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Les récits historiques entre Orient et Occident, XIe-XVe siècle

 | 
Irène Bueno
, 
Camille Rouxpetel

Deuxième partie. Les usages de l’histoire ou les rouages des stratégies ecclésiologiques

Anselm of Havelberg as ‘ecumenist’: fiction and history

Yuri P. Avvakumov

Résumé

The essay examines one of the most intriguing texts of the history of Latin-Greek encounter in the twelfth century, Anticimenon by Anselm of Havelberg. Even after the appearance of a few important studies on Anselm in recent decades, this German courtier bishop, canon regular, and theologian remains a widely-misread author. The lack of continuity in research is here particularly confusing. Despite the discovery of the non-historicity of Anticimenon made by Sieben in the 1980s, Anselm’s text is still too often read as a historical account of a real Latin-Byzantine debate. The essay builds up on Sieben’s discovery and explores the topic of the Eucharistic water in Anselm’s work which not only confirms earlier conclusions but also brings them to a new level. The author argues that the non-historicity of the Anticimenon deprives it of its status of a primary source in respect to Byzantine theology. At the same time, the study of the fictitious character of Anselm’s work makes it possible to gain new insights into the Latin theology of the mid-twelfth century. The topic of the Eucharistic water demonstrates that even such minute problem could promote discussion on issues of fundamental importance. The topics related to Eastern Christianity function in the Anticimenon as illustrations of the main concern of the entire work —the unity of faith in the plurality of ecclesiastical traditions and sacramental rites.

Texte intégral

The state of research

  • 1 Although a substantial number of publications of a range of quality have appeared since 1980 (discu (...)
  • 2 The critical edition of Anselm’s works announced in the 1970s by J.W. Braun has not been produced; (...)
  • 3 A concise account of the main facts of Anselm’s biography known today appears in Braun 1978, p. 384 (...)
  • 4 The title “Anticimenon” is testified by the vast majority of manuscripts; see Braun 1972, p. 135-13 (...)
  • 5 Epistola… ad Ecbertum abbatem Huysborgensem contra eos qui importune contendunt monasticum ordinem (...)
  • 6 Tractatus de ordine pronuntiandae letaniae ad Fridericum Magdeburgensem archiepiscopum, printed in (...)
  • 7 Two of Anselm’s letters to Wibald of Stablo are part of the collection of Wibald’s correspondence; (...)

1Even after the appearance of a few comprehensive and insightful studies on Anselm of Havelberg (ca. 1095-1158) in recent decades,1 this German courtier bishop, canon regular, and theologian remains a widely misread author. One of the reasons for this, besides the lack of critical editions2 and considerable gaps in our knowledge of his life and activities,3 is that Anselm’s main literary work, known as the Anticimenon or Dialogi,4 is a beguiling text. On the surface, the work seems easily accessible and even appealing to the modern reader; a deeper analysis, however, detects a number of snags, riddles, and enigmas in it. Anselm’s literary œuvre, which, besides the Anticimenon, includes an apologetic epistle in defense of canons regular,5 a liturgical opusculum,6 and a few letters,7 is not nearly as voluminous as the output of some of Anselm’s celebrated contemporaries, such as Rupert of Deutz or Gerhoch of Reicherberg. Nevertheless, the interpretation of Anselm’s texts in modern research is considerably less coherent and at times seems to have developed in parallel lines, almost independent from each other, so that scholars writing about Anselm are sometimes unaware of the latest results of their colleagues’ investigations or tend to disregard them.

  • 8 An example of such “splitting” is the French edition of book 1 as a separate text in Sources chréti (...)

2Admittedly, the specific topicality of Anselm’s main literary work has contributed much to this peculiar situation. The Anticimenon consists of three books. Book one is a treatise on the problem of “unity in diversity” in the Church, containing reflections on her earthly historical development and a plea for new forms of religious life, in particular canons regular. Books two and three are composed in the form of a report about a dispute that took place in Constantinople in 1136 between Anselm himself and a certain Nechites (Nicetas), the Greek archbishop of Nicomedia, on controversial issues dividing the Latin and the Greek Churches. Thus, in the eyes of modern readers, the Anticimenon splits into two distinctive parts,8 book one representing a “theology of history” and a defense of monastic pluriformity within the context of the Latin twelfth century, and books two and three being associated with the history of relations between East and West. Readers and scholars focused mostly on the former topic tend to disregard the latter, and vice versa.

  • 9 Dombrowski 1880, p. 41: “Ansichten überraschen, die unserer Gegenwart anzugehören scheinen”; Braun  (...)
  • 10 Evans 1991; Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 34-36.

3The reputation gained by Anselm in modern scholarship is marked by at least two clichés. The first one is that of Anselm’s “modernity”. The views of the bishop of Havelberg and archbishop of Ravenna, especially some of his ideas outlined in book one of the Anticimenon, looked strikingly “modern” to its readers, from Eugen Dombrowski in 1880 to Johann Wilhelm Braun in 1978.9 The courageous recognition, even praise of cultural diversity in the Church and the optimistic acceptance of “novelties” (novitates) in religious life which seem to suffuse the first book of Anticimenon provided a foundation for such assessments. Another cliché is that of Anselm’s “ecumenicity”. It blazed its trail into scholarship in the post-Vatican II era and remains very much en vogue today. “Anselm of Havelberg as ecumenist” –such a title has been equally programmatic for Gillian Evans in 1991 and for Ambrose Criste and Carol Neel in 2010.10 This formula relies on the report on the dispute between the Latin and the Greek hierarchs in books two and three of the Anticimenon that seems to portray an atmosphere of mutual respect between the interlocutors and their readiness to find peaceful, harmonizing solutions to controversial issues dividing the Churches.

  • 11 Cf. van Engen 1983, p. 1-2.
  • 12 Dempf 1954, p. 241-243; Schreiber 1941, p. 362; Rauh 1979. Although Rauh admits that Anselm occupie (...)
  • 13 Fina 1956-1958, here: Analecta Praemonstratensia, 32, 1956, p. 221; 33, 1957, p. 281. Here and in t (...)
  • 14 Lauerer 1911, p. 51.
  • 15 Berges 1956, p. 50.
  • 16 Sigler 2005, p. iii, v, 270-273.
  • 17 Fina 1956-1958, here Analecta Praemonstratensia, 34, 1958, p. 16: “sein ganzes Weltbild verrät eine (...)
  • 18 Edyvean 1972, p. 1-2. The expression “medieval patristic theology” goes back to Dom Jean Leclercq, (...)

4“Modern” and “ecumenical”: both clichés –justifiable to a certain extent as a means of spurring the interest of our contemporaries in a medieval author– become misleading if pushed too far; in the long run they testify to the misreading of Anselm’s work and lead us astray from historically appropriate inquiry. Anselm is no more and no less “modern” than many of his contemporaries in the first half of the twelfth century –that fascinating epoch which does not cease to amaze us with its unexpected turns and surprises.11 The real issue concerns Anselm’s place within the intellectual context of that epoch. What was the scope of his education and knowledge? Who among his contemporaries can be regarded as his intellectual “allies”? Who were his “adversaries”? What type of thinking does his work represent? These questions have found, and still find, very different, sometimes opposing answers in research. While Alois Dempf, and –following him– Georg Schreiber and Horst Dieter Rauh counted Anselm among the “German Symbolists”,12 Kurt Fina, on the contrary, maintained that the bishop of Havelberg “displayed no understanding for Symbolism”, and even “rejected” it.13 According to Hans Lauerer, Anselm was a “predecessor of Scholasticism on German soil”;14 Wilhelm Berges described him as one who was “familiar with all the theological currents of his time”, including early scholastic and canonistic literature.15 Sebastian Sigler, on the other hand, opined that Anselm “lacks any awareness” of the scholastic developments of his day and is “by no means a schoolman”.16 For Fina, “the entire worldview of Anselm displays a profound secularization”, and his nature is of a “businesslike and sober, even a cold calculating-rational kind”.17 On the opposite pole, Walter Edyvean saw in the German bishop a representative of “medieval patristic theology” –of a mindset “totally steeped in Holy Scripture” and “in the Church’s tradition”.18

5As for “ecumenicity”, the situation is even more precarious. The formula “Anselm as ecumenist” says too much and too little at the same time. Anselm may perhaps be called “ecumenist” –if under “ecumenism” one understands, in highly vague terms, a general concern for the unity of Christians and a moral openness towards mutually respectful discussion of controversial issues between the Churches. This, however, is insufficient to specify Anselm’s contribution to the dialogue between the Latin West and the Byzantine East. In the attempt to find such specification, the deficit in the continuity of scholarship –something which has been already mentioned above– becomes especially apparent.

  • 19 Annalista Saxo, AD 1135 (MGH, SS, VI, p. 769): Inperator […] assumptionem sanctae Marie Merseburh c (...)
  • 20 In the following I will identify my quotations from Anticimenon, for the sake of convenience, by th (...)
  • 21 See, e.g.: positisque silentiariis sicut ibi mos est, et datis arbitris, et sedentibus notariis, qu (...)
  • 22 PL, 188, col. 1163B: mense Aprili die decimo, si tamen bene memor sum.
  • 23 PL, 188, col. 1209A: … cum in praeterita hebdomada in loco, qui vocatur Pisanorum vicus, convenisse (...)
  • 24 There were five churches in Constantinople dedicated to St. Irene. In his text Anselm does not refe (...)
  • 25 PL, 188, col. 1209: … quoniam omnium vestrum excellentiae placuit ut in hac sancta basilica Sanctae (...)
  • 26 On James of Venice (floruit 1157-1169) see Minio-Paluello 1952; Grabmann – Ott 1956; Schultess – Im (...)
  • 27 See the discussion in Magdalino 1993, p. 325-330.
  • 28 PL, 188, col. 1140 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 89: ego aliquando magni Lotharii Romanorum imperatoris au (...)
  • 29 PL, 188, col. 1156: avidus explorator et diligens inquisitor diversarum religionum.
  • 30 PL, 188, col. 1163: placuit imperatori piissimo Kalojoanni, placuit etiam patriarchae civitatis N. (...)

6The majority of scholars focusing on the ecumenical significance of Anselm take for their starting point the theological disputes in Constantinople in 1136 and their content as reported in books two and three of the Anticimenon. The encounter between the bishop of Havelberg and a Greek hierarch and the “results” of this encounter are in the center of their scholarly interest. From this perspective, the text of the Anticimenon is seen primarily as a historical source for the debates of 1136. At first glance, there seem to be good reasons for such approach. The fact of Anselm’s embassy to Constantinople on behalf of the German Emperor Lothair in 1135-1136 is confirmed by historical sources of the period.19 Anselm’s report on the dispute, shaped in the form of a dialogue between himself and the archbishop of Nicomedia, looks historically convincing.20 The author makes references to a range of details that seem to attest to the historicity of his account.21 He mentions the exact dates of the two sessions (the first session on April 10, “if I remember correctly”,22 the second one a week later),23 the venue (the first session near the church of St. Irene in the Pisan district of Constantinople,24 the second one in the Hagia Sophia),25 and the names of the three Latins who served as interpreters at the debates: James of Venice, Burgundio of Pisa, and Moses of Bergamo –all three known as prominent scholars and translators of the twelfth century.26 The Greek interlocutor is portrayed as a praecipuus in the college of twelve didascaloi who are authorized to make decisions on controversial issues in the area of doctrine: Anselm’s brief description of this college corresponds well with the data known to Byzantine scholars today.27 In the Prologus to the Anticimenon Anselm notes that he stayed in Constantinople “for a certain period of time” conducting “many conversations and debates in private as well as in public on the [controversial issues of] doctrine and ritual at the gatherings of Latins as well as of Greeks”.28 The author characterizes himself as “an avid observer and assiduous investigator” of various kinds of monastic life in the East.29 The debates, according to Anselm, were organized with the consent and under the patronage of the Byzantine Emperor John II and the Patriarch of Constantinople.30 The positive, harmonizing note which concludes the detailed discussion on every single controversial topic in the mouths of both interlocutors seems to justify the view that the debates can be evaluated as an ecumenically important episode in the relations between East and West, as an encounter which demonstrates that mutual understanding and even agreement between Greeks and Latins was possible.

