Why Was John Italos Accused of Iconoclasm?

If John Italos was ultimately censured for teaching Greek philosophical doctrines as the ultimate truth, why was he accused of iconoclasm? What role did icons play in the controversy around Italos’s philosophical teachings? At first glance, we might be surprised to hear that icons played any role at all since Italos was accused of teaching ancient, philosophical ideas instead of Christian doctrines: namely, that souls exist before human conception and that the cosmos was not created out of nothing. He was nonetheless accused of theoretical and practical iconoclasm, as well as its very opposite, worshiping images. We will now follow his story, accompanied by the pertinent documents surrounding the controversy, to see how images became involved in a dispute about philosophy.

1. The Intellectual Atmosphere

During the 11th century in Constantinople, there was a revival of interest in ancient Greek philosophy, not necessarily as opposed to the patristic conception of Christian philosophy (Document 18) but at least alongside and independent of it. Both Michael Psellos (1018–1078) and John Italos (1020 after 1082), teacher and pupil, exemplified this movement. Certain members of the society, however, definitely saw a danger in this kind of thinking since, as they saw it, these philosophers loved Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists as much as, if not more than, Christ. They even accused the two men of having renounced Christianity in favor of paganism. The intellectual atmosphere of the time was thus permeated with the odor of the struggle between these two factions: the advocates of traditional Christian dogmas and philosophy and the partisans of renewing the study of pagan philosophy. Psellos and Italos—both being officially named Consul of the Philosophers—were the main protagonists for the latter group.^[1]

The Question

If John Italos was ultimately censured for teaching Greek philosophical doctrines as the ultimate truth, why was he accused of iconoclasm? What role did icons play in the controversy around Italos’s philosophical teachings? At first glance, we might be surprised to hear that icons played any role at all since Italos was accused of teaching ancient, philosophical ideas instead of Christian doctrines: namely, that souls exist before human conception and that the cosmos was not created out of nothing.^[2] He was nonetheless accused of theoretical and practical iconoclasm, as well as its very opposite, worshiping images. We will now follow his story, accompanied by the pertinent documents surrounding the controversy, to see how images became involved in a dispute about philosophy.

The Chronology of the Story

+/-1020

John Italos was born in Southern Italy around 1020. His father was a mercenary soldier whom he—and his mother presumably—followed as the father served in various military campaigns. It is, therefore, quite reasonable to accept that Italos was exposed to Greek as a child or teenager though he no doubt knew Latin because of his early education and the relation of the two languages in Southern Italy.^[3] Which was his first language? Being from Southern Italy was later on to be both an advantage and a disadvantage for him when he moved to Constantinople.^[4] (Document_4:8,1-2)

1042–1043

In his early 20s, Italos took up residence in Southern Italy where he no doubt continued his education.

Before 1050

He was nearly 30 years old when he decided to study literature and philosophy in Constantinople, the intellectual center of the empire. There, he became a student of Michael Psellos (1018—after 1077), philosopher and professor whom, in 1045, the Emperor Constantine IX (1042–1055) appointed Consul of the Philosophers. Italos distinguished himself as a student and then went on to teach his own students, but finally he fell out with Psellos. See Anna Comnena’s description of his character (Document_4:8,3–9); see equally a satirical description of him in Hades as found in Timarion, a 12th-century document where a Dante-like character, Timarion, meets John Italos during a trip through the underworld. (Document 11)

1055 or Just Before

Michael Psellos wrote a confession of faith containing statements about images. (Document 1) Later on, John Italos used this part of Psellos’s confession for his own purposes.

1073–1075

Because of John Italos’s origins in Southern Italy and his language skills, the Emperor Michael VII Dukas (1071–1078) appointed him as a diplomate to the Normans who were threatening the empire on its western borders, but Italos was suspected of colluding with the enemy and fled to Rome. The charge of treason must not have been very serious because the emperor pardoned Italos who was soon called back to Constantinople and became Consul of the Philosophers, succeeding Michael Psellos who fell out of favor. Rumors had been circulating for some time that John Italos, and Michael Psellos before him, had been teaching ancient Greek, pagan philosophy as ultimate truth, such doctrines being in conflict with Christian dogma. (Document 4:8,3-5)

1076–1077

He was brought before a synod for teaching pagan doctrines summarized in nine articles which were condemned without mentioning his name. These accusations have not survived, but we get some idea of their content from other documents that have come down to us. (Document 5 and Document 10)

1077–1082

Although the synodal decision of 1077 did not condemn John Italos by name, it did not exonerate him either. Nine articles, supposedly based on his teachings, were condemned, but that decision satisfied no one. So, both Italos and his enemies continued to be active: he went on with his teaching, and they, with their criticism of his alleged adherence to pagan philosophy. Sometime before 1082, he composed Quaestiones quodilibetales, in which he set out his ideas on various philosophic subjects. In the last chapter, πζ’. Περὶ εἰκόνων (Document 2; Document 3), he set out his theology of the icon which was not very original since, by comparing it to the text of St. John of Damascus, we see that Italos practically copied what St. John had already said. It is not on this document that the later accusations of iconoclasm would be based. In 1081, there was a dynastic change, and Alexis Comnenos (1081–1118) became emperor. He not only replaced the preceding Dukas dynasty with that of the Comnenians, he also installed a new governing elite. He himself was a representative of the provincial, military elite from Asia Minor, not very favorable to the civil aristocracy in the capital who had supported the revival of ancient philosophy and letters. John Italos was a prominent representative not only of the ancien régime but also of its intellectual orientation.^[5] It is not surprising then that Alexis Comnenos and John Italos were destined to clash. The emperor’s brother, Isaac the Sebastocrator, and John Italos argued in private and in public. (Document_4:9,5)

Early March 1082

1. Taking advantage of the new situation in Constantinople, Italos saw his chance to finally remove any doubt about his orthodoxy and so asked the new patriarch, Eustratios Garidas (May 1081-July 1084), to reopen the case and clear his name by examining a new written exposition of his faith, but the patriarch preferred to examine Italos on the basis of the articles condemned in 1077. (Document 5:3) So, Patriarch Garidas convoked a synod to examine Italos’s case. The day before the synod met, there was a preliminary meeting of the patriarch, his suffragan bishops and Italos to have a preparatory analysis of the case. Anna Comnena claims that the patriarch leaned so much in Italos’s favor, being heavily influenced by Italos’s argumentation, that in fact he was convinced of Italos’ innocence. (Document 4:9,5)
2. The day following the preliminary investigation of Italos’s case, a synod met to make a decision, but an angry, anti-Italos mob broke into the meeting which had to be suspended. The people were looking for Italos, but he escaped on the roof of the building. After adjourning the synod, Patriarch Garidas had the accusations drawn up in eleven articles, and transferred the whole question to the emperor. The patriarch thus washed his hands of the entire affair. (Document 4:9,6)
3. The Emperor Alexios then organized a full-scale trial over which he himself presided and during which six accusations were leveled at Italos. The first five concerned the Trinity, the hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures and the Virgin Mary, but the last one dealt with images and accused John Italos of worshiping them (Document 5:6). Since he used the verb to worship (λατρεύειν) to speak about the honor he paid to images, he naturally stepped over the line established by Nicaea II (787) which defined that λατρεία (worship) was to be exclusively used for reverence offered to God and προσκύνησις (bowing down in veneration) for reverence shown to images. Italos answered the charge by saying that λατρεία had a broader meaning which could include veneration offered to images, and that is what he meant by the word. He was not totally wrong in his claim, and he tried to quote sources that supported his affirmation (Document 14), but these writings were not mentioned in the semeioma, the official minutes. His defense was not acceptedanyone claiming to be an orthodox theologian should know better. The decision of Nicaea II was upheld and Italos’s defense condemned. It should be noted, however, that Italos was simply repeating what Psellos had already written in his profession of faith. (Document 1) Italos then repudiated all the ideas contained in the six accusations, and the false doctrines were anathematized. The emperor then forbade Italos or any of his followers to teach in public or in private and called upon the patriarch and the full holy Synod to hear the results of the trial andto impose an official, ecclesiastical penalty. (Document 5:7)
4. And then a coup de théâtre. A man named Michael Kaspakes appeared at the end of the trial presenting a list of ten accusations against Italos. Nine of them dealt with pagan philosophical doctrines that Italos was allegedly teaching, but the tenth one accused him of throwing a stone at an image of Christ. He willingly admitted that the first nine expressed his opinions up to that time but vigorously denied the tenth one. The emperor ordered an investigation into Italos’s alleged, material iconoclasm, but cautioned that even if he had not actually carried out such as an act, he was, nonetheless, guilty of having taught that the material image itself was merely an object having a very tenuous relation to the prototype, a relation that does not justify any kind of physical gesture of veneration made to it. The emperor then had all the documents—the semeiosis of the trial, a pittakion^[6] (letter to the patriarch), as well as Kaspakes’s new list of accusations—sent to the patriarch and synod for ecclesiastical sanctions. Thus ended John Italos’s trial before the emperor. (Document 5:8)

March 13, 1082

Orthodoxy Sunday, in Hagia Sophia, John Italos was obliged to acknowledge as his own the pagan, philosophical doctrines attributed to him and to anathematize them. His doctrines were thereupon solemnly condemned, and he was sent to a monastery. (Document 5:9) It may be that the anathematized doctrines were added to the Synodikon at this moment. (Document 10)

March 20, 1082

A synod was convoked to read the emperor’s pittakion.

March 21, 1082

A new session of the preceding synod assembled to again read the pittakion and to inquire about the orthodoxy of Italos’s students. A new synod was to meet soon to examine fully Italos’s followers.^[7]

April 11, 1082

A synod was convoked to exonerate Italos’s students, to require Kaspakes to produce any witnesses to Italos’s alleged throwing of a rock at an icon of Christ and to sign his written document containing the accusations against John Italos. (Document 5:10)

After 1082

He died.

1091

There was already a new Consul of the Philosophers.

±1092

He may have been chartophylax in Antioch.

1148

In The Alexiad, Anna Comnena wrote about John Italos and images. (Document 4:9,7)

1180- 1217

In the Thesaurus, Nicetas Choniates wrote about John Italos and images. (Document 7)

Questions

Question 1. What was John Italos’s ethnic origin and mother tongue?

The answer to this question depends to a great degree on his place of birth, family history, and childhood (Document 13:1–4). Anna Comnena says he was from Italy, lived in Sicily for a long time, and escaped with his father to Longobardia (Document 6:map) when there was a regime change on the island. His father is referred to an Italian (Document 4:8,1-2). What does Anna Comnena mean by “Italian”? Many researchers speak about Southern Italy, including Calabria. So, Southern Italy is about as precise as we can be, with any degree of certainty.

If we take Joannou’s point of view (Document 12), John Italos was the son of a Norman, Frankish mercenary who happened to find himself in Italy and Sicily where his son was born. His, and John’s, first language, we can deduce, was a form of Norman French. This is a deduction since no source says either that his father was Norman French or that Italos spoke French. Since he grew up in Italy and spent time in Longobardia, he might well have learned a local Italian dialect as well, but again this is speculation. Being educated in various parts of Italy, he would have picked up Latin and maybe studied Greek in school or have picked up some elementary Greek since he also spent time in Greek-speaking Byzantine areas. He was considered a Latin by all sources and, to my knowledge, no one ever called him, or considered him to be, a native Greek speaker from Byzantine Italy. Since the Emperor Michael Dukas sent Italos as an ambassador to the Norman invaders or to the Pope, it is logical to assume that he spoke their language, Norman French. If this were true, it would give credence to the opinion that his father was also Norman French.

What was his mother’s ethnic origin? Was she Greek? Norman French, a local Italian girl? If she had been of Southern Italian, Greek origin, Italos would certainly have gotten from her a basic knowledge of the language, but not the polished Greek of the capital, and all the sources point out his linguistic problems. There is no information, however, about his mother. The safest bet is that she was whatever Italos’s father was, but that does not tell us much.

Rigo, however, did not accept Joannou’s conclusion that John Italos was of Norman origin, and by extension, a native Norman French speaker. (Document 13:1-4) But after rejecting any Norman ethnic origin, Rigo does not give any more information than what the Byzantine sources mention: “Italian” and “Loggibardian,” (Document 15) along with “Latin” and “Ausonian.” (Document 16). So, we have to conclude that his exact ethnic origin is unknown, whatever might have been that of a mercenary soldier operating on the Southern Italian peninsula and in Sicily. What does this mean for John Italos’s first language? It would have been whatever his parents and the soldiers they followed spoke, a local dialect. Since he was sent by Emperor Michael VII Dukas as an ambassador to the invaders in the West—who else would they be but Normans—is it unreasonable to think that he was himself of Norman origin, at least from his father? This could also explain why he was tempted to betray the emperor and collaborate with them. He had Norman sympathies, but he was intelligent and saw that his future did not lie with them, but with Constantinople, and so he quickly repented and his friend, Michael VII, took him back.

Therefore, among the many speculations about John Italos’s origin, we find the following the most reasonable because it is the simplest; vive William of Occam: his father was of local Southern Italian stock, and his mother by pure speculation, was also a Southern Italian. This would make him a native speaker of a Southern Italian dialect. However, his moving around throughout Southern Italy and Sicily, along with any schooling he received during this time, would have exposed him to at least Latin and possibly Greek, and since he was an intelligent student, he no doubt learned it/them. What was his competence in Greek when he arrived in Constantinople? Since no source mentions any thing about that—Anna Comnena even says he spoke Greek as like a Latin having learned that language—we incline to the opinion that he knew little or no Greek. The Latin-speaking editor of some of Psellos’s letters says in the introduction to Letter 18 that “Italos arrived in Constantinople from Sicily about 1049 and when he had sufficiently learned the Greek Language from Nicetas, he attended Psellos’s lectures, perhaps until 1055, before he himself became a teacher.”^[8] Though I could not find the source for this affirmation, the only Nicetas that seems to fit is Nicetas Stethatos.^[9] So, the answers to this first question are that Italos was ethnically of local, Southern Italian—that is Latinish—stock, that he spoke a Southern Italian, Latinish dialect and that he knew some Latin, but no Greek to speak of.

Question 2. Did John Italos have one or several private disputes with Isaac the Sebastocrator about his, and Leo of Chalcedon’s, theology of images? (Document 8)

First of all, we need to determine whether the two men had private disputes, whatever the subject. Anna Comnena is the only source to mention them: (Document 4:9,5) “Noting that Italos was everywhere causing trouble and leading many astray, he [Alexios] referred the man for preliminary examination to the Sebastocrator Isaac, who was himself a scholar blessed with intelligence. Isaac, satisfied that Italos was indeed a troublemaker, publicly refuted him at this inquiry…” Though Anna is the only source, there is nothing that makes it unreasonable to conclude that they did have such conversations and that Isaac did denounce Italos publicly, but The Alexiad is not clear on the subject of the conversations. Therefore, we are inclined to combine Anna’s account of Isaac’s investigation of Italos and the chronology established above to state the following: As a result of the regime change in 1081, Alexios I Comnenos’s ascending the throne, the new emperor noticed that John Italos was indeed the subject of controversy. He then commissioned his brother, Isaac the Sebastocrator, to examine Italos and his doctrine and to make a recommendation. We can assume that the two met to discuss the controversy; Isaac found that he “was indeed a troublemaker” and denounced him publicly in some arena. It seems reasonable not to identify this public arena with either Patriarch Garidas’s preliminary investigation or the synod on the following day, in early March 1082, because Anna says that “later, on instruction from his brother [Isaac], the emperor committed him to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal,” (Document 4:9,5) this tribunal being the one convoked by the patriarch early March 1082. What was the subject of Italos’s and Isaac’s discussions? Images? Nothing in Anna’s text indicates the subject. Nothing in any source furnishes any information. The anathemas from the synod of 1076–1077, themselves lost but set forth in the Synodikon, do not deal with image theology. So, apparently from that synod to the one in 1082, Italos’s image theology was not a matter of controversy while his teaching about ancient Greek philosophy was. It is, therefore, unlikely that his iconology was a subject of discussion between Italos and Isaac before the trial. Was there a link between Italos’s being accused of iconoclasm and the controversy surrounding Leo of Chalcedon’s iconology, such that Isaac the Sebastocrator would see Italos as an adversary of Alexios’s policy with regard to melting down gold and silver images to help pay the army as well as an ally of Leo of Chalcedon who denounced the emperor’s policy? Again, it would seem not, because Italos’s trial and condemnation took place right at the beginning of Leo of Chalcedon’s controversy or even a bit before. Leo’s iconology took some time to develop, and so it is again unlikely that the accusation of iconoclasm leveled against Italos was related to, or dependent on, Leo of Chalcedon’s iconology. Here’s another reason to doubt that image theology was the, or a, subject of discussion between Isaac and Italos before the latter’s trial.

Question 3. Was John Italos involved in political activity against Alexios Comnenos?

By “political activity,” we mean opposition to the rule of Alexios Comnenos. Did John Italos engage in any subversive activity to undermine the reign of Alexios and perhaps re-establish the Dukas’s on the throne? We have no information from the sources that that was the case, but did Alexios see Italos as a political threat, and did the emperor’s desire to condemn him cover a political resentment? Anna Comnena says that “most of the thoughtless he incited to revolt, and not a few were encouraged to become rebellious.” (Document 4:9,4) She also says that this happened before Alexios I became emperor in 1081. Are we to interpret her statement in political terms? Do revolt and rebellious have political connotations? If we accept them as meaning political subversion, what kind of subversion could that be, seeing that Michael VII Dukas was still emperor. Italos was closely associated with the Dukas dynasty, so why would he be inclined to encourage political subversion toward his mentor’s regime? Could those words mean simply that he encouraged young men to act like rowdy teenagers, wild parties and pranks—the attitude “boys will be boys”—with no political content? I would be more inclined to that interpretation of revolt and rebellious than to one involving political agitation against the emperor. Was John Italos capable of really treasonous activity? Apparently yes, because he was involved in doubtful behavior when Michael VII Dukas sent him as an ambassador to negotiate with Westerners. We do not know the nature of his activities, and he was, in the end, pardoned by the Emperor Michael. Italos was very closely tied to the ancien regime which represented not only just another ruling dynasty, but also everything Alexios opposed: secular studies as opposed to biblical, patristic and theological studies; the intellectual, “effeminate” aristocracy in Constantinople which supported secular studies, as opposed to the military, “manly,” aristocracy in Anatolia more oriented to theological studies; the Constantinopolitan clergy interested in secular studies as opposed to the monastic clergy in favor of the study of the Fathers. John Italos, one of the protégés of the Dukas family, could easily have been suspected, rightly or wrongly, of subversive political activity. Whether he did or did not, whether Alexios suspected him of it or not, we cannot know since there is no information in the sources that suggest such a thing. It is, though, an interesting possibility; more we cannot say.

