chryssavgis -- beauty and sacredness in sherrard.doc

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John Chryssavgis. Beauty and Sacredness in the Work of PhilipSherrard.Journal of Modern Greek Studies 16.1 (1998) 91-109.

Beauty and Sacredness in the Work of PhilipSherrard

John Chryssavgis

Abstract: Beauty and sacredness are interrelated

concepts, embodied as they are in a sacred

anthropology and cosmology. In his writings, Philip

Sherrard (d. 1995) articulates these profoundvalues with unique eloquence. He writes of the

beauty of the body, as well as of the need for

ascetic discipline. He emphasizes the innate

sacredness of life, art, and culture, but also

criticizes the dehumanization of humanity and the

desacralization of nature in recent times. He

describes the spiritual worldview of traditional

Christianity and the eclipse of this worldview in

contemporary science. In a word, he discerns the

beauty of Christ's countenance even in the

shattered image of the world. Sherrard's prophetic

voice is worth listening to.

"Exceedingly beautiful"

--Psalm 44:3 (45:3)

Introduction

Beauty and sacredness are neither abstract nor subjective realities. Beauty is the

response of creation to the sacredness of God; it is the material expression of a

spiritual reality. The beauty of the world is the tangible indication that this world ismade by a loving, divine God who manifests his transcendent holiness in the

immanent attractiveness of creation. Beauty and sacredness are therefore embodied

in a sacred anthropology and cosmology. They are articulated


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in the inspired utterances of prophets, sages,

seers, poets: . . . utterances, affirmed and re-

affirmed in the lives of generation after generation

of holy men and women . . .; and it is initially fromsuch doctrine that . . . we can learn who we are--

what we have the potential to be--and what

constitutes the true nature of the cosmos.

(Sherrard 1990:131-132)

This is how Philip Sherrard describes the transmission of the sacred principles that

define our appreciation of the values of the "beautiful" and the "sacred" in the world.

Notice how theology, cosmology, [End Page 91] and anthropology share the samelanguage in his thought. What Sherrard ultimately envisages is a tradition of beauty

and sacredness--a kind of spiritual "succession" through the centuries, or ametaphysical "pedigree" across cultures--that insures the continuity of the central

values of life and the world.

This outline of Sherrard's thought is based upon some of his major works. 1 I

endeavor to show (a) howthe erotic dimension of life and the environmental crisis

that we confront are in fact two sides of the same coin, (b) how the ascetic and theaesthetic (or iconic) aspects of a Christian world-view are interrelated.

The world of the body

The beauty of Eros. A philosophy of disembodiment is a philosophy of death; atheology of incarnation is a philosophy of life. The human person transcends all

forms of dualism--both inner (between body and soul) and outer (between man and

woman, as well as between humanity and the environment). Extreme asceticism andextreme spiritualism alike represent a partial truth, but to assert a partial truth is to

espouse a heresy. This is why the monastics of third- and fourth-century Egypt were

able to embrace with such veracity and ferocity the struggle within themselvesbetween body and soul: precisely because they were convinced that this reflected the

doctrinal formulation articulated during the same centuries concerning the two

natures united "unconfusedly and undividedly" 2in the one person of Christ.

Far from being a cause for "shame," the body reflects divine beauty and therefore is areason for God's glorification and the world's sanctification. Christians may be to

blame for many of the scars left on the concept of the body, yet

whatever differences there may be in emphasis, it

is quite clear that the notion that man is really a

bodiless spirit or soul who has been embodied
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temporarily as a result of the fall, and even as a

punishment for falling, so that salvation consists in

freeing the soul from the body and in

disincarnating, is no part of Christian doctrine.(Sherrard 1976:41)

If the incarnate self is the reality of human existence, then we must recognize itsclose involvement with sexuality. Human sexuality is not a mere accident of our

reality. Although sexuality and spirituality are not identical, they are intimately

related. Furthermore, since sexuality and the sense of beauty are also intimatelyrelated, we are called upon to understand sexuality as a living, flowing energy whose

ultimate source lies in God, and whose physical expression is but one aspect of its

fullness. Conversely, if we fail to experience or appreciate sexuality, we [End Page

92] gradually blur our sense of beauty. The sexual indulgence in contemporary

society is evidence of the absence, not of the excess, of true eros. Sherrard (1976:43)wonders whether even our negative attitude toward the natural world "cannot be

traced back ultimately to a fear of sexuality, and whether this fear has not led to ahostility towards and a wish to escape from the body."

It is difficult for a person to become aware of his or her own body without becoming

aware of the bodies of other people. In sexual love, a man and a woman "offer each

other" to the sacredness and beauty of the other, to the God in the other. Sherrard(1990:118) parallels this encounter with the event of the icon. There is an art that is

involved in sexual love, and the purpose of this "art . . . is to transfigure each other . .

