John Italus (c.1025-c.1082) succeeded his teacher Michael Psellus as “Consul of the Philosophers”, the most prestigious philosophy post in Byzantium. Much like Psellus, John lost his post after becoming embroiled in a fiery controversy that saw him crushed by the combined power of the church and the state. John Italus, as his name suggests, originated from Italy and was half Norman.
He moved to Constantinople, where he attended the lectures of Psellus and began to form a reputation as a formidable dialectician. Psellus said of him: “His speech did not bring joy to the soul, but compelled one to ponder over what had been said… It might not fascinate through its beauty, but subdued through the force of argument.” After Psellus was forced into exile, John took over his position in the School of Philosophy at the University of Constantinople.
It has been said that if Psellus could claim to have rediscovered the philosophy of Plato, it was only with John that the serious study of the ancient philosophers began. John became particularly well known for his prowess in dialectics and argument. One historian wrote: “With fanatical zeal for dialectic he [Italus] caused daily commotions in public gatherings as he poured out a continuous stream of subtle argument; subtle propositions were followed in turn by subtle reasons to support them…He gave the impression of vast learning, and it seemed that no other mortal was more capable of thorough research into the mysteries of the peripatetic philosophers, and more particularly of dialectic…
So powerful was he in discourse, so irrefutable, that his opponent was inevitably reduced to impotent silence.” These quotes are from Anna Komnene’s famous Alexiad. Anna was the eldest daughter of emperor Alexius I, and she wrote a long panegyric of her father’s reign (1081-1118). Significantly, this is the very first history to be written by a woman in the medieval world, whether in Byzantium or in western Europe. Anna was a highly educated and philosophically trained princess. She wrote the Alexiad in the most developed Byzantine style of Attic Greek, and later in life she gathered around her a salon of scholars whom she commissioned to investigate the works of Aristotle (in fact, she oversaw the very first commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics).
But despite her great learning, she detested John Italus. Although she could see that he was an exceptional thinker, she disapproved of (what seemed to her to be) the radical nature of his ideas. There was also a touch of xenophobia in her view of John. “His accent,” she writes, “was what one would expect from a Latin youth who had come to our country and studied Greek thoroughly but without mastering articulation; sometimes he mutilated his syllables.” More objectionable, however, was John’s hot-headedness. It seemed that John did not like to lose an argument!
As Anna Komnene states, “He was remarkably uncultured and temper was his master…The man was no more in control of his hands than his tongue. This alone would prove how unsuited he was to the philosopher’s life, for he struck his opponent.” Nevertheless, John proved to be very popular and influential, and Anna tells how young men flocked to his lectures, where he would discuss “the works of Proclus and Plato, and the teachings of the two philosophers Porphyry and Iamblichus, but especially the technical treatises of Aristotle.” But soon enough he and his students were suspected of reaching conclusions contrary to church teaching.
Like Socrates, John was accused of corrupting the young. In Anna Komnene’s words: “Italus was everywhere causing trouble and leading many astray.” John’s troubles began in 1076, when the then-emperor Michael VII (who was, in fact, a friend and patron of John’s) investigated these accusations of unorthodoxy and invited John to put his ideas into writing and to have them examined (anonymously) by the patriarch (Cosmas I). This John did, and his ideas were found to be heretical (though he was not condemned by name). But John was not happy with this outcome. He submitted a further personal profession of faith to Patriarch Cosmas for approval, but it seems that the patriarch ignored it or maybe even cleared him of guilt.
In 1081, there was a major change of guard, which was to make life for John even more difficult. After more than 50 years of ineffective and short-lived rulers, Alexius Komnenus seized the throne and founded the Komnenian dynasty, under which power became constricted almost exclusively to the imperial family. Meanwhile, John wished to clear his name and asked to have the whole affair reopened. John may have thought he had some chance of success, but the new emperor had other ideas. In March 1082 emperor Alexius initiated a new trial of Italus that proved to be an utter fraud and farce, but which served Alexius’ interests very well. In the imperial palace, the emperor presided over a tribunal made up of clerics and secular officials. John was quickly found guilty of the charges of heresy and adherence to philosophical theories that were incompatible with Christian doctrine.
The emperor then handed Italus to the new patriarch, Eustratius Garidas, who was asked to gather an ecclesiastical synod to make further inquiries and to in effect ratify the results of the state trial. But before the patriarchal synod could reach a decision, the mob burst into the chamber in the gallery of Hagia Sophia, where the meeting was being held, evidently to attack (if not kill) John. Anna Komnene writes: “He [Italus] would probably have been hurled from the galleries into the centre of the church if he had not hidden himself by climbing on to the roof and taken refuge in some hole.” The patriarchal synod duly convicted John of heresy, and he was compelled to renounce his views publicly from the pulpit in Hagia Sophia. He was then exiled to a monastery.
There is some evidence, however, that John repudiated his recantation and was then excommunicated – though, according to Anna Komnene, he repented late in life and was reconciled to the church. Despite the accusations levelled against him, it is highly unlikely that John espoused any heretical views. His trial was a sham. Even many bishops thought so. In a surviving record of the patriarchal synod it is stated that, after this synod, “certain officials of the episcopal rank and of the remaining clergy of the Great Church [i.e., Hagia Sophia] were whispering that they were doubtful about the issue of Italus and said that the matters concerning him were not investigated properly or accurately.” So why was the emperor hell-bent on crushing the poor philosopher? It’s not entirely clear.
There may have been some philosophical considerations at play here, especially because John advocated the use of logic and philosophical analysis when discussing theological issues and this may have been felt as threatening in the more conservative quarters of the church. But far more important were the political considerations. The trial helped Alexius to distract attention from his own behaviour.
The brutality with which he had seized the imperial throne, his plundering of the treasures of the church to pay for the war against the Normans, and his imposition of crushing taxes all made Alexius a highly unpopular emperor. To win the people over, Alexius initiated a series of ‘heresy trials’, with the trial of John Italus serving as a precedent. (Later on, Alexius had the leader of the Bogomil sect, Basil, burnt at the stake.) In addition, Alexius wished to discredit the deposed Doukas dynasty and the civil aristocracy which had a prominent place in Constantinople for much of the 11th century, and to do so he targeted those – like John Italus – who were closely connected to these circles. What would have happened to philosophy and theology in Byzantium had John Italus and his followers not been condemned and persecuted? We can only wonder. But it’s safe to say that, in putting John and other philosophers to trial, the life of the mind – the life of creative exploration and critical inquiry – was sadly diminished.
Dr Nick Trakakis is a Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University. He recently edited “Southern Sun, Aegean Light: Poetry of Second-Generation Greek-Australians”.
