mentally obscured." Dorner, Person Christi, i. s. 108; comp. Neander, Dogmengesch., s. 9:["Philosophy develops conscious reason of and by itself; theology is employed upon data historically given-the truths that repose in the divine word, and have passed over into Christian consciousness."]

Comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, p. 9.

4 Comp. § 11: Neander, Dogmengesch., s. 6: Gieseler, s. 16.

§ 8.

AUXILIARY SCIENCES.

Although the branches of theological science above enumerated are strictly distinct from the History of Doctrines, they are, nevertheless, connected with it as auxiliary sciences.' Archæology,' and, in the second line, the sciences auxiliary to church history,' may added to their number.

be

1 Ecclesiastical history itself may be viewed in the light of an auxiliary science, since the history of forms of church government, of worship, of the private life of Christians, etc., are connected with the history of doctrines. In like manner Patristics, the History of Heresies, the General History of Religion, the History of Philosophy, and the History of Christian and Natural Ethics, are to be numbered among the auxiliary sciences.

From the connection between the doctrines and the liturgy of the church, it is obvious that Archæology must be considered as an auxiliary science, if we understand by it the history of Christian worship. This may easily be seen from the use of certain doctrinal phrases (e. g. OɛOTÓKOS etc.) in the liturgies of the church, the appointment of certain festivals (the feast of Corpus Christi, that of the conception of the Virgin Mary), the reflex influence of the existence or absence of certain liturgical usages upon the doctrinal definitions of the church (e. g., the influence of the withholding of the sacramental cup from the laity upon the doctrine of concomitance, comp. § 195), etc. Works of Reference: Bingham, J., Origg. s. Antiqu. Ecclesiasticæ. Halæ, 1751-61. [Bingham, J., Antiquities of the Christian Church, and other works. Lond. 1834, ss. 8 vols.; a new edition by Richard Bingham. Augusti, J. Ch. W., Denkwürdigkeiten aus der christlichen Archæologie. Leipz. 1817-31, 12 vols. [Christian Antiquities, translated and compiled from the works of Augusti by the Rev. Lyman Coleman, Andover, 1844.] Rheinwald, F. H., kirchliche Archæologie. Berl. 1830. Schöne, K., Geschichtforschungen über die kirchlichen Gebräuche und Einrichtungen der Kirche. Berl. 1819-22, 3 vols.] Böhmer, W., christlich-kirchliche Alterthumswissenschaft, Bresl. 1836-39, 2 vols. [Siegel, Handbuch d. christl. kirchl. Alterthümer. 4 Bde. Leipz. 1835-8. Guericke, Archäologie. Leipz. 1847. J. E. Riddle, Manual, Lond. 1839. William Bates, Lect. on Christ. Antiquities, 1854-7.]

These are, besides those already mentioned, Universal History, Ecclesiastical Philology, Ecclesiastical Chronology, Diplomatics, etc. [Comp. the introductions to works on ecolesiastical history. Gieseler, Text-Book of Church Hist., edited by H. B. Smith, New York, vol. I. pp. 19–20, 560-2.]

§ 9.

IMPORTANCE OF THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES.

Ernesti, Prolusiones de Theologiæ Historicæ et Dogmaticæ conjungendæ Necessitate, Lips. 1759, in his Opusc. Theol. Lips. 1773-92. Illgen, Ch. T., über den Werth der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, Leipz. 1817. Augusti, Werth der Dogmengeschichte, in his Theologische Blätter II. 2, p. 11, ss. Hagenbach, Encyclop. § 69. Niedner, Das Recht der Dogmen, in his Zeitschrift f. d. hist. Theol. 1851. [Comp. Kling, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1840. Niedner, Zur neuesten Dogmengesch. in the Allg. Monatsschrift, 1851. Engelhardt, in the Zeitschrift f. d. historische Theologie, 1853. J. Murdock, in the Christ. Monthly Spectator, vol. ix. pp. 27 sq., 249 sq.]

