CHAPTER TWO

JOSEPH II, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Ambrogio Traversari, in a letter of 20 February 1438, from

Venice to Eugenius IV, described the Patriarch in these words:
'Assuredly in my judgement he is very prudent and very alert
and, though in a decrepit old age (for he is thought to be almost
an octogenarian), he is endowed with an active keenness of
intellect and a most lively perception' 1 . He was, therefore, born
round about the year 1360, 'a Bulgarian by nationality and of my
own tongue', as John of Ragusa wrote to Cardinal Cesarini. Of
the other chief events of his life little more is known except that
he was Metropolitan of Ephesus before becoming Patriarch of
Constantinople on 21 May 1416, and that he died in Florence on
10 June 1439.
The section of the letter of Ragusa from which the above
quotation is taken deserves to be quoted at length, because it gives
an idea of Joseph's character. 'The Father is old, and, like his age,
his grey hair, long beard and face make him a venerable figure to
all who see him; so too his common sense, experience in affairs
and gravity of manner call forth the admiration of all who are
brought into close contact with him and, to tell the truth, I should
never have believed that such a Father could be found in Greece
in our day. He was ready to resign from the patriarchate because
of ill-health. I have been in touch with him, and still am, as much
as I can, both personally and by means of others, secretly, because
all are agreed that there has never been found in Greece any one
like him and who was more favourable to union than he. This
Father has, too, profound understanding in the spiritual life and
assuredly, when I meet him privately (with, however, as inter-
preter 2 the monk Bathomius who was at the Council with Isidore)
for four or five hours, I cannot bear to leave him. In fact, the
question of the division between the Churches apart, I should
1
2
TRAV., NO. 30.
This is curious, since Joseph was 'of Ragusa's own tongue'. 'Tongue'
presumably means no more than 'race'. Cf. V. Laurent, Les origines princieres
du patriarche de Constantinople Joseph II (\U39) in R.E.B. XIII (1955), pp.
131-4.
16 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
judge him to be a most complete and perfect old man and almost
one of those holy Fathers whose lives we read with so much
admiration and devotion'. 3 Traversari was equally attracted by
the Patriarch's character: 'I have met the Patriarch and had a long
talk with him, and was greatly delighted by his appearance and
conversation, because his grey hair, his manner and deportment
make him venerable and he is extremely sweet in conversation'.4
In this same letter Traversari again refers to the Patriarch's
prudence—'from his extremely cautious and prudent words'—a
quality of his noted also by the author of the descriptive part of the
Acta graeca: 'The Patriarch, as was usual with him, spoke with
moderation and great circumspection', 5 and hints at a weak-
ness, common (so thinks Traversari) to all Greeks, for ex-
ternal honours: 'I gathered from the many and long familiar
conversations which I have had with the Patriarch that my
view is not far from the truth, for I have always held that
that race is to be won by courtesy and the showing of respect
and evidences of particular good will.' But neither Ragusa
nor Traversari makes any mention of the Patriarch as a man
of learning, even though he brought with him to Italy a codex
of the works of St. Basil.6 It would seem that he was not such,
though it must be admitted that positive evidence to that effect is
forthcoming only from the opponents of union. Syropoulus
notes as exceptional the one occasion when the Patriarch showed
an interest in the theological discussion that usually took place
when a few of the Greek clerics found themselves together in
his apartments, 7 and Scholarius in a letter of 1451 to the Grand
Duke Notaras wrote scathingly of his scholarship in these words:
'. . . as if "dia" meant, as the late futile Patriarch said, "cause," and
having said it without further ado he died. For he had no right
to go on living after philosophizing so brilliantly about the
preposition and cause, and arrogating to himself pre-eminence in
three sciences, namely grammar, philosophy and this quintessence
of theology, about which even in his dreams he never hoped to
have the courage to make any pronouncement.' 8
3
Letter of Ragusa to Card. Cesarini of 9 Feb., 1436, in CECCONI, doc.
LXXVIII.
4 5
TRAV., no. 140. A.G., p. 419.
6
BESSARION, Epistola ad Al. Lascarin de Processione Spiritus Sanctiy in P.G
161, 325B
7 8
SYR., p. 258. SCHOL. Ill, p. 142.
 JOSEPH II 17
Syropoulus, apropos of the incident cited above, suggests that
the Patriarch escaped from the interminable theological bickerings
going on around him by retiring to his bedroom as if he were ill.
Usually at any rate there would be no pretence in that for he was
unquestionably a very sick man. Both the Emperor and the
Patriarch repeatedly alleged his age and infirmity as reasons why
the journey from Constantinople to Europe should be as short as
possible. Ragusa in the letter to Cesarini quoted earlier stated:
'. . . and notwithstanding the heart disease which afflicts him
almost weekly he would be prepared to-day, if things allowed it,
to board ship and come here'. In another letter to Cesarini of 10
March 1436 he narrates how, during a very long service of inter-
cession for the happy issue of the negotiations- about union and for
deliverance from the plague that then infested Constantinople, in
which the Emperor, the royal family, the court, and innumerable
clerics and layfolk took part standing all the time, the Patriarch,
because of his age and infirmity, remained seated, and that when
at the end he had prostrated himself in prayer for an hour he had
to be lifted to his feet by four of his clerics to give the final bene-
diction. 9 That a man in such a state would face the dangers and
fatigues of a sea-voyage in winter argues to his great courage and
his intense zeal for union.
