The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

By Christiaan Kappes

The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence is the first in-depth investigation into both the Greek and the Latin sides of the debate about the moment of Eucharistic transubstantiation at the Council of Florence. Christiaan Kappes examines the life and times of the central figures of the debate, Mark Eugenicus and John Torquemada, and assesses their doctrinal authority. Kappes presents a patristic and Scholastic analysis of Torquemada’s Florentine writings, revealing heretofore-unknown features of the debate and the full background to its treatises. The most important feature of the investigation involves Eugenicus. Kappes investigates his theological method and sources for the first time to give an accurate appraisal of the strength of Mark’s theological positions in the context of his own time and contemporary methods. The investigation into both traditions allows for an informed evaluation of more recent developments in the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in light of these historical sources. Kappes provides a historically contextual and contemporary proposal for solutions to the former impasse in light of the principles rediscovered within Eugenicus’s works. This monograph speaks to contemporary theological debates surrounding transubstantiation and related theological matters, and provides a historical framework to understand these debates.

The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence will interest specialists in theology, especially those with a background in and familiarity with the council and related historical themes, and is essential for any ecumenical library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9780268106393

Christiaan Kappes

Christiaan Kappes is academic dean of the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Book preview

The Epiclesis Debate at the Council of Florence

CHRISTIAAN KAPPES

The Epiclesis Debate at

the Council of

Florence

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS

NOTRE DAME, INDIANA

University of Notre Dame Press

Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

undpress.nd.edu

Copyright © 2019 by the University of Notre Dame

All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019948595

ISBN: 978-0-268-10637-9 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-0-268-10640-9 (WebPDF)

ISBN: 978-0-268-10639-3 (Epub)

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail].

To Elgan Baker,

for his friendship and support

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

A Note on Translations

Abbreviations

Introduction

ONE The Historical Origins and Theological Significance of the Florentine Debate on the Epiclesis

TWO The Life and Times of Mark of Ephesus

THREE The Status quaestionis of Mark’s Theology and Works, and Preliminary Debate at Florence

FOUR John Torquemada and His Cedula as Gleaned from the Sermo prior and Sermo alter

FIVE Mark of Ephesus’s Libellus as Refutation of the Cedula and Sermo prior

SIX Torquemada’s Sermo alter and Reunion: A Refutation of the Libellus

SEVEN Scholarius and Solutions to the Impasse

EIGHT Greek Solutions for Contemporary Problems

NINE Toward Greco-Roman Ecclesial Reunion

Appendix I: Sermo prior of John Torquemada:

On the Matter and Form of the Most Holy Eucharist

Appendix II: The Libellus of Mark of Ephesus

on the Eucharistic Consecration

Appendix III: Sermo alter of John Torquemada:

On the Matter and Form of the Most Holy Eucharist

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am naturally indebted to a number of persons for inspiring, aiding, and correcting this monograph in preparation for publication. First of all, the genesis of my idea to write on the epiclesis controversy was occasioned by a discussion and invitation to present my findings from two doctoral students, Charles Yost and Nicholas Kamas (both at the University of Notre Dame), who organized a session at the 49th Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan (2014). The special session was entitled Eucharistic Controversies: Byzantine East and Latin West. In the course of my research, I also had the privilege of using Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries. Therein, I became indebted to Julia Schneider (Notre Dame), who placed at my disposal the university’s impressive resources to help me to complete my research.

Next, I am also grateful to Sandra Collins of the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh for helping me to obtain necessary sources, and for giving me professional advice contributing to the completion of my research. Next, I am grateful to Cardinal Archbishop Joseph Tobin, CSsR, of Indianapolis, and Archbishop William Skurla of Pittsburgh, who generously gave me their blessings to teach and research at Saints Cyril and Methodius. Naturally, my professorship and deanship at the graduate theological school of Saints Cyril and Methodius have provided me with the ideal environment to undertake the necessary research for successful completion of this project.

