THE OBJECTIONS OF STRAUSS.

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be found in order to understand the History of all Religions. But how are we to manage with the phenomena that lie within the circle of Christianity itself? In modern times methods of treating the History of Dogmas have been proposed which have tried to assume a standpoint above Christianity. A distinction has been made in it between the substance of the thought and the empirical appearance which forms its envelope. Thus STRAUSS complains that Christianity has not been yet discussed with the same freedom as other Religions. But since, as we have remarked, Christianity is the absolute Religion, which alone meets all the religious wants of Man, no higher standpoint can be given for religious inquiries than itself. Moreover, religious phenomena are only intelligible by means of their principle, Religion, which has its seat in the soul of man, and not by mere intellectual notions. In fact what is presented as the essence of Christianity from the standpoint of the Intellect often consists of ideas which have no root in Christianity. Strauss, for example, endeavours to trace back the whole fulness of the divine life in Christianity to universal ideas; to an immanent reason which occupies the place of the living God and by which God and the World are interchanged or confounded; to the eternity of the Spirit in mankind which is substituted for a personal life, and which makes man as transitory as all other earthly phenomena; in fine, the idea of Humanity comes in place of the historical Christ. This mode of thinking is in direct contradiction to Christianity, and therefore cannot comprehend it. It also contradicts History; for what has exercised the greatest influence on the inner and outer life of man? not abstract ideas certainly, but Christianity in its own flesh and blood, the personal religious truths which form the vital principle of the Christian Church. So that Christianity cannot be separated from Christ and his Apostles, with whom it originated, nor from the facts which accompanied its first promulgation; our task will ever be to develope more widely that which was granted to mankind at the first appearance of Christianity. Hence, no Philosophy of Religion can explain Christianity but what is grounded on Christianity itself, as it shows itself through all ages in the Christian consciousness. Therefore for the consideration of the History of Dogmas there can be no other standpoint than that of Christianity

itself; from thence all the imperfect and erroneous modes of religion must be examined and the relation to the pure Truth pointed out.

5. ARRANGEMENT OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMAS.

In historical composition there are two methods of arrangement-according to the order of Time (the Synchronic), or according to the nature of the events. Following the former method, all those events would be placed together which happened at the same time; the latter method, applied to the History of Dogmas, would trace each single dogma in its development through all ages. The first arrangement has this advantage, that everything is viewed in its historcial connexion, but on the other hand, it is defective in real unity. In the other arrangement, the unity that depends on the nature of the facts is prominent, but then events are dissevered from the times in which they happened and the phenomena are too much isolated: the substantial dogmatic interest is increased but the historic is lessened. Monographs on the history of particular dogmas have, indeed, great value, yet for the reasons just mentioned it would be injurious to adopt this plan for the entire History of Dogmas. Hence the two methods must be used in conjunction. Accordingly it will be well to divide the History of the Dogma into several sections, as the development may make desirable. The division into centuries has been sometimes chosen but arbitrarily, for a development does not always tally with such periods. Certain critical periods will give us a correct basis of division; these, as Schleiermacher says, are marked junctures in development, the signals of a new creation, and hence are termed Toxal Epochs, pauses or resting-places for contemplation. What exists at the epoch in the germ, is developed to a more advanced stage, and thus afterwards becomes the Period. The former denotes the fountain-head, the latter the stream; their limits are where a new form of culture again appears in an Epoch. The Epochs are either critical and destructive, or creative and organizing. In determining the epochs for a History of Dogmas, the question arises whether they should be made to fit the general History of the Church, or be formed indepedently. On the one hand, the Epochs of Church History mark the most universal and deeply influential

changes. And the general causes which operate destructively or creatively on life in general, must also manifest themselves in reference to particular doctrines. On the other hand the Dogma has its own special development, and appears to require its own special epochs. ORIGEN and his school, for instance, mark in the History of Dogmas a new Epoch and Period, while these in Church History begin somewhat late with Constantine the Great. But the most essential Factor in the formation of Dogmas is the religious Life which is ever the same; and hence if in the development of Dogmas a new Epoch has already been prepared, the consequences will probably first be seen in the general, new, spiritual movement, which also marks an Epoch in Church History. Thus Origen appears as the closing point of the preceding, and the preparation of the following Period; but his influence did not attain its height before the fourth century, when a new Period in Church History also begins. Accordingly we shall do well to connect the epochs and periods of Church History and of the History of Dogmas.

