CHUECH COUNCIL ON UNION : FLOEENCE 125 utmost to urge on the work for which they had left their homes. In October the second meeting of the Council was held. By this time a considerable number of the fathers of the Church had made submission to Eugenius and had arrived in Ferrara. Gibbon's remark that ' the violence of the fathers of Basil rather promoted than injured the cause of Eugenius ' 1 is just. The delay had undoubtedly strengthened the papal authority. Hence at the second meeting of the Council its business began at once to pro- Business gress. Six Latin and six Greek theologians were selected com- to formulate the questions in difference. These related to mences - the Procession of the Holy Ghost ; the nature of the penalties of purgatory ; the condition of souls before the last judgment ; the use of unleavened bread in communion, and lastly, the supremacy of the pope. Meantime plague had broken out in Ferrara. Five only out of the eleven cardinals remained, and all that had been done was to formulate the points of difference. For some reason which is not quite clear, the Council was transferred to Florence. The unhealthiness of the city was alleged, but Syropulus says that the plague had ended. The Greeks were extremely reluctant to go to so remote a place as Florence, but they finally consented, in the hope of speedily concluding their mission. At Florence the Council got fairly to work. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had been president of the Council at Bale, and John, the head of the Dominicans in Italy, were the champions on the Latin, and Isidore of Russia, Bes- sarion, and Mark, bishop of Ephesus, on the Greek side. Long, weary, and profitless discussions took place on the subject of the Double Procession. Two questions were involved : first, was the doctrine itself orthodox — that is, did the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son ; second, assuming the Double Pro- cession to be orthodox, by what authority had the Latin Church, claiming to speak as the Universal Church, presumed 1 Vol. vii. p. 108.