I would like to thank Christopher Schabel of Cyprus for his generosity in providing me with some of his most recent research that contributed to my study. In the same vein, I am grateful to Christian Chivu and the Gândul Aprins Foundation in Rumania for generously supplying me with their multivolume edition containing Mark of Ephesus’s works in Greek and Rumanian. I warmly thank John Monfasani (SUNY) for his advice on questions concerning Bessarion of Nicaea. I greatly appreciate the willingness of Thomas Izbicki (Rutgers) to make especially helpful suggestions with respect to my treatment of Torquemada. In the same vein, I am indebted to Marie-Hélène Blanchet (CHCB, Paris) for her invaluable corrections with respect to Mark of Ephesus and Gennadius Scholarius. I am indebted to John Demetracopoulos (Patras, GR) for his suggested corrections to my translations from Greek. I likewise am grateful to Peter Simpson (CUNY) for checking and correcting my Greek translation of Byzantine liturgical texts. I express my appreciation for the valuable counsel from, now deceased, Rev. Dr. Peter Damian Fehlner (emeritus at the Seraphicum) on Duns Scotus, and Jared Goff (Mt. Angel) on Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. I am particularly beholden to and Stephen and Carol Kappes, who greatly assisted me in editing and formatting this text for publication. Lastly, I wish to thank Rebecca Willen for her diligence in indexing this volume.

A NOTE ON TRANSLATIONS

All translations are my own unless citing a translated text, in which I may have made my own modifications. The use of underline is meant to highlight textual similarity between two sources. The use of bold signifies my emphasis on a single case of parity between two ancient texts. In general, all italics as emphasis are my own in quoted/translated material. All references to appendix I, II, or III are to those at the end of this book.

ABBREVIATIONS

Introduction

In a monograph concentrated on the dogmatic debates and significance of the Eucharistic epiclesis at the Council of Florence (1439), not even a specialist would likely guess that the first name to grace the pages of such a study would be the Orthodox saint and celebrity Gregory Palamas (1296–1357).¹ Yet, this famous defender of the Hesychastic movement (nowadays the dominant form of Eastern Orthodox spirituality) did in fact manage to serve as a lightning rod of controversy for the last great attempt, in the Italian cities of Ferrara and Florence (1438–39), to effect corporate reunion between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches.²

Until recently, very little has been published on the Palamite undercurrent that sometimes bubbled to the surface of the public debates at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, even if bits and pieces of the Dominican–Palamite conflict had been studied in other ways.³ Byzantine studies and theological literature on Palamism have multiplied, but it has only been recently uncovered how much of the Council of Ferrara-Florence was marked by the behind-the-scenes conflict between Greek Palamites and Dominican Thomists.⁴ In fact, the two historical figures at the center of my study here on the epiclesis embody another such instance of an Orthodox theologian upholding Palamas’s legacy and a Dominican Thomist carrying on Cydones’s Thomistic anti-Palamism. Previous studies have sometimes concentrated on Latin–Greek interaction on the question of Gregory Palamas, his essence-energies theology, and the divine light emanating from the Godhead, but these remained largely focused on the dispute and debates happening within the confines of historical Byzantium, or within Latin-occupied lands thereabouts.⁵

Although the Palamite conflict began among Byzantine scholars and Churchmen (1335–51), that is, between and among Orthodox parties who spoke the Greek tongue, argued from Greek philosophy, and did so in Greek lands, the controversy eventually spilled over into Italy in the months prior to a grandiose effort to reunite the Greek and Latin Churches. Gregory Palamas, who died in 1357 as reigning archbishop of Thessalonica, currently enjoys international celebrity because of his historic defense of Eastern Orthodox monastic practices of prayer and spirituality on Mount Athos. Palamas successfully managed to overcome his rivals via a series of Byzantine synods, leading to his theological school’s monopoly on spirituality and theology within Byzantine environs under imperial control, but the legacy of Palamas continued to be contested after his death by other Greek writers, some of whom were under the influence of the writings of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274).⁶ As has been chronicled many times and in many languages, the Byzantine humanist Demetrius Cydones (1324/5–97/8) and his younger brother, Prochoros, elongated this struggle against Palamite theologians after Prochoros had reintroduced onto Mount Athos the theological debate that came to a head in the early 1360s. However, new terms were added to the old debate under the aegis of Augustine of Hippo’s and Thomas Aquinas’s theologies.⁷