. to see each other as the manifestation of the divine Beloved":

It is the same as it is with an icon: each becomes

for the other an icon, so that their love and their

mutual embracing are in recognition of the spiritual

reality that each incarnates. . . . If there is a place

for icons within the Christian framework then there

is a place for sexual love. (1976:47-48)

The body, physical beauty, and our sexuality are like a ladder that permits us to be

raised to divine beauty. They do not distract us, but actually attract us in our ascenttoward God. This is why St. John Climacus, the author ofThe Ladder of Divine

Ascent(late sixth century), can daringly propose: "Blessed is the one who has

obtained such love and yearning for God as a mad lover has for his beloved . . .

generating fire by fire, eros by eros, desire by desire" (1982: steps 26.31 and 30.5).Yet there has been a separation, even an opposition, between sensible beauty and

spiritual beauty. The continuity between sense and spirit has been distorted, even

lost; the ladder is broken. It takes much time and ascetic discipline to restore theladder, binding the heavenly and the earthly together once again. Even in its


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religious, moral, and spiritual depth, life can never be authentic without love, without

laughter, without eros, without sensuality, without sexuality, without intensity of

experience.

The purity of passion. This truth has always been understood by mystics and ascetics,who teach us that love is never satisfied, only fulfilled. Sherrard was aware that "the

sense of beauty that goes with [sexual love] cannot be achieved without the highest

degree of chastity" (1976:49). This was why he dedicated so many years of his life tothe English translation of thePhilokalia, the collection of Patristic texts on prayer

and the ascetic life that provides spiritual direction to enable readers to "love the

beautiful" (the literal meaning of the term ). This is also why Sherrard visited

the Holy Mountain so frequently, and fought-- [End Page 93] even to the point of

misunderstanding 3 --to preserve the beauty of its silence. He planned the translationof thePhilokalia from as early as 1971. His collaborators in this genuinely

cooperative venture were Gerald Palmer, who initiated the project but died in 1984,and Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia. Sherrard had already completed the firstdraft of the fifth and final volume a month before his death on 30 May 1995. In April

of that year, he wrote to me:

In an effort to finish two, for me, fairly major

undertakings--the first being the translation of the

Philokalia and the second being a new book which I

entitle (provisionally perhaps) Christianity:

Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition 4 --I had to put

virtually everything else to one side. Happily, bothtasks are now concluded, except for the dotting of

several 'i's and the crossing of several 't's; but they

have left me exhausted, far more so than I was

aware of--in fact, the day after I finished the last

chapter of the book I found I could hardly move!

I'm still much in the doldrums, and wait for the

energies to come seeping back, if they will.

In the introduction to the first volume of thePhilokalia, Sherrard describes the bookas

an itinerary through the labyrinth of time, a silent

way of love and gnosis through the deserts and

emptinesses of life, especially of modern life, a

vivifying and fadeless presence. . . . It must be
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stressed, however, that this spiritual path . . .

cannot be followed in a vacuum. (Nikodimos and

Makarios 1979:l.13-15) 5

He felt that the texts of thePhilokalia presuppose not a vacuum but a specific

doctrine that entails a specific ecclesiology. The doctrinal dimension will be

examined briefly later, but I might here add that, in accordance with Sherrard's worldview, this ecclesiology needed to be situated in a particular space. Accordingly, the

Philokalia was more than simply "a way" for Sherrard; it was "a place." That place

was the Holy Mountain, which was especially dear to Sherrard's heart because it isthere that the spiritual values of Orthodoxy and the cultural values of Greece unite in

a very dynamic focus. In its natural beauty and its monastic representatives, the Holy

Mountain outwardly materializes the inner treasures of thePhilokalia. He was afrequent visitor, a loving critic, and a literary artist of Mount Athos.

His bookAthos: The Mountain of Silence (1960) provides an inner picture of the

Holy Mountain in a way that no other book in any language has been able to achieve.

This is because he knew well that monasticism, at least in its genuine expression, isneither an abstention from sexual love nor an extinction of the most vital response to

life. Passions in the monastic context are dealt with differently--they are [End Page94] transcended by greater passions. Perhaps a world reduced to "fleshly love" is too

small and narrow when compared to a world of such "passion" (see Sherrard1976:42), a world in which freedom from passion ("apathy") itself becomes a

passion. In Greek philosophy, just as in Greek Patristic theology, passionate love is

conceived in two different ways, either as an infectious disease, in which case it isconsidered intrinsically evil, or as a neutral impulse, in which case it depends on our

free will. In the first instance, passionate or sexual love is perceived as essentially

irrational if not animal, and must be eliminated; in the second and more positiveinstance, however, passion is perceived not as equivalent to vice but rather as an

intrinsic part of human nature created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen.

1:26). Therefore, passions must be illuminated, not eliminated. Instead oferadication, they require redirection, transformation, and proper education. One

might even say that passions are more than a purely neutral impulse in life--that they

constitute a necessary force. St. Gregory Palamas (1973:II, ii, chs. 19-22) describes

such passions as "divine and blessed."