Of that voyage the Bishop of Digne, who made it with them,
reported to the Council in Ferrara on 1 March 1438: 'And indeed
in this navigation and throughout the whole journey one reason
was abundantly clear why there was unwillingness to cross the
Tyrrhenian sea towards Avignon, for the Patriarch and the other
aged prelates, and sometimes the Emperor too, neither ate nor
drank nor slept, except in port. So, if there had not been numerous
islands with harbours under the domination of the Venetians or
of the Greeks themselves, assuredly they would not have been
able to reach the port of Venice.' 10 Though he made the journey
from Venice to Ferrara and later from Ferrara to Florence, the
Patriarch was rarely well during his stay in Italy and in conse-
quence was unable to attend the Council on various important
occasions—the session of 9 April 1438 when the solemn proclama-
tion of the opening was made, that of 28 November when the
Burgundian envoys presented their credentials, the session of 10
January 1439 when the Council was transferred. From 10 August
9 10
CECCONI, doc. LXXXI. Frag., p. 60.
f!
18 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
1438.onwards Syropoulus says that he suffered from a quartan
ague. 11 For sixteen days at the end of December 1438 he was
too ill to be visited, 'unable to speak or hear', 12 and during January
1439 frequently confined to bed. 13 On Holy Saturday, 4 April
1439, he was so ill that he was thought to be dying and the last
rites were administered to him. 14 Thereafter he was almost
continuously confined to his room. His death came suddenly on
10 June, about which Syropoulus rather callously wrote: 'A
detailed exposition of his long and many illnesses and of how from
the journey by horseback from Ferrara to Florence there super-
vened dropsy, and of the way in which death overtook him, I leave
to others who have a keener relish in retailing such things/ 1 5
What buoyed him up to face the rigours of the journey was
his.hope for union and his great desire to meet the Pope. Both he
and the Emperor insisted through their letters and embassies to
Basel on the presence of the Pope at the future common council,
because they were convinced that a council separated from the
Pope was incomplete and would prove ineffective. He was very
friendly disposed to Garatoni, the papal envoy, and to the Pope,
even when the ambassadors of Basel were in Constantinople in
143516; he would not let the interpreter, acting for the envoys of
Basel at Constantinople in October 1437, read in his presence the
Council's Monitorium against Eugenius 17 ; it was the prospect of
the Pope's presence at a council that finally made him overcome
his repugnance to leaving Constantinople. 18
He was, however, a little naive in his anticipations. He told
his clerics in Constantinople that if the Pope were older than he,
he would regard him as his father; if of equal age, as his brother;
if younger, as his son; and that he hoped to be lodged so near the
Pope that there might be easy mutual access for common counsel. l9
In Venice he scandalized some of the Latins by referring to
Eugenius as his brother 20 (though why, it is hard to see> since the
Pope in his official letters usually used that term with respect to
him), and Traversari delicately prepared the Pope for this and
advised a gentle tolerance. 21 Joseph thought that union would be
11 12
13
SYR., p. 186. 14
AG., p. 218.
15
Ibid., pp. 221, 224. 16
Ibid., p. 403.
'' ' 117
SYR.; p. 276. Ibid., p. 22.
18
Report of the Bishop of Digne at 19Ferrara; Frag., p. 58.
20
SYR., p. 41. 21
Ibid., p. 92.
TRAV., no. 140. Ibid., no. 30.
 JOSEPH II 19
a much simpler business than it turned out to be—an affair of
friendly arrangement between himself and Eugenius IV: 'He
seeks nothing more than to meet Your Holiness, openly asserting
that from your physical proximity and mutual speech peace will
be brought to the situation' 22 : 'He desires wondrously to meet the
Pope, hoping that everything will easily be arranged, if they both
come together in charity. . . . I gathered from his extremely
cautious and prudent words that in his judgement the whole thing
should be concluded by love and peace rather than by discussion,
since he said that the whole business lay in this—if both come
together in body, mind and opinion; and all this he hopes will
occur if there shall first be the meeting in body.' 23
This conviction that union would prove to be an easy business
was founded on his assurance that the Greek Church was right in
the questions under dispute and the Latin Church wrong, and
that it would need little to persuade the Latins of this. Syropoulus
reports him as saying: 'When we go off there with God's help,
they will welcome us all with great honour and affection and will
take a marvellous care of us and we shall have full freedom and
liberty to say whatever we like. And we shall prove, by the grace
of Christ, that our doctrine is most pure and resplendent, and as
regards the points of dogma ours will show themselves to be their
teachers and they will be convinced and will embrace our doctrine,
and so we shall be united . . . and even if they do not accept our
position, we shall return again famous, having with the grace of
God brilliantly proclaimed the true faith and strengthened our
own Church and deviated from the truth in no point at all.' 24
Joseph's anticipations of the honours awaiting himself and the
Greeks must have been rudely shaken by his reception at Ferrara,
when the Pope insisted, though vainly, that the Patriarch conform
to Latin custom by kissing his foot; but he did meet the Pope
privately and have with him long conversations25; the Greeks had
indeed full freedom to say whatever they wished, though they did
not find the Latins easy to persuade: but exactly two weeks before
he died, when he gave his votum for the equivalence of 'Dia' and
'Ek' and the truth, therefore, of both the Greek and the Latin
doctrines, he could still confidently claim that his faith in his
Church was unshaken: 'I will never change or surrender our
traditional doctrine, but will abide in it to my last breath'. 26
22
Ibid. . 23 Ibid., no. 140. - 24 SYR., p. 60.
25 2G
Ibid., p. 99; 143. A.G., p. 438.
