scandals in the Church of Christ until now, may be confounded and thrust back into the depths of hell, the faithful of the Church may exult, and the infidels, who to this day mock and deride Christ and Christians, may blush and be confounded and perish. Which, if, by the favor of the Lord, this sacred union is celebrated, cross the sea securely, brothers, (with hearts prepared and willing), for in your sight there is much land, abounding in eternal fruits. You, however, beloved brother, I invite all the more confidently, as I recognize the secrets of your heart. Amen. From Constantinople, 12 December, 1438. Your entirely devoted brother, Bartholomew of Jano, of the Order of Friars Minor, though unworthy.

EPHEMERIDES OF CONSTANTINOPLE BESIEGED AND TAKEN IN THE YEAR 1453 This narrative is the work of a man who seems to relate with the greatest care what he himself saw at the time when Byzantium was besieged by the Turks. For whatever happened from the 5th of April until the 29th of May has been committed to memory by the author in such an exact order of daily notes that I do not know if it has been done more accurately by another. Hence it seemed good to bring forward the narrative of Barbaro in chronological order, yet in such a way that we may recall to the minds of the readers in what respects he differs from other writers of Turkish affairs. Let us say in passing that the Ephemerides of Barbaro, written in the ancient Venetian dialect, differ much from good Italian language. Wherefore an accurate translation of this document into Italian seems to us to be placed among the most desirable things. I will also not pass over in silence that, besides the difference of dialect, the author, a patrician originating from Venice itself, very often inveighs with manifest anger against whatever pertains to Genoa (Zenovexe, as he himself speaks), in which he does not even spare Justiniani himself; wherefore our author must be read with caution where there is talk of the Genoese, as the Ephemerides relate the cause and prelude of the war according to the author's own particular judgment. 1452. March. Sultan Mahomet (Machomet bej), having brought two envoys from the Greek Emperor with a fleet of 40 ships, having left Gallipoli, betakes himself to the Bosphorus (beca de mar mazor), intending to construct the castle of Bogas-Kesen, 6 Italian miles distant from Constantinople. Then in the middle of August, the sultan cuts off heads at the castle to the end and thus began the war. Hence with an army of 50,000 men he surrounds the city for three days. At the same time, the fleet also returns to Gallipoli at the beginning of September. Nov. 26. The ship of Antonio Rizio, returning from the Euxine Sea... Journal of the siege of Constantinople 1453 by Nicolo Barbaro, edited by Henricus Cornet, from the manuscript codex which is preserved in the Venetian library of St. Mark, published in Vienna 1856. We give an epitome, translated into Latin, which D'A. Ellissen made in the German vernacular in Anecdota (Leipzig 1837).

[Greek Text] ...shall be our understanding, and the word at the same time to understand and to say those things; for we are not able, even in the very act of understanding and saying that this and that are at the same time, not to foresee and bring forth one before the other, since they are two according to the hypostases; for this reason he delivered this order in the discourse on baptism, with the hypostasis of the Spirit perhaps being placed before the Son by other necessary and pious words, according to the great Basil in his letter to the canonicals, saying: "The Holy Spirit is written as being from God; but if from God, how is that from which it is, older?" And what is the madness of one being unbegotten, but that one says it is higher than the unbegotten, but not even before the Only-Begotten? For there is nothing between the Son and the Father. ...the fruit-bearing or theogony of the hypostasis, knowing the nature of our own, and that it is not possible that it is entirely his own property. Whence it is clear that the teachers do not wish there to be two fertilities, and two distinct powers and ordered principles in the Father, as unworthy of theology and dangerous; nor having learned the generative power and this additionally conceived, and the projective power before, have they thus named the things brought forth according to them, but rather having learned that the Word of God is his Son, and the Holy Spirit in some ineffable way, and it also having existence, from God the Father himself, they reasonably understood also a certain power for the sake of the clarity of the word as fruit-bearing to the Father. And fertility, divided by the looking toward the fruits, being two, but in the Father, in the manner of the state, being understood in a gathered and unified way. And much more as the holy Dionysius says concerning the creation of beings, that the divine word has gathered the causes of all things into himself in a unified way. And Cyril says that through one power God creates the diverse natures of beings, wherefore they also decreed that the things proceeding from him do not proceed by any such order, as would be the case of other things proceeding from one, in which that which is closer to the first is in a way the cause of those further away, nor that the generator is conceived before the projector in the Father himself; nor did they deliver to us the generative before the projective power, nor any other such thing, having perfected all theology. For how could those who taught that both proceed at once and immediately and closely from the Father, [have taught] that which sounds into the fertile and practical power of the Father? For Dionysius did not say root and stem and flower, but that the Son and the Spirit are God-planted shoots, clearly rising from one root at once and immediately and closely, or two flowers, in one shoot clearly, when one must understand the Father as the shoot, bringing forth two flowers at once, neither before the other or closer, or as super-essential lights shining from one lamp. And he says he received these things from the holy oracles, not legislating from himself. And Gregory the Theologian, writing to Evagrius, says, "As if some rays of the Father were sent to us, both the luminous Jesus and the Holy Spirit." And after a little: "In the same way also our Savior and the Holy Spirit, the twin ray of the Father, as if from one sun, the Father, both shine forth at once." But he also calls the Son and the Spirit a two-channeled river, clearly proceeding from one source, the Father. And all the others use similar things, by which they might indicate the procession of both the Son and the Spirit to be at once, and immediately and closely from the Father, and both bearing the second [place] by the looking toward their common cause, from which they proceed together as caused only, and by nothing else. But the ineffable wisdom of God [overcomes] the weakness... Where he also gives another reason for not saying the Spirit before the Only-Begotten, and not the same which he said concerning the Father. For there, he says, the cause prevents it, for that from which it is could not be before; but here, he says, there is no such thing, but the immediate relation of the name of the Father to the Son. Then he adds: "So that the innovation concerning the order has the setting aside of the existence itself, and the denial of the whole faith." And he took such an order from the divine Scripture. For having anticipated, he said, "It is ordered as we have been taught in the Gospels by the Lord saying, 'Go, baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'" This order, therefore, which comes about through the mentioned divine names, they say must be un-innovated, and neither in baptism nor elsewhere to be changed. Therefore, the teacher, or any other of the theologians, did not speak of an order which this new theology invented, composed of certain degrees and precedences, by the production of the Son being before, as he himself says, the hypostasis of the Spirit, by the generative power preceding in the Father, being the principle of the Son, the projective principle being that of the Spirit, nor by the generator being before the projector, by the mind or memory preceding, as the one to whom the discourse was said, of the will. For these things did not even enter the minds of the theologians; for how could they, leading into myriad absurdities? Although he himself boasts of avoiding absurdities, there are places where he colors over the pre-conception. The saints indeed say that the Father is conceived before the Son as cause, so that they may abolish the precedence of time; but they do not say he is the cause of the Son because of being conceived before. But it is posited that he is the cause and that he is placed before as cause likewise; but they refute the priority of time by the priority of conception. But in those cases where the order according to cause is disputed, the pre-conception is not sufficient to show this. And in the case of the powers which he mentions, the pre-conception is much more useless for his need, even if one were to grant that these two powers exist in the Father.

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of the generation so that it does not oppose the Spirit; for if the Spirit is God to the Son and to the Father, [then] the Son is perhaps God to the Father and to the Spirit, as proceeding from them—an assumption [he makes], even if he does not clearly assert it as such.

If the Spirit were joined to the Father in the generation of the Son, then it would be a "joining," and [this] joining would imply a "procession" of the Spirit in the way he describes. The Theologian’s discourse does not define and separate the divine hypostases in this way, such that the Father is distinguished from the Son by paternity, and [the Father is distinguished] from the Spirit by paternity—for the blessed Theologian did not teach that we should conceive B these things as distinguished in the Father. Rather, it seemed pious to believe in the monarchy of his cause, and not to conceive of [them] as a plurality in the Father, as if they were two [different things] starting from one principle and flowing into the things that proceed, as he has shown.

For one must avoid all innovation. Therefore, the divine Dionysius also says that the Father is "beyond-nature," which Maximus interprets wisely, saying: "The Father, being beyond concept, is the source of the generation of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." And regarding the others, the teachers say that [one is] the cause, the other the root, the other the principle, C and another something else of those who are distinct, according to which he speaks of the Father.

They say that the divine persons are to be distinguished: the Father from those who are from Him, by the difference of cause and causality, and they [the Son and Spirit] are distinguished from one another by the mode of their existence, by the rationale of each cause, clearly by the one being begotten and the other proceeding. For, he says, we stand upon our own boundaries, introducing the unbegotten, and the one proceeding from the Father, as the Theologian himself says. These are the things the Theologian’s discourse D hands down, and it is most true and agreed upon by all, [namely], that apart from the hypostatic properties, all things are common to the three. As he says further:

REFUTATION OF ARGYROPULOS

ARG YROPULOS: But he himself, perhaps because of the powers—since they are distinctions of God to us, and we recognize their processions—begins to sow falsehood from the powers, so that it might appear in the persons, and [he makes] the whole and sole Son, according to the Theologian—even if he himself has spoken previously of the [Son] as being produced—a producer, a cause, and a principle; and he will construct these things from the order, [arguing] that the Son is second to the Father, but first to the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit third, because of the powers that precede, or the causes, because the one precedes, and the other follows. And if he were closer to the Father in power, which he claims is the essence, then he is also the essence; but [to claim] what is more remote, and other things more blasphemous and worse than these, anyone looking on rightly and dispassionately will detect in the argument. And proceeding further, he says:

ARGYROPULOS: But surely, of the Father’s hypostasis being the same when he produces the persons, and of the essence being one again as principle and power, the things produced would be the same in every way. Instead, the produced person would be one in reality, if not for the essence, and other things were present through which the powers became somehow different, by which the Son and the Spirit are produced; and [by which] there would also be a will.

AGALLIANOS: It is necessary for the ends to agree with the principles. And so, the argument moved by false principles will also have such a result. For he presupposes things that introduce time into the proof of the eternal. For he says, when he produces the persons, there is no time in these. For they were always produced and always proceed, or rather they were produced from the beginning. For we have learned this from the most theological Gregory, who answered one of the heretics who was questioning him provocatively about the divine generation, saying: "But the Son was begotten from the beginning, clearly," so that we might easily avoid their curious and time-focused objections. Although he himself, being aware of himself, defines the eternal everywhere, as if one were speaking temporally yet eternally—holding to the eternal for the true [Son], while not caring if he follows the words regarding the other, out of an intense desire to establish his own opinion. And the powers he took up and spoke of as distinguished—as by the very fact of them being distinguished, the divine persons proceed as distinguished—look, now he identifies or unifies them, so that, as it seems, with the introduction of the others that are present with the essence—namely, mind and will—he may divide it, legislating that the one is conceived of as prior, and the other as coming after.

ARGYROPULOS: And the mind, being a principle and power, as he himself asserts [it] acts through generation, produces the Son together with the essence.

[He who is] at once a principle and power with the essence, through the act of generation, is productive of the Son, for which reason the Son of God is named the Word by the Theologian’s thunder. For the Word is the offspring of the mind, and the will is together with the essence, being a principle and power productive of the Holy Spirit’s hypostasis through the act of procession, or breathing.

AGALLIANOS: But a swarm of principles appears to us from these words; for both the hypostasis, and the powers, and the essence, and now even the mind. Therefore, the Father is a thing of many principles according to these words, just as he was also of many powers before, or—if they are distinguished from the essence by their "what it was to be"—they are entirely one in the thing itself, as some of the Latins might say. What is the need to join these things, and divide them, and turn them upside down? It was sufficient to say that the Father produces the Son and the Holy Spirit by his essence, which we observe—let us look at what happens as we proceed; for the other [claims] are superfluous. Now he calls the mind a power and another principle, besides the generative power, of course. Since, because of the mind and the will, he says the powers become different, and these he will again call essence as he proceeds, which results in the division of the essence.

Then he calls the mind a power in God the Father, and the word an offspring of the mind. Whence, the word is an offspring of the power, which no one has ever said, for this is human. But the Theologian Gregory, in the second [discourse] concerning the Son: "The Son," he says, "is called the Word, because he is related to the Father as word to mind." Furthermore, he says that the power is the essence, and he famously said that the essence neither begets nor is begotten. But in calling the will in the Father the power and principle productive of the Holy Spirit, does it not seem that he is numbering the one of the Trinity—I mean the Paraclete—together with the creatures? For by this [criterion] they distinguish the divine persons from the creatures: that the former are from the nature, and the latter from the will of God. And [God] produces the former because he is of such a nature, and he produces the latter because he wills it. We will also bring forth the teachers who testify to this. Justin the philosopher and martyr of the truth says thus: "Of God possessing essence for existence, but will for creation, he who rejects the distinction between essence and will also rejects the existence of God and his creation—his own existence, and the creation of things that do not exist." And the divine Maximus in his expositions on Saint Dionysius says: "The will of him concerning the beings is spoken of properly as of him who is unmoved and existing ever in the same way."

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1097 IN THE ANNALS OF MICH. GLYCAS. Furni, so called by the emperor by way of irony, the patriarch’s pride and wickedness, 325. His punishment, ibid. Knowledge of future events peculiar to God alone, 107. G God, the avenger of the Gibeonites, 139. Galata, a town of the Genoese, occupied by the Turks, 518. Galba, emperor, 238. Duration of his reign, ibid. Galen on Tityus, 111. A passage of Galen, 56, 57, 59, 133. The fabulous dialogue between Galen and Magdalene, 131. Galerius and Constans, emperors, 245. Death of the emperor Galerius, ibid. Gallus and Volusianus, emperors, 244. Why the rooster crows at certain hours of the night, 47. Of what he reminds us by his crowing, ibid. On the crowing of the rooster, the discrepant passages of the Evangelists reconciled, 216. The Ganges river, 142. The deeds of Gideon, 165, 191. How many sons Gideon had, 164. Gelimer, king of the Vandals, 166. Books of Solomon on gems, 183. The Little Genesis, 101. The perverse narrative of the Little Genesis, 108. Refutation, 211. A genie expelled by the prescription of Solomon, 185. Hindered by the prayers of a monk, 287. The prophecy of an evil genie, 287. Genies infesting a castle are driven away by the sign of the cross, being in reality malicious plotters, 196. How Solomon commanded the genies, 183. Solomon’s book on the genie, ibid. The opinion of Porphyry and Iamblichus, 107. The peculiar opinion of Gennadius and Theodoret on the creation of angels, 80. War with the Genoese, 346. Inventors of geometry, 127. Georgius Syngellus or Syncellus on the children of Adam, 117. The lie of Georgius the Chronographer, 118. A passage of Georgius Syngellus, 156. Germanicopolis besieged in vain by Basil the Macedonian, 295, 296. The arguments used by Patriarch Germanus against Leo, 79. Testimony concerning the falling asleep of the Virgin Mary, 233. Gesema, the dwelling place of the Israelites, always immune from the plagues of Egypt, 153. Giants, 71. Cut down by Caleb, 162. Bones of giants discovered under Anastasius, 265. Gilimer. See Gelimer. Gizerichus, prince of Libya, 262. He spares Marcianus, ibid. Goetia, whence so called, 129. The distinction between goetia and magic, 130. Goliath struck down by David with a sling-shot, 175. The size of Goliath, ibid. Gotholla, daughter of Ahab, married to the son of Jehoshaphat, 187. Gordianus, emperor, 243. Greeks, inventors of astronomy, 127. How they destroyed themselves, 346. They followed the side of the Hungarians, 547. Concord between the Greeks and Romans, ibid. Tumult against the same, ibid. Diversity in the numbering of years among the Greeks and Hebrews, 121. Hail under Iconomachus, 315. The sending of hail and fire, the seventh plague of Egypt, 153. The origin of hailstones, 9. Gratian, emperor, 253. Most skilled in archery, ibid. The moderation of Gratian, ibid. Greg. Nazianzen. See Nazianzen. Greg. Nyssen. See Nyssen. Encomium of Gregory of Nyssa, 2. Pope Gregory, 259. Pope Gregory forbids the payment of taxes to the emperor Leo and turns Italy away, 281. He absolves a dead man, 282. Grossi, 13. The watch of cranes, 40. William, king of Sicily, 340. H Habakkuk, 202. Hadrian, and Hadrianopolis. See Adrian. Hæcaterina, wife of Isaac Comnenus, 321. Where buried, ibid. Hæmorrhois, a serpent, 58. The halcyon bird, 41. Halcedonia, whence so called, ibid. Halo around the sun, 23. What a halo of the moon is, 30. Halys river, 140. Harmatius the traitor is killed, 264. That Heber alone retained his language during the confusion of tongues, 128. 1099 The Hebrews demand a king, 173. The republic of the Hebrews changed into the form of a kingdom, ibid. What is frequent among the Hebrews, 9. Diversity in the numbering of years among the Hebrews and Greeks, 121. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, 218. Heliogabalus, emperor, 243. Prodigiously lascivious, ibid. Henry, king of the Germans, 541. Heraclea preferred to Byzantium, 249. Formerly called Perinthus, ibid. When Heraclitus lived, 202. The saying of Heraclitus, 74, 116. Heraclius, emperor, 276. Heraclius’s victory over the Persians, ibid. Death, ibid. Heracleones, emperor, 276. The punishments of Heracleon and Martin, ibid. No poisonous herb made without some fruit, 12. Why not all herbs are edible, 11. Why some are poisonous, 12. Hercules and Samson contemporaries, 164. Hercules the Tyrian philosopher, inventor of purple, 140. Who are hermaphrodites, 113. Hermes, 28. Hermes Trismegistus, 114. How Herod obtained the kingdom, 199. When Herodotus lived, 202. Herricus, emperor, 342. He puts the Vlachs to flight, ibid. The hydrus, enemy of the crocodile, 274. How it kills him, ibid. A severe plague under Phocas, 275. Savage under Constantine Copronymus, 284. The first violation of the Sabbath during the siege of Jericho, 162. Jerusalem plundered three times by Nebuchadnezzar, 198. Called Solyma in the age of Abraham, 135, 177. Jerusalem called Aelia, 240. For what reason, ibid. Jerusalem never to be restored, 238. Captured for the second time under Antiochus Epiphanes, 202. Several thousand men slaughtered there, ibid. The first bishop of Jerusalem was James, 248. Why he was called the Just, ibid. His murder, ibid. Bishop Juvenal, 232. His narrative concerning the burial of the Virgin Mary, ibid. The destruction of Jerusalem, 237, 258. What prodigies preceded it, 237. When the destruction occurred, 238. Why God wished the history of the destruction of Jerusalem to be written by Josephus, 238. Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, 257. The siege of Jerusalem imputed to the murder of James the Just, 228. Hieus the prophet, 188. Hildericus or Hinderichus, king of the Vandals, 266. On his account Justinian moves for war, ibid. 10. When Hippocrates lived, 202. The saying of Hippocrates, 101. Born naked into life, excelling in the excellence of reason, 51. That man fears wild beasts, a sign of what, 80. If he had not fallen from the angelic life, there would have been no distinction of sexes, 103. What the food of man was before the fall, 97. On the creation of man, 66. An angel is the guardian of every man’s life, 157. A passage of Nazianzen on the formation of man, 68. Providence in the formation of man, 114, 113. The twofold growth of man, 83. The fall, 100. What it argues that man was established by God as prince of all, 80. Why God created man from the very beginning as king of earthly things and immortal, 88. The petulance of the devil against man, 196. Why the men of old lived long, 146. Why they had many wives, ibid. Whence men were called Meropes, 128. Why something was taken away from the years of men, 146. Whether minds rule the stars, 113. Why the offspring of men partly reflect and partly do not reflect the likeness of their parents, 56. That men were made corruptible from an incorruptible nature, and will rise again incorruptible from a corruptible one, is declared by a similitude, 91. Honorius and Arcadius, sons of Theodosius by Placilla, 256. Why fire consumed the offered sacrifices in the beginning, whereas it does not happen now, 118. Incursions of enemies signaled by fires, 292.

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A And again in the same chapter: "And the processions of his providence over all things." And speaking of the will of God regarding creatures, the Damascene says: "The birth and procession which are before the ages and eternal are an act of the divine nature, but creation is an act of the divine will." And the fifth Ecumenical Council says thus: "God, says Origen, having come from not creating to creating, was entirely changed from one thing to another; but we say that he was not changed according to nature, but according to energy—or rather, not even according to that; for he always had the power to create and to produce; for such power was made active because he willed it." Does not this man also contradict these Fathers in what he says about the procession of the Holy Spirit, just as they declare themselves concerning creatures? For he says, when the Father produces the Spirit, the will which accompanies the essence becomes a productive cause of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, by way of the energy of the projection, or breathing. But the absurdities—or rather, the blasphemies—arising from this are manifest to all, and there is no need for many words; he even divides the will (insofar as it is the principle of certain things) by splitting it into that which is self-determining and that which is constrained—I do not know what kind he calls each since, proceeding, he says: "Not as a self-determining principle, but as a necessary and natural power and principle," and then adds:

ARGYROPOULOS. For which reason the divine Spirit is called love by those who theologize; for the power of love is will.

AGALLIANOS. Rightly, then, did we say—or rather, the theologians—that the creation of the God of the universe, who is immovable, is his will regarding the creation, which is not B C one of the hypostases of the supreme Trinity; for it is a common energy and one power, the creative one. Behold, the divine Spirit, being called love, has the will as a power productive of itself! And the Latins will never wash away this filth of saying that the Holy Spirit is a creature, since they also consider him to be produced from the will of God.

ARGYROPOULOS. And what is said, he says, is in agreement with the voices of those who theologize, and no less with what was said by holy Augustine in his book *On the Trinity*, in which he called memory generative, and will a spiritual power.

