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THEOLOGICAL DISPUTE, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS: on PHOTIOS' USE of SYLLOGISMS AGAINST the FILIOQUE in the MYSTAGOGIA Christophe ERISMA

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THEOLOGICAL DISPUTE, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS: on PHOTIOS' USE of SYLLOGISMS AGAINST the FILIOQUE in the MYSTAGOGIA Christophe ERISMA THEOLOGICAL DISPUTE, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS: ON PHOTIOS’ USE OF SYLLOGISMS AGAINST THE FILIOQUE IN THE MYSTAGOGIA Christophe ERISMANN The long ninth century was indisputably a time of religious and theological controversies, both within Christianity and among and against neighbouring cultures. The dispute about the veneration of images bitterly divided Byzan- tium; Latins were also involved in the polemical exchange. Controversies against Islam, already begun in the eighth century by John of Damascus, who considered Islam a Christian heresy, intensified, especially due to further trea- tises by Theodore Abu-Qurra and Niketas Byzantios.1 Arabic Christian theolo- gians, like the Jacobite Abū Rā’iṭah and the Dyophysite ῾Ammār al-Baṣrī, also wrote polemical essays.2 Numerous treatises against non-Chalcedonian Chris- tian groups considered to be heretics flourished. Even if it is written with dip- lomatic courtesy, Photios’ letter to the Armenian Prince Ashot is a firm exhor- tation to adopt Chalcedonian Christology. Finally, the Filioque controversy began, spawning a host of polemical treatises of its own.3 A striking feature of this abundant polemical literature is the frequent use of Aristotelian logic. The application of logic in religious controversies is indeed not an invention of the ninth century. The debates between the followers of the Christology of Chalcedon and their Miaphysite opponents were often enhanced by logical considerations. The ninth-century production of logically informed theological texts is dis- tinguished not only by the sheer number of works that were composed, but also by the impressive quality of the majority of the treatises. Moreover, the applica- tion of logic took many forms, including the use of conceptual logical terms (like “essence”, “accident”, “genus”, “species”, “difference”, “relation”), or 1 The title of Niketas Byzantios’ apology of Christian dogma reads as follows: “An affirma- tory argumentative exposition of the Christian doctrine, developed from general concepts (ἐκ κοινῶν ἐννοιῶν) through dialectic method (διαλεκτικῆς μεθόδου), rational arguments and mul- tiple logical deductions (συλλογιστικῆς πολυτεχνίας)”. He frequently has recourse to logic in his polemical writings against the Muslims. 2 See S. L. HUSSEINI, Early Christian-Muslim Debate on the Unity of God: Three Christian Scholars and Their Engagement with Islamic Thought (9 th Century C.E.), Leiden, 2014. S. T. KEATING, Defending the ‘People of Truth’ in the Early Islamic Period: The Christian Apolo- gies of Abū Rā’itah (The History of Christian-Muslim Relations, 4), Leiden, 2006. 3 For an overview of the debate, see A. SIECIENSKI, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, New York, 2010. 100957_Bucossi_OLA_04_Erismann.indd 89 10/10/2018 14:20 90 C. ERISMANN the adoption of patterns of reasoning or of argumentation, like syllogisms (i.e. the combination of a general statement, the major premise, and a specific statement, the minor premise, from which a conclusion is deduced). For the ninth century, the most striking example of the former is offered by the iconophile thinkers active during the second period of Iconoclasm, Theodore of Stoudios and Nikephoros of Constantinople.4 They used two Aris- totelian logical concepts in particular to elaborate their understanding of images. First, they described the relation between prototype and image by invoking the concept of Aristotelian relatives (πρός τι), and they followed the Categories point for point in their understanding of the definition and properties assigned to relatives.5 Second, they explained the relation between prototype and image as one of homonymy, that is, they both share the same name, but not the same definition of essence.6 A particularly remarkable example of the second kind of logical argumenta- tion – that of syllogisms – arises from a controversy between Greeks and Lat- ins. This is Photios’ On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (Περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος μυσταγωγίας) a polemical treatise against the Latin innovation of the Filioque.7 The theological debate about the procession of the Holy Spirit is, after the dispute about the veneration of icons, the second greatest theologi- cal controversy of the ninth century. The main point of disagreement is the Latin addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of a clause claiming that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son (the so-called Filioque speaking of the Holy Spirit as proceeding “from the Father and the Son”). Photios tackled this issue in three texts: his Encyclical to the Eastern 4 P. J. ALEXANDER, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople: Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Worship in the Byzantine Empire, Oxford, 1958, pp. 189-213. T. ANAGNOSTOPOULOS, Aristotle and Byzantine Iconoclasm, in GRBS, 53 (2013), pp. 763-90; K. PARRY, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, Leiden, 1996, pp. 52-63; IDEM, Aristotle and the Icon: The Use of the Categories by Byzantine Iconophile Writers, in S. EBBESEN – J. MARENBON – P. THOM (eds), Aristotle’s Categories in the Byzantine, Arabic and Latin Traditions, København, 2013, pp. 35-57. 