  • 31 Thus, Russell opines, without any substantiation, that Anselm’s report was based “on a verbatim rec (...)
  • 32 On the date of the Anticimenon, see Braun 1978, p. 387; Lees 1998, p. 164-165.
  • 33 PL, 188, col. 1139-1142 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 88-90.
  • 34 PL, 188, col. 1141: Conservavi autem, quantum memoria subministrabat, tenorem dialogi.
  • 35 E.g., Beumer 1951, p. 466.
  • 36 Spiteris 1979, p. 89: “Gli studiosi sono d’accordo nell’ammettere che Anselmo è fedele se non alla (...)

7All those details of Anselm’s text led scholars of the previous century to accept the text of the Anticimenon as a historically reliable source for the disputes of 1136. To be sure, only a few scholars were prone to view Anselm’s account as verbatim minutes of the debates.31 The Anticimenon was written in 1149-1150;32 its author informs the reader in the Prologus that he has composed his work at the request of Pope Eugene III.33 Anselm himself admits that he relies only on his memory: “To the extent that my memory has served, I have maintained the tenor of the dialogue”.34 Of course, even with the best memory, he could hardly be expected to record the entire dispute verbatim fourteen years after the event. Some doubts also arise from the fact that substantially more place is given to Anselmus in the dialogues than to Nechites, and that the Greek archbishop seem to be too ready to agree with his Latin interlocutor.35 Overall, however, by the late 1970s there emerged a consensus among the scholars that books two and three of the Anticimenon, while certainly no verbatim record, nevertheless portray the real course of the debates of 1136 and faithfully reproduce the arguments of both interlocutors. This view regarded the Anticimenon as an important historical source not only for the Latin but also for the Byzantine theological positions. In 1979 Jannis Spiteris summarized this consensus in the following way: “The scholars are in agreement in their opinion that Anselm is a trustworthy witness, if not in respect to the form, then at least in respect to the thought of his interlocutor and of the sequence of arguments. We can therefore hold with great probability that Anselm has reported the authentic thought of the Greek [archbishop]”.36

  • 37 Finke 1942; Berges 1956, p. 45, 56-57.
  • 38 Sieben 1984, esp. p. 160-162; Lees 1998, p. 245, 248-249.
  • 39 Henceforth I refer to both names in italics in the form used in the manuscript tradition to disting (...)
  • 40 Cf. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis, XIII, 483-489, with PL, 188, col. 1202-1208.
  • 41 PL, 188, col. 1206D-1207A.
  • 42 PL, 188, col. 1197A; 1212D; 1218A. See Lees 1998, p. 248-249, n. 259, and p. 257; Anselm of Havelbe (...)
  • 43 Lees 1998, p. 245. Cf. PL, 188, col. 1183D-1184A with PL, 188, col. 1119B-C.
  • 44 The translation used by Anselm is unknown to modern scholarship. It has been previously assumed tha (...)

8The study of the Anticimenon experienced, however, a pivotal turn in the 1980s and 1990s that made the consensus achieved by the previous scholarship no longer sustainable. The change was brought about by the discovery that the text of books two and three of the Anticimenon contains no record of the actual course of the conversations between Anselm and the Greek archbishop of Nicomedia Nicetas in Constantinople in 1136, as the previous research had assumed, but is a fictitious dialogue, a literary product. The path to this awareness was prepared by a number of German scholars such as H. Finke in 1942 and Wilhelm Berges in 1956 who identified several textual borrowings in the Anticimenon from other sources, in particular from Peter Abelard.37 The decisive contribution was made by Hermann Josef Sieben in 1979 and 1984 and Jay Terry Lees in 199838 who pointed to numerous hidden quotations and paraphrases in the text of the dialogue between Anselmus and Nechites39 that testify to the fact that the author was not trying to faithfully reproduce the course of the conversation but instead compiled considerable parts of the text from various sources at hand. In particular, Antic. 2: 24-26, devoted to the discussion of the procession of the Holy Spirit, is a compilation from the longer version of Abelard’s Theologia ‘Scholarium’, 2: 157-165.40 Here Anselmus does not simply adduce patristic authorities in the same order as they are quoted in the Theologia and borrows Abelard’s explanatory remarks. Anselm the author even puts into the mouth of the Greek interlocutor an appropriate question anticipating Abelard’s quotation from Hilary of Poitiers in the necessary moment;41 that is, he obviously constructs his report not so much relying on memory but rather on the basis of his model, the Theologia ‘Scholarium’. In that particular case, Anselmus, the Latin interlocutor, adduces quotations taken from another Latin author, which is at least plausible. However, the borrowings from Latin texts are found also in the mouth of the Greek archbishop, and vice versa: the Latin interlocutor borrows from a Greek source. In particular, Nechites borrows from Augustine, De baptismo 2: 5-6 in Antic. 2: 21, and from the same work of Augustine, 2: 8 and 13, in Antic. 3: 3, as well as from the Liber pontificalis in Antic. 3: 7.42 But even this is not enough: one of the Nechites’ passages is taken verbatim from another work by Anselm of Havelberg himself, Epistola apologetica !43 On the other hand, parts of the text ascribed to Anselmus are taken from a Latin translation of the fifth Oratio theologica of Gregory of Nazianzus, enigmatically with no reference to the name of this Greek Church Father.44

  • 45 Darrouzès 1965, p. 60 and n. 7.
  • 46 PL, 202, col. 236D, 295B, 360A, 242B, and others.
  • 47 Lauerer 1911, p. 56, n. 16.

9The identity of Nicetas of Nicomedia poses another problem. All that we know about him comes from the Anticimenon. No other historical source, be it Latin or Byzantine, confirms the report of Anselm of Havelberg about the personality of his Greek interlocutor. Quite the contrary: as Jean Darrouzès has demonstrated, in the Byzantine historical sources another person, named Constantinos, is listed as archbishop of Nicomedia for the year 1136.45 Hugo Etherianus, a Latin interpreter at the court of Manuel I Comnenus in the mid-twelfth century, repeatedly quotes in his work De sancto et immortali Deo (in Migne’s Patrologia this work is printed under the title De haeresibus quas Graeci in Latinos devolvunt) a certain bishop of Nicomedia (Nicomediae praesul, Nicomediae metropolita, Nicomediae antistes) without providing his name.46 Hugo gives a rather detailed account of the views of the “Metropolitan of Nicomedia” on the procession of the Holy Spirit, but those views have nothing in common with the position of Nechites as it is presented in Anticimenon. Because of that, already in 1911 Hans Lauerer rejected the possibility that those two figures could be one and the same person.47

  • 48 See note 1 above.
  • 49 Sieben 1984, p. 162: “Für jedes einzelne der vorgetragenen Argumente gegen die Historizität der Dia (...)
  • 50 Beck 1959, p. 313-314.
  • 51 Fina 1956-1958, here Analecta Praemonstratensia, 32, 1956, p. 97: “Bezüglich der Treue der Wiederga (...)
  • 52 Sieben 1984, p. 162: “So interpretiert, haben wir in den Büchern II und III nicht nur einen west-ös (...)
  • 53 Lees 1982, p. 192-194, esp. p. 194, n. 128: “Although I disagree with Sieben on the question of the (...)
  • 54 Lees 1998, p. 233.

10Fr. Sieben’s work48 is pioneering because he was the first to define the text of books two and three of the Anticimenon as a “fictitious dialogue”, a “literary product”. He also spoke for the first time about a “global non-historicity” of the Anselm’s literary work.49 Already Hans-Georg Beck spoke with great caution about the historicity of the Anticimenon, although he did not at that time know all the arguments against it.50 Kurt Fina opined, with a good reason, that “it was not at all the purpose of Anselm to faithfully report his debate with Nicetas”. Fina, however, believed that Anselm’s intention was “to give an apologetic compendium into the hands of a controversialist theologian” by producing “an account, as clear and systematic as possible, of the common and the divisive in Western and Eastern doctrine”.51 In Sieben’s view even that was not Anselm’s intention. By putting ideas of Latin origin into the mouth of Nechites, Anselm the author was concerned not so much about the discussion between East and West but rather about contributing to the dialogue between different views on Church unity within the Latin Church itself; he was engaged in composing a liber de unitate ecclesiae.52 The author of the only monograph on Anselm of Havelberg in English, Jay Terry Lees, who in his doctoral thesis from 1982 had been skeptical of Sieben’s conclusions (although he had recognized the importance of his study),53 finally accepted Sieben’s view in his book published in 1998 and made several further discoveries confirming Sieben’s conclusions.54

  • 55 See quotations provided in n. 19 above.
  • 56 See note 26 above.
  • 57 See Classen 1974, p. 71-72.

11The results of Sieben’s and Lees’ research have made a reconsideration of the ecumenical significance of the bishop of Havelberg inescapable. Several conclusions emerge from the insight into the fictitious, literary character of the dialogues between Anselmus and Nechites. Since books two and three of the Anticimenon can no longer be regarded as a report on the encounter of 1136, the only point we can still maintain today is the sheer fact that such an encounter did indeed take place. The guarantors for the historicity of the event are the references to Anselm’s embassy in the historical sources of the period55 and the names of the three Latin translators who attended the debates, mentioned in Antic. 2: 1.56 In particular, Burgundio of Pisa, a fellow-countryman of Pope Eugene III and a renowned interpreter, knew the Roman Pontiff personally and precisely around the time of the composition of the Anticimenon worked, on the pope’s commission, on the translation of St. John Chrysostom’s homilies on the Gospel of Matthew.57 His name would hardly have been mentioned by Anselm as a witness to the debates in a work dedicated to Eugene III if the event itself had been a literary fiction. However, any further assumptions on the course, character, and content of the debates of 1136 are pure conjecture if they are not confirmed by sources outside the Anticimenon. As I shall demonstrate below, even the list of the discussed controversial topics cannot be taken for granted.

  • 58 Lees 1998, p. 234.

