3. The ethos of ancient Greek and Gothic architecture
Architecture is probably the art which gives us the most
opportunities to approach our theme. The reader must forgive us for inevitably
confining ourselves to general observations and preliminary explanations.3
The first characteristic one might note in the architecture
of the "Byzantine" church, as we now call it, is respect for the building
materials; an attempt to manifest the inner principle of the material,
the "rational" potentialities of matter, and to bring about a "dialogue"
between the architect and his material. But what do these statements mean
in terms of the actual technique of church construction? To find the answer,
we shall inevitably have to resort to comparisons, setting the Byzantine
building side by side with ancient Greek classical architecture and medieval
Gothic.
In ancient Greek architecture, the building material
is subjugated to a given "principle" or "reason" which the craftsman wishes
to serve and manifest. Matter per se is nonrational; it is formlessness
and disorder until reason forms it into being and life. Reason gives form
to matter; it brings everything together and leads it to the harmony and
unity of the "cosmos," because the reason or principle of a being means
that it takes its place in the universal unity of the world, and becomes
subject to the laws of cosmic harmony and order which differentiate life
and existence from disorder and chaos.4
These are given laws; they are the logical and ethical necessity of life.
The architect's task is to decode them, to reveal them through the reason
or principle in his construction. It is to demonstrate the "rational"
relationships which ensure harmony and unity, in other words the ethical
potential of life; and ultimately to teach how the initial formlessness
can be turned into a world, a "cosmos," "beautiful indeed," and the initial
group of people living together can be turned into a city under the same
laws of cosmic harmony and the ethical potentialities of life.5
Ancient Greek architecture succeeds in imprinting the
laws of cosmic harmony on a building by making its Construction technique
obey the "principle" of proportion in size. The parts of the ancient Greek
temple are measured mainly by the "rule of proportions." The architect
uses his material in order to form perfect proportions, and thus achieve
a flawless rationalistic harmony which reveals and teaches the beautiful
as symmetrical perfection. Typical of the absolute priority of the given
proportions is the fact that when an ancient Greek temple is doubled in
size, all its dimensions are doubled accordingly. The dimensions of its
door and steps and all its parts are doubled so that the basic proportions
remain the same, even though the door then becomes excessive and need
only be half the size for a man to pass through it comfortably, and the
steps become so large that they are almost impossible to climb. The over-riding
priority is to preserve the harmony of proportions per se, regardless
of what sizes are necessary. The point of reference is the mind of the
observer; it is this that the craftsman wishes to delight and instruct
by the harmony of the proportional relationships in his work.6
The same subjection of the material to an a priori logical
conception is again expressed with remarkable technical competence by
Gothic medieval architecture. In a Gothic building, the craftsman is not
concerned with the inner principle of the building material; his aim is
not to study this inner principle, to coordinate and reconcile it with
the inner principle of his own creative will, bringing out the material's
potentiality to embody, the personal activation of the principle in created
things. On the contrary, he subjugates the material to given forms, squaring
off the stone and doing violence to its static balance, so as to fulfil
the ideological aim envisaged by the construction. This ideological aim
is externally and arbitrarily set; it bears no relation to the study of
the material and the struggle of construction. It is an objectified knowledge
which the craftsman simply takes up in his work in order to analyse it
into particular notions.7
The ideological aim of Gothic architecture is to create
an impression of the authority of the visible body of the Church, an authority
which exerts influence and imposes itself not only through its absolute
monopoly in handling God's wishes and revelations, but also through the
palpable and immense majesty of the way it is articulated as an organization.
Organizational structure creates both the principle of the western Church's
unity and the rationalistically secured static balance of Gothic architecture.
This is not an organic unity of distinctiveness in principles, the unity
which brings about communion as an achievement and a gift of personal
distinctiveness and freedom. Instead, it is a uniform submission to given
rules and preconditions for salvation or for static balance. It is the
theanthropic nature or essence of the Church embodied in the authority
of the church organization, which is treated as prior to the personal
event of salvation, to the personal gifts of the life conferred by the
Holy Spirit, and to the transfiguration of man, the world and history
in the person of God the Word incarnate and the persons of the faithful.