For our purposes, the importance of this intra-Byzantine quarrel over theological terms, and their objective points of reference in the Godhead and its operations, lies in the fact that Demetrius Cydones exercised great intellectual influence over those young Byzantines who eventually entered the Dominican Order within the confines of Byzantium, or Rumania, as it was sometimes called. Because monastic educators in Constantinople and other Palamitico-friendly monasteries continued to heighten their Palamite profile, Greek exportation of Palamism to the future council in Ferrara was seemingly inevitable. This ended up causing quite a stir and not a little friction between Latins and Greeks nearly a century after Palamas’s death. In fact, the main Greek theologians responsible for dialoguing with the Latins to convoke an ecumenical council and thereafter to debate theological matters were convinced Palamites. This held true for the principal Greek theologian representing the Byzantines in negotiations for the upcoming council, Makarios Makres (c. 1391–1431).⁸ It was equally the case for the principal rhetors at Ferrara-Florence: Bessarion (1403–72), archbishop of Nicaea; and Mark Eugenicus (c. 1392–1445), archbishop of Ephesus (to whom I shall refer most often as simply Mark or the Ephesine).⁹

Meanwhile, Greek Dominicans kept alive the pious memory of Cydones in their Dominican studia of the Greek East.¹⁰ Of course, a certain antipathy toward the Palamites went hand in hand with reverence for and devotion to Cydones. After all, Palamites had been effectively responsible for Demetrius’s loss of political office, his persecution, and his exile from his homeland until his death.¹¹ Greek Dominicans kept the memory of the Palamite conflict alive by disseminating Demetrius’s writings and by penning new treatises against Palamism in traditionally Byzantine lands.¹² Because of these circumstances, Palamas’s infamy spread among Thomists and Dominicans with the result that a conciliar peritus, Andrew Escobar, OSB (1356/7–c. 1455) officially called for the condemnation of Palamas’s theology on December 15, 1437. This date follows upon the heels of an official papal decree (against a rebellious Latin council being held in Basel) transferring the Council of Basel to the city of Ferrara (September 18, 1437).¹³ Before the onset of the relocated council, Escobar pleaded with Pope Eugene IV as follows: "O most blessed Father Eugene . . . false, therefore, is the conclusion of some Greeks, and [their] errors, which claim that the attributes (attributa) differ essentially (essentialiter) from the divine essence (ab essentia divina) among [ad intra] divine items (in divinis)."¹⁴ A Benedictine and curial official for many decades, Escobar, whose Thomistic sympathies likely attracted him to Dominican circles, had first learned of the Thomist–Palamite controversy from none other than a Dominican and the former master of the sacred palace (palace theologian) in Rome, Andreas Chrysoberges, OP (c. 1375–1457).¹⁵ Escobar, as a penitentiarius of the Roman Curia, would have easily had occasion to acquaint himself with the dean of the pope’s studium in Rome.¹⁶ Andreas himself had only received official word of his invitation to the Council of Ferrara in April 1437. He was invited as both a voting father and a principal orator on behalf of Pope Eugene. Perhaps aware of Andreas’s position at the nearing council, Bessarion of Nicaea wrote to Chrysoberges, probably later in the same year, to inquire about Latin thinking on the theology of Palamas. Consequently, the Greek Dominican ascertained that Palamite sympathizers were going to be present at the upcoming ecumenical council on Italian soil.¹⁷ Thereafter, Andreas undoubtedly alerted his former understudies and influential confreres in Italy about the danger of Greek errors being brought by Palamites to Italy. Dominicans and Thomists opposed, en bloc, Bessarion of Nicaea and Mark of Ephesus on Palamite articles of faith: the constitution of the Godhead, the nature of the light springing from the divinity, and the human intellect’s incapacity to see clearly and without aid the divine essence.¹⁸

The pope about to preside at Ferrara-Florence, Pope Eugene IV (r. 1431–47), had initially inherited Chrysoberges as part of his household upon his election to the papacy in 1431. This meant that Andreas functioned as his palace theologian upon confirmation of the earlier appointment by his predecessor, Pope Martin V (1417–31). After Chrysoberges’s June 9, 1426, appointment to the office of dean, he was naturally able to exercise immense influence over the theologians who were teaching in the papal studium and to enjoy unfettered access to the pope.¹⁹ Eugene only brought Chrysoberges’s tenure to an end in 1434 so as to promote him to the Latin bishopric of Rhodes in order to further papal aims in Greek-speaking territories under Latin political and ecclesiastical hegemony. Chrysoberges’s absence from the papal court had the effect of diminishing his control over the future handling of the question of Palamism as the preparatory period of study intensified (November 1437) before the opening of the council in Ferrara.²⁰