If we take a general survey of these divisions, we shall, first of all, have to consider how after Christianity had entered the world, the doctrine propagated by the Apostles met with opposition and developed itself among Jews and Heathens. This Period we shall designate the Apologetic, not merely on account of the Vindication of Christianity against Judaism and Heathenism, but principally because Christianity established itself in its peculiar character against these different standpoints. The boundary line is here marked by Origen, in whom, along with his apologetic, we descry the germ of a systematic tendency. This latter tendency was unfolded by the School of Origen, so that, with the fourth century, when the Church came forth from its struggle with the powers of Heathenism, and had gained the Victory in the Roman World, the Systematic Polemic Period begins, which lasts to the end of the sixth century. These two periods embrace the whole formative process of Christian doctrine in the classical ages. The Greek Church continued still longer in the element of Hellenic culture, but as it gradually sunk into a state of stagnation, we cannot form epochs from the events in it, but only according to the development of the nations, who by this time became conspicuous in the World's

History, and who shared not in this torpidity. The great revolution founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire was commenced chiefly by the Germanic nations. But while the centuries immediately succeeding are very important in reference to the History of the Church, and a strongly marked new life appears in them, yet from the nature of the case they were of less importance in the History of Dogmas. For Christianity must first penetrate deeply into the life of the new nations before the corresponding formative process could appear in the Dogma. On this account, we must join several centuries together, as a period of transition, in which preparation was made for a great new creation. This Period extends from the end of the sixth to the end of the eleventh century. In the following centuries that peculiar spiritual creation comes first to view which proceeded from the development of Christianity among these new, vigorous nations. During this period, the Catholic element, that is, the onesided reference to the Church instead of Christ, which had been for some time in preparation, predominated in the life of the Church. Hence arose the secularization of the idea of the Church and of the Theocracy-the confounding of the Old and New Testament standpoints, and the fettering of the Christian spirit by an outward legal form. The principles that proceeded from this standpoint were now presented in dogmatic thought. This was the time for maturing the Catholic element, the foundation of the Catholic dogma for future ages. This also constitutes the peculiarity of Scholasticism which was now developed. For the dependence of Theology as of all Science on Tradition stands in connexion with it, and the dependence of Philosophy on Theology of which it is the ancilla, and from this follows a mingling of the Philosophical element with Theology. But since in the course of this development, Theology was continually losing more of its original elements, and hastening to decay, re-actions of the original Christian spirit set in and prepared the New Epoch of the Reformation. Here we discern the development of the emancipated Christian spirit in opposition to the authority of a secularized Church, and of the Christian element set free from the Jewish standpoint. As the Apostle Paul was the first who fought against a Judaizing tendency in the Christian Church, so at the Reformation the Pauline standpoint was the most influ

THE REFORMATION AND RATIONALISM.

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ential. The principle of the Reformation is applicable to the development of the doctrines of the Christian faith, though not equally to each particular dogma. The two forms of dogma, the Lutheran and the Reformed, in which the same principle diverges in different directions, are specially to be noted. A stagnation followed the first living development in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Catholic Church had become torpid with the ecclesiastical formalism; the Protestant Church was in a similar state owing to a one-sided intellectual dogmatism. As the predominant form was retained most decidedly in opposition to all free development such as the principle of Protestantism required, re-actions of the original principle were called forth both in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. This tendency was developed in the eighteenth century as emancipation from dogmatic authority far beyond its first aim. The Reformatory aim occasioned a Revolution, because it was negative. A new general epoch of development among the nations of Christendom followed. The mental culture which had been developed under the control of the Church, sought to make itself independent. Reason, struggling for emancipation, after having been kept down by the despotism of Church power, rebelled; Christian Doctrine was obliged to enter the lists with this antagonist, but as it possessed a more powerful principle, it was able to surmount the danger. The conflict served to purify it from the corrupting human elements, and led to the harmony of the pure human with the divine. Thus in Germany par ticularly, beginning with SEMLER, there was a period of breaking up of established modes of thought, but this critical process was a purification and the preparation for a new Creation which proceeded principally from Schleiermacher. But this could only be developed by a renewed conflict with Rationalism, and in this conflict we are still engaged.

6. OF THE SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMAS.

Of all History the sources are two-fold: immediate and mediate. The immediate furnish the raw material without elaboration; the mediate give it to a certain extent prepared. Works of the first class are those which give us an immediate counterpart of events, being their direct offspring; those of