A single vivid expression of eros, just like a single vivid experience of beauty, will

advance a person further in the spiritual life--will be more effective--than the mostarduous struggle against passion and the most severely ascetic methods. A single

spark of love is sufficient to ignite a cosmic fire, revealing the whole world's beauty.And a single person alive and alight with this "exceeding beauty" can bring about the

world's reconciliation with God. Such, in Philip Sherrard's mind, is thePhilokalia's

spiritual depth and the prophetic dimension of the Garden of the Panagia, as the HolyMountain is traditionally called.
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The body of the world

The sacred in life and art. The process of discerning the qualities of beauty and

sacredness in the world of poetry, just as in the body of the world, begins in the mind

and heart. Again: "the primary battle is not cultural, but spiritual; and the artist has tofight it not in the thick of our fragmented and alienated society but in the depths ofhis own being, where alone its outcome will be decided" (Sherrard 1990:41). It is

there that the light "can reveal in created things the beauty that manifests in visible

form the divine beauty of the Creator" (1990:159). For Sherrard, this meanscommunicating "a picture of the divine world order--that is, a picture of how things

are in their true state, or in 'the eyes of God', and not as they appear to us from our

limited point of view" (1990:75). It means connecting to the world of the icon. Justas the monk sees with the eyes of the heart, the icon reveals the world through the

eyes of God. This iconic world, however, is not an unreal world. The icon reverses

[End Page 95] perspective as we know it, abolishing the "objective" distance

between this world and the heavenly Kingdom. There is no double order in creation,no sharp line of demarcation between "material" and "spiritual." The icon constitutes

the epiphany of God in the wood, and the existence of the wood in the presence of

God. In this world, it speaks the "mother" language of the age to come--or indeed,the native ("natural") language of this world. Sherrard literally fought to hold this

essence of reality together:

The reality of each thing is the manifestation of the

spiritual and sacred reality that constitutes its true

and eternal identity and being, and it is immanent

in this reality, as it were ensheathed by it. . . .There is no split, no dualism of Spirit and matter in

reality. (1990:138)

Nothing renders the mystery of life more sensible than the face of God painted on the

wooden surface of the icon, announcing an infinite transcendence and a profound

presence alike. Beauty and holiness have a bearing on personal salvation, beyondhaving any cosmic significance. It is no wonder, then, that the two central theological

events depicted in Orthodox iconography are the Incarnation and the Transfiguration.

In a very real sense, every icon portrays these two events:

For the art of the icon is ultimately so to transformthe person who moves towards it that he no longer

opposes the worlds of eternity and time, of spirit

and matter, of the Divine and the human, but sees

them united in one Reality, in that ageless image-

bearing light in which all things live, move and


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have their being. (Sherrard 1990:84)

The icon presupposes and proposes another means of communication, beyond theconceptual, the written or spoken word. It is the "writing out" (literally: icono-

graphy) of that which cannot be written down in theology. Thus the icon not onlyreflects another world, it even communicates that world by transforming this one.

The earth as icon contains within itself the seeds of heaven. All things are sacramentswhen viewed in God's perspective and light. We are called not to lookaticons, but

through them; and, by the same token, we are invited not simply to look at the world,

but to penetrate the surface in order to see the divine beauty that is the sacred depthof all things.

In this respect, the icon resembles a ladder that connects the visible world to the

invisible dimension, the created earth to the uncreated God. Material creation itself

constitutes a ladder that restores the bond between this world and the "next," offering

a "footstool" for the ascent to God (cf. Acts 7:49; Is. 66:1). Indeed, if God were nottangibly present in the very earthiness of this world, then He would not be present in

heaven either. If we could not worship Him visibly, then we [End Page 96] couldnot properly worship Him as invisible. If we are unable to see God in the beauty of

the world, there is no value in merely inferring His presence or holiness from the

world. Sherrard (1990:37) alludes to this image of the ladder when he writes that theartist "must have one foot firmly in the world of time and place, in the world of

change and transitoriness," implying that the other foot should be raised toward the

eternal, spiritual world.

Where the monk on Mount Athos struggles to preserve the "human image" restored

by Christ, the art of the icon claims to proclaim the "world image" revealed by thesame Christ. And this conviction becomes a way of life: "A spiritual or sacred art--

the art, say, of Byzantium and of mediaeval Europe--presupposes a way of lifecentered in the knowledge and experience--or, rather, in a knowledge that is

experience . . . of the universe . . . as issuing from God in successive levels"

(Sherrard 1990:33).

Art is one such level; culture is another. Sherrard's love for the people and poetry ofGreece betrayed the same conviction about the need for an ascetic effort to acquire

the spiritual vision and experience of reality. He always regarded the Orthodox

Church of Greece and modern Greek literature as "two aspects of [one and the same]

culture."6

When Sherrard describes a poet's "visionary experience," it is as if he weretalking about the same mystical contemplation of the heart that is described in the

Philokalia, the same vision that is narrated in the world of the icon: "It seems that at

the moment of vision, the soul, or man's inner being, expands in an embrace whichinfolds all Nature. Only Nature is no longer merely that Nature of which our senses

tell us" (1956:228).