The value of the History of Doctrines, in a scientific point of view, follows in part from what has already been said. 1. It helps to complete the study of church history in one of its most important aspects. 2. It is an introduction to the study of systematic theology. Its moral and religious influence, its practical benefits, are the result of its purely scientific worth. In general, it exerts a shaping influence, by bringing into view the efforts and struggles of the human mind in relation to its most important concerns. But it is of special use to the theologian, preserving him both from a one-sided and rigid adherence to the letter (false orthodoxy), and from the superficial love of novelty which is characteristic of a contemptuous and impatient spirit (heterodoxy and neology).'

' Comp. § 2.

Comp. §10. The importance of the history of doctrines in both these respects has frequently been overrated. Every theological party has appealed to it in support of its peculiar views, or dreaded its results, both equally unworthy of a scientific spirit. Comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, I. p. 16-20.

§ 10.

MODE OF HANDLING THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES.

Daub, die Form der christlichen Dogmen- und Kirchenhistorie in Betracht gezogen, in Baur's Zeitschrift fur speculative Theologie. Berlin, 1836. Parts 1 and 2. Kliefoth, Th., Einleitung in die Dogmengeschichte, Parchim und Ludwigslust, 1839.

But only that mode of treating the History of Doctrines leads to these beneficial results, which brings to distinct consciousness, not only what is changeable in the doctrinal statements, but what is permanent in the midst of the changes; that which moves through the transient with a revivifying energy in a word, that which is essential and unchangeable in the Christian system of redemption. Only such a mode of handling the subject, viz.: historical

pragmatism, exhibits the external causes of the variations, in union with those dynamical principles, which work from within outward.

The following are the different methods in which the History of Doctrines may be handled:

1. The merely statutory, which takes in what has been established by the church as decisive truth, and excludes all that differs from this as decisive heresy; the logical standpoint of Roman Catholicism. History here is simply the recital of the protocols of the dictatorship of faith, exercised once for all.

2. The exclusive biblical, which starts from the position that the biblical statement of doctrine in its simple form is sufficient for all times, and which then convinces itself, either that it finds in the Bible, according to a traditional exegesis, the orthodox formulas that were later developed (e. g., those about the Trinity and Original Sin); or, in logical accordance with its exegetical exclusiveness, excludes what is not verbally contained in the Scriptures (biblical supernaturalism on the one side, or biblical rationalism on the other) -the standpoint of an incomplete Protestantism. With this method of handling the matter is usually conjoined

3. The pragmatic and critical, which explains all that goes beyond the Bible (or even what surpasses popular reasoning) by all sorts of accidents and externalities, by climatic, or social and political, relations, personal sympathies and antipathies, passions, cabals of courts, priestly deception, superstitition, and the like the standpoint of the vulgar rationalism, in which, too, for a long time, the merely formal biblical supernaturalism shared.

4. The one-sided speculative treatment, which sees in the whole development of doctrines a higher, but naturalistic, process, carried on and out by an internal necessity. Thus, every dogma at some period puts out its blossoms, and then fades away and gives place to another. Here the religious and practical worth of doctrines is underrated, as is their philosophical value by the previous tendency. The error at the basis of this method is in considering Christianity as the mere development of a process of thought, that is, as a mode of philosophy; but it is rather a moral force, resting on historical facts, and continually working upon personal agents. Neander (Dogmengeschichte, s. 15) correctly says: "While a superficial pragmatism concedes too much influence to the individual, the speculative method sets it wholly aside, regarding individuals as nothing but the blind organs of the idea, necessary momenta in its process of development."

5. The theological method considers the doctrinal substance of the Scriptures as a living seed, capable of the most prolific development; in the midst of the most unfavorable influences, it retains the formative energy, by which it evokes new and living products, adapted to the times. It always (like the second method) recurs to the Scriptures, and measures the products by this canon; but those plants which spring from biblical roots it will neither drive back into their roots, nor cut off. It has respect (like the third method) to the external circumstances, and those conditions of personal life, under which the doctrines have been developed, and is far from denying these influences, often

so palpable and tangible; only it does not rank them so high as to get lost, with such pragmatism, in a mere atomistic tendency. Instead of this, it takes for granted (with the fourth method) that there is a dynamic process of development, which, however, is not purely dialectic or logical, and hence not subject to dissolution-for this were only a more refined atomism (as is seen in Strauss's method). But, as religious truth can be only approximately expressed in speculative forms,* it also seeks after the beatings of the heart of the religious life, in the midst of both the coarser and the finer muscular systems, that it may thus grasp the law of the whole organism. This is the noble and scientific standpoint of genuine Protestantism; for that alone is true science which knows the real nature of the object, which the science is to exhibit. He who misconceives the nature of religion [as contrasted with philosophy], though he may have all historical knowlege and speculative tact, can not adequately narrate the History of Doctrines.

