Note (return) — Chapter I

In his outlines of the history of Christian dogma (Grundriss der Christl. Dogmengesch. 1870), which unfortunately has not been carried beyond the first part (Patristic period), F. Nitzsch, marks an advance in the history of our subject. The advance lies, on the one hand, in the extensive use he makes of monographs on the history of dogma, and on the other hand, in the arrangement. Nitzsch has advanced a long way on the path that was first entered by F.K. Meier, and has arranged his material in a way that far excels all earlier attempts. The general and special aspects of the history of dogma are here almost completely worked into one,43 and in the main divisions, "Grounding of the old Catholic Church doctrine," and "Development of the old Catholic Church doctrine," justice is at last done to the most important problem which the history of dogma presents, though in my opinion the division is not made at the right place, and the problem is not so clearly kept in view in the execution as the arrangement would lead one to expect.44 Nitzsch has freed himself from that speculative view of the history of dogma which reads ideas into it. No doubt idea and motive on the one hand, form and expression on the other, must be distinguished for every period. But the historian falls into vagueness as soon as he seeks and professes to find behind the demonstrable ideas and aims which have moved a period, others of which, as a matter of fact, that period itself knew nothing at all. Besides, the invariable result of that procedure is to concentrate the attention on the theological and philosophical points of dogma, and either neglect or put a new construction on the most concrete and important, the expression of the religious faith itself. Rationalism has been reproached with "throwing out the child with the bath," but this is really worse, for here the child is thrown out while the bath is retained. Every advance in the future treatment of our subject will further depend on the effort to comprehend the history of dogma without reference to the momentary opinions of the present, and also on keeping it in closest connection with the history of the Church, from which it can never be separated without damage. We have something to learn on this point from rationalistic historians of dogma.45 But progress is finally dependent on a true perception of what the Christian religion originally was, for this perception alone enables us to distinguish that which sprang out of the inherent power of Christianity from that which it has assimilated in the course of its history. For the historian, however, who does not wish to serve a party, there are two standards in accordance with which he may criticise the history of dogma. He may either, as far as this is possible, compare it with the Gospel, or he may judge it according to the historical conditions of the time and the result. Both ways can exist side by side, if only they are not mixed up with one another. Protestantism has in principle expressly recognised the first, and it will also have the power to bear its conclusions; for the saying of Tertullian still holds good in it; "Nihil veritas erubescit nisi solummodo abscondi." The historian who follows this maxim, and at the same time has no desire to be wiser than the facts, will, while furthering science, perform the best service also to every Christian community that desires to build itself upon the Gospel.