20 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
When Ragusa wrote describing the Patriarch to Caesarini he
always referred to him as 'Father', an unconscious disclosure of
the chief impression that the venerable old man had made on him.
Syropoulus, on whom unfortunately we have to depend for most
of our information about Joseph, makes him out to have been on
occasions rather a silly old man, easily beguiled by Garatoni 27 and
Ragusa, 28 who was not above trying to persuade some of the Greek
bishops 29 and the recalcitrant three of the Staurophoroi 30 to accept
union from motives of loyalty to himself. Not everything that
Syropoulus wrote should be taken literally, for his Memoirs were
his defence of himself against the charge of having betrayed his
faith and so he lets slip no opportunity of heightening the impres-
sion of his own steady resistance to persuasion, guile and force.
He inveighs also against the Patriarch for not having insisted on
having his Staurophoroi, 'his five senses', located near him in the
public sessions,31 but there was not much that the Patriarch could
have done about that, as the arrangement of seats for those
occasions was arrived at only after acrimonious dispute between
Greeks and Latins, when every inch of distance or height was
measured to assure equality of dignity. He further accuses the
Patriarch of having been responsible why the superiors of the
monasteries were deprived of their votes in the private Greek
meetings of the summer of 1439, as being 'unordained'. 32
If, however, one leaves aside the occasional complaints of
Syropoulus against Joseph, the general impression one gets from
reading the Memoirs is that the Patriarch was a father to his
clerics, patient, long-suffering and occasionally, when tried beyond
measure by their reiterated complaints, not above passing on the
burden to the Emperor. And it must be borne in mind that
throughout he was very ill. The truth is that his clerics used his
apartments as a kind of club. When they had nothing else to do
(and from April to October 1438, from mid-December to March
1439 apart from the journey to Florence, and from April to July of
the same year they had abundance of leisure), they drifted to his
rooms to talk, discuss, quarrel, complain. Phrases like 'A few
days later when we were all sitting about in the Patriarch's lodg-
ings, the question of maintenance came up' 3 3 or 'On another
27
28
SYR., p. 22. 29
30
Ibid., p. 44. 31
Ibid., p. 260.
32
Ibid., p. 271. 33
Ibid., p. 108.
Ibid., pp. 263-4. Ibid., p. 250.
 JOSEPH II 21
occasion we gathered together at the Patriarch's apartments as
usual' 34 are of frequent occurrence in the Memoirs. It was appar-
ently the same in Constantinople for the earlier pages as much as
the later report incidents of the kind. Joseph regarded himself as
a father to them all, and they looked upon him as such. That is
why, in spite of his sufferings and illnesses, they carried all their
difficulties and complaints to him. For his part, he corrected,
sympathised, encouraged and explained as far as he could. He
was capable of quick action, as when, learning of the departure
for Venice with imperial permission of Heraclea and Ephesus,
two of the delegates of the eastern Patriarchates, he wasted no
time in representing to the Emperor the necessity of their presence
in the Council, despatched with all speed horsemen to reach them
before their river-boat cast off, and had them, all unwilling, fetched
back.35 He was equally capable of a tactful biding of his time.
Syropoulus with Lacedaimon appealed to him to intervene
between Ephesus and Nicaea to patch up a quarrel that was
developing (Bessarion had somewhat ostentatiously seated himself
apart from Ephesus) and blamed him for doing nothing. But
Joseph's way was the wiser. Some little time later when it was
arranged that Nicaea and Mark should be the chief speakers of the
Greeks, he quietly remarked: 'Nicaea then should sit alongside of
Ephesus' and so he settled their quarrel without ever having made
an issue out of it.36
In all the business of union, Joseph was closely associated with
the Emperor, but he took second place. The ambassadors from
the West \yere always furnished with letters and credentials to
both. They were first received by the Emperor, then they visited
the Patriarch who received them usually with great state. Ragusa
and his two companions found him awaiting them in the church of
St. Sophia vested in a cope, with burning candles before him and
surrounded by a multitude of clerics, so Menger recounted at
Basel in February 1436.37 The report of the Basel envoys of 1438
states: 'As we entered the church several of the Greek cardinals
came to meet us and receiving us graciously accompanied and
led us to the presence of the lord Patriarch who was seated on a
kind of ornate throne in the church, attended by cardinals, arch-
bishops, bishops, priests and monks to the number of about 80 or
34 35
Ibid., pp. 255, 256. Ibid., pp. 151-3.
36 37
Ibid., pp. 137-9, 150. M.C., II, p. 843.
22 . PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE.