12Especially futile would be to try to reconstruct Byzantine theological positions on the basis of the text ascribed to Nechites by the author of the Anticimenon. The contributions of Nechites have very little to do with authentic Byzantine theology. True, the dialogues between Anselmus and Nechites have as their historically authentic substratum the great medieval controversies between Latins and Greeks on the Filioque, on azymes, and on papal primacy; however, the particular theological arguments of the interlocutors as reported by Anselm the author reflect not the differences between East and West but the diversities within the Latin theology of the period. This means that those aspects of the dialogues in books two and three in the Anticimenon that induced modern scholars to speak about Anselm of Havelberg as “ecumenist” are the products of a literary invention. The real debates might have proceeded in an “ecumenical” spirit –and might well have not. Lees is correct with his observation: “much of Anselm’s fame in the modern world has rested on the notion that he actually furthered the cause of unity with the Greeks in 1136; and that notion, of course, rests entirely on our (mis) reading of Anselm’s account”.58

  • 59 Siecienski 2010, p. 111; see also the chapter “Anselm of Havelberg (d. 1158) and Nicetas of Nicomed (...)
  • 60 Scheib 2009, p. 38; Knell 2009, p. 26, 36-41, esp. 38, 188; Siecienski 2010, p. 121-123 – all seem (...)
  • 61 Ware 2015, p. 47-48.

13At this point the lack of continuity in the recent scholarship becomes especially apparent. The studies of Sieben and Lees should be seen as indispensable for any further research into Anselm’s literary legacy; any serious attempt to defend the historicity of books two and three of the Anticimenon would be unthinkable today without engaging in a substantial discussion of their weighty arguments against it. The problem is, however, that only a few scholars who have published on Anselm in the three recent decades seem to give due consideration to the discoveries and conclusions of Sieben and Lees, and those who know their publications and quote them seldom make a serious effort to reconsider traditional views and clichés. Again and again, the discussion of Anselm’s ecumenical contribution circles not around the Anticimenon as a literary work but around the debates of 1136. There must be something mesmerizing about the artistic realism with which the debates between Anselmus and Nechites are portrayed in the Anticimenon. “Anselm of Havelberg and Nicetas of Nicomedia in 1136 demonstrated that consensus was possible”: such judgments, made without any attempt at discussing the issue of historicity, appear hopelessly outdated thirty years after the issue was first raised.59 The list of publications that have been misleadingly engaged in writing a history of the 1136 event on the basis of the Anticimenon and in trying to discern the core of the theology of the “prominent Byzantine hierarch Nicetas of Nicomedia” is quite considerable;60 for the wider public, a remark of “Nicetas” about the papacy has become almost an established part of Byzantine theological legacy due to quotation in a highly popular and influential introduction to the Orthodox Church.61

14It would be mistaken, however, to conclude that Anselm should be now deprived of his “ecumenical” reputation. But when trying to define the “ecumenical” contribution of the bishop of Havelberg we should build not on the historical fact of the debates of 1136, of which we know extraordinary little. We should start, on the contrary, with the analysis of the content, structure, ideas, and style of the Anticimenon as a literary invention –an analysis that should be undertaken, of course, within the context of our overall knowledge of the relations between East and West in that period.

  • 62 I already touched upon this topic in my German book, Avvakumov 2002, p. 161-197, but Anselm of Have (...)

15In the following I would like to address one of the two minor controversial issues discussed by Anselmus and Nechites in the Anticimenon.62 As we shall see, this will lead us to a discovery that will not only confirm the conclusions of Sieben and Lees but also open up new perspectives on the interpretation of the “ecumenicity” of Anselm of Havelberg. This interpretation will be based not on a (mis) construed history of the debates of 1136 but on the analysis of the Anticimenon as a work of Latin theology of its time.

A case study in Anselm’s ecumenism: the riddle of the Eucharistic water in the Anticimenon

  • 63 The scholarship on the Filioque controversy is immense. I list a few publications of recent decades (...)
  • 64 The controversy on the leavened/unleavened bread (“azymes”) began in the mid-eleventh century. On t (...)
  • 65 The issue of papal primacy emerged rather late as a subject of controversies with the Greeks if com (...)

16Five controversial issues between Latins and Greeks are discussed in the Anticimenon. Three of them belong to the repertoire that was already established by the 1130s: the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque, treated in book two),63 the bread of the Eucharist, leavened in the Greek Church, unleavened (“azymes”) in the Latin,64 and the issue of the primacy of the Roman Church65 (both treated in book three). Two minor issues appear to be new and previously undiscussed. One of them is the alleged rebaptism of Latins received into communion with the Greek Church, in particular of imperial spouses coming from the West (Antic. 3: 21). In the form proposed by Anselmus, it looks as a misunderstanding which is corrected by Nechites who points out that the Greek rite his Latin interlocutor sees as “rebaptism” is, in reality, the sacrament of chrismation. Another previously unknown controversial issue emerges in Antic. 3: 20. Anselmus asks his Byzantine interlocutor why the Greek Church does not mix water with wine in the Eucharistic chalice. Nechites in his reply defends the practice of the unmixed chalice, and both interlocutors engage in a discussion of the arguments pro and con. This chapter and the issue it raises deserves a closer look.

  • 66 Dräseke 1901, p. 178: Hierauf näher einzugehen ist bei der Geringfügigkeit des Gegenstandes um so w (...)
  • 67 Lees 1998, p. 275-278; Sigler 2005, p. 304.
  • 68 Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 202. They refer to Chadwick 2003, p. 226 which contains an equally mi (...)

17None of the scholars who have conducted research on Anselm of Havelberg has noticed the historical-liturgical conundrum that Antic. 3: 20 contains. Dräseke’s remark of 1901 seems to have determined the prevailing approach in the scholarship for over a century ahead: “It is absolutely unnecessary to investigate this tiny issue further since Anselm and Nicetas really agreed upon it”.66 Neither of the two book-length monographs on Anselm grasped that there is a snag in the text of the chapter.67 The recent attempt to explain the topic with the help of a seemingly unproblematic reference to “Humbert’s legation to Constantinople in 1054” is totally misleading.68 In reality, Antic. 3: 20 confronts us with an intriguing enigma, one of the many in the Anticimenon.

  • 69 On the rite of prothesis or proskomidy, see Taft 1975; and Mandalà 1935.

18In order to put the problem of the Eucharistic water –as it is discussed in the Anticimenon– in a proper perspective, let us first take a look at the actual practice of the Eastern Churches. In the Byzantine rite, the Eucharistic wine is mixed with water twice: first, in the prothesis or proskomidy (the rite of the preparation of the Eucharistic gifts which is performed by the priest separately in a low voice and on a special oblation table in the Northern part of the sanctuary before the formal beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy),69 and, secondly, after the consecration of Eucharistic gifts immediately prior to the communicating of the clergy. The former of the two rituals of water is usually referred to as henosis ( “unification [of wine with water]”); it is accompanied by the words of John 19: 34 pronounced by the priest: “One of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water”. The latter ritual, performed after the Eucharistic consecration, differs from the rite of henosis by a conspicuous feature: the water added to Eucharistic wine in this ritual must be heated. This admixture is therefore called “the rite of the hot water” (zeon hydor or thermon hydor), or simply zeon. The celebrant pronounces the following words when adding water in this rite: “Warmth (zesis) of faith, full of the Holy Spirit”. Both rites of water, the henosis and the zeon, are established parts of both Eucharistic liturgies practiced in the Byzantine liturgical tradition, the Chrysotomos liturgy and the Basilios liturgy.

  • 70 Hanssens 1930, p. 231-242; and Taft 1987. This latter article, with revisions and additions, was in (...)
  • 71 PG, 86, col. 2400-2401.
  • 72 PG, 98, col. 384-353.
  • 73 Nedungatt – Featherstone 1995, p. 106-110.

19Scholars of Byzantine liturgy have done substantial research on the origins and the history of the mixed chalice in the Byzantine Eucharistic tradition; the studies of Michael Hanssens and Robert Taft are of foundational importance.70 The admixture of water is testified for the Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy at least since the sixth century. The earliest witness for the admixture before the consecration is Eutychios, Patriarch of Constantinople 552-565 and 577-582:71 he placed the admixture, however, not at the prothesis (which at that time was practiced in an embryonic form only) but at the moment shortly before the Great Entrance. Historia ekklesiastike, a commentary on the Byzantine liturgy ascribed to Patriarch Germanos of Constantinople, 715-730, mentions the admixture of water in the rite of the prothesis.72 The testimonies that come from the time before the eleventh century represent an early stage in the development of the Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy, and it is not unambiguous at what particular point of the liturgy the admixture occurs and whether both rites of water (henosis as well as zeon) are assumed. It is clear, however, that the admixture of water as such – in whatever form and at whatever point it was practiced– had become an established part of the Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy at least since the late seventh century: the Council in Trullo threatened in 692 a priest who would omit mixing water with the Eucharistic wine with a deposition.73

  • 74 On the problem of the author and the text history of Protheoria see Bornert 1966, p. 181-199; cf. t (...)
  • 75 PG, 140, col. 464B.
  • 76 Nicetas Stethatos, Dialexis, in Michel 1930, p. 325.
  • 77 PG, 130, col. 1184A.
  • 78 PG, 137. col. 620-621.
  • 79 Leo Tuscus 1966, p. 136.

20From the eleventh century onwards, there are testimonies that speak in favor of the practice that is in general terms identical with the practice of our day. The water is mixed with the wine twice: first in the rite of henosis during the preparation of the Holy Gifts and, secondly, in the rite of zeon conducted after the consecration and immediately before communion. The Protheoria of Nicholas (Theodore) of Andida, dating back to the eleventh century,74 speaks distinctly of the two rites of water during the liturgy; it also stresses that the water used immediately before the communion must be hot.75 Nicetas Stethatos and Humbert da Silva Candida discussed in 1054 the rite of zeon implying that this rite was an established Byzantine practice.76 In the early twelfth century Euthymios Zigabenos in Panoplia dogmatike makes mention of both rituals.77 Theodore Balsamon in the commentary on the 32 canon of Trullanum (ca. 1195) discusses both the henosis and the zeon and brings forward the reasons for using hot water in the latter but not in the former.78 In the Latin translation of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that was composed by Leo Tuscus, a translator at the court of the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143-1180), each of the two rites of water and the accompanying words are translated.79 All these testimonies come from Constantinople. There can be little doubt, therefore, that by the time of Anselm’s travel to Constantinople both rites of water were already established parts of the Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy as practiced in the Great Church of imperial capital.

  • 80 On the absence of water admixture in the Armenian liturgy see Hanssens 1930, II.1, p. 250-271; Jugi (...)

21The Byzantine liturgical tradition is the only one that practices the rite of zeon; other Eastern Churches add water exclusively during the preparation of Eucharistic gifts. The only Eastern Church that conducts neither henosis nor zeon, i.e. does not practice the admixture of water at all, is the Armenian Church.80 This feature of Armenian liturgy led to controversies between Greeks and Armenians. In canon 32, the Council in Trullo rebuked the Armenian Church for the absence of water in the Eucharistic chalice in the following words:

  • 81 Nedungatt – Featherstone 1995, p. 106-110.

