The Greek East and the Latin West: A Study in Christian Tradition

by Philip Sherrard

The division of Christendom into the Greek East and the Latin West has its origins far back in history but its consequences still affect Europe, and thus Western Civilization. Sherrard's study seeks to indicate both the fundamental character and some of the consequences of this division. He points especially to the underlying metaphysical bases of Greek Christian thought, and contrasts them with those of the Latin West.

Genres: Theology, History, Christianity, Religion, Philosophy

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Philip Sherrard was educated at Cambridge and London and taught at the universities of both Oxford and London, but he made Greece his permanent home. A pioneer of modern Greek studies and translator, with Edmund Keeley, of Greece's major modern poets, he wrote many books on Greek, philosophical and literary themes. He was also the translator and editor (with G.E.H. Palmer and Bishop Kallistos Ware) of the Philokalia, a collection of texts in five volumes by the spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition.

A profound, commited and imaginative thinker, his theological and metaphysical writings embrace a wide range of subjects, from the study of the spiritualizing potential of sexual love to the restoration of a sacred cosmology which he saw as the only way to escape from the spiritual and ecological dereliction of the modern world.

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philip Sherrard illuminates history like no one else I've read before. His vast knowledge is quite evident in the references he makes and the huge amount of supplemental reading material provided to accompany this book.

There is quite a bit in here about Aristotle, Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Plethon and the birth of the Occident in general, which has become one my favorite subjects as of late. It's amazing how you can trace a line directly from Aristotle to, say, Nietzsche, if you know what to look for. It was all there from the beginning, and it becomes more and more obvious to me that the break between the ancient, initiatory traditions, and the later, modern, analytical traditions, literally happens between Plato (who *was* an initiated mystic) and Aristotle (who was not, and clearly did not understand this part of Plato's teachings).

Lot of food for thought here, will need to give this a re-read in a year or so.

[0:50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short yet dense work of theology and history of ideas that makes an effort to study the intellectual developments of Byzantine/Ottoman Empire in parallel with the intellectual history of its Western counterpart. If nothing else, this approach has inherent interest in that it contextualises the presentation of Western history instead of letting its already implied counterpart languish in vague obscurity, "beyond history" as it were. Instead of focusing on a posited civilizational organism, the unifying factor here is Christianity and its relation to Greek classics. This lends this book an interesting vantage point from which to observe phenomena such as secularization.

It is first of all appropriate that a book opposing a supra-historical, supra-natural view to its increasing objectification would treat history of ideas largely through elaborations of doctrinal differences, consistently blurring the boundary between theology and history. The main point of contention, whether the Holy Spirit is projected from only the Father or rather from Son and Father both, gains a nearly apocalyptic significance that would perhaps surprise many who are indifferent to such arguments. This was the doctrinal source of the schism that cleaved the church apart, the Orthodox holding onto projection from Father alone while the Catholics embraced the so-called filioque interpretation of attributing the projection of spirit to both Son and Father equally. Of course, it is not just the surface of the argument that is at issue but the change in the underlying world-view that constitutes the radical nature of the schism.

According to Sherrard, the ever-progressive secularization, materialism and "spiritlessness" in the West can all be traced back to the filioque heresy which in turn was related to the justification of Church involvement in the "temporal" state in addition to its mystagogical role of initiating people into the mysteries of Christ. While the Orthodox East had to grapple with similar problems, Sherrard claims they never entered to the level of doctrine in a way that would undermine the primacy of the initiatory and supra-mundane role of the Church. It's hard to say whether that is truly so but if it is really true it is certainly in tension with Sherrard's other pro-Orthodox arguments which rely on the role of the Church in guiding and unifying people under positive spiritual influences. Certainly it would seem to make sense to address this unification in doctrine: although all this manner of argumentation betrays the pragmatic, societal orientation he so chastises in others. Classicism spreads as if by infection. It seems that a kind of zero-sum game is established between the twin poles of public, official influence and the purity of the "mysteries".

The fundamental metaphysical basis for all these massive developments come down to the question of essence. Sherrard portrays the Catholic mind as basically assenting to the conception of God as Being without any potentiality so that they must project the Holy Spirit together. If this were true, it seems that Holy Spirit could not be projected in this plenitude of Being but this problem is not delved into. In the Orthodox mindset, however, the parts of the trinity are truly distinct and God is not identified with Being: the distinctions of the hypostases are real, generated by different modes of generation within the Trinity. The powers of God are included within his purview and his perfection is not rationalized into a passive perfection. This means that that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone because the notion of God is not collapsed into an all-encompassing essence. Whatever the merits of this argument, it serves to illustrate some distinctions between these belief systems.

