2) The idea of sin, even original sin, is almost exclusively occidental. The main problem of the East, as we have seen, was death – therefore immortality; and error – therefore , truth. The main problem of the West is sin, and salvation. In a man like St. Ambrose, the estimation of Paul – who is the main teacher on sin and salvation – is accepted. He has been called by St. Ambrose the doctor gentium , the teacher of the nations. Paul has the keys of knowledge; Peter has the keys of power. And there was going on through the whole history of the Middle Ages a struggle between Peter and Paul – between the keys of knowledge, which finally prevailed in the Reformation, and the keys of power, which always prevailed in the Roman church.
Grace, therefore, is, according to St. Ambrose, first of all the forgiveness of sins and not, as in the Platonic attitude of the East, deification.
3) This has the following consequences: Western Christianity emphasizes the historical humanity of Christ, his humility, and not his glory. e. g., on the door of St. Sabina in Rome, before which I stood with great awe, I must say, there you find in wood-cut relief the first picture or sculpture of the crucifixion. The door is world-famous, coming from the fourth century. Here the West shows that it deviates, or can deviate, from the Christ in glory which you find in all mosaics but you never find the Christ crucified. This is more symptomatic for the difference of East and West than many theological formulas. But it is of course also expressed in the theological formulas: If I now return to this most difficult lecture I gave on Chalcedon, I now can illustrate it with the two doors, or with a mosaic in, let us say, Ravina, which was under Byzantine influence at that time; and on the other hand the door in Santa Sabina…. There you find the two Christologies clearly expressed in picture. .In one you have always the tremendously powerful Lord of the universe, in all glory as the Judge of the world or of the resurrected, in His majesty surrounded by angels, man, animals, and inorganic parts of nature, which all participate in His glory. And then you have this very wonderful, in some way poor, (presentation) of the suffering Christ on the door at Santa Sabina. The one is Antiochean, Roman theology, which emphasizes the humanity more than anything else, including the suffering humanity of the Christ; the other is Alexandrian Christology which makes Christ a walking God. . . – the bodily existence is swallowed up by the Divine form.
