EFFORTS AT UNION : MISCONCEPTIONS 117 Greek by race, it is sufficient to recall that Greek was the language of the people, that all that they knew of history and philosophy, all their methods of thought, their theology and literature, had come to them in Greek forms. They thought and spoke as Greeks. Most of them gloried in being Greek. In matters of philosophic and religious speculation the Greek mind was more acute, and more subtle, than the Western mind. In theological questions, probably all classes were more interested than the corre- sponding classes in the West. If in the course of centuries the common people had ceased to take that keen interest in matters of theological speculation which caused the artisan or tradesman to neglect his immediate occupation in order to ask his customer's opinion on the merits of the latest heresy, it was largely because the great formulas of Christian belief had, as it was believed, received their final adjustment. If any questions were unsolved — as, for example, that of the Inner Light — the population was always ready to take an interest in them ; but it deeply resented any attempt to dogmatise without full discussion. It especially resented the determination of such questions by a foreign authority. The Greek Churchmen considered themselves, and probably rightly, as better versed in theology than those of Eome. They had the tradition of being admittedly superior in learning to their brethren in the West, and, though ready at all times to discuss, would not consent to be dictated to by the bishop of Eome. The Catholic Church not only made the mistake of dis- regarding the traditional susceptibilities of the Eastern people, who invariably, after 1204, associated the rule of Eome with the abominations of the Latin occupation ; of disregarding also the universal interest felt in the Orthodox Church on theological questions, but it greatly underrated the authority and influence of the Orthodox clergy when such authority and influence were in conflict with the emperor or even with the emperor and patriarch combined. Much has been written of what is called Caesaropapism : that is, of the com- bination of the secular and ecclesiastical powers which were