Another type of distinction arises from the conception of God's relation to man, a problem which relates to the essence-energies distinction. While in some places Orthodox Christianity seems to emphasize the incomprehensibility of God, this applies really only to rational comprehensibility: it more than compensates for this in the capacity of humans to partake in God's love through His uncreated energies which radiate from His unknowable Essence. The Western development faces the charge of severing this connection by subjecting God's essence to rational stabilization which results in a disconnection between it and the human soul since a created essence cannot partake an uncreated essence. This leads Augustine to emphasize the self in much the same way as Descartes was famous for centuries later. The best man can do is inspect copies of the higher world in his mind but he cannot partake in the spiritual working the principle. A sense of participation is missing which then naturally connects to rise of materialism etc.

Whatever your theological preference, the concept of energy remains interesting in how pathological it is: one of the prominent science wars argument was made against the use of the concept "energy" in a way which did not accord with its precise definition in science. But if so, where did science get that concept from? As we can see, energies are an old concept but yet they are something that has come to play only recently within Western science. It has no prestige outside science: you can talk about any philosophical concept you like but energy-talk places you firmly to the cloud cuckoo land in the eyes of many. It's worth asking, perhaps: why not "the energy" of this book rather than "the essence"(or "composition") of this book?

You could compare the Orthodox ideas to a third form of unity in addition to Catholic and Protestant ones. Catholic style is inclusive universality while the protestant style is exclusive universality: the former tries to build a pyramid while the latter is content with stealing its capstone. In contrast, the universalism of energy-participation would be something quite different than the Great Chain of Being and its concomitant constructed hierarchies. Following the analogy, trying to feel what it means to really like pyramids, big or small, perhaps. Of course, the downside is that there's a sense of impracticality in the real world, a sense of not standing up to reality and such: not to mention the prerequisite of blind faith, the lack of attempt at rational unification which would only, however, be a shadow of unity. Unfortunately, this book did little to convert me into Christianity because of the blind faith it requires. I saw a quote that went something like: "greater the void, the greater the divine influx". With mystical practices, the idea is to be receptive to divine energies. But I can't believe there's any kind of magical grace to guarantee that such a state would necessarily be open only to divine energies to the exclusion of all other innumerable entities in our world. Interpreted this way, the ironic angle becomes apparent: the Orthodox may have a point, but it is ultimately an argumentative point for non-argumentation, the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. Its argumentative form unthinkingly deals with the highest of all as "a matter of course" so that participants have no intellectual idea of what the divine is except for the mystical mist of paradoxes. It is a tragedy, then, if this leads to an intense experience and the misinterpretation of this as divine, neglecting the possibility that there might be many layers between the absolute and our current state. I'd rather follow the so-called "counter-initiation" because at least it starts from a lack of grace rather than from a delusive belief on it. Grace doesn't exist and no you're not saved, you probably got possessed by a demon.

[Jay D · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better introductory works for a westerner to read about the difference of approach to theology in the East. Particularly good are the chapters on essence/energy and scholasticism.

[Navel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sherrard masterfully demonstrates how the Platonic and Aristotelean philosophical influences that replaced true Christianity in the west via the thinking of Blessed Augustine and later Thomas Aquinas led into Renaissance humanist thinking. This eventually developed the modern secular materialist world we live in and how those same influences and ways of thinking threaten any peoples, such as Greeks in the modern day, who imbibe them culturally in place of the ancient Christian ethos.

[Joss Southgate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am fascinated with the topic of how the split in Christendom and the differences in theology, and conception of God and salvation, have ultimately forged the modern, diseased society of western secular liberalism which we see shambling towards it’s death in the 21st century.

This is likely a great book for those wishing to dive in deeply. I say likely, because I must confess that I do not have an academic grounding in philosophy and as such, there were some passages which were simply beyond my capacity to fully understand.

This is not to say I gleaned nothing from reading it. The difference between absolute divine simplicity and its consequences in the West, and the distinction between God’s essence and his divine energies preserved in the Orthodox Christian tradition are pivotal, and doubtless have affected the development of philosophy, theology, soteriology and science in ways we can scarcely comprehend.

A tough, but rewarding book, in keeping with the other books by Mr Sherrard that I have read. This is definitely one for the big-brain boys out there