Question 4. Did Leo of Chalcedon make a reference to John of Italos in his “Letter to Nicholas of Adrianople”? (Document 9)

Not overtly. The question is this: did Leo make a veiled reference to Italos and to those who thought as he did. Maybe. Stephanou claims that those who shared the opinion of Basil of Euchaita were as ungodly as he was. He also claims that his affirmation is based on the work of Theodore Ouspensky.^[10] Were those people John Italos and his disciples? What does Leo of Chalcedon say about “those” people? They do not know what the word image means. In any polemical discussion about images, each side could in fact accuse the other of misunderstanding the very subject of the discussion. He further says that they do not understand what a “relation” is, the one between the type and the “archetype” (prototype). Now that sounds more like John Italos. If, as with all Platonists, the image is but a pale reflection of the prototype, then it is not unreasonable to hear an echo of Italos’s doctrine about images. After all, he did say that he did not stay “fixated on the shadows” [images] but sent “up the honor to the prototype.” (Document 5:6) Although such a statement is not suspect in and of itself, in the controversy where the nature of the relation between the persons represented in images and the material objects that represent them, the words about not being fixated on the shadows could be interpreted as a denigration of images, and that was always Leo’s basic criticism of the emperor’s theology of images, which Alexios never articulated, but which by his action of melting them down to get the gold and silver from them to pay the army, he did indeed show slight respect to them. Leo says that his adversaries knew nothing of “bowing down” (proskynesis), which is the physical expression of veneration or worship. Though Italos said nothing about such corporeal gestures, one could claim that if there were a misunderstanding of the relation between an image and its prototype, one could logically say that such a person has a faulty understanding of the gesture that expresses the respect given to both the image and the prototype. It is a stretch, however, to see in the accusation of not understanding the proper nature of bowing down (proskynesis), a definite reference to Italos. The same can be said for not understanding the nature of a “hypostasis” and “things consecrated to God.” So, the answer to the question about Leo of Chalcedon’s making a reference to John Italos and his followers must remain “perhaps.” Another statement of Leo could be taken as a reference to Italos. Leo says, “let them listen…” Is he speaking to the same group or another? Since “they,” in the opinion of Leo, seem to be slighting images, it does seem so. Leo’s opponents were quite willing to “bow down in worship before Christ” where no images were involved, but not to “bow down in worship before Christ” where Christ was represented in them. Despite Italos’s lame explanation of the meaning of latria as just meaning veneration, it is reasonable to say that he, and his followers—and all Orthodox believers—would refuse to fall down in worship in front of an icon of Christ. Even though some of the evidence does point in the direction of Italos’s beliefs about images, it may be hazardous, though not unreasonable, to affirm that Leo of Chalcedon did in fact make an oblique reference to John Italos. Again, “perhaps.”

Question 5. Was John Italos sent as ambassador to talk to the Norman invaders of Byzantine territory or to the Pope to talk about Church unity?

Anna Comnena says about John Italos (Document 4:8,5): Michael VII Dukas, “looking upon Italos as a personal friend, a good man and an expert on Italian affairs, sent him to Epidamnos. To cut a long story short, it was discovered that he was betraying our cause there, and an agent was sent to remove him. Italos realized what was happening and fled to Rome.” What does this text tell us?

Michael VII Dukas was the emperor;

John Italos had the confidence of the emperor who considered him an expert of Italian affairs;

Michael VII sent Italos to Epidamnos (Dyrrachium, Durrës in modern Albania) to talk to someone about Byzantine interests;

Italos was suspected of betraying those interests;

someone was sent to replace him, and Italos fled to Rome.

However, what does this text not tell us?

When was Italos sent on his diplomatic mission;

to whom was he sent to talk;

what was the subject of the conversation;

what did Italos do or say that was seen as treasonous by Michael VII;

why did Italos flee to Rome, and how was he received in Rome and by whom?

Since Michael VII Dukas became emperor on Oct. 1, 1071, that is the terminus post quem for the diplomatic mission, and since Italos was put on trial in 1076–1077, 1076 seems to be the terminus ante quem for the diplomatic mission. It is not likely that the emperor would have sent someone on trial to be his ambassador in any kind of talks. So, the mission took place between 1071 and 1076.

Michael VII carried out negotiations on two fronts at the beginning of his reign that started on Oct. 1, 1071: one on the political front with Robert Guiscard concerning a marriage treaty between the emperor’s brother, later his son, and one of Guiscard’s daughters; the other, on the religious front when Michael wrote to Gregory VII proposing negotiations for healing the schism of 1054, and perhaps military aid from the West against the Turks.^[11] These negotiations would have gone on between 1072–1074. In which talks did Italos participate? He could have been involved in either one. Does the information in Anna Comnena’s text lean in one or the other direction? Michael thought Italos was an expert in “Italian affairs.” That sounds as though he is talking about politics. Would Anna call the relations between the Churches “Italian affairs”? Italos went to “Epidamnos” (Dyrrachium, Durrës in modern Albania). Does the city on the eastern shores of the Adriatic seem to be a place better suited to Church or treaty negotiations? Since Guiscard was fighting on Italy’s southeastern coast trying to seize Byzantine territory there, it does seem more likely that negotiations be carried out at Epidamnos with Guiscard who would only have to send ambassadors directly across the sea. Why would the pope send legates to Epidamnos to talk about Church unity? Anna Comnena says Italos was “betraying our cause.” She identified that cause as “our” cause indicating an emotional attachment to what the cause was. It is “us-versus-them” language. She is not known for any real interest in healing the schism with Rome while her whole orientation is political, showing her father’s greatness as a political leader. I sense therefore a political cause. Unfortunately, all this is speculation, but the information given by Anna Comnena has the smell of politics and not incense, so I will cautiously lean this way: John Italos was sent to Epidamnos to participate in the negotiations for a marriage treaty between the families of Robert Guiscard and the Emperor Michael VII Dukas.

If this is true, then obviously he talked to Guiscard about a dynastic alliance between the East Romans and the Normans.

And the treason. What could that possibly have been? It must not have been very serious because Michael VII rehabilitated Italos after the affair. It was serious enough, however, to force the emperor to replace Italos and for Italos to flee—for his life? Maybe. At least he thought that his security would be better protected in Rome.

So, Italos fled to Rome. At that time, Rome was a Church capital more than a political capital, so if Italos’s mission was to negotiate a marriage treaty between the families of Michael VII and Robert Guiscard and if he was found “betraying our cause,” why go to Rome? Perhaps, since Rome was not so much a political center, where both the emperor and Guiscard’s political influence would not be so heavy, he fled to the big city to hide from everyone.

Finally, did anyone receive him, and, if so, and how? Silence. Perhaps the news of his betrayal of “our cause,” had also reached Rome where it would be better for him to keep a very low profile. His reputation, though it was made in Constantinople and in Greek, could have reached the Pope who was also negotiating Church unity with the emperor. So, he may not have been an unknown even in Latin Rome. Therefore, since the historical record is silent on his activity in Rome, let us assume that he wanted it that way and just hid out among the ruins until a better wind began to blow.

Question 6. Did John Italos plagiarize St. John of Damascus and Michael Psellos? If he did, what does that say about his scholarship?

So, the first question is did Italos plagiarize anyone. I tried to show in Document 2 and Document 3 that he did plagiarize St. John of Damascus by comparing Italos’s text on images to what St. John wrote on the subject. I do not think there is much doubt that Italos simply paraphrased St. John text. Did Italos also copy Michael Psellos by more or less reformulating his statement on images?

Psellos: “I bow down before, and I worship, the image of the incarnate Son of God. … I do not remain fixated on the shadows themselves, but I refer the likeness to the prototype.” (Document 1) [“Προσκυνῶ καὶ λατρεύω τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ σαρκωθέντος Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τῷ τύπῳ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἁγίας αὐτοῦ μητρός, ταῖς διὰ χρωμάτων μορφαῖς τῶν ἀπ› αἰῶνος εὐαρεστησάντων αὐτῷ, οὐκ ἐμμένων αὐταῖς ταῖς σκιαῖς, ἀλλ’ εἰς τὸ πρωτότυπον ἀναφέρων τὴν ὁμοιότητα.”]

Italos is quoted in the minutes of his trial: “He says, ‘he worships the image of the incarnate Son of God, without remaining fixated on the shadows but refers the honor to the prototype.’” (Document 5:6) [εἶπε γὰρ αὐτὸς “λατρεύειν τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ σαρκωθέντος υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, οὐ ταῖς σκιαῖς εμμένων, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὸ πρωτότυπον τὴν τιμὴν ἀναφέρων.”]

 

Psellos	Italos
λατρεύω	λατρεύειν
τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ σαρκωθέντος Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ	τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ σαρκωθέντος υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ
οὐκ	οὐ
ἐμμένων	εμμένων
ταῖς σκιαῖς	ταῖς σκιαῖς
ἀλλ’	ἀλλ’
εἰς	ἐπὶ
τὸ πρωτότυπον	τὸ πρωτότυπον
ἀναφέρων	ἀναφέρων

 

It seems fairly clear that Italos’s sentence reflects that of Psellos.

So, in both cases, we can say that Italos based some of his writing on previous authors, without making any reference to them. Do we want to call that plagiarism? It certainly would be called that today, so let us call a spade a spade and say that Italos plagiarized twice in his career, maybe more, but we do not have any evidence for it. We already know that Anna Comnena did not have a very high evaluation of his intelligence and scholarship: “He was eager to reinterpret the theory of ideas so that it should in some way be rendered orthodox, and it was clear he condemned his early deviations from the truth.” (Document 4:9,7) These two examples of copying seem to substantiate her claim. It is one thing to quote previous authors with proper references; it is quite another to pass off as one’s own what others have written.

Question 7. Was John Italos really an adept of pagan philosophy?

Did he, in fact, substitute Platonic or Neo-Platonic theology for Christian dogma; did he try to affirm both and reconcile them; was he confused about what he really believed; did he intend to teach Greek philosophy as just an academic pursuit, or something else? First of all, it may be useful to establish a continuum on which we can place John Italos and answer our question. It is classic in East Roman studies to distinguish between inner wisdom and outer wisdom.^[12] By these terms, outer wisdom refers to pagan philosophy and the polytheistic worldview represented by Greek antiquity: the actual metaphysical beliefs of the “Greeks,” as the East Romans would refer to them along with their teachings about logic, rhetoric and other more down-to-earth sciences. Christians could benefit from studying some of these texts—logic, rhetoric and other more down-to-earth sciences—without any danger for their Christian faith. The former refers to Christian wisdom developed by the Fathers of the Church based on the Scriptures and patristic writings. First of all, let us identify the position furthest to the right, the one which sees no relation whatsoever between pagan learning and Christian wisdom: “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?”^[13] Tertullian represents this far-right position. He is on the right end of the spectrum. St. Basil the Great, however, makes a clear and rigorous distinction between the two.^[14] The outer wisdom teaches us how to think logically, and the inner wisdom teaches us what to think about God, Christ, salvation, etc. On the other end is Gemistos Plethon^[15] who in fact became a pagan if that word means believing in the mythological religion of the ancient Greeks. He overthrew the inner-outer wisdom distinction and adopted the outer wisdom as his religion. So, where do we place John Italos between Tertullian, St. Basil and Plethon?

 

Plethon	John Italos	St. Basil the Great	Tertullian
Ancient Greek religion and philosophy, outer wisdom, are superior to Christian beliefs; they are true and Christian dogma, inner wisdom, false.	Christians can try to reconcile inner and outer wisdom showing that they are compatible.	Christians can profit from studying Greek logic and other down-to-earth sciences (outer wisdom) while rejecting ancient Greek theology in favor of Christian dogma (inner wisdom).	Christians can in no way profit from studying Greek philosophy; the only position is total rejection of outer wisdom.

 

Certainly not with Plethon who was accused of having adopted, and did convert to, ancient Greek philosophy as his religion in opposition to Christianity. Italos’s statements put him clearly in the Christian camp, and he would have resented being called a heretic or a pagan. He saw himself as an orthodox Christian. That may have been his illusion, but at least that is what he believed about himself. Was he closer to St. Basil by making a lower and subordinate place for Greek philosophy while giving the upper and superior status to Christian dogma? He was certainly closer to St. Basil than to Tertullian. At the same time, it seems safe to say that he was not, and did not see himself as a professor of comparative philosophy: “This is what these philosophers taught, and that is what their opponents said… In the following century, some said this and some said that.” He taught his subject with passion and believed in its value. Was he too enthusiastic for his own good? Did he say things that, “after replaying a student’s recording,” he wished he had not said, or in that particular way, things that did in fact open him to the accusations of his enemies? This seems to have been his problem. He was caught in an intellectual bind: he was and affirmed himself to be an orthodox Christian; at the same time, he was so in love with ancient philosophy, with its theology—not just as outer wisdom opposed to, or even subordinated to, inner wisdom—that he did not “feel,” understand that they were intellectually incompatible. At least Tertullian and Plethon realized their incompatibility and chose between them, one on one side and the other on the other. John Italos was caught in the middle, being pulled by both sides. Anna Comnena says that “he was eager to reinterpret the theory of [Platonic] ideas so that it should in some way be rendered orthodox, and it was clear he condemned his early deviations from the truth.” (Document 4:9,7) He said things that his friends wanted to excuse but that his enemies wanted to use against him to accuse him of being, like Plethon, a neopagan. In reality, Italos was simply confused and frustrated that others could not see what he felt so deeply: the two wisdoms are fundamentally compatible. Therefore, Italos occupies a middle, but untenable, position between the two ends of the spectrum.

Question 8. Did John Italos have an ecclesiastical career after his condemnation in 1082?

Most of the older literature about John Italos ends his biography in 1082 and his confinement in a monastery. The historical record seemed to be silent from that point on. However, more recent studies have taken advantage of a very intriguing statement by Nicetas Seides found in a writing (1116) against Eustratios of Nicaea. Among other things, Nicetas says that Eustratios should be condemned because he was a student of “John [Italos], the former chartophylax of Antioch the Great.” (Document 17) Assuming that the reference is to be taken at face value, John Italos’s biography extended well beyond 1082, and he somehow got to Antioch and held a high-level Church position.

CHARTOPHYLAX, an ecclesiastical official of Constantinople and the provinces, usually a deacon, … with archival and notarial duties… By the 10th C., the chartophylax was … principal assistant to the patriarch… In addition, … he acted as intermediary between the patriarch and clergy… He examined candidates to the priesthood and prepared testimonials for them … wrote on canonical matters and released them in his own name…^[16]

A chartophylax in Antioch would no doubt have functioned on the model of the capital. So, Italos was still a monk, we can assume, or he would not have been appointed to such a position. What did he do between 1082 and the suggested dates 1096–1098? He was obviously rehabilitated. Since he was forbidden to teach, he must have put his other skills to work. Antioch, in Muslim hands at that time, would have been a good place for him to go and be out of the much-too-observant eyes of the patriarch and the emperor. In Antioch, even though it had a patriarch, often absent in Constantinople, the Church needed trained and skilled officials, so it would be reasonable to assume that once he got there, assuming that he stayed out of trouble, he would have been noticed as an erudite and valuable addition to the Church bureaucracy. Nicetas says, however, that he was no longer in that position at the time of writing (1116). What happened? Nicetas does not make any disparaging remarks about Italos. Had Italos left that position under a cloud, Nicetas could hardly have resisted the temptation to further sully Eustratios’s reputation by sullying that of Italos. Maybe Italos just retired because he was too old. He was born around 1020 and even by 1100, he would have been 80 years old. Since Nicetas makes no snide remark about him, let us assume he had retired or was dead when Nicetas wrote against Eustratios. Nicetas’s reference opens up a whole raft of possibilities and lends itself to a lot of speculation, but at least no one can say any longer that John Italos disappeared from history after 1082.

Question 9 Why Was John Italos Accused of Iconoclasm?

Now we come to the heart of our study. Why did Italos’s enemies accuse him of iconoclasm, after all the real accusations of believing and teaching pagan Greek doctrines had nothing to do with images? So, the first thing to say is that that accusation seems to be an add-on, a codicil, an afterthought: “Oh yes, here is another thing to add to his list of crimes.”

Italos’s unpopularity had already begun in the reign of Michael VII Dukas; he remained in Michael’s favor, but darkening clouds were gathering around him before the regime change in 1081 when Alexios Comnenos became emperor. He was becoming more and more unpopular for many reasons:

his irritating personality, arrogance, temper;

his alleged abandonment of Christian dogma for pagan, Greek religion;

his alleged teaching of young seminarians preparing for positions in the Church to love ancient wisdom and culture more than Christian wisdom and culture;

his alleged nefarious influence on his students encouraging them in either boisterous adolescent behavior or perhaps in political agitation;

his ability to persuade people, sometimes by intellectual bulling, to agree with him;

his instability as a political ally;

his political alliance with the ancien regime of the Dukas dynasty;

his association and sympathy with the civil aristocracy of the capital.

So, when Alexios became emperor, John Italos was simply a persona non grata who had to be removed if the emperor hoped to shape his reign in his own image. It must be said that Italos was not too circumspect about the new wind that was blowing in the capital. He could have been more sensitive to his precarious position in the face of the new regime. Had he been more perspicacious, he would have sensed that he should keep a low profile; but no, seeing that there was a new patriarch, Eustratios Garidas, having been installed by Alexios, Italos forged ahead and demanded a reopening of his near condemnation in 1076-77. This naturally brought every irritating thing he represented out into the open. Alexios even designated his brother, Isaac the Sebastocrator, to investigate the intemperate philosopher whom Isaac found to be “a troublemaker.”

Since Italos was already dragging a thick record behind him, one based on his supposed overenthusiastic teaching of pagan philosophy, Alexios and company did not have to invent new charges but simply had to update those from 1076-1077 and use his recently written confession of faith. So, where do we find the article on iconoclasm: right at the end of the list, almost as an addendum to the real issues? It must be admitted that Italos did not help his own cause by his use of imprecise theological language in the articles; he gave his accusers an irresistible chance to launch an attack from a totally unexpected direction. Many researchers have noted that any serious Orthodox theologian at that time, or after, would know that to say that he worshiped Christ’s image could only get him into deep trouble. His accusers pounced on Italos’s imprecision. Then he only made things worse by trying to say that that latreia and proskynesis were synonyms. That just could not fly, and he was condemned for being an idolater. He did not in fact worship images, but his own incompetence made it seem as though he did.

At the end of his trial, a big surprise: Michael Kaspakes presented ten more accusations against Italos. Notice again the coup de théâtre came at the end of the trial when everything seemed decided. Why did not Alexios declare Kaspakes out of order and end the trial? Does it not seem obvious that Alexios himself or his acolytes were behind the stunt. He was no doubt embarrassed, but could not throw him out and thus undermine the play he himself was directing. The first nine articles dealt with Italos’s philosophy, but the last one accused him of throwing a stone at Christ’s image. He acknowledged the first nine as indeed representing his views, but the tenth one he vigorously denied. The contradiction between Kaspakes’s accusation and the one among the six articles of the synod’s condemnation—that he worshiped and divinized images—was just too obvious. It shows that the accusers did not have their story straight. If anyone is guilty of the one, he could not be guilty of the other and vice versa. Even the emperor seems to have been a bit uncomfortable when he says the following:

As for the last article, the tenth, let him be questioned, and if he indeed confesses its truth, before proof is brought forward, let what is provided in the holy and sacred canons fall on him, but if he denies it until the end, let the investigation proceed according to the laws and after unquestioned proof, let him be rightfully punished. He must also understand that even if he did not dare such an outrage by his own hand, he did by his words alone call the figures of the saints simple copies [ἀφιδρύματα] and man-made carvings, believing that bowing down before them is an error on the part of those venerating them. It is, all the same, a deadly affair. And if he does not disavow his own wickedness before the proof is presented, but persists in denying the charge even in the face of evidence, then let him receive the proper legal punishment. (Document 5:8)

Alexios, thinking to himself: “Hum, did we go too far? That Kasparkes fellow is a bit too zealous.” Alexios insists on proof; he does not say it, but the text allows us to assume that if Italos continued to deny the accusation of physical iconoclasm and if there were no proof that he actually did commit the deed, then logically he was not guilty. That was in fact what happened. Kasparkes was ordered to sign his list of accusations, making them a legal document, and to present proof; he did neither, so the accusation did in fact fall away. It is not difficult to see Kasparkes as Alexios’s stooge, maybe with the connivance of his brother Isaac the Sebastocrator, some or someone in Alexios’s camp who carried out the emperor’s wishes somewhat clumsily. Alexios was on solider ground when he distinguished between theological and practical iconoclasm. Even if Italos did not “dare such an outrage by his own hand”—how telling—he committed theological iconoclasm “by his words alone [which] call the figures of the saints simple copies [ἀφιδρύματα] and man-made carvings, believing that bowing down before them is an error on the part of those venerating them.” I am not aware of any text where Italos clearly says, or implies, that images are just pictures of the saints and man-made objets d’art and that prostrating oneself before them in veneration is an error. Did Alexios just make up these accusations, did someone just tell him to say that, or did he have actual texts that supported his accusations? It seems strange that there is no testimony to Italos’s ever having said any thing of the kind. It would surely have added greatly to Alexios’s charge if he could have quoted a document or even presented one of Italos’s students to testify that Italos really said those things. Was Alexios just drawing conclusions, invented, from Italos’s real statements and Platonic philosophy to the effect that according to the minutes of Italos’s trial: “He says, ‘he worships the image of the incarnate Son of God, without remaining fixated on the shadows but refers the honor to the prototype.’” (Document 5:8) We can certainly understand the devaluing of the material object, the image, in favor of the immaterial prototype. That is classical Platonism, but that did not justify these three accusations. We simply do not know the source of Alexios’s charges. Considering the dubious credibility of the whole effort to make the charge of iconoclasm stick, the charges of theological iconoclasm were as much the figment of someone’s imagination as the charge of throwing a rock at Christ’s image.