In his study on Gothic architecture and scholastic thought,
Erwin Panofsky8 has pointed to
the common attitude and the attempt to explore truth intellectually which
characterizes both scholastic thought and Gothic architecture,9
and to the exact chronological correspondence between the evolution of
the two:10 "It is a connection…
more concrete than a mere 'parallelism' and yet more general than those
individual 'influences' which are inevitably exerted on painters, sculptors
or architects by erudite advisors: it is a real relationship of cause
and effect."11 Gothic architecture
is the first technological application of scholastic thought, following
it directly both in time and in substance: it is the technique which sets
out in visible form the scholastic attempt to subject truth to the individual
intellect, the new structure for a logical organization of truth introduced
by scholastic theology. In the thirteenth century, for the first time
in the history of human learning, the formulation and development of a
truth is arranged systematically, with a variety of divisions. A complete
work is divided into books, the books into chapters, the chapters into
paragraphs and the paragraphs into articles. Each assertion is established
by systematic refutation of the objections, and progressively, phrase
by phrase, the reader is propelled towards a full intellectual clarification
of a given truth.12 It is "a
veritable orgy of logic," as Panofsky says of Thomas Aquinas' Summa
Theologiae.13
Correspondingly, the technique of Gothic architecture
is based on a structure of small chiseled stones of uniform shape. The
stones form columns, and the columns are divided into ribbed composite
piers, with the same number of ribs as those in the vaulting which receives
them.14 The arrangement of the
columns and the division of the ribs create an absolutely fixed "skeleton
plan" which neutralizes the weight of the material by balancing the thrusts
of the walls. Here again, the thesis is reinforced by systematic refutation
of the antithesis, "the supports prevail over the weights placed on them,"
and the weight of the material is neutralized by the rationalistically
arranged static balance.
This technique conceals "a profoundly analytic spirit,
relentlessly dominating the construction. This spirit considers the forces,
analyzes them into diagrams of statics and petrifies them in space,"15
forming a unity which is not organic but mechanical, a monolithic framework.
"Our sense of stability is satisfied but amazed, because the parts are
no longer connected organically but mechanically: they look like a human
frame naked of flesh."16 It is
technology, human will and logic, which subdues matter. The structure
manifests the intellectual conception and will of the craftsman rather
than the potentialities of the material– the moral obedience of matter
to spirit, not the "glory" of matter, the revelation of God's energies
in the inner principle of material things.17
Finally, Gothic architecture and the structure of scholastic
thought alike restrict the possibility of experiencing truth exclusively
to the intellectual faculty, logical analysis and emotional suggestion.
This is why both these instances of "technique" leave us with the feeling
of an inability to transcend the bounds of individual existence; we remain
predetermined by the capacities of our individual nature, with no personal
room left for the unforeseen, for freedom– a feeling that there
is no escape. "In the Gothic form, excess and immensity are characteristic,"
says Worringer; "and this is due to the passion for seeking deliverance,
a passion which finds an outlet in intoxication, vertigo and emotional
ecstasy."18 The endeavor of Gothic
architecture is to elicit an emotional response by demonstrating intellectually
the antithesis of natural and supernatural, human smallness and the transcendent
authority, the power from on high.19
"Gothic art," observes Choisy,20
"operates with antitheses, contrasting with the plains the elevation of
its perpendicular lines and enormous spires." What we have here is not
simply an aesthetic or proportional contrast, however, but an anthropocentric
tendency, a demand for the earthly to be elevated to the transcendent.
The union of created and uncreated is not here regarded as a personal
event, as the transformation of man, the world and history in the
person of God the Word incarnate. It is an encounter between two natures,
with human nature clothed in the dignity and transcendent majesty
of the divine nature– which is exactly what happens with papal primacy
and infallibility, and with the totalitarian centralization of the Roman
Catholic Church. "The vaulted construction of a Gothic church desires,
and tends, to give the impression of a monolithic framework"21–
it is the image that the Roman Catholic West has of the Church. Approaching
the divine presupposes in this context a comparison between human smallness
and the grandeur of divine authority an authority tangibly expressed by
its monolithic, unified and majestic organization and its administrative
structure. The Church is not the world in the dimension of the Kingdom,
the harmonization of the inner principles of created things with the affirmation
of human freedom in Christ's assumption of worldly flesh; but it is the
visible, concrete potentiality for the individual to submit to divine
authority. This is why in a Gothic church the material is not "saved,"
it is not "made word" and it is not "transfigured": it is subdued by a
superior force. To use specialized terminology once again: "The supports
prevail over the weight placed on them… the vaulting with its supple
formation clearly shows that it concentrates there all the action in the
forces, and compels matter to rise up to the heights."22
This compulsion of matter in Gothic architecture represents a technology
which leads straight to contemporary technocracy.23
3 There are to
my knowledge no works on the theological view and interpretation of Orthodox
church architecture. Perhaps unique of its kind is Gervase Mathew's Byzantine
Aesthetics (London, 1963). For this chapter, I have made use of the
following limited bibliography: P. A. Michelis, An Aesthetic Approach
to Byzantine Art (Athens, 1946; Eng. trans. London, 1955); Marinos
Kalligas, The Aesthetics of Space in the Medieval Greek Church (Athens,
1946) Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (Latrobe,
ig5i) Olivier Clement, Dialogues avec le Patriarche Athenagoras (Paris,
1969), pp. 278-283. Ch. Yannaras, "Teologia apofatica e architettura byzantina,"
in Symposio Cristiano (Milan, 1971), pp. 104-112; idem, "Scholasticism
and Technology," Eastern Churches Review 6.2 (1974), pp. 162-169.