All the same, given the fact that Dominicans supplied Eugene with refuge in Florence, after his flight from unruly Rome in 1432, one might think that the pope would have felt beholden to the Dominicans so as to cede them the task of preparing the officially sanctioned papal study on the attributes and essence of God.²¹ After all, the Dominicans relocated their Studium Romanae Curiae, or pontifical-attaché studium, to Florence in 1434, within the very walls of the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria Novella where Eugene lived and his Curia operated.²² This was coupled with the fact that John Torquemada, dean or master of the papal studium, was technically in charge of any faculty of the papal studium who had also relocated to Santa Maria Novella. Additionally, Eugene had only recently written to the Dominican master-general on October 7, 1437, inviting him to send twelve experts, or periti, to undertake official study of issues pertinent to the approaching council.²³ All these facts would normally portend future Dominican hegemony over a camp of scholars investigating the Dominican and Thomist hot topic, Palamism. Instead, the pope entrusted the Palamite question of the essence and attributes of God to Bonaventurian and Scotist theologians of the Franciscan Order.²⁴ Escobar’s open plea for Palamism’s condemnation shortly thereafter likely betrays Thomistic dissatisfaction with the results of the Franciscan study on the essence and energies of God.²⁵ Pope Eugene, presumably after reading the (no longer extant) Franciscan disquisition into the matter, decided that Palamism did not constitute a serious enough issue to demand resolution at Ferrara.²⁶

About this time, Torquemada, the Spanish Dominican, won Eugene IV’s favor for his staunch papalism and cooperation with Pope Martin V in opposition to antipapal conciliarists. Rivals to papal power in Christendom had been gathered together for some time in Basel in what was proving to be an increasingly rebellious council since its papally sanctioned convocation in 1431. Pope Eugene took advantage of the vacancy left by Chrysoberges (now at Rhodes) to appoint Torquemada to the Dominican office of papal theologian, or master of the sacred palace, in 1434.²⁷ This change of appointment was propitious for the Greeks and Dominicans to maintain some semblance of peace and order at Ferrara-Florence, for just prior to Ferrara the main rhetor of the Greek contingent, Mark of Ephesus, had written two fiery treatises defending Palamism against Chrysoberges’s celebrated predecessor and confrere, a Greek Dominican and Thomist named Manuel Calecas (c. 1350–1410).²⁸ Had Chrysoberges controlled the tenor and subject of the conciliar discussions, Mark would have been put on a collision course with the pugnacious Chrysoberges, given their shared fixation on the metaphysics of Palamas. Fortunately for everyone, Pope Eugene and the Byzantine emperor John VIII (1392–1448) had already formally agreed to forbid arbitrarily introducing debates on Palamism into the public discussions.²⁹

All the same, Torquemada, the new dean of papal theologians, quickly came to agree with his fellow (Greek) Dominicans that Mark and Bessarion held unacceptable opinions stemming from their Palamism. These Palamite tenets seemed at odds with Dominican, if not Roman Catholic, theology, as evidenced during the initial debates with the Greeks on purgatory and the beatific vision in November 1438. First, John Lei, OP (d. c. 1463), who probably acted as Torquemada’s secretary and peritus at Ferrara, renewed Dominican pleas for a conciliar condemnation of Palamism, but to no avail.³⁰ Second, Torquemada reproduced his own list of Palamite errors in perfect agreement with that of Lei. Clearly, Torquemada also took note of these Palamite ideas, which he had divined out of the purgatory discussions, as his Apparatus, or apologetic treatise, records: "Concerning ‘God three and one,’ this is written against those saying that beatitude (beatitudo), glory (gloria), or final happiness (felicitas ultima) of people does not consist in the vision of God himself. Contrariwise [they say it consists] of some other entity (entitas), which is thought to be really distinct from the very divine essence (essentia), or, as the Greeks call it, ‘energy’ (energia), or ‘act’ (actus), or ‘illumination’ (fulgor)."³¹ Torquemada only managed to publish (scripsit 1441) his condemnation of Palamism after Greek participation in the council had officially ended. By this time, Torquemada’s attack on Palamism served an ulterior purpose of refuting anti-Florentine and antipapal Latin Fathers still present at Basel. They were accusing the Latins at Florence of having committed heresy on any number of theological questions. This section of Torquemada’s Apparatus was written, therefore, to refute accusations that papalists had fallen away from the right faith by caving to Greek theologians. For their part, the Greeks had already been home many months and remained totally unaware of Torquemada’s literary debut wherewith he entered into the Dominican–Palamite fray.