100'. 38 The letters that went from Constantinople to the West
were in duplicate, the one from the Emperor, the other from the
Patriarch, couched in identical terms as far as the business-content
was concerned. The Byzantine ambassadors who visited Rome and
Basel were accredited by both Emperor and Patriarch and repre-
sented both. But the partnership between the head of the State
and the head of the Church was not an equal partnership—the
Emperor was the dominating figure. Syropoulus asserts that
sometimes at any rate it was sorely against his will that Joseph
wrote in conformity with the Emperor's views.39 The envoys of
Basel in 1437 noted that the Patriarch seemed to change his
attitude towards their proposals on learning his sovereign's
opinion. 40
For his part the Emperor always consulted the Patriarch on
ecclesiastical matters and would not act without his consent, even
though that consent might on occasion have been rather grudgingly
given. The reason may have been in part because he wanted to
make sure that, whatever might be the final issue of all the negoti-
ations and discussions, the Church would not in the end disown
the results as having had no part in them (and so he very often
called in representative clerics to the meetings), partly no doubt
because he really did respect the authority of the Church in its
own domain, even while he considered himself as in some respects
over it. That is how he acted in Constantinople during the
preliminary arrangements: such too was his habit in Ferrara and
Florence. Examples of this are to be found throughout the Ada
and the Memoirs of Syropoulus. At Venice when both he and the
Patriarch were ill he would come to no decision about whether
to go Ferrara or not till the Patriarch was well enough to visit
him and discuss the matter. 41 At the end of December 1438 both
again were ill and so it was not till after the Patriarch had managed
to visit him, carried in a litter, that he proposed to the rest of the
Greek clerics the necessity of discussing the doctrine of the
Filioque with the Latins. 42 When Joseph was so frequently ill and
unable to leave his apartments, particularly during the few months
preceding his death, the Emperor might reasonably have con-
sidered himself excused from consulting him always, had he
38
J. HALLER, Concilium Basiliense V (ed. BECKMANN, WACKER-NAGEL,
COGGIOLA) (Basel, 1904), p. 316.
39 40
41
SYR., p. 13. 42
HALLER, V., p. 325.
SYR., pp. 85-6. A.G., p. 218.
 JOSEPH II 23
thought it only a matter of courtesy and not of principle. What we
find, however, in fact is an almost monotonous repetition of: 'The
Emperor summoned the Greeks to a meeting in the apartments of
the Patriarch who was ill/ so much so that nearly all the many
Greek conferences of April and May 1439 took place there, the
conferences where the decisions were taken that the Latin Saints
affirming the doctrine of the Filioque were to be accepted as much
as the Greek Fathers who did not use that phrase and so that there
was basic agreement of East and West on the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit. 43
Here and there in the documents there are to be found indica-
tions that Joseph resented his imposed subservience to the
Emperor. Syropoulus' Memoirs open with a fragmentary record
of an incident that happened under Manuel, John's father, on the
eve of Joseph's election to the patriarchal throne and while that
throne was still vacant. It was a question of rights between the
crown and the Church. The prelates were unwilling to concede
what Manuel claimed, but yielded under pressure and were made
to commit their assent to writing. 44 The new Patriarch, so Syro-
poulus declares, chafed under the restrictions so imposed on the
Church and 'thought that by means of the Pope he would free
the Church from the slavery imposed on it by the Emperor'. 45
His resentment showed itself when the other oriental patriarchs
nominated their proxies for the Council without consulting him,
for he thought that it was the Emperor who had in fact proposed
the names for their acceptance, and it needed much explanation
on John's part to mollify him. 46 Similarly when the Greek convoy
was nearing Venice on its way to Italy the Emperor sent on ahead
a messenger to acquaint the Doge of his approach: the Patriarch,
hearing of this, also despatched his messenger.47 He took it in very
bad part that the Emperor departed from Venice first, leaving him
behind for lack of ships, and entered Ferrara first—'Either both
Emperor and Patriarch ought to have entered together or the
Church have precedence and not follow along behind'. 48 So when
the Council was transferred to Florence he urged and obtained
that he should be the first to make his entry into that city.49 He
had a little, perhaps mildly spiteful, revenge over the incident of
43 44
45
Ibid., pp. 428, 437. 46
SYR., pp. 2-3.
47
Ibid., p. 92. 48
Ibid., pp. 45-6.
Ibid., p. 80. Ibid., p. 90.
48
Ibid., p. 212.
24 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
the Emperor's entry to the first full session in Ferrara on 8
October 1438. The Emperor, wishing to follow Byzantine court
etiquette, had wanted to ride on horseback up to his throne. The
papal attendants would not allow that, so perforce he had to
dismount. To preserve his dignity as much as possible he would
be carried through certain rooms and so arrive unseen and without
(apparently) setting foot to ground till he was seated on his throne.
But the Patriarch and his attendants occupied the rooms in
question and Joseph flatly refused to leave himself or let his
bishops and Staurophoroi leave them, though bidden to do so by
several imperial messengers including Demetrius, the Emperor's
brother. In the end John was half-carried, half-dragged through
the midst of the clerics to the hall. 50
That Joseph on a few occasions might stand out for his rights
against the Emperor only emphasises the fact that the initiative
on the Greek side lay throughout with the Emperor. But that
does not mean that the Patriarch was in any respect less keen than
John on bringing about union even at the cost of the long and
fatiguing journey to the West. The Greek ambassadors to the
Council of Basel declared (15 May 1435) that he had said that, if
there were no other way, he would make the journey carried on
men's shoulders. 51 Ragusa and Freron reported (9 February 1436)
that the 'Most Reverend Patriarch, a most devoted and fervent
prosecutor of this holy union' was ordering 'fasts, supplications,
devotions and other works of piety' for the happy outcome of the
project.52 About a month later Freron wrote to Cesarini (5 March
1436): ' TheMost Reverend Patriarch also, like the old man
Simeon, sighs in his heart from his longing to see peace and union
of the two Churches.' 53 Even in the disturbed days of October
1437 when legations from the Pope and from Basel were both in
Constantinople, each claiming the right to transport the Greeks to
Europe, the Patriarch, though he might then have hesitated at
such manifest division in the western Church, still was firm in
his resolve to prosecute the work of union—and with the Pope:
'For this reason we (i.e. the papal representatives) went to the
Patriarch and remained with him for the space of three hours and
then he related to us everything which he had heard from the
other (i.e. Baseler) envoys. He ended by asserting that he would
50
Ibid., pp. 163-4. si HALLER, I, p. 361. . .