So, in the end, the efforts to convict John Italos of being a theological as well as a physical iconoclast failed. The accusations remained on the level of charges which due to the lack of evidence were simply dropped. They do not appear in any official documents as having been proved. The Synodikon, which condemns Italos for his deviant philosophical beliefs, says nothing about iconoclasm. This seems to be proof positive that the charges were trumped up.

Is there another reason, however, that explains why the charges were dropped, perhaps another reason to see the emperor’s hand behind the affair? Even though John Italos was a “trouble maker,” as Isaac the Sebastocrator concluded, was he really opposed to Alexios’s policy of seizing Church goods, including gold and silver images for rebuilding his army? We know that Leo of Chalcedon opposed Alexios’s seizure of precious metal images on the grounds that the divine “character,” that is, the divine form, mark, image, was represented in them and therefore could not be melted down and used for political causes without incurring the crime of iconoclasm. Despite the fact that Italos did indeed write that “worships” the image of Christ, he explained that he interpreted that word to mean to “venerate” and not really to offer divine worship to a material object. He did say that images were but shadows and that the honor he gave to them did not stick on them but rose to the prototype. This is hardly the doctrine of Leo of Chalcedon. So, it is difficult to see how Italos would have been an ally of Leo of Chalcedon’s camp. Italos’s approach to images was in fact much closer to Alexios’s notions which justified his seizing gold and silver images to make coins out of them. Alexios and John Italos were natural allies on this point, in opposition to Leo of Chalcedon. Can we see then that, in the dropping of all charges of iconoclasm against Italos, Alexios realized that if he convicted Italos of iconoclasm, he would be condemning himself for his own “low Church” iconology? So, in order to protect his own position and policy of using images for money, Alexios had to insure that Italos was no way condemned for iconoclasm. Therefore, Italos was not condemned for iconoclasm because there was no proof and because Alexios did not want to undermine his own “image theology” by convicting someone who had an image theology similar to his own.

Conclusion

So, what is the answer to the question in the title: Why Was John Italos Accused of Iconoclasm? Answer: Italos’s enemies, Alexios I Comnenos and company, wanted to get rid of him as a “trouble maker.” Suspicions of his teaching of ancient Greek pagan philosophy and religion as true in place of Christian dogma had been following him for years. A trial was orchestrated by the emperor to convict him and by examining a confession of faith Italos had written for his defense they found an article saying that he “He worships [λατρεύειν] the image of the incarnate Son of God.” They recognized that they could add another weighty accusation to the indictment, and so they did, but without thinking through the implications of the accusation. Someone—Alexios or one of his henchmen—arranged with one Michael Kasparkes to make a splash appearance with ten accusations already similar to the ones condemned by the trial, one of which accused “him of throwing a stone at an icon of Christ.” Under the circumstances, it was a bit of an exaggeration which provoked a strong denial from Italos. The accusation probably embarrassed the emperor who felt the need to see proof of the charge, which, of course, never surfaced, and fell back on some other accusations for which there was again no proof: “he did by his words alone call the figures of the saints simple copies [ἀφιδρύματα] and man-made carvings, believing that bowing down before them is an error on the part of those venerating them. It is, all the same, a deadly affair.” But after all was said and done, the charges of iconoclasm, theological and physical, melted away due to a lack of proof and Alexios’s realization that condemning Italos for iconoclasm would have played into the hands of those who condemned the emperor of iconoclasm for turning gold and silver images into money to pay his new army. Italos was convicted and anathematized for substituting pagan philosophy for Christian dogma. Were those charges as flimsy as the ones for iconoclasm? That is a question for others to answer.

His iconoclastic reputation did follow him as Anna Comnena writes in 1148, some nearly 70 years after his trial. “Later he did indeed change his ideas about dogma and repented of his former errors. He repudiated the transmigration of souls and the ridicule of sacred images of the saints; he was eager to reinterpret the theory of ideas so that it should in some way be rendered orthodox, and it was clear he condemned his early deviations from the truth.” (Document 4:9,7) This is the only mention of Italos and images and comes at the end of her chapters on him. She must not have thought it was very important or credible since such a question is mentioned nowhere else. From 1082 to 1148, all that remained in Anna Comnena’s mind was that “he repudiated … the ridicule of sacred images of the saints.”

Nicetas Choniates, sometime before his death in 1217, also perpetuated Italos’s iconoclastic reputation. His memory was not exactly the same as that of Anne Comnena. Choniates says that Italos taught that “it was not necessary to honor the holy images.” (Document_7) Both authors, however, only paraphrase the general tenor of the accusations that Alexios made, even if Italos was not guilty of throwing a rock at Christ’s image (Document 5:8): “He must also understand that even if he did not dare such an outrage by his own hand, he did by his words alone call the figures of the saints simple copies [ἀφιδρύματα] and man-made carvings, believing that bowing down before them is an error on the part of those venerating them.” But after Choniates, Italos’s reputation for iconoclasm fades away. He is only remembered for teaching pagan philosophy as true religion.

The Documents

Document 1 Michael Psellos’s Confession of Faith^[17]

14. “I bow down before, and I worship, the image of the incarnate Son of God. [I do the same in reference to] the model of the body of his holy Mother [and to] the colored forms of those who have, of old, been well pleasing to him. I do not remain fixated on these shadows, but I refer the likeness to the prototype.”

Document 2 John Italos “On Icons”^[18]

“An image is a characteristic likeness of its prototype, yet differing from it in a certain way, for the image is not exactly like the archetype in all things but is said to be similar to the other. So, being like [the prototype], the image is spoken of in five ways:

1) a natural image,

2) a template,

3) a type,

4) a foreshadowing,

5) a memory/memorial which is double, being perceived by

5.1 the mind

5.2 the senses.

1) This is a natural image: the Son is the precisely similar image of the invisible God and Father; he carries in himself the whole Father and being identical with him in all things, being different only in that he is caused, for he is from the Father even if he does not have his being after the Father.

2) This is a template: the will of God, which exists from before time and likewise being eternal, is the characterizing template, imagining every predetermined thing which is unchangeably to be brought into existence by him before its existence, like the thought of the architect who represents and imagines [in his mind] the form of the house he is going to build, and this will [of God] the great Dionysios called a predetermination.

3) But this is a type: the potential act of giving bodily form to invisible and unformed things so that the invisible can be faintly comprehended by the mind, for through the representation detectable by the senses, in the front cavity of the brain, [the type] is sent to the middle of the reasoning section. From there, it is stored in the back part of the memory, for otherwise the nous would be put under destress and unable to keep from getting totally dragged down into bodily things; therefore, angels are given wings and faces of various living things and eyes and hands and legs, and the uncircumscribable nature of God is imaged by the sun and light and beams and everliving wells and outpouring rivers of oil and a rose and a tree and flowers and mind and word and a breath like ours, and all other living things and forms. Through all these things, [ἐκτύπωσις, the type] makes manifest divine things that only dimly appear to us.

4) This is a foreshadowing: the painting that represents the future through symbols, like the sea, according to the apostle, represents the water of baptism and the cloud, the Holy Spirit.

5) This is a memory/memorial: the vision of future things on the basis of what has happened before. This image is, however, double: first, through the written word, as God himself carved the law in stone, commanding long ago that the books of the saints be written; and second, through sense perception, as the God of all ordered the jar and the rod to be put into the ark of the covenant as a memorial, by which we record the virtues of the best men and most piously set up their images as memorials.”

Document 3 John Italos’s “On Icons” Compared to John of Damascus

 

John Italos	Translation of John Italos	St. John of Damascus[19]	Translation of St. John of Damascus[20]
εἰκων ἐστιν ὁμοιωμα χαρακτηριστικν τοῦ πρωτοτυπου κατα τι διαφερον αὐτοῦ· οὐ γὰρ κατὰ πάντα ἐξομοιοῦται τῷ ἀρχετύπῳ ἡ εἰκών· εἰκὼν δὲ εἴρηται παρα τὸ ἐοικέναι ἑτέρῳ, ὅ ἐστι τὸ ὁμοιοῦν·πενταχῶς δὲ λεγεται ἡ εἰκων· 1) φυσικη, 2) παραδειγματικη, 3) τυπωτικη, 4) αἰνιγματωδης, 5) μνημονευτικη, ἣ καὶ διπλῆ ἐστι, 5.1) λογικὴ 5.2) αἰσθητικη.	An image is a characteristic likeness of its prototype, yet differing from it in a certain way, for the image is not exactly like the archetype in all things but is said to be similar to the other. so being like [the prototype], the image is spoken of in five ways: 1) a natural image, 2) a template, 3) a type, 4) a foreshadowing, 5) a memory/memorial which is double, being perceived by 5.1 the mind 5.2 the senses.	εἰκὼν μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ὁμοίωμα χαρακτηρίζον τὸ πρωτότυππον, μετὰ ποῦ καί τινα διαφορὰν ἔχειν πρὸσ αὐτό. (pg 94, 1240 c)   εἰκὼν μὲν οὖν ἐστιν ὁμοίωμα, καὶ παράδειγμα, καὶ ἐκτύπωμά τινοσ, ἐν ἑαυτῷ δεικνύον τὸ εἰκονιζόμενον (pg 94, 1337 a)   οὐ γὰρ κατὰ πάντα ἡ εἰκὼν ὁμοιοῦται πρὸσ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον. (pg 94, 1240 c)   πάντωσ δὲ οὐ κατὰ πάντα ἔοικεν ἡ εἰκὼν τῷ πρωτοτύπῷ, (pg 94, 1337 a)   καί πάντωσ ὁρᾶται ἐν αὐτοῖσ διαφορὰ, ἐπει οὐκ ἄλλο τοῦτο, καί ἄλλο ἐκεῖνο. (pg 94, 1337 b)   διπλῆ δὲ αὕτη· διά τε λόγου ταῖσ βιβλοισ ἐγγραφομένου…καὶ διὰ θεωρίασ αἰσθητῆσ. (pg 94, 1240 d)   διπλῆ δὲ αὕτη· διά τε λόγου ταῖσ βιβλοισ ἐγγραφομένου…καὶ διὰ θεωρίασ αἰσθητῆσ. (pg 94, 1341 d)	An image is of like character with its prototype, but with a certain difference. It is not like its archetype in every way. (I, 9, p. 19)   An image is a likeness, or a model, or a figure of something, showing in itself what it depicts. (iii, 16, p. 73)       It is not like its archetype in every way. (I, 9, p. 19)     An image is not always like its prototype in every way. (iii, 16, pp. 73–74)     One can always notice differences between them, since one is not the other, and vice versa. (iii, 16, p. 74)   These images are f two kinds: either they are words written in books … or else they are material images … (iii, 23, pp. 77–78)   These images are of two kinds: either they are words written in books … or else they are material images… (I 13, p. 21)
1) καὶ φυσικὴ μέν ἐστι καὶ ἀπαράλλακτοσ ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀοράτου θεοῦ καὶ πατρόσ ὁ υἱόσ ὅλον ἐν ἑαυτῷ φέρων τὸν πατέρα καὶ κατὰ πάντα ἔχων τὴν πρὸσ αὐτὸν ταὐτότητα, μόνῳ δὲ διαφέρων τῷ αἰτιατῷ, ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸσ γὰρ, εἰ καὶ μὴ μετ’ αὐτὸν ἔχων τὸ εἶναi.	1) This is a natural image: the Son is the precisely similar image of the invisible God and Father; he carries in himself the whole Father and being identical with him in all things, being different only in that he is caused, for he is from the Father even if he does not have his being after the Father.	1) Πρώτη οὖν φυσικὴ καὶ ἀπαράλλακτος εἰκὼν τοῦ ἀοράτου Θέου, (PG 94, 1337 C-1339 A)   ὁ Υἱὸς ὅλον ἐν ἑαυτῷ φέρων τὸν Πατέρα, κατὰ πὰντα ἔχων τήν πρὸς αὐτον ταυτότητα, μόνῳ δὲ διαφὲρων τῷ αἰτιατῷ (PG 94, 1240 C)	… the first natural and precisely similar image of the invisible God… (III,18, pp. 74–75)   The Son … bearing the entire Father within Himself, equal to Him in all things, except that He is begotten by Him. (I, 9, p. 19)
2) Παραδειγματικὴ δὲ ἡ προαιώνιος καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχoυσα βουλὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἡ χαρακτηρίζουσα καὶ εἰκονίζουσα πάντα τὰ ὑπ’αὐτοῦ προωρισμένα καὶ ἀπαραβάτως ἐσόμενα πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν, ὥσπερ ἡ διάνοια τοῦ οἰκοδόμου ἀνατυποῖ καὶ εἰκονίζει τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ μέλλοντος ὑπ’αὐτοῦ κτισθῆναι οἰκου, ἣν προσδιορισμὸν ὁ μέγας ἐκάλεσε Διονύσιος.	2) This is a template: the will of God, which exists from before time and likewise being eternal, is the characterizing template, imagining every predetermined thing which is unchangeably to be brought into existence by him before its existence, like the thought of the architect who represents and imagines [in his mind] the form of the house he is going to build, and this will [of God] the great Dionysios called a predetermination.	Εἰσὶ δὲ καὶ ἐν τῷ Θεῷ εἰκόνες καὶ παραδείγματα τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ ἐσομένων, τουτέστιν, ἡ βουλὴ αὐτοῦ ἡ προαιώνιος, καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχουσα. … Ταύτας τὰς εἰκόνας καὶ τὰ παραδείγματα, προορισμοὺς φησὶν ὁ ἁγιος Διονύσιος. PG 94, 1240 D)   Ἐν γὰρ τῇ βουλῇ αὐτοῦ ἐχαρακτηρίζετο πάντα τὰ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ προωρισμένα καὶ ἀπαραβάστως ἐσόμενα πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν, οἰκοδομῆσαι οἶκον, ἀνατυποῖ καὶ εἰκονίζει πρῶτον τὸ σχἧμα κατὰ διάνοιαν. (PG 94, 1241 A)   εἰκόνες γὰρ καὶ παραδείγματα τῶν ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ ἐσομένων, ἡ περὶ ἑκάστου αὐτων ἔννοια, οἳ καὶ προορισμοὶ παρὰ τῷ ἁγίῳ Διονυσίῳ ὀνομάζονται. Ἐν γὰρ τῇ βουλῇ αὐτοῦ ἐχαρακτηρίζετο καὶ εἰκονίζετο πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν, τὰ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ προωρισμένα, καὶ ἀπαραβάτως ἐσόμενα. (PG 94, 1339 C)	There are also in God images and models of his acts yet to come: those things which are his will for all eternity, which is always changeless… Blessed Dionysius … says that these images and models were marked out beforehand… (I, 10, p. 19)       For in his will were marked out and imaged before their coming into being, the things predetermined by him and destined unalterably to come into existence. (III, 19, p. 76)         Images and figures of things he has yet to do, and the purpose of each of them, providence, those things predetermined by him were characterized, depicted, and unalterably fixed before they even came to pass. (III, 19, p. 75)
3) Τυπωτικὴ δέ, ἡ τῶν ἀοράτων και ἀτυπώτων σωματικῶς ἐγγινομένη ἐκτύπωσις πρὸς ἀμυδρὰν κατανόησιν τοῦ ἀοράτου διὰ γὰρ τῆς αἰσθητῆς φαντασίας τῆς ἐν τῇ ἐμπροσθίῳ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου συστᾶσα, τῇ μέσῃ παραπέμπεται τοῦ λογικοῦ κρίσει, καὶ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ τῆς μνήμης θησαυρίζεται;·κἂν γὰρ ἐπ’ ἄλλα ὁ νους κάμῃ, ἀδυνατεῖ ἀποστῆναι τῶν σωματικῶν πάνυ, διὰ τοῦτο τοῖς ἀγγέλοις πτερὰ καὶ πρόσωπα διαφόρων ζῴων καὶ ὄμματα καὶ χεῖρας καὶ σκέλη περιτίθησιν, καὶ τὴν ἀπερίγραπτον τοῦ θεοῦ φύσιν εἰκονίζει καὶ δί ἡλίου καὶ φωτὸς καὶ ἀκτῖνος καὶ πηγῆς ἀειζώου καὶ προχοῆς ποταμοῦ μύρου καὶ ῥόδου καὶ φυτοῦ καὶ ἄνθους καὶ νοῦ καὶ λόγου καὶ πνοῆς τῆς καθ› ἡμᾶς καὶ ἄλλων ζῴων καὶ σχημάτων, διὰ τούτων ἁπάντων τὰς θείας ἐμφάσεις ἀμυδρῶς ἡμῖν ἐμφανίζουσα.	3) But this is a type: the potential act of giving bodily form to invisible and unformed things so that the invisible can be faintly comprehended by the mind, for through the sensible representation in the front cavity of the brain, [the type] is sent to the middle of the reasoning section. From there, it is stored in the back part of the memory, for otherwise the nous would be put under destress and unable to keep from getting totally dragged down into bodily things; therefore, angels are given wings and faces of various living things and eyes and hands and legs, and the uncircumscribable nature of God is imaged by the sun and light and beams and everliving wells and outpouring rivers of oil and a rose and a tree and flowers and mind and word and a breath like ours, and all other living things and forms. Through all these things, [ἐκτύπωσις, the type] makes manifest divine things that only dimly appear to us.	Τέταρτος τρόπος εἰκόνος τῆς γραφῆς, σχήματα καὶ μορφας καὶ τύπους ἀναπλαττούης τῶν ἀοράτων καὶ ἀσωμάτων, σωματικῶς τυπουμένων, πρὸς ἀμυδρὰν κατανόησις Θεοῦ τε καί ἀγγέλων… (PG 94, 1341 A)   Εἴτα πάλιν εἰκόνες εἰσὶ τὰ ὀρατὰ τῶν ἀοράτων, καὶ ἀτυπώτων, σωματικῶς τυπουμένων πρὸς ἀμυδρὰν κατανόησιν. Καὶ γὰρ ἡ θεία Γραφὴ, τύπους Θεῷ καὶ ἀγγέλοις περιτίθησι… (PG 94, 1241 Α)   Διὰ γάρ τῆς αἰσθήσεως φαντασία τις συνίσταται ἐν τῇ ἔμπροσθεν κοιλίᾳ τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου, καί οὕτω τῷ κριτικῷ παρπέμπεται, καὶ τῇ μνήμῃ ἐνθησαυρίζεται. …ὁ νοῦς ἐκβῆναι τὰ σωματικὰ, πάντη ἀδυνατεῖ· ἡμῖν ἀμυδρῶς τὰς θείας ἐμφάσεις· (PG 94, 1241 B)   ὡς ὅτε λέγομεν τὴν ἁγίαν Τριάδα τὴν ὑπεράρχἱον, εἰκονίζεσθαι δί ἡλίου καὶ φωτὸς καὶ ἁκτῖνος· ὡς ὅτε λέγομεν τὴν ἁγίαν Τριάδα τὴν ὑπεράρχἱον, εἰκονίζεσθαι δί ἡλίου καὶ φωτὸς καὶ ἁκτῖνος· ἣ πηγῆς ἀναβλυζούσης, καὶ πηγαζομένου νάματος, καὶ προχοῆς· ἣ νοῦ, καὶ λόγου, καὶ πνεύματος τοῦ καθ› ἡμας·ἣ ῥόδου φυτοῦ, καὶ ἄνθους, καὶ εὐωδίας. (PG 94, 1341 B)	The fourth kind of image consists of the shadows and forms and types of invisible and bodiless things which are described by the Scriptures in physical terms. These give us a faint apprehension of God and the angels… (III 21 p. 76)     Again, visible things are corporeal models which provide a vague understanding of intangible things. Holy Scripture describes God and the angels as having descriptive form… (I, 11, p. 20)     A certain perception takes place in the brain, prompted by the bodily senses, which is then transmitted to the faculties of discernment, and adds to the treasury of knowledge something that was not there before…. The mind which is determined to ignore corporeal things will find itself weakened and frustrated. (I, 11, p. 20)   For instance, when we speak of the holy and eternal Trinity, we use the images of the sun, light, and burning rays; or a running fountain; or an overflowing river; or the mind, speech and spirit within us; or a rose tree, a flower, and a sweet fragrance. (III, 21, p. 77)
4) Αἰνιγματώδης δέ, ἡ τὸ μέλλον διὰ συμβόλων ζωγραφοῦσα ὡς ἡ θάλασσα κατὰ τὸν Ἀπόστολον τὸ ὕδωρ τοῦ βαπτίσματος καὶ ἡ νεφέλη τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα εικόνιζεν.	4) This is a foreshadowing: the painting that represents the future through symbols, like the sea, according to the apostle, represents the water of baptism and the cloud, the Holy Spirit.	Πάλιν, εἰκὼν λέγεται ἡ τῶν ἐσομένων αἰνιγματωδῶς σκιαγραφοῦσα τὰ μέλλοντα, ὡς ἡ κιβωτὸς τὴν ἁγίαν Παρθένον καὶ Θεοτόκον, (PG 94, 1342 D)     πέμπτος τρόπος εἰκόνος λέγεται, ὁ προεικονιζων καὶ προδιαγράφων τὰ μέλλοντα, (PG 94, 1341 C)   Πάλιν, εἰκὼν λέγεται ἡ τῶν ἐσομένων αἰνιγματωδῶς σκιαγραφοῦσα τὰ μέλλοντα, ἥ τε θάλασσα, καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ, καὶ ἡ νεφέφη, τὸ τοῦ βαπτίσματος πνεῦμα. (PG 94.1241 C)	Again, an image foreshadows something that is yet to happen, something hidden in riddles and shadows. For instance, the ark of the covenant is an image of the Holy Virgin and Theotokos… (I, 12, pp. 20–21)   The fifth kind of image is said to prefigure what is yet to happen… (III, 22, p. 77)       Again, an image foreshadows something that is yet to happen, something hidden in riddles and shadows… Baptismal grace is signified by the cloud and the waters of the sea. (I, 12, pp. 20–21)
5) Κατὰ μνήμην δέ, ἡ πρὸς ὠφέλειαν τῶν ἐσομένων ὕστερον θεωρία ἀπό τινος προγεγονότος       διπλῆ δὲ αὕτη διά τε λόγου ἐγγράφου, ὡς αὐτὸς ὁ θεὸς τὸν νόμον ἐν λίθοις ἐχάραξε, καὶ τῶν πάλαι ἁγίων τὰς βίβλους γραφῆναι ἐκέλευσε, καὶ δι ‘ αἰσθητῆς θεωρίας, ὡς τὴν στάμνον καὶ τὴν ῥάβδον εἰς μνημόσυνον ἐν τῇ κιβωτῷ τεθῆναι ὁ τῶν ὅλων συνέταξε θεός, καθ› ὃν τρόπον τῶν ἀρίστων ἀνδρῶν τὰς εἰκόνας καὶ τὰς ἀρετὰς ἀναγράφομεν καὶ πανευσεβῶς ἀναστηλοῦμεν.	5) This is a memory/memorial: the vision of future things on the basis of what has happened before. This image is, however, double: first, through the written word, as God himself carved the law in stone, commanding long ago that the books of the saints be written; and second, through sense perception, as the God of all ordered the jar and the rod to be put into the ark of the covenant as a memorial, by which we record the virtues of the best men and most piously set up their images as memorials.	Πάλιν, εἰκὼν λεγεται ἡ των γεγονότων…πρὸς τήν εἰς ὕστερον τῶν θεωμένων ὠφέλειαν· (PG 94, 1241 D)         διπλῆ δὲ αὕτη διά τε λόγου ταῖς βιβλοις ἐγγράφου, ὡς ὁ Θεὸς τὸν νόμον ταῖς πλαξὶν ἐνεκόλαψε, Καὶ τοὺς τῶν θεοφιλῶν ἀνδρῶν βίους ἀναγράπτους γενέσθαι προσέταξε, καὶ διὰ θεωρίας αἰσθητῆς, ὡς τὴν στάμνον, καὶ τὴν ῥάβδον ἐν τῇ κιβωτῷ τεθῆναι προσέταξεν, εἰς μνημόσυνον αἰώνιον· Οὕτω και νύν τὰς εἰκόνας τῶν γεγονότων ἐναρέτων ἀνδρῶν καὶ τὰς ἀρετὰς…ἀναγράφομεν· (PG 94, 1341 D-1344 A)	Again, things which have already taken place are remembered by means of images … to encourage those who look upon them … (inspiring wonder … and to encourage them to avoid evil) (I, 13, p. 21)   These images are of two kinds: either they are words written in books … as when God had the law engraved on tablets and desired the lives and deed of holy men to be recorded or else they are material images such as the jar of manna, or Aaron’s staff which were to be kept in the ark as an everlasting memorial… Therefore, we now set up images in remembrance of valiant men… (III, 23, pp. 77–78)