AGALLIANOS. Alas for the calumny! And which of the theologians handed down these voices with which what is said agrees? None, surely. For he slanders even the most blessed Augustine, as if he called the memory and the will powers of the Father, the one generative, and the will spiritual. For nowhere in his writings, at least as far as we know, are these things found said in this way; rather, the exact opposite is true. For he, too, agrees with the other saints of the Church D of the book *On the Trinity*, chapter [XV, 3], where he says: "Ridiculous," he says, "is the dialectic of Eunomius, from whom the Eunomian heretics sprouted. He, not being able to understand, or not wishing to believe, that the only-begotten Word of God, through whom all things were made, is the Son of God by nature—that is, born from the essence of the Father—did not say he was the Son of the nature or of the essence, but of the will of God; wishing, evidently, to bear witness to a will accidental to God, according to which he begat the Son." How then could he himself, while mocking the heretics for saying such things, fall into similar errors? For he would have been, one supposes, more ridiculous. And what he says about memory and will, he does not contend that it has its source in Scripture, but he gathers it from himself through a certain mental conception derived from the created image of God, which is man, handing down a certain likeness of the uncreated God as he proceeds. For in the same chapter that we just mentioned, he says thus: "But concerning the creation which God made, whenever we were able to do so, we instructed those who request reasons regarding such matters, that his invisible things are able to be clearly seen, being understood through the things that are made, insofar as they are able, and especially through the rational or intellectual creation, which was made in the image of God, through which, as through a mirror, insofar as they are able—if indeed they are able—they see God, the Trinity, in our memory, and in our understanding, and in our will. And each person vividly contemplates these three being naturally established in the same mind from God, and how great they are in him, where even the eternal and immutable essence is accustomed to be remembered, and seen, and desired. For it is recalled through memory, it is seen through the mind, it is embraced through love, and it finds altogether [that it is] separated from the divine hypostases." And again in the 23rd chapter: "For also the memory of man, and especially that which the beasts do not have—that is, according to which intelligible things are contained in such a way as not to come to it through the senses of the body—has in this image of the Trinity, according to the measure of itself, incomparably dissimilar, yet still some likeness of the Father. Furthermore, even the understanding of man, which is shaped from that place through the intention of reason when that which is known is spoken of, and is not of one language, but of the heart whose word it is, has in its own great dissimilarity also some likeness of the Son. And indeed, the love of man, proceeding from knowledge and connecting the memory and the understanding, as if common to the Father and the offspring—whence neither Father nor offspring is understood [separately]—has in this image, even if very dissimilar, some likeness of the Holy Spirit." And again: "But regarding the Holy Spirit, I have demonstrated nothing in this riddle that would seem like to him, except for our will, or desire, or love, which is a stronger will." And again in the 21st chapter: "This name fits the Holy Spirit, just as love does; and what else is love, or..."

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desire? These things, even if they were in that very creation which we ourselves are, I wished to demonstrate as something similar to that reality—to some notion of ours—[but] an insufficient phrase followed, even if, in that very notion, I felt myself attempting rather than completing, and that in one person—which is man—to find the image of the supreme Trinity, and in a changeable reality, so that those three might be more easily understood." Thus, then, the teacher, since he heard from Scripture that man is an image of God, delivers a certain conjecture from such an image, so far as it is possible through it to conceive of the archetype, and from those things established by God naturally in the human mind, which are memory, intellection, and will—which, in man, who is changeable and under time, are likewise observed as if through some mirror, he says—[it is possible] for one who is able to contemplate and understand the three persons in the eternal and immutable essence, even if there is a great dissimilarity of these to those, so far as the investigative human mind can have some foundation in its notions about God, and to enjoy a certain apprehension, even if very dim, or even if it is entirely dissimilar, having acquired it from things pertaining to itself. Nevertheless, he adds that he does not have these from Scripture, but rather teaches from himself those who demand a human account of such matters, he says; and that the failure of the phrase to follow perfectly does not matter, but rather that he is attempting the effort of the concept. Theologians say that names are properties that reveal those things which distinguish the persons in the essence, and indicate the relations and references they have to one another. For the properties, says Basil in the second [book] *Against Eunomius*, are like certain forms and characters viewed in the essence, dividing indeed the common from the individuating characters, but not dividing the same-natured essence; so, for example, the Godhead is common, but fatherhood and sonship are certain idioms. And from the conjunction of each—both the common and the proper—the apprehension of the truth is produced in us. And the Areopagite says: "The supersubstantial name and reality of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, are distinguished, with no interchange in these, nor any commonality being introduced." And Gregory the Theologian says: "That very thing of not having been begotten, and of having been begotten, and of the procession, designated the Father, the Son, and that which is called the Holy Spirit, so that the unconfused nature of the three hypostases might be preserved." And [Gregory] of Nyssa: "The property viewed in each of the hypostases clearly and purely separates the one from the other." C Whence it is clear that the present teacher knows memory, intellection, and will—which he also names love and affection—as powers and energies in the human mind; but in the blessed Trinity he does not understand them as powers, but names the hypostases themselves in this way. For the memory of man, he says, neither having comparison nor similarity, yet still has some similarity to the Father, and the intellection in us—that is, the output of the mind and the memory, namely the internal word, not the vocal [word] of the tongue—even if dissimilar, it has some similarity to the Son. And the love and will of man has a similarity to the Holy Spirit. And this name, he says, fits the Holy Spirit, just as love does; for what else, he says, is love, or will? These things are not beside the point of the rest of the teachers, and especially the Eastern [fathers], that he philosophizes. For there are those who have called the Father the mind, and the Son the Word—the son of thunder—and the Holy Spirit love; for Augustine says the love of man is a stronger will, but he did not call the will—that is, the desire [as] a power—an effect of love, that is, of the Holy Spirit; for anyone who says this [is] outright a Macedonian. So that what the Father and the mind are intended to be, that also is the memory according to Augustine; and what the Son and the Word are intended to be, that also is the intellection according to the same; and what the Spirit and... D These things being so, and these names having been discovered by the theologians to distinguish and separate the hypostases—that is, the persons—in the unity of the essence: for whether you say "Father," or "mind," or "memory," or "love," or "will," we do not understand them as powers existing or co-existing, and generally attributed to the essence—for in this way, just as one essence and one person through the powers, at one time called Father, at another Son, at another Spirit, as Sabellius babbled, but as properties only distinguishing the persons, as you yourself have heard from the saints, oh excellent and novel theologian; yet to whose other theologians' voices do those things said by you harmonize? For who ever theologized in this way, saying that the Father, having the mind as a power, or memory, is begetting, and through it brings forth the Son? Then [saying] the will, and through it brings forth the Holy Spirit, as you yourself deemed it worthy to theologize, not understanding that these are the voices of heretics, unless perhaps you yourself establish them for these [reasons], and attempt to snatch others away? And you also slander the blessed Augustine, twisting and misinterpreting the things well and rightly thought by him, or rather, I should say, fabricating yourself things not at all said by him, or by the other theologians, which indeed will appear in what follows. But at least the blessed Cyril says that the will of the Father is the Son in another way. For in the 7th [book] of the *Treasury* he says: "But things as creations have come into being from a will, whereas the Son, as being Himself the will, was eternally in the Father." So far did he, who calls the Son the will of the Father, differ from understanding the will as some spiritual power, as Augustine [does in] one way the Spirit, and in another the Father, as the same says. But some, that they might not call [Him] the Son of the counsel or the will of God...

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[GREEK COLUMN] 1043 THEODORI AGALLIANI 1044 as when I say "begetter," I conceive beforehand of him who begets that which is brought forth, so also when I say "producer," I conceive beforehand of him who produces that which begets. At the same time, the Father is begetter and producer, as we have already demonstrated by the saints. A nor is it a fabrication, but those who think of the Son as a co-cause and an origin from an origin are wrongly rebuked and think this. For the saying of Gregory, "the origin from the origin," does not help them at all, he himself explaining it and saying, "The origin of all," which is also confirmed by his other phrase, "All that the Father has belongs to the Son, except the cause." Nor has the Son been called by anyone of the theologians, either himself or another, the origin from an origin of the Spirit. Since the Father is not insofar as he is Father, but insofar as he is producer, he produces; just as when it is said, "He proceeds from the Father," I conceive beforehand of the producer; yet I am not therefore compelled to posit the Spirit as Father of the Son, the generative power of the Father being made common to him. Thus, not even here is there any necessity, because of the conception of the Son as producer, to consider him also (as) a co-cause. For if the Son were acknowledged as the origin of the Spirit, he would also be an origin, from an origin, and a co-cause. But since neither origin, nor cause, nor any other such thing is said of him—for all such things must be attributed to the Father alone, while the Son is solely Son, and solely and wholly Son—accordingly, he is neither a co-cause nor an origin B from an origin within the Godhead. For the Father alone is the cause; the Son, however, is the origin of creation according to Gregory the Theologian.

ARGYROPOULOS. Nor as if it were impossible for the Father alone to produce the Holy Spirit. For otherwise the Father would not have been able to beget the Son alone without some other person, to whom both and the power of the things produced belong of the same perfection. For the Father sufficiently begets the Son, and produces the Holy Spirit.

AGALLIANOS. You have relieved us of labors by saying these things, man; for if the Father sufficiently begets and produces, then it is superfluous to say that the Son also produces. But nothing is superfluous in divine matters, where one should not posit anything at random even in natural things. But if you will justify the argument from the example of creation, saying that the Father creates sufficiently, yet it is nevertheless said that creating applies to each of the other persons as well, but you hear, "The Father, insofar as he is God, has in himself both the Son and the Holy Spirit; and just as he alone is one and perfect God, so also with the Son and the Spirit he is one and perfect God." This same thing is believed C without distinction also for each of the other persons. At any rate, they are distinguished by their properties, but are one in Godhead. For if he is conceived of beforehand as a cause, this must be examined; and immediately the communion of power will follow. Since some saints say that the power to produce is common, soon the Son also will appear as the cause of the Spirit, or a co-cause with the Father. But the mere being conceived of beforehand is not sufficient for this. For it is not the case that if the Father is conceived of beforehand as the cause of the Son and of the Spirit by the order of causality, there is a necessity that the Son also be so conceived of in regard to the Spirit, as long as neither of the theologians says this clearly, and a reason for such a prior conception is given by us, separated from the reference to the cause. For as long as we are not unable to give a reason, and you cannot demonstrate it necessarily, we prevail. For if the one is not a necessity, but the other is possible, and all the hypotheses of the faith and the Scriptures of the saints and the councils support our argument, then this is indeed true.

ARGYROPOULOS. Wherefore he says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, in an primordial and primary way, and I would say also substantially and properly, but not so from the Son, even if he is produced by him with the same power and production.

AGALLIANOS. Behold, he has dug another pit and has fallen into it, the Psalmic (pit), with uncovered head, having delivered the dualism of the origin. And first, indeed, by gathering together the voices of some saints in order to corrupt the hearing of some, he set forth [the argument that] D each of the three persons, insofar as he is God and Creator, is unified and inseparable from the others, and therefore (acts) sufficiently; because the whole Godhead is that which creates, and is perfectly in each. But the Father produces, not insofar as he is God—for the whole Trinity is not (the producer)—but insofar as he is an originative and god-bearing person. If, therefore, he does not produce alone by himself, but with some other person, he is not sufficiently alone; or if he is sufficient, the rest is superfluous. And it is clear that he alone sufficiently begets the Son, even according to you. What, then, is the completion, that he alone produces the Spirit? But if you speak of other hypotheses, that is, the priorizations and preconceptions, those are stale, a new fabrication, and have been proven to be the beginnings of heresies. Rather, then, I say that if it is possible, he spoke of (the Spirit) proceeding from the Father, even having said "substantially" and "primordially," and then he added, "but not so from the Son." But those who said these things, O best one, did not define the Son as the cause, nor the origin, nor the co-cause, nor the producer of the Holy Spirit. So these adverbs, being said in various ways by some of the saints, stand in place of the one (adverb): "solely." And the statement "properly proceeds from the Father" could mean the same as the Spirit having existence solely from the Father. Through such adverbs, therefore, they exclude the Son from such a cause, believing only in the procession of the Holy Spirit from him toward creation, which you would call a temporal mission together with the

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A Son, and separate from every nature of the Godhead. But the political law also says: He is a heretic and subject to the laws against heretics, who deviates even a little from the right faith.”

ARGYROPOULOS. “For he would fall into error if he spoke thus, and preached the Spirit from the Son.”

AGALLIANOS. “And yet, he is indeed falling into the same error even now, confessing the Spirit to be God, and yet a creature, inasmuch as he does not assign this to his essence or physical power, nor to the fact that he is from the Father and from the Son by way of procession; and furthermore, by introducing a difference of origin, calling the Father an unbegotten origin, but the B Son an origin from an origin, which distinction clearly introduces discomfort.”

ARGYROPOULOS. “He says he professes one origin of the Holy Spirit.”

AGALLIANOS. “But the Theologian Gregory does not teach in this way, nor does he say the Father is an unbegotten origin; nor, if he does have this theology, does he say the Son is an origin from an unbegotten one in the Godhead; but rather he thinks of what is unbegotten as proceeding from the paternal [source], saying, ‘The Father is the unbegotten one and the origin of all.’ But how does he make two origins? He does not bring up a person relative to origin or personhood; for the internal relations are of persons, not of substance or power.”

ARGYROPOULOS. “If anyone finds fault with these things said by us, why does he wonder how the Son begets, just as he also proceeds, sharing in the same begetting power from the Father; and how the Holy Spirit neither proceeds nor begets while having other powers in himself just as in the Father and C Son?”

AGALLIANOS. “Indeed, now this unmasked impiety proves that the Son has the begetting power of the Father along with the causative one, and likewise with the Spirit. And behold: his compulsion. Having perceived that if the Son has the causative [power], the Spirit must also have the begetting [power], and this one also the causative, as is taught by us, it follows as an absurdity. But if he proceeds and has not put [it] away, he is forced to [say it] as if it were not absurd; and to show that these things are not absurd, he D rather attributes these powers to the divine persons, and the lacks to the created ones.

“A question, then, having been put forth concerning the two, and having put the dilemmas to those who deserve the accusations, regarding the remedy, he offers it; but...”

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he, being compelled to confess, says that the generative power is given to the Son, not as a power, but as a perfection. It suffices, then, perhaps, that he also admits that the generative power is given to the Son, but not as power, but as perfection. However, he says further that the Son possesses the generative power, that is, that of generating, contradicting himself. And he does not stop here, but says that the generative and the productive power are bestowed by the Spirit. I do not know what has happened to him or by what he is moved to fall into such an absurdity, and to dishonor the divine hypostases by making them participants in ineffective powers; having considered them, in the way we speak of a child as possessing power by grammar, to proceed as having powers, or a power when the Son was generated, not yet having the energy joined to it, but having taken this after the Son was generated, and whatever similar things he uttered.

One might think that he, perhaps, in order that the unity of the essence might not be disrupted, was disposed in this way, and thought of these powers as perfections of the nature; however, not equally, if he grants them to the Father alone with the energy, while assigning them as empty and common to the others. Wherefore he has fallen into a great difficulty, from which he has not escaped. For how is it that they are not equally acting by the same perfection? If it suffices for the unity of the essence that the Son possesses the generative power without activity, because it is joined to the generation, and the Holy Spirit has both apart from the energies, who is the necessity of having the Son [possess] the productive [power] together with the activity, with many absurdities arising from this? For thus [the unity] might be saved, and the unity of the essence might seem to be preserved, without the absurdities being suppressed. But rather, if the generation is joined to its own power, and the generation is not by activity [given] to the Son nor to the Spirit, nor is [there] a power of it, nor to the Son does it [the power] proceed together with it, as the Word [has been] taught by the saints.

For just as he overturns himself, saying: “As he bestows, he says, the Father on those from him the powers, by perfections only, and not as powers.” And who could say what perfection in the Son is, and not by act, or what is his energy? Was it then better to assign the practical powers of the divine persons to one person, for him to define it by the paternal [person], so that only that one is the active, and the others are the derived, as he said at the beginning, speaking well of this, but answering the passive ones by giving to these, being no less powerful in the account of equality? For nothing is to the honor of generating God from God, and likewise concerning the Spirit, so that he might construct the Son the producer, and by his own [acts] of the paternal person, which are constitutive of the hypostases, and which are reckoned to the Father alone, to give to those who proceed from him, and after the Father, his own; then also the...

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1109 IN ANNALES MICH. GLYCA

Pulcheria virgin, 261. Sister of Theodosius, 262. Corrects her brother, ibid. Who invented purple dye, 140. Ulceration of pustules, the sixth plague of Egypt, 152. The error of the chronographer Pyron, 82. When Pythagoras lived, 202. The oak serpent, 58. Q. What to a dog with a bath, whence the proverb, 64. The month of Quinctilis, which was later called July, 204. Emperor Quintilius, 244. His death, ibid. How it is that, to have no place where God is, 91. How it is that, the voice in divine matters is to be dismissed, 91. R. Ragueus by the surname Jothorus, 208. The origin of frogs, 44. The filth of those swarming from the waters, the second plague of Egypt, 131. That frogs do not differ from venomous reptiles, ibid. That the name of Raphael is known from the narrative of Tobias, 171. The blasphemies of Rabshakeh, 193. How much reason operates in man, 51. Recab. See Rechab. The splendor of the kingdom’s burial, 267. The duration of the Egyptian kingdom, 205. Its end, ibid. The duration of the Judaic and Israelite kingdoms, 198. The remora fish, 36. Renovation of Byzantium, better [called] Dedications, of Constantinople, in what year celebrated, 249. A great abundance of those criticized, 263. The vicissitudes of human affairs, 295. Of what kind is the benefit of resurrection, 99. The uncertain hour of Christ’s resurrection, 223. The appearances of Christ after the resurrection, 224. Why Christ did not ascend at once to the heavens, 224. The resuscitation of the dead at that time, 230. Rechab and Baanah, the slayers of Mephibosheth, are punished with death by David, 177. Emperor Robert, 313. The kingdom of Rehoboam, 186. Roger of Sicily, 337. Rome preserved by geese, 44. New Rome. See New Rome. The impurity of Rome, 134. Its origin, 141. The end of the empire, 264. Romanus Argyropulos. See Argyropulos. Emperor Romanus Argyropulos, 311. At first he conducted himself rightly, 312. Romanus Boilus raised to a high degree of dignity, 320. Emperor Romanus, son of Constantine, 303. Emperor Romanus Diogenes, 326. See Diogenes. Emperor Romanus Lacapenus, 300. He becomes the father of Emperor Constantine, ibid. Romanus is despoiled of his imperial power, 302. The arrogance of the Romans, 313. Fraud, 301. Death, ibid. Perfidy, 301. The meeting of Romanus Lacapenus and Simeon of Bulgaria concerning peace, 300. The slaughter of the Romans, 337. The disaster, 313. The concord of Romans and Greeks, 317. Tumults against the same, ibid. Why God subjected the Jews to the Romans, 222. The Saracens as tributaries, 313. The defection of the cities of Syria from the Romans, 312. By whom Romulus was raised, 141. The builder of Rome, ibid. Romulus and Remus as brothers, ibid. Roozerius, leader of the Catalans, 314. Whence dews arise, 9. The odor of roses hateful to vultures and beetles, 50. Why thorns were added to roses, 11. The Russians embrace the Christian religion, 298. The movement of the Russians, 319. The wheel of chariots, an image of the instability of human affairs, 295. How Rupert the Frank was deceived by Alexius, 333. His crossing into Greece, ibid. 50. The nature of the chamois, 64. Russians and Ruthenians. See Russians. How rue becomes sharper, 13. Hateful to the Libyan serpent.

S. Sabbatios the monk, 287. Violation of the Sabbath first at the siege of Jericho, 161. That no work is to be done on the Sabbath, 161. Sabellius condemned in the Council, 271. When he lived, 213.

1110 Priests of the old covenant why called Levites; of the new, clergy, 139. How much the old priesthood is surpassed by the new, 136. The origin of the sect of the Sadducees, 198. Saites, the general of Chosroes, 276. How he was punished by him, ibid. Salem, which is also Jerusalem, 135. Solomon. See Solomon. A witty remark, 306. The origin of the sect of the Samaritans, 198. Samonas the patrician, 299. His ruin, 300. Why Samson was most robust from his mother’s womb, 166. Captivated by the love of Delilah of Palestine, 161. Why Samson and Elias were violators of the law, 167, 191. Samson and Hercules as contemporaries, 16. The last judge of the Hebrews, 166. What the voice signifies, 165. The manly spirit of Samson, 161. That after the death of Samson, the Israelites obeyed no one’s command for forty years, 171. The riddle of Samson, 167. His deeds, 16 et seq. Whence Samson’s great thirst, 161. Whether the soul of Samuel was raised, 176. The death of Samuel of Bulgaria, 310. Why the bodies of many saints were resurrected, 230, 231. Santabarenus offended by Leo, 296. His prestidigitations, 296. The tallness of Sapor, king of the Persians, 243. Saracens as tributaries to the Romans, 313. An expedition against the Saracens, 313. Serapis. See Serapis. Sarbarus, king of the Persians, 249. The softness of Sardanapalus, 139. His death, ibid. Sardica, the same as Triaditza, 250. Council of Sardica. See Council of Sardica. Sarah, wife and sister of Abraham, 133. Saturn, or Cronus, whence he originated, 129. King Saul, 173. How long he held the kingdom, 177. How much he stood out above all the Israelites, ibid. Whence he originated, 173. Endowed with a most excellent form, ibid. The end of Saul, 177. History, 173 seq. A bad spirit invaded Saul, 175. The odor of roses hateful to beetles, 50. That the scarus is the only fish that chews the cud, 34. Schimas the giant, 162, 163. The tree of knowledge of science. See Tree, Tree of knowledge. Why the tree of knowledge is so called, 102. The sting of the scorpion, 52. The scorpions among the Brahmins are very large, 113. Sacred Scripture. See Sacred Letters. For how many years Origen illustrated Sacred Scripture with commentaries, 212. Diversity of writers, 265. Scylitzes. See John Scylitzes. Scilla plant hateful to the wolf, 61. What it means to be worshipped, 205. The learned age, 202. Zedekiah held captive in Babylon for twenty-six years, 198. Sedition against Alexius Comnenus, 331. Against John Comnenus, 336. Sedition of Eroticus, etc. See Eroticus, etc. Sedition. Sedition of the people, 320. The Servian sedition and the Roman disaster, 319. How the author of the sedition was punished, 341. Sela and Ada, wives of Lamech, 122. By whom Seleucia was founded, 202. Whence it is so called, ibid. Seleucus Nicanor, after Alexander died, obtained Syria and Palestine, 202. The descendants of Seleucus, ibid. Semeius, a man clearly seditious, 180. Semiramis married to the son of Ninus, 129. That Semiramis surrounded Nineveh with walls, 129. Sennacherib killed by his own sons, 186. Blasphemies of Sennacherib through Rabshakeh, 193. The power of the senses in animals, 50. Senuphius, a holy man, 257. By his staff and cloak enemies are conquered, 258. The artifice of the cuttlefish of darkening itself, 54. Why the sixth day of the week is called the preparation of the Passover by the evangelist, 117. Seth, the inventor of weeks, 121. Concerning the weeks of years according to Daniel, 205. Why the burial of Christ comprised three days, 224. Calculation of the days of Christ’s burial, 223 et seq. Seraphim, 76, 77. What the name of the Seraphim signifies, 78. The temple of Serapis, 251. Destroyed, 237. Serapio the mathematician, 245. Silk began to be made among the Romans, 270. Serpent harmful to the pelican, 44. How it rejuvenates, heals, 50. The cunning of the serpent, which is imitable, 57. The mating of the serpent and the lamprey, 38, 39. An image of an angry serpent, 104. What is its nature, 60. Rue hateful to the Libyan serpent, 46. Why serpents are extinguished by a foul odor, 50. Why...