52 53
CECCONI, doc. LXXVII. Ibid., doc. LXXIX.
 JOSEPH II 25
not depart even a fingernail's breadth from the agreement made
with our lord the Pope, and that, even if France and Spain and
Germany were to go together to Avignon, neither he nor the
Emperor would go there. But he said: "Harmony is a good thing,
and you others must strive, and I and the Emperor will strive, for
the union of all to the very limit of our power"/ 5 4
When they left Constantinople, Emperor and Patriarch did
not yet know where the Pope intended to hold his council: that it
was to be in Ferrara they learnt shortly before their arrival in
Venice. For a time they still hesitated whether to choose Ferrara
or Basel. Ill-health which prevented mutual consultation and
letters from Basel made them defer a decision for a time and,
meanwhile, Joseph privately asked the Doge- his opinion on the
question. The Doge strongly advised Ferrara. 55 Two days before
Cesarini's arrival in Venice (20 February 1438),56 at a meeting of
a committee of counsellors, prelates and Staurophoroi it was
decided, the Emperor and the Patriarch both being emphatically
in favour, to choose Ferrara. 57 Traversari, writing from Ferrara
some weeks later (11 March), told a monk: 'There are among
them (i.e. the Greeks) many learned men, excellently disposed
towards us. But the Emperor and the Patriarch surpass them all
in such disposition.' 58
Syropoulus 59 makes out that Joseph was very opposed to the
transference of the Council to Florence. Yet earlier in the
Memoirs60 he had stated that the idea of the removal to Florence
was a plot hatched between the Emperor and the Patriarch to lure
the Greeks deeper into the heart of Italy and further from home,
an accusation repeated also later.61 He says too that Joseph was
against discussion of the doctrine of the Filtoque,62 but that when
he did assent he advised his clerics to send most of their gear
straight to Venice and to take little with them to Florence, though
that little should include their sacred vestments as 'union will soon
take place there', a statement which Syropoulus says disturbed the
prelates considerably, as if union were a foregone conclusion
54
Letter of Rodrigo, Dean of Braga, written from Constantinople, 13 Oct.
1437,
55
published by G. HOFMANN, in O.C.P. IX (1943), pp. 178-84.
Letter of 17 Feb. 1438 from Venice to Marco Dandolo, Venetian ambas-
sador
56
to the Holy See, in JORGA, III, p. 30.
57
From a letter of Traversari from Venice,
58
21 Feb.; TRAV., no. 140.
59
SYR., pp. 88-9. 60
TRAV., no. 510.
SYR., pp. 181 seq. Ibid., p. 153.
61 62
Ibid., p. 184. Ibid., p. 202.
26 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
before any discussion at all, seeing that there was little likelihood
that the Latins would relent. 63 These assertions of Syropoulus
do not hang together, and the fact that later at Florence the
Patriarch was decidedly in favour of union does not prove any one
of them.
All the authorities are agreed that at Florence the Patriarch
gave his vofurn to accept the genuineness of the passages of the
western Fathers adduced by the Latins in favour of the doctrine
of the Filioque, and the equivalence of 'Dia' and 'Ek' in the
expressions of Greeks and Latins about the Procession of the Holy
Spirit. There is, however, still debate about the authenticity of
the so-called 'Last Profession' of the Patriarch, the note that was
found on his desk after his death, wherein he professed his accept-
ance of the full faith of the Roman Church, specifying in particular
the primacy of the pope and the doctrine of Purgatory. It is
textually recorded in the descriptive part of the ActaM and in the
Libellus de ordine generalium Conciliorum et unione Florentina of
Fantinus Vallaresso composed in Crete in 1442.65 None of the
Greek anti-unionists—Syropoulus, Scholarius, Mark of Ephesus
—refers to it at all, and Scholarius even wrote in a note on the
signatories of the Decree of Union: 'The Patriarch Joseph: he
died before the union and the composition of the decree, having
proffered only a votum when there was discussion about the
writings of the Europeans, whether they should be accepted as
genuine, as proposed by the Latins, or not accepted. The votum
is preserved and it is not without malice, but it is generally said
it was amended afterwards.' 66 But, on Scholarius' own showing,
as was mentioned earlier, the Patriarch also gave a public decision
on the values of 'Dia' and 'Ek', so this statement of his is not
wholly accurate. All the same it is hard to believe that Scholarius
knew anything of a 'Last Profession'.
Among the Latins there was general belief that Joseph before
his death had signified his acceptance of union and that that was
the reason why, whereas Sardis in April 1438 had been buried
outside the walls of the small church of St. Julian, 67 Joseph was
accompanied to the grave by a cortege of most eminent Latins and
interred within one of Florence's largest churches, S. Maria
63 C4
65
Ibid., p. 208. A.G., p. 444.
Ed. B. SCHULTZE (Rome, 1944), pp. 105-6, which omits the phrase
referring
66
to Purgatory. 67
SCHOL., Ill, p. 194. SYR., p. 112.
 JOSEPH II 27
Novella, where the Pope actually had his residence.68 But they
nearly all refer the Patriarch's assent to a particular occasion, the
sending by the Latins of a draft-agreement on the Procession of
the Holy Spirit in the last days of April 1439. Andrea da S.