 

 

Document 4 Anna Comnenos,
The Alexiad V, 8–9 “On John Italos”^[21]

4:8,1 When he [the Emperor Alexios Comnenos] reached the capital, he found the affairs of the Church in disarray. Not for a brief moment was he able to enjoy a respite, for Alexios was a true representative of God, and when he saw the Church troubled by the teachings of Italos, although he was planning operations against Bryennius (the Kelt who occupied Kastoria, as I explained), he did not disregard the plight facing true teaching. It was just at this time that the doctrines of Italos had gained wide popularity and had rocked the Church. This man Italos (his story needs to be told from the beginning) originally came from Italy and, for a longtime lived in Sicily, which is an island lying off Italy. The Sicilians had revolted against the Romans, and when they decided to pursue a warlike policy, called in the help of their Italian allies. Among the latter was the father of Italos accompanied by his son. Although not old enough to bear arms, he followed skipping along at his father’s side. He was learning the art of war as the Italians understand it. Such were his formative years and the first rudiments of his education. (pp. 146147)

4:8,2 But when the celebrated George Maniakes made himself master of Sicily in the reign of Monomachos, it was with difficulty that father and son escaped from the island. They both became refugees in Lombardy [Longobardia], which was at the time still subject to the Romans. I am not sure how, but from there, he moved to Constantinople, a not inconsiderable center for all branches of learning and literary studies. In fact, from the reign of Basil porphyrogennetos until that of Monomachos, letters, although treated with scant regard by most folk, at least did not die out, and once again they shone in bright revival when under Alexios they became the object of serious attention, to those who loved philosophical argument. Before then, most men had lived a life of luxury and pleasure. Because of their wanton habits, they concerned themselves with quail hunting and other more disreputable pastimes, but all scientific culture and literature to them were of secondary importance. (p. 147)

4:8,3 Such was the character of the people whom Italos found here. He conversed with schoolmen who were both cruel and rough natured (for in those days there were men of that kind in the capital), and from them he received a literary education. Later he came into contact with the famous Michael Psellos, who, because of his own native intelligence and quickness of apprehension, had not often attended the lectures of the great and the good. Psellos, moreover, had the help of God, apart from those mentors, for his mother with passionate supplication kept constant vigil in the sanctuary of the Lord before the sacred image of the Holy Mother of God, with hot tears interceding for her son. He attained perfection of all knowledge, having an accurate understanding of both Hellenic and Chaldaean science, and so became renowned in those times for his wisdom. Italos, although he was a disciple of Psellos, was unable because of his uncouth and barbaric temperament to grasp the profound truths of philosophy. Even in the act of learning, he utterly rejected the teacher’s guiding hand and, full of temerity and barbaric folly, believing even before study that he excelled all others, from the very start he ranged himself against the great Psellos. With fanatical zeal for dialectic, he caused daily commotions in public gatherings as he poured out a continuous stream of subtle argument; subtle propositions were followed in turn by subtle reasons to support them. (pp. 147–148)

4:8,4 The then emperor, Michael Dukas, was a friend of his, as were Michael’s brothers, and although they considered him inferior to Psellos, they gave him their patronage and took his part in literary debate. The Dukas family were in fact great patrons of literature, the brothers of the emperor no less than Michael himself. Italos invariably regarded Psellos with a turbulent frenzy, but the other winged his way, like some eagle, far above the petty subtleties of Italos. (p. 148)

4:8,5 What happened next? In their struggle against the Romans, the Latins and Italians planned to take over the whole of Lombardy and indeed of Italy too. The same emperor, looking upon Italos as a personal friend, a good man and an expert on Italian affairs, sent him to Epidamnos. To cut a long story short, it was discovered that he was betraying our cause there, and an agent was sent to remove him. Italos realized what was happening and fled to Rome. Then, true to his character, he repented, appealed to the emperor and, on his instructions, was permitted to live in Constantinople at the Pege monastery and the Church of the Forty Saints. When Psellos withdrew from Byzantium after his tonsuration, Italos was placed in charge of the teaching of philosophy as a whole, with the title “Hypatos of the Philosophers.” He devoted his energies to the exegesis of Aristotle and Plato. (p. 148)

4:8,6 He gave the impression of vast learning, and it seemed that no other mortal was more capable of thorough research into the mysteries of the peripatetic philosophers, and more particularly of dialectic. In other literary studies, his competence was not so obvious: his knowledge of grammar, for example, was defective, and he was not capable of discerning the sweet nectar of rhetoric. For that reason, his language was devoid of harmony and polish. His style was austere, completely unadorned. His writings wore a frown and in general reeked of bitterness, full of dialectical aggression, and his tongue was loaded with arguments, even more when he spoke in debate than when he wrote. So powerful was he in discourse, so irrefutable, that his opponent was inevitably reduced to impotent silence. He dug a pit on both sides of a question and cast interlocutors into a well of difficulties. All opposition was stifled with a never-ending string of questions, which confounded and obliterated reason, so skilled was he in the art of dialectic. Once a man was engaged in argument with him, it was impossible to escape his labyrinths. (pp. 148–149)

4:8,7 In other ways, though, he was remarkably uncultured, and temper was his master. That temper, indeed, vitiated and destroyed whatever virtue he had acquired from his studies. The fellow argued with his hands as much as his tongue; nor did he allow his adversary merely to end in failure—it was not enough for him to have closed his mouth and condemned him to silence—but at once his hand leapt to the other’s beard and hair while insult was heaped on insult. The man was no more in control of his hands than his tongue. This alone would prove how unsuited he was to the philosopher’s life, for he struck his opponent. The only philosophical feature about him was that after his anger calmed and his tears dried, clear signs of remorse filled him. (p. 149)

4:8,8 In case the reader may wish to know his physical appearance, I can say this: he had a large head, a prominent forehead, a face that was expressive, nostrils of a large capacity, a rounded beard, broad chest and robust limbs; he was below average height. His accent was what one would expect from a Latin youth who had come to our country and studied Greek thoroughly but without mastering articulation; sometimes he mutilated his syllables. Neither his defective pronunciation nor the clipping of sounds escaped the notice of most people, and the better educated accused him of vulgarity in the way he spoke. It was this that led him to string his arguments with figures of speech, drawn from anywhere and everywhere. Such idioms were by no means exempt from faults of composition, and there was in them a liberal sprinkling of solecisms. (p. 149)

4:9,1 This man then oversaw the teaching of philosophy, and it was to his lectures that the young men flocked. He elucidated the works of Proklos and Plato, the teachings of the two philosophers Porphyrios and Iamblichos, and above all the technical treatises of Aristotle. He gave lectures on Aristotle’s system to those who wished to use it for practical purposes. It was on the utility of his work that he prided himself especially, and on this he spent much time. Yet he was unable to help his students very much owing to his own hot temper and the general instability of his character. (pp. 149–150)

4:9,2 Look at who his followers were: John Solomon, members of the Iasitas and Serblias families and others who maybe were industrious in their studies. Most of them were frequent visitors to the palace, and I myself perceived later on that they had acquired no accurate systematic knowledge of any kind: they played the role of dialectician with chaotic changes and frenzied metaphors, but they had no sound understanding. They propounded their theories, even at that time putting forward their ideas on metempsychosis in rather veiled terms and on certain other matters of a similar nature and almost as monstrous. (p. 150)

4:9,3 […]

4:9,4 When he [John Italos] was at the height of his popularity among his disciples, as I have already noted, he treated all with contempt; most of the thoughtless he incited to revolt, and not a few were encouraged to become rebellious. I could have named many of them had not age dimmed my memory. These events, you see, took place before my father was raised to supreme power. When he found here a general neglect of culture and literary skills, with the art of literature seemingly banished, he was eager to revive whatever sparks still remained hidden beneath the ashes. All those who had any inclination for learning were unceasingly urged by him to study (there were some, only a few, and those stood merely in the gateway to Aristotelian philosophy), but he did advise them to devote attention to Holy Scripture before turning to Hellenic culture. (p. 150)

4:9,5 Noting that Italos was everywhere causing trouble and leading many astray, he referred the man for preliminary examination to the Sebastocrator Isaac, who was himself a scholar blessed with intelligence. Isaac, satisfied that Italos was indeed a troublemaker, publicly refuted him at this inquiry, and later, on instruction from his brother, the emperor committed him to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal. It was impossible for Italos to conceal his ignorance and, even before that gathering, he belched out doctrines foreign to Church teaching. In the presence of Church dignitaries, he persisted in ridicule and indulged in other things of a boorish and barbaric nature. At that time, Eustratios Garidas presided over the Church, and he, in order to convert him to a better frame of mind if he could, kept Italos in the precincts of the Great Church. But little good came of that, since rather than win him over to a truer doctrine, he became persuaded by the evils of the argument, and, as a result, Italos made of Garidas his own devoted disciple. (p. 150)

4:9,6 What was the upshot of this? The whole population of Constantinople gathered as a crowd by the church looking for Italos. He would probably have been hurled from the galleries into the center of the church if he had not hidden himself by climbing onto the roof and taken refuge in some hole. His evil doctrines were a common topic of conversation among many people in the palace, and not a few nobles were corrupted by these pernicious ideas, to the great grief of the emperor. Accordingly, his heretical teachings were summarized in eleven propositions, and these were sent to the emperor. The sovereign ordered Italos to retract these propositions from the pulpit in the Great Church, bareheaded and in earshot of all the congregation, repeating the anathema. (pp. 151–152)

4:9,7 Although this was done, Italos proved to be incorrigible, and once more he openly preached these same doctrines in public, and when he was warned by the emperor, rejected advice in barbaric and lawless fashion. He was therefore personally sentenced to excommunication, though afterwards, when he had recanted for a second time, the penalty was moderated. His teachings were anathematized, but his own name was inserted in a somewhat oblique manner, veiled and not easily recognized by the mass of people. Later he did indeed change his ideas about dogma and repented of his former errors. He repudiated the transmigration of souls and the ridicule of sacred images of the saints; he was eager to reinterpret the theory of ideas so that it should in some way be rendered orthodox, and it was clear he condemned his early deviations from the truth. (p. 152)

Document 5 The Semeiosis
of the Emperor Alexios I Comnenos^[22]

5:1 John Italos had made many disciples to whom he taught his personal doctrines, and a most annoying rumor circulated everywhere that he was teaching to his own students opinions that had long ago been rejected and anathematized by the holy catholic Church of God, thus leading simple minds to their damnation. The emperor at that time was Lord Michael Dukas, and he did not want to open this question up to a public inquiry and so proposed a sort of compromise: he had the doctrines drawn up in articles and forwarded them to the holy Church of God to be examined and canonically judged at the discretion of the divine and sacred synod. These articles were read out without any name mentioned. Indeed, there is nothing of their author or doctor written in the document containing the accusations. The divine synod thus anathematized those who introduce and profess these articles, without mentioning any name, and so, from then on, no further inquiry was made, and people lost interest in them. (pp. 141–143)

5:2 Italos should have been undisturbed by those articles because his name was nowhere mentioned in the document. Yet, either being bothered by his own conscience or being forced to reckon with something he had previously concocted and was still working on, since the anathemas had obviously been written with him in mind, he undertook to remove the suspicion of impiety that was following him around. He approached the patriarch of that time [Cosmas 1075-1081], set out in writing his own faith and sought to have his case dealt with. The patriarch, however, took no action, so thereafter the case of John Italos was once again put on hold. (pp. 142–143)

5:3 However, Italos did not stop there. It would seem that God could not bear to have silence cover the outrageousness of such impiety, so a short time ago he approached the most holy Ecumenical Patriarch [Eustratios Garidas] and, with great self-assurance, asked that his case be heard. He wanted it to be declared whether, yes or no, he was sound and steadfast in matters of divine faith and whether he should any longer be vainly ridiculed as a heterodox. So, the most holy patriarch, on the one hand, knowing the seriousness of a soul’s turning to God and, on the other hand, seeing Italos laboring and struggling in this direction, he thought it necessary to examine the man’s case. If Italos is steadfast in the faith and if this seems true to the holy and sacred synod and to his holiness, he will be held by all to be a blameless Christian. If, however, this is not the case, let him learn piety better or, if he remains obstinate, let him be banished from Orthodox society. (pp. 142–143)

5:4 So right away and without hesitation, Italos again set out in writing his own faith, and [the patriarch] did not stand in the way of the inquiry moving forward. However, before proceeding to the holy Synod for an examination of the written document, the most holy patriarch with the bishops under him, and in the presence of John Italos, undertook an inquiry based on only the already anathematized articles [1076–1077] and then began to examine the matter, but in a cursory manner only. (pp. 142–143.)

