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sections of church history, but especially to doctrine and government. For single sections, again, there are special documentary sources. For dogmatic history first of all the confessions of faith, in which the church doctrine is enunciated in normative style; for the history of the Christian life, the different monastic rules; for the history of worship, the liturgies; for the history of ecclesiastical polity, the civil ordinances of the Byzantine, Frank, and German princes referring to the church.4 2. Inscriptions; particularly over graves. These frequently throw light on particular facts, the birth and death of distinguished men, their deeds, etc. and are characteristic for the spirit of the age. They are not, however, of as much value for church history, as for certain parts of profane.5

3. Private writings of historical actors, So for the history of the ancient church, the works of the apologists and church fathers are of the greatest account; for the history of the Middle Ages, the works of the schoolmen and mystics; for the history of the Reformation, the works of the reformers and their Roman adversaries. They give us the most lively image of their authors and their age. Here however it is necessary to weigh beforehand, in the scales of careful and thorough criticism, the genuineness of the authorities, so as not to be misled by any false light. Especially needful is this in the case of written monuments of the second and third centuries, when a multitude of apocryphal writings were forged; which are themselves indeed characteristic, only not for the names they are made falsely to represent, but for the heretical tendencies rather out of which they have sprung.

1A collection of the older symbols is given by C. W. F. Walch, in his Bibliotheca symbolica vetus. Lemgo. 1770; and recently by A. Hahn: Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der apost. Kath. Kirche. Breslau. 1842. The Confessions of the Lutheran church are found complete in the editions of Rechenberg and Hahn; those of the Reformed church in the Collectio Confessionum, etc. by Niemeyer. Leipzig. 1840.

2 L. Holstenius: Codex regularum Monasticarum. Rom. 1661. 3 t. enlarged by Brockie a. 1759. 6 t.

3 Comp. Assemani: Codex liturgicus ecclesiae universalis. Rom. 1749. 13 t. Renaudot: Liturgiarum orientalium collectio. Par. 1716. 2 t. Muratori: Liturg. rom. vetus. Venet. 1748. 2 t.

The laws of the Roman emperors may be found in the Codex Theodosianus and Cod. Justinianeus; those of the Frank kings in Baluzii Collectio capitularium regum Frankorum. Par. 1677; those of the German emperors in Haiminsfeldii Collectio constitutionum imperialium. Fref. 1713.

5 Collections of such inscriptions are, for instance, Ciampini Vetera Monumenta. Rom. 1747. 3 t. fol.; Jacutii Christ. antiquitatum specimina. Rom. 1752 4 t.; F. Munter's Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der Alten Christen. Altona. 1825.

So again it is necessary also to have at hand correct and complete editions.1

b. Unwritten. Here belong works of art; particularly church edifices, and religious paintings. The religious domes of the Middle Ages, for instance, are an embodiment of the gigantic spirit of that period; they may be taken as a commentary on the reigning apprehension at the time of Christianity and the church, and are so far of the greatest importance for the historian.

B. The MEDIATE or INDIRECT SOURCES are:

1. Before all, the reports and representations of historical writers. These do not give us the history as it is in its own originality, like the immediate sources, but its subjective apprehension, in the way of exposition and commentary. Among such reports, those of course must take the first place, which proceed from eye and ear witnesses, whether friends or foes; in which case indeed they approximate closely to the character of direct sources. The measure of their worth depends, as all may see, on the trustworthiness and capacity of their authors. Weighty in this way are, for the Apostolic period, for instance, the Acts of the Apostles by St. Luke, aside even from their canonical authority; for the history of the early persecutions, the reports of the churches at Smyrna and Lyons; for the age of Constantine, the historical works of Eusebius; for the Middle Ages, the annals and chronicles of the monks; for the Reformation, Spalatin's Annales reformationis, the biographies of Luther by Melanchthon and Marthesius, Sleidan's Commentarii, etc.

Historians who have lived after the events they narrate, may be regarded also as sources, when they have drawn upon reliable documents, monuments, and autoptic reports, which are subsequently either lost altogether, or at least placed beyond our reach, (as in the case partly with the treasures of the Vatican library). Among these, the biographies of particular men, who have stood high in the church, take an important place. Such biographies, of the martyrs particularly and saints, we have in great number.2

Of all the more important church fathers there are good editions, particularly from the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century. (See Walch's Bibliotheca patristica.) There are also valuable collections of patristic literature; as, Maxima bibliotheca veterum patrum, etc. Lugd. 1677. 28 t. fol.; and, Gallandi: Bibliotheca vett. patrum antiquorumque scriptorum ecclesiast., postrema lugdunensi locupletior. Venet. 1765-88. 14 t. fol.

2 The most important collection of the sort, which however by reason of the fables mixed with it needs to be used with great caution. is found in the Acta Sanctorum, quotquot toto orbe coluntur, edd. Bolandus et alii (Bollandistae). Antwerp.

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2. Among the mediate sources, finally, may be reckoned also, although of very subordinate consequence, oral traditions, legends, and popular sayings; so far at least as they are characteristic of the history of the time, in which they had their origin. So, for example, the saying throughout the Middle Ages, that the church since her union with the State under Constantine had lost her virginity; the saying which arose in the time of the Hohenstaufen, that Frederick II. would return, or that an eagle would rise out of his ashes, to destroy the papacy, showing an early opposition to Romanism on the part of the common German mind.

§ 11. Substitute for Study of Sources.