Analyzing the poetry of Dionysios Solomos, Sherrard echoes the same process that


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we have seen as being the basis of the monastic life and the iconic world:

The artistic process begins with the artist's intuition

of this world, his immediate experience of it,

something which is not possible until he has gonethrough an inner development . . . , in other words

a kind of dying . . . and participation in the world of

spiritual realities. . . . Thus in this traditional view of

art, the artistic operation begins and ends not with

the individual but with the supra-individual world of

the Great Realities. (1956:19-20, 233)

Sherrard felt that, as a result of its traditional roots, Greece did not suffer--at least not

in the same way and to the same degree as did Western Europe and the Westernworld--the rupture of the spiritual world view caused by emphasis on individual

consciousness and the intellectual life. The mythological language of the Orphic andthe [End Page 97] Pythagorean classics, together with the theological vision of the

Christian and Byzantine sources, insured the survival--fragmentary perhaps, but

nevertheless genuine--of a tradition that preserves the memory of spiritual reality.Sherrard (1979:4) outlines the historical and symbolic stages of the gradual loss of

this traditional connection between art and life, "when literature ceased to be an

expression of life, of an experienced reality, and became something else."Nevertheless, the "Great Realities" of Solomos are the "Great Visions" of Kostis

Palamas, who believed that moments of passion, which at first may give birth to

feelings of shame and self-disgust, may become moments in which life fulfills itself,in which ugliness is transformed into beauty (see Sherrard 1956:60, 237). When the

seemingly repulsive aspects of life are accepted and embraced, they will, "through

miraculous metamorphosis, reveal the beauty which, rejected and denied, remains for

ever frustrate in them." Sherrard (1956:53) quotes from Palamas's "Altars":

"Whatever you have within you, good, suffering,

sin, some affliction of the soul, some sickness of

the flesh, confess it. Into the light! All the beautiful

things of earth, to be more beautiful, and the

world's ugly things, to be stirred by the breath ofloveliness, seek a priest to confess them, seek a

love to kiss them. If you have tears, shed them;

they are likely to be pearls. And don't be ashamed

of relics; they too feel pain and weep." 7

The same image is found in the poetry of Angelos Sikelianos, whose first important


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poem was "The Visionary." Sikelianos derived his mythological attitude to life from

the beliefs and customs of the illiterate peasant folk of Greece who preserved it,

however unconsciously and imperfectly, during the long years of Turkish occupation(see Sherrard 1956:128). In his "Hymn of the Great Home-Coming" Sikelianos

knows the power of eros (Sherrard 1956:134, 161); in the "Word of Greece" heunderstands the power of silence (1956:156), and in "The Visionary" he makes use

of Christian iconography (1956:149). His doctrine may differ from that of much"official" Christianity, but his mysticism--which Sherrard likens to that of Meister

Eckhart--perceives the inner identity where

all has become one, the One has become all, in an

all-embracing singleness; and man, in achieving his

own unity, has become everything. . . . Earth and

sky were once one. They can be one again. Earth

can mix with the stars. The sky can harvest thewheat of earth. In these symbolical terms

Sikelianos represents later the falling into disunity

of things, the division of time from eternity, flesh

from spirit, and the possibility of and need for their

reconciliation if life is to be fulfilled. Man's task is to

bring this reconciliation about. Through the

attainment of spiritual vision, which is the

realization of his nature, he also brings together

the worlds which [End Page 98] have fallen apart,he restores their original unity. But the impulsion

for this act of creative understanding comes from

participation in the life of the senses, in the life of

the physical world. We are far from the cell and the

scourge. (1956:182-183, 127)

With George Seferis, we are again in a world where all the attention is turned toward

the inner center. The opening line of Seferis's early poem "The Cistern" reads "Here,

in the earth, is a cistern rooted." Sherrard recognizes in the poetry of Seferis thereality of another world "rooted" in this world, or

as this present world experienced not from the

point of view of our normal consciousness, but from

the point of view of a level of consciousness

obscured for us by the purely rational categories by


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which for the most part we allow ourselves to be

dominated. (1956:244-245)

Indeed, this world of beauty is known also through the power of silence (1956:188),

as well as through the force of passionate love:

For there is a possibility--and in this, Seferis would

seem to imply, lies the significance of such physical

love--that the experience physical love gives will

remind man of something he was in danger of

forgetting: that life can be other than his normal

consciousness allows him to realize; that there are

realms of experience which everyday life obscures;

and that these realms exist nowhere else but inhimself, in the unexplored depths of his own being.

(1956:254)

The entire spiritual world view of the Greeks is personified in General Makriyannis,

whose life and mindset are evidence of the fact that the Greek people

had not gone through that debauchery of

rationalism of which the modern western world is

the product. [They] had not known that split

between mind and instinct, head and heart, and

the consequent paralysis of man's emotional life.

On the contrary . . . the Greek people had

remained for centuries very close to the earth on

which they lived. . . . Their character was much

more a direct expression of the forces of nature

than the product of any self-conscious training or

control. Hence their extreme ego-centerdness;

hence, from an external point of view, the disorderand inconsequence of their life; hence, too, their

spontaneity, naturalness and sincerity: what they

did was not the result of premeditation or

reflection, but simply the breaking forth of the

original life-stream itself. (Sherrard 1979:61)


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Makriyannis was a symbol of all this, "a symbol for Greece. And such symbols do

not remain national. They become universal, for they have the power to stimulate

and enrich the heart and mind of man" (1979:71). [End Page 99]

The rape of man and nature. People with such a sacred memory and mythologyrecognize that the center of the heart and of the world lies elsewhere, and draw

significance and life from connecting with this center. On the other hand, people

with a secular mentality considerthemselves to be the center of the universe. "It isthe independence and autonomy we ascribe to our selfhood that is the crux of our

aberration," declares Sherrard (1995:26-29). He calls this autonomy "deceit," "lie,"