Croce in the so-called Latin Acts marks the connection most
distinctly. He affirms that the Greeks, having seen the truth,
summoned the Latin Fathers of the Council and with them con-
curred in the draft-agreement. There follows the text of the
agreement, and then he continues: Immediately all were filled with
joy, asserting that the affair already despaired of and shipwrecked
had miraculously been brought to the safe port of the truth; and
indeed it was no work of man, but of Truth itself. That ancient
Father, venerable in appearance and burdened with ill-health, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, longed for a session to be held, but
there were many of ours who averred that the dogmas of the
primacy of the pope, of the Consecration, and of Purgatory should
be first admitted by the Greek Fathers before they proceeded to
union with the Roman Church. So with this obstacle still in the
way he died that night. But before his death he signed with his
own hand the above-mentioned draft on the Procession of the
Holy Spirit and, submitting himself humbly to the rule of holy
mother Church, breathed his last'.69 The same Andrea in his
Diary merely notes: '11 June there dies the Patriarch of the
Greeks who before his death had agreed with us in the faith . . .
he was, however, received by the Latins into the communion of
the Church whose faith he had recognised before his death.' 70
Fantinus Vallaresso in the body of his work wrote: 'Joseph, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, who, after the agreement on the
article about the Holy Spirit had been made, to which he sub-
scribed with his own hand . . . died towards the end of the
Florentine Synod' 71 : and as a title to the 'Last Profession', which
he gives as a kind of appendix to the signatures of the Decree of
Union: 'The following profession is that of the Oecumenical
Patriarch of Constantinople which he uttered before his death and
left in writing in Florence for the holy work of the union of the
Churches of Christ.' 72 Finally there is the evidence of John of
Torquemada who wrote in 1441: 'Of whom the first, viz. the
68 69
70
A.L., pp. 224-5. Ibid.
71
Frag., p. 47.
72
Fantinus VALLARESSO, ed. SCHULTZE, p. 20.
Ibid., p. 105.
28 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
Patriarch of Constantinople, Joseph by name, was personally
present (i.e. at the Council) and gave his assent to what followed;
for although he ended his days before the synodal definition and
the proclamation of the union, nevertheless he protested in the
city of Florence that he died in that same faith that the universal
oecumenical synod, congregated together, should define.73
From these quotations there arise two questions to be answered
—do these references of the Latin writers to Joseph's acceptance
of the western doctrine refer to the Patriarch's 'Last Profession' or
to some other; and secondly, if they do not, is that Profession to be
accepted as genuine, in view of the silence of all the later Greek
polemics. To reply to the first question one must go back to the
history of the events of late April and May 1439, which is re-
counted at length in the Ada and the Memoirs of Syropoulus. As
usual, the Ada furnish more detail with exact dates, though much
more briefly, than the corresponding account of the Memoirs.
According, then, to the Greek sources a Latin draft-agreement
about the Procession of the Holy Spirit was delivered to the
Greeks towards the end of April 74 and caused some consternation.
Thereupon the Greeks formulated a draft of their own,75 but it
only occasioned a long reply from the Latins proposing twelve
points which, they said, needed clarification.76 There followed a
succession of conferences among the Greeks and of messengers to
the Pope, the discussions among the Greeks on the genuinity of
the Latin Fathers equally with the Greek as enlightened by the
same Holy Spirit, and the meanings of 'Dia' and 'Bk', which
resulted in the almost unanimous admission on the part of the
Greeks that the Latin and the Greek doctrines were identical.
On these points the Emperor insisted on written vota from all the
Greeks. The upshot was the composition of a tomos that recorded
the Greek acceptance of the Procession of the Holy Spirit also
from the Son, of which three copies were made, one for the Pope,
one for the Emperor and the third for the Patriarch. That was on
4 June. On 5 June the tomos was sent to the Pope and read before
the Cardinals. Thereupon a committee of ten members of each
side was constituted which discussed the document and agreed on
certain alterations. On 8 June a translation of the emended tomos
73
IOANNES DE TORQUEMADA, O.P., Apparatus super decretum Florentinum
unionis
74
Graecorum, ed. E. CANDAL (Romae, 1942), pp. 12-13.
75
AG., p. 413; A.L., pp. 224-5; SYR., pp.
76
236-7.
A.G., p. 415; SYR., pp. 243-4. 1G., p. 416; SYR., pp. 245-7.
 JOSEPH II 29
in Latin was read in the presence of the Pope and the Greeks, and
occasioned great joy.77 On 10 June the Patriarch died.
There seems to be no question but that the two references to
the Patriarch's union with the Latin Church in Andrea da S.
Croce, and at least the first of those quoted above from Fantinus
Vallaresso, refer not to Joseph's 'Last Profession' but to this tomos
delivered shortly before his death. There is no record of the
wording of the tomos in the Acta> and Syropoulus does not even
mention it, but it is not unlikely that it was couched almost
exactly in the terms of the Latin draft-agreement, firstly because
Andrea da S. Croce asserts that that was what the Greeks accepted,
and secondly because a comparison of that draft as it is given by
Andrea with the final Decree of Union shows that it was incor-
porated into the latter almost word for word, the changes being
nearly all a mere altering of first person plurals to the third—
'We, Latins, etc.,' giving place to 'The Latins, etc'.
So, with some of the seeming evidence for its genuinity now
removed, there comes the second question: Is the 'Last Profession'
of the Patriarch authentic? The words of John of Torquemada
written so shortly after the Patriarch's death are not decisive, for
they are very general—'He protested in the city of Florence that
he died in that same faith that the universal oecumenical Synod,
congregated together, should define'—and they do not correspond
exactly to what it is alleged the Patriarch wrote: 'Since I have come
to the end of my life and am to pay the debt common to all, by
God's grace I write openly and sign my profession for my children.