It has come to our knowledge that in the land of Armenia those who perform the bloodless sacrifice bring only wine to the holy table, mixing no water in it. […] If any bishop or presbyter does not act in accordance with the Apostolic rule, mixing water with the wine when he offers the sacrifice, he shall be deposed, for thus he proclaims the mystery incompletely and tampers the tradition.81

22Around 1100, Euthymios Zigabenos devoted a chapter of his Panoplia dogmatike to the refutation of Armenian teachings and liturgical traditions. Here he discussed, among other things, the Armenian practice of Eucharistic celebration without water:

  • 82 PG, 130, col. 1181 D-1184 C.

In the [sacrament of] the holy Altar they [the Armenians] offer wine unmixed with water […]. Through this they want to proclaim the one nature in Christ. […] To the contrary, we consecrate and communicate with the admixture of water; through this we make clear the unity of two natures in Christ. […] There came blood and water from the side of Christ, confirming [our] faith in the two natures.82

  • 83 The river Azat served as the borderline between the Roman and the Persian empires.
  • 84 Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 132, Subsidia 4, 226-227.
  • 85 For more detail about this remark, see Taft 2000, p. 450-452.
  • 86 PG, 133, p. 253-265.

23Armenians, in turn, reprimanded the Greeks for at least two features of their Eucharistic celebration: the admixture of hot water into the chalice (the rite of zeon) and the use of leavened bread (Armenians, like Latins, used unleavened bread in their Eucharistic liturgy). The Narratio de rebus Armeniae, composed in the twelfth century, reports the reply of the Armenian Catholicos Movses II (574-604) that he gave when summoned to Constantinople by the Byzantine emperor Mauricius: “I will not cross the Azat river,83 nor will I eat the baked bread of the Greeks nor drink their hot water”.84 “Baked bread” refers, most likely, to the leavened prosphora of the Byzantines, and “hot water” seems to point to the zeon rite of the Eucharist.85 In the years 1169 and 1171, Byzantine scholar Theorianos conducted disputes with Armenian Catholicos Nerses; among many controversial points between the two Churches, the Greek and the Armenian debated the issue of the mixed or unmixed chalice.86

  • 87 Gregory VII 1920-1923, p. 511.
  • 88 The word “azymes” referred primarily to Jewish cultic bread; the expression “unleavaned bread” was, (...)

24Latins became aware of the controversies between Greeks and Armenians on liturgical differences by at least the eleventh century. In 1080, Pope Gregory VII sent a long letter to the Armenian Catholicos in which he discussed the entire problematics of the theological and liturgical specificity of the Armenian Church. In particular, the Pope addressed the issue of the water in the Eucharist: “We have learnt from the reports of some people that you do not mix water with wine in the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice. But no Christian who knows the holy Gospels would doubt that from the side of the Lord came blood and water”.87 At the same time, Gregory praised the Armenians for the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist and expressed his support for them in their defense against the Greek accusations because of the “azymes”.88

  • 89 Nicetas Stethatos, Dialexis, in Michel 1930, p. 324-325.
  • 90 Will 1861, p. 139.

25In the heat of the conflict between Greeks and Latins over unleavened bread in 1053-1054, the rite of the hot water became indirectly implicated. The Greek polemicist Nicetas Stethatos drew a parallel between the leavened bread of the Greeks and the hot water of the zeon rite. The leavened bread is necessary for the celebration of the Eucharist because yeast represents the vital, living power of the Body of Christ; similarly, the Greeks “drink from the warm chalice” commemorating “the living and warm Body of Christ from whose side came blood and water”.89 Through this comparison, Nicetas made the azymes, on the one hand, and the absence of the rite of zeon, on the other, both look like outcomes of the same error of the Roman Church about the correct way of celebrating the Eucharist. This raised protests on the part of Cardinal Humbert: in his rejoinder he not only defended the Roman liturgical traditions but also questioned the symbolic meaning and the purpose of the Greek rite of the hot water.90 Thus, the rite of zeon became, for the first time, a subject of a Latin anti-Greek controversy. The Byzantines, in their turn, fought “on two fronts”: against Armenians because of the absence of the admixture of water, and against Latins because of the absence of the zeon in the Roman rite. Azymes were a subject of Greek polemics with both. Every difference in liturgical practice gave a pretext for mutual accusations. At the same time, similarities enabled building of temporary “alliances” of two traditions against a third one; thus, Latin and Greeks solidarized themselves against the Armenian unmixed chalice; Armenians and Latins saw their unity in their common use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist against the Greek leavened bread; Greeks and Armenians, to the contrary, had no points in common.

26Let us now go back to the text of Antic. 3: 20 and try to make sense out of its content. The question addressed by Anselmus to his Greek interlocutor reads like this:

  • 91 PL, 188, col. 1241 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 243-244.

Tell me why in the sacrifice of the altar you do not offer wine and also water, poured into the chalice and mixed? Why do you consecrate pure wine without water? For after you have consecrated the pure wine of the oblation, then afterward you mix plain, unblessed water with the most sacred Blood in the chalice, and you communicate in this way. For what reason, I ask, do you do this?91

  • 92 On skeuophylakion see, Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII, col. 1074.
  • 93 This was rightly observed by Hanssens 1930, II.1, p. 242.

27Anselmus, thus, does not deny the use of water in the Greek Eucharist completely. He points to the Byzantine practice of adding the water into the chalice after the consecration, immediately before communion. He seems to have taken notice of the rite of zeon, although he did not realize that the water used in this rite was hot. He missed, however, the rite of henosis completely, and this leads him to the conclusion that the wine consecrated by the Greeks is pure, unmixed with water (vinum merum). These misunderstandings suggest that Anselm the author, when composing the text for his literary figure, Anselmus the debater, might have relied on his own experience in Byzantium. When observing liturgies in Greek churches of Constantinople, he apparently failed to discern the rite of henosis and took notice only of the second admixture after the consecration. The rite of henosis was, from the eighth century onward, a part of the prothesis which took place before the official beginning of the Eucharistic celebration, in the skeuophylakion92 on a special oblation table and thus might have passed unnoticed by a stranger. To the contrary, the rite of zeon takes place in a very conspicuous moment of the Byzantine liturgy on the main altar. An “avid observer” from the Latin world (and this is how Anselm characterizes himself in the Anticimenon!) must have noticed that there is no parallel in the Roman Mass to the rite of zeon: the rite of henosis could have remained unnoticed by him.93

  • 94 PL, 188, col. 1241= Spicilegium 1677, p. 244.

28If Anselmus’ question can be interpreted as a mistake and a misunderstanding on part of an interested but uninformed observer, the reply of his Byzantine interlocutor is astounding and takes us completely aback. Nechites seems to assume that the claim of Anselmus is correct and that the only moment of the Byzantine liturgy at which water is added is the one after the consecration: “We do not read that Christ, in that great supper of his which is particularly called the Lord’s Supper, consecrated water mixed with wine in the chalice. We do as he did, following his model. We have no other reason than that we imitate the Savior in this practice”.94 The conversation continues by bringing forth theological arguments for and against the admixture of water: Anselmus defends the mixed chalice, Nechites brings forward arguments against the admixture of water before the consecration. Here is how Nechites describes the practice of his church in one of his interventions:

  • 95 PL 188, col. 1242= Spicilegium 1677, p. 245.

we, imitating the exact model of the Lord’s Supper, offer only pure wine in the cup for consecration as the blood of the new and eternal testament through divine operation and power in the ministry of the priest. Afterward we reasonably and appropriately mix in water.95

29At the end of a rather lengthy (occupying 5 columns in Migne’s Patrologia) exchange, both interlocutors agree that the best solution for their disagreement in ritual matters, including the problem of leavened or unleavened bread and of the mixed or unmixed chalice, would be the convocation of a concilium generale.

  • 96 See note 36 above.
  • 97 Taft 1987, p. 333.
  • 98 Taft 2000, p. 457-458.

30This chapter of the Anticimenon became a stumbling block for scholars of Byzantine liturgy because the Greek hierarch seems to bear witness here against the Byzantine admixture of water before the consecration –despite the overwhelming historical evidence in favor of it. Thus, Taft saw himself compelled in 1987 to reconsider the issue on the basis of the dialogue between Anselmus and Nechites whom he deemed “learned and reliable witnesses”, following Spiteris’ positive judgement about the historicity of Anticimenon that I quoted above.96 Despite all the evidence for the practice of the mixed chalice, Taft “[found] it impossible to dismiss Anselm’s testimony” and “[could] only conclude that not all Byzantine priests mixed water with the wine at the prothesis in the twelfth century”.97 This renowned scholar was able to bring only one document to substantiate his Anticimenon-based conclusion –a very obscure twelfth-century text, the eratapokrisis of Metropolitan Elias of Crete, that seems to imply that some (hence not all?) priests mixed water with the wine at the prothesis. By interpreting this document in favor of the unmixed chalice, Taft, in fact, partially renounced the results of his own investigation into the history of the rites of water in the Byzantine liturgy, maintaining that the testimony of Anselm of Havelberg makes a revision of the general picture necessary. Taft repeated this conclusion in 2000 in his monograph on the pre-communion rites.98

31These attempts at revision appear futile in the light of the studies on the historicity of the Anticimenon conducted by Sieben and Lees. There is absolutely no need to question the results of historical-liturgical research because of Anselm’s text. Quite the contrary: Antic. 3: 20 is, in fact, another important proof of the non-historicity of Nechites’ comments. The point is not only that Nechites’ denial of the Greek admixture before the consecration contradicts all the other known sources on the Byzantine liturgy with only one, very obscure, exception. Of decisive importance here is that both debaters –the Latin as well as the Greek– remain fully within the framework of arguments and counterarguments found in the Latin early scholastic theology on the question “Should water be mixed with the wine?” (Utrum debeat aqua vino misceri).

32This question was one of the many of a similar kind that addressed the issue of correctness of ritual enactment and discussed various forms and instances of omission, distortion, and negligence on part of the celebrant. Among these there were, e.g., questions whether baptism should be conducted with a triple or with a single immersion; whether other liquids besides water are permissible in the baptismal rite; whether the wine of the Eucharist should be white or red; whether the Eucharistic bread should be made of wheat or of rye, with or without leaven, and the like. The Summa sententiarum (composed, most likely, in the late 1130s or 1140s) provides an example of the discussion of water admixture without reference to the Eastern Church:

  • 99 PL, 176, col. 145.

A question is often asked whether the [Eucharistic] sacrifice should be regarded as invalid if water is not mixed [with the wine] through forgetfulness or negligence. We would not dare to pronounce any judgments of our own since we do not possess the authority to do this. We can only say that the celebrant [who does not mix water] should be punished severely.99

33Other early scholastic theologians did not have the same reservations as the author of the Summa sententiarum and discussed the issue at length. By the time the Anticimenon was composed, a repertoire of arguments in favor of the mixed chalice had been formed. The argumentation circled around the three following motifs.

