ABSTRACT
Aimery of Limoges, who served as patriarch of Antioch from 1141 (or 1142) to 1196, is one of the better known figures of the Latin East. Although William of Tyre decried him as a man absque litteris, 2 there is substantial evidence for his intellectual interests. When Pope Eugenius III (1145–53) asked him for a Latin translation of John Chrysostom's commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, Aimery procured a copy of the original Greek text and sent it to Rome. In 1176 he corresponded with the Pisan, Constantinople-based theologian, Hugh Etherianus, received his tract on the double procession of the Holy Spirit, and asked him for others of his writings, as well as for a work of John Chrysostom on Paul's epistles, and for a chronicle of the Byzantine Empire. 3 (The attribution to Aimery of La Fazienda de Ultra Mar, a Castilian-written work that exhibits familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and with Jewish exegesis, should however be discarded.) 4 As a prelate, Aimery brought about the union of the Maronites with Rome in about 1181 and was probably involved in the Armenian rapprochement with Rome in 1184. Furthermore, in 1178 he took the unprecedented step of inviting a leading schismatic – the Jacobite patriarch Michael the Syrian – to the Third Lateran Council. Aimery also attempted to regulate the conduct of the many hermits who lived in solitude on the Black Mountain, laying down that each of them must have a spiritual guide. 5