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1111 INDEX 1112

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1051 A and without confusion, and some things are included in the logical inferences, which would have been better suited to the refutations of the objections, such as he himself sets forth from us — but regarding the premises by which he presumed to establish his point, we have proposed to ourselves to set forth the things that seem true in accordance with the truth, after the Apostles and the holy theologians. B Let this be said with God. We have shown these things through the teachers, and without confusion, and some things are included in the logical inferences, and [they are] rather blasphemous, and more like the heresies, or rather the principles of heresies. It suffices, therefore, for the present, to show nothing necessary having been presupposed. But as for the things which the Latin opinion adds, these very refutations have been contrived to involve others, and, for the first time, it will perhaps be C equal.

JOSEPH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, PATRIARCH. CONFESSION OF FAITH.

(Conc. Florent. sess. xxv.—Mansi, tom. XXXI, col. 1007.)

THE FINAL SENTENCE OF THE PATRIARCH.

Joseph, by divine mercy Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch.

Since I have reached the end of my life, wishing to fulfill the common debt, by the grace of God I write and sign my opinion openly to all the faithful. Everything that the holy and apostolic Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the elder Rome, believes and teaches, I myself also believe and agree to and declare. I profess also the most blessed Father of fathers, and D supreme pontiff, and vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Pope of old Rome, to be the certain faith of all: and indeed the purgatory of souls. For the confirmation of these things, it is written, on the ninth day of the month of June, in the year one thousand four hundred and thirty-nine, the second indiction.

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1053 JOBI MONACHI PROCEMIUM IN PSALMOS.

EPITAPH OF PATRIARCH JOSEPH

(Acta conc. Florent., collected by Horatius Justinianus, Rome 1638, fol., p. 284.)

I, who was the great prelate of the Eastern Church, Here lie, great in religion, Joseph. This one thing I desired, inflamed by wondrous love, That there might be one cult and one faith for Europe. I sought Italy; we struck a single pact; A And with me as leader, the Greek faith is joined to the Roman. No delay; I succumbed, and now Florence guards me, In which city the sacred council now flourishes. Happy, I who was gifted with such a reward while living, And who died having attained even my own desire.

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JOB MONACHUS

NOTICE

The Turin Codex CLXXVIII b, II, 32, paper, consisting of 70 folios, of the sixteenth century. *Iōb hamartolou ēthikē theōria eis tas hagias phōnās tou prophētou David. Jobi peccatoris theoria moralis in sanctas voces prophetæ Davidis.* It is, to be sure, a commentary on the Psalms, not indeed on all of them, but on the first fifteen only. Its author is called Job the Sinner. But who this Job the Sinner may have been, although great diligence has been applied, we have been able to find in no one among those who have written about the interpreters of Scripture, whether Greeks or Latins. A proemium is prefixed at the beginning, which is of this sort.

PROEMIUM OF JOB THE SINNER TO THE COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS.

Our purpose in these impromptus of ours is to stir again the sacred Davidic utterances, as if investigating a certain aromatic fragrance of incense, whereby the soul and mind and every sense may be gladdened: not indeed that the ancient masters and theologians of the Church explained them imperfectly or, in any way whatever, examined and contemplated them negligently, and left them to us who come after them to be clarified. Not at all: far be this injury to their wisdom and grace. For everything has been said and recorded by them fully and completely, and in a way than which no other could be better; and the things lacking, according to the promise made by the Lord, have been filled up by them by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. But since I have resolved that there is nothing else besides the canonical Scriptures—or these specifically—that I should pursue with vehement desire, or speak of, or revolve in my mind, or investigate throughout my whole life, and that there is nothing more useful

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ORDER OF THE CONTENTS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME

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BARTHOLOMÆUS DE JANO ORDINIS MINORUM

EPISTOLA DE CRUDELITATE TURCARUM

(Ex cod. 1130 bibliothecæ S. Michaelis Venetæ.)

Venerable Religious and excellent Preacher, Brother Albert of Sarteano of the Order of Friars Minor, preaching in Venice, my father in Christ Jesus, I send many greetings.

For a long time, my venerable father, have I desired to see you, to speak with you, and to embrace your person; but this grace has not yet been granted to me. For while I am engaged in the regions of the West, you are proceeding to the East; looking for you in the East, you are returning to the homeland of the West. I have deemed this whole matter to have been done by counsel, both as I have heard by report, and it has been, as usual, of little use that I am in Venice this year, and that your preaching is here. But now, with a vehement desire, while by the favor of the Lord the union of both Churches is being celebrated, I would wish that you visit these and further parts, with the usual mastery of preaching and science, since we perceive that the greatest fruit for souls can be achieved there by the friars. For with Greece left behind, and all of Turkey besides, which went by other names, where those seven churches are found which are read of in the Apocalypse, where the enemy of Christ, the Turk, is prince, there still remain at present innumerable Christians up to the Maurum sea; and the rites of the Greeks are practiced—

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today governed. The kingdom of the Georgians, for one, that is to say, a kingdom not small, where King Alexander reigns today, exists beyond Trebizond. And who can traverse the fatherland of the Russians and the Ruthenians A under the northern sky as far as the Maeotian marshes, which is called the Abbachuc Sea? I omit the Circassians, the Vogulians, the Mingrelians, the Wallachians, and Patras by the sea, though they are under the rite of the Greeks. I am silent regarding the Armenians, whom I hope you will presently see coming to Italy along with our father, Brother Jacob, to be brought back to the Catholic faith; they are far easier to convert and are more eager to grasp the truth than other nations, and they are most benevolent towards the Latins. Furthermore, there are countless Christians in the Caesian mountains and dispersed here and there in Persia and Scythia, where the places of our brethren stand emptied of brothers, although you may have known that today they live among the Tartars themselves. For which reason I consider it not useless, but rather most opportune, that your person and those of your like should be in those parts, provided, however, that a holy union is first celebrated, if God permits. But, alas! alas! why do I recount these things, when it would be far better to weep than to hope for any good from the aforesaid? To weep, I say, from the depths of my heart, and to cry out to the stars, that the Almighty might look down in mercy, so that these parts, in the midst of which we almost are, might be liberated, and that He might not regard the sins of the peoples for so long, until the name of Christianity is extinguished in the parts of the Orient and the Septentrion. Christians, alas, daily fail, and the followers of the devil increase 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, in Turkey and in Greece, the most holy name of Christ is not denied, not only by fear or threats, but far more by delights and honors, and Mahomet, that son of the devil, is exalted to the heights; and, what you will perhaps wonder at, B sometimes by those who were endowed with the riches, honors, and prudence of the world. But that I may be silent about past evils, for the telling of which I think no tongue can suffice, I will briefly touch upon what I myself recently inspected with my own eyes, that you may know and mourn with me, and if you find any others not stripped of all piety, you may compel them to weep as well.

You can be mindful, I believe, beloved Father, when, appointed by our most holy Lord the Pope, we departed from Venice for these parts—where you also unexpectedly arrived upon returning from Jerusalem—how it was rumored there in those days that the Hungarians had burned some ships of the Turks and had also slain very many of them. These things, I say, were all true. But if you have heard afterwards, I know not, that for this reason the Turk himself, having been angered, proceeded thither in person with a great army and carried off more than sixty thousand souls, as it is said, from the kingdom of Rasia, neighboring Hungary; of whom it is uncertain if any even now remember Christ. Do you marvel at this? But you will marvel and grieve much more that, for twenty-five or thirty years now, for how great a loss to himself and to his shame, and C he thinks [it might be], because in any given year he carries off no less than ten or fifteen thousand—I say fewer, so that you might believe—souls! Should I say fifty thousand, if you would believe it, and he compels them to deny Christ Jesus both by threats and by blandishments? But no small wonder arises in me if a single Christian is still to be found in those parts. For Corinth alone sends forth every year thousands and thousands of ducats as a toll for captives passing from Gallipoli into Turkey. Oh, therefore, sins of the Christians, where are you tending? To what are you leading yourselves; to what servitude and to what disgrace are you compelling yourselves to be subjected? But why do I delay longer, most kind Father; why do I delay telling of the new—no, not new, but often wonted—calamitous slaughter and tearful ruin of the Christians, which we have seen in these days? My hand trembles, my eyes weep, my heart shudders to note these things on paper with a pen. Where is that prophet Jeremiah, who would lament not one city alone, but three, or four, or countless camps and villages—I speak of a great and notable country, most opulent in inhabitants and riches, already destroyed and reduced to ashes in the month, indeed, of August of the present year; I speak of the land of the faithful peoples who are called Saxons in the land of Transylvania, which, as a brother who was ransomed from the booty tells me, extended for a length of eight days and a width of three, 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, not for the destroyed walls and partitions, but for the countless souls carried off and now delivered to the devil to be devoured, who, as is said, extend to the number of thirty, and perhaps forty, thousand? Oh! who would give me, not the eloquence of Maro or Tully for writing—which would surely fail in these things—but rather the voice of thunder and the wings of the winds to ascend, and to fly over the land of the Christians, not so that, as now, stony hearts, but the very mountains and valleys might be terrified by the magnitude of the voice? D The miserable Christians do not hear these things, and perhaps if they heard them, they would not believe. They heard, I believe, and more readily believed, that the Teucer was conflicted; which, that it is not true, this clearly demonstrates, because he has sent his army to those parts twice or thrice already since his return. But if it is also true that many of his men have not perished—rather from toil, pestilence, and hunger than by the sword—what, I ask, is there to wonder at if, in an army of three hundred thousand men, some die; whom you may also know to be for the greater part Christians? For which reason, whithersoever you turn, you have abundant material for lamentation. Where, then, now are the churches any longer in that land, the crosses, the chalices, the missals, the vestments? Where are the relics of the saints? And, what is greater than all, in very many places, the body of the Lord consecrated? Alas! with what disgrace, with what mockery, with what great illusion have they been cast down and trampled underfoot? Where now is that omnipotent God, who was angered against King Balthassar for foully abusing the vessels of the temple of the Lord? Certainly, as is clearly apparent, if

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we saw A them—or perhaps if we were to see them—we would be miserably ruined. I am lying if there were not more of us who today preach Christ most fervently, only to deny Him foully tomorrow. Therefore, I believe it is useful to trust no one, but to fear for everyone. But let us return to the first point.

We, therefore, who dwell in these parts, and know and feel that all the aforesaid things are true—and are even greater and worse than we relate—what do they not do to our hearts? I confess, such pain, such anguish of mind, such bitterness has taken hold of us, that for a long time now neither food nor sleep appears to these eyes, save for that which is sad. The very sight of the sun, and of the green lands and the earth, stirs up lamentation rather than solace; nor, since we have been in these parts, have we been able to have quiet for even one hour from these things which we continually hear, and, less than that, which we see with our eyes. For we are in Constantinople, in B a most eminent place, in the Chapel, namely, of Constantine's own palace, which Saint Jerome and Augustine and Nicholas, together with the other three hundred and eighteen Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, consecrated; from which, ascending the watchtower, we can easily see the whole city, once the most excellent in the world, now indeed cast down by such calamity, that it pleases one rather to weep for it than to wonder at it, as it appears to be a paradise of delights—if a change of place and buildings and other conveniences could make it so—and churches and monasteries fallen in the most stupendous ruin, both inside and out, so that you would have thought it previously a forest of monasteries, in each of which twelve hundred or a thousand monks resided, chanting praises to the Most High in such sweet melody that the very air in the nights round about resounded like angelic harmony. But now, alas for the pain, thorns and briars grow over the walls, and there screech owls and eagle-owls. But truly, if anyone should see these cities destroyed, once so wondrous, as Chalcedon and Nicaea, as if adjacent to this city, and many others, of which no sign now appears—I do not think he could restrain himself from weeping, which were destroyed by the hands of the infidels. These things we speak of often, these we lament, and in this and similar times of mourning we consume ourselves, wishing rather to die than to see these final evils, which are daily increasing to the sorrow of our nation. And what causes more pain D and confirms it—that we have no way to communicate these things or to alleviate the penalty—is this: for those who dwell in these parts, or arrive here, Christians, are so inflamed with the greed for temporal gain that they do not consider, or what is horrendous to say, they secretly desire it. Behold, they fill their purses with the gains of the Turks, and enrich themselves with the blood of Christians; but we have heard this from the relief of such great pain, which is of the highest truth: after our return from the...

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A army of the Turks, suddenly—or having turned back from around twenty thousand—they have unexpectedly invaded the Hungarians, who were as if already secure, in a certain province which is called the land of the Siculorum, as if in the middle of Hungary; from which, it is reported, they have carried off thirty thousand souls. There are witnesses who saw not only the captives being led away, but even the heads of many nobles and princes cut off and thrown before the feet of their emperor by the captain who accomplished these things, and this in the month of September. And in the very month of October, he sent another army; whether it did any evil is not narrated; and so three times, and four times, and ten times a year, now here, now there, going and returning after the manner of ants, and always bringing back spoils, as if God had delivered all the land of the Christians to them to possess. And they are so strengthened and fortified by the security of their victories, and urged on by such a desire for gain, that they all equally believe without a doubt that they will destroy all of Christendom in a short time. And who, I ask, would not believe these things, if he himself were to see what we see? For we see in their army passing by not only peasants and unarmed shepherds, equipped only with a bow or sword, but everywhere old men and those bent with extreme age being carried on donkeys, and after a few days returning to lead away with them three or four young men, with their necks and hands bound behind their backs, through the middle of Constantinople, and to pass in sight of the Venetian and Genoese merchants. There, in the sight of all, they sometimes make them halt, so that all may see them, and they cover them with insults and blows, so that no one dares to contradict them; if one wishes to consider how the truth of the matter stands? Because those who were led off as captives the previous year, this year have become Turks, and crueler than all the Turks, being the first in the army and more prompt in boldness and bravery, as if moved by the piety of their religion, once they have discovered, as they believe, the truth of the Faith, and they hasten to deliver their own fatherland; they also desire this above all things, to capture their father, mother, brothers and sisters, and the rest of their kin, and lead them to the light of the truth. O astounding, O profound judgment of God, yet not otherwise than just, how long will Your wrath rage against us? How long will the Most High forget us? Would that it be not to the end! Truly, truly, most loving Father, it is to be feared that because of our sins, which we see growing daily rather than diminishing, the wrath of divine justice will flare up so much that this fire, which is seen to spread day by day and embrace wider expanses, might occupy the ends of the earth. Behold, it is some two hundred years since all of Asia, up to Antioch and beyond, was inhabited by multitudes of Christians; but now it has been gradually consumed by such a fire, that you would find few Christians there, unless perhaps the Slavs assigned to the service of the Turks. I omit Syria, the Holy Land, Armenia, Arabia, and the surrounding countries up to Alexandria, all of which it is clear have not for long been mostly Christian. I pass over Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia, and what is greater than all, the whole of Africa, where, unless perhaps one finds some merchants, you will hardly find one Christian. And yet it is certain that all these lands mentioned above were once Christian. But these things have now been lulled to sleep by the length of time. I return to our own days. It is eighty or a few more years since not even one Turk was to be found in Greece. They crossed over, brought in by the Christians themselves, and filled that entire land, which, if it is not provided with help quickly, will soon be made like Arabia or Egypt. I speak of a land broad, populous, and decorated with most glorious cities, all of which at present, so to speak, have been reduced to nothing, vacated of inhabitants; where Alexander the Great ruled; where the cities of Athens, Corinth, of the Spartans, the Thessalonians, and the Philippians—which it is a grief to behold now. It is little what I have said, in respect to what follows and what has been done and what is to be done, unless one looks upon it and brings help. Where now, I ask, is the homeland of Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia, Rascia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Walachia, kingdoms not small, despoiled of inhabitants in a few years? I come to Hungary, from which, it is said, in not many days more than three hundred thousand—I would more truthfully have said six hundred thousand—souls have been carried off. Do you therefore believe it possible, which I fear, that namely by the just judgment of God, this fire might proceed so far that it could occupy the Christian borders? What then are the miserable Christians doing now? What are their princes? What are the shepherds of the Church? Do they sleep, or rather do they suffer from a lethargy, that they may gradually wait for Christendom to be consumed? They play with lances and dances, or rather they tear themselves apart. Meanwhile, the Turk extinguishes the name of Christ; he has already sworn, he has already devoted himself to his own God, not to rest by any means unless he makes the praises of Mahomet to be sung throughout all Hungary as quickly as possible. Alas, alas, not many years have passed since the Turks were not even named in the world, unless as shepherds near Damascus living in I know not what mountains, rustic, unlearned, wild, without letters, without any science, as they are even to this day. But now, dressed in gold and gems, they rule over kings and emperors, and they do not work with their own hands, but like lords they recline on golden carpets and soft cushions, and in their foul and filthy luxuries, the once noble and now miserable Christians perform the service of slaves. For those of them who do not have eight or ten, or even a greater number, thirty or a hundred, at the very least two or three Slavic Christians, are few. With what reproaches, with what mockery, with what injuries and blows they tyrannize them, let those who feel it tell, let the Christians say. Would that those who are the cause of so much evil would prove such things, and when they could provide help, do not do so. C My time would run out, most humane Father, if I wished to discuss all the losses and disgraces of the Christians which we see in these parts, and I am confident that I could not sufficiently express even the thousandth part of them. Let that Joseph, that excellent rhetor, rather rise up; let Homer rise up, and not just of one city, as they did, but of ten and a hundred, but

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a thousand, rather three or four thousand, nay, thirty or forty kingdoms—if they can—to recount their ruins and calamities. Let Jeremiah rise up with them at the same time and sigh in weeping, and say: "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow that was great among the nations! Princess of the provinces, how is she made tributary? She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies." The ways of Sion indeed do now mourn, because there is none that cometh to the solemn feast, etc. A Do you marvel, brother, that I said thirty or forty kingdoms? I beseech you, do not marvel, since these same evils, and ones equal to or greater than these, which the Turks have done in these parts, the Tartars have also wrought, and continue to work in regions far more remote; and, to omit other fatherlands which could scarcely be numbered, they bring about such evils daily in Russia that there is no year when thirty and more ships filled with Slavs do not come to Constantinople, who are sold by the Tartars like cattle in Moncastro, in Tana, and in the city of Caffa; and these are not the tenth or the hundredth part of those captured by them. Specifically this year in Tana, into which such a multitude of Slavs was brought to be sold, I myself heard from one who saw it that for four, or six, or ten florins one could have bought even thousands of youths. But because of the multitude and famine they were rejected; and, that you may the more rejoice and exult in the glory of the Christians, know that from Cairo, from Alexandria, and from other parts of the East, Saracen merchants arrive every year, sometimes directed by the Sultan, to Caffa, to Tana, and to Moncastro, and to other lands of the Christians, and there they buy Christians from Christians at a high price, and carry them on Christian ships—because they themselves have none—to their own country, not only to have Slavs, but that they may more willingly make them Saracens, subsequently enemies of the Christians. Oh divine justice, it is certainly a wonder why He endures the Christians so much! But the mystery is at work daily. Wait a little, venerable father, to hear another thing that is wondrous and not a little delightful. B The Turks have no weapons, as it is said; if you believe this to be impossible, since they have despoiled such great Christian fatherlands, behold, Latin merchants come from Italy, both Venetians and Genoese and others, and out of their great piety and grace, against law and right, they carry galleys and ships full—not of iron, but of steel—in such great abundance that I can scarcely believe that in any city of Italy could be found such good bargains and such plenty as is found in Gallipoli, Pera, and Adrianople; I would be lying if I said I did not see it with my own eyes, and on the very galleys in which we arrived. But hear how they are excused: they do not sell to the Turks, but to Jews and to Greeks, and they subsequently hand them over to them with their own hands. And this, so that they may craft sharper swords to pour out Christian bowels. O the piety of God, how much You endure! how long You delay in taking vengeance! C It is a wonder, how Italy and Genoa and other cities of Italy are shaken! It is certainly more to be wondered at why they have not been utterly destroyed. We have seen in these days forty ships laden with steel being led from this city to Adrianople, where even the Turks themselves mock the Christians shamefully, saying openly: "Look, wretches, at your blindness; behold, you provide us with arms that we may utterly slay you." What do these things seem to you, beloved brother? Why do you not, for this reason alone, proclaim to them in the city where you preach their manifest ruin? But I know undoubtedly that you do. You cry out, and are not heard. But the scourge of God is present, which justly lashes the delinquents. But do you wish that we return for a little while to the Tartars?

In this year of the month of August, when the Turk was destroying Hungary, the new emperor elect, as is reported here by many—I do not affirm it, because I did not see it—while fighting against the Poles for the kingdom of Hungary, vanquished them and slew innumerable ones—understand, Christians. Then the Tartars, neighbors to the Poles, seeing the Christian peoples occupied in wars, invaded Poland. What they did there, I have not the strength to recount. Ask those themselves, if any have come from there. Such are the fortifications of princes, such are the counsels, such is the militia against infidel peoples. Alas for the wretches, who both ought to and can come to help and do not. Nor was there a lack of warning to them before the time. For I myself, on behalf of my elders and brothers, directed and wrote more than thirty letters long before, in the month of December, when he was preparing an army against them; and I sent these to the emperor and the dukes, which they both had and read, yet they did not care, as the outcome itself demonstrates. That pipe of God, our brother James, also cried out in the presence of the king and the princes, and inflicted reproaches upon them to their faces: "Behold," he said, "wretches, strangers despoil your fatherland, they insult your wives in your presence, and they lead your brothers and sons in chains, yet you do not care." They, indeed, hearing these and similar things and laughing, seemed insensible. D And what is more, our most holy lord the Pope sent them eternal gifts, namely the indulgence of sins, if any had taken up arms against the infidels. When, therefore, when shall the wretched Christians be roused? O when shall that time be? If I see it with my own eyes, before I die. This is my hope, but it is very weak, and very far off, and already almost near to despair. Where now is the glorious kingdom of France, which long ago drove the Saracens from Spain? Where is the great power of the English? These two have consumed one another. Where now is the king of Aragon, the terror of the infidels? Where are the remaining powers and other Christian princes? The Germans are odious to the Hungarians and the Bohemians. The Hungarians fight with the Poles. The pastors of the churches are divided from other pastors, barons with barons, cities with cities consume one another, so that, if no other persecution were brought from the outside, they are sufficient unto their own ruin. And that I may silently insinuate it, I fear,

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A brother, that the time of the final tribulation has already arrived. I am vehemently distressed, my beloved, to recount these things, since many things remain which are equally greater than those already spoken of, which I omit from the very weariness of the narration.