  • 100 Cyprian, Ep. 63, ad Caecilium, 17, ed. in Cyprian 1871, p. 715: Si quis de antecessoribus nostris v (...)
  • 101 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap 5, see Peter Lombard 1971- (...)
  • 102 Gandulph of Bologna, Sententiarum libri quatuor, lib.4, 120, see Gandulph of Bologna 1924, p. 451.
  • 103 Peter Comestor 1937, p. 40*.
  • 104 Ambrose of Milan, De sacramentis, lib. 5, cap. 1, 4, see Ambrose 1955, p. 60-61.
  • 105 Burchard of Worms, Decretorum libri XX, lib. 5, cap. 5, see Burchard of Worms 1658, fol. 95r.
  • 106 Anselm of Lucca, Collectio canonum, lib. 9, cap. 1, see Anselm of Lucca 1915, p. 459.
  • 107 Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, pars 2, cap. 15, in PL, 161, col. 164.
  • 108 Decretum Gratiani, in Corpus iuris canonici, D.2 de cons. c. 1, see Decretum Gratiani 1879, I, p. 1 (...)
  • 109 Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae 1863, p. 99.

Historical. In the time of Jesus, Palestinians drank wine mixed with water; therefore, Jesus Christ used wine mixed with water when instituting the Eucharist in his Last Supper with the disciples. This argument was corroborated in early scholastic theology by reference to a passage from Cyprian of Carthage in which he points to the example of Jesus as an argument for the admixture of water in the Eucharist.100 References to Cyprian are found in the fourth book of Peter Lombard’s “Sentences”,101 in Gandulph of Bologna102 and Peter Comestor.103
 Biblical. The mixing water with the Eucharistic wine typologically represents the opening of Jesus’ side from which came blood and water as described in John 19: 34. This motif was known from the Church Fathers (e.g., Ambrose)104. In the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century, this argument was corroborated by a text that was included in the major canonistic collections of the period –Burchard of Worms,105 Anselm of Lucca,106 Ivo of Chartres,107 and Decretum Gratiani108– under the name of Pope Alexander I. In reality, the text originated from the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals: “In the Lord’s chalice there should not be offered wine alone or water alone, but both intermixed, because we read that both flew from his side in his passion”.109

  • 110 So in Peter Lombard, Sententiae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap. 5, see Peter Lombard 1971-1981, p. 301.
  • 111 Cyprian 1871, p. 711-712.
  • 112 See, e.g., Anselm of Lucca 1915, lib. 9, cap. 4, p. 460; Decretum Gratiani 1879, D.2 de cons. c. 2, (...)
  • 113 Bede the Venerable, In Lucae Evangelium expositio, 6 (ed.: Bede the Venerable 2001a, p. 378-379), p (...)
  • 114 PL, 178, col. 1742.

Symbolic. This argument proceeds from the image of “people” being symbolized by water (aqua populum significat, “water signifies people”).110 This idea originated in a letter of Cyprian of Carthage: according to him, wine symbolizes Christ and water symbolizes “us”, i.e. the Christian people; if you separate wine from water, Christ “begins to be without us”.111 The relevant text was mostly quoted, in a distorted form, as a decretal of “Pope Julius” that found acceptance into all important canonistic collections of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including the Decretum Gratiani.112 With a reference to Revelation 17: 15, where “the waters” signify “peoples and nations and tongues”, this image was re-coined into the formulas: aquae populi sunt, or aquae multae populi multi sunt, first found in Bede the Venerable113 and used by Abelard.114

34The discussion of the issue of the mixed chalice in Anticimenon is dominated by Anselmus: his text occupies ca. 3.5 times more space than the interventions of the Byzantine interlocutor. Nechites brings forward, in fact, only one argument against the admixture: the absence of an explicit mention of water mixed with wine at the Last Supper in the Scriptures. In response to this, Anselmus uses the historical argument. In all other interventions, Nechites follows his Latin interlocutor. He basically agrees with the biblical and symbolic arguments; however, he applies them exclusively to the admixture after the consecration, i.e., to the rite of zeon (even if “hot water” is not mentioned).

  • 115 PG, 133, col. 253-265. On the debates and their context, see Aram (Keshishean) 2010; Zekiyan 1986; (...)

35It is instructive to compare the discussion between Anselmus and Nechites with the Byzantine report on the debates between a Greek theologian Theorianos and the Armenian Catholicos Nerses Shnorhali that took place in 1169 and 1171, a little more than 20 years after the composition of the Anticimenon.115 Theorianos spoke in favor of the admixture, the Catholicos defended the practice of an unmixed chalice. The Armenian appealed to the absence of the mention of water in the Gospel narratives about the Last Supper, i.e., he used the same argument as Nechites in Anticimenon. The Greek argumentation was based on, first, the image of blood and water from the side of Jesus in John 19: 34; second, the mention of wine mixed with water by Jesus at the Last Supper in the Greek text of the anaphora of the Liturgy of St James; third, canon 32 of the council in Trullo that chides the Armenian Church because of her unmixed chalice by quoting and discussing a passage from John Chrysostom’s Commentary on Matthew against Hydroparastatai ( “Aquarians”); and fourth, a lengthy quotation from the Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa containing, in the form that is quoted by Theorianos, a reference to “wine, water, and bread” in the Eucharist.

  • 116 Landgraf 1934, p. 42: Queritur, quare aqua apponatur, cum Christus non apposuerit, quando corpus et (...)

36As we can easily see, only the first one of the authentic Greek arguments finds a parallel in Anticimenon. Neither the liturgy of St James, nor the text of Gregory of Nyssa are discussed by Anselmus and Nechites. Particularly noteworthy is the absence of any mention of the council in Trullo –a council that had such a high authority in the Greek East. To the contrary, the discussion in the Anticimenon develops along the lines typical of the Latin theology of the period. The influence of Peter Abelard and his school is present throughout. Thus, Nechites’ denial of mixing water with wine in the Last Supper by Christ finds a parallel in the Sententiae Parisienses that belong to the school of Peter Abelard: “It is enquired why water is added, although Christ did not add it when he gave his Body and Blood to his disciples in the supper”.116 Especially revealing is Nechites’ treatment of the symbolic motif: not only does he agree with his Latin interlocutor but even develops the symbolism of the formula aquae multae populi multi sunt further in order to apply it to the use of water after the consecration:

  • 117 PL, 188, col. 1242-1243 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 245-246.

As you have said, “many waters are many peoples”. But we, imitating the exact model of the Lord’s Supper, offer only pure wine in the cup for consecration […]. Afterward we reasonably and appropriately mix in water […]. We mix in the water afterwards so that the water signifying the people is made holy by participation in the same sacrament. Indeed, we find it less appropriate for that which sanctifies and that which is sanctified to be consecrated equally in one and the same act of consecration. So it suffices if the water, that is, the people, is made holy by participation in the divine consecration and not by sharing in the same act of consecration. We are not sanctified from the beginning with Christ, rather through the Holy Spirit and the imparting of the Holy Spirit. Then through the holy sacraments of Christ and the Church we begin to be sanctified by participation and communion”.117

37It looks that Nechites appropriated here the discussion in Abelard’s Sententiae (Epitome theologiae Christianae):

  • 118 PL, 178, col. 1742 B.

We don’t read [in the Scriptures] about water that Christ added it to the sacrament [of the Eucharist]. Why then is wine mixed [with water]? We reply that by water the heathen peoples are signified. Therefore [it is said]: “Many waters are many people”. […] Since before the death of Christ the people did not yet enter the Church, it was not appropriate that water, which expressed joy about this entrance, would be added. Later, however, after the people entered, the Church, joyful about its entrance and communion, began to add water.118

38Both discussions take it for granted that Christ did not mix water with wine in his Last Supper. Both operate with the formula aquae multae populi multi. Both play with the idea of water (= “the people”) being added “afterwards” (postea). The difference is that Abelard’s thought proceeds historically: for him, it is the distinction between the states before and after the death of Christ that matters; Nechites’, on his part, thinks liturgically and distinguishes between the time before and after the Eucharistic consecration.

  • 119 The text is edited in Taft 2000, p. 461-463.
  • 120 Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 45.

39To summarize: Nechites’ arguments could not be brought forward by a real Greek archbishop of the twelfth century. The text that Anselm the author places into the mouth of his literary invention, Nechites, has little, if anything, to do with the Byzantine discussions of the period. One of Nechites’ points –the absence of the mention of water in the Last Supper narratives– resembles an Armenian argument against mixed chalice; that same point, however, is found repeatedly in contemporary Latin works of Abelard’s school. Overall, both Anselmus and Nechites remain within the spectrum of ideas and approaches of the Latin discussions of the period. Even if we agree with Fr. Taft that the only Greek twelfth-century document contradicting all the other sources –the response of Elias of Crete– can indeed be understood in the sense that not all local Greek priests added water in the prothesis (and this is the maximum that can be “squeezed” out if it),119 it still remains unimaginable that an archbishop of the city of Nicomedia neighboring the imperial capital, a “learned and venerable” hierarch, “the chief of the twelve didascaloi […] preeminent in learning” and “[presiding] over the other Greek sages”120 (as Anselm of Havelberg depicts Nechites), would deny the practice of a liturgical rite defended by a canon of the council in Trullo –so highly authoritative in Byzantium– and would try to corroborate his statement with the help of arguments borrowed from Armenian and, especially, from Latin theology, particularly in a debate with a Latin visitor held in Constantinople in front of a large audience of Greeks and Latins (as it is described in the Anticimenon).

  • 121 Otto of Freising reports on this embassy in Chronica, lib. 7, cap. 32, see Otto of Freising 1974, p (...)
  • 122 The letter is not preserved. A reference to it is found in the acts of the Armenian council of Sis (...)

40Anselm of Havelberg seems to have confused the Greek Eucharistic practice with the Armenian rite. Anselm’s error demonstrates how distorted Western notions of the East and, vice versa, Eastern images of the West at times were. It was just in the 1140s – shortly before the Anticimenon was composed– that the Armenian issue became important for the papacy and was discussed at the Roman Curia: in 1145 an Armenian embassy visited Eugene III121 – the pope at whose request the Anticimenon was composed. In 1145-46 Eugene III sent a letter to the Armenian Catholicos in which he, in particular, addressed the question of the Eucharistic water.122 These contacts aroused interest in Armenia among members of the Roman Curia; yet knowledge about the Armenian Church remained very vague. An example of a confusion based on the “triangle” of Latin, Greek, and Armenian liturgical practices is the remark of Otto of Freising, who was himself a witness of the Armenian embassy to the Roman Curia in 1145. Otto is correct about water, but errs about the Eucharistic bread:

  • 123 Otto of Freising 1974, p. 554.

Between the Armenians and the Greeks, there is agreement in some things concerning the Eucharistic liturgy, in some things there is divergence. The Armenians use leavened bread like the Greeks [sic!], but they, contrary to what we, Latins, and the Greeks do, do not mix water with wine.123

41My conjecture about the origin of Anselm’s error is the following. The water issue, most likely, was not discussed officially in the debates of 1136 at all. When observing Greek Eucharistic liturgies in 1136 in Constantinople, Anselm could have noticed the zeon but missed the henosis. He did not notice, however, that the water in the zeon was heated, or he might have forgotten about it fourteen years later when he composed Anticimenon. But he retained in his memory that something was unusual with the mixing of water in the Greek liturgy. In the prologus to the Anticimenon, Anselm reports his visit to Pope Eugene III in March 1149 and the pope’s request for him to write an account of the disputes in Constantinople. During this visit, Anselm might have heard from the pope himself or from someone at the Curia about recent contacts with an Eastern Church that did not mix water (i.e. with Armenians). When composing the Anticimenon in 1149-1150, he confused Greeks with Armenians, or might have assumed that the deviations from the Latin practice of water admixture were the same in the Armenian and in the Greek Churches. Possessing a good knowledge of the leading Latin theological works of his time, especially of Abelard, Anselm was able to construct a fictitious dialogue between a Latin and a Greek interlocutor on the basis of early scholastic discussions of the question utrum aqua debeat vino misceri, thus hoping both to make a service to controversialist theology and to display to readers his knowledge and scholarship.