§ 11.

ARRANGEMENT OF THE MATERIALS.

The object of the History of Doctrines is to exhibit, not only the history of the Christian system as a whole, i. e., the whole substance of Christian truth, and the doctrinal tendencies expressed in its definite statements, but also the history of dogmas, i. e., the development of these particular doctrinal statements, opinions, and representations of the faith, to which the church theology of each period has given expression. Both these points of view ought, then, to be so combined, that the general shall be made more clear by the special, and the special also by the general. This is the import of the division of the materials into the General and the Special History of Doctrines. This division can not be vindicated, if the two are put in a merely external relation with each other; but they must be so presented, that the General History shall be seen to be the root of the Special; in the relative proportion, too, in which it is treated, it should sustain merely the relation of an introduction.'

1 "The Christian dogma (as a whole) approves itself as a thoroughly organic, and, at the same time, as an infinitely varied, system of dogmas; it is just as much a single dogma as it is also a world of dogmas. And this is the test of a complete dogmatic principle, that all genuine dogmas can be derived from it, and referred back to it." J. P. Lange, ubi supra, i. s. 29.

2

The division into the General and Special History of Doctrines has been assailed in recent times (Baur, in his review of Münscher's Lehrbuch, von Cölln's edition, in the Berlin wiss. Jahrbücher, Febr. 1836; s. 230, and by

* Compare the striking remark of Hamaan, cited in Neander, u. s. p. 3: ["The pearl of Christianity is a life hid in God, consisting neither in dogmas, nor in notions, nor in rites and usages."]

Klee, in his Dogmengesch. s. 9), and justly, so far as the two are merely coördinated without internal relations, and the one handled after the other has been fully presented (as in Augusti and Baumgarten-Crusius); for in this way, the one half has the aspect of an extended History of Doctrines, or of a chapter of church history, while the other becomes a system of theology in a historical form; and, moreover, repetitions can not be avoided. But even Münscher has the correct view, bringing forward the general and the special in each period, so that the former stands as an introduction to the latter, and the one becomes the test of the other; and this is undoubtedly the best method. (Comp. Neander's Dogmengeschichte.) The so-called General History of Doctrines is the band which binds into one whole the history of the particular doctrines, since it exhibits the points of view under which they are to be considered, the conditions under which they originated, etc.* Or, would it be better, with Klee, to treat merely of the history of individual doctrines, without prefixing any general summary, and without any division into periods? This leads to disintegration. The method chosen by Meier appeals most strongly to the artistic sense; he tries to mould the historical material in such a way "that the course of the history may correspond as exactly as possible with the course of development of the dogma itself, in which the general and the special are always acting as conditions, the one upon the other; and so, too, that the different aspects of the dogma can always be brought forward just at the juncture where there is manifestly some decisive or new point of development." But, still, in this mode of treatment the materials are apt to be too concisely used. Such artistic handling demands compression, and must demand it; while the history of doctrines ought to give the materials as completely as possible for the aid of the student.

§ 12.

DIVISION INTO PERIODS.

Comp. Hagenbach's Essay in the Theologischen Studien und Kritiken, 1828, part 4, and his Encyclop., p. [Comp. Kling in the Studien und Kritiken, 1841.]

The Periods of the History of Doctrines are to be determined by the most important epochs of development in the history of the theology. They do not quite coincide with those adopted in ecclesiastical history,' and may be divided as follows :"

I. Period. From the close of the Apostolic Age to the death of Origen (A. D. 80-254): the Age of Apologetics."

* So far, the General History of Doctrines is like the History of Dogmatics; but yet it is not to be identified with it. It comprises a broader sphere. It is related to it as is the History of Moral Law to the History of Jurisprudence, as is the History of Art to the History of Esthetics, as is the History of Christian Sermons to the History of Homiletics (as a science).