5:5 The following day, the holy Synod having been convoked and Italos having arrived with his own students at the most holy church and having before him the books he had carried with him in order that the investigation would be full and complete, a flood of laypeople filled with a lot of zeal, came against him, and, due to this “invasion,” a rumbling noise and an enormous roar arose in the great sekreton. Due to this disturbance, the investigation was then suspended, and the most holy patriarch referred to our majesty the task of judging Italos’s case so that, the case being judged under our authority, the truth would be discerned and all ambiguity would be clarified. (pp. 142–145)

[…]

5:6 The final article of deviant doctrine was read as follows. He [John Italos] said, “He worships [λατρεύειν] the image of the incarnate Son of God, without remaining fixated on the shadows but refers the honor to the prototype,” which, along with his other articles, was recognized to be incompatible with the orthodox faith, according to strict rigor. For since worship is properly spoken of in relation only to the divine essence, we are rightly said to be worshipers, but because of the honor due to the prototype, our bowing down in veneration is assigned to the images. John Italos asserted [that it was proper] to worship the image of the incarnate Son of God. The divine Scriptures never in any way understood [λατρεύειν] to apply to images. For if we called ourselves worshipers of images, that very name which the iconoclasts gave to the Orthodox would fit us very well, but we have never accepted to give worship to images, nor have we ever canonically received that name from the holy fathers. And furthermore, a synodic by them was published and nothing in any part of their composition was delineated by the name of worship. We bow down only in veneration before images and honor them in the same way, and we kiss them in a relative manner, offering up through them, honor to the prototype. Then John Italos, in a most inopportune manner, whether by wickedness or madness, brought forward this interpretation of the passage of this article. By some quotations he offered, he tried to apply the meaning of worship to our bowing down in veneration before images and to claim this word to have many meanings, but he was not successful in his reasoning. There was the great controversy about the holy images [Nicaea II, 787] and about those who bowed down in veneration before them, and at that time, the heterodox attacked those people calling them idolaters. At length, by the providence of God, the honor of the holy images was greatly strengthened and piety toward them was restored as well as bowing down in veneration before them. The word worship was not to be used to speak about their physical gesture, so that indifference to the word would not bring the smallest harm to simple-minded people. For we do not attach divine honor to images; that would make them gods. Therefore, the word worship should not be pronounced in reference to them, but through piety toward the prototypes, we have become accustomed to bowing down in veneration before them. (pp. 152–155)

5:7 And so, when the articles of condemnation had been examined, Italos was convicted of teaching doctrines contrary to the exactness of Church doctrine. He was reduced to total silence and condemned all of his own teachings as well as those of the articles and, with very great enthusiasm, anathematized them all. It seemed good to our Majesty that what we learned here and decided, contained in this present semeiosis, should be read aloud to the most holy and ecumenical patriarch Eustratios and to all the holy and divine synod, in the presence of Italos and his disciples, so that he and those who share in his perversion, in the presence of all, should confess such unholy doctrines, anathematize them, and correctly learn the most Christian doctrines. This way, all the orthodox—those still very simple-minded folk who, for the most part, are not yet steadfastly grounded in the divine doctrines as well as those solidly anchored in them—may know that no one should henceforth accept as teachers of anything whatsoever either Italos or his disciples who have for a long time agreed with him and shared in the teaching of his corruption. No one should tolerate in any way that they dispute about doctrines, for it is unclear whether they will put on the mask of a future repentance and conversion while still having poison hidden within themselves. They will thus engender a much greater plague in their disciples by communicating corruption to them just by being together. The evil will be worse because of the mask of pretended piety, a cover secretly pulled over their real beliefs, and many will swallow the fishhook of impiety. We therefore declare, from this time on, anyone, whatever his station in life, who receives Italos, his condemned disciples or his close associates into his own home for the purpose of teaching students, that that person be exiled in perpetuity from the queen of cities; this order includes anyone who goes to their homes for teaching. Our Majesty wants to be kept informed about them by anyone who so desires, for we intend to suppress or better to wholly destroy the impiety, and therefore by this very decision, we order their exile. This is my will and command. (pp. 154–155)

5:8 Michael Kaspakes’s Ten New Accusations, Number 10 About images^[23]

But while these articles were still being read [discussed and decided], ten [other] articles filled with pagan wickedness were read to our Majesty before the closing of the assembly. Of his own will while the articles were being read, John Italos acknowledged nine of them as expressing his own opinions; he did not even wait for an inquiry or examination about them. For he said that this deceit indeed had had a strong hold on him, accepting these doctrines as sound, and, up to the present, he believed them to be true. He rejected, however, the last article, the tenth one, which was the final insult and act of a drunk against the holy and venerable image of our Lord and God. Article 10 said that Italos threw a stone at the image. So said the one [Michael Kaspakes] who, under oath, brought forward the same ten articles. Our Majesty deemed it necessary to forward the written document to his holiness, the ecumenical patriarch, Lord Eustratios, and to the holy synod so that it could be read there and that John Italos, and his followers with him, could acknowledge each of the nine articles and anathematize them. As for the last article, the tenth, let him be questioned, and if he indeed confesses its truth, before proof is brought forward, let what is provided in the holy and sacred canons fall on him, but if he denies it until the end, let the investigation proceed according to the laws and after unquestioned proof, let him be rightfully punished. He must also understand that even if he did not dare such an outrage by his own hand, he did by his words alone call the figures of the saints simple copies [ἀφιδρύματα] and man-made carvings, believing that bowing down before them is an error on the part of those venerating them. It is all, the same, a deadly affair. And if he does not disavow his own wickedness before the proof is presented, but persists in denying the charge even in the face of evidence, then let him receive the proper legal punishment. (pp. 154–157)

5:9 [John Italos was not called in person to the synodal meeting on April 11] … because he had already confessed—better yet had already been convicted [at the Orthodoxy Sunday assembly on March 13, 1082]—before our mighty and holy emperor, our humility and the sacred synod, on the Sunday of orthodoxy in the great Church, where he was forced to admit that he was indeed held in the thralls of those Greek philosophical doctrines and was attached to them. He was therefore sent to a monastery and to receive there a proper correction. (p. 159)

5:10 As for Kaspakes who presented the written accusations against John Italos to our sacred Majesty, he is to be informed by Theodore the Domestic to have the document signed, and to present himself to find out if he knows someone who was present during the alleged outrage of John Italos against the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ. (p. 161)

Document 6. Map of Longobardia
(Map added from Longobardia,
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longobardia)

Document 7. Nicetas Choniates on John Italos^[24]

Italos’s nonsense reached the ears of the emperor and the Patriarch Eustratios Garidas, and there was a fearful agitation about him. Italos was, therefore, summoned into the great church [Hagia Sophia], and there the articles [of his writing] were presented for close examination. He presented himself in a barbarous way, and being overcome by an ungovernable emotion, he defended his silly nonsense. But being refuted by the anathema along with his irrelevant statements, he was laid low by repentance and understood the appropriateness [of the condemnation], by which he was won over, and so he begged for forgiveness [because he not only] taught reincarnation and that it was not necessary to honor the holy images, but he also believed in the Platonic ideas, and all the other things he had nefariously spoken.

Document 8. Did John Italos
and Isaac Comnenos Discuss Images?

John Italos was probably involved in the controversy over icons instigated by Leo of Chalcedon. He and the Sebastocrator may have clashed on this subject during their private dispute.

Stephanou: “We thus believe that the controversy between the Sebastocrator and Italos dealt with icons, and, at the same time, it was the occasion for new accusations to be leveled against the philosopher.”^[25]

Clucas: “Stephanou is, however, undoubtedly correct in pointing out that Italos must have been involved in the controversy centered around Leo of Chalcedon’s opposition to secularization of church treasure.”^[26]

Clucas: “It may be that Italos here took a position which had something to do with Bishop Leo of Chalcedon’s opposition to Emperor Alexios’s policy of seizing and melting down the silver and gold icon frames into bullion and coin to be used to pay the expenses of the then nearly bankrupt state. But the trial says nothing about this connection, and the expression ‘not stopping short with the shadows’ derives most probably from the Confession of Faith (Document 1) of Italos’s teacher, Michael Psellos, composed some thirty years earlier, long before the controversy over Alexios’s use of church treasure. Stephanou’s view that this expression had something to do with Leo of Chalcedon is therefore surely wrong or very unlikely, and in any case it is obvious that if Italos placed far greater stress on the prototype over the image, his view would have been more in line with the not overly reverent approach toward icons implied by the Emperor’s policy. Stephanou also thought that the icon-issue was the subject of Italos’s initial interrogation by Isaac, but we have already shown why this does not appear to have been the case.”^[27]

Document 9. A Possible Reference
of Leo of Chalcedon to John Italos

1. E. Stephanou: “According to his [John Italos’s] notion of the relation between the image and the prototype, it is probable that the philosopher followed a Platonic inspiration and overly neglected the importance of the lower element of the relation (the image). He thus emphasized only the prototype. In his Letter to Nicholas of Adrianople, Leo of Chalcedon made reference to those who reserved all their veneration for the prototype and considered the image to be only a shadow, something that was totally secondary, to be completely destroyed if need be. This is obviously the thesis that Italos defended.”^[28]

Leo of Chalcedon: 7. Because of this, the miserable Basil [of Euchaita] suffers, as well as those who share his evil, and the word image throws them into great confusion because they do not know, as I believe, what image means. And again, they know nothing about a relation, an archetype, bowing down, a hypostasis, and things consecrated to God. In fact, each of these things has a different meaning.^[29]

Leo of Chalcedon: 16. Let them listen, those who accept the expression “bow down in worship before Christ” outside images, but do not accept the expression “bow down in worship before Christ” in images.^[30]

Document 10. The Synodikon of Orthodoxy
“The Eleven Chapters Against John Italos”^[31]

10:1 To them who attempt by whatever means to introduce a new controversy or teaching into the ineffable economy of our Incarnate Savior and God, and who seek to penetrate the way wherein God the Word was united to the human substance and for what reason He deified the flesh He assumed, and who, by using dialectical terminology of nature and adoption, try to dispute about the transcendent innovation of His divine and human natures, Anathema (3).

10:2 To them who profess piety yet shamelessly, or rather impiously, introduce into the Orthodox and Catholic Church the ungodly doctrines of the Greeks concerning the souls of men, heaven and earth, and the rest of creation, Anathema (3).

10:3 To them who prefer the foolish so-called wisdom of the secular philosophers and follow its proponents, and who accept the metempsychosis of human souls or that, like the brute animals, the soul is utterly destroyed and departs into nothingness, and who thus deny the resurrection, judgment, and the final recompense for the deed committed during life, Anathema (3).

10:4 To them who dogmatize that matter and the Ideas are without beginning or are co-eternal with God, the Creator of all, and that heaven and earth and the other created things are everlasting, unoriginated and immutable, thus legislating contrary to Him Who said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away”; to them who thus speak vain and earthly things drawing down the divine curse upon their own heads, Anathema (3).

10:5 To them who maintain that although the wise men of the Greeks and the foremost of the heresiarchs were put under anathema by the Seven Holy and Catholic Councils and by all the fathers that shone forth in Orthodoxy as ones alien to the Catholic Church because of the adulterations and loathsome superabundance of error in their teachings, yet they are exceedingly more excellent, both here and in the future judgment, than those pious and orthodox men who, by human passion or by ignorance, have committed some offense, Anathema (3).

10:6 To them who do not accept with a pure and simple faith and with all their soul and heart the extraordinary miracles of our Savior and God and the holy Theotokos who without stain gave birth to Him, and of the other saints, but who attempt by sophistic demonstrations and words to traduce them as being impossible, or to misinterpret them according to their own way of thinking, and to present them according to their own opinion, Anathema (3).

10:7 To them who undertake Greek studies for purposes not only of education but also of following their vain opinions, and are so thoroughly convinced of their truth and validity that they shamelessly introduce them and teach them to others, sometimes secretly and sometimes openly, Anathema (3).

10:8 To them who of themselves refashion creation by means of mythical fabrications and accept the Platonic Ideas as veritable, saying that matter, being self-subsistent, is given form by these Ideas, and who thereby clearly calumniate the free will of the Creator who brought all things into being out of non-being and who, as Maker, established the beginning and end of all things by His authority and sovereignty, Anathema (3).

10:9 To them who say that in the last and general resurrection men will be raised up and judged in other bodies and not in those wherewith they passed this present life, inasmuch as these were corrupted and destroyed, and who babble empty and vain things against Christ our God Himself, and His disciples, our teachers, who taught that in the very same body in which men lived, in the same shall they also be judged; furthermore, the great Apostle Paul in his discourse concerning the resurrection distinctly and with examples restates the same truth more extensively and refutes as mindless those who think differently; therefore, to them who contravene such dogmas and doctrines, Anathema (3).

10:10 To them who accept and transmit the vain Greek teachings that there is a pre-existence of souls and teach that all things were not produced and did not come into existence out of non-being, that there is an end to the torment or a restoration again of creation and of human affairs, meaning by such teachings that the Kingdom of Heaven is entirely perishable and fleeting, whereas the Kingdom is eternal and indissoluble as Christ our God Himself taught and delivered to us, and as we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Scripture, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting to them who by such teachings both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others, Anathema (3).

10:11 To those pagan and heterodox doctrines and teachings introduced in contempt of the Christian and Orthodox faith or in opposition to the Catholic and blameless faith of the Orthodox, by John Italos and by his disciples who shared in his ruin, Anathema (3).

Document 11. Timarion^[32]

I [Timarion] also saw John Italos trying to sit down alongside Pythagoras, but the latter rejected him brusquely, saying, “You filthy rat, you who have put on the mantle of the Galilaeans which they call divine and heavenly, meaning baptism, where do you get the nerve to join us, men who spent their lives in epistemology and syllogistic thought? Either take off that strange robe or take yourself off right away from our company.” But John Italos wouldn’t take it off.

He was followed by a mannikin or half-man [Diogenes the Cynic], a slavish fellow, to be more accurate, a city type, very ribald and coarse, who abused everyone he met in iambic verse, a character quite devoid of intelligence but one who could deceive the ignorant mob with his promises, promises line. You only had to exchange a word or two with him to realize that there was nothing decent or clever about him. He seemed to be nothing more than a clone of-his own teacher, a malignant, abusive, fickle, conceited son of a bitch who was everything you would expect such qualities to produce.

But he really caught a Tartar this time. For he went up to Diogenes the Cynic and arrogantly tried to buttonhole him. Diogenes, though, who had recently increased his own stock of shamelessness, was not to be caught like that. To show his contempt for his opponent’s brand of offensiveness, he snorted and howled like a dog that is always barking. That provoked John, who was also an amateur of Cynic dogma, to start howling in his turn. This all ended in a wrestling match. The Italian got hold of Diogenes in the shoulder with his teeth, but Diogenes countered by fastening his onto his rival’s throat and probably would have throttled him, had not Cato the Roman, who didn’t care much for philosophers, extricated John from Diogenes’s mouth.

“You dirty rat,” snarled Diogenes. “Why, no less a person than Alexander, son of Philip, the one who conquered all of Asia so easily, came to me in Corinth while I was sunbathing, and he spoke to me in tones of respect and humility. So where do you get the nerve to treat me as an inferior, you of all people, whom the Byzantines treated as scum and who was hated by all the Galilaeans? By the Cynic philosophy, of which sect I am the leader, if you dare to say as much as one more word to me, you will get a second painful death and burial.”

Cato took John by the hand and led him a safe distance away. But when they trespassed upon the territory of the dialecticians, the latter rose as one man and pelted John with stones, shouting, “Get him out of here, Cato. A dummkopf who failed grammar in life and who was a laughingstock when he tried to write speeches doesn’t belong here.”

So, John, ridiculed and abused by all, retreated groaning, “Aristotle, Aristotle, O syllogism, O sophism, where are you now that I need you? If only you had been here to help me, I could have wiped the floor with these idiot philosophers and this pig-dealing bag of wind, Diogenes.”

Document 12. Joannou’s Evaluation
of John Italos’s Origin^[33]

12:1 The epithet Italos indicates the origin from the Byzantine katepanate (theme) Italy. Psellos also refers to him as a Latin (Document 16) because of his membership in the Latin Church, as well as Ausonier, i.e. coming from Campania. Here it may be useful to recall the following facts: On the way back from the Holy Land, a number of Norman knights settled at the foot of Monte Gargano. Pope Benedict VIII reinforced this small force with recruits who had made a pilgrimage to Rome from northern France. The Pope intended to make this troop available to Melo, who was fighting the Byzantine occupying forces in Bari. Despite this help, Melo was defeated at Cannae in October 1018 by the new Katepano Basileios Bojoanes, Tornikios’ successor. The Pope received the remaining remnants of the Norman troops in the castle of Carigliano in Campania. Among them was probably the father of John Italos. It remains to be seen what role he and his companions played, first under Katepano Bojoanes, who restored Byzantine supremacy over the Longobard princes, and after his tragedy in the Principality of Aversa founded by the Norman leader Rainulf. p. 11.

12:2 If the Alexiad is to be believed, the father of Italos took sides against the Byzantines when Sicily was reconquered by the Katepano Konstantinos Oropos (1037) and the strategos Georgios Maniakes. It is more likely that he initially, as was customary with these privateers, occasionally used his arms against the Byzantines, but finally was incorporated with the three hundred Franco-Normans from Longobadia under the leadership of Harduin into the Sicilian army of Strategos Maniakes, then returned to Italy after the capture of Syracuse (1040) because of the poor pay and took part in the successful uprising of the Lombards and Normans of Handuin against Michael Dokeianos. Joannou, pp. 11–12.

Document 13. JOHN ITALOS, Antonio Rigo, Biographical Dictionary of Italians, Volume 56, 2001^[34]

JOHN ITALOS.

13:1 The available data on John Italos, mostly from the paragraphs devoted to him in Anna Comnena’s Alexiad, are scarce and basically only inform us about the short time span marked by the trials of 1077-78 and 1082. As we know from the names used by his contemporaries (in particular “Italo” and “Longobard”), John Italos was born in southern Italy, in the territories of the Byzantine Catepanate of Italy, formerly the Thema of Longobardia, roughly corresponding to Apulia. Byzantine sources attest to his western origin, but there is no reason to believe that he came from a Norman family, nor that he was born in Campania.

13:2 It is possible to fix John Italos’s date of birth, albeit roughly, at around 1030 thanks to Anna Comnena’s account, according to which he was a child (pais)—that is, aged between 7 and 14—at the time of George Maniace’s Sicilian campaign and the events that followed it (between 1038 and 1042). Anna also added that John Italos had arrived in Constantinople in his early twenties (neanias).

13:3 It is commonly believed, on the basis of P. Joannou’s writings (Christliche Metaphysik, pp. 11 ff.) that John Italos, of Norman origin, was born in Campania. The arguments put forward by Joannou in favor of his thesis do not stand up to thorough examination. The fact that John Italos participated in the ambassadorship to Robert Guiscard does not constitute proof, since the philosopher was not sent as ambassador to Guiscard, but to Pope Gregory VII. John Italos’s statements on the cult of images in his Quaestio 87 do not contain echoes of Western doctrines, heretical for a Byzantine, but are merely a compilation from John Damascene’s orations on sacred images. When John Italos in Quaestio 80 speaks of a wine-like beverage made from pears or apples, he is not referring to the cider drunk “up to the present day in Normandy,” but to the apple and pear wine already known in classical antiquity and also widespread in Byzantium. The Campanian origin of John Italos has been established on the basis of a letter from Michele Psellos to John Italos, in which the latter is described as “Latino” and “Ausone.” But “Ausone” and “Ausonia” were at the time synonyms of “Italian” and “Italy,” as we know from other verses by Psellos himself.

13:4 The first evidence we have of John Italos’s childhood is a passage from Anna Comnena’s The Alexiad, which unfortunately provides contradictory information that is difficult to interpret. In any case, we can deduce from this passage that John Italos, still a child, followed his father to Sicily during the Byzantine expedition led by George Maniace (1038-40), who reconquered the eastern part of the island. Back in Apulia, John Italos’s father took part in the general Longobardian uprising supported by the Normans against the Byzantines (1041–1042).

13:5 For unknown reasons, as Anna Comnena points out, John Italos arrived in Constantinople during the 1050s. There is no reason to link his arrival in the Byzantine capital with the Norman corps led by Phrankopoulos who fought in the service of Byzantium against the Pechenegs in 1050, as an inveterate tradition has it.

13:6 After learning Greek, John Italos undertook his studies, first under the guidance of teachers unknown to us (of whom Anna Comnena does not seem to have had any particular regard) and then at the school of the most prominent figure in the Constantinopolitan intellectual milieu of the period, Michael Psellos. His relations with the master, as with his fellow disciples, were not always peaceful, also because of a certain impetuousness and impetuosity of character of John Italos, as it is outlined by his contemporaries. From the pages of Anna Comnena, we have a portrait of John Italos that is in many ways realistic: short in stature, robust, with a large head, prone to anger, easy to come to blows, arrogant, insolent, hasty and inconstant. Other sources (Michael Psellos, Timarion, Nicetas Choniata) also agree with this characterisation, in which, however, one must also recognise the presence of certain clichés used by Byzantine literati in their description of Westerners.

13:7 John Italos’s career reached its peak during the reign of Michael VII Dukas (1071-78). He enjoyed the favor of the emperor and his family, in particular his brother Andronicus, to whom he addressed two operettas, one devoted to dialectics, the other to the interpretation of a passage from Homer on dreams (Quaestio 43). The Dukases’ confidence in the philosopher was such that he was entrusted with a task of particular importance. In the context of the negotiations that the Byzantine Empire undertook with the Papacy of Rome, at the beginning of the pontificate of Gregory VII, in order to heal the religious disagreements that had arisen twenty years earlier during the patriarchate of Michael Cerularius and to face the new situation created by the Norman expansion in southern Italy, especially after the fall of Bari (1071, cf. On this subject: A. Tuilier, Michel VII et le pape Grégoire VII: Byzance et la réforme grégorienne, in Actes du XVe Congrès international d’études byzantines, IV, Athinai 1980, pp. 250-264; H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII’s crusading plans of 1074, in Outremer, edited by B. Z. Kedar—H. E. Mayer—R. C. Smail, Jerusalem, 1982, pp. 27–40), John Italos was sent as ambassador to Durrës in 1073-74 (cf. F. Dölger—P. Wirth, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des Oströmischen Reichs, II, München 1995, no. 988) for talks with the Pope. 988) for talks with the papal legate, the Patriarch of Grado Domenico Marango (on whom see John Italos Bianchi, Il patriarca di Grado Domenico Marango tra Roma e l’Oriente, in Studi veneziani, n.s., VIII [1966], pp. 45 f.). According to Anna Comnena’s account, in the Adriatic city John Italos betrayed his patrons and took refuge in Rome where he spent a short period. Shortly afterwards he returned to Byzantium, made amends and was interned for a time in the Constantinopolitan Monastery of the Mother of God of the Source of Life (Zoodochos Peghe) and in the Church of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.

