Letters of Peter III

Peter III of Antioch, Letters to Cerularius and to Dominic of Venice (1054)

Peter III, patriarch of Antioch

A stack of letters from a man who disliked the West, distrusted the argument, and spent the whole crisis trying to keep everyone at the table.

Catch rate: 63 / 255
Base research: 178
Stat total: 306

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina86

Contend70

Defend94

Popularity56

Total306

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 86

The whole correspondence survives, both directions, and it is how the affair is known at all. Very little of this man has been lost.

Contend 70

Modest. He is not trying to win. Every letter aims to stop something rather than defeat someone, which is a gentler kind of blow.

Defend 94

Almost impossible to dislodge. He grants the other side its complaints, agrees where he can, and still will not move off unity.

Popularity 56

Slow. Antioch was far from both Rome and Constantinople, and every letter took weeks.

Cited for this book

Peter III was patriarch of Antioch during the schism of 1054. He was the only leader who spent it trying to prevent the break rather than win it. He disliked the Latins and said so, but he begged Cerularius not to split the church. Even Adrian Fortescue, a Catholic historian, wrote that few people in this story deserve so much sympathy.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	They Are Our Brothers	Ecclesiology	Argument	72	100%	15
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
10	Affirm	—	Status	—	—	1
18	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
22	Both Customs	Ecclesiology	Argument	78	100%	15
26	The Source of Life	Christology	Argument	80	100%	10
34	A Sin of Both	History	Argument	86	100%	10
40	Everywhere Tears	Ecclesiology	Argument	85	100%	10
50	Speak Greek	History	Status	—	100%	5

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“They are our brothers… although their rusticity and stupidity often make them behave indecently. We must not expect from these barbarians the same perfect manners as we find among our civilized people.”
Peter III of Antioch, as translated in Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907), public domain.public domain

They Are Our Brothers

EcclesiologyArgument · power 72 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe least sentimental defence of unity ever written. He does not say they are admirable. He says they are family, which is a harder thing to get out of.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said.”
Acts 17:28 (WEB) — Paul at the Areopagus, quoting the Athenians’ own poets back to them.

Affirm

Status

In the gamePick the part of the opponent’s case that is true and affirm it. That point can no longer be used against you, and the opponent’s Defend falls sharply. It deals no damage. Affirm something false and you have only agreed with an error.

“Because we know that the sacred mixture of fermented bread is used and lawfully observed by the most holy and Orthodox Fathers of the Eastern Churches, we faithfully approve of both customs, and confirm both with a spiritual explanation.”
Dominic, patriarch of Venice, to Peter of Antioch, as translated in Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907), public domain.public domain

Both Customs

EcclesiologyArgument · power 78 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe answer that was on the table the entire time: leavened and unleavened are both lawful, both holy, and neither is worth a church.

Strong against

×4The Synodal Edicta book · why?

Both breads, both lawful, both holy — and the whole charge sheet loses its first and loudest item.

×2The Bull of 1054a book · why?

The reasonable answer was already written down, by a Latin, and nobody read it out.

“If, then, our offering of Azyme bread is not the Body of Christ, we are all of us cut off from the source of life.”
Dominic of Venice to Peter of Antioch, as translated in Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907), public domain.public domain

The Source of Life

ChristologyArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameFollows the accusation to its end and asks whether anyone really means it. If our bread is not his body, the whole West has been eating nothing for a thousand years.

Strong against

×2.5The Synodal Edicta book · why?

Follow the accusation all the way down and it swallows the West entire. He did not want that and could not say so.

“…we deplore and denounce the schism as a sin and disgrace of both churches.”
Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church IV §70 (1885), public domain.public domain

A Sin of Both

HistoryArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameRefuses the question of who started it. A Reformed historian looked at eight hundred years of this and declined to hand either side the win.

“Consider what would certainly happen if that great first and Apostolic See be divided from our holy Churches—wickedness would spread everywhere, and the whole world would be upset, the kingdoms of all the earth would be shaken, everywhere would be much woe, everywhere tears.”
Peter III of Antioch to Michael Cerularius, as translated in Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church (1907), from Will, Acta et Scripta (1861). Public domain.public domain

Everywhere Tears

EcclesiologyArgument · power 85 · 100% accurate

In the gameNot an argument. A patriarch on his knees to another patriarch, telling him exactly what it will cost, eleven months before it costs it.

Strong against

×2.5The Bull of 1054a book · why?

Somebody did beg them. It is in the correspondence, and it changed nothing.

×2.5The Synodal Edicta book · why?

His own brother patriarch, on his knees, telling him the price. He read this letter and filed it.