But these few things, which I have touched upon as if by way of preamble, not explaining them fully, I have taken care to signify to you for so great a reason: that, first, you may know these things to be true, as coming from a faithful narrator; that, knowing them, you may grieve, and that by preaching them to others you may warn those who do not believe these things; and that you may lead faithful souls—if any such be 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 in such great danger He may deign to succor His own faithful, or at least His own Name. For if our help does not come from Him, it is in vain that it is expected from man, in whom there is empty salvation, and whoever hopes in him is rather cursed. B But this is also the most powerful reason that moved me to write these things to you: that you, specifically—you who are kindled with the piety of Christ and a zeal for souls, and who flourish in knowledge and eloquence—might direct and adorn this letter which I am drawing up for you, and compose it with proper piety and gravity, so that it may become worthy to appear in the sight of kings and princes, in case perhaps they should listen and be converted at some point to avenging the injury done to Christ Jesus. Unless, rather, you judge the contrary: that it is more apt to win them over the more one recognizes it to have been written not in a composed, ornate eloquence, but in a simple style; I leave all of this to your judgment. I give credence to the words, not to the tears, not to the grief, which are instead renewed daily, praying and protesting to you by the bowels of Jesus Christ that you write these things, that you say these things, that you preach these things to the whole world, to small and great lords and prelates, so that those who can may aid by fighting, and those who cannot, may at least aid by praying. And if they were willing, by the Lord’s permission, it would be as easy to succor such a great malady as it would appear incredible, nay impossible, to one who has read what has been said before. C For the rest, brother, have compassion on us, who see and touch the things written above daily; have compassion even more on the miserable captives, for whom the danger to souls is much more grievous than the slavery of the body itself. But above all, let your heart dissolve with the piety of compassion moved over the remaining Christians, whom we see lost in such wretched blindness. Finally, brothers, the nine who are with me, both novices and professed, commend themselves to your prayers and those of the other fathers. Most of all, however, let it please you to pray, and to commend to others, this city, which fears the Turk most vehemently for the coming year, and which, by the judgment of all, is much to be feared, since he has led three thousand and more young Christians to the sea and has had them taught to row most excellently, and continuously prepares galleys for battle. And if he captures this city—which God forbid!—alas, alas for the other Christians, whom he will easily be able to attack thereafter, by both sea and land, when at present he can exert only one hand D to do injury. Wherefore, one must most cordially pray that, if the event of a siege should happen, God Himself may help, since from Italy—whence he might perhaps have feared aid would come to this city, especially from the Venetians—he is now completely secure; for which reason it is not believed that he has ever in his whole life been so strongly emboldened and so disposed to this as he is now; which other indications, already mentioned, also clearly demonstrate. For he has ordered thirty thousand pikes, and as many mallets and large iron stakes, to be prepared in this way. But you—to what end are these things? Consider. Moreover, he never eats, and speaks rarely with his own men, when the city of Constantinople is brought into the discussion with a sigh. And not without cause; since through it he could easily acquire even the power of the sea. Add, if it has any weight, that from all the villages, cities, and castles subject to his empire—which are perhaps one hundred thousand—he has recently taken a tenth of the boys from the Christians, which he had never done before, from ten up to twenty years of age, whom he has made his own special Slavs and men-at-arms, and, what is worse, Saracens. Whence it is clearly apparent, to conclude the sum of all in a brief word, that the time is now infallibly at hand when either he must destroy the Christians, or he must be utterly destroyed by the Christians, the first of which I vehemently dread, the second may God Himself rather grant. Which, however, is not to be despaired of. For the report is being spread publicly among the Saracens and the Turks that the time of their destruction is at hand, and indeed 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 our own chastisement, which is truer, it has been delayed up to the present, and is still to be deferred even longer.

Where is that most Christian duke

now, the brave, pious Godfrey, Bouillon, 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 from a little further back, where is that noble Charles, king of the Franks, whose heavenly 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 to Christ Jesus, and whose faith and worship he extended 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 the barbarians, and all the Christians of the Western regions are called by the name of Franks throughout the entire East. O therefore, Christian kings and princes, rise up now, for the time is at hand. The example is present, the honor is present, the necessity is present; justice, religion, and faith exhort you; behold, the common enemy is in sight, who has risen up against Christ the head, strong against the timid, fearful among the bold; what are you doing? The forces, which would suffice not only for resisting the pagans but for extending the name of Christ, you are consuming among yourselves, and it has pleased you that wars be waged which will have no triumphs. Whence, I ask, to Alexander

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to that Great one such glory? Whence to Hannibal the African, to Scipio, and to Caesar? Truly, not because they waged most famous wars, but because they brought those wars upon foreign nations; but, alas! O the grief! such is the desire for ruling present in our princes, that they feel neither the losses of the faithful nor their own dangers. They are swollen with self-importance; but let them go forth for a little while into the field, and let them teach the barbarian nations what their virtue is; and if no other cause invited them to take up arms—such as the cause of faith, liberty, and glory—it is surely a wonder if temporal gain itself does not seize their hearts, since these nations, of whom we speak, are full of gold and silver and precious stones; they themselves, and their wives in the highest degree, are clad in nothing but silk, and walk with feet weighed down by pearls and gems; and they not only squander cups and dishes, but even silver tables and caskets, and golden bridles and saddles, and, which is horrible to hear, their countless numbers drink from nothing but gilded chalices taken from Christian temples, to the reviling of Christ and in their own exaltation. Why, therefore, do we delay any longer? Behold what you seek. But why do I consume both time and words on such things? Since, unless God Himself illuminates their eyes and moves their hearts, every exhortation of man is vain. For which reason, O my fathers and brothers, when these things shall have reached your ears, I beseech you, beat upon God with cries, A call upon Him with sighs, with holy and sacred prayers, run through the cities and camps, call the people, gather the assembly, pierce the hearts of low and high concerning these things, so that they may at last abstain from sins, persist in assiduous prayers, and strive as much as possible for works of piety, so that the pious and merciful God Himself, stirred to anger on account of the sins of men, may be mitigated by their contrary good works, and may look for a little while with an eye of piety and clemency upon the Christian people, may infuse charity into their hearts, may grant holy union and peace to prelates and princes, so that the devil, the inventor and instigator of all evils, who has up to this time sown so many scandals in the Church of Christ, may be confounded and thrust back into the dungeons, so that the faithful of the Church may exult, and the infidels, who to this day deride and mock Christ and Christians, may blush and be confounded and perish. But if, by the favor of the Lord, this sacred union is celebrated, safely, brothers, (saying that they are apt and voluntary) cross the sea, since before your eyes there is much land, abounding in everlasting fruits. But you, beloved brother, I invite with so much the more confidence as I know the secrets of your heart. Amen. Given at Constantinople, December XII, MCCCCXXXVIII. Your altogether devoted brother, Bartholomæus de Jano, of the Order of Minors, though unworthy.

NICOLAUS BARBARUS, PATRICIAN OF VENICE. EPHEMERIDES OF CONSTANTINOPLE, BESIEGED AND TAKEN IN THE YEAR 1453

This narrative is the work of a man who appears to relate with the greatest care what he himself saw at the time when Byzantium was besieged by the Turks. For whatever things occurred from the 5th of April up to the 29th of May have been committed to memory by the author in such an exact order of noted days that I know not whether anyone else could have done so more exactly. Hence it seemed good to bring the narrative of Barbaro forward in chronological order, yet in such a way that we may remind the readers wherein he differs from other writers of Turkish affairs. Let us say in passing that the Ephemerides of Barbaro, written in the old Venetian dialect, differ much from correct Italian. Wherefore an accurate and Italian translation of this document seems to us to be placed among things most greatly to be desired. Nor will I pass over in silence the fact that, besides the difference in dialect, the author, a patrician born in Venice itself, very often inveighs with manifest anger against anything that pertains to Genoa (Zenovexe, as he himself speaks), in which he does not even spare Justiniano himself; wherefore our author is to be read cautiously where there is talk of the Genoese. The Ephemerides relate the cause and prelude of the war according to the author's own particular judgment.

1452. March. Mahomet the Sultan (Machomet bej), having brought with him two legates from the Greek Emperor and a fleet of 40 ships, C leaving Callipoli, betakes himself to the Bosporus (the sea of Marmara), intending to construct the castle of Bogasun Kes., 6 Italian miles from Constantinople. Then in the middle of August, the Sultan at the castle to the end beheads the leaders and thus began the war. Thence with a 50,000-man army he surrounds the city for three days. By sea also at the same time the fleet returns to Callipoli, at the beginning of September. Nov. 26. The ship of Antonius Rizius, returning from the Euxine Sea.

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Epistle against the Turks

B ...of the army of the Turks, having suddenly turned back, they unexpectedly invaded the Hungarians as if they were already secure, in a certain province which is called that of the Szeklers, as if in the middle of Hungary; from which, it is reported, they carried off thirty thousand souls. Witnesses are those who saw not only captives being led away, but the heads of many nobles and princes thrown before the feet of their emperor by the captain who carried out these things, and this in the month of September. And again he sent another army in the very month of October; whether it did any evil is not narrated, and thus three times, four times, and ten times a year, going and coming now here, now there, like ants, and always bringing back spoils, as if God had handed over the whole land of the Christians to them for possession. And they are established and strengthened in such security by their victories, and are impelled by such a desire for gain, all alike, that without doubt they believe they will destroy the whole of Christendom in a short time. And who, I ask, would not believe these things if he saw what we see? For we see in the army passing by not only peasants and shepherds unarmed, protected only by a bow or a sword, but everywhere old men, and men bent by C extreme old age carried on donkeys, returning after a few days, leading with them three or four youths tied by the neck and hands behind their backs through the middle of Constantinople, and passing in the sight of the Venetian and Genoese merchants. There, in the sight of all, they sometimes cause them to halt so that everyone may see them, and they strike them with insults and blows, so that no one dares to contradict them; if one wishes to consider how the truth stands: because those who were taken captive the previous year, this year have become Turks, and crueler than all the Turks, first in the army, readier in audacity and strength, as if moved by religious piety, having found the truth of the Faith, as they believe, they hasten to betray their own country; and this, too, they desire above all things, to capture father, mother, brothers and sisters, and the rest of their kin, and to lead them to the truth of the Imam. O astonishing, O profound judgment of God, but none save a just one, how long will His wrath rage against us? How long will the Most High forget us? Would that it might not be until the end! Truly, truly, most loving Father, it is to be feared, lest by our sins, which we see increasing daily rather than diminishing, such fire of divine justice flare up that it might occupy even to the ends of the earth this [fire], which we see spreading by the day and encompassing broader spaces. Behold, there are two hundred years or thereabouts since all Asia as far as Antioch and beyond was inhabited by Christian peoples; but now it has been consumed little by little by such a fire, that you would find few Christians therein, unless perhaps Slavs consigned to the service of the Turks. I omit Syria, the Holy Land, Armenia, Arabia, and the countries surrounding as far as Alexandria, all of which it is manifest have belonged to the Christians for the greater part not long ago. I hold my peace regarding Egypt, Ethiopia, Persia, and what is greater than all, the whole of Africa, where, unless perhaps for some merchants, all the aforementioned countries were Christian. But these things have now been lulled to sleep by the length of time. I return to our own days. Eighty years or little more have passed since not one Turk was to be found in Greece. They crossed over, brought in by the Christians themselves, and filled that whole country, which, unless a remedy is provided quickly, will soon become like Arabia or Egypt. I speak of a broad, populous country, adorned with the most glorious cities, all of which at present, so to speak, have been reduced to nothing, emptied of inhabitants; where Alexander the Great ruled; where were the cities of Athens, Corinth, of the Spartans, the Thessalonians, the Philippians, which now it is a sorrow to behold. Little is what I have said, with respect to the things following, both done and to be done, unless He look upon us and succor us. Where now, I ask, is the country of Dalmatia, Croatia, Bosnia, Rascia, Bulgaria, Albania, the Wallachias, kingdoms not small, in a few years despoiled of their inhabitants? I come to Hungary, concerning which, as it is said, from days not many [ago] more than three hundred thousand, I might have more truly said six hundred thousand souls have been carried away. Do you believe it to be possible, therefore, that which I fear: namely, that by the just judgment of God, this fire may advance so as to be able to occupy the borders of the Christians? What, therefore, do the miserable Christians do now? What do their princes? What do the shepherds of the Church? Do they sleep, or do they suffer from lethargy, so that they look to see Christendom consumed little by little? They play with lances and dances, or rather they lacerate themselves. Meanwhile the Turk extinguishes the name of Christ; he has already sworn, he has already vowed to his god to rest in no way until, as soon as possible, he makes the praises of Mahomet to be sung throughout all of Hungary. Alas, alas, not many years have passed since not even the name of Turk was heard in the world, except for those shepherds living near Damascus in mountains I know not which, rustic, unlearned, wild, without letters, without any science, as they are even to this day. But now, dressed in gold and gems, they rule over kings and emperors, and they do not labor with their own hands, but as lords they recline on golden carpets and soft cushions, and in their foul and unclean luxuries, once noble [people], now the miserable Christians, serve as slaves. For few of them are those who do not have eight or ten, but the great [have] thirty and a hundred; and the least do not have at least two or three Christian slaves. With what reproaches, with what mockery, with what insults and blows they tyrannize them, let those narrate who feel it; let the Christians speak. Would that those who are the cause of so much evil would demonstrate such things, nor, when they could assist, do they procure it. D Time would fail me, most humane Father, if I wished to treat of all the losses and reproaches of the Christians which we see in these parts, nor do I trust that I could sufficiently express the thousandth part of them. Let that Joseph, that excellent rhetor, rather arise; let Homer arise; and not of one city alone, as did they, but of ten and a hundred, but

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April 11. The Sultan places artillery against the walls by the sea at four intervals (cf. Phrantzes, who writes: "In fourteen places the walls of the city were breached"). Then three bombards were directed at the Emperor's palace at Blachernae; likewise three against the Gate of the Spring; two at the Golden Gate, and four at the Gate of St. Romanus; of 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, the fifteenth), the Turkish fleet drops anchor in the region of the port of Constantinople; its number, as Barbaro states, 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 are reported as smaller craft. Add to this a Sinopian cargo vessel laden with bronze cannonballs (though it is more likely they were stone projectiles) and military material. The Turkish fleet keeps to the Anatolian shore, far from the city. Those who are besieged in the city wait in arms for the enemy's attack. Inside, besides the artillery being fired incessantly and minor skirmishes against the Janissaries, nothing worth recording happens.

April 18. An attack by the Turks on the night preceding the eighteenth of April is at first repelled by the Greeks, who were slightly shaken; more than two hundred Turks were killed.

April 20. On the twentieth day of the siege, four Genoese auxiliary ships enter the Hellespont, which, after a battle of 2 or 3 hours, are aided by fortune and repel the Turkish attack; then at sunset, the triremes of the besieged meet the Genoese and usher them into the port with jubilation and a concert of music.

April 21. Muhammad proceeds to the fleet with 10,000 cavalry, inveighs harshly against the prefect of the naval forces, and orders him to abdicate the office with his life intact; in his place is appointed to the fleet the son of Pietro Loredan, a boastful man (perhaps some deserter of the Venetian cause). On the same day, a dire devastation was caused by enemy projectiles in the western region, with the ruin of the tower situated at the Gate of St. Romanus; the efforts of the besieged are directed toward repairing the damage. B

April 22. Sunday. On this day, 5,000 Turkish ships are transported by land from the Bosphorus into the port of Constantinople. Our author reports, not without anguish of soul, that 72 armed ships were placed on cylinders and hauled over the mountain which Pera overlooks from the north by Turkish laborers and the common rabble. The Constantinopolitans, shut up in the city, for whom there is peril on both sides from the enemy fleet, place one trireme as a guard at the strait which adjoins Pera, which was to give a signal to the naval prefect where the enemy might attempt an attack.

April 23. In the church of St. Mary (of the Hodegetria, it seems), men called for this purpose deliberate on how the enemy ships might be expelled from the port.

April 24. Lord Jac. Cocus, patron of that Trebizond trireme, taking two cargo ships, the prefect of those inhabiting Pera informs the Sultan about that matter; and those Genoese themselves, most perfidious men, move the Venetian commanders to reserve the proposed attempt for another night, promising their own aid, while in reality they were about to assist the Turks with all their strength.

April 25-27. During this interval of time, in which nothing worth noting happened, Barbarus opines that further misfortunes were the vengeance of the divine God for the sins of which that age was guilty.

April 28. That night, two triremes under the command of Gabr. Trevisano and the knight Hier. Morosino, along with Jac. Cocus, were frustrated in their hope of burning the Turkish ships in the port with fire. Barbarus narrates this attempt more expansively than all the others.

April 29. The admiral Diedo appoints Dolphinus to replace the leader of the Trebizond trireme who had been dismissed; in his place for guarding the Gate of Blachernae, Jo. Loredanus is substituted. Whatever damage the besiegers inflict on the besieged is immediately repaired by them. Nothing further that is worth remembering was done in the month of April.

May 1, 2. The same is to be said of these two days. There is a scarcity of food in the city.

May 3, 4. The Constantinopolitans oppose the enemies in the port with two bombards; the Turks place two machines of the same kind. For the next ten days and as many nights, artillery fire erupts on both sides without any remarkable effect. By order of the Emperor, a small light vessel is sent toward the island of Negroponte to seek out the Venetian fleet and to ask J. Loredanus to come to the aid of the city, which was in dire straits, without delay. And this [vessel], indeed, traverses the Archipelago under a Turkish flag and in simulated Turkish garb, but returns to Constantinople with the business left undone. C

May 5. The Turks set up several bombards on the mountain looming over Pera, and from thence they strike the enemy ships in the port along the entire length of the great chain with artillery fire. And a third bronze ball, having been projected, sinks a Genoese ship full of merchandise and provisions to the bottom of the sea. From there, the Christian ships return to the walls of Pera not without damage. After the Turks had directed the same artillery toward the Kynegion without effect, they finally added those [artillery pieces] which were covering the inner walls. D

May 6. On this Sunday also, the artillery thunders perpetually.

May 7. A night attack made by 30,000 Turks is stoutly repelled; in which stupendous clamors, reaching as far as the Anatolian sea, caused the city's defenders to prepare themselves for battle by land and by sea. Nothing more, however, was attempted by the Turks, except that, as they were leaving, they set fire to the Palatine Gate; which the Greeks then blocked up with a wall. The ships took up their previous station around the chain.

May 8. It was decreed by the Board of Twelve that the Tana ships, having been unloaded, should be transported to the arsenal. As the ships were being unloaded by armed hand

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they resisted so as not to fall under the authority of the Greeks, saying that the triremes were their homes; that they should neither live nor die on land. This view prevailed; both they and the admiral remained on the shore of Pera. The guns perpetually fired balls around the Gate of St. Romanus.

May 9. By the will of the Board of Twelve, Lord Gabriele Trevisan commanded that 400 soldiers, drawn from the two triremes, be assigned to guard the land walls.

May 10. In a council held by the Twelve in the Church of St. Mary, Lord Diedus was designated admiral of the fleet, with the provision that he should exercise control over the port and all maritime affairs as he saw fit.

May 11. The same deadly toil of the guns.

May 12. The Turks, with their usual clamor and the discordant din of drums and pipes, attacked the wall around the palace; but the mercy of Jesus Christ averted the extreme danger from the city on this occasion, because, as Barbaro opines, the destruction of Constantinople, according to the prophecy of the holy Emperor Constantine, was reserved not for the present, but for a later phase of the moon. A

May 13. Lord Trevisan, commander of the fleet, landed with his soldiers to defend the damaged walls. He did not withdraw from that place until the city was taken. According to Phrantzes, between the Kynegion and the Imperial Palace, he acted as a shepherd, not a mercenary. Throughout this time, there was uninterrupted fire from the guns against the western wall.

May 14. The Turks, as we have already seen, dragged their guns from the hill of St. Theodore toward Pera, near the Kynegion gate, and placed them opposite the port, and later behind the Gate of St. Romanus, where the wall was suffering the worst damage, although the besieged strove to repair the inflicted damage with all their might. Three hundred men, mostly pyrotechnicians and archers, occupied that gate, all of them foreigners, except for the Greeks, whose pusillanimity our author severely criticizes. B

May 15. The restless explosion of the guns and the diligent repair of the damaged sections followed; otherwise, a truce.

May 16. Several Turkish dispatch boats approached the chain around the port and attacked the ships of the besieged; but suddenly, fearing they might be repelled against their will, they retreated. Mines dug by the Turks around the Caligaria Gate were discovered and thwarted by the Grand Duke.

May 17. Five Turkish ships proceeded as far as the chain of the port for the purpose of scouting, but were met with 70 shots, which, though they hit nothing, caused them to flee with the greatest speed they could muster. Yet everyone feared that the enemy would attack the city with all its forces, an attack that all despaired of being able to resist.

May 18. Throughout the night, the Turks constructed those turreted machines, also mentioned with admiration by our own Barbaro; nor could he sufficiently marvel that the Turks had accomplished in four hours what all the Christians living in Constantinople could not have done in a whole month. From this great tower, the Turks hurled an immense D mass of arrows into the city, so that those within were struck with extreme terror.

May 19. It was at this time that the bridge constructed of joined ships began to appear from Galata to the Kynegion, as Barbaro claims; according to Phrantzes, however, it took place after the ships had been transported, C putting aside the more confused chronology of Leonardo, who believes it was made before the naval battle, with a difference of a whole month. Certainly, Doukas agrees more closely with our Barbaro in this matter. The Turks did not cease to hurl bronze balls at the enemy and fill the air with their shouts; the besieged repaired the damage inflicted.

May 20. Barbaro reports the efforts of the besieged to repair the gaping walls, for which work women, children, and the elderly clergy expended their strength. Mention is also made of that huge machine that emitted 1200-pound stones, by which not only the walls, but the pavement of the city and the ships in the port were most violently shaken.

May 21. The entire host of the enemy threatened an assault well before sunrise; but after they saw the ships of the besieged prepared for battle around the great chain, they attempted nothing, but rather withdrew. They also discovered a mine dug by the Turks near the Caligaria Gate, blocked it, and slaughtered the diggers. Nevertheless, on this day, the wall and the tower near it were quite heavily damaged, and those who were inside the city had sick bodies from tireless labor and hardships.

May 22. The mine near the Caligaria Gate, having been blocked again, thwarted the hope of the diggers. But upon seeing a wondrous celestial spectacle (Barbaro calls it a common eclipse of the moon), the Constantinopolitans, mindful of the prophecy of the Emperor Constantine, saw it as a sign of imminent ruin, while the Turks saw it as a pledge of victory.