"ignorance," "fall," "demonization," and "hell." Furthermore, he is convinced thatthis attitude led to the mechanistic world view that from the seventeenth century

onward resulted in the constantly accelerating dehumanization of man and

desacralization of nature. The "original" cause of this error was a disconnection

between earth and heaven, man and nature, body and soul:

. . . there is in man a difference between his inmost

self and the self with which he usually and

mistakenly identifies himself, his everyday

empirical self; and it may be this split in his self-

awareness . . . that is the most evident symptom of

that internal dislocation of man's being which in

the Christian tradition is indicated by the term

'Fall'. (Sherrard 1987:30)

Although the icon reveals this connection, and although the poet imagines the same

connection and the monk struggles to preserve it, Sherrard is nevertheless

realistically aware that we live in a world where this appreciation of sacredness andattractiveness has been lost. The interdependence (Sherrard [1987:25] favored the

Patristic term ) between heaven and earth has been ruptured, the contract broken.Sherrard may have been a visionary, but he was not an idealist. He believed that the

process of dehumanization and desacralization is not accidental, that modern science

presupposes a radical reshaping of our whole mental outlook. And so he outlined theintellectual developments that led to the "eclipse" of the sacred world view and to the

emergence of scientific philosophy. In his opinion, what was prepared by St. Thomas

Aquinas was consolidated by Descartes--namely, "a radical dualism between souland body, mind and matter, in which the body, along with the rest of the physical

world, is regarded as totally deprived of all spiritual or non-material qualities and

powers" (1987:60, 69).

Sherrard was sometimes accused of overstating his case. Admittedly, somerepresentatives of contemporary Orthodox theology have tended to be sweepingly


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critical of Western thought and society. There is an inherent temptation here to which

Sherrard did not succumb. It is nave to suppose that Orthodoxy automatically has

the key to the answers in areas where others have failed. The shattered image of

[End Page 100] humanity and the world is a problem not only of Western

Christianity or Western civilization. While much fine literature has described thiscrisis as a process that began in the late Middle Ages, grew in the Reformation, and

culminated in the modern technological revolution, there is no single era or culturethat may be held responsible for today's disastrous developments. In the language

and culture of thePhilokalia, this would undoubtedly be termed "the sin of pride."

Sherrard himself (1995:12) admits that these "developments . . . had been incubatingin the Christian consciousness for some centuries prior . . . , in both the Greek East

and the Latin West."

Sherrard ought to be read in light of another key concept of thePhilokalia. I am

referring to "metanoia": repentance understood as a radical reversal of the destructive

path that leads to death. This, I believe, is the context within which Sherrard must beappreciated, and the guiding principle behind his thought. "Nothing can stop this

process," he says (1987:88-89), "except a complete reversal of direction. Andnothing can initiate a reversal of direction except a recovery by man of an awareness

of who he is: the cure must go back to where the sickness started." Certainly

Sherrard felt that the matter of ecological annihilation is the major crisis of thiscentury and probably of the next century--"if indeed there is one," as he

characteristically wrote to me (12 January 1991). It seems to me, however, that

Sherrard's entire outlook is colored not so much by a sense of hopelessness before

the ugliness and sinfulness of the world as by a profound sense of hope regarding theworld's beauty and sacredness--an optimism that he draws from the Orthodox

Church's ascetic tradition.

Repentance is clearly at the center of his thought:

If we are to overcome this ignorance, and to

rediscover and reaffirm the true dignity of both

man and nature in a way capable perhaps of

stemming, if not turning, the tide of progressive

materialization and disintegration on which we are

all now carried, it can only be by rediscovering and

reaffirming the spiritual principles on which themasters [of the early Christian tradition] have

based their life and their thought. (1987:118)

However, there is yet another detail that underlies the thought of Philip Sherrard. I

am referring to his basic intuition that the very difficulties that beset our world, thevery distortion of our world view, present God-given opportunities for us to discern


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the beauty and holiness of God in the world: ". . . it is only by what one might call

providential intervention that we even begin to recognize and accept that our cosmos

is, or may be, a sacred cosmos" (1990:147). There is a kind of "providence," hebelieves, in the very disastrous disintegration of[End Page 101] the world that we

face. We are, today, in a much better--perhaps privileged--position to acknowledge,albeit reluctantly and retrospectively, the impasse of our life style and its impact on

our world. No matter how carefully modern man has tried to foster a secularmentality divorced from a sacred one, it is today clear that certain "cracks" have

appeared on the earth's face and body. In spite of our actions to control or contain the

world, we now confront a global problem that concerns everyone, irrespective ofrace, color, or creed. Ecological retribution, we now know, will sooner or later

follow suit, indeed with mathematical precision. And herein, at the very root of our

despair, lies the source of our hope. According to Isaac of Nineveh (1923: XIX, p.73), "there is nothing more powerful than despair. For despair cannot be conquered

by anything. . . . When, with our thought, we cut off our hope for life, then there

remains nothing more courageous . . . because then God gives us salvation, strength,and rest."