  • 124 Peter Lombard, Sententiae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap. 5, see Peter Lombard 1971- 1981, II, p. 302.
  • 125 Glossa ordinaria ad 1 Cor. 11, s.v. Accipite et manducate, see Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria 1 (...)
  • 126 Summa de sacramentis 1955, p. 45-46.
  • 127 Peter the Chanter 1954, p. 165.
  • 128 Weisweiler, Maître Simon, p. 39*-40*.
  • 129 PL, 217, col. 877 C-D.
  • 130 Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 2, art. 4b, sc. 1, ed. Thomas Aquinas 1980, p. 480
  • 131 Petrus de Tarantasia, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 2, art. 4, sc. 3, ed. in Innocent V 1649-165 (...)
  • 132 Richard of Mediavilla, Super IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, art. 3, q. 4, ed. Richard de Mediavilla 159 (...)
  • 133 John Duns Scotus, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 7, ed. Jean Duns Scot 1891-1895, XVII, p. 496.
  • 134 Gabriel Biel, Canonis missae expositio, lectio 50, ed. in Gabriel Biel 1963- 1976, II, p. 26.
  • 135 Nikifor of Kyiv 1992, p. 79.

42Curiously, Anselm’s error was destined for a long life. From the mid-twelfth century onwards we find in Latin theology repeated allegations that the Greek Church does not mix her Eucharistic chalice with water. Peter Lombard in his “Sentences” provided the starting point for the history of this allegation that stretched for almost three centuries. When discussing the admixture of wine and water in book four, he made in passing the following remark: “They say that the Greek Church does not add water [to the Eucharistic wine]” (Graecorum Ecclesia non apponere aquam dicitur)124. By the caution with which the author of the “Sentences” expresses himself it seems that he was not certain whether the information was reliable enough. What could be his source? Lombard visited Rome shortly after the death of Pope Eugene III in the years 1153- 54, certainly before the composition of the fourth book of the “Sentences”. There are good reasons to assume that Lombard either got acquainted with the Anticimenon and/or used directly or indirectly the same (oral?) source that Anselm had used. The unique place of the Lombard’s “Sentences” in the history of theology in the West ensured a long life for his brief remark. It was repeated, sometimes with comments and reflections, by innumerable commentators; the allegation appears also in a number of other important Latin theological texts including the biblical Glossa ordinaria125. Even more: the topic of the unmixed chalice began to occupy a conspicuous place in the hierarchy of controversial issues between the Roman and the Greek Churches in the Latin theological texts of early and high scholasticism. Certainly not nearly as prominent as the questions of leavened or unleavened Eucharistic bread and the Filioque, it nevertheless attracted considerable attention: there are passages on the alleged absence of water in the Greek Eucharist in the summa Totus homo,126 Peter the Chanter,127 Peter Comestor,128 Innocent III,129 Thomas Aquinas,130 Peter of Tarentaise,131 Richard of Mediavilla132 and Duns Scotus.133 Even such a late author as Gabriel Biel reiterates the Lombard’s remark.134 Although most Byzantine authors of the period were hardly aware of this “difference” between the Churches, it is worth mentioning that some Greek authors, like Nikifor of Kyiv in the twelfth century, accused the Latin Church of the alleged lack of the admixture of water.135 Originating in the Greek anti-Armenian context, this accusation seems to have been employed with polemical ardor indiscriminately in every possible (and impossible) direction. The significance of this curious topic lies, however, in the fact that it spurred –among other controversial issues on ritual– Latin theological reflections on the problem of cultural “otherness” of the Christians of the East. Although based on erroneous information, the topic sometimes provided a good occasion to discuss the important problem of the unity of faith in the diversity of liturgical traditions in the One Church of Christ.

43Clashes on ritual, including discussions about azymes or the mixed chalice, revealed the differences between the Churches in the cultural arena. Is the existence of such differences beneficial, or is it harmful for the Church? How should Latins cope with the cultural “otherness” of the Eastern Christians? Should Latins accept the ritual and canonical “deviations” of the Eastern Church and regard them on equal terms with developments in their own, Latin Church? Or, is this specificity reprehensible –something that should be prohibited and suppressed? And, finally: what should be the perfect Church order in light of different local cultures? From both sides voices of theologians were heard who categorically denied the right of others to be different and called for the elimination of divergences and for the “correction” of the other. Contrary to these voices, it was one of the achievements of early scholastic theology, in particular in such authors like Peter Abelard and Anselm of Havelberg, to recognize that uniformity in cultural matters may easily become a road towards the rupture of Church unity.

  • 136 PL, 188, col. 1145 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 97: An non putandi sunt isti et quamplures alii testimoni (...)
  • 137 PL 188, col. 1162 B = Spicilegium 1677, p. 122.

44Anselm of Havelberg coined a phrase “in one faith, in a diversity of sacramental rites” (una fide, diverso sacrificiorum ritu) when discussing the relation between unity and diversity in the Church in its earthly, historical manifestation.136 This formula appears in book one which is devoted to the justification and, even more, praise of the plurality of monastic ways of consecrated life and prayer. In the prooemium secundi libri Anselm draws a parallel between the topic of book one and the subject of the dialogue between Anselmus and Nechites in books two and three. If the diversity of monastic orders, with their different rules, is beneficial for the Church, can the differences between the Roman and the Greek Churches be seen as equally beneficial? In view of the gravity of the problem, in particular of the dogmatic question of the Filioque, the author recognizes that he does not think himself “able to resolve so important a question entirely”, but he “prefer[s] to say something even if it must be amended later rather than offend, by maintaining silence, the generosity of those whom [he] owe [s] a response”.137 The impression one gains is that the author enveloped his discussion in a dialogical form precisely because he preferred to abstain from categorical judgments. The overall tenor of the discussion in books two and three points, however, unambiguously towards the positive recognition of the liturgical and even theological diversity between the two ecclesiastical traditions. In the author’s plea for mutual recognition, both his literary figures –Anselmus as well as Nechites– function as his mouthpieces. Both of them agree on fundamental points, like the necessity of ceasing mutual accusations, recognizing each other’s diversity, and resolving their problems in a common general council. It is amazing that the literary figure of Nechites in some cases seems to be closer to Anselm the author who praised the diversity within the Church in book one, than his other literary creation, Anselmus. The chapter on the admixture of water provides a good example of this. In the final remarks on the entire discussion of ritual differences between the Churches, Anselm places this sentence in the mouth of Nechites:

  • 138 W, fol. 161r-162v: sicut ex multis purissimi frumenti granis tam azyma quam fermentata hostia confi (...)

Just as the host is made –whether leavened or unleavened– from many grains of pure wheat, and as from many grapes together the wine is pressed, so from many throngs of Greeks and Latins let us constitute one Church […]. For you as well as for us we must fear dangerous contention more than difference in the exercise of one and the same oblation.138

  • 139 After this essay was submitted to the publisher, a new book-length study appeared in print: Kapriev (...)

45To conclude, we come back to the question of the ecumenical importance of Anselm of Havelberg. The discovery of the non-historicity of those parts of the Anticimenon that contain a dialogue with the Eastern Church deprives Anselm’s work of its status of a primary source in respect to Byzantine theology. It is misleading to quote passages from Nechites, the Greek debater in books two and three of the Anticimenon, as an example of Byzantine views in the twelfth century. At the same time, this discovery makes it possible to gain new insights into foundational aspects of the Latin theology of the mid-twelfth century. The case study on the admixture of water in the Eucharist demonstrates that even such fictitious problem could promote discussion on issues of fundamental importance. The topic of water functions in the Anticimenon as an illustration of the main concern of the entire work – the unity of faith in the plurality of ecclesiastical traditions and sacramental rites.139

Notes

1 Although a substantial number of publications of a range of quality have appeared since 1980 (discussed and/or quoted below), the following three titles are foundational for the current state of research: (1) Sieben 1984, p. 153-187; (2) Lees 1998; (3) Anselm of Havelberg 2010b. Title 1 is a slightly revised version of Sieben 1979. Lees’ book (title 2) is undoubtedly the best monograph on Anselm up to the present date; the more recent Sigler 2005, despite once being praised almost as a definitive biography (Communicantes. Schriftenreihe zur Spiritualität des Prämonstratenserordens, 24, 2009, p. 182-184), is not nearly so comprehensive and contains conspicuous flaws, cf. note 60 below. Title 3 contains not only a German translation of Anticimenon but also a detailed commentary indispensable for the study of Anticimenon’s sources.

2 The critical edition of Anselm’s works announced in the 1970s by J.W. Braun has not been produced; see Braun 1972; Braun 1978; Braun 1980.

3 A concise account of the main facts of Anselm’s biography known today appears in Braun 1978, p. 384-385. Anselm was born before 1099, consecrated by Norbert of Xanthen in 1129 as bishop of Havelberg (the town exists to this day in Germany, Sachsen-Anhalt, and bears the same name, not “Brandenberg”, as in Taft 2000, p. 457). Anselm visited Constantinople at least twice: in 1135-36 on a mission on behalf of German Emperor Lothair III, and in 1153-54 as an ambassador of Emperor Frederic Barbarossa. A Greek report on a debate probably conducted by Anselm during his latter travel, see in Schmidt 1901. Anselm was made archbishop of Ravenna in 1155 and died on August 8, 1158 during the siege of Milan by Barbarossa’s army. See also Dombrowski 1880 (still indispensable for Anselm’s biography); Lees 1998, p. 11-122. The itinerary in Sigler 2005, p. 327-37, is to be used with caution. On Anselm as adviser to German kings see Uebach 2008, p. 159-160.

4 The title “Anticimenon” is testified by the vast majority of manuscripts; see Braun 1972, p. 135-136; Anselm of Havelberg 2010b, p. 37-38. Known today are 13 manuscripts of Anticimenon dating from the XVth to the XVIIIth centuries (details in Braun 1972; Anselm of Havelberg 2010b, p. 34-37). Editio princeps, on the basis of two, now-missing manuscripts from Cîteaux: Spicilegium 1677. The editors of the second edition of Spicilegium introduced a number of changes into d’Achéry’s text that mostly made it worse (cf. Braun 1978, p. 387): Spicilegium 1723. This latter text was reprinted in Migne’s Patrologia latina (hereafter: PL), 188, col. 1139-1248, under the title Dialogi, with numerous printing errors. Book 1 of the Anticimenon was published separately in Sources chrétiennes, 118 by G. Salet (Paris, 1966) following the 2nd edition of Spicilegium, with a few corrections and improvements together with a French translation. For a full English translation of the work see Anselm of Havelberg 2010a; for the German translation by H.J. Sieben see Anselm of Havelberg 2010b.