4 "This ontological
monism which characterizes Greek philosophy from its inception leads Greek
thought to the concept of the 'cosmos,' that is, of the harmonious relationship
of existent things among themselves ... Greek thought creates a wonderful
concept of the world, that is, of unity and harmony, a world full of interior
dynamism and aesthetic plenitude, a world truly 'beautiful' and 'divine.'
However, in such a world it is impossible for the unforeseen to happen
or for freedom to operate: whatever threatens cosmic harmony and is not
explained by 'reason' (logos) which draws all things together and
leads them to this harmony and unity, is rejected and condemned": J. Zizioulas,
"From Prosopeion to Prosopon," pp. 289-290.
5 "Against the
world of chaos and fate, Doric thought opposes order and the victory of
the intellect... The Parthenon is not merely a joy to the eye, it is also
ethical beauty. With the strict calculation of its architecture and the
harmonious equilibrium of its masses, its inner ethical system receives
tangible expression. Its meaning is that life is subject to the aims set
forth by a soldier mind. It is a chart of all the values in the Greek
world: a heroic symphony of athletic virtues, an ethical ascesis. The
severe outward form is nothing other than the tangible expression of inner
obedience": Markos Augeris, "Mysticism in Greek art" (in Greek), in Greek
Critical Thought– A Selection, ed. Z. Lorentzatos (Athens, 1976),
pp. 120-121.
6 See Michelis,
An Aesthetic Approach..., pp. 35-36.
7 "Like the High
Scholastic Summa, the High Gothic Cathedral… sought to embody the
whole of Christian knowledge, theological, moral, natural and historical
... in structural design, it similarly sought to synthesize all major
motifs handed down by separate channels. and finally achieved an unparalleled
balance": Panofsky, Gothic Architecture…, pp. 44-45. Cf. Auguste
Choisy, Histoire de l'architecture, vol. 11 (Paris, 1899), pp.
260 and 265. Also Georges Duby, L'Europe des Cathedrales (Geneva,
1966), p. 40: "The calculation of the mathematicians secured the means
of giving reality to these rational constructions... The universe
ceases to be an ensemble of signs where the imagination gets lost; it
is the clothing of a logical form which it is the cathedral's mission
to restore by putting in their place all visible creatures."
9 P. 27f. See
also Duby, L'Europe des Cathedrales, p. 106: "The new cathedral
appears… more concerned about a dialectical analysis of structures.
It aims at the rational clarity of scholastic demonstrations."
10 "...this
astonishingly synchronous development…," p. 20; cf. p. 3ff. Also
M.-D. Chenu, Introduction a l'etude de Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris,
1974), pp. 51-60, where he concludes: "Theology is the first great technique
of the Christian world... The men who built the cathedrals [also] constructed
summae."This is affirmed also by Jacques Maritain, Les
degres du savoir (Paris, 1932), p. 583.
11 P. 20, See
also Duby, L'Europe des Cathedrales, p. 105: "These monuments inscribed
in inert matter the thought of the professors, their dialectical ramblings.
They demonstrated Catholic theology."
12 "...the construction
of a knowledge within the faith. From this theology is established as
a science": M.-D. Chenu, La theologie comme science au XIIIe siecle,
p. 70. "The first preoccupation of every bishop in his cathedral... was
to place the Christian faith beyond uncertainty and the obscurity of prelogical
thought, to construct a spacious doctrinal edifice, varied but firmly
ordered, to show to the people convincing deductions in it": Duby, L'Europe
des Cathedrales, p. 9.
16 Michelis,
p. 90. Michelis refers also to Worringer, Formprobleme der Gotik (Munich,
1910), p. 73.
17 On the particular
relationship between Gothic architecture and the cosmology evolved by
the theologians of the medieval West, and the relationship between this
cosmology and modern technocracy, see The Person and Eros §§
34, 35.
18Formprobleme
der Gotik, pp. 113 and 50; quoted in Michelis, p. 40.
19 "It was nevertheless
the art of the Gothic cathedrals which, in the whole of Christendom, then
became the instrument– perhaps the most effective one– of Catholic
repression": Duby, L'Europe des Cathidrales, p. 72. Direct
experience alone can justify and verify these conclusions. In the cathedrals
of Cologne, Milan or Ulm, and other European cities, anyone with experience
of the theology and art of the Eastern Church can see the justification
for the "rebellion" of the Reformation and for the various ways in which
man revolts against this transcendent authority which is expressed with
such genius in architecture: it is an authority which humiliates and degrades
human personhood and even ultimately destroys it. Revolt is inevitable
against such a God, who consents to encounter man on a scale of such crushing
difference in size.