May 23. Furthermore, a third mine discovered near the Caligaria Gate and the Emperor’s palace was the reason why several makers of war machines were taken prisoner; who, after being ordered to say where other mines had been built, had their heads cut off and were thrown over the walls into the Turkish camp. On this same day, the light galley, which had been sent on the fourth day of this month to search for the Venetian fleet in the Archipelago, having escaped the traps of the Turkish ships, returned to the harbor. The city was continuously harassed by the labor of the guns.

May 24. The fourth mine, which they discovered again near the Caligaria Gate, damaged the wall not a little. Fierce shouting and jubilation followed from the Turkish camp on account of the chance battle that was now imminent. The last mine discovered near the aforementioned gate greatly terrified those trapped in the city. The war machines did not cease to emit fire and stones into the city.

May 26. Festive fires burned far and wide, and there was jubilation in the Turkish camp on account of the attack they were to launch by force the next day. The Constantinopolitans, with prayers and supplications to the Mother of God...

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A and all the saints, kept begging for deliverance from the hands of the Gentiles with deep groaning and tears. But God our Lord, in accordance with His inexorable will, decreed that on that very day the head of the Greeks should fall into the hands of Muhammad (and, as our Lord God decreed because of the cruel sentence against the Greeks, that He willed that this city should go on this day into the hand of Muhammad!).

May 29. Barbarus recalls the ancient prophecies concerning the destruction of the Greek empire, the fulfillment of which, according to many signs, was reserved for this very time. In the third hour before sunrise, the sultan ordered three armies, each of 50,000 armed men, to advance toward the city. The first cohort consisted of Christians whom the Turks had forced into the company of the battle; the second, of an unskilled rabble (an unrefined crowd, that is, a vile mob of that sort); the third was composed of Janissaries and the strength of the army; behind these, the sultan finally occupied his position. D And as the first of them attempted to apply ladders to the walls, they were repulsed with huge losses. Yet they were driven toward the walls by those following with such violence that they had to perish in one way or another. As Barbarus observes, the sultan had positioned these Christians in the front line so that they would be exposed to certain death, while he spared the lives of the Turks, and in order to tire out the defenders of the city with their assault, even if it were futile. This is what happened in reality, even though the second rank was repulsed with much bloodshed by the archers and bombardiers of the city. Then the third rank of the sultan, with new strength and with a shout heard far and wide, the Janissaries and the flower of the army, burst forth like lions.

Notwithstanding the prayers and lamentations of the urban multitude, especially the women, and although the defenders fought most bravely on the walls, at sunrise the Turks, enveloped by the dust raised by that great engine of war, were the first three hundred to cross the walls. But after they themselves paid for their audacity with death, and the same stratagem was repeated, finally up to 30,000 soldiers burst into the city with an impetus such as that of wild beasts, through the broken parts of the wall around the Gate of St. Romanus. Indeed, so many Turks fell in that slaughter that, if Barbarus is to be believed, 40 merchant ships could scarcely suffice to transport the corpses. The same author reports, moreover, that Justiniani was wounded, and that his shouting that the Turks were already taking the city was the cause of flight for everyone.

Once the city was captured by force, the Turks shed blood without any regard for age or sex, until they judged it better to sell those who were unarmed—among whom were the Venetian merchants who had hidden themselves in cellars—for a price. The banners of St. Mark and the Emperor were torn down from the towers, and a banner of the Turkish cur, as they call it, was substituted in their place. Therefore, when the capture of the city became known, whoever held ships in the port, and the great fleet that was present along the Hellespont, hurried to leave so they would not be frustrated of a great prize, which at that very moment in time had begun to be loaded onto the ships. Barbarus reports that the Turks affixed a small flag to every house, monastery, or church they had entered, which called back those who followed for the sake of plundering from proceeding any further. It appears that more than 200,000 such marks were affixed throughout the city, since a large part of the houses was decorated with ten such signs.

The slaughter of the Christians thereafter was such that the public streets were flooded with blood just as they are by water after a rain, and the corpses thrown into the Propontis floated on the sea like fruit. Our author says that nothing certain is known about the life and death of the Emperor, except for what some record, that his body was found among those who were crushed by the Turks entering the gate of St. Romanus. Barbarus also reports that the surviving Venetians took care to place their possessions, especially their ships, in safety. Among those who escaped with their lives...

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The author of the Ephemerides provides the names 1) of the Venetian leaders who died in the battle against the Turks; 2) of those who escaped unharmed with the ships (33); 3) of those who remained in captivity, some of whom were redeemed below the price of 2000 gold pieces; 4) of all the Venetian nobles who were at Constantinople on the day of the invasion (68); 5) of those who perished during the whole time of the siege (60-68). You have here the most illustrious names of the Venetian Republic: Bembo, Contarini, Mocenighi, Cornaro, Naui, Gritti, Loredano, Pisani, etc., though there are errors perhaps committed by the scribes. What is reported there concerning the killing of the Greek magistrates seems to be consigned to apocryphal accounts. A ...commander of the Tana triremes, Diedo, whom equally with the author of these Ephemerides and the commander of the ships, Fiurianus, the Genoese governor captured and later set free, and who with a broken trireme reached the port chain in the sea. The trireme of Hieronymus Morosini also, and the Trapezuntine [trireme/ship] under the commander Dolphinus, who had succeeded to the position and which had lost its men on 28 Apr. [1453], escaped. Furthermore, the trireme of Gab. Trevisani escaped unharmed, and [those who were] captured by the Turks, and three Cretan ships which, because of the absence of the Turks, escaped through the upper regions of the city [which were] scattered. It is less certain regarding the ships of the Genoese saved and [the fact that] 5 imperial ships were stripped and fell as booty to the enemy. There is a brief mention of the Venetian commander given up to punishment. The number of captives, as Barbarus writes, is 60,000; the booty taken by the Turks is 200,000 gold pieces; others report a smaller number.

ANONYMOUS NARRATION ON THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED

(From the Rehdiger Codex, edited by Dr. W. Gass in the Appendix to Gennadius and Pletho.)

The thrice-cursed and godless Mohammed—who is also named by the Hagarenes, his subjects, Machumet, and [is considered] a great prophet among them and honored by God—appeared in the days of Heraclius the King. Born in a part of Ethiopia of Ethiopian parents, he grew up and reached this point, having progressed toward the worse regarding the truth in the following way: B A certain monk named Gerasimus, being an extreme Arian and a Pneumatomachian, originating, as they say, from Isauria, having been raised both in Constantinople and in the city of the Romans, and having been much urged by the pious to renounce Arianism and the other heresies by which he was possessed, was not persuaded. Therefore, so that he might not be a stumbling block of ruin to many, wise though he was otherwise, he was exiled by the orthodox to the regions of Coelesyria. Living there in a cave by a royal road to beg in order to survive—since he was despised—he was occupied greatly with astronomy and with the method of effectiveness. Watching the passersby, one day he saw, among other travelers, a certain young man, the aforementioned Machumet, driving a few camels and coming down from Mesopotamia for trade in Jerusalem. For this aforementioned Mohammed, orphaned and while still very young wandering from door to door and being fed by leftovers, a certain very wealthy widow named Fatumah saw him, took him into her own house, and raised him, [and] sent him [out] in daily [life] to pasture her own camels.

And as he became a man, the woman, having fallen in love with him, had intercourse with him in harlotry; but having been caught, and wishing to escape the disgrace of the many, she openly made him her husband. She gave him a portion of her own property and sent him off for trade; but she was troubled in another way, because, being constantly afflicted with the falling sickness, he caused her no small disgrace; whence she instructed him to seek and inquire, wherever he might happen to arrive, if he could possibly find some healer or physician to free him from the affliction. Therefore, sitting on the road, the aforementioned monk saw Mohammed traveling and inquired of him from which city he came; but after much [else], he himself asked him for what reason he was waiting by the road; but simply, one asking the other, as Mohammed heard from others that he also practiced the science of medicine, he became as if overjoyed and announced his affliction of the falling sickness. As he heard that the monk could free him from such an affliction, giving him a portion [as] payment, he let him go, saying, "On my return from Jerusalem, I will take you up with me into my house to Mesopotamia for the sake of both my own [health] and that of others of many cures, since the region is very much in need of a physician, in order to collect money and lead a relaxed and painless life." Having therefore gone down into Jerusalem and having conversed with some of the heretics, and especially with Jews and Nestorians, as he was very fond of learning, but also with learned Jews...

1079

A who were practitioners of medicine, as fellow-travelers to Mesopotamia, he was overjoyed; and as he was about to be healed by them, as they themselves insisted, he completed the journey with them. And when they arrived at the place where he found the aforementioned monk living by the road, he took him up according to the signal previously agreed upon, and seating him upon the camel, they continued their journey. Along the way, the monk instructed him thoroughly in Arianism, while the Hebrews—having made the custom of circumcision a condition with him—persuaded Muhammad to choose their religion, provided only that he be healed by them. Having safely reached his own native country of Mesopotamia, he took the monk and the Jews and hosted them at his own house, giving the monk a separate, very small house near his own in which to reside. Since many disputes had arisen among them—both the monk with the Jews and those [the Jews] with him, each party insisting B by what means Muhammad had been taught their respective religion—the monk wished to be separated from Muhammad. But when he was entreated to remain, and to do whatever he (Muhammad) might ask, the monk made a horoscope regarding Muhammad, and finding that Muhammad would be great and would increase in power if he were to adopt some heresy and religion, he called Muhammad to him and said: "If you listen to my advice, you shall soon become great." And when he agreed to obey, he said to him: "When you fall to the ground and suffer a seizure, upon rising say that I fall because I cannot bear to look upon the face of the angel Gabriel as he approaches me and speaks to me, as you see me fall to the ground." And the monk, having seen that the local people were completely barbarian and superstitious, and ready to accept the trifles he intended to utter to them, said to those present who saw the one suffering the seizure: "Observe what is happening, for in seeing God and the angels, Muhammad becomes ecstatic." And when he rose, acting according to the monk’s suggestion, he said C that he fell because he was seeing an angel; and the monk called him a prophet, deceiving those who heard him. And when Muhammad’s wife was distressed, thinking that he might consume all her wealth, the monk, defending him to her, said: "Do not be troubled, for Muhammad is a great prophet." Upon hearing these things and believing them, as a woman will, she exhorted the other women and proclaimed that Muhammad was a great prophet. And the error, having passed from the women to the men, who were barbarians and very ignorant, the aforementioned person was believed to be a prophet of God.

As the monk saw his scheme progressing, he thought it necessary to give those people both a faith and a law, for the establishment, indeed, of Arianism and the other heresies for which he had been exiled. And sitting down, he wrote a book, that which is called the Quran, which is God’s law, having sown into it all his own impiety, teaching that God has neither Word nor Spirit, and that Christ is not God, but a great prophet, and he wrote many other trifles; and having given it to his disciple Muhammad, he proclaimed to those foolish people that this book had been sent down to Muhammad from heaven by the angel Gabriel while he was asleep. And they believed that it was so, just as the monk had insured regarding the new law. But the aforementioned Jews, being vexed with Muhammad and not wanting him to be healed, since he did not follow their religion entirely but rather the monk’s suggestions, and wishing to satisfy them as well, he accepted the custom of circumcision from the Jewish customs and the naming of the prophets alone; but as for what was written by Moses and the rest of the prophets, he did as the monk deemed best regarding these.

When these things had come to pass and the local inhabitants had believed in the new law of Muhammad, being at a loss for authority, by the suggestion of the monk, they made him their ruler, so that he was at once lawgiver, prophet, and king. Then, having created a military system, he began to plunder the surrounding villages. When report of this reached the Emperor Heraclius, he sent an army against him, and the Romans arrived there and killed Muhammad’s subordinates. But he himself, having fled with a few men, sent an embassy to the king, calling himself the king’s slave and asking that he be allowed to rest in one part of Ethiopia, offering to pay tribute to the king. And he, being persuaded, allowed this. D After the death of Heraclius, when many upheavals had occurred in the Roman Empire, Muhammad, finding an opening, began to plunder Syria. Then, having progressed from little or nothing to much on account of our sins, he destroyed much of the Roman Empire. After him, his successors completely destroyed, ravaged, and obliterated the remainder. This has been said in summary regarding all that is the truth. The End.

1082

A for I think that in every single year he carries off no less than ten or fifteen thousand—I speak of fewer, so that you may believe it—souls! I would say fifty thousand, if you would believe it, and he compels them to deny Christ Jesus both by threats and by blandishments. But no small wonder rises in me if even one Christian is still found in those parts. For Corinth alone sends out every year thousands and thousands of ducats as a toll for captives passing from Gallipoli into Turkey. Oh, therefore, you sins of Christians, whither do you tend? Whither do you lead yourselves, to what servitude, to what opprobrium do you compel yourselves to be subjected? But why do I delay longer, most humane Father, why do I defer recounting the new—not new, but too often practiced—calamitous slaughter and tearful ruin of Christians, which we have seen in these days? The hand trembles, the eyes weep, the mind today shrinks from noting these things with paper and pen. Where is that prophet Jeremiah, who might lament not one city alone, but three, but four, but innumerable encampments and villages, a great and notable country, I say, most opulent in inhabitants and riches, now destroyed and reduced to ashes, namely in the month of August of the present year? I speak of the country of the faithful people who are called Saxons in the Transylvanian fatherland, which—as a brother tells me who was redeemed from the plunder—extended for a length of eight days and a width of three; which was previously called Septemsolia, but now I know not what it is called, unless perhaps a place of lamentation and weeping. Who, therefore, will give water to my head, that I might weep day and night, not for the walls and broken partitions, but for the innumerable souls carried off and now delivered to the devil to be devoured, whose number is said to reach thirty, and perhaps forty thousand? Oh! who would give me not the eloquence of Maro or of Tully to write—which would surely succumb in these matters—but rather the voice of thunder and the wings of the winds to ascend and fly over the land of the Christians, not merely that hearts of stone might be moved, but that the very mountains and valleys might be terrified by the magnitude of the cry? The wretched Christians do not hear these things, and perhaps, having heard, they will not believe. They heard, I believe, and more readily believed, that the Turk had been defeated; that this is not true, this clearly demonstrates, that already twice or thrice since then he has sent an army to those parts. But if it is also true that many of his own have not died—rather from labor, plague, and hunger than by the sword—what, I ask, is there to wonder at if, in an army of three hundred thousand men, some die; men whom you may also know to be for the most part Christians? For which reason, wherever you turn, you have abundant matter for lamentation. Where, then, are the churches in that country any longer, the crosses, chalices, missals, vestments? where are the relics of the saints? and what is greater than all, in many places, the consecrated body of the Lord? Alas! by what opprobrium, by what mockery, with what great delusion have they been cast down and trampled under foot? Where is now that God Almighty, who grew angry at King Balthasar for basely abusing the vessels of the temple of the Lord? Certainly, as it clearly appears, if He B remembers—as I believe He does, beloved Father—when we were sent by our most holy Lord the Pope to these parts and departed from Venice, where you also suddenly arrived returning from Jerusalem, how it was rumored there in recent days that the Hungarians had burned some ships of the Turks, and also had killed very many of them. These things, I say, were all true. But if you have heard since then—I know not—that because of this the Turk himself was angered, and approaching there personally with a large army, he carried away more than sixty thousand souls, as it is said, from the kingdom of Rascia, neighboring Hungary; of whom, if any even now remember Christ, it is uncertain. Do you wonder at this? But you would wonder and grieve much more that, for twenty-five or thirty years now, what he has done with no small damage to himself and shame to the governors. First of the Georgians, that is, the kingdom of Georgia is not small, where King Alexander reigns today, beyond Trebizond. Who can travel under the northern sky through the fatherland of the Russians and Ruthenians as far as the Maeotian marshes, which is called the sea of Abbachuc? I omit Circassia and Vogaria, Mingrelia, Wallachia, Patras near the sea, yet [all] under the rite of the Greeks. Of the Armenians I am silent, whom I hope you will soon see coming to Italy along with our father, Brother Jacob, to be reduced to the Catholic faith, [they being] of much easier conversion and more eager to grasp the truth than other nations, and most benevolent to the Latins. Furthermore, you will have known of innumerable Christians in the Cæsian mountains, and scattered here and there in Persia and Scythia, where the places of our brethren stand emptied of our brethren, still today living among the Tartars themselves. For which reason I consider not useless, but rather most opportune, your person and those like you in those parts, provided, however, that the sacred union is first celebrated, if God should permit. But, alas! alas! why do I commemorate these things, when one ought to weep much rather than hope for any good through the aforementioned? To weep, I say, from the depths of my heart, and to cry out to the stars, that the Almighty, pitying, might at some time oversee the deliverance of these parts, in the midst of which we almost are, and not look upon the sins of the people so long, until the name of Christianity is extinguished in the regions of the East and the North. They are failing, alas, daily, the Christians, and the followers of the devil are increasing both in number and in the strength of arms. For there is scarcely a city, citadel, or village, and there is scarcely a day, in which—both in Turkey and in Greece—not only by fear or threats, but much more by luxuries and honors, the most holy name of Christ is not denied, and Mahomet, the son of the devil, is exalted to the heights; and what perhaps you will wonder at, [it is done] sometimes by those who abounded in wealth, and honor, and the prudence of the world. But that I may be silent about past evils, for the telling of which I think no tongue could suffice, I will touch briefly upon what I myself recently inspected with my own eyes, that you might know and weep with me, and if you find any not stripped of every piety, you might compel them also to weep.

1083

INDEX

Hippolytus Thebanus, historian, distinct from the martyr, concerning the time of the death of St. Stephen, 227. Homer, prince of poets, 7, 184, 195.

I Innocent I, Pope, letters to Arcadius, 259, 260. Isidore of Pelusium, disciple of St. Chrysostom, 98, 223, 258.

J Jamblichus, philosopher, concerning demons or angels, 107. Jeremiah, prophet, 287. Jesus, son of Sirach, 203. John (St.), apostle and evangelist, passim. John, astronomer, 300. John (St.) Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, passim, 2, 4, 8, 9, 12, 18, 27, 59, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 91. In his oration on the exile of Adam, 123, 124, 125, 131, 132, 133, 157, 189, 209, 210, 212, 214, 215, 218, 219, 220, 223, 225, 226, 227, 236, 258, 259. John (St.) Climacus, or author of the Ladder, 112. John (St.) of Damascus, monk, passim, 8, 15, 16, 17, 21, 52, 65, 66, 71, 78, 80, 81, 82, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 107, 111, 208, 209, 221. John Scylitzes, or Curopalates, historian, 245, 246, 286, 293, 294, 297. John Zonaras, historian, 140, 286, 291, 297. John Xiphilinus, Patriarch of Constantinople, 325, 326. Job, patriarch, 116, 147. Joseph, patriarch, Prayer of, apocryphal book, 259. Josephus, Jew, historian, 1, 12, 40, 102, 119, 121, 123, 125, 127, 130, 135, 139, 143, 145, 148, 150, 155, 158, 163, 164, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 192, 198, 228, 234, 238. Julian of Halicarnassus, heretic, 243. Julian, emperor, the apostate, called ὁ παράφρων ("the madman"), 117, 128, 185, 199, 251, 253, 254. Julius Caesar, dictator, 201. Justinian the Great, emperor, 266, 272. Justin, philosopher and martyr, 4, 15, 19, 241. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, on the burial of the Blessed Virgin, 252, 270.

L Leo (St.), Roman pontiff, 271. Leo the Wise or Philosopher, emperor, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300. Leo, a learned man, Archbishop of Thessalonica, 291, 292. Libanius, sophist of Antioch, 258. Sacred books, of Solomon, apocryphal. See Esdras, Genesis, Josephus, Solomon. Book of the miracles of St. Basil, usually attributed to Amphilochius, 235. Luke (St.), evangelist, 236, 237, 281.

M Macarius (St.), abbot, in his epistles, 105, 255. Manes, heretic, 82, 111, 214. Marcus Antoninus, emperor, 241. Mark (St.), evangelist, 216. Mark, steward (oikonomos) and monk, who completed the Tetraodion of Cosmas, 298, in the notes. Matthew (St.), apostle and evangelist, 284. Maximus (St.), monk and confessor, 3, 5, 6, 25, 70, 71, 95, 110, 194. In the items he wrote concerning Thalassius. Metaphrastes. See Simeon. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 289. Michael Parapinakios, emperor, unskilled poet, 330. Michael Psellus, who is "the wise in reality" (ὁ σοφὸς τῷ ὄντι), 171, 181, 328, 330. Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 319. Moses, lawgiver of the Hebrews, passim up to pages 157, 160, 211.

N Nazianzen. See Gregory. Nectarius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 256. Nestorius, from Germanicea in Syria, Patriarch of Constantinople, heretic, 245, 260, 271. Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa, philosopher, on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and other things, 64, 102, 165. Nicander of Colophon, Greek poet, on serpents, 25. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, "the renowned among patriarchs" (ὁ ἐν πατριάρχαις ἀοίδιμος), on angels offering our prayers, 137, 244, 287. Nyssenus. See Gregory.

O Origen Adamantius, Alexandrian presbyter, whom he calls "accursed and empty-minded" (κατάρατον καὶ ματαιόφρονα), 109, 162, 241, 242, 243, 271.

P Parva Genesis. See Genesis. Patricius, Bishop of Prusa, from the oration on St. Pionius, 17. Paul (St.), Apostle, often cited, 136, 213, 214, 217, 228, 229, 235, 236, 237, 239. Paul of Samosata, heretic, 244, 278. Paul of Sinope, on the madness of dogs, 63. Peter (St.), prince of the apostles, 124, 233, 236. Peter, writing to Faustus concerning the natal star, 26, 113. Philo, the Jew, 234. Philo the philosopher, Ecclesiastical History on the power of anathemas, 282, 283. Philolaus, Pythagorean philosopher, 20. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 293, 297, 298. Plato, philosopher, 5, 202. Plotinus, follower of Plato, 70. Plutarch, philosopher of Chaeronea, 58, 131. Porphyry, Platonic philosopher, 107. Prayer of Joseph (προσευχὴ τοῦ Ἰωσήφ), apocryphal book, 239. Proclus, Patriarch of Constantinople, 260. Procopius, historian of Caesarea, 270. Psellus. See Michael. Ptolemy of Alexandria, astrologer, 134. Pyron, or Pyrrhon, writer of Annals; he wrote that Adam entered paradise after 40 days, 82. Pythagoras, philosopher, 202.

R Rufus, physician, writer on the cause of hydrophobia, 63.