Torquemada’s role at Florence ideally should have been to act as Eugene’s handpicked theologian and principal orator to engage the Greeks on disagreements needing to be publicly discussed and negotiated at the Council of Ferrara-Florence. In reality, Torquemada was never afforded the opportunity to debate Mark of Ephesus publicly on central issues at Florence, most especially on the focus of this study, the epiclesis.

The term epiclesis was meant to signify an invocation to God (typically to the Father) to send the Holy Spirit down upon persons or objects of blessing.

Because of Torquemada’s valuable skills in negotiating with Western princes and Churchmen of the Holy Roman Empire, Pope Eugene assigned him to travel north of the Alps while a significant portion of the debates was occurring in Florence. As a result, Torquemada failed to arrive in time to debate Mark of Ephesus on the filioque at Florence in 1439. In the summer of 1439, by the time Torquemada was prepared to resume formal discussions, Mark had already absented himself from disputations on the papacy, Eucharist, and epiclesis. By then Mark’s physical health, and his psychological attitude toward the Latins, altogether constrained him from participating in the discussions on the Eucharist. Mark ended up only anonymously responding, in written format alone, to Torquemada’s forensic arguments and written treatise on behalf of the Dominican-papal position, which he delivered before Florentine Greek and Latin Fathers. This treatise included arguments on the subjects of unleavened bread, the words of consecration, and the Eucharistic epiclesis.

Most major realms of factual contention (i.e., the beatific vision, the filioque, and the question of the divine essence and attributes of God) owed some of their acrimonious handling to the Dominican–Palamite antipathy that had by now become traditional in the Greek East. Can we likewise surmise that the epiclesis disputation, as the last major question to be debated before the close of the Council of Florence in 1439, took on a Palamite tenor? Is there a Palamite liturgiology or a Palamite view on liturgical questions? It must frankly be answered that there was no peculiarly Palamite (or Hesychastic for that matter) development of Byzantine liturgiology on the nature and function of the epiclesis, insofar as the writings and doctrine of Gregory Palamas are concerned. Nonetheless, it is significant that the more recent Greek writers, serving as primary sources for the Byzantines during the epiclesis debate at Florence, were either friends of Palamas or they theologized in a Palamite manner. Writers such as Nicholas Cabasilas (c. 1322–c. 1397/98) had certainly been friendly to Palamas, whereas Makarios Makres and Symeon of Thessalonica (c. 1381–1429) had adopted wholesale Palamism in their theological method.

Conversely, the principal Latin theology of the Eucharist dominating the discussions at Florence was peculiarly Dominican and mostly, but not entirely, dependent on the works of Aquinas. Dominicans naturally exercised zeal in defending their Scholastic tradition of sacramentology (diverse from that of the Franciscans and others). Consequently, this theologically Dominican facet of the epiclesis debate served only to intensify hostility between Thomists and Palamites, narrowing conciliar Fathers’ purview to only two theological foci. In this regard, certain moments of exclusively Dominican–Palamite disagreement are reducible to sectarian squabbles, having essentially little to do with official dogmas of the Latin Church in opposition to official Palamism of the Greek Orthodox Church. Whenever these two customary opponents concentrated on matters of historical rivalry, they effectively sidelined competing Latin theologies and sometimes bypassed official Roman Catholic doctrine.

Now, in this line of Palamite metaphysics and intellectual formation, a future hero of Orthodoxy, whose birth name was Eugenicus, arose at the Council of Florence. His Greek and Latin contemporaries gave him the nickname the Ephesine since he had been enthroned as the metropolitan archbishop of Ephesus in 1437. Mark thereafter played the role of simultaneous hero and antihero for all of Christendom, which eagerly followed the actions of the ongoing council.