5 Epistola… ad Ecbertum abbatem Huysborgensem contra eos qui importune contendunt monasticum ordinem digniorum esse in ecclesia quam canonicum, known under the title given by the first publisher: Epistola apologetica pro ordine canonicorum regularium. Editio princeps in Anselm of Havelberg 1747, on the basis of a manuscript from Munich, Clm, 1904 (Braun 1978, p. 386); the text is reprinted in PL 188, col. 1117-1140. Engl. transl. in Anselm of Havelberg 2007, p. 38-62.

6 Tractatus de ordine pronuntiandae letaniae ad Fridericum Magdeburgensem archiepiscopum, printed in Winter 1882, p. 144-155.

7 Two of Anselm’s letters to Wibald of Stablo are part of the collection of Wibald’s correspondence; they are printed in Bibliotheca rerum Germanicarum 1864, p. 263 (#158); 339-341 (#221). A German translation of letter #221 with a commentary: Pfändner 1931. Another of Anselm’s letters, addressed to Peter the Venerable, is printed in Recueil des chartes de l’Abbaye de Cluny 1894, V, p. 526-527 (#4176).

8 An example of such “splitting” is the French edition of book 1 as a separate text in Sources chrétiennes (s. note 4 above).

9 Dombrowski 1880, p. 41: “Ansichten überraschen, die unserer Gegenwart anzugehören scheinen”; Braun 1978, p. 390: Anselm “vertrat […] ein geradezu modern anmutendes Geschichtsverständnis”. Cf. similar statements in Dräseke 1901, here p. 172; Fina 1956-1958, here Analecta Praemonstratensia, 33, 1957, p. 275.

10 Evans 1991; Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 34-36.

11 Cf. van Engen 1983, p. 1-2.

12 Dempf 1954, p. 241-243; Schreiber 1941, p. 362; Rauh 1979. Although Rauh admits that Anselm occupies a “special place” (p. 270: “Sonderstellung”) among the German Symbolists, his conclusion does not deny Anselm’s affiliation with this current.

13 Fina 1956-1958, here: Analecta Praemonstratensia, 32, 1956, p. 221; 33, 1957, p. 281. Here and in the following, all English translations from modern and classical languages are mine, with the exception of the translations from the Anticimenon. The latter are based on the English text provided by A. Criste and C. Neel (Anselm of Havelberg 2010a) – however, with adjustments and changes that I deemed necessary for the purposes of this paper.

14 Lauerer 1911, p. 51.

15 Berges 1956, p. 50.

16 Sigler 2005, p. iii, v, 270-273.

17 Fina 1956-1958, here Analecta Praemonstratensia, 34, 1958, p. 16: “sein ganzes Weltbild verrät eine tiefgreifende Säkularisierung”; ibidem, p. 28: “das sachlich-nüchterne, ja kühl berechnend-rationale Wesen”.

18 Edyvean 1972, p. 1-2. The expression “medieval patristic theology” goes back to Dom Jean Leclercq, see ibidem, p. 1.

19 Annalista Saxo, AD 1135 (MGH, SS, VI, p. 769): Inperator […] assumptionem sanctae Marie Merseburh celebravit. Illuc confluebant […] et legati Grecorum inperatoris, honorifica secum munera ferentes, pacem ab inperatore et amicicia ac auxilium contra Rokkerum tirannum poscentes, qui partem Romani inperii et terram Grecorum nimis vexaverat. Quibus decenter remuneratis cum suis legatis Anselmo Havelbergensi episcopo et ceteris eos in propria remisit. Ibidem, AD 1136 (MGH, SS, VI, p. 770): Inperator […] celebravit […] natalica apostolorum Petri et Pauli Goslarie; ibique Anselmus Havelbergensis episcopus rediens a Constantinopoli quo missus fuerat ad eum venit. Cf. Annales Magdeburgenses, MGH, SS, XVI, p. 185-186.

20 In the following I will identify my quotations from Anticimenon, for the sake of convenience, by the column number of the most easily available PL edition. In many cases, however, Migne’s text has to be corrected on the basis of manuscripts and/or the editio princeps by d’Achéry (see Spicilegium 1677). Such cases will be indicated in the notes. For the purposes of this article, the following manuscripts have been consulted: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6488, anno 1437 (hereafter: M); Berlin, Staatsbibliothek der Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 80, saec. XV (hereafter: B); Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek, August. 11.14, saec. XVI (hereafter: W). According to Braun 1972, p. 175, they represent the main manuscript groups of the stemma.

21 See, e.g.: positisque silentiariis sicut ibi mos est, et datis arbitris, et sedentibus notariis, quae omnia quae hinc inde dicerentur, fideliter exciperent et scripto commendarent; […] sedibus e regione positis (PL, 188, col. 1163). The latter remark is mistranslated in Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 86, as “the seats arranged by the hearers’ respective regions of origin”. The source of this mistranslation could have been: Russell 1979, p. 34 = Kληρονομία, 10, 1978, p. 96. For the correct understanding of this expression see the German translation: Anselm of Havelberg 2010b, p. 77.

22 PL, 188, col. 1163B: mense Aprili die decimo, si tamen bene memor sum.

23 PL, 188, col. 1209A: … cum in praeterita hebdomada in loco, qui vocatur Pisanorum vicus, convenissemus…

24 There were five churches in Constantinople dedicated to St. Irene. In his text Anselm does not refer to the best known “Old Saint Irene” (̔ Αγία Εἰρήνη ἡ Παλαιά) founded by Constantine the Great in the fourth century, since this church was located not in the Pisan district but downtown, close to the Hagia Sophia. The only “Saint Irene” that pertains to us here is the ̔ Αγία Εἰρήνη τοῦ Περάματος; see Janin 1964, p. 112-113, contrary to the mistaken identification of the venue of the dispute on April 10, 1136, with the “old Constantinian church” in Schreiber 1941, p. 360. Russell 1979, p. 95, confuses the two churches.

25 PL, 188, col. 1209: … quoniam omnium vestrum excellentiae placuit ut in hac sancta basilica Sanctae Sophiae iterum conveniremus, in cuius absida nunc sedemus.

26 On James of Venice (floruit 1157-1169) see Minio-Paluello 1952; Grabmann – Ott 1956; Schultess – Imbach 1996, p. 476-477. On Burgundio of Pisa (ca. 1110- 1193) see Classen 1974; Lexikon des Mittelalters, II, col. 1097-1098; Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 340; Schultess – Imbach, p. 404. On Moses of Bergamo (before 1100 - after 1156-1157), see Lexikon des Mittelalters, VI, col. 862; Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 1417.

27 See the discussion in Magdalino 1993, p. 325-330.

28 PL, 188, col. 1140 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 89: ego aliquando magni Lotharii Romanorum imperatoris augusti legatus fui in Constantinopolim, et ibidem aliquam [W: aliquandiu] moram faciens, multas super huiusmodi doctrina et ritu collationes et quaestiones, modo in privatis, modo in publicis, tam Latinorum quam Graecorum conventibus habui.

29 PL, 188, col. 1156: avidus explorator et diligens inquisitor diversarum religionum.

30 PL, 188, col. 1163: placuit imperatori piissimo Kalojoanni, placuit etiam patriarchae civitatis N. viro religioso, ut publicus conventus fieret.

31 Thus, Russell opines, without any substantiation, that Anselm’s report was based “on a verbatim record” (Kληρονομία, 10, 1978, p. 85), and that Anselm worked on the basis of the text “taken down by the stenographers” (the revised version of Russell’s article in Sobornost, 1/2, 1979, p. 20).

32 On the date of the Anticimenon, see Braun 1978, p. 387; Lees 1998, p. 164-165.

33 PL, 188, col. 1139-1142 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 88-90.

34 PL, 188, col. 1141: Conservavi autem, quantum memoria subministrabat, tenorem dialogi.

35 E.g., Beumer 1951, p. 466.

36 Spiteris 1979, p. 89: “Gli studiosi sono d’accordo nell’ammettere che Anselmo è fedele se non alla forma, almeno al pensiero dei suoi interlocutori e questo per le seguenti ragioni […]. Possiamo, quindi, credere con grande probabilità che Anselmo […] ci riporta l’autentico pensiero dei greci sul primato papale”.

37 Finke 1942; Berges 1956, p. 45, 56-57.

38 Sieben 1984, esp. p. 160-162; Lees 1998, p. 245, 248-249.

39 Henceforth I refer to both names in italics in the form used in the manuscript tradition to distinguish the interlocutors of books 2 and 3 of the Anticimenon as literary figures from Anselm of Havelberg and Nicetas of Nicomedia as real historical figures (cf. the distinction between “Anselm the writer” and “Anselm the debater” in Lees 1998, p. 235ff.).

40 Cf. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Medievalis, XIII, 483-489, with PL, 188, col. 1202-1208.

41 PL, 188, col. 1206D-1207A.

42 PL, 188, col. 1197A; 1212D; 1218A. See Lees 1998, p. 248-249, n. 259, and p. 257; Anselm of Havelberg 2010b, p. 31, n. 3.

43 Lees 1998, p. 245. Cf. PL, 188, col. 1183D-1184A with PL, 188, col. 1119B-C.

44 The translation used by Anselm is unknown to modern scholarship. It has been previously assumed that no Latin translation of the fifth Oratio theologica existed prior to the Renaissance. Anselm might have used a translation produced by one of his contemporaries, most likely by one of those three Latin translators (Burgundio of Pisa, James of Venice, Moses of Bergamo) who, according to his report in the Anticimenon, attended the debates of 1136. On the borrowings from Gregory of Nazianzus in the Anticimenon see Lees 1998, p. 197-198, n. 109; Anselm of Havelberg 2010b, p. 27-29; Berschin 2012. This article is a revised version of Berschin 1988. On Gregory of Nazianzus in Anselm see also Dunkle 2012.

45 Darrouzès 1965, p. 60 and n. 7.

46 PL, 202, col. 236D, 295B, 360A, 242B, and others.

47 Lauerer 1911, p. 56, n. 16.

48 See note 1 above.

49 Sieben 1984, p. 162: “Für jedes einzelne der vorgetragenen Argumente gegen die Historizität der Dialoge mag man noch Gegenargumente finden. Lässt man sie jedoch in ihrer Gesamtheit auf sich wirken, besonders aus der Quellenbenutzung sich ergebenden, so scheint es vernünftiger, von einer globalen Nichthistorizität auszugehen. Wir haben es in den beiden Büchern nicht mit der Aufzeichnung des tatsächlichen Verlaufs des Glaubensgesprächs zu tun, sondern vielmehr mit einem literarischen Produkt, mit einem fingierten Dialog, der freilich in seinem gedanklichen Kern und seiner Substanz auf Gespräche zurückgehen mag, die 14 Jahre vorher in Byzanz geführt worden waren”.