Everything, therefore, that the Catholic and Apostolic Church of
Our Lord Jesus Christ of the elder Rome understands and pro-
claims, I too understand and I declare myself as submitting in
common on these points; further the most blessed Father of
Fathers and supreme Pontiff and vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
the pope of elder Rome, I confess for the security of all: further
the Purgatory of souls.' In this there is no reference to a future
decision of the Council, as Torquemada wrote. But on the other
hand Torquemada associates the profession with the Patriarch's
death and not with the question only of the Filioque, and so,
allowing that he learnt of the profession only by hearsay and did
not himself see it (which is most likely) his evidence favours the
authenticity.
77
AG., pp. 438-40.
30 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
The most telling arguments for the genuineness of this 'Last
Profession' are the fact that the text of it could be adduced in the
Greek milieu of Crete as early as 1442 as proof of Joseph's adher-
ence to the Decree of Union—and indeed in lieu of his autograph
signature—by Vallaresso without fear of contradiction, with the
assertion in its title that the Patriarch 'left it in writing in Flor-
ence5 ; and that the same is to be read in the descriptive part of the
Ada which was written probably while the Council was still in
progress. 78
Another consideration that favours its authenticity is its
curious content. It says nothing about the Procession of the Holy
Spirit. There was no need. The Patriarch had already signified
his agreement on that in the tomos. After the comprehensive
declaration of the Patriarch's general submission to Roman
doctrine, the profession specifies two points, the doctrine of the
papal prerogatives and of Purgatory. The mention of just these
two points fits in with the course of events in the Council. After
the acceptance on 8 June of the mutually-agreed formula on the
Procession of the Holy Spirit, on the two successive days the
Latins brought up the three questions that Andrea da S. Croce
says prevented them from concluding a general union on the spot,
the primacy, the liturgy, and Purgatory and, according to the
Ada, also a fourth, namely the palamistic question of essence and
operation in God. The four prelates who represented the Greeks
at these conferences with the Latins showed no enthusiasm about
the Latin theory of the primacy, were amenable over the liturgical
question and Purgatory, and would not touch the palamistic
problem. They replied that they could not answer without
consulting the Emperor, the Patriarch and their colleagues. So
they 'recounted everything to the Emperor viva voce and did as
much for the Patriarch'. That was within a few hours of the
Patriarch's death. 79
In the alleged 'Last Profession' two of these still outstanding
points are particularised; two are not mentioned. Of the two
points specified in the Profession one was especially controversial,
the primacy; and the other, Purgatory, though at the moment it
seemed to arouse no opposition, yet earlier, in the preliminary
conferences of June and July 1438, it had been the subject of lively

79
78Ibid., pp. LXX sq. Ibid., pp. 440-4.
 JOSEPH II 31
debate between Latins and Greeks and a question on which the
Greeks were not altogether agreed among themselves. 80 Both of
these questions were later accepted generally by the Greeks and
written into the Decree of Union. But of the two points not
mentioned in the Profession, one, namely the question of essence
and operation in God, does not figure again in the negotiations
and does not appear in the final Decree at all; the other was dis-
cussed several times under two aspects, namely the legitimate use
of either fermented or unfermented bread in the Eucharist and
the precise point in the liturgy where the consecration is effected,
at the dominical words: 'This is my Body, etc.' or at the epiclesis.
On the first of these aspects there was mutual agreement and it is
included in the Decree. On the second of them the Greeks them-
selves were uncertain, 81 and so there was a compromise that on
this they should make only a vocal declaration82 (done by Bessarion
on 5 July) and it was not introduced into the Decree.
So the Patriarch's 'Last Profession' harmonises with the general
situation as this is known to us. But it can hardly be said to have
influenced the course of events, otherwise it would have been
well-known, one might even say notorious, also among the anti-
unionists. Indeed the main argument against its authenticity, and
it is no light one, is the fact that there is no reference to it at -all in
the later anti-unionist polemics. Had it been generally known
that he had left behind him such a document, it is difficult to
understand the silence of a Syropoulus, for example, who retails
such a multitude of small facts in his Memoirs and who would not
willingly have foregone the possibility of painting the Patriarch's
iniquities in still darker colours. The only other consideration
that militates against its authenticity is of less weight. The date
of the signature of the Profession in the Ada is given as 9 June
(Vallaresso assigns no day of the month), whereas the Patriarch
died on 10 June—a manifest error of a bungling interpolator, it is
said. A bungler, indeed, if he inserted into the midst of the short
account of the Patriarch's death on the tenth and his burial on
the eleventh a Profession dated the ninth. It is just as possible
that the Patriarch himself was in error about the date. That does
happen even to the best of us. 83
80
Ibid., pp. 19-26.
81 82
83
Ibid., p. 447. Ibid.
This discussion of the 'Last Profession' of Joseph II is fuller than that of
the Introduction to the A.G. (pp. LXXXV-LXXXVII), which it also modifies.