For the historian a critical acquaintance with at least the principal sources is indispensable; and this requires again a vast amount of preliminary knowledge, in particular a most intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages, in which for the most part the direct sources are offered for use. For general need however, and for common practical ends, such works may answer as are founded on a thorough study of the sources. Especially worthy of commendation among the modern works of that kind, are the church histories of Neander and Gieseler, neither of which however is yet completed. Neander combines with the most extensive reading, particularly in patristic literature, the finest sense of truth and justice, an inward sympathy with all forms and types of the Christian spirit and life, a great talent for apprehending and delineating genetically the spirit of leading persons and tendencies, and a lovely, child-like religious spirit and sincerity; qualities altogether, which have won for him deservedly the title, father of modern church history, and almost cause us to forget the faults of his immortal work-among which must be reckoned particularly the carelessness and frequently wearisome diffuseness of his style. Gieseler's text is very lean, and betrays rather an untoward,

1693-1794, in 53 folio volumes. They are composed by Jesuits, and arranged after the days of the months, reaching to the 6th of October. The apparatus for this work embraces alone about 700 manuscripts, which are found in a castle of the province of Antwerp.

1 Not these languages indeed in their classic purity. The ecclesiastical Greek and Latin, accordingly, is not to be learned out of the usual grammars and lexicons alone, but other helps must be called in, such as Suicer's Thesaurus ecclesiasticus e patribus graecis; Carol. du Fresne's (Dom. du Cange) Glossarium 'ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis (Lugd. 1688. 2 t. fol.); also his Glossarium ad scr. med. et inf. latinitatis (Par. 1733—36. 6 t. fol.) Other editions, with Carpentier's supplement, in 4 vols. folio.

spiritless apprehension of history; his work is made invaluable, however, by the rich extracts from the sources, selected with vast diligence and skill, which occupy by far the most room, and place the reader in a situation to form his own judgment.

Of smaller works, Guericke and Hase are best for manual use. Guericke's work is just of the right size (3 volumes) for commencing students, and gives the principal matter in a comprehensive and pious form; the best parts of it however, down to the time of the Reformation, are due to the work of Neander, and it stands, subsequently to this epoch, so much in the service of bigoted Lutheranism, and blind hatred towards the Reformed church, that this must hinder its usefulness, out of Germany especially, far more even than its cumbersome and tasteless style. Hase is, among all that have been named, by far the most gifted writer of history. He has an extraordinary talent for spirited individual delineation, and can, with a few masterly touches, characterize a whole age. So much the more to be lamented is it, that his admirable genius should not be baptized fully in the element of faith.

Along with such general works however, should be consulted particularly also the many extremely instructive and interesting monographies of German scholarship on distinguished theologians and their times; as these serve to bring minuteness into our view, and in many cases almost supercede the necessity of a study of sources. Such monographies we have on Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Anselm, Bernhard of Clairvaux, Hugo of St. Victor, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Alexander III, those on the Forerunners of the Reformation, on almost all the Reformers, on Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf, Bengel, etc.; so again on the most weighty portions of the dogmatic history, on single divisions and periods of the church. This monographic literature moreover is constantly on the increase; as German diligence in particular, especially since Neander here also has led the way, is adding almost every year some new work of value to those already on hand, and is not likely to rest till every nook and corner of church history is explored and the entire past made near to us by living reproduction.

12. Method of writing Church History.

We are next to inquire, how the material of church history is to be arranged and represented.

I. As regards external method, or the disposition of the matter,

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it is best to unite the order of time with that of things. The chronological or synchronistic method, which has been in much favor heretofore, is very external and mechanical, when carried out by itself, whether by years, according to Fleury, or by centuries, as with Mosheim. History sinks in this way to a mere chronicle, and the flow of events is broken, so that things are sundered which should go together, and not unfrequently things brought together which should be held apart, all in obedience to the artificial rule of time. No less unsuitable however is the use, exclusively, of the order of subjects or things, where the matter is distributed under certain heads, as missions, doctrine, government, etc., and each head pursued without regard to the rest, from the beginning down to the present time. History in this way is turned into a number of independent and separate parallel lines; allowing no insight into the interior connections and relations of the different departments, no proper apprehension of any period as a whole.

In view of these disadvantages on either side, it is desirable so to unite the two methods, that we may have the benefit of both. This we may do, by following indeed the course of time, but in such way that the division here shall depend on the character and order of the events, and the same subject be followed out still to its relative close, without any concern to have this coincident exactly with the end of a year or century or any other fixed period. The entire history is thus divided into certain periods answerable to its actual course itself, to satisfy the chronological interest; while within these periods, the matter is treated under particular sections or heads, as many as each period may need, to satisfy the order of things.

2. The internal method of the historian is the genetic or evolutionary; which consists in this, that the history is made to reproduce itself according to nature, or to represent itself exactly as it has occurred. This method differs on the one hand from simple narration, which puts together mere outward facts and names, without rising to general views and philosophical observations, and on the other hand from a priori construction, which adjusts history to a preconceived scheme, and for the spirit of a past age substitutes its own spirit. The historian must give himself up in full to his object; first inquiring accurately and conscientiously into the state of facts, in the next place living himself into the spirit of the time which has produced the facts, and then representing both, the facts filled with their own spirit and life, in such way that the whole process of development may repeat itself before the eyes of the reader, and the actors appear clothed in real flesh and blood. History is neither altogether body, nor altogether soul, but both in inVOL. VI. No. 23. 37

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