13:8 It does not seem that this episode, whose deeper motivations escape us, had any repercussions on the rise of John Italos, who in the same period, again thanks to the imperial favor, held the position of consul of philosophers, in which he succeeded his teacher Michael Psellos (for the chronology, see Gouillard, Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien, pp.167 ff.). During that period John Italos’s school in Constantinople was attended by numerous disciples, among whom we find several representatives of the patriarchal clergy of St. Sophia (including Eustatius, the future Metropolitan of Nicaea), high dignitaries (such as Nicephorus protoproedros and droungarios tes biglas, Abasgos the grammarian) and members of the most prominent families of the Empire (Serblias, Iasites, Solomon, etc.).

13:9 John Italos’s increased popularity was probably not unconnected with the instruction of a first trial (1077-78) for heresy to which he was subjected during the patriarchate of Cosmas. On that occasion, Emperor Michael VII Dukas devised a compromise solution, evidently aimed at saving his protégé. The incriminating doctrines were set out in nine anonymous articles. After examination by the synod, these propositions, which concealed John Italos’s name, were condemned to anathema.

13:10 The articles, which were included in an official document, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, read publicly in every church on the first Sunday of Lent, presented heterogeneous doctrines in terms of content: interpretation of the Incarnation with rational arguments, superiority of the doctrines of ancient philosophers over ecclesiastical traditions, revival of Platonic doctrines about the world and man, denial of the miracles performed by Christ, the Mother of God and the saints.

13:11 The compromise solution reached thanks to the imperial intervention satisfied neither the person concerned nor his opponents. It seems that John Italos himself had already tried on several occasions during the patriarchate of Cosmas to settle the matter once and for all, thus silencing the rumors that were circulating about him. In the end, the matter returned to the agenda during the patriarchate of Eustatius Garidas (1081-84), especially at the instigation of the new emperor Alexius I Comnenos and his brother Isaac, who were certainly hostile to John Italos. Thus, between the end of February and 11 April 1082, his doctrines were examined by the Synod and a tribunal presided over by the emperor. The investigation, conducted on the basis of the propositions of 1077-78, the profession of faith submitted by John Italos and finally a memoir delivered by a certain Kaspakes accusing John Italos of supporting “Hellenic” (i.e. pagan) ideas and iconoclasm, ended with the condemnation of the philosopher. His disciples, on the other hand, who were summoned and questioned before the Synod, were not prosecuted.

13:12 At the time of the trial in 1082, John Italos was confined in a monastery in Constantinople. After that date, the only information about him is that reported in the Alexiad by Anna Comnena, according to whom John Italos repented of the doctrines he had previously professed. The place and date of his death are unknown.

13:13 Even if John Italos’s teaching and condemnation had a deep echo in Byzantium in those years (as we can deduce from the reading of John Maistor and the writings of Nicetas Stethatos and Maximus the Confessor) and in the first half of the following century (Speech of Nicetas of Heraclea in 1117, Timarion), it is difficult to take stock of John Italos’s trial. The opposition of certain ecclesiastical and theological circles to the new philosophical tendencies of which Michael Psellus and John Italos were the most significant representatives, the heavy interference of the Emperor Alexius I Comnenos in ecclesiastical matters, jealousy and hostility toward a protégé of the Duke. The heterogeneity and even contradictory nature of the accusations leveled at John Italos, often nothing more than the umpteenth reprise of heresiological topoi (e.g. the accusation of iconoclasm), certainly do not help in this regard.

13:14 In spite of its evident overestimation by many modern scholars, John Italos’s work allows us to see that he was a philosopher and a philosopher in his own right. His work allows us to see that he was a school philosopher, a collector of excerpts, commentator whose horizons were in fact limited to the study of Aristotle, Plato, Porphyry, Ammonius, Proclus and Iamblichus (authors who, not by chance, constituted the object of his teaching according to the Alexiad) and particularly attracted by the virtuosity of Aristotelian dialectics and logic, as Anna Comnena herself and the author of Timarion recalled, not without irony. From his writings and from the profession of faith he presented to the Synod, John Italos also appears to be a theologian (if he can be called such) without an adequate knowledge of patristic literature and uncertain, if not lacking in theological vocabulary.

Document 14 λατρείαν in The Life of Saint Antony the Young and Petronas le Conqueror of the Arabs in 863^[35]

Father Antony perceived and saw his progress toward God, and, guided by his promise [to give his whole life to God], he gave himself totally to being well pleasing to Christ. He persevered and continuously called on God and his all-praiseworthy mother by lifting up his venerable hands to her all-holy image and saying: “My compassionate Lady, you carried God the Word and your son in your motherly bosom, receive my supplication and carry it to your Son and God and answer my prayers for the soul of your faithful servant Petronas so that I may boast of your immense compassion.” Antony prayed this way all the time, and one night, he was standing in front of her holy image holding up his hands. Then the likeness of the Mother of God leaned forward and grasped his hands, but then, he found himself again standing before the form, as it was before. Because of this experience, Antony knew that the Theotokos had received the service [λατρείαν] he offered to her for Petronas. So, no longer worried about Petronas’s salvation, Antony incessantly glorified the Lord.

Document 15. Letter 18 To John [Italos] the Logobardian
Encouraging Him to Rapidly Expound on the Mathematical Sciences
[Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy]^[36]

Your passion for knowledge would be highly laudable if you weighed it on the scale [and seeing it was unbalanced] then turned it away from opposite things, [speculative philosophy and], by all its weight and force, [let it oriented itself] toward better things [practical sciences].^[37] You seem to think that philosophical speculation is greater than the truth, for you are not like Laconian dogs^[38] which, when the hare or the dogfood bowl appears in front of them, start to run after the “animal.” Rather, you are like the little dogs of Malta^[39]: you rush off, on all fours, nostrils flaring, toward the dogfood bowl. I am therefore not at all surprised by your passion for abstract, theoretical reasoning.^[40]

It is indeed quite easy for speakers to say excellent things and can also, with little effort, inverse [the meanings] of two statements. However, [do you really think], for all that, that you are ready to be appointed geometer surveyor? For the title “Geometer-Surveyor,” O Man of the greatest virtue, is not given for [excellent public speaking], or maybe sometimes it is, but not because of rhetorical skills.^[41] For, from time immemorial, geometry surveying has been defined in Egypt according to [the rising and falling of the Nile]; there, according to the season, the Nile rises and floods everything, and then, when it again recedes, it leaves [the country] in disarray. Therefore, so that there might be no confusion about land ownership, civil registers determined property lines. On the basis of these registers, the property configurations that Egyptians used for business affairs were set.^[42] As a result, geometry surveying had its beginning in material things and then [as a science] moved up into the mind without being attached to natural things, for the senses cannot give birth to mind, but incomplete things come from complete things.^[43] But since we cannot experience being by direct reasoning, we rise up to intelligible entities through things perceived by the senses. It is not appropriate for the mind to descend to geometry surveying through matter after having left the divine palace. [The mind moves forward] toward another region from the things considered worthy of honor, while in fact they have nothing honorable about them and are indeed worthy of scorn.^[44]

How will you have a life without pain and suffering, that which geometry-surveying promises^[45]; how will you dance with joy; how will you sing the songs you have in your soul if you are robed of the honor of posterity toward which you run so directly? Even Plato was often caught dancing.^[46]

[Let me] tell you an amusing story: A man met a rhetor [a professional public speaker] who imitated the character traits of Xerxes and Darius in his public speeches^[47], and he found some [low quality] meat at a cheap price. The man said to the rhetor, “O Man of the greatest virtue, how will you become like Darius and Xerxes if you eat such [cheap, low-quality] food?” I will tell you, [Italos,] the same story: How will you succeed in getting the excellent thing, I mean geometry surveying, if you spend your time making money by giving lectures on speculative philosophy?^[48] Why do you not give your whole heart to the art of money-making? For there, [you will find] both reasoned knowledge about money and very lucrative words of prayer^[49], as [when] the Greeks [pray to] the god [Apollo] Kerdoos.^{[50] [51]}Here are various, unsightly things for making a profit: talk this way and then that way, alter the smell of flowers, falsify the weights for weighing, unbalance the scales, counterfeit money, wear down the thorns of clothes woven from prickly cloth by rolling them into a ball, displace the finger which measures the weight of something [along with other things].^[52]

Anyway, what has all that to do with you and geometry surveying, to a man who does not come from the country of the Chaldeans, nor boast of Egypt as his homeland where there are horoscopes and endless achievements? You have obtained a portion of Sparta, so be a credit to Sparta.^[53] You lived in Rome, or rather you came from there, and no one from there has ever studied the stars or surveyed land. Brutus, Cato, Cicero, Lucullus, and Cassius^[54], these are men who worshiped only Aries.^[55] Do not dishonor the homeland or desecrate the maternal soil.^{[56] [57]}

Therefore, having abandoned the writings about geometry surveying and any other of the arts governed by the Muses^[58], [at least] protect your body with the long shield, and having first taken up the light shield, begin the military dance. Then having organized yourself with armed men [his disciples], fight the Sabines and the Albans.^[59] Destroy the cities of the Latins, but you will conquer the city of the Carthaginians; Sicily is already in revolt. Do not be persuaded^[60] by the man from Halikarnassos^[61] nor by Polybius^[62], for the Romans demolished their homeland by word and showed favor to foreign cities.^[63]

Document 16. Letter 19
Michael Psellos to John Italos^[64]

16:1 Greeting^[65]

With goodwill to Italos—or if he wishes, to the Latin^[66]and to the Ausonian^[67]—for he skillfully and rigorously undertook [to discuss] the distinction[s] in God^[68], at least in word [thought].^[69] He also applied great care and eloquence [εὐφῶς] to the subject^[70]; however, he did not defend just this point, but others too. For he suitably endured all the other unpleasantries, not paying attention to any insults. He wisely bore the accusations, [reacting to] the insult about the distinctions [among the divine Persons], quickly becoming very emotional and bolder than he was before the attack. Immediately turning [on his accuser], he struck him using words like spears, for he proposed a reformulation of the statement in question, so that, while throwing [his verbal spears], he did not appear to be doing so, just as did the most skilled orators and the most rigorous philosophers. On the one hand, some orators, by a clever rhetorical method, have been able to change a proposition from a simple hypothesis into a better one; on the other hand, however, other public speakers have mysteriously hidden unspeakable things under a cover.

16:2 Italos’s Style Compared to Great Authors

Thus, Plato wrote the Timaeus, and all the philosophers after him [also wrote works]. For one of them proposed [to examine] sleep and spoke about the imaginative faculty of the mind^[71]; another one wrote about the nature of man and clearly described in his writings the principle of life.^[72]

And what is more, Italos is the sort of man who praised them, [but] he did not want [anyone] to prefer [him to them]. He always promoted the confrontation of contradictory ideas as the goal of all discourses, [and so during the public disputation], he proposed other ways to interpret [their hostile] propositions, so that, by logical necessity, he turned the argument in the direction of his intended point.

16:3 Italos’s Behavior during a Public Disputation

And thus, he chose not to seek vengeance against those who insulted him, nor did he answer the insults which they heaped on him nor did he launch any new ones. However, having made an extraordinary defense against the accusation, he set out his doctrine^[73] and, like in a mirror, through his argumentation, showed his own face to be a reflection of the beauty of the faith. It was as though a physically handsome man hid his form, and then when someone else mocked him for being ugly, he showed himself to be untouched by the insult. [In the same way, after the accusation of “ugliness,” Italos] exposed the hidden form of his soul and showed it to those who were insulting him—as much as it was reasonable. He thus acquitted himself of his part in the dispute and, as if he were a beautiful statue, he showed himself to a model [of proper Orthodox belief].

16:4 Evaluation of Greek Philosophy

Preferring to praise the wisdom of the Greeks, Italos bewailed, it seems, the fact that it was necessary to receive the authentic practitioners of rhetoric as an inheritance [from others], but he took nothing from the richness of barbarian and foreign wisdom. While nearly all of Greece and its colony Ionia had rigorously cut themselves off from their [philosophical] inheritance, this latter was diverted to the Assyrians, Medes and Egyptians^[74] the order being turned completely upside-down, so that the Greeks were barbarized and the barbarians Hellenized.

16:5 There was a Greek man [Alexander the Great] who, as things happened, arrived in Susa or Ecbatana^[75], at the ancient royal palaces of Darius, and keeping company with the Babylonians, but being only a Greek speaker, he listened to things he did not understand. However, he admired each man and learned, maybe for the first time, that wisdom guides everything. [And so it happened that] a barbarian vagabond came into contact with those in Greece and with all those with us and did not want to have anything to do with them as though they were mules, rather donkeys. The great ones^[76] [among them], not even half, knew about nature and what is above nature, but the rest of them^[77], thinking they knew everything, did not even know the road that leads to such knowledge. Some of them advertised themselves as philosophers, and many [young men] wanted to be their disciples. Those philosophers sat in front [of their disciples]—with solemn faces and long beards, pale and sullen, frowning and wearing dirty clothes. They dug up Aristotle from below, from the deepest depths of Hades, and gave the impression of discerning all the things Aristotle had left ambiguous due to the lack of clearness caused by the mist [clouding his mind]. So, those philosophers felt it necessary to clear up the few unclear matters [in Aristotle’s works] by many discourses, speaking on and on, thus [clearing up] most of the ambiguous points with [a flood] of insignificant words. Therefore, the barbarian took us for players of childish games, was contemptuous of our intellectual poverty and went away without being any wiser, rather even more ignorant [than before].

16:6 John Italos’s Style

On the one hand, the Latin’s [John Italos] presentation [during the public disputation] showed that his dialectical reasoning was remarkably skillful; on the other hand, however, no one should be amazed if his presentation did not shine with technical, oratorical beauty; his speech did not have a well-ordered style neither grace nor elegance. But then again, there are many notions about discourses, and some orators have, through their own speeches, understood the smallest of all the virtues. One such orator pursued clarity and purity; however, another one did not encourage public speaking by a lofty style. Yet another one invested his discourses with great dignity, but he destroyed the clarity of style by poorly dividing the parts of his speech with the intention of increasing its worth. Still another orator’s public presentations glowed with a natural brilliance, while yet another loved feigned beauty. For Lysias^[78] was good, but Isocrates^[79] put “makeup” [on his style?]; as for Thucydides^[80], his speeches were excessively pompous, but, on that question, Herodotus^[81] was better, and his rhetorical grace inexhaustible.

So, let everyone be indulgent with Italos who is not good in everything, but his method of reasoning is strong, and the beauty [of his reasoning] flows abundantly. For this reason, the careless listener, right from the beginning, is ready [to listen and criticize] and to ponder [what is said]; for him, the discourse is immediately annoying, but being carefully thought out by the author [Italos], the discourse is neither unharmonious nor inflated in style. Even if Italos does not pour grace into anyone’s soul, he nonetheless forces people to have their minds set on what is being said and to reflect on it.

He does not persuade by wordiness or sensually pleasurable references (for he does not know how to use the oratorical tricks and traps of the graces) nor does he charm people by beauty nor does he draw them in by pleasure, but he dominates [his adversaries] and argues vehemently through his thoughts. Even though he is not everyone’s equal, he holds his reasoning together by his arguments and asserts himself with a combination of styles, and finally he reflects.

16:7 Characteristics of Ancient Philosophy

Even if such characteristics can be attributed to the most accomplished rhetoricians, Homer did not exactly have the same rhetorical characteristics as the sons of Aiacos.^[82] [What] if the one who guides souls [to the underworld] had left Homer in the camp [in his mother’s womb], without form [dead, having no physical or rhetorical beauty], primal beauty would still be found in the mind; only then would it pass on from the mind to lower levels of beauty [physical and rhetorical].^[83] Therefore, we praise equally physical bodies and rhetorical discourses that participate in beauty and beauty itself in which they participate.

Nonetheless, we do not praise the beauty and elevation of Plato’s style in the same way we praise Xenocrates’s^[84] style; we also have a different way of praising the style of Aeschines Socraticus.^[85] On arriveng at the end of our discourses, we will often adapt the conclusions to the ways the Scopelians^[86] and the Niketians^[87] ended theirs, and we will adapt the virtues of our speeches to the art and power of each one of theirs.

16:8 Psellos Speaks to John Italos

Well, then, no, let no one disparage Italos because of the characteristics of his discourse, but, as far as I am concerned, let him expound in his characteristic style, not just him but all his disciples too for I welcome the newly born fruit of your discourses, for your offspring is close to my heart. What is more, since I am the forefather, I cannot utterly hate my own offspring, however they may turn out, even if their heads are squeezed [into a pimple], their arms are deformed or their knees are out of joint. Indeed, I will welcome with joy their dislocated limbs, and I will try to be a good oratorical midwife. I will clean the deformation, I will put the limbs back in joint—as you say in a technical way—and I will attribute the misfortune to chance and welcome what happened as an accidental sprain.

16:9 Psellos Tells a Story

I am not more heartless about my descendants than that Athenian woman—I forget her name—who was pregnant, according to her story. The father apparently did not want her to be a mother and so wanted to have the baby killed at birth. So, to accomplish his end, he secretly pressured the midwife [to carry out his plan], but she served the father’s purpose in a different way: during the birth of the baby, the midwife put a snake into the woman’s vagina. So, when the baby was safe and the snake was in the place of the baby, the midwife cried out: “Oh my God, I see a monster. A snake is in the place of the baby.” And the mother said with compassion: “As for me, little mother, keep the snake warm, for I will keep it as my own soul.” So, taking the snake in her arms, she kissed it.^[88]

16:10 Conclusion

I am a man of Attica, and I love my children more than the Athenian woman. I gave birth to you by birth pangs of the soul, and I love your “discourse children” which will be grown-up men one day and will win contests against stronger arms. So, from now on, be the father of many “children” because no one can reach adulthood unless he is born.

Document 17. Did John Italos
Have an Ecclesiastical Career after His Condemnation?

17:1 Indeed, there is fairly good evidence, which has been entirely overlooked by Byzantinists, that he was appointed to ecclesiastical office. A diatribe written in 1116 against one of Italos’s pupils, Eustratios of Nicaea, says that Eustratios was taught by “John, the former chartophylax of Antioch the Great.” It is not clear when the appointment took place; nevertheless, the discovery of the connection with Antioch adds a new dimension to Italos’s personality, particularly in the light of the trading connection maintained by his fellow Italian Pantaleone of Amalfi.^[89]

17:2 Yet, an early twelfth-century reference suggests that Italos had an ecclesiastical career after his condemnation and his withdrawal of his earlier teachings. Niketas Seides says in a treatise written against Eustratios of Nikaia that Eustratios’s teacher was a certain “John, formerly chartophylax of the great city of Antioch.”¹⁵ This reference is unambiguous given that Eustratios was John Italos’s student.¹⁶ Paul Magdalino has argued that, had Italos fulfilled the ecclesiastical office of chartophylax prior to his trial in 1082, then the trial record would have made mention of it. Moreover, chartophylax was an ecclesiastical position, which Italos could have fulfilled only after his monastic vow in 1082, plausibly in the years 1096–1098, when Alexios expected the liberation of Antioch by the crusaders and needed a Latin-speaking cleric to support the mission of John Oxeites, recently elected as patriarch-in-exile of Antioch.¹⁷

¹⁵ Νικήτα Σεΐδου Λόγος κατὰ Εὐστρατίου Νικαίας, ed. Th. N. Zeses, Ἐπιστημονικὴ πετηρὶς Θεολογικῆς Σχολῆς, supplement. Thessaloniki, 1976, 35, 82, at 65. The respective passage has been identified and translated by P. Magdalino, Prosopography and Byzantine Identity, in A. Cameron (ed.), Fifty Years of Prosopography: The Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond, Proceedings of the British Academy, 118, Oxford, 2003, 41, 56, at 50.