Many of Mark’s contemporary Orthodox Churchmen hailed him as a Pillar of Orthodoxy in his own time. Nowadays he has even been popularly dubbed the Conscience of Orthodoxy—his mind said to have been illumined with divine energies and bathed in uncreated light, just as exposited by his spiritual master Palamas.³² Mark earned many a heroic epithet through correcting his coreligionists at Florence, who often enough proved eager to resolve religious disagreements by means of capitulation and compromise rather than by stalwart syllogistics.³³

Latin authors, too, chronicled the Ephesine’s words and deeds at this Orthodox/Catholic council of reunion in the Italian cities of Ferrara and Florence. Roman Catholic authors sometimes harbored a muffled fascination, even admiration, for the Mark person, whose virtues sometimes managed to slip from their otherwise apologetic pens. Hence, for Latins, Mark was typified as a religious antihero, while for Orthodox believers he was commemorated as the perpetual harbor of Orthodox faith amid the ecclesiastical typhoons of the fifteenth century. With this in mind, we embark on an exploration of Ferrara-Florence to understand the precise nature of Mark’s defense of the faith of his Fathers, endeavoring as he did to solidify adherence to the perennial traditions of his Church on Italian soil before he died shortly after his return to his Byzantine homeland.

CHAPTER 1

The Historical Origins and Theological Significance of the Florentine Debate on the Epiclesis

NICHOLAS CABASILAS (C. 1322–C. 1397/8)

AND THE EPICLESIS

Prior to boarding a galley homeward in the summer of 1439 and before he died in 1445, Mark of Ephesus left the Latins a last conciliar testament in the form of a disputed question of the Eucharistic epiclesis.¹ Only a short time before Mark’s birth, Nicholas Cabasilas, Mark’s intellectual predecessor, had been saddled with the dubious honor of being the first Byzantine to confront this disputed question of the moments and manner of Eucharistic change in response to Latin polemicists who were proselytizing in what was probably the Byzantine city of either Thessalonica or Constantinople.² Cabasilas wrote:

Certain Latins attack us thus: they claim that, after the words of the Lord Take and eat [; this is my body] and what follows, there is no need of any further prayer to hallow the offerings (ἁγιασθῆναι τὰ δῶρα), since they are already perfected (τελοῦμενα) by the Lord’s word. They maintain that to pronounce these words of Christ and then to speak of bread and wine and to pray for their hallowing (ἁγιασμὸν)—as if they had not already been hallowed (ἁγιασθεῖσιν)—is not only impious but also futile and unnecessary. Moreover, they say that the blessed Chrysostom is witness that these words perfect (τελειῶν) the offerings when he said in the same way that the words of the Creator, Be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28), spoken on a single occasion by God, continue to operate (ἐνεργεῖ). So, the words once spoken by the Savior are operative forever. . . . God said: Be fruitful and multiply. What then? After these words do we need nothing more to achieve this and is nothing else necessary for the increase of the human race? Is not marriage, along with conjugal union, essential, and all the other cares, which go with marriage, and without which it would be impossible for mankind to exist and develop? We consider marriage, therefore, necessary for child production (παιδοποιίαν), and after marriage we still pray toward this end, and without seeming to despise the Creator’s command, being well aware that it is the primary cause of birth, but through the mode (τρόπον) of marriage, provision for nourishment (τροφῆς) and so on. And in the same mode, here in the liturgy we believe that the Lord’s discourse does indeed make operative (ἐνεργοῦντα) the mystery, but through the medium of the priest, his invocation, and his prayer. These are not operating (ἐνεργεῖν) absolutely (ἁπλῶς) in themselves or under any circumstances, but there are many requirements, without which they do not change (ποιήσει) what relates to them. (Commentary, 29.1, 29.4)

He continues: This prayer [epiclesis] cannot mean anything else than transmutation (μεταβολὴν) for the offerings into the body and blood of the Lord (Commentary, 30.8).