S Sabellius, heretic, 213. Books of Solomon, King of the Jews, on angels and demons, on gemstones, etc., 182, 183, 184, 185. Scylitzes. See John Scylitzes. Serapion, mathematician, 243. Seth, inventor of the conversion of the year and other things, 121. Severianus, Bishop of Gabala, 67. Severus, an Acephalous heretic, 80, 271. Simeon or Symeon, Metaphrastes, 245, 252. Sophocles, poet, 202. Symmachus, 242.

T Tertullian, Latin writer, "a man famous in Rome" (ἀνὴρ ὁ ἐν Ῥώμῃ λαμπρός), 235. Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus, 14, 19, 33, 63, 79. In Therapeutica, 80, 106, 132, 176, 179, 181, 187, 189, 192, 198, 211, 230, 261, 263, 270. Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, 245. Theophanes the Confessor, chronographer, continuator of George Syncellus, 246, 287. Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, 257, 258, 259. Theophylact, Archbishop of the Bulgarians, 210. Thucydides, historian, 202. Timothy, Patriarch of Alexandria, 271.

V Valens, astronomer, "the most accurate of astronomers" (ἀκριβέστατος ἀστρονόμων), 249. Valentinus, heresiarch, 111, 142.

X Xenophanes, philosopher, 20. Xiphilinus. See John.

Z Zonaras. See John. Zoroaster, King of the Persians or astrologer, 199.

1085

1085 IN ANNALES MICH. GLYCÆ

INDEX OF MATTERS AND WORDS IN THE ANNALS OF MICHAEL GLYCAS, CHIEFLY OF NOTEWORTHY THINGS.

A Aaron, died on Mount Hor, 159. Abaris, a mountain, which is also called Nebo, 157, 159; Moses died upon it, 160. Habakkuk, or Abacuc, feeds Daniel in the lions' den, 202. Abel and Cain, concerning their typology, 119. What the name Abel means, 235. Why God regarded the sacrifices of Abel, 117. Abesatomus, or Absalom, his destruction, 178. What was the cause for Absalom to plot parricide, ibid. Abisai (Ab), or Abishag, David preserved by, 279. Abraham the astronomer, 131. How he was faithful, when he said: "Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this land?" 134; how he was lesser than Melchizedek, 136. Abraham's constancy, 133. History, 131 et seq. Hospitality, 152. Meekness, 131. Obedience, ibid. From whence comes the name of Abraham, 134. Hawk, how it heals itself, 50. Acre, which was formerly called Joppa, 340. Ahab, his destruction, 189. Achar, son of Charmi, why he was stoned with his whole house, 168. Ahaz, son of Jotham, most impious, 192. Achior the Ammonite, 169. Achish the king, 176. Ahithophel's counsel, 178; his destruction, ibid. Acontias, the serpent, 58. Ada and Sillah, wives of Lamech, 122. Adam, was he created mortal and immortal at the same time? 87. Of what kind he was created by God, 85. Since he was previously immortal, how he subsequently became subject to destruction, 90 et seq. Why he was made mortal after the fall, 92. Created from other earth, placed in paradise, 67. Why God did not prevent Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge, 101. After the fall he knew Eve, and begets Cain, 110. When he was cast out of paradise, 120. In what way he was created mortal by God, 93, 94. Where he lived as an exile, and died, 120. From whence the appellation of Adam, 75. Concerning the condition of Adam, the words of the Council of Carthage, 95. Adam's body created incorruptible by God, 90. A discourse of Chrysostom concerning the exile of Adam, 91. Adam's children, 117. That Adam before the fall was free from passions, 93, 94. Why all animals were led by God to Adam, 81. Adonibezek, the punishment of the Canaanite leader, 162. Adrianople, the seat of the Turkish kingdom in Europe, 316. Hadrian the Emperor, 240. His destruction, ibid. Under Hadrian, the slaughter of the Jews, ibid. Egypt, upon the death of Alexander, to whom it fell, 202. Why the heart has no winter, 153. The plagues of Egypt, 151 et seq. In Egypt, what things were [provided] for the sake of charity in the famine, 145. Egyptians, inventors of geometry, 198. Struck by a multitude of lice, 151. The extreme superstition of the Egyptians, 50. Aelia, as Jerusalem is called, 210. For what reason, ibid. Aemilianus the Emperor, 244. Treasury's deficiency under Basil the Macedonian, 294. Aesculapius, when he lived, 163. His skill in the medical art, ibid. Summer, why the Nile overflows, 10, 16. Queen of the Ethiopians, the Sibyl, 183. How she tempted Solomon, ibid. What she gave to Solomon, 184. Air, that it is easily affected, 56. That in the sacred letters it is also called heaven, 8. Origin of natural affections, 93, 94. Agag, because he was spared, God is angry with Saul, 173. Agilei, subject to women, 113. Paschal Lamb, when it was accustomed to be slain, 228.

Agrippina, mother of Nero, killed by her tyrant son, 237. Elagabalus, see Heliogabalus. Alemana, married to Manuel Comnenus, 336. Her exceeding virtue, ibid. Alexander the Great, deceived by Candace, 141. Why Alexander is compared by Daniel to a leopard, ibid. He worships the high priest of the Jews, 142. At what age Alexander died, 141. The overthrower of the Persian kingdom, 202. Alexander's great-mindedness, 142. Chastity, ibid. Learning, ibid. Alexander's column on the island of the Brahmans, ibid. Division of the monarchy, 202. Alexander's eyes, one blue, one black, [after] his death was divided, 112. That Alexander performed a sacred rite to God in Jerusalem, 141. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, 214. Alexander, son of Mamea, Emperor, 213. Alexander the monk, concerning the baptism of Constantine, 251. A refutation of the same, ibid. Alexandria, by whom founded, ibid. The separation of Alexandria from Constantinople, 263. Alexius Branas, 310. Alexius Comnenus, emperor, 332 et seq. Sent against Bryennius, 331. He dissipates the hostile Turkish forces, 335. Uses cautery, ibid. He dies, ibid. He recalls the Manichaeans to life, 335. Concerning the mother and wife of Alexius Comnenus, 331. The disease and cure of Alexius Comnenus, 335. How Rupert the Frank was deceived by Alexius Comnenus, 333. Alexius Ducas Murzuphlus, emperor, 342. His punishments, ibid. Alexius, son of the Emperor Isaac, 342. Captured by Alexius Ducas, ibid. His destruction, ibid. Alexius, patriarch, corrupted by gifts, 314. Allelengyon, removed by Argyropulus, 312. What kind of exaction the Allelengyon is, 310. Whence it was so named, ibid. Amalthea, the goat, 147. What the horn of Amalthea is, ibid. Amalthea's horn, daughter of Job, ibid. Whence so called, ibid. Amaziah the king, 192. His destruction, ibid. Amazons, unmarried, 143. Concerning canvassing [for office], the law of Marcian, 263. Ambrose, a disciple of Origen, 242. Ambrose's frankness, 257. Ammerigus, king of the Germans, 341. His perfidy, 337. Fidelity of a friend, 278. Ammon's incest with his sister, 178. Mutual love of spouses, 82. Amosus the king, 197. Amphilochius's opinion concerning the creation of the angels, 80. Amurath, son of Mahomet, 346. His destruction, 343, 348. Anabatianus, a book of the Cainites, 120. Anacharsis, burning with the love of chastity and virtuous exercises, 251. Anastasius Sinaita's allegory, 10, 53. Opinion on the creation of the angels, 80. Passage, 15, 21, 38, 49, 74, 86, 89, 93, 94, 99, 102, 105, 166, 182, 197. Anastasius Dicorus, Emperor, 264. His dream, 263. A distinguished deed, 265. His end, 265. Anatolius's counsel, 263. A striking likeness from anatomy, 154. Anaxagoras, when he lived, 202. His ravings concerning the stars, 20. Opinion concerning the sun, 21. Anaximander's ravings concerning the nature of the stars, 20. Opinion concerning the sun, 21. Anaximenes's opinion concerning the sun, ibid. Passage of Andrew of Crete, 86. Andromachus, inventor of theriac, 59. Andronicus Comnenus first escapes from prison, 338. How he reached Galiza, ibid. The empire and wickedness of the tyrant Andronicus Comnenus, 338. Incest with Theodora, [339]. Andronicus, son of John, Palaiologos, emperor, 343, 345. Andronicus the younger, having deposed his grandfather, [becomes] emperor, 341.

1087

INDEX OF MATTERS AND WORDS

AAngels: the overseer of the life of every man, 337. The oath of the angels, 268. The change of the name of the angels in the case of Komnenos, 341. By an angel, one hundred and eighty-five thousand [were] slain in one night, 193. Angels, 76, 78. Ministers of the spirit, 137. What those ascending and descending Jacob’s ladder signify, ibid. Whether they were created before the creation of heaven and earth, or after, 110. How they are said to have eaten in the Holy Scriptures, 132. Whence the appellation of angels comes, 76, 77. The camps seen by Jacob, 138. Why the mention of the creation [of angels] is not explicit, 75, 76. Divergent opinions regarding the creation of angels, 79, 80. Whence the angels’ predictions of future events arise, 107. What the word signifies, 78. Given to us by the angels themselves, 77. What they signify in the angels, ibid. A passage of Nicephorus the Patriarch on the angels, 137. Moses buried by the angels, 158. On the angels of individuals, a passage from Basil, [ibid. reference note omitted]. The expedition of the English and French into Palestine, 311. The origin of eels, 44. Whether the soul is a participant in the divine essence, 68. One in man, endowed with diverse faculties, 69. The drier it is, the wiser it is, 74, 116. How it exists in the body, 71. The soul’s essence is incomprehensible, 72. The sudden convergence of soul and body in the maternal womb, and their sudden separation at the time of death, 73. Expert of soul, entirely dead, 72. Faculties of the soul, 70. How we attain growth, 83. Three parts, and 111 et seq. On the seat of the soul, the opinions of Aristotle and others, 71, 72. On the soul of brute animals, the error of the Manichaeans, 104. A timid soul, 37. Ephemeral animalcules, 38. Whence so called, ibid. Animals having a large heart, why they are timid: and on the contrary, why they are still unclean today, 168. How certain [animals are] unclean, though they received a common blessing with the rest at the beginning of things, 168. The keen senses of terrestrial animals, 49. None of the footless animals [are without], a certain natural prudence given by God, ibid. Brute animals do not labor under envy, 44. Whence Noah was able to discern clean animals from unclean, 126. The power of the senses in animals, 50. Why offspring in brute animals show more likeness to their parents than in humans, 56. The liberality of Anna the woman, 267. The Annals of John Skylitzes, 286. The high price of grain under Constantine Copronymus, 284. What a year is, 25. The diversity of years in numbers among the Hebrews and Greeks, 121. The calculation of the years of Paul’s preaching, 227. On the weeks of years according to Daniel, 205. That the heresy of the Anomoeans originated from Origen, 242. Watchful geese, 44. Rome saved by geese, ibid. Anthropophagi among the Indians, 143. The prodigies of the Antichrist, 156. Antigonus, after Alexander died, gained possession of Asia, 202. By whom Antioch was founded, ibid. The calamity of Antioch, 269. Why Phocas abstained from Antioch, 307. The empress’s statue thrown down by the Antiochians, 357. Antiochus Epiphanes, 202. The ruin of Antiochus Epiphanes, 202, 203. Antiochus Eupator, 203. How Antiochus the Ostiarius was circumvented, 267. Anti-pelargosis (mutual filial care), 41. Antonius Caracalla, emperor, 243. Antoninus Philosophus, emperor, 241. He sells the imperial world, ibid. The doctrine of Antoninus Philosophus, emperor, ibid. Antonius Pius, 241. Antonius, by Augustus in the naval battle defeated, 203. The error of the Appellians, 20. The worship of Apis by the Egyptians, 130. Why bees are extinguished by oil, 47. How they punish drones, 45. The republic of bees, 40, 45. The cause of the foam of boars, 63. Apochaudas defeated by Nicephorus, 304. Apollinarius, in which council was he condemned, 271. When he lived, 244. His heretical dogma, ibid. The dogma of Apollinarius, 70. The illusions of Apollonius, 239. Why the Apostles are greater than the patriarchs, 230. How many gifts of tongues they received, 226. Why they were only twelve at first, ibid. B Aspidochelone, a species of whale, 36. An image of the devil, ibid. The water of contradiction, whence the fountain was so called, 102. Why water was placed by God above the firmament, 8. Why also below, ibid. What the water and fire in the mountains of Lycia conjoined remind us of, 17. Why river water is not salty, [it is] collected, 15. How it is said in the Scriptures that [honey] is everywhere, 14. [That] the water of the flood rose fifteen cubits above the mountains themselves, 126, 127. Whence it is evident that sea water is thicker than river water, 16. On sea water, that it is potable, how it may be extracted, 9. The fountain and principle of aerial waters, the sea, 9. Whence the heat of hot springs, 6. Whence the flux and reflux in the Euripus occurs, 22. The change, the first plague of Egypt, 131, and why, ibid. That all waters originate from the sea, 16. An eagle having become a Christian, 141. He does not abandon astrology, ibid. He is circumcised, and the holy writings are tainted, ibid. An eagle provides shade for Marcianus, 262. The eagle of the augury, 294. The iniquity of the eagle toward its offspring, 41. The augury of eagles, 300. The interpretation thereof, ibid. Feather, 43. The blasphemy of the eagle and the Mani, 82. The fertility of Arabia, 77. Arbaces the Mede, the slayer of Sardanapalus, 139. Why the tree of knowledge was planted in paradise, 100. Miracles of the tree and the spring, 277, 278. Great dissension among all concerning the nature and enjoyment of the tree of knowledge, 85. Various opinions on the tree of knowledge, 98, 99. Evergreen trees, or on the contrary, deciduous, 14. Golden trees with small birds, 289. Why the leaves of trees are diverse, 12. Arbylus, king of the Assyrians, 130. Why the Ark of the Lord was captured, 172. Because of the Ark, the Philistines were evilly punished, 172. The measure of Noah’s Ark, 126, 127. To the Ark the raven returned, 127. Why seven [clean] and two [unclean] animals were received, 126, 127. Arcadius, emperor, 258. Arcadius and Honorius, sons of Theodosius by Placilla, 256. Arcadius excommunicated by the letters of Pope Innocent, 249. The reply of Arcadius to the same, ibid., 260. Absolution, ibid. Archangels, 76, 77. What the word archangels signifies, 78. Ardeola, or the heron, of what kind of bird, 44. The virtue of Argyropulus’s wife, 312. What [the] asterisks designate, 1. Arius condemned in the first Council, 270, 271. His death, 252. That the Arians derived the occasion of their heresy from Origen, 241. When Aristotle lived, 202. The opinion of Aristotle concerning the essence of heaven, 5. Passage, 29, 51, 53, 62, 116. The inventors of arithmetic, 227. Armatius, see Harmatius. Armemunes, 291. Arsenius, having fled in fear of Arcadius being punished, 256. He is recalled with a petition for forgiveness, ibid. Sent to Theodosius, ibid. Artabanes, king, 202. Artabasdus makes himself emperor, 283. His end, 280. Son-in-law of Leo, 202. Artaxerxes, king, successor of Darius, 140. Artemius, emperor, 280. Artoclines killed by his wife, 318. King Asa, in what he sinned, 187. His piety, ibid. The Ascetica of Basil, 91, 168. Why the donkey is timid, 54. The donkey’s keen hearing, 49. Astarte, the idol of the Sidonians, 189. The same as Venus, 181. Asmodeus, a wicked genius, 170. Lover of Sarah, ibid. Three species of vipers, 58. Whence the Assyrians were called Persians, 140. The prediction of a certain astrologer, 261, 299. Astrologer, 279. Proscribed from Italy, 238. Refuted, 26, 27 et seq. The inventors of astronomy, 127. Asua, daughter of Adam, wed to Seth, 117. Athanasius driven from his throne by the Arians, 250. His exiles, ibid. Passage, 89, 91, 97, 119, 122, 207, 208, ibid. Athenais, later called Eudocia, sets out for Constantinople, 261. She marries Theodosius, the calligrapher emperor, ibid. The Catalans gained possession of Athens and Thebes, 344. The defeat of the Athenian general, ibid. Athenodorus, the restrainer of the lusts of Augustine, 206.

1089

A The same's final precept given to Augustus, 206. Atlas mountain, 14. Atlantic sea, whence so named, ibid. Ink, which fish possess it, 37. Augustus Caesar, victor over Cleopatra, 58. Christ born in the forty-second year of Augustus, 207. Duration of his empire, 205. How anger is chastised, 206. Lusts restrained, ibid. Words of the dying, ibid. Whence the name, 205. Affection of subjects toward Augustus, 206. Nicopolis built by Augustus, 205. Peace under Augustus, ibid. Month of August, whence named, ibid. Singing golden birds, 192. Birds that lack breath and bladders, 48. Origin of birds, 44. What is to be wondered at in birds, 196. Aurelian the emperor, 244. Silver flooded under him, 245. Why the passages of the ears are fashioned winding like a snail shell, 31. Auses, previously called Joshua, 159. Azura, daughter of Adam, married to Cain, 117.

B Baal, idol of the Assyrians, 189. Baalim, shrine of Baal, ibid. Babylonians, the first inventors of astronomy through Zoroaster, 129. Bajazet, emperor of the Turks, 345, 1, 2. Bohemond, who is also Raymond, his craftiness, 334. Balbinus and Maximus, emperors, 243. Whales, a species of sea monster, 36. How they are called "great" in Scripture, 22. Baldwin, Emperor of Flanders, 342. Captured by the Vlachs, ibid. Belshazzar the king, 200. Baanah and Rechab, assassins of Ish-bosheth, punished with death by David, 177. Barak, a judge of Israel, 165. Valor even in barbarians themselves, 234. Barbarossa. See Frederick Barbarossa. Bardanes, pretender to the empire, 286. Bardas, killed by his nephew by chance, 205. Brother of the patriarch Xiphilinus, 326. The slaughter of Bardas, 293. His wicked deeds, 292. His dream, 293. The ends of Bardas and Photius, 293. Barlaam’s passage, 88. Seditious uprising of Basilacius, 331. Council of Basel, celebrated by the Germans against Pope Eugenius, 346, 2. Basil, adopted by Michael the Drunkard, 293. Basil the Macedonian, emperor, 204. He perishes nearly in a hunt, 297. Ingratitude of Basil the Macedonian, 291. His justice, 297. Liberality, 298. Death, 306. Frugality, 291. How the kingdom was signified to Basil the Macedonian, 294. Cisterns cleansed by Basil the Macedonian, 296. Temples built by Basil the Macedonian, ibid. Basil, son of Romanos, emperor, 109. Wars of Basil with the Bulgarians, 310. Triumphs, 311. Basil, pontiff of Caesarea, 303. Concerning the aquatic sea urchin, 303, 34. Basil’s opinion on the creation of angels, 80. Passage of Basil, 18, 19, 21, 25, 34, 39, 42, 51, 58, 70, 71, 74, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 88, 93, 94, 101, 105, 108, 112, 114, 120, 151, 155, 157, 168, 195, 207, 222, 251. Basil and Constantine, sons of Romanos, emperors, 305. Basilius, bishop of Amasea, killed by Licinius, 250. Basiliscus the emperor, 264. His death, ibid. What kind of animal the basilisk is, 57, 58. That the basilisk also harms the ears of those who hear its hiss, 58. That it kills by a mere look, 57. That an envious eye differs nothing from a basilisk, ibid. Root of the bryony, 278. Its use, ibid. Eyes of Batatzes gouged out, 320. How Beccus became patriarch, 345. Belisarius sets out against the Vandals, 266. Loved by all, ibid. He is cast into prison, 267. Deeds of Belisarius, 266. War with the Genoese, 346. Cause of the devil’s war with men, 106. When Daniel abolished the mud, 202. What to pray well means, 188. Commendation of beneficence, 171. Reward for kindness to the needy, 137. Concerning Bathsheba, why the first son of David died, 179. Bessarion and Isidorus, Greek cardinals, 347, 1. Eulogy of Bessarion, ibid. Tame beasts (ἡμερα ζῶα), 19, 20. Castle of Vodena, 309. Heresy of the Bogomils, 334. Boilus Romanus, raised to a high rank of dignity, 320. Whence the goodness of the Lord is manifest, 96. Botaniates. See Nicephorus Botaniates. Unlucky excavation of an ox's head, 304. Pestilence of oxen, 304.

B Brahmans, cultivators of virtue, 234. Abstinence of the Brahmans, 142. Their island, ibid. In that same island, the column of Alexander, ibid. Dragons, scorpions, and giant ants among the Brahmans, 143. Those fish that lack gills, 38. What the bregma (crown of the head) is, 115. Confused lust of the Britons, 143. What a bruchus (locust) is, 133. That certain brute animals provide for themselves in various ways, 65. The distinction between the cunning of brutes and human prudence, 65. Bryennius blinded, 331. Movements of Bryennius, 330. Equity of Botaniates toward Bryennius, ibid. Defection of the Bulgarians, 309. Fifteen thousand blinded, and by whom, 310. End of the Bulgarian kingdom, 311. When and by whom Byzantium, or Constantinople, was founded, 198. Siege of Byzantium, 342. A three-year siege, 249. A ten-year siege, 345. How it was finally abandoned, 235. In what year the renovations were celebrated, 249. Heraclea preferred to Byzantium, 249.

C Caballa region, 284. What the jar of oil in the history of Elijah means, 191. Slaughter of citizens in Thessalonica, 257. Certain just slaughters, 178. Caesarius, brother of Gregory of Nazianzus, 80. Caesarius’s opinion on the creation of angels, ibid. Passage of Caesarius, 143. Chaganus. See Chaganus. What the sect of the Cainites is, 120. Age of Cain, 121. Cainan, the first to include astronomy in his books, 129. Why Cain envied Abel, 117. Why he was not punished immediately, 122. Why he did not die at once, 118. Cain and Abel, figures of whom, 119. Whence Cain understood that God did not respect his offerings, 118. Whence he received the method of killing his brother, 119. What the word "Cain" signifies, 235. What the confession of Cain was like, 123. Comparison with Lamech, 122. Posterity of Cain, ibid. Why the years of his descendants are not recorded, 119. Azura married to Cain, 117. What mark was added, 119. That Cain sinned more gravely than Adam, 119. What induced Cain to offer sacrifice to God, 118. Gaius Caligula Caesar, 234. Duration of his reign, ibid. Death of the tyrant, ibid. His extravagance and rapacity, ibid. Gaius, an ecclesiastical writer, 235. What darkness (caligo) is, 106. Calligraphy of Theodosius, 262. Patriarch Callinicus proscribed, 279. Cause of fear being lack of heat, 62. What the place of Calvary is, 121, 1. Cambyses, by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, son of Cyrus, 202. His reign, ibid. A camel that cures itself, 49. A camel’s desire for revenge, ibid. Why a camel has a long neck, 52. Canaan. See Chanaan. Giraffe (camelopardalis), 61. Concerning the crab and the oyster, 35. Crab as an antidote for deer against venom, 55. Candace married to Alexander, 141. Alexander outwitted by Candace, ibid. Property of the dog star, 56. Dog, a grateful and faithful animal, 50. How it purges black bile, ibid. The dog of Simon Magus, 234. Fidelity of a dog, 285. Nature of the sea dog, 35. Hydrophobia from the bite of a rabid dog, 63. A memorable example concerning a dog, 51. Dogs alone are rabid in the summer time, 65. Dogs often eat grass for the sake of medicine, 84. Why a man has several sutures in his head, 115. Whence the Capitol was named, 141. Nature of the wild goat, 64. What the cause of the Egyptian captivity was, 145. Prisons changed, 252. Greek cardinals, 347, 1. What "flesh" (caro) is in Scripture, 124. Eating of meat allowed after the flood, 85. If there was no use for it before the flood, why then was Abel a shepherd? ibid. That meat tied to a fig tree softens, 13. King Charles of Naples, 343. How he was repressed by Palaiologos, ibid. 543.