50 Beck 1959, p. 313-314.

51 Fina 1956-1958, here Analecta Praemonstratensia, 32, 1956, p. 97: “Bezüglich der Treue der Wiedergabe ist zu sagen, dass es gar nicht im Sinne Anselms legen konnte, sein Gespräch mit Niketas genau wiederzugeben; seine Absicht lief vielmehr, gemäss dem Verlangen des Papstes Eugen nach einem apologetischen Kompendium vor allem für die Hand des Kontroverstheologen auf eine möglichst klare und systematische Darlegung des Gemeinsamen und des Trennenden in der westlichen und der östlichen Lehrmeinung mit Betonung des didaktischen Elementen hinaus”.

52 Sieben 1984, p. 162: “So interpretiert, haben wir in den Büchern II und III nicht nur einen west-östlichen Dialog, sondern auch west-westlichen”.

53 Lees 1982, p. 192-194, esp. p. 194, n. 128: “Although I disagree with Sieben on the question of the historicity of the dialogi, […] Sieben’s work remains an important one”.

54 Lees 1998, p. 233.

55 See quotations provided in n. 19 above.

56 See note 26 above.

57 See Classen 1974, p. 71-72.

58 Lees 1998, p. 234.

59 Siecienski 2010, p. 111; see also the chapter “Anselm of Havelberg (d. 1158) and Nicetas of Nicomedia”, p. 121-123.

60 Scheib 2009, p. 38; Knell 2009, p. 26, 36-41, esp. 38, 188; Siecienski 2010, p. 121-123 – all seem to have no knowledge of the studies of Sieben and Lees. Gahbauer 1993, p. 192-194; Chadwick 2003, p. 228-232, and Sigler 2005, p. 299-315, quote Sieben and/or Lees, but make no attempt to reconsider the issue in the light of their studies. An excellent counterexample of a thoughtful reconsideration of Anselm of Havelberg taking into account Sieben’s discoveries is Morrison 1987, p. 219-256.

61 Ware 2015, p. 47-48.

62 I already touched upon this topic in my German book, Avvakumov 2002, p. 161-197, but Anselm of Havelberg was not my main focus there.

63 The scholarship on the Filioque controversy is immense. I list a few publications of recent decades that have relevance for the topic of my paper: Gemeinhardt 2002; Daley 2001a; Daley 2001b; Siecienski 2010.

64 The controversy on the leavened/unleavened bread (“azymes”) began in the mid-eleventh century. On the controversy, see Avvakumov 2002, p. 29-159, and passim. See also Erickson 1970; Smith III 1978.

65 The issue of papal primacy emerged rather late as a subject of controversies with the Greeks if compared with the questions of the Filioque and azymes. The Latins started reflecting on it with relation to the Byzantines already in the time of the papal reform of the eleventh century, but this reflection remained unknown to the Byzantines for almost a century. It is generally accepted that the issue of the papal primacy was discussed for the first time in 1112; see Gahbauer 1975. On the understanding of primacy in the eleventh century against the backdrop of the Latin-Byzantine relations see D’Agostino 2008.

66 Dräseke 1901, p. 178: Hierauf näher einzugehen ist bei der Geringfügigkeit des Gegenstandes um so weniger erforderlich, als Anselm und Niketas sich hier wirklich verständigen.

67 Lees 1998, p. 275-278; Sigler 2005, p. 304.

68 Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 202. They refer to Chadwick 2003, p. 226 which contains an equally misleading treatment of the topic.

69 On the rite of prothesis or proskomidy, see Taft 1975; and Mandalà 1935.

70 Hanssens 1930, p. 231-242; and Taft 1987. This latter article, with revisions and additions, was incorporated into Taft 2000, p. 441-502. Useful up to this day are earlier works: Petrus Arcudius 1672, p. 173-175; Berlendi 1743, p. 53-56. On the rite of zeon and the controversy about it: Jugie 1930, p. 223-227; Petrus Arcudius 1672, p. 320-322; Goar 1730, p. 127-128; Brinktrine 1937; Grondijs 1960, p. 51-71.

71 PG, 86, col. 2400-2401.

72 PG, 98, col. 384-353.

73 Nedungatt – Featherstone 1995, p. 106-110.

74 On the problem of the author and the text history of Protheoria see Bornert 1966, p. 181-199; cf. the review by J. Darrouzès in Revue des études byzantines, 25, 1967, p. 286; and Darrouzès 1974, p. 199-203.

75 PG, 140, col. 464B.

76 Nicetas Stethatos, Dialexis, in Michel 1930, p. 325.

77 PG, 130, col. 1184A.

78 PG, 137. col. 620-621.

79 Leo Tuscus 1966, p. 136.

80 On the absence of water admixture in the Armenian liturgy see Hanssens 1930, II.1, p. 250-271; Jugie 1930, V, p. 689-693; Galanus 1661, II, p. 560-578.

81 Nedungatt – Featherstone 1995, p. 106-110.

82 PG, 130, col. 1181 D-1184 C.

83 The river Azat served as the borderline between the Roman and the Persian empires.

84 Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 132, Subsidia 4, 226-227.

85 For more detail about this remark, see Taft 2000, p. 450-452.

86 PG, 133, p. 253-265.

87 Gregory VII 1920-1923, p. 511.

88 The word “azymes” referred primarily to Jewish cultic bread; the expression “unleavaned bread” was, on the contrary, religiously neutral. On the nuances of the use of the expressions “unleavened bread” and “azymes” in Byzantine polemics, see Avvakumov 2002, p. 34-37.

89 Nicetas Stethatos, Dialexis, in Michel 1930, p. 324-325.

90 Will 1861, p. 139.

91 PL, 188, col. 1241 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 243-244.

92 On skeuophylakion see, Lexikon des Mittelalters, VII, col. 1074.

93 This was rightly observed by Hanssens 1930, II.1, p. 242.

94 PL, 188, col. 1241= Spicilegium 1677, p. 244.

95 PL 188, col. 1242= Spicilegium 1677, p. 245.

96 See note 36 above.

97 Taft 1987, p. 333.

98 Taft 2000, p. 457-458.

99 PL, 176, col. 145.

100 Cyprian, Ep. 63, ad Caecilium, 17, ed. in Cyprian 1871, p. 715: Si quis de antecessoribus nostris vel ignoranter vel simpliciter non hoc observavit quod nos Dominus facere exemplo vel magisterio suo docuit, potest simplicitati eius indulgentia Domini venia concedi: nobis vero non poterit ignosci, qui nunc a Domino admoniti et instructi sumus, ut calicem dominicum vino mixtum secundum quod Dominus optulit, offeramus.

101 Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap 5, see Peter Lombard 1971-1981, II, p. 302.

102 Gandulph of Bologna, Sententiarum libri quatuor, lib.4, 120, see Gandulph of Bologna 1924, p. 451.

103 Peter Comestor 1937, p. 40*.

104 Ambrose of Milan, De sacramentis, lib. 5, cap. 1, 4, see Ambrose 1955, p. 60-61.

105 Burchard of Worms, Decretorum libri XX, lib. 5, cap. 5, see Burchard of Worms 1658, fol. 95r.

106 Anselm of Lucca, Collectio canonum, lib. 9, cap. 1, see Anselm of Lucca 1915, p. 459.

107 Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, pars 2, cap. 15, in PL, 161, col. 164.

108 Decretum Gratiani, in Corpus iuris canonici, D.2 de cons. c. 1, see Decretum Gratiani 1879, I, p. 1314.

109 Decretales pseudo-Isidorianae 1863, p. 99.

110 So in Peter Lombard, Sententiae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap. 5, see Peter Lombard 1971-1981, p. 301.

111 Cyprian 1871, p. 711-712.

112 See, e.g., Anselm of Lucca 1915, lib. 9, cap. 4, p. 460; Decretum Gratiani 1879, D.2 de cons. c. 2, p. 1314-1315.

113 Bede the Venerable, In Lucae Evangelium expositio, 6 (ed.: Bede the Venerable 2001a, p. 378-379), parall. Bede the Venerable, In Marci Evangelium expositio, 4 (ed.: Bede the Venerable 2001b, p. 611-612).

114 PL, 178, col. 1742.

115 PG, 133, col. 253-265. On the debates and their context, see Aram (Keshishean) 2010; Zekiyan 1986; Cowe 2006, p. 413.

116 Landgraf 1934, p. 42: Queritur, quare aqua apponatur, cum Christus non apposuerit, quando corpus et sanguinem suum discipulis dedit in cena.

117 PL, 188, col. 1242-1243 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 245-246.

118 PL, 178, col. 1742 B.

119 The text is edited in Taft 2000, p. 461-463.

120 Anselm of Havelberg 2010a, p. 45.

121 Otto of Freising reports on this embassy in Chronica, lib. 7, cap. 32, see Otto of Freising 1974, p. 552.

122 The letter is not preserved. A reference to it is found in the acts of the Armenian council of Sis of 1307, see Halfter 1996, p. 139-143.

123 Otto of Freising 1974, p. 554.

124 Peter Lombard, Sententiae, lib. 4, dist. 11, cap. 5, see Peter Lombard 1971- 1981, II, p. 302.

125 Glossa ordinaria ad 1 Cor. 11, s.v. Accipite et manducate, see Biblia Latina cum Glossa ordinaria 1992, IV, p. 326.

126 Summa de sacramentis 1955, p. 45-46.

127 Peter the Chanter 1954, p. 165.

128 Weisweiler, Maître Simon, p. 39*-40*.

129 PL, 217, col. 877 C-D.

130 Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 2, art. 4b, sc. 1, ed. Thomas Aquinas 1980, p. 480.

131 Petrus de Tarantasia, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 2, art. 4, sc. 3, ed. in Innocent V 1649-1652, IV, p. 126.

132 Richard of Mediavilla, Super IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, art. 3, q. 4, ed. Richard de Mediavilla 1591, p. 144.

133 John Duns Scotus, In IV Sententiarum, dist. 11, q. 7, ed. Jean Duns Scot 1891-1895, XVII, p. 496.

134 Gabriel Biel, Canonis missae expositio, lectio 50, ed. in Gabriel Biel 1963- 1976, II, p. 26.

135 Nikifor of Kyiv 1992, p. 79.

136 PL, 188, col. 1145 = Spicilegium 1677, p. 97: An non putandi sunt isti et quamplures alii testimonio fidei probati fuisse de unitate ecclesiae, qui, licet una fide, tamen diversis modis vivendi et diverso sacrificiorum ritu unum Deum coluerunt?

137 PL 188, col. 1162 B = Spicilegium 1677, p. 122.

138 W, fol. 161r-162v: sicut ex multis purissimi frumenti granis tam azyma quam fermentata hostia conficitur, et sicut ex multis uvis in unum collectis vinum expressum colligitur, ita ex multis tam Graecorum quam Latinorum turbis una et concors [...] Magis enim tam nobis quam vobis timenda est periculosa contentio, quam ejusdem oblationis [Spicilegium 1677, Spicilegium 1723 and PL: obigationis] diversa consuetudo.

139 After this essay was submitted to the publisher, a new book-length study appeared in print: Kapriev 2018. The study offers a nice summary of modern research on Anselm and is definitely to be recommended in this capacity. It does not, however, introduce any new sources on the subjects related to the topic of my essay and I see no reasons to change anything in my text. The groundbreaking value of Sieben’s and Lees’ classical studies remains incontestable even after the appearance of this new book.

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Université de Notre-Dame (Indiana, États-Unis)

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