¹⁶ Gouillard, “Le procès official” (at footnote 14 above) 159, 434.

¹⁷ Magdalino, Prosopography and Byzantine Identity (at footnote 15 above) 51.

17:3 After Eustathios the Roman, it is appropriate to consider John the Italian, John Italos, the pupil and successor of Michael Psellos as “consul of the philosophers,” whose show trial in 1082, orchestrated by Alexios I, has been seen as a deciItext which identifies him rather differently. This is the polemic against Italos’s pupil Eustratios of Nicaea, written by Niketas Seides in 1117–1118. Among other proofs of Eustratios’s impiety, Seides accuses him of being the pupil of “John, formely chartophylax of the great city of Antioch.”³⁵

³⁵ Νικήτα Σεΐδου Λόγος κατὰ Εὐστρατίου Νικαίας, Th. Zisis [sic Zeses] (Thessaloniki, 1976), 65. Another tract against Eustratios identifies him as one of Italos’s pupils who formally rejected the latter’s teaching at his trial in 1082: P. Ioannou, “Le sort des évêques hérétiques réconciliés : un discours inédit de Nicétas de Serres contre Eustrate de Nicée,” Byzantion 28 (1958) at 29; cf. J. Gouillard, “Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien,” TM 9 (1985, 133-69 at 159.

The evidence is reliable and unambiguous: at some point in his career, John Italos was chartophylax (archivist) of the patriarchate of Antioch. But when? The immediate supposition is that it must have been before Italos’s trial and condemnation in 1082. One could then plausibly link his career as chartophylax of Antioch with that of the turbulent patriarch of Antioch Aimilianos, who was no friend of the Doukai and Komnenoi, and whose record as a prime mover of civil unrest in both Antioch and Constantinople fits in well with Anna Comnena’s dark hints about Italos’s subversive influence on his pupils. The problem is that the trial record of 1082 does not refer to Italos in any ecclesiastical capacity. We should therefore look at the period after the trial when Italos was banned from teaching but not necessarily from exercising other functions. In particular, we should look at the years 1096–1098, when Alexios I was expecting the First Crusade to liberate Antioch from the Muslims, return it to the empire, and allow the recently patriarch-in-exile, John Oxeites, to occupy his see. I see this as a plausible context for the rehabilitation of John Italos and his appointment to a post in the church of Antioch, where his south Italian origin and his diplomatic experience made him ideal for purposes of liaison with the commanders of the crusading army, especially with Bohemond, the Norman from southern Italy, who seems to have been entrusted with special responsibility for the imperial reoccupation of Antioch, until it all went horribly wrong.

The surname Italos does not, to my knowledge, recur in Byzantium…

Document 18. Christian Philosophy^[90]

Sometime after this, he [the Logothete of the Bulgarian Tsar] once questioned him [St. Cyril the Philosopher and Apostle to the Slavs], saying, “Philosopher, I wish to learn what philosophy is.” With his quick mind, he replied immediately, “The knowledge of matters divine and human, to what extent man can approach God and how, through virtue, man is taught to be in the image and likeness of the One who created him.” And the Logothete grew to love him even more, as he, this great and venerable man, questioned him about these things. Constantine [St. Cyril] made known to him the study of philosophy and in a few words showed great keenness of mind.

 

^[1] Walter, Denis, Michael Psellos–Christliche Philosophie in Byzanz: Mittelalterliche Philosophie im Verhältnis zu Antike und Spätantike, (Berlin, Boston, 2017). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110527339, Podcast, History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps 307, ‘Consul of the Philosophers: Michael Psellos,’ https://historyofphilosophy.net/psellos; 308, ‘Dominic O’Meara on Michael Psellos,’ https://historyofphilosophy.net/psellos-omeara. B. Tatakis, La philosophie byzantine, PUF, 1949. Christian Zervos, Un philosophe néoplatonicien au XIe siècle : Michel Psellos, (Paris), 1918-1919.

 

^[2] The Synodikon of Orthodoxy, https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/synodicon-of-orthodoxy.html. Le Synodikon de l’orthodoxie Édition et Commentaire, Jean Couillard, éd., Travaux et mémoires 2, Paris, Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation byzantines, 1967,  60. Podcast, History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps 309, ‘Hooked on Classics: Italos and the Debate over Pagan Learning,’ https://historyofphilosophy.net/italos. Timur Schukin, ‘Iconoclastic Fragment of the Apologetic Note by John Italos,’ Brill, Scrimnium: Journal of Patrology and Critical Hagiography, Mar 30, 2008, 249–259, https://brill.com/view/journals/scri/4/1/article-p249_17.xml?language=en.

 

^[3] Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Greek and Latin in Byzantine Italy (6th–11th Century): Calabria 2.4, pp. 564567 in A Companion to Byzantine Italy, Leiden, The Netherlands, Koninklijke Brill, 2021, pp. 541581, https://brill.com/view/book/9789004307704/BP000032.xml.

 

^[4] M. Jaworska-Wołoszyn, ‘John Italos Seen by Anna Komnene,’ Peitho. Examina Antiqua, vol. 5, no. 1 Jan. 2014, 279–94, http://peitho.amu.edu.pl/w.

 

^[5] Elisabeth Malamut, Alexis Ier Comnène, (Paris, 2007), 206–210.

 

^[6] See a French translation of the pittakion contained in the minutes of the March 20 synod: Jean Gouillard, ‘Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien: les actes et leurs sous-entendus,’ Travaux et mémoires 9, (Paris, 1985), 136–138.

 

^[7] For this and the preceding synods, see a French translation of the acts: Gouillard, ‘Le procès officiel,’ 138–140.

 

^[8] Michael Psellos, Michaelis Pselli oratoria minora, ed. A. R. Littlewood, (Leipzig, 1985), 67.

 

^[9] ‘Stethatos, Niketas,’ The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 3, (Oxford), 1955-1956.

 

^[10] Theodor Ouspensky, ‘Le procès d’hérésie de Jean Italos,» Bulletin de l’Institut archéologique russe de Constantinople, 1897, 54–55. I have not been able to get access to this Russian work.

^[11] Rigo says that Joannou believed that ‘… John Italos participated in the ambassadorship to Robert Guiscard … [but according to Rigo] the philosopher was not sent as ambassador to Guiscard, but to Pope Gregory VII.’ (Document 13:3) ‘In a letter to Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, Gregory VII wrote, ‘Great pain and universal sorrow obsess me. The church of the Orient is moving farther from the Catholic faith and the devil having killed it spiritually, causes its members to perish in the flesh by the sword of his henchmen lest at any time divine grace bring them to a better mind.’’ (Registrum, MPL, XCLVIII: 400) Thus the negotiations begun in 1073 between Byzantium and the Papacy ended in failure.’ Peter Charanis, ‘Byzantium, the West and the Origin of the First Crusade,’ Byzantion, vol. 19, 1949, 17–36, p. 23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44168643. Accessed 7 Oct. 2022. Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki, ‘Michael VII Doukas, Robert Guiscard and the Byzantine-Norman Marriage Negiotiations,’ Byzantinoslavica LVIII, 1997, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Athina-Kolia-Dermitzaki/publication/297953792_Michael_VII_Doukas_Robert_Guiscard_and_the_Byzantine-Norman_marriage_negotiations/links/5c2d030a92851c22a35556b6/Michael-VII-Doukas-Robert-Guiscard-and-the-Byzantine-Norman-marriage-negotiations.pdf.

 

^[12] Steven Runciman, The Last Byzantine Renaissance, (Cambridge, 1970), 28 ff. and 49 ff., 197O, file:///C:/Users/Utilisateur/Dropbox/PC/Downloads/vdoc.pub_the-last-byzantine-renaissance.pdf.

 

^[13] ‘What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What concord is there between the Academy and the Church? What between heretics and Christians?’ Tertullian, ‘Pagan Philosophy the Parent of Heresies. The Connection Between Defections from Christian Faith and the Old Systems of Pagan Philosophy,’ Prescription against Heretics, Chapter 7, New Advent. Source: Translated by Peter Holmes. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, (Buffalo, NY, 1885). Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/o311.htm.

 

^[14] Tamar Melikidze ‘Basil the Great on ‘Outer Wisdom’ and Ethical-Moral Principles (According to Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature),’ Electronic Bilingual Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Journal Spekali, the Faculty of Humanities at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, http://www.spekali.tsu.ge/pdf/8_77_en.pdf. St. Basil the Great, To the Young on How to Profit from Pagan Literature, (c. 330-379), https://udallas.edu/braniff/braniff_life/How%20to%20Profit%20from%20Pagan%20Literature%20by%20St.%20Basil%20the%20Great.pdf.

 

^[15] Vojtěch Hladký, The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon: Platonism in Late Byzantium, between Hellenism and Orthodoxy, (Farnham Burlington, VT, 2014).

 

^[16] ‘CHARTOPHYLAX,’ Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 1, 417–418.

 

^[17] This is my translation of the Greek text which I prefer to Garzya’s: ‘I worship and venerate the images of Christ and Mary, as well as the pictures of all who were dear to Christ; but I do not stand by the imitating shadows, I am true to the imitated prototypes,’ p. 43. (Προσκυνῶ καὶ λατρεύω τῇ εἰκόνι τοῦ σαρκωθέντος Υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τῷ τύπῳ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἁγίας αὐτοῦ μητρός, ταῖς διὰ χρωμάτων μορφαῖς τῶν ἀπ› αἰῶνος εὐαρεστησάντων αὐτῷ, οὐκ ἐμμένων αὐταῖς ταῖς σκιαῖς, ἀλλ’ εἰς τὸ πρωτότυπον ἀναφέρων τὴν ὁμοιότητα.) Michael Psellos, The Exposition of Faith of the Most Wise and Honored Lord, Constantine Psellos, Presented to the Emperor, Lord Constantine Monomachos, as Evidence Against Those Who Are Attacking Him, ‘On Michael Psellus’ Admission of Faith,’ Antonio Garzya ed. and tr., (Athens, 1967), 46.

 

^[18] John Italos, Quaestiones quodilibetales, πζ’. Περὶ εἰκόνων, Pericles Joannou ed., (Buch-Kunstverlag Ettal, 1956), p. 151. Translation by the author.

 

^[19] PG 94, 1240 C-1244 A et 1337C-1344A. The Greek texts are identified by Jean Gouillard, «La religion des philosophes,» Travaux et mémoires 6, Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, (Paris, 1976), 310, note 43. The exact passage in PG will be identified in the table.

 

^[20] The English translations of John of Damascus are taken from John of Damascus, On the Divine Images, David Anderson trad., (Crestwood, NY, 1980). The pages will be identified in the table.

 

^[21] Anna Komnena, The Alexiad V, 8–9, Elizabeth A. Dawes, ed. and tr., (London, 1928), pp. 146–152, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/AnnaComnena-Alexiad05.asp.

 

^[22] A section of The Imperial Semeiosis, found in the minutes of the trial of John Italos, which itself is contained in the minutes of the synod held on March 21, 1082. Jean Gouillard, Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien : les actes et leurs sous-entendus», Travaux et mémoires 9, (Paris, 1985). Translation by the author.

 

^[23] Another section of The Imperial Semeiosis, Gouillard, ‘Le procès originel,’ 155 and 157.

 

^[24] Nicetas Choniates, Thesarus (συνοψις των δογματων των κινηθεντων επι της βασιλειας του βασιλεως κυρου αλεξιου του κομνηνου. ταῦτα τοῦ Χωνιάτου) (written sometime before 1217), T. L. T. Tafel, ed., Annae Comnenae supplementa, (Tübingen, 1832), 2, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.50176036&view=1up&seq=26&size=150.

 

^[25] P. E. Stephanou, Jean Italos philosophe et humaniste, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 134, (Rome, 1949), 5–121, 66.

 

^[26] Loweli Claucas, The Trial of John Italos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century, Institut für Byzantinistik, Neugriechische Philologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte ader Universtät München, (Munich, 1981), 16.

 

^[27] Ibid., p. 41.

 

^[28] Stephanou, note 5, 65.

 

^[29] Leo of Chalcedon, ‘Lettre de Léon de Chalcédoine à Nicholas d’Adrinople,’ Études sur le mot image, S. Bigham ed. and trans., (Smashwords Ebook Publisher, 2017), 36, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/709722. English translation by the author.

 

^[30] Ibid., 37.

 

^[31] The Synodikon of Orthodoxy, https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/synodicon-of-orthodoxy.html.

 

^[32] Timarion, Barry Baldwin, trans. (Detroit, 1984), 72–74.

 

^[33] Perikles Joannou, Christliche Metaphysik in Byzanz I Die Illuminationslehre des Michael Psellos und Joannes Italos, (Buch-unstverlag Ettal, 1956).

 

^[34] file:///C:/Users/Utilisateur/Dropbox/PC/Documents/Jean%20Italos/GIOVANNI%20Italo%20in%20_Dizionario%20Biografico_.html. English translation Translate Deep : https://ww.deepl.com/translator?il=eng

 

^[35] Saint Antoine le jeune et Pétronas le vainqueur des Arabes en 863, section 13, François Halkin, editor, Analecta Bollandiana, t. LXII, 1944, 187–225, 217–218. English translation by the author.

 

^[36] Michael Psellos, Michaelis Pselli oratoria minora, Ed. A. R. Littlewood (Leipzig, 1985),  70–71; cf. N. G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, (London, 1985), 165–169. Thanks to Hélène Perdicoyanni-Paleologou for her help in translating this letter.

 

^[37] Psellos praises Italos for his love of learning but also chides him for being too prone to speculating on theoretical philosophy, ‘opposite things.’ Italos’s methodology is unbalanced, and he should use all his mental energy to become more versed in practical studies (mathematical studies), ‘better things,’ considered by Psellos to be superior to their opposite, pure theoretical speculation.

 

^[38] Laconian dogs, known today as Bullmastiffs, Rotweilers, Great Danes, Newfoundlands, Saint Bernards and Great Pyreneeses (https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic%20DVD/text/animals/mastiff.htm) were known in Antiquity for their hunting skills. They pursued their prey without being distracted by anything, chasing it until they captured it.

 

^[39] These little companion dogs, known today as bichons, Maltese terriers, toy terriers, Malteses (https://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/maltese#/slide/1), were and are very lively and energetic dogs which run around in a chaotic manner, delightful but not very disciplined.

 

^[40] Psellos contrasts abstract philosophical reasoning, not based on experience, with philosophical reflection based on experience. He calls the latter ‘truth.’ Italos gave himself over to the former but, according to Psellos, he should pursue the latter. Psellos makes a rather unflattering comparison between Italos and two kinds of dogs and says that Italos is rather like little companion dogs running and jumping all over, helter-skelter, and not like hunting dogs in his search for truth. Psellos was therefore not surprised by Italos’s penchant for abstract thinking, not based on experience. It is not exactly clear why the behavior of little companion dogs is like pursuing abstract philosophy, but Psellos thought the relation was clear.

 

^[41] Psellos acknowledges the great power of rhetoric; honest speech can say lofty things, but perverted speech can turn things upside-down and say that black is white and white is black. Nonetheless, a rhetor, for all his ability in speechmaking, will not be given the job of a real surveyor, though he may receive the title as an honor.

 

^[42] So, the art/science of surveying, according to Psellos, arose in Egypt due to the need to know where property lines had been after the yearly flooding of the Nile. Surveyors, therefore, established logs that permitted them to re-establish property lines once the river had returned to its banks.

 

^[43] Although surveying as an activity came about because of material needs, the mind then created the science of surveying. This science was then deposited in the mind and was no longer tied to matter but could still be applied to it. Matter itself cannot create mind, but the mind can be applied to matter—incomplete or imperfect things—and from it develop thoughts and sciences—complete and perfect things.

 

^[44] According to Greek, especially Platonic, philosophy, the mind does not have direct access to reality, that is being, but only indirect information given to it by the senses. It cannot go down directly into matter to get the information needed to create and deal with the science of surveying, or with any other science. It would be unworthy for mind to touch matter directly. It is only by relying on information provided by the senses that the mind can create knowledge. Even though our minds, as offshoots of the universal, immaterial mind, use the senses to get knowledge from and about the material world, they thus call the senses good and honorable. The senses are, however, not at all good and honorable because they have direct contact with impure matter.

 

^[45] How does geometry surveying promise a happy and pain-free life? Psellos may be referring to the fact that it guarantees that after the flooding of the Nile, people will not be fighting over property, even to the point of civil conflict. Geometry surveying is not an activity or a science that promises happiness in the abstract, but it does guarantee civil tranquility year after year; without geometry surveying, Egypt would be in perpetual, civil chaos and violence.

 

^[46] Psellos seems to be saying that if Italos remains in the realm of pure, abstract theorizing and does not ‘descend’ to the level of more practical sciences, ones that have a relation to matter and material problems, he will not be happy or be able to sing or dance because he will not be honored by later generations for his powerful mind. Even Plato, who was known for his pure, theoretical, philosophical speculations ‘came down’ from the lofty heights to deal with human society and write The Republic. Since Plato, having dealt with both immaterial and material philosophy, was known to dance, be happy and be honored by posterity, Italos should do the same. As the title of the letter indicates, Psellos wanted Italos, for his own good, to start to deal with the more ‘down-to-earth’ mathematical sciences.

 

^[47] In their speeches, rhetors were known for their exaggerated gestures in an attempt to imitate some characteristic traits of particular persons, heroes, or gods: ‘Again, when he met a sophist who was buying sausages, sprats, and other cheap dainties of that sort, he said: ‘My good sir, it is impossible for one who lives on this diet to act convincingly the arrogance of Darius and Xerxes.’’ Philostratus the Younger, The Lives of the Sophists, 1.25.8 (1922). Translated by Wilmer Cave Wright (1865–1951), Loeb Classical Library edition of 1922, in the public domain. https://topostext.org/work/224.

 

^[48] What was Italos doing that, according to Psellos, was keeping him from finding the excellent thing, geometry? By ‘the excellent thing, geometry,’ does Psellos mean simply the science of surveying, or does ‘geometry’ represent dealing with knowledge that has some practical application? Χρηματιζόμενος is the Greek word in the letter, but χρηματίζω/χρηματίζομαι have many meanings. We know that Italos had paying students to whom he taught his philosophy; therefore, ‘χρηματίζομαι: to negotiate or transact business for oneself or for one’s own profit, make money, ἐκ φιλοσοφίας’ seems to be the best definition. Liddell & Scott: ‘ … making money by giving lectures.’ Psellos is implying that as long as Italos remains in the realm of speculative philosophy, charging rather meager fees, he will not know the excellent thing, geometry, and certainly not wealth or posterity’s praise.

 

^[49] Λόγοι is the Greek word, and, of course, it can be translated in many ways, but since a reference to Apollo Kerdoos follows immediately, λόγοι might reasonably be translated by ‘words of prayer’ to Apollo asking him to give profits to the suppliant.

 

^[50] ‘The cult title Kerdoos comes from the word kerdos and means the one who brings profits. All gods were supposed to bring gifts to their worshipers, and perhaps some could be inclined to interpret the epithet Kerdoos along such lines: Apollo Kerdoos was Apollo the gift giver … kerdos denoted personal profit, often material…’ Maria Mili, ‘Apollo Kerdoos: A Conniving Apollo in Thessaly?’ https://www.academia.edu/18394039/Apollo_Kerdoos_A_Conniving_Apollo_in_Thessaly

 

^[51] Psellos advises Italos that if he is really interested in making money, he should study the art of becoming rich. Since Italos was so interested in logical reasoning, there was much of such reasoning in money-making.