1091

343. Carns and Carinus, emperors, 245. Cassia, daughter of Job, 147; whence so named, ibid. Cassia’s response to Theophilus the emperor, 288. Chastity: without it no one shall see God, 324. Catalans: their political activity in Thebes and Athens, 314; deeds of the Catalans in Asia and Greece, 343, 1; their stratagem, ibid. Catherine, wife of Isaac Comnenus, 321, 1. Caucasus, a mountain, 16. Caucus: what it is, 275. Cephalus, a fish, its salacity, 55. Cephissus, a river, 344. Ceratium: how many coins it contains, 286. Cercopis: its nature, 46. Cerebrum: an instrument of the mind, 114; with what perverse humors it is said to be filled, ibid.; the amplitude of the cerebrum in man, and to what purpose it serves, 115; the ventricles, 116; why dry cerebra are superior, ibid. Deer: how the fetuses of hinds are not injured in running, 55; of the hind, an elegant image, ibid.; why the stag sheds its antlers, 54; why it is timid, 55; an image of a good man, 54; one who heals his own wounds, 49; that the stag hides itself after losing its antlers, and why, ibid.; that serpents are devoured by deer, 55. Cetacean (Cetus) captured, which was called Porphyrius, 270; species of the cetacean called Prion, 36; also the Aspidochelone, ibid.; also the seal, whales, etc., ibid.; why cetaceans are called huge, ibid.; how the greatest of them are spoken of in Scripture, 22; the habitat of cetaceans, 35. Ceyx: that this bird lays only one egg because of cold, 46. Chaganus, prince of the Chazars, 279. Chaldeans: incest among them, 143. Chalebo: giants slaughtered by him, 162. Chameleon: an image of the devil, 62; on the chameleon, ibid. Canaanites: the tyrannical invasion of strange lands, 129. Charadrius: why it closes its eyes when it sees someone suffering from the king’s disease (jaundice), 43. Charmione, 59. Chelidonium, 41. Chersonites: the cruelty of Justinian Rhinotmetus toward them, 391. Cherub: 76, 77; what the name of the Cherubim signifies, ibid. Chorda of the lupine, 62. Chosroes, king of the Persians, 275; the Persian wars of Chosroes, 276. Christ: the power of God, 207; the power of the Father, 221; why He placed His soul in the hands of the Father, ibid.; why He spent forty days on earth, no more or less, after the resurrection, 224; why He chose poor and unlearned disciples, 213; why He rose again within the third day, 223; why He did not ascend into heaven immediately after the resurrection, 224; when He first became known, 212; wherefore He descended into hell, 221; in what year of the world He was born, ibid.; on Christ’s descent into hell, 221; a brilliant comparison of Christ to the pelican, 45; Abel as a figure of Christ and of those who trust in Christ, 233; Christ incorruptible, 90; that He rose from the sepulcher naked, ibid.; the image of Christ sent to Abgar by Thaddaeus, 281; image of the sun, 24; in what year of Augustus His nativity occurred, 207; the new pasch of Christ, 213; when the passion occurred, 227; apparitions after the resurrection, 224; the hour of Christ’s passion uncertain, 223; why the burial covered three days, ibid.; the statue placed at Caesarea Philippi, 253; on the transfiguration of Christ, 214; six sacred feasts of Christ, 269; that He anticipated the day of sacrificing the paschal lamb of Christ, 217; why the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ, 212; that Christ was not in two places at the same time before the passion, 215; that He used leavened bread at the supper, 217, 219; that He partook of it Himself, 215; which three women poured ointment, 214; why the dead rose again when Christ was dying, 220. Christians: the first persecutor Nero, 235; that Christians are falsely called unclean by the Jews, 167, 168. Chronography: from whence the beginning is to be taken, 120. Chronographers: who they were, 245, 246. Chrysostom, patriarch, 258; attacked by certain calumnies, 68; contentions of Chrysostom with Eudoxia, 258; oration on the exile of Adam, 91; on the opinion of the Magi, 209; the discrepant opinions of Chrysostom and Epiphanius the presbyter regarding John the Theologian, 212, 213; the exiles of Chrysostom, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 102, 109, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123, 124, 131, 135, 157, 189, 209, 210, 212, 214, 219, 220, 223, 225, 226, 229, 236, 283; what was objected against Chrysostom, 258; defense of Isidore, ibid.; Epiphanius alienated from Chrysostom, 258.

Food of man before the fall, what it was, 99; what the food of paradise was, 98. Cicada: ἄτρωτοι (invulnerable), 38; cold, 43; why they begin their song at the middle of summer, ibid. Storks: their piety, 41. Hemlock: its use, 12; that starlings eat hemlock, ibid. Circus: the equestrian circus began to be built by the emperor Severus, 241; adorned by Constantine the Great, 252. Cisterns: cleansed by Basil, 296. Slaughter of citizens, 267. Roman slaughter and the Servian sedition, 319. Claudius Caesar, 235, 244; his fearfulness, ibid.; the duration of his reign, ibid.; ancestor of Constantine the Great, ibid. Κληδονίζεσθαι (to divine by omens): what it is, 195. Κληδών (an omen): what it is, ibid. Clement Stromateus: when he lived, 241; a passage from him, 228. Cleopatra: on her death, 38. Clerics: why they are called priests of the new covenant, 139. Clopias, a fish, 46. With rennet (coagulum), sharp and vehement pains are calmed, 12. Heaven: what it is properly, 8; that other things come under the name of heaven, ibid.; on the essence of heaven, various opinions, 5; the image of heaven, the old temple, 181, 182; that the name of heaven is also attributed to the firmament created from the waters, 8; why earth was created by God later than heaven, 23; the three heavens, 8. Supper: that Christ instituted it to console the disciples, 219. On knowledge (cognitionis): from the tree, various opinions, 98, 99. Colossians: whence so named, 202. Colossus: a statue, ibid. Comet: 251; whence so named, 30; a comet under Constans, 277; what it portended, ibid.; under Constantine the Duke, 318; under Zimiskes, 308; whether comets are stars, 29; what they portend, ibid.; the rising of comets, ibid. Commodus, emperor, 241; how he became effeminate, ibid. Council of Basel, 347; Nicaea, 250; celebrated under Justinian, 270; Sardica, 350; words of the Council of Carthage concerning the condition of Adam, 95; councils, at what times and places they were celebrated, 270, 271. Confession: what kind is required of us, 122. Confirmation: the custom of the ancients, 225. Marriage: that it does not hinder the cultivation of piety and virtue, 168. Mutual love of spouses, 82. Conradin, the Swabian, put to death, 343. Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, an illustrious man, 340; expedition of Conrad Caesar to Palestine, 337; his victory over the Turks, ibid. Constans, emperor, 276; hateful to his own, 277. Constans, father of Constantine the Great, a religious prince, 245. Constans and Galerius, emperors, 245. Constans and Licinius, Caesars, 230. Death of Constans, 278; his piety, ibid.; dream, 250. Constantine Barbatus, emperor, 278; whence so called, ibid.; his end, ibid. Constantine Copronymus, emperor, 283; what he thought about the saints and their invocation, ibid.; his cruelty and tyranny, ibid.; death of Constantine Copronymus, 281; what occurred under Constantine Copronymus, ibid. Constantine, Duke, emperor, 324; children of Constantine the Duke, 326; his studies, of little use, 325; avarice, ibid.; pious deed, ibid. Constantine and Basil, Roman Emperors, 305, 311. Constantine, son of Heraclius, emperor, 277. Constantine, son of Leo, emperor, 285; some of his vices, ibid.; he recovers the empire, 302; restores letters, ibid. Constantine Palaiologus, the last emperor of Byzantium, 348. Constantine, an illustrious patriarch, 323. Constantine Silvanus, a heretic, 278. The column of Constantine struck by lightning, 332. Constantine the Great baptized by Silvester, 231; and that at Rome, ibid.; he is baptized, 248; followed the party of the Arians, 250; Alexander the Monk on the baptism of Constantine the Great, 251; a refutation of the same, ibid.; the war of Constantine the Great with Maxentius, 217; empire, ibid.; his fall, ibid.; children, 248; death, 251; moderation, 231; dream, 218; plots against Constantine detected, 321.

1093

A Constantinopolis, or Byzantium, when and by whom it was founded, 198. In what year and day it was captured by Mohammed II, the same having survived all destructions, 318. Its beginning, 248. Its recovery, 343. How Constantine adorned Constantinople, 252. The Roman patricians transferred to Constantinople, 249. By what art this was achieved, ibid. The separation of Alexandria from Constantinople, 263. The beginning and end of the Constantinopolitan empire, 348. Constantius, emperor, 252. From where man discovered the art of sewing, 109. Custom (from) nature, 66. The administration of the consuls, 201. The inventor of the conversion of years, Seth, 121. Abusive speech against God, to say that all things are subject to the fate of the stars, 26, 27. The origin of the name Copronymus, 281. Why animals with large hearts are timid, and conversely, 57. The knowledge of hearts is peculiar to God alone, 114. The crow, a lover of its offspring, 42. Crows as companions of storks, ibid. A passage of Basil on crows, ibid. What the horn of Amalthea is, 147. That deer horns repel snakes, 47. As body and soul suddenly come together in the maternal womb, so are they suddenly separated from one another, 73. What the growth of the body is, 83. That men admire the stature of the body, not virtue, 177. How the soul exists in the body, 69. The reason for the diversity of temperaments in bodies, 73, 74. Whether the crow sent out by Noah returned to the ark, 127. The greed of crows, 45. Their disease, 45. Patriarch Cosmas abdicates, 332. Cosroes the Persian. See Chosroes. The crab as a plague of cattle, 304. Crales killed by his own men, 314. The majesty and greatness of the Creator described by no bounds, 5. The rebellion of Crete, 333. What a crocodile is, 273. The hidrys, enemy of the crocodile, ibid. How it kills him, 274. Disaster received from crocodiles, 273. The disaster of Croesus crossing the river Halys, 140. Cronus, or Saturn, his origin, 129. The Cross discovered on earth under Constantine, 253. Revealed under Constantius, ibid. The adoration of the Cross confirmed at the Seventh Council, 272. What a cubit is, 127. Chrysostom deported to Cucusus for the sake of exile, 259. Why the gnat is a most troublesome animal, 151. The production of gnats born from dust, a third plague of Egypt, 152. Impossible for the Egyptian sorcerers, ibid. Cazina Mountain, 312. How the swan looks out for itself, 50. Cyprus occupied by the English and given to another, 341. The rebellion of Cyprus, 333. Cyril condemned, 261. Cyril’s letter to Constantius: you are a spiritual book, 159. A discourse on the creation of man, 88. A disquisition on Job, 146. A passage on the time of pollution for women in childbirth, 211. Cyril’s *Glaphyra*, 119. A passage of Cyril, 24, 69, 78, 82, 88, 110, 116, 118, 119, 123, 124, 126, 130, 132, 137, 146, 184, 199, 210, 218, 233. Cyril’s book *Thesaurus*, 78. The kingdom of Cyrus, 201. Victory over Croesus, 140.

D Dagon dashed to the ground and prostrated before the ark, 172. Samson captivated by the love of the Philistine Dalilah, 164. Damascene’s opinion on the creation of angels, 111. A passage of Damascene, 15, 16, 24, 65, 66, 71, 78, 80, 81, 82, 93, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 107, 221. Damatyri Mountains, 280. Dandulus, Duke of the Venetians, 312. Daniel escapes unharmed from the lions’ den, 201. In high esteem with Darius, ibid. When he abolished Bel, 261. Daniel the Stylite, 261. The power and skill of Daniel the prophet in prophesying, 201. His vision, ibid. Daniel compares Alexander to a panther, 142. Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, 253. Darius, son of Hystaspes, king, 202. Darius the Mede, son of Astyages, 201. Darius, successor to Cyrus, 110. Darius, the last king, 201.

B David saved by Abishai, 179. Created armor-bearer to Saul, 173. Overthroweth Goliath with a sling-shot, ibid. Anointed king, 178. David’s adultery and murder, 178. Why the first son died, 279. David’s five noble soldiers, 177. His reign, 180. David’s flight because of Absalom’s rebellion, 177, 178. That David handed down to Solomon the pattern for building the temple, 179. Peculiar narratives about David, 180. On the continuation of the Davidic line, a passage of Cyril, 199. The virtue of Deborah, 163. Decius, emperor, 244. Dolphins, a species of whale, 36. Demetrius, brother of Constantine Palaiologos, 316. The ravings of Democritus about the nature of the stars, 20. The number ten, a perfect number, 150, 156. Denderis the fool, 289. Why God regarded Abel’s sacrifices and turned away from Cain’s, 117. Why He created man from the very beginning as king of earthly things and immortal, 89. Why He subjected the Jews to the Romans, 222. Why He awaited the repentance of Manasseh, but not that of Amos, his son, 197. Why He did not also deem terrestrial animals, like fish, worthy of a favorable blessing, 48. Why He did not prevent man from eating of the tree of knowledge, 101. Why He willed the history of the destruction of Jerusalem to be written by Josephus, 238. God is not the creator of death, 85, 86. God, at the request of the Hebrews for a king to be given, was gravely offended, 173. Whence this was evident, ibid. Where God is, how He does not lack a place, 91. Where He wills, the order of nature is overcome, 3. God the avenger of the Gibeonites, 179. God’s care and providence, 51. What divinity is, 221. He is everywhere, ibid. That a certain notion of God is perceived from His works themselves, 131. That all works exceed the laws of nature and every series of art, 3. God’s providence in the formation of man, 114, 115. His tolerance, 125. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, 190. What is pleasing to God, 174. That the knowledge of future things together with the knowledge of hearts is peculiar to God alone, 107. That God lowers Himself to our capacity, 68. That He does not neglect those suffering injuries, 165. That He vindicates those justly suffering injury by His judgment, 179. That although long-suffering, He yet eventually punishes, ibid. That He is not the author of evil, 106. That sometimes He cuts off the promised life when we are not looking, and vice versa. C The Devil. See Genius. The Devil good from the beginning, 106. The image of the Devil is the Aspidochelone, 36. Also the chameleon, 62. Also the ant-lion, 53. The wiles of the Devil, 39, 108, 196. Through the envy of the Devil death entered the world, 96. He circumscribed man, ibid. The fall of the Devil, 106. A passage of Basil on the punishments of the Devil, 105. The illusions of the Devil, 60. Why God granted the Devil the assault on the human race, 105. No repentance granted to him, ibid., and why, ibid. and 106. That the Devil knows how to minimize trifling faults, 53. The cause of war between devils and men, 107. From where shooting stars arise, 30. Dies, daughter of Job, 147. Whence so called, ibid. What a day is, 19. For what are day and night useful to men, 19. Whether the Evangelist may be called a Day, 217. How many hours the day had under Hezekiah, 191. Under Joshua, twenty-four, ibid. One day, instead of the first, 4. How the sun has authority over the day, 19. Night followed the day in creation, 32. Why all things were not created in one day, 1, 2. Days and the British "Doctes," 32. Of what the vicissitudes of days and nights in this life should remind us, 20. The calculation of the days of Christ’s burial, 123 et seq. The Flood under Argyropulus, 312. That the water of the Flood rose to fifteen cubits above the very mountains, 126, 127. The causes of the Flood, 124. After the Flood, the eating of flesh was granted, 85. Of what we are reminded by the Flood, 125. A passage of Josephus on the Flood, 123. The violation of Dinah, 145. Diocletian and Maximian, emperors, 245. Why they abdicated the empire, ibid. Diodorus’s opinion on the creation of angels, 80. Diogenes the Cynic, 112. When he lived, 202. His ravings about the nature of the stars, 20. Emperor Diogenes, having fought excellently, is captured, 329. His eyes put out, he ends his life miserably on the island of Prote, ibid. Diogenes’s wars against the Turks, 327. The conversation of Diogenes and the Sultan, 328. The Turks avenge the death of Diogenes, 329. The cruelty of his own men toward Diogenes, 328. Dionysius the Areopagite, 197. On the darkness existing while Christ was suffering, 219. A passage of Dionysius the Areopagite on the nine orders, 76 et seq.

1095

Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, 255. Martyr under Antoninus Pius, 211. Dioscorides, his narrative concerning Stratonicus, 56. Dioscorus and Eutyches, heretics, 263. Dipsas, the serpent, 58. Discipline, military, neglect of, 325. Disciples, why Christ chose them poor and unlearned, 312. Divinations (against), 195. A passage of Basil concerning various divinations, ibid. Divinity, the nature of, is indivisible, 225. Divite (concerning a certain), a whoremonger, 281. Docea, a castle, 328. Doeg the Syrian, by his works the priests were slain, 177. Dolores (pains), sharp and vehement, by what means they are soothed, 12. Dominatus (rule), 76, 78. What the designation of "dominatus" denotes, 78. Dominus (the Lord), His goodness, in what it is conspicuous, 89. Domitian, Emperor, 239. He orders an astrologer to his wife, ibid. Dissimilarity between the brothers Domitian and Titus, 239. The end of Domitian, ibid. John was relegated to Patmos by Domitian, ibid. Donec (concerning the word), a passage of Basil, 207. Dragons, among the Brahmins are very large, 145. Fabled, 60. The nature of dragons, ibid. On dragons, ibid.

E Church, its image is the moon, 24. Echeneis, the fish, 36. Echinus (sea urchin) of the water, an indicator of a storm, 34. The skill of the land urchin, 50, 65. On the sea urchin, a passage of Basil, 34. Eclipse of the sun. See Solar Eclipse. Ecnephias, a wind, 7. Ekpyronismos (conflagration), what? 31. Edem (Eden), what the word signifies, 67, 98. Electrum, what it is, 15. Its origin, ibid. Elements, when they were created, 5. Elephants, offspring of only one, 53. Why their feet lack joints, 52. Proboscis, ibid. Life, ibid. That a mouse is a terror to the elephant, 52. That a fallen elephant cannot rise, 53. That they fear their own shadow, 52. In the elephant, anger is long-lasting, 49. What excites procreation, 52, 53. Why elephants carry the fetus for two years, 51. How they cross rivers, 52. Eleutheropolis, the fountain of jaws, 161. Elias, the prophet, 188 et seq. Prince of prophets, 190. Elias and Samson, why they were violators of the law, 167, 191. The liberty of the mouth of Elias, 191. Persecutions, ibid. Eli the priest, his history, 172. His death, ibid. Sins of his sons, ibid. Hellebore, its use, 12. That turtledoves feed on hellebore, ibid. Empedocles, when he lived, 202. Enaq, the sons of, 162. Enaqim, the family of, 159. Encænia (dedication festival) of Constantinople, 249. Engastrimythi (ventriloquists), what they are called, 176. Enoch, born at 165 years of age, was taken up by God, 121. And why, ibid., 122. Parent of Methuselah, 121. What the translation of Enoch teaches us, 89. On Enoch, a passage of Athanasius, 122. Enosh, his age, 121. Epærastus, converted by Paul, 236. Cupbearer and concubine to Nero, ibid., 237. Ephræmus, what it signifies, 145. A passage of Ephræmus, 124, 125. Ephræma, a town, 214. Epiphanius, alienated from Chrysostom, 238. Presbyter, not bishop, 213. Response of Epiphanius to the slander of Eudoxia, 138. Opinion concerning the magi, 209. Passage of Epiphanius, 120, 128, 146, 158, 198, 200, 221. Discrepant opinions of Epiphanius the presbyter and Chrysostom concerning John the Theologian, 213. Bishop, made from an emperor, 331. Horses, the cause of their foam, 63. Hedgehogs, their coitus, 50. Erodius, or the heron, what kind of bird, 44. Its modesty, ibid. Eroticus, the sedition of, 319. Esaias, sawn asunder by a wooden saw, 197. Esdras, 182. Keeper of the sacred books, 199. By his writings, he embraced the return of the Jews from Persia, 198. The deeds of Esdras, 199. Esther, the history of, 169, 170. Etesian winds, 7. When they exist and whence they arise, ibid.

Eve, why she is called the helper of Adam, 82. Evangelists, the discrepant passages concerning the cock's crowing reconciled, 216. Eudocia, Empress, previously called Athenais, 161. She rules with her son, 326. Why she valued Paulinus greatly, 261. The cunning counsel of Eudocia, 126. Occasion of the discord between Eudocia and Theodosius, 261. Eudoxia, slander of, 238. Response of Epiphanius to her, ibid. Contention of Chrysostom with Eudoxia, 238. Eugenius IV, Roman pontiff, an embassy from Emperor John, 346. Eulogius, conquered by Spyridon, 250. Euripides, when he lived, 202. Euripus, the flow and reflux of the waters in it, whence it happens, 22. History of Eusebius Pamphili, 227. Passage, 182. Eustathius Camyzizes, captured, 333. Eustathius of Antioch, opinion concerning the hours of the day under Hezekiah, 194. Eutelida, a passage of Plutarch, 58. Euthymius, patriarch, 299. Eutocius, what kind of stone, 45. Eutyches and Dioscorus, heretics, 263. Their heresy, 251. Condemned in the 4th Council, ibid. Eutychius, the patriarch, relegation of, 272. Euxine, why fish seek it in shoals, 31. Exactions, new, 333. Excommunicated person becomes a martyr, 283. Example, illustrious, 100. Hezekiah. See Jezechias. Hezekiah, the purifier of the Psalms of David, 183. The piety of Hezekiah, ibid. Ezekiel. See Jezechiel.

