Talk:Greek East and Latin West

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Origins of the term

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This article is remarkably poorly written. I think I should do something about it. I'll start by trying to establish where this phrase first appeared in English literature, and whether it is a modern concept or actually goes back to antiquity - in which case we should be able to find a Latin and/or Ancient Greek equivalent of the phrase. Meanwhile, I'll try to provide one or more proper maps to illustrate this cultural divide. Many Wikimedia Commons maps of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, including the currently-used File:Roman Empire 330 CE.png, do not cite any sources and are self-made, so whether we can use them here as an accurate representation of the 'Greek East and Latin West' is questionable.

The oldest version of this article (19 January 2006) cites Philip Sherrard. The Greek East and the Latin West: a Study in the Christian Tradition. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. Limni [Greece]: Denise Harvey & Company, 1992. Here is a 1995 edition.
It's pretty clear that Sherrard didn't coin the term, though who did may be difficult to establish, especially because there are many possible variations on these 5 words, including paraphrases such as 'the Latin West and the Greek East' in The Provinces of the Roman Empire: From Caesar to Diocletian (1886) by Theodor Mommsen and William Purdie Dickson.
One James Mumford wrote in The Catholic-Scripturist: Or the Plea of the Roman Catholics (1686): 'And observe also, that the Service of the Catholick or Universal Church, is best celebrated by a Catholick of Universal Tongue, such as Greek is in the East; Latin in the West (...)'.
It's also clear that at some point, this concept apparently did not exist yet in the mind of the people, especially before the Roman Empire split in two, as Richard Parry argued about 2nd-century church father Irenaeus (c. 130 – c. 202 CE) in An Attempt to demonstrate the Messiahship of Jesus (1773): 'Now Irenæus, a very antient ecclesiastical writer, who knew nothing of the division of the empire into eastern and western, Greek and Latin,...'

I'll try to narrow it down and improve the article as I go along. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:20, 17 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

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