By the second millennium of Christianity, there is no doubt that the term epiclesis was meant to signify an invocation to God (typically to the Father) to send the Holy Spirit down upon persons or objects of blessing. Cabasilas’s childbearing analogy, along with its concomitant Greek vocabulary of marriage and female child production, are not haphazard images with respect to the epiclesis. The entire patristic heritage and even Latino-Scholastic authorities did not fail to notice the gravid theological implications of applying the notion of conception in utero to the transmutation of Eucharistic bread and wine. Even more so, both Greek Fathers and renowned Scholastics consistently connected Mary’s celestially virginal marriage and its resultant conception (as Theotokos) to the miracle of Eucharistic change. The physical transmutation from the substance of Mary’s natural body to Christ’s fetal body served as an explanatory topos for an antique Eucharistic theory.³ Nevertheless, in spite of Cabasilas’s polished rebuttal, a potentially explosive concoction of disparate Eucharistic theologies continued to brew in successive decades. Curiously, this highly combustible mixture altogether failed to ignite controversy in preconciliar negotiations between Roman and Constantinopolitan representatives, who were engaging in theological dialogue some years later (1429–30). The Byzantine imperial contingent, beholden to Makarios Makres, a distinguished hieromonk, openly confessed the Byzantine belief in a consecratory epiclesis before papal theologians in preparatory discussions for an upcoming ecumenical council. Despite Makarios’s clear position, it was received by the Latins without evoking any scandal. Makarios irenically explained the epiclesis within the context of a separate question under discussion:

[Latins’] cause of dissension: Because of your forebears, what in the world are you priests affirming—among yourselves—when you raise the particles (μερίδας)?

[Greek response:] Whereas beforehand, as the priests say that these offerings are hallowed (ἁγιάζεται) by the priest in the epiclesis (ἐν τῇ ἐπικλήσει), it is also equally the case regarding the hot water [poured into the chalice] (ζέον). . . . Therefore, on the one hand, the priest assumes to himself the epiclesis of the Holy Spirit upon the offered gifts, while on the other hand, grace comes down (κάτεισιν) from above, which brings them to perfection (τελεσιουργοῦσα). (Διάλεξις, 15.199–202; 18.229–31)⁴

Although Latins were here focused upon peculiar ritual practices from the moment of epiclesis until the elevation of the gifts at the τὰ ἅγια τοῖς ἁγίοις, Makarios clearly confessed the Greek position on transmutation.⁵ Following his clear enunciation of the Byzantine doctrine of the Eucharist, and shortly after his return from Rome and preconciliar discussions in 1430, Makarios began tutoring George-Gennadius Scholarius (c. 1400–c. 1472), a burgeoning scholar.⁶ As a youngster (c. 1410–c. 1419), Scholarius had already had the previous fortune of instruction in remedial subjects under the tutelage of Mark Eugenicus.⁷ Only a few months after Makarios had taken Scholarius under his wing, illness and death overtook the hieromonk.⁸ Partially because of Scholarius’s study under Makarios, who was Mark’s own hero, Mark saw in Scholarius a natural pick to succeed himself. When Mark was at death’s door in 1445, he designated none other than Scholarius to be his intellectual and spiritual scion.⁹ Mark’s bestowal of this honor on Scholarius ultimately positioned the latter for selection to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople after the city’s fall to the Turks in 1453.

After his short-lived tutelage (1430–31) under Makarios, Scholarius likewise composed his own tract on the Eucharist and transubstantiation (post-1432), wherein he affirmed the consecratory nature of the words of the Lord, or what are called dominical words, or words of consecration (i.e., the words of Jesus at the Last Supper: This is my body/blood).¹⁰ For his part, Scholarius detected no lack of harmony between Orthodox commitments and the Aristotelico-Thomistic four causes, which functioned as presumed agents of Eucharistic change for followers of Aquinas. Scholarius seemed blissfully unaware of the debates on the epiclesis that Cabasilas was forced to confront in Thessalonica two generations earlier. In the Scholastic schema of sacramentology, the epiclesis needed to be categorized as either (1) a formal, (2) a material, (3) a final, or (4) an efficient cause of the Eucharistic substance. Not many years after Scholarius’s Eucharistic treatise, John Torquemada was saddled with the responsibility of debating the Byzantines on the epiclesis in 1439. The Dominican Torquemada unsurprisingly utilized the very same Scholastic criteria to appraise traditional Byzantine theory of Eucharistic change, or transmutation.¹¹

As it turned out, Cabasilas’s original framing of the fourteenth-century debate in Thessalonica had in fact satisfactorily encapsulated the essential elements of this theological powder keg, which required but one heated discussion at