F Famine under Valerian, very great, 214. A huge plague followed this, ibid. Fastening of bandages and lines, the custom whence, 290. Fate, what it is, 114. Refuted, 27 et seq. Fausta, wife of Constantine, death, 248. Faustulus, educator of Romulus, 140. Cats, why they see more keenly at night, 61. Felix, Duke of Savoy, created supreme pontiff by the Germans, 346. Female, for those giving birth, how much time of pollution is prescribed in the law, 211. And the reason, ibid. Femina (For a barren woman), a remedy, 53. The Agitæi subject to women, 143. Wild beasts in Libya, monstrous ones whence, 61. That we fear wild beasts, of what it should warn us, 80. Feasts sacred to Christ, six, 269. Beavers, their nature, 55. Fig tree, full of sap, 13. That meats tied to a fig tree become tender, ibid. Bulls are tamed, ibid. How figs become sweet, 13. Son, who plotted against the life of his father, 303. Expedition of a son against his father, 315. Sons for their nephews, 195. Punishments of rebellious sons, 345. Firmament, established from the waters, the name of heaven is also attributed to it, 8. Why water was placed by God above the firmament, 8. Why likewise below, ibid. Flagellum (whip), the signification of, 216. Flavianus, prelate of Constantinople, 263. In the "robber" synod, punished with blows, he died from the injury, ibid. River, flowing from paradise, divided into four fountains, 75. Why the four rivers flowing from one fountain of paradise did not have one water and quality, ibid. Leaves of trees, why diverse, 12. Fig leaves, why the first parents sewed them for themselves, 109. Fountain and tree, miracles of, 278. Longevity of fountains, whence, 16. Whence their diverse flavor, 16. Ant, that it guards itself against barley, 62. Ants among the Brahmins are very large, 145. Why they are extinguished by oil, 47. Fear, the cause of which is coldness, 46. That from fear the vital faculty undergoes contraction, 162. Fortune, he who does not weigh and revere the unforeseen accidents of, is foolish, 328. Fragrance, how it may be increased, 13. Franks and English, expedition into Palestine, 341. Expedition of the Franks or Teutons into Palestine, 333. Frederick Barbarossa, his expedition into Palestine, 341. Death, and his eulogy, ibid. Machinations of Manuel Comnenus against Frederick Barbarossa, 337, 338. Turks slain by Frederick Barbarossa, 340. Drones, how bees punish them, 45. Lightning, why it does not burn, 30. Why thunder is perceived first, 31. Thunderbolt, double, 31.

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is sunk by the shot of a larger cannon because it omitted the military salute; after fourteen days of captivity, the captain is impaled by order of the sultan, having summoned to the palace a scribe, the son of Dominici Maistri; the sailors, with the exception of a few who were sent to Constantinople, were sawn through the middle of their bodies. There are some who say the cause was a war against the Venetians, Fabr. Cornerum having returned to Constantinople with the business unfinished. 1453. From this point Barbaro narrates certain matters outside the order of time. In the month of January 1453, the sultan brings a great force of infantry and navy against the city. In the month of February, he brings cannons near the city, with a cohort of ten thousand men attending. In the same month, Greeks enter Turkey with three ships and sell captives in Constantinople, inciting the sultan’s wrath. 1452. Mention of two Venetian triremes under the command of Gabriele Trevisano having arrived at Constantinople, which by order of the Venetian senate were accompanying three merchant ships that had set out from the Sea of Azov. Also, a Genoese ship sent by the Pope is mentioned, carrying Cardinal Isidore (el gardenal de Rosia) to reconcile both Churches, attended by 200 archers who would defend the beleaguered city; likewise, eight ships with supplies were present from Crete. Nov. 10. Two large ships coming from the Tauric Chersonese under the command of Hieronymo Morosino (Jeroluemo Norexini), though commanded by the Turks from the castle to drop anchor, barely obeyed and yet escaped death. When Barbaro had related these things, he proceeds at once in chronological order as before. Dec. 2. Soldiers of the Turkish castle garrison mistreat a Venetian trireme under the command of Jac. Coco, coming from Trebizond (Trabexonda); yet it arrived in Constantinople unharmed. 1452. Dec. 12 and 13. The union of both Churches is solemnly confirmed in the church of St. Sophia. The emperor, the cardinal of the Russians, the bishop of Mitylene (Leonardus Chiensis), and the Greek barons deliberate in the same church on the necessity of retaining the Venetian ships for the aid of the city. C Dec. 14. There follows whatever was deliberated by viva voce and in writing between the cardinal, the bishop of Mitylene, the Greek magistrates, the Venetian bailo, the ship-masters, and 21 most respected Venetians in the city of Constantinople, and a decree was added that the aforementioned triremes should not leave Byzantium. (Cf. Phrantz. 238.) Dec. 17-20. Twelve men of the Venetian nobility, after mature deliberation, determine by what plan and manner the newly-made decrees are to be deferred to the Venetian senate. 1453. Jan. 26. The Venetians make an agreement with the emperor on the condition that their ships should not desert the city without his permission, and that the opportunity to load and unload them should always be available. On the same day, Justinianus, having set out from Genoa with two ships and 700 auxiliary soldiers, came to Constantinople and was declared by the emperor as the commander of the infantry forces and prefect of the western part of the city besieged by the sultanic army. 1070 A Feb. 26. One of the Venetian ships, which by force of the pact ought not to have left, commanded by P. Davanzo with 6 merchant ships, escaped from the harbor aided by a favorable wind. March 14. The emperor, soliciting this, hands over the rowers of the Tanaan triremes to be used for the fortification of the sites and for surrounding the palace near the Cynegetic gate. March 31. Furthermore, on that same day of Holy Saturday, which indeed corresponds with May 29, which was a Tuesday, the rowers, by order of Diedo, the ship’s captain, make trenches before the emperor and the magnates. April 2. Barthol. Soligus, thus commanded by the emperor, shuts the mouth of the harbor between Constantinople and Pera with that famous iron chain (which is exactly described). The emperor, at the request of four Venetian nobles, hands over the guard of the four primary gates of the city toward the land: the Gate of St. Romanus (what is named Pylai) to Catarino Contarino; the second to Fabr. Cornaro; the third, which is named the Gate of the Pigai, to Nic. Mozenigo; and finally the Blachernae gate to Dolphino. There follow the names of 68 Venetian nobles who were present in the besieged city, among whom the author of the Ephemerides is named as a physician of the Tanaan ships. April 5. Sultan Mahomet pitches camp with 160,000 soldiers about 2 Italian miles from the city. April 6. From here he proceeds to one mile from the walls facing the sea, and a little later he places his camp in the western region of the city, from the Golden Gate as far as the Cynegetic gate for 6 Italian miles. On the same day, we are told that the emperor with many nobles and knights occupied their places at the Golden Gate; but the bailo Minotto, with very many Venetian merchants, in the imperial palace. We read further that the Grand Duke, holding the position second to the emperor, was in charge of the harbor, where 100 horses were kept ready for him; that the guard of the maritime walls was committed to the monks under the command of Manuel Giagaro (whom the Greeks call Iagari) and Neophytus of Rhodes; that finally, another region of the city was handed over to be guarded by Dorgano (who is without doubt the same as Prince Orchan) and a cohort of Turkish mercenaries who had defected from the sultan: all of which, just as other things we have now related, we dispense with comparing and discussing with the report of Phrantzes. On the same day, the emperor ordered the sailors, who were acting in a line, to lead the three aforementioned Tanaan triremes of the Venetians, as well as two others which Trevisanus commanded, so that he might add spirit to the inhabitants of the city and strike fear into the enemies. April 9. A council having been convened, they deliberate about using the fleet well and usefully. Then nine or ten larger ships, together with their commanders, are named (5 Genoese, 3 Cretan, 1 Anconitan, 1 imperial)—all of which, destined for the future battle, encircle the great harbor chain, while 17 others are reserved in the upper region of the harbor; among them, 3 Tanaan triremes together with two others of the Venetians consecrated to the common security, and 2 imperial ships stripped of their masts and arms, are catalogued.

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April 14. Satan places his siege engines against the walls of the city in fourteen places (cf. Phrantzes, who writes: "The walls of the city were divided into fourteen places"). Then, three bombards were directed at the Emperor's Blachernae palace; likewise three against the gate of the Pēgē; two at the Golden Gate, and four at the gate of St. Romanus; among these, that huge one of 1200 pounds and another of 800 pounds are mentioned.

April 12-17. On the twelfth (according to Phrantzes, the fifteenth) of April, the Turkish fleet cast anchor in the region of the port of Constantinople; its number, on the authority of Barbarus, was 145, of which 12 were fully armed triremes, 70-80 were larger liburnians, 20-25 were parandariae (cargo ships used for war), and the rest are reported to be actuary ships. To this, add a merchant vessel from Sinope carrying war supplies and bronze balls (though it is more likely they were stone projectiles). The Turkish fleet holds the Anatolian shore far from the city. Those besieged within the city wait in arms for the enemy’s assault. Within, aside from the incessantly firing siege engines and light skirmishes against the Janissaries, nothing worth mentioning happens.

April 18. The assault of the Turks, which preceded the night of April 18, is repulsed at first by the Greeks, who were slightly shaken; more than two hundred Turks were killed.

April 20. On the twentieth day of the siege, four Genoese auxiliary ships enter the Hellespont, which, after a battle of 2 or 3 hours, aided by fortune, repulse the Turkish assault; then, as the sun set, the triremes of the besieged met the Genoese and brought them into the port with joy and a concert of music.

April 21. Mehmed proceeds to the fleet with 10,000 horsemen, inveighs bitterly against the commander of the naval forces, and orders him to resign from his office while his life is still spared; in his place, a man boastful of his memory, the son of Pietro Loredan (perhaps some deserter of the Venetian cause), is put in command of the fleet. On the same day, a terrible destruction was wrought by the enemy's projectiles in the western region, causing 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, the Turks transport 5,000 ships [worth of equipment] over the land route from the Bosphorus into the port of Constantinople. Our author records, not without anguish of mind, that 72 armed ships, placed on rollers, were dragged by hand over the mountain which Pera sits upon to the north, by the Turkish camp-followers and the rabble. The Constantinopolitans, trapped in the city, for whom danger impended on all sides from the enemy fleet, placed one trireme as a guard to the strait which adjoins Pera, to give a sign to the naval commander if the enemy should attempt an assault.

April 23. In the church of St. Mary (of the Hodegetria, as it seems), men summoned for this purpose deliberate on how the enemy ships were to be driven from the port.

April 24. Lord Giacomo Coco, the patron of that Trapezuntine trireme, [prepared] two transport ships... the commander of those living in Pera was alerted by the Sultan regarding this matter; and the Genoese themselves, most treacherous men, urged the Venetian leaders to postpone the intended attempt for another night, promising their own help, while in reality intending to bring aid to the Turks with all their might.

April 25-27. During this interval of time, in which nothing worth noting occurred, Barbarus thinks that further misfortunes are the action of the divine God on account of the sins of which this age was guilty.

April 28. That night, two triremes, under the command of Gabriel Trevisano, the knight Girolamo Morosino, and Giacomo Coco, were deprived of the hope of burning the Turkish ships in the port with fire. Barbarus narrates this attempt more extensively than all others.

April 29. The admiral Diedo appoints Dolphinus to the place of the abandoned Trapezuntine trireme; and in his place, Giovanni Loredan is substituted to guard the Blachernae gate. The damages that the besiegers inflict upon the besieged are immediately repaired by the latter. Nothing else worthy of memory was done in the month of April.

May 1, 2. The same must be said of these two days. There is a shortage of food in the city.

May 3, 4. The Constantinopolitans oppose the enemy in the port with two bombards; the Turks place two machines of the same kind. Then, for ten days and as many nights, the siege engines toil on both sides without any memorable effect. By order of the Emperor, an actuary ship is sent toward the island of Negroponte to seek out the Venetian fleet and to ask Giovanni Loredan that he should come without delay to the aid of the city in its extremities. And this ship does indeed traverse the Archipelago under a Turkish flag and with a simulated Turkish disguise, but returned to Constantinople with its mission unaccomplished.

May 5. The Turks set up several bombards on the mountain dominating Pera, and from there they struck the enemy ships in the port with siege engines throughout the whole length of the great chain. Indeed, the third bronze ball projected sent a Genoese ship, full of merchandise and provisions, to the bottom of the sea. The ships of the Christians then withdrew to the walls of Pera, not without damage. The Turks, after they had directed the same engines toward the Kynegion without effect, finally added them to those which protected the inner walls.

May 6. On this Sunday also, the siege engines thundered continuously.

May 7. A nocturnal assault made by 30,000 Turks was bravely repulsed; in which, stupendous shouts reaching to the Anatolian sea forced the defenders of the city to prepare themselves for battle by land and by sea. Nothing, however, was attempted further by the Turks, except that, as they departed, they set fire to the Palatine gate; which the Greeks then obstructed with a wall. The ships held their previous position around the chain.

May 8. It was decreed by the Council of Twelve that the Tanaan triremes, having been unloaded, should be transported into the arsenal. Engaging the arm—

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A a great mass of arrows, they cast them into the city, so that those within were affected by extreme fear. They said that their triremes were for them as homes; that they ought not live or die on the mainland. This opinion prevailed; and both they and the naval commander remained on the shore at Pera. Engines around the gate of St. Romanus continuously cast balls.

May 9. Sunday. Gabriel Trevisan, by the will of the Twelve, ordered 400 soldiers brought from two triremes to be spent on guarding the land wall.

May 10. In an assembly held by the Twelve in the church of St. Mary, Lord Diedus was designated commander of the fleet, on the condition that he have authority to oversee the harbor and all maritime affairs as he pleased.

May 11. The same deadly labor of the engines ensued.

May 12. The Turks, with their customary shouts and the discordant din of drums and flutes, attacked the wall situated near the palace; but the mercy of Jesus Christ averted extreme ruin from the city on this occasion, because, as Barbarus opines, the destruction of Constantinople was reserved according to the prophecy of the holy Emperor Constantine not for the present, but for a later phase of the moon.

May 13. Lord Trevisan, prefect of the fleet, landed with his soldiers to defend the damaged walls. From that place he did not withdraw until the city was taken. According to Phrantzes, between the Kynegion and the imperial palace, he behaved as a shepherd, not a mercenary. During this time, there was uninterrupted fire from engines against the western wall.

May 14. The Turks, as we have already seen, dragged the engines from Mount B St. Theodore, through Pera toward the gate of the Kynegion, from the direction of the harbor, and afterwards placed them behind the gate of St. Romanus, where the wall was suffering the worst damage, although the besieged studied how to repair the harm inflicted as best they could. Three hundred men, most of them pyrotechnicians and archers, occupied that gate, all foreigners, except for the Greeks, whose pusillanimity our author severely chastises.

May 15. Unceasing explosion of the engines and diligent repair of the damaged parts; otherwise, a truce.

May 16. A few Turkish light vessels approached the chain around the harbor and attacked the ships of the besieged; but suddenly, for fear that they would be repulsed, they retreated against their will. Mines dug by the Turks around the Kaligaria Gate were detected by the Grand Duke and thwarted.

May 17. Five Turkish ships advanced as far as the chain of the harbor for the sake of reconnaissance, but, received by 70 shots—all of which were vain—they fled with the greatest speed they could. But everyone feared that the enemy would attack the city with all his might, which everyone despaired of being able to resist.

May 18. The Turks, throughout the space of the night, constructed those turreted machines, which our Barbarus also mentions with admiration; nor could he wonder enough that the Turks had finished in four hours what all the Christians living in Constantinople could not have done in the space of a whole month. From this highest tower, the Turks made C an immense mention besides of that huge machine emitting 1200 lb. stones, and which, once ignited, not only walls but the very pavement of the city and the ships in the harbor were most violently shaken.

May 19. At this time at last, a bridge constructed by joining ships began to exist from Galata to the Kynegion, as Barbarus says; but according to Phrantzes, it took place after the ships had been transported, if we pass over the more confused chronology of Leonard, 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 did not cease to hurl bronze balls at the enemy and fill the air with shouts; the besieged repaired the losses inflicted.

May 20. Barbarus reports the attempts of those included to repair the yawning walls, to which work women, children, and old men, and ecclesiastics were exerting their strength.

May 21. The whole host of the enemy threatened 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. The same men, when they had detected a mine dug by the Turks near the Kaligaria Gate, obstructed it and slaughtered the diggers. Nevertheless, on this day the wall and the tower adjacent to it were very much damaged, and those who were within the city had sickly members from indefatigable labor and D hardships.

May 22. A tunnel near the Kaligaria Gate was again obstructed, frustrating the expectation of the diggers. But observing a wonderful celestial spectacle (Barbarus calls it a common eclipse of the moon), the Constantinopolitans, mindful of the prophecy of Emperor Constantine, saw a sign of impending ruin, while the Turks saw it as a pledge of victory.

May 23. Furthermore, a third mine found near the Kaligaria Gate and the emperor's palace was the reason why several makers of war machines were taken prisoner; and when, having been ordered, they had said where else mines had been constructed, their heads were cut off and they were thrown over the walls into the Turkish camp. On this same day, the light vessel sent on the fourth day of that month to seek the Venetian fleet in the Archipelago, having escaped the traps of the Turkish ships, returned into the harbor. The city was continuously harassed by the labor of the engines.

May 24. A fourth mine, which they again detected near the Kaligaria Gate, damaged the wall not a little. From the Turkish camp came a fierce shout and jubilation because of the hazardous battle now impending.

May 25. The last mine, found near the above-mentioned gate, greatly terrified those enclosed in the city. War machines did not cease to emit fire and stones into the city.

May 26. Festive fires spreading widely and jubilation in the Turkish camps because the city was to be attacked by force on the next day. The Constantinopolitans, with prayers and supplications to the Mother of God...

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A they approached so that they might be liberated from the fury of the gentiles. An ominous trepidation in the Turkish ships.

May 27. Lord's Day. The following night, too, is illuminated by Turkish festive fires. The shouts raised strike the ears of the besieged, spreading even to the shores of Asia. Huge ruins of the crumbling wall collapse with a crash, a matter which the Constantinopolitans try in vain to remedy.

May 28. The Sultan orders it to be proclaimed throughout the camp to the sound of a drum that everyone should remain in his own place, threatening death to anyone who does otherwise, because the city is to be pressed with all forces on the following morning. Therefore, 2,000 ladders are already being brought up. In the Turkish camps, they inflame one another with greedy anticipation; for they were going to seize so many Christian captives that for one gold piece they would have two. They joked that they would use the beards of the Greeks for twisting nooses, with which to tie up their dogs. The machines vomit stones with extreme heat. Barbaro strenuously vituperates the avarice and perversity of the Greeks. For they did not sell their help except for money, and by this act they brought an immense amount of harm to the city. B Then, at the commander’s order, the Venetians stand at the inner wall so that (for so their commander advised them) they might live and die through the immortal God, for the salvation of the earth and the honor of all Christians. Nor do the sailors equip themselves any less for battle around the great chain of the port. Meanwhile, the Sultan proceeds to the fleet with 40,000 soldiers, and after he had indulged most lavishly in Bacchus with the admiral and the other warlords until he was drunk, he returns to the camp. Throughout that whole day, the heavy Turkish drum resonates, and the following night is very conspicuous for its festive fires and resonates with shouts which, to our author, seem to come from the depths of hell; and while the Turks fatigue Mohammed day and night with prayers for obtaining victory and booty, the Christians, prostrated before the Theotokos and all the saints, with groans and tears insistently implore liberation from the hands of the gentiles. But God our Lord decreed according to His inexorable will that on that very day the head of the Greeks should fall into the hands of Muhammad (and our Lord God [had] an harsh sentence against the Greeks, for He willed that this city go on this day into the hands of Mahomet!).

May 29. Barbaro recalls the ancient prophecies about the destruction of the Greek kingdom, C whose fulfillment, according to very many signs, was reserved for this very day. At the third hour before sunrise, the Sultan orders three armies, each of which had 50,000 armed men, to proceed toward the city. The first cohort indeed consisted of Christians whom the Turks had forced into partnership in the battle; the second was composed of an unwarlike rabble (nude people, that is, villains of that kind); the third, however, was composed of Janissaries and the strength of the army; after whom the Sultan finally occupied his place. And as for his first deeds, neither alive nor dead; but some say that he was seen among the number of the dead bodies; which it was said that he was suffocated at the entrance which the Turks made at the D gate of San Romano. On the margin of the Venetian manuscript it is read: "The Emperor prayed that his own men would kill him, and he threw himself into the fury with his sword, and fell, and rose again, then fell again; and thus he died."

1076 Those attempting to move ladders to the walls are repelled with huge loss, but they are driven to the walls by those following with such violence that they had to perish in one way or another. As Barbaro notes, the Sultan had placed those Christians in the front rank so that they would be exposed to certain death, while he spared the lives of the Turks, and so that he might tire out the defenders of the city through even their futile aggression; that which indeed happened, even though they were repelled from the second rank by the archers and bombardiers of the city with much blood. Then the third rank of the Sultan, with new strength and with a shout heard far and wide, the Janissaries and the strength of the army, break forth like lions. Notwithstanding the prayers and lamentations of the urban multitude, especially the women, and although the defenders fought most bravely on the walls, at sunrise the Turks, covered by dust from that great cannon, were the first three hundred to cross the walls. But after these themselves had paid for their audacity with death, and the same stratagem had been renewed, finally up to 30,000 soldiers burst into the city with an impetus such as is common to wild beasts, through parts of the wall around the gate of St. Romanus that had been torn down. So many Turks fell in that slaughter that, if one believes Barbaro, 40 cargo ships would hardly have sufficed for transporting the corpses. He further reports that Justinian was wounded, crying out that the Turks were already taking the city, which became the cause of flight for everyone. With the city taken by force, the Turks spill blood without 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, for a price. The standards of Saint Mark and the Emperor were torn from the towers, and the dog of the Turks, as it is called, was substituted. Thus, the conquest of the city being known, those who held 70 ships in the port and a great fleet present through the Hellespont, lest they be frustrated of huge spoils, which at that very moment of time began to be loaded onto the ships. Barbaro relates that the Turks fixed a small flag to every house, monastery, or church which they had entered, which called back those who followed for the sake of plundering from proceeding further. More than 200,000 such tokens seem to have been affixed throughout the whole city, since a great part of the houses was decorated with ten such signs. Furthermore, the slaughter of the Christians was so great that the public streets, even after rain with water, were flooded with blood, and the corpses thrown into the Propontis floated on the sea like fruit. Our author says that nothing certain was discovered about 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 relates that the surviving Venetians took care to place their affairs, especially their ships, in safety. Among those who escaped with their lives...

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