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. '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 Studie 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). II. Period. From the death of Origen to John Damascenus (254-730): the Age of Polemics.* III. Period. From John Damascenus to the Reformation (730-1517): the Age of Systems (scholasticism in its widest sense)." IV. Period. From the Reformation to the Rise of the Philosophy of Leibnitz and Wolf in Germany (1517-1720): the Age of Polemico-ecclesiastical Symbolism, or of the Conflict of Confessions." V. Period. From the year 1720 to the present day: the Age of Criticism, of Speculation, and of the Antagonism between Faith and Knowledge, Philosophy and Christianity, Reason and Revelation, including the attempts to reconcile them." 1 Events that make an epoch in church history may not have the same significance in respect to the history of doctrines; and so conversely. It is true that the development of doctrines is connected with the history of church government, of Christian worship, etc., but the influences which they exert upon each other are not always contemporaneous. Thus the Arian controversy occurred in the age of Constantine, but it was not called forth by his conversion, which, on the other hand, is of so much importance, that it determines a period in ecclesiastical history. On the contrary, the views of Arius arose out of the speculative tendency of Origen and his followers, in opposition to Sabellianism. Accordingly, it is better in this instance to make the epoch with the death of Origen, and the rise of the Sabellian controversy, which are nearly coeval.* And so in other periods. The numerical differences are very great. Baumgarten-Crusius adopts twelve periods, Lenz eight, etc. Münscher follows a different division in his (larger) Hand-book from the one in his Text-book-in the former he has seven, in the latter only three periods (ancient, medieval, and modern times). Engelhardt and Meier have adopted the same threefold division, with this difference, that the latter, by subdividing each period into two, has six periods. It is alike inconvenient to press very different tendencies into This is conceded by Neander, although he prefers, as does Gieseler, to retain in the History of Doctrines the periods of general church history. [Neander's division is: 1. To Gregory the Great, subdivided by the times of Constan tine, and forming respectively the Apologetic period and the Polemic and Systematic periods. 2. To the Reformation, subdivided by Gregory VII., comprising a transition period and the scholastic era. 3. From the Reformation to the present time. Gieseler separates the ancient from the medieval periods by the Image Controversy, taking A. D. 726 as the epoch. Baumgarten-Crusius, in his Compendium, makes six periods, skillfully characterized: 1. Formation of the System of Doctrines by reflection and opinion (to the Council of Nice). 2. Formation by the Church (to Chalcedon). 3. Confirmation of the System by the Hierarchy (to Gregory VII). 4. Confirmation by the Philosophy of the Church (to the end of the fifteenth century). 5. Purification by Parties (to beginning of no eigthteenth century). 6. Purification by Science (to the present time).] long periods, and to have too great a number of divisions. Thus it is one of the chief defects of Münscher's Text-book, that the first period extends from A. D. 1 to 600. The periods in the History of Doctrines may be of greater extent than those in ecclesiastical history (see Baur in the review above cited), because the whole style of the system of doctrines does not undergo as rapid changes as Christian life in general; but natural boundaries which are as distinct as the age of Constantine, should not be lightly disregarded. Klee coincides most nearly with us, though he considers the division into periods as superfluous. Vorländer also, in his tables, has adopted our terminology. Comp. also the review of Lenz's Dogmengesch., in the Litt. Blätter d. allg. Lit. Zeitung, for Jan., 1836. Rosenkranz (Encyclopædie, 2d edit., p. 259, ss.) makes, according to philosophico-dialectic categories, the following division: 1. Period of Analytic Knowledge, of substantial feeling (Greek Church). 2. Period of Synthetic Knowledge, of pure objectivity (Roman Catholic Church). 3. Period of Systematic Knowledge, which combines the analysis and synthesis in their unity, and manifests itself in the stages of symbolical orthodoxy, of subjective belief and unbelief, and in the idea of speculative theology (Protestant Church). The most ingenious division is that of Kliefoth, though it is not free from faults peculiar to itself: 1. The Age of Formation of Doctrines....Greek........ [Analytic...... [Theology. Symbolical Unity.. Rom. Catholic. Synthetic..... Anthropology. .... On the grounds on which this division rests, see Kliefoth, 1. c. cycl. p. 323) combines this with our division. Pelt (En In answer to the question, Why not commence with the first year of our era comp. § 3. The year 70 here assumed is also only approximative. We call this period the age of Apologetics, because its theology was chiefly developed in the defense of Christianity against both Judaism and Paganism. The controversies which took place within the church itself (with Ebionites, Gnostics, etc.), had respect for the most part to the opposition of judaizing teachers and pagan philosophers, so that the polemical interest was conditioned by the apologetic. The work of Origen Teрí aрx@v is the only one in which we find any independent attempt to form a system of theology. During the second period the conflict became an internal one. The apologetic interest in relation to those outside of the church ceases almost entirely with the conversion of Constantine, or, at any rate, recedes into the background as compared with the polemical activity (a converse relation to that of the previous period). The history of ecclesiastical controversies, from the rise of the Sabellian, down to the close of the Monothelite controversy, forms one continuous series, the different parts of which are so intimately connected that it can not easily be interrupted. It is concluded by the work of John Damascenus (EKOεσiç πíσтεwг). This period, with its numerous conflicts, its synods for the definition of doctrines, is undoubtedly the most important for the History of Doctrines, if this importance be measured by |