 32 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
But, whatever may be thought of the 'Last Profession' of the
Patriarch Joseph, there was no doubt in the minds of the Greek
anti-unionists about his attitude at Florence. Mark of Ephesus in
his short account of the Council wrote: 'But those who did not
shrink from the impiety and as many as had followed them from
the beginning, suborned by specious promises and gifts, with bared
heads declared the Son to be the cause of the Holy Spirit, a
statement that is clearly to be found nowhere even in the writings
of the Latins. With these the Patriarch also voted, he, too, the
wretched man already corrupted and at the same time yearning for
departure from that place, even though destiny was driving him
to his death/ 8 4 Scholarius, as we have already seen, sneered at his
daring to give his opinion on the equivalence of 'Dia' and 'Ek\
Syropoulus records his positive vote in the Greek conferences that
led up to agreement on the Filioque, and in his brief notice of the
Patriarch's death related: 'All the same, the Patriarch after giving
the votum mentioned above began to make preparations for his
return and sent the greater part of his baggage to Venice. For he
kept saying that he would remain for a few days until he had signed
the decree what was to be made and straightway then would leave
Florence. He achieved neither, for he did not survive to sign it,
but died and was buried there.' 85 At any rate he died with the
satisfaction of feeling that what he had longed for so much for the
benefit of both Churches was as good as accomplished.
Joseph II, for all his age and his fatherly benevolence to his
flock, was not a man of weak will, otherwise at the hazard of his
life from his chronic illness and the dangers likely to be encountered
in a winter sea voyage, he would never have left Constantinople at
all for the unionist council in the West. His strength of character
showed itself also in incidents like those recounted above where he
stood out for the dignity of the patriarchal office. It was even
more strikingly demonstrated by episodes that occurred on his
journey to Ferrara.
When the ornate barge that carried him reached the frontiers
of the Duchy of Ferrara, it was found that the other boat that was
bringing some of the lower clergy and his baggage had been
delayed on the way. The Patriarch insisted on waiting till it
arrived, and neither the persuasions and guarantees of Garatoni
84
MARK EUGENICUS, Relatio de rebus a se gestis, in PETIT, DOCS., p. 448 (310).
85
SYR., p. 276.
 JOSEPH II 33
nor an incipient revolt of the boatmen made him change his mind.
When the boatmen, in spite of his orders, made ready to start
towing again, he would have disembarked there and then, had they
not desisted. So the best part of a day was lost, but he had his way
and was not separated from his baggage which in all probability
contained a large part of the sacred ornaments of the church of
St. Sophia and the robes he wanted to wear at his entry into
Ferrara. 86
But that entry into Ferrara was not the magnificent spectacle
that he hoped it would be. At the frontier he was met by a courier
of the Emperor to tell him that Eugenius IV expected that he
would conform to the Latin custom of kissing the Pope's foot and
that the Emperor, who had so far tried for three days in vain to
dissuade the Pontiff from insisting on this, urged him to be firm
and not to accede. Joseph was shocked and disappointed. So when
on arrival at the port of Ferrara he was met by six bishops who
pressed him to conform, he flatly refused. A council of his prelates
and Boullotes with another message from the Emperor confirmed
him in his decision. Towards evening the bishops came back and
urged him again, only to be told that he would rather return
straight to Constantinople. Later that evening they were back
again with the same demand, but Joseph said that he would not
even disembark from the boat unless the Pope would agree to
forgo the ceremony of the foot-kissing both for himself and for his
prelates and Staurophoroi. Late that night the Pope's messengers
acquainted him that Eugenius had yielded, but that the reception
would in consequence not be public and solemn but private—the
Pope would receive the Patriarch and his clerics in a private room
in groups of six. So the next day Joseph rode into Ferrara between
two cardinals (all the cardinals had accompanied the Emperor on
his entry) with an escort of bishops, court officials and courtiers of
Ferrara and, without his accustomed head-dress and staff, was
received by the Pope. 87
This incident of the foot-kissing was not just a trial of strength
between Pope and Patriarch. It was rather a manifestation of the
attitude to each other of the two Churches, and the heads of those
Churches were both acting on principle. The question at issue
86
Ibid., 91, 62.
87
Ibid., pp. 93-8; A.L., pp. 27-8; GEMINIANUS INGHIRAMI, Diarium, in
Frag., p. 34.
D
34 PERSONALITIES OF COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
was whether the two Churches were in all respects equal or
whether the Western Church, personified by the Pope, was
superior to the Eastern, in the person of the Patriarch. In die event
neither gave way on the principle, the more meagre reception
accorded by Eugenius to Joseph being, not the result of pique and
mortified pride, but a way of showing that, though he yielded the
point of etiquette so as not to impede the possibility of gaining the
greater good of harmony between the Churches, he did not accept
the grounds on which the Patriarch had objected. The relations
between the Churches were still to be discussed and decided by
the Council: neither side was willing to prejudice the decision by
premature action.
Syropoulus recounts this incident in great detail. Whatever
else he may have written about the Patriarch, he had no doubts
about his strength of character. Sphrantzes, because Joseph was
opposed to one of his friends, characterised the Patriarch as 'proud
and insatiable'. 88 Syropoulus did not make the mistake of inter-
preting strength as pride, and so, when at the end of his Memoirs
he lists the causes that had favoured the anti-unionist opposition
in Constantinople, he puts in the first place: 'And first [God]
delivered to death in Italy the Patriarch, Kyr Joseph, who had
approved and declared his opinion in favour of the union, but who
shortly after was snatched away without having survived to append
his signature and take part in the ceremony. He was a man of
profound mind who inspired great reverence and awe. Had he
survived he would have added great support to the union also in
Italy, and here, if he had returned, very few indeed would have
managed to remain outside his communion.' 89
88
PHRANTZES, p. 158. The chronicler's name was Sphrantzes, but his chronicle
is published
89
always under the name Phrantzes.
SYR., p. 347.