5 See C. ERISMANN, Venerating Likeness: Byzantine Iconophile Thinkers on Aristotelian Rela- tives and their Simultaneity, in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 24/3 (2016), pp. 405-425. 6 See C. ERISMANN, The depicted man. On a fortunate ninth century Byzantine afterlife of the Aristotelian logical doctrine of homonyms, forthcoming. 7 The date of the work is uncertain. J. HERGENRÖtheR, Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel: Sein Leben, seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma, Regensburg, 1869, vol. 3, p. 156 places the Mystagogy in 885, whereas V. PERI, Il Filioque divergenza dogmatica? Origine e peripezie conciliari di una formula teologica, in Annuario de Historia de la Iglesia, 8 (1999), p. 170, dates it after 886. According to V. POLIDORI, Towards a critical edition of Photius’ Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, in Studi sull’Oriente Cristiano, 19.1 (2015), p. 8, “it would be reasonable to posit the end of 884 as a certain terminus post quem. Furthermore, the date of composition cannot be much later, since in §87 it is stated that a generation (about thirty years, according to the definition given by Photios himself in the Amphilochia) has not yet passed since the time when Leo III affixed the famous silver shields bearing the Creed”. 100957_Bucossi_OLA_04_Erismann.indd 90 10/10/2018 14:20 THEOLOGICAL DISPUTE, LOGICAL ARGUMENTS 91 Patriarchs (Epistle 2)8, his Letter to the Patriarch of Aquileia (Epistle 291)9 and his Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit10 (assuming one accepts its authenticity). This last text constitutes a particularly significant example of the use of logical tools in a theological debate. It is also historically fundamental; first, because it is the first Greek treatise written against the Latin addition of the clause Filioque to the Creed, and second because it will soon become a model for the subsequent tradition on this question, inspiring Niketas Byzantios’ Capita Syl- logistica XXIV de processione Sancti Spiritus (Κεφάλαια συλλογιστικά), Nicholas of Methone’s De processione Spiritus Sancti adversus Latinos and Nikephoros Blemmydes’ Hypothetical Syllogisms on the procession of the Holy Spirit (Ὑποθετικοὶ συλλογισμοί, ὅτι τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται καὶ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ). This article consists of two parts: in the first, I will analyse some representa- tive examples of Photios’ extensive use of logic in his arguments against the inclusion of the term Filioque in the Creed; in the second, I will discuss the intellectual background and possible reasons why Photios supplemented the more traditional strategy of relying on Patristic authorities with logical argu- mentation. I would like to present an example of the type of logically informed discourse employed by the Latins we may hypothesize that Photios was responding to. I will start by discussing Photios’ use of logical tools in some of the argu- ments he proposed against the Filioque in the Mystagogy (particularly interest- ing syllogisms are to be found at paragraphs 17, 18, 19, 32, 36, 37, 41 and 62), then I will explain their underlying logical principles, and finally for the sake of clarity I will present them in a reconstructed form. I. LOGICAL ARGUMENTATION IN THE MYSTAGOGIA Logic plays an important role in Photios’ argumentation, as his strategy is often to attack the logical consequences of the double procession and to try to 8 PHOTIUS, Ep. 2, Encyclical letter to the Eastern Patriarchs, ed. B. LAOURDAS – L.G. ­WESteRINK, Photii patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia, Leipzig, 1983, vol. 1, pp. 39-53. 9 PHOTIUS, Ep. 291, To the Archbishop of Aquileia, ed. B. LAOURDAS – L.G. WESteRINK, Photii patriarchae Constantinopolitani Epistulae et Amphilochia, Leipzig, 1985, vol. 3, pp. 138-152. 10 The Greek text of the Mystagogy was edited by J. HERGENRÖTHER: PHOTIUS, De Spiritus Sancti Mystagogia, PG 102, coll. 279-401; recently edited PHOTIUS, La Mistagogia del Santo Spirito, ed. V. POLIDORI, Roma 2018. The manuscript tradition is described by POLIDORI, Towards a critical edition, pp. 10-16. There are several translations of the text. In the following, we will use On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, translation by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Astoria, NY, 1983. I have nevertheless often modified it. The French translation by the Fraternité Orthodoxe Saint Gregoire Palamas (La mystagogie du Saint Esprit, Écrits trinitaires, tome 2, Paris, 1991) deserves reading. 100957_Bucossi_OLA_04_Erismann.indd 91 10/10/2018 14:20 92 C. ERISMANN reduce them to absurdity or to heresy. He uses both sides of apagogy (ἀπα- γωγή), showing either that the contrary of the proposition which he upholds is absurd or that one can deduce absurd consequences from the position of his adversaries. His main point is to show that the Filioque would either imply a rupture of the consubstantiality among the persons of the Trinity or a superior dignity of the Son over that of the Spirit, which are both unacceptable conclu- sions.
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