 

^[52] How strange that a philosopher like Psellos would advise Italos to get involved in such unseemly and illegal business affairs, or is he doing so tongue in cheek?

 

^[53] Psellos seems to be saying, ‘What does making money have to do with you and geometry, anyway? So, forget it.’ He then considers Italos’s ethnic origin and its relation to his interests. Italos was not from Chaldea where studying the stars, astrology and astronomy was the preeminent occupation, nor was he from Egypt where great things were accomplished by using geometry, such as building pyramids and maintaining property lines after the yearly Nile flood. Italos adopted Greece as his homeland—Sparta—so he should be an ornament for Greece. Perhaps Psellos is wondering to himself, ‘Maybe it is too much for me to expect that someone who is not from Chaldea or Egypt to be interested in down-to-earth, mathematical sciences. Maybe that is beyond Italos’s capacity. Italos came from Rome which is not known for its interest in such sciences, so I am expecting too much from him.’

 

^[54] These famous Romans were only interested in war, Ares-Mars, the god of war, and politics. Then again, Psellos is expecting too much of a man like Italos whose Roman origin does not predispose him to practical philosophy, just to war and politics. Brutus: philosopher, jurist, and senator who conspired to kill Caesar; Cato: political and military leader who opposed Julius Caesar; Cicero: writer, orator, philosopher, and statesman; Lucullus: general and statesman; Cassius : statesman and general. They were all involved in politics and/or warfare; thus, Psellos’s reference to Ares–Mars.

 

^[55] Ares, his Greek name, is Mars, the Roman god of war.

 

^[56] Which of Italos’s homelands and maternal soil is Psellos talking about? Rome or Sparta; the original homeland or the adopted homeland? Psellos only speaks positively about Sparta. Chaldea, Egypt and Rome are not welcoming places for Italos, only Sparta, Greece, where he should shine brightly as a star. Therefore, we are going to identify the ‘homeland’ and ‘maternal soil’ as his adopted ones. What, then, is Psellos advising Italos to do? He initially urges him to study the mathematical sciences: arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, to descend from the clouds of abstract philosophy to more down-to-earth studies. However, since Italos is a Roman or a Latin, not a Chaldean or an Egyptian, what good are such studies to him; they are even beyond his capacity.

 

^[57] As a Roman, Italos should be interested in military and political affairs, according to the image Psellos gives of Romans. Is this a subtle reference to the time when Italos did conform to the Roman model and was involved in treasonous, political activity when he was sent, 1073–1075, by the Emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071–1078) to negotiate with the invading Normans? He may have connived with them against Michael VII. Italos should not do as several of the Romans named here did and get involved in politics and betray the man who favored him. This is only a speculative interpretation on our part.

 

^[58] The Muses were goddesses that ruled over the arts: all poetry, history writing, song, play writing, dance, and astronomy, in other words, the sciences that deal with practical, human matters. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Muses-Nine-Goddesses-of-Greek-Mythology, Psellos almost sounds as though he has given up on Italos’s coming down to earth. So, he just advises him to protect himself against attacks by arming himself, like a Roman soldier, with symbolic Roman military gear.

 

^[59] Two peoples that Rome had to subdue as it expanded its conquest of Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabines; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alban_people. Psellos advises Italos to play the symbolic Roman, since there is no hope for him to be other than a speculative philosopher, and arm himself and his ‘soldiers’ like the Romans did to fight against his enemies, the Sabines and Albans. Italos should, however, be careful because, even though the Romans did win many battles, there were not just victories: ‘Sicily is already in revolt.’

 

^[60] Why should Italos not be persuaded by Herodotus and Polybius? They both wrote about successful wars, victory: Herodotus wrote about how the Greeks won the Persian wars and Polybius wrote about Roman victories and the expansion of Roman dominion around the Mediterranean. Be careful, though, ‘Italos,’ war is not always glorious and victorious. Psellos seems to be warning Italos that despites his symbolic Roman armor and soldiers, he may be facing problems and defeats later on in his life. Perhaps we should call Psellos a prophet.

 

^[61] The historian Herodotus: ‘Son of Lycus and Dryo; of Halikarnassos; [1] one of the notables; he had a brother [called] Theodorus. He migrated in (sic) Samos because of Lygdamis, who was the third tyrant of Halikarnassos after Artemisia: Pisindelis was the son of Artemisia, and Lygdamis the son of Pisindelis. [2] In Samos he practised the Ionian dialect and wrote a history in nine books, beginning with Cyrus the Persian and Candaules the king of the Lydians. He went back to Halikarnassos and drove out the tyrant; but later, when he saw that he was the object of spite on the citizens’ part, he voluntarily went to Thurii which was being colonized by Athenians, and after he died there he was buried in the agora. [3] But some say that he died in Pella. [4] His books bear the inscription of the Muses. [5]’ The Byzantine Lexicon Suda: https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-cgi-bin/search.cgi?login=guest&searchstr=eta,536&field=adlerhw_gr. See also J. A. S. Evans, Herodotus 2, (Boston, 1982). http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1998-9/Pipes.htm#2

 

^[62] A Greek historian who wrote about the rise of the Roman Empire. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Polybius

 

^[63] Difficult interpretation, conjecture: Herodotus and Polybius were not Romans, but Greeks, so who are the Romans Psellos is referring to? Brutus, Cato, Cicero, Lucullus, and Cassius? If so, they spoke and wrote against Caesar, identified by Psellos as ‘their homeland’ which they ‘demolished,’ by opposing and killing Caesar, and also by their speeches, they ‘showed favor to foreign cities,’ perhaps Athens.

 

^[64] Michaelis Pselli oratoria minora, 70–71; Scholars of Byzantium, 155-156. Thanks to Hélène Perdicoyanni-Paleologou for her help in translating this letter.

 

^[65] When did Psellos write this letter? This first section supposes a public disputation where Jean Italos was accused and where he answered the accusations. There are two occasions when Italos argued in public: at the synod of 1076–1077 and at his trial before the emperor in 1082. We have no documents from this commission, but according to the synod, Italos wrote a profession of faith, but it has not been preserved. It is possible that Italos’s Trinitarian doctrine was among the articles discussed and that the accusation of Sabellianism already dates from 1076 to 1077. We are sure, on the other hand, that this subject and the accusation of Sabellianism were part of the discussions of the trial of 1082. Psellos evokes a public disputation where accusers attacked Italos on the Trinitarian question of τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ κἀν τῷ λόγῳ διάστασιι. On the other hand, he writes that Italos defended himself well and continued to write and speak in public despite his rather poor style. Psellos could not have written such sentences after the condemnation of Italos at the trial of 1082. We therefore conclude that the present letter was written after the synod of 1076–1077 and not after that of 1082, and that the Trinitarian question was one of them. The discussion of the Trinity, at least, and perhaps the accusation of Sabellianism, thus goes back to the synod of 1076–1077.

 

^[66] 66 Because of John Italos’s Southern Italian origin, the Eastern Romans considered him a Latin. They saw themselves, however, as Romans, the successors of Constantine and Augustus. They were certainly not Greeks, that is, ancient pagans. Since Psellos says, ‘if he wants…,’ we can assume that Italos himself identified as a Latin. The presence of crusaders around Constantinople—they arrived there in 1097 and were seen as barbarians—as well as the wars with the ‘Latin’ Norman had tarnished the name Latin. It was not exactly a compliment, but the attitude of Psellos toward Italos expressed in the letter prevents us from seeing the epithet as an insult.

 

^[67] Ausonia: ‘Aurunci, ancient tribe of Campania, in Italy. They were exterminated by the Romans in 214 BC as the culmination of 50 years of Roman military campaign against them. … The name Ausones, the Greek form from which the Latin Aurunci was derived, was applied by the Greeks to various Italic tribes, but the name came to denote in particular the tribe that the great Roman historian Livy called Aurunci. The name was later applied to all Italians, and Ausonia became a poetic term, in Greek and Latin, for Italy.’ Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia, ‘Aurunci,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Aug. 2018. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aurunci. Accessed 21 September 2002.

 

^[68] 68In 1082, Emperor Alexios Comnenos (1081-1118) established an ecclesiastical commission to examine the orthodoxy of certain statements by John Italos. Regarding the Trinitarian doctrine of Italos, the commission concluded that his ideas approached Sabellianism and were condemned as heretical. ‘Sabellianism: Antitrinitarian doctrine preached in the 3rd century by Sabellius, who taught that there is only one person in God who is the Father, of whom the Son and the Holy Spirit are attributes, emanations or operations, not surviving persons.’ https://www.lalanguefrancaise.com/dictionnaire/definition/sabellianisme. Trinitarian orthodox theology distinguishes 9, 1985, p. 148. one indivisible divine essence in three divisible Persons, each possessing the fullness of the essence. Italos seemed to reverse the divisible and the indivisible by saying that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are indivisible. Jean Gouillard, ‘Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien, Actes et leurs sous-entendus, » Travaux et Mémoires 9, 12985, p. 148. Dirk Krausmüller, ‘Between Tritheism and Sabellianism: Trinitarian Speculation in John Italos’ and Nicetas Stethatos’ Confessions of Faith,’ Scrinium, Mardin Artuklu Üniversitesi, Mardin, Turkey, 17 No 2016,  261-280 dkrausmuller@hotmail.com

 

^[69] Patristic and Orthodox authors have always distinguished between distinctions, differences, separations, that only exist in thought, but not in reality. For example, we can say that we can conceive, in our minds, that the human nature of Christ is distinguished from his divine nature, but we cannot say that in fact the natures are so distinguished such that they constitute two different persons: the divine Logos and the man Jesus. The two natures are in fact indistinguishably, inseperably, undifferentiably united in really that they can only be THOUGHT about as distinguished.

 

^[70] ‘and applied great care and eloquence [εὐφῶς] to the subject,’ according to Psellos. Synesius of 7

 

^[71] Cyrene, De insomniis: On Prophecy, Dreams and Human Imagination, Donald Andrew, editor, translator, (Tûbingen, 2014). https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcebookspublic.2020715155

 

^[72] Nemesius of Emesa, On the Nature of Man, Tr. Philip van der Eijk & R. W. Sharples, Translated Texts for Historians, (Liverpool, 2008). 1636 Edition. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A08062.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

 

^[73] Is Psellos making a reference to Italos’s statement of faith?

 

^[74] ‘According to Psellos, Italos once hit back at his critics by composing a speech in which he lamented the fact that the ‘wisdom of the Greeks’ and the right and pleasure ‘of reading the ancients’ had migrated to the East, ‘to the Assyrians, the Medes and the Egyptians.’ This remark was apparently commonplace among Arab intellectuals of the tenth and eleventh centuries, [a view] Italos would have encountered in his contacts with easterners who came to Constantinople to study with Psellos and seek patronage at the imperial court.’ Paul Magdalino, The Byzantine Background to the First Crusade, (Toronto, 1996), 23. https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/35615/1/Magdalino_ByzantineCrusade_1996.pdf

 

^[75] … Susa is situated on the Karun River on the southeastern corner of the Mesopotamian plain, on the Iranian side of the Iran-Iraq border, where Mesopotamia touches the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. Susa is possibly best known as the residence of the biblical Daniel and Esther, who were there during the Persian era. During this period, the city underwent a major building program with the construction of a citadel, moated walled city and royal palaces… Early on in his conquests, Alexander the Great received the surrender of Susa as soon as he approached the city, and he plundered much of its wealth. After Alexander, Susa became part of the Seleucid Empire and then the Parthian Empire. Its importance gradually waned and from the beginning of the 13th century c.e., little was left but crumbling ruins… Ecbatana, modern-day Hamadan in the west of Iran, was the ancient capital of the Median people. It was strategically situated on the eastern edge of the Zagros Mountains, guarding one of three ancient passes linking the Mesopotamian plain with the lands to the east. The Greek writer Herodotus of Halikarnassos records that Deioces, the legendary first king of the Medes, founded the city. It was the capital of Media during the period of Median strength before Cyrus the Great, but it possibly acquired greater fame when Cyrus defeated the Medes in 550 b.c.e. and made Ecbbatana his summer palace.

 

^[76] The philosophers of the classical period: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. https://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/110/2-classical.htm.

 

^[77] ‘The sophists were itinerant, professional teachers and intellectuals who frequented Athens and other Greek cities in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. In return for a fee, the sophists offered young, wealthy Greek men an education in areté (virtue or excellence), thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing significant antipathy. Prior to the fifth century B.C.E., areté was predominately associated with aristocratic warrior virtues such as courage and physical strength. In democratic Athens of the latter fifth century B.C.E., however, areté was increasingly understood in terms of the ability to influence one’s fellow citizens in political gatherings through rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic education both grew out of and exploited this shift. The most famous representatives of the sophistic movement are Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus…’ George Duke, ‘The Sophists (Ancient Greek’), Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161–0002, https://iep.utm.edu/, Sept. 23, 2002

 

^[78] Lysias, (born c. 445 BC–died after 380 B C), Greek professional speech writer, whose unpretentious simplicity became the model for a plain style of Attic Greek…’ ‘Lysias,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia, 8 Jan. 2022; https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lysias-Greek-writer.

 

^[79] ‘Life: Isocrates was born in 436 BC, and lived to the remarkable age of ninety-seven in full possession of his faculties. His childhood and youth were passed amid the horrors of the Peloponnesian War; he was already of age when the failure of the Sicilian expedition turned the scale against Athens. In mature manhood he saw the ruin of his city by the capitulation to Lysander. He lived through the Spartan supremacy, saw the foundation of the new Athenian League in 378 B.C., and the rise and fall of the power of Thebes. At the time when Philip obtained the throne of Macedon he was already, by ordinary reckoning, an old man, but the laws of mortality were suspended in the case of this Athenian Nestor. Some of his most important works were composed after his eightieth year; the Philippus, which he wrote at the age of ninety, shows no diminution of his powers; he produced one of his longest works, the Panathenaicus, in his ninety-seventh year, and lived to congratulate Philip on his victory at Chaeronea in 338 B.C…’ F. Dobson, ‘Isocrates,’ The Greek Orators. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0075:chapter=6

 

^[80] ‘Thucydides, (born 460 BC or earlier?—died after 404 BC?), greatest of ancient Greek historians and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the struggle between Athens and Sparta in the 5th century BC. His work was the first recorded political and moral analysis of a nation’s war policies…’ Gomme, Arnold Wycombe, ‘Thucydides,’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Feb. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian. Accessed 23 September 2022.

 

^[81] ‘Herodotus (c. 484–425/413 BCE) was a Greek writer who invented the field of study known today as ‘history.’ He was called ‘The Father of History’ by the Roman writer and orator Cicero for his famous work The Histories but has also been called ‘The Father of Lies’ by critics who claim these ‘histories’ are little more than tall tales…’ Mark, Joshua J., ‘Herodotus,’ World History Encyclopedia, Last modified March 27, 2018. https://www.worldhistory.org/herodotus/.

 

^[82] ‘AEACIDS Descendants of Aeacus, son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina, eponymous … to the island of that name. His son was Peleus, father of Achilles, whose descendants (real or supposed) called themselves Aeacids: thus Pyrrhus and Alexander the Great.’ Chamoux, François and Roussel, Michel, Hellenistic Civilization, (Oxford, 2003), 396.

 

^[83] Difficult interpretation, proposition: Homer did not express himself in a perfect still, having all the traits of rhetorical beauty. So, even if he had died in the womb, beauty in and of itself, which resides in the realm of the Ideas and in the human mind then flowing into material things, would and did flow into other vessels who in their turn manifested only some of the perfect rhetorical beauty. However, since Homer did exist and produced works, expressing himself in his own combination of selected rhetorical characteristics, he deserves to be praised for the beauty he did produce and not denigrated for what he did not produce. The same reasoning applies to Italos.

 

^[84] Xenocrates was born in Chalcedon in Bithynia (now Turkey). He went to Athens in his youth: there he first followed the teaching of Aeschines of Sphettos, before joining the Academy of Plato in 376. In 360, with Speusippus, he accompanied his master to Sicily, to the court of Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse; this is Plato’s third and last trip to Sicily. After Plato’s death, he was invited to Atarneus in 346 with Aristotle, became his disciple, and stayed with him for five years: the departure of Aristotle and Xenocrates, leaving Athens and the Academy for Asia Minor, was considered a secession. On the death of Speusippus, in 339, he was elected a scholar, rector of the Academy, ahead of Heraclides du Pont, Menedemus of Pyrrha and Aristotle, among others. Plato complained of his slowness; all the Ancients praised his character, his austerity, his independence, his gentleness. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/X%C3%A9nocrate#:~: text=X%C3%A9nocrate%20de%20Chalc%C3%A9doine%2C%20en%20gréc, sa%20mort%2C%20en %20315%20av.

 

^[85] ‘Aeschines of Sphettos, nicknamed ‘Aeschines the Socratic,’ is a contemporary Greek philosopher of Plato (435–350?). He was the diligent disciple of Socrates and witnessed the trial and death of his master. Plato mentions the presence of Aeschines and his father with the imprisoned Socrates. Aeschines had as a disciple a certain Aristotle nicknamed ‘The Myth,’ to whom we must add, if we follow Athenaeus, Xenocrates of Chalcedon, from whom Plato dispossessed him by attracting him to himself. » https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschines_of_Sphettos

 

^[86] Scopeliano of Clazomene: The Lives of the Sophists, § 1.21.1 21. ‘I will now speak of the sophist Scopelian, but first I will deal with those who try to calumniate him. For they say that he is unworthy of the sophistic circle and call him dithyrambic, intemperate in his style, and thick-witted. Those who say this about him are quibblers and sluggish and are not inspired with extempore eloquence; for man is by nature a creature prone to envy. At any rate the short disparage the tall, the ill-favoured the good-looking, those who are slow and lame disparage the light-footed swift runner, cowards the brave, the unmusical the musical, those who are unathletic disparage athletes. Hence we must not be surprised if certain persons who are themselves tongue-tied, and have set on their tongues the ‘ox of silence,’ who could not of themselves conceive any great thought or sympathize with another who conceived it, should sneer at and revile one whose style of eloquence was the readiest, the boldest, and the most elevated of any Greek of his time. But since they have failed to understand the man, I will make known what he was and how illustrious was his family.’ https://topostext.org/work/224

 

^[87] Nicetas of Smyrna: ‘The Second Sophistic is a literary-historical term referring to the Greek writers who flourished from the reign of Nero until c. AD 230 and who were catalogued and celebrated by Philostratus in his Lives of the Sophists…. Writers known as members of the Second Sophistic include Nicetas of Smyrna … [whose founder] was really Nicetas of Smyrna, in the late 1st century AD.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sophistic, ‘Even though he was held in high esteem in Smyrna, which would shout almost anything in praise of him as a wondrous man and orator, Nicetes did not mix much with the people. He gave the following explanation of his fear to the crowd: ‘I fear the people more when they praise me than when they mock me.’ Once when a taxman acted offensively to him in the court room and said ‘Stop barking at me,’ Nicetes responded cleverly, ‘By Zeus, I will when you stop biting me!’…Nicetes lived around the time of the Emperor Nero.’ Sententiaeantiquae, ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Nicetes of Smyrna,’ September 20, 2015, Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 511. https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2015/09/20/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-nicetes-of-smyrna.

 

^[88] The identity of the Athenian woman and the source of the story are unknown.

 

^[89] Paul Magdalino, The Byzantine Background to the First Crusade, (Toronto, 1996), 23. Paul Magdalino, Prosopography and Byzantine Identity, in A. Cameron (ed.), Fifty Years of Prosopography: The Later Roman Empire, Byzantium and Beyond, Proceedings of the British Academy, 118, (Oxford, 2003), 41, 56, p. 50–51.

 

^[90] Marvin Kantor, The Life of Constantine 4, Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes, http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/kmsl/kmsl_1.htm. Jan Zozulak, ‘Philosophical, Anthropological and Axiological Aspects of Constantine’s Definition of Philosophy,’ Ethics & Bioethics, vol. 11, no. 1–2, 14–22. https://doi.org/10.2478/ebce-2021-0002.