Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition

by Philip Sherrard

"Lineaments - an outline, feature, or contour of a body or figure, especially of a face. In this culmination of his life's work, the popular Orthodox lay theologian and translator of the Philokalia draws from the depths of tradition the "face" of Christianity as a world religion. Through a critique of the modern scientific and rationalist paradigm, Sherrard seeks to restore the foundations of Christian cosmology and ecology, and to reaffirm the prime importance of xacred symbolism and art. The book includes a creative engagement with non-Christian traditions, with the "metaphysical logic" of René Guenon, and with distinctively modern thinkers such as Nietzsche and Jung.
Readers will, as always, find Sherrard's argument and insights fresh, provoking and challenging. The volume begins with a major biographical essay and commentary on Sherrard's oeuvre by Kallistos Ware."

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Christianity

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

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

[Ben de Groot]

Back when I was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, I had a huge respect for Philip Sherrard. This book came as quite a bombshell for many traditionalists, but it was of great help to me to open my eyes. This book gave me the courage to search for truth outside of Christianity, and take other sacred traditions serious.

[maia · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the most disappointing books. Sherrard contradicts himself a lot. this sounds more like new age crap than an actual rational presentation on Orthodox Christianity. A product of it's time. Perennialism, although claiming to be above the corruption of modernity, is a symptom of its sickness. Most arguments can be easily refuted.
The book is honestly badly written too.

[Yoni T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

profound insights on the orthodox christian metaphysics of logic contra guénonian metaphysics.