The most mystical of all experiences is the profound realization of who we are, of

what we have done, and of where we are headed. Our destruction is a lasting

reminder of our destructiveness and as such may become the starting point of ourtransfiguration. Our death can prove the seed of resurrection; the hell that we have

created may inspire the source of healing in our heart and in our world. Repentance,

consequently, is the painful recognition and continual repetition, with God, that the

world was created "beautiful," "very good" (cf. Gen.1). It remains beautiful in spiteof the brokenness and ugliness that we have caused. This is the pervasive and

persuasive argument that underlies Sherrard's passion, almost mission:

Man is called upon to mediate between heaven and

earth, between God and His creation. . . . It is only

through man fulfilling his role as mediator between

God and the world that the world itself can fulfill its

destiny and can be transfigured in the light and

presence of God. It is in this sense that man--when

he is truly human--is also and above all a priest--

the priest of God: he who offers the world to God in

his praise and worship and who simultaneously

bestows divine love and beauty upon the world.

(1987:40-41)

This passage brings us back to the image of the ladder. For the world is not embraced

as an end in itself; rather, it is to be looked through, and read as a book with a

message. Sherrard speaks of the "book of nature," the liber mundi through which and


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within which we must discern "the expression of a hidden, interior world, a spiritual

world," just as Holy Scripture reveals an ulterior meaning. Indeed for Sherrard "there

is no separation or division . . . between the truth revealed in the Holy Book and thetruth revealed in the book of nature" (1995:10, 17). [End Page 102]

The face of beauty and "lineaments" of the sacred

It is this sacramental dimension of the world that enables Sherrard to proclaim an

alternative cosmology, one that can discern God's beauty and sacredness in every

part of the created world:

Nature is a revelation not merely of the truth about

God but of God Himself. . . . Were there no

creation, then God would be other than He is; and

if creation were not sacramental, then God wouldnot be its creator and there would be no question

of a sacrament anywhere. If God is not present in a

grain of sand then He is not present in heaven

either. . . . Ultimately it is because we see

ourselves as existing apart from God that we also

see nature as existing apart from God. (1987:94)

There is no authentic beauty in the world outside the unique beauty of Christ; or,

better still, all authentic beauty in the world is a reflection of the beauty of Christ

who, "revealed through the Incarnation the possibility inherent in human nature"(1990:89). When Genesis 1:31 tells us that "God saw everything that He had made,

and, indeed, it was very good" (the Greek term indicates "beautiful"), it is in fact

alerting us to the fact that God's beauty and sacredness are what determine theworld's harmony and holiness. Sherrard never ceased to proclaim this unified truth

about beauty--about the unified source of all beauty and holiness: "When God 'saw

that it was beautiful', this seeing was an act of self-recognition by means of which Heverified that what He saw was a true and faithful image of His own inner and non-

manifest life" (1990:111). Beauty is attractive and substantive inasmuch as it

beckons us to participate in the divine order of things (cf. II Peter 1:14). This is thedefinition of beauty given by Dionysius the Areopagite in his treatise On the Divine

Names (1980:IV, 7; Migne PG 3:701): "as it calls all to itself, hence it is also namedkallos."

The ancient Greeks loved to play on these words. Sherrard, however, goes stillfurther: "Not only this, but since Christ exemplifies the norm for human life, it also

means that there is something radically wrong with us when our whole physical

being is not so irradiated" with the light of His beauty and holiness (1990:86). This

inevitably influences the way in which we perceive the material world around us, for


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if the vision we have of our own inner being . . .

does not embrace the spiritual qualities--of beauty,

of love--that fill our being when we attune

ourselves to God, we cannot perceive thesequalities in the forms of the things about us; we

cannot perceive their intrinsic sacredness. The link

between transcendence and immanence is broken.

The intimate interpenetration, the secret

coincidence of uncreated and created, divine

archetype and visible image, is frustrated, and the

marriage between them remains in a state of

suspension. (1990:14) [End Page 103]

This last passage serves as a wonderful synthesis of Sherrard's thought on heaven

and earth, sexuality and marriage, icons and art, as well as on the sacredness of

creation.

In his last public appearance, a lecture entitled "For Every Thing that Lives Is Holy,"

delivered in London on 27 June 1994 to the "Friends of the Center"--a lecture that

Sherrard described (in a letter to me dated 25 November 1993) as "the most powerful

statement" he had ever made on this theme--, he spoke forcefully against anydisconnection of the beauty in this world from the beauty of Christ: "It is this concept

of the double truth--this duplicity in the true sense of the word, or what we might call

'double-think'--that constitutes the major premise that has to be reversed if ever weare to escape from the clutches of our materialist world" (1995:19). Sherrard not only

perceived everythingsub specie aeternitatis, but also in lumine Christi. He discerned

the unique and unifying face of Christ in all things. Unless Christ may be discovered"in the least of His brethren" (Matt. 25:40) and also in the least particle of worldly

matter (Sherrard 1995:22), then He may be far too distant to matter in any real sense.

It is when we are attentive to the iconic presence of the word and wisdom of Christ

that "we begin to see the beauty at the heart of things. And this is the road to therecovery of paradise. This is itself the overture to paradise" (1995:32).

This, again, is an indication that Sherrard is not guilty of overstating or

oversimplifying his case.

