Note 16 — Chapter I

Footnote 16:

(return)

See Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition, 1859, Hase, Handbuch der protest. Polemik, 1878. Joh Delitszch, Das Lehrsystem der röm. Kirche, 1875. New revelations, however, are rejected, and bold assumptions leading that way are not favoured: See Schwane, above work p. 11: "The content of revelation is not enlarged by the decisions or teaching of the Church, nor are new revelations added in course of time ... Christian truth cannot therefore in its content be completed by the Church, nor has she ever claimed the right of doing so, but always where new designations or forms of dogma became necessary for the putting down of error or the instruction of the faithful, she would always teach what she had received in Holy scripture or in the oral tradition of the Apostles." Recent Catholic accounts of the history of dogma are Klee, Lehrbuch der D.G. 2 vols, 1837, (Speculative). Schwane, Dogmengesch. der Vornicänischen Zeit, 1862, der patrist Zeit, 1869; der Mittleren Zeit, 1882. Bach, Die D.G. des MA. 1873. There is a wealth of material for the history of dogma in Kuhn's Dogmatîk, as well as in the great controversial writings occasioned by the celebrated work of Bellarmin; Disputationes de controversiis Christianæ fidei adversus hujus temporis hæreticos, 1581-1593. It need not be said that, in spite of their inability to treat the history of dogma historically and critically, much may be learned from these works, and some other striking monographs of Roman Catholic scholars. But everything in history that is fitted to shake the high antiquity and unanimous attestation of the Catholic dogmas, becomes here a problem, the solution of which is demanded, though indeed its carrying out often requires a very exceptional intellectual subtlety.