8

His purpose is not so much to "attack" science as to"appease" heaven. One would be missing the mark if one explained or dismissed

Sherrard's critical remarks as unduly negative toward science, for the extreme nature

of some of his statements derives from his sensitivity to the tension between heaven

and earth, the tension between the way things are and the way things could or shouldbe. It would be more correct to place Sherrard, too, among the "prophets, sages,

seers, and poets" (1990:131) with which we opened this paper-- those who feel the

liminal vibrations of our estrangement from God and cry out for the reconciliation


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between this world and the next. Our century has seen other such prophetic figures--

for example, Jacques Ellul 9 --criticizing modern technology and its devastating

effect on the environment.

One ought to read Sherrard's daring remarks about the Theotokos in the same way.Comfortably breathing the air of the Orthodox tradition, Sherrard moves from the

Christological to the Mariological plane in order to reveal the cosmological role of

the Theotokos as a parallel, and even a premise, for the cosmic event of Christ. Asthe "joy of all creation," Mary embraces the uncreated in a manner that corresponds

to that in which Christ assumes humanity. She is the "Mater" of all matter. Sherrard

(1992:181) refers to her as the "universal [End Page 104] nature," the natura

naturans, the matrix in whom everything flowers. Through Mary, we appreciate how

Mariology unveils the femininity of creation, something that lies hidden in the heart

of Orthodox iconography and liturgy. In Orthodox churches built from the late fourth

century onward, the Virgin Mary is depicted in the apse immediately above the altar,

somewhere between heaven and earth. She constitutes the bridge and link betweenthe world and the One who creates and "contains all things" (Christ the Pantokrator).

In comparison to the inaccessible, transcendent God, the Virgin Mary is arguably theperson more immediately and frequently resorted to in daily prayer and devotion.

Thus, in the popular Orthodox Service of the "Akathist Hymn" (early seventh

century), the Theotokos is hailed as "the throne of the King, as bearing the One whobears the universe . . . as the womb of the divine Incarnation and as the one through

whom creation is refashioned [Stasis I]. . . . She is the shelter of the world, broader

than the clouds [Stasis II], the promised land, the land of the infinite God, the key to

Christ's kingdom and the hope of eternal blessings" (Stasis III).

In Orthodox Church decoration it is not by accident that the icon of Mary the"Platytera" (the one who is broader than the whole of creation) is placed beneath the

icon of the "Pantokrator" (the one who upholds all of creation). As an Orthodoxhymn states, "Standing before the temple of her glory, we think that we are in

heaven." Therefore, beside God the Father we find the Mother of God; beside the

King of All we see the Queen of All; beside the "sophia" of the divine Word stands

"the vessel of divine wisdom," that treasury and repository of divine "sophia." Theunceasing response to God's eternal initiative is the continual "let it be" of the Virgin.

Mary's word constantly and completely corresponds to God's Word, lovingly bearing

that Word in her womb and selflessly confirming Him in her life.

Mary is able to realize these "mysteries" precisely because, again in the words of theAkathist hymn, "she has yoked together maidenhood and motherhood," "remaining a

virgin, yet giving birth" (Stasis III). As virgin, she heals the brokenness of the world;

as mother, she fulfills the barrenness of creation. As virgin, she signifies the integrityof life, and not just of celibacy; as mother, she personifies the affirmation of life, and

not just of marriage. The same hymn states that "she brings opposites to unity." Little

wonder that the Virgin Mother is held in high esteem by monastics and married
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persons alike. She rightly constitutes the "queen" of heaven, as well as the

"breath" of creation. To adopt an image that we have already used in relation to

the body, to sexuality, to the icon, and to the created world, Mary is hailed as aladder. The Akathist Hymn refers to her "as the heavenly ladder by which God

descended, the bridge that leads the earthly to the heavenly [End Page 105] . . .

[Stasis I]. In her, the heavens rejoice with earth and the earth concelebrates withheaven. . . ." (Stasis II). The same understanding of Mary as the "mother" of all that

is created is the subject of Sikelianos's long poem "The Mother of God." In

considering this poem's feminine element or principle, Sherrard writes the following

about the Theotokos:

She is the passive root or ground of creation, a

state of pure potentiality and receptivity, into

which the spirit pours its fertilizing seed. She is thehuman soul in its state of original purity . . . the

eternal Wisdom itself, the divine Mother, or Mother

Earth, from whose ever-virginal womb issues, after

the penetration of the spirit, earth and everything

that lives. (1956:162) 10

This was the way that Sherrard essentially learned from the writings of the

Philokalia. Whether it was in the "eye of the heart," with his emphasis on the or

"intellect" as the seat of insight and intuition beyond the narrow level of the

reasoning brain; or whether it was on the wood of an icon, which for Sherrardconveyed to us a picture of the divine world order "in the eyes of God" (1990:75);

whether in the mystery of the flesh of man and woman; or whether in the bodily flesh

assumed by Christ through the mystery of the Incarnation; or, again, whether on the

very flesh of the material world--Sherrard saw one and the same thing, namely theface of Christ, which for him was the face itself of beauty and holiness.

Everything on this earth tells of the love of the Creator Christ, and speaks aloud of

the at-one-ment between heaven and earth. Every single thing, if allowed to, not only

reveals the world's beauty but even fulfills the kingdom's holiness. The concluding

words of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy refer to the fulfillment of all; in a very

vital sense, the earthly liturgy is more than a mere concelebration in the worship ofthe heavenly realm. This world, in spite of its shattered image, remains an icon of the

completion and fulfillment of the heavenly kingdom. These are the closing words of

Philip Sherrard's life:

All the phenomena of the world of nature represent


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or symbolize with things celestial and divine. . . . In

the whole visible, natural world there is nothing

that does not express or represent something of a

higher invisible world, the spiritual world. Withoutthis rootedness in the spiritual world nothing could

exist for a second, for apart from the spiritual world

nothing can have any existence at all. No visible

thing--nothing. . . . (1995:10-11)

Conclusion

One of Sherrard's most moving pieces is the brief epilogue to The Wound of Greece,

a commentary on the figure of Aretousa in the seventeenth-century [End Page 106]

Cretan epicErotokritos. I offer it here as an epilogue to my paper, and as a "prologueto [his] life" 11 :

Now it is over. . . . Gradually, when the book is

closed, the epic loses its dramatic quality, its

quality of action. The dialogue becomes a

monologue, the monologue itself condenses into

something much finer, something more pure and

uncontaminated . . . [a continuous lyric utterance]:

condenses into the portrait of a person free from

the accident of time and place. . . . He is dead . . . A

love of this kind, if it is to be perfect itself, must

pass through a moment of final despair, of furthest

separation, of complete abandonment: for it is this

death which precedes the deliverance, it is this

that makes possible the beginning of new life.

(1979:118-119, 124)

"The book is closed." Yet Sherrard's books will remain an open testimony to his

quest for beauty and holiness in the world. Although something of the "dramatic

quality" is lost from the epic known as "Philip Sherrard," his passion to preserve the

quality of the world as beautiful and holy cannot be lost. The dialogue, too, hasstopped: the dialogue with God on the level of theological discourse; the dialogue

with Greece on the more cultural level; the dialogue that he loved to entertain with

friends, at Katounia on the island of Evia, on the personal level; the dialogue with theheart on the spiritual level; and even the dialogue with the universe on the ecological

level. Yet the dialogue has been "refined"--"condensed" into a monologue--now that


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Philip Sherrard has been transferred, or perhaps he would prefer to say transformed,into the new life and the new world of the heavenly Kingdom (cf. Rev. 21:1-5).

There he can at last rest, "caught up in the clouds . . . to meet the Lord" (I Thess.

4:17), to see more clearly and more fully that which he always imagined, as prophetand poet, about the beauty and the sacredness of the world. For now he is at one withhis soul and body, with the earth that he venerated, as well as with the heaven that he

worshipped.

Holy Cross School of Theology

Notes

1. Specifically, "The world of the body" is based on Christianity and Eros,

complemented by thePhilokalia. "The body of the world" concentrates on The

Sacred in Life and Artand The Marble Threshing Floor, together with The Rape ofMan and Nature. Finally, "The face of beauty and 'lineaments' of the sacred" treats

the culminating synthesis of his thought found in his last publication, the booklet

Every Thing that Lives Is Holy. The word "lineaments" is taken from the title of

Sherrard's last manuscript, which will appear posthumously (see note 4, below).

2. From the doctrinal definition of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, A.D. 451.

3. For his article "The Paths of Athos," which was criticized by monks of the Holy

Mountain, seeEastern Churches Review 9/1-2 (1977):100-107. The final words of

this article are: ". . . the state of the paths of the Holy Mountain can be seen as a

direct reflection of the inner spiritual health of the monastic community."

4. Philip Sherrard's wife, Denise Harvey, generously entrusted this manuscript to me

for publication. It is to be issued in 1998 by Holy Cross Press. Bishop Kallistos Ware

graciously accepted my invitation to contribute the foreword.

5. Bishop Kallistos, in the obituary he wrote for Sherrard (Ware 1995), attributes toSherrard the initial draft of the general introduction.

6. Campbell and Sherrard (1968). See the subtitle of part three (chapters 6 and 7), pp.

189-244.

7. From "seek a priest" to the end is in my translation. Sherrard (1956:42-43)observes that Palamas himself draws a parallel between his own experience, even

anguish, and that of an Athonite monk.

8. See Ware (1950:50). Also cf. Freeland (1988).
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9. See, for example, his The Technological Society and The Betrayal of the West.

10. On the Virgin Mother in Sikelianos, cf. Sherrard 1956:149; on the "eternal

feminine," cf. Sherrard 1956:24.

11. Title of a poem by Sikelianos. Cf. Sherrard (1956:135).

References Cited

Campbell, John and Philip Sherrard

1968Modern Greece. New York: Praeger.

Climacus, John

1982 The Ladder of Divine Ascent. Translated by Colm Luibheid and NormanRussell. Introduction by Kallistos Ware. London: SPCK Press.

Dionysius Areopagita

1980 The Divine Names and Mystical Theology. Translated by John D. Jones.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette.

Ellul, Jacques

1964 The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. New York: Knopf.

1978 The Betrayal of the West. Translated by Matthew J. O'Connell. New York:

Seabury.

Freeland, G.

1988 "Essay Review: The Dehumanization of Humanity and the Desanctification ofthe Natural World--The Search for the Villain."Phronema 3:71-80.

Isaac, Bishop of Nineveh1923Mystic Treatises. Translated by Arent Jan Wensinck. Amsterdam:

Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen to Amsterdam.

Migne, Jacques Paul

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