Theology is divided into two great branches — (1) Natural, or that which relates to such disclosures of himself as God has made in the outward world ; and (2) Revealed, or such as he has made through his spo- ken and written word. Eminent writers in the latter department of theology, as Schleiermacher, Hagenbach. Pelt, (iodet, and others, present different methods of arranging the different subjects embraced in this study. See TnEOi,OGY. The arrangement adopted by Dr. J. M'Clintock is given in the article METiioDOi^ociV (q. v.). The different branches are discussed under their several heads. See also Apologetics ; Ecclesiastical His- tory; Ecclesiastical Polity; Ethics; Polemics, etc.
Theologus i« the title of a clerical instructor of the clergy associaleil in chapters, etc., who was appointed, by the authority of several councils, to teach the Holy Scriptures-, the Theologal {(,\. \ .).
Theology (from ^toc, God, and Xoyof, discourse) is not to be interpreted simply as its etymology re- quires, as the doctrine of God, nor yet historically, as the doctrine of the Trinity, but is to be understood with reference to a definite range of life which it is to bring into the consciousness and apprehend both theoretical- ly and practically. Theology is not, consequently, the doctrine of the Christian religion, nor of the self-con- sciousness of God in man, as speculative theology is wont to speak, nor yet of the feeling of the Absolute. It is primarily the shaping of a life in man ; in the lan- guage of Steeustrnp, the Danish divine, it is an inter- nal habit which lies deeper than the intellect. This has been conceded since the time of Sclileiermachcr with reference to both religion and theology. Rudel- bach describes it as a science of divine things mediated by the Spirit of God. Viknar teaches that true theol- ogy is esoteric in form, because truly scientific ; but also practical, because it involves piety and the entire con- tents of religion. It sustains to the practical life, how- ever, only the relation of idea to practice. The heart of the Christian life is, moreover, not religion, but the kingdom of God, or God's organic revelation to the world — the Church (see Storr, Schleiermacher, Baum- garten-Crusius, and many Romish theologians; also Kling, in Herzog, Real-Encyllop. xii, 600-606). Theol- ogy thus becomes the science of the unfolded, objective self-manifestation of the Divine Spirit in the phenome- nal kingdom of God — a practical science which devel- ops progressively and side by side with that kingdom. But it is none the less a positive science also through its relation to the kingdom. Schleiermacher (^Kurze Darstell. etc.) describes Christian theology as the com- prehension of all that scientific knowledge and those scientific methods without whose possession and use a harmonious direction of the Christian Church, i. e. a Christian Church government, is not possible. This definition is, however, too external; for in the material of theology all truth finds its goal, and that fact should be expressed in its definition. Both the object and the scientific character of theology will be retained if the latter be defined as the scientific self-consciousness of the Church with reference to its development through the Holy Spirit, or, more briefl}-, its self-consciousness with res|>ect to its self-edification.
From this definition theology branches out into par- ticular departments. The self-consciousness has for its first task the apprehension of the Church in actuality by determining its historical origin, development, and present state. Historical theology is the historj' of the kingdom of God consciously apprehended. It subdi- vides into the three special branches of Sacred History, Ecclesiastical History, and Ecclesiastical Statistics.
The determination of sources and portrayal of the outworking and development of the leading principles by which events are governed are of primary importance in historical study. The first source here is wholly unique, being the might of the Divine Spirit. The source for the beginnings of the Christian Church is, at the same time, a regulative guide and vivifying prin- ciple to the Church. By the side of other sources it affords knowledge respecting the time of the origin of the Old Covenant, and its development until it became the New, and it possesses unquestionable authority as the earliest witness to the operative power of the Di- vine Spirit in the world, and consequently as its medi- ating principle, or as the Bible, the only sacred book.
The first part of historical theology is consequently a knowledge respecting the Bible (Biblical theology, in the wider meaning). It is all-important to determine what books belong to the Bible, and this is the business of the Canon. The whole Bible is to be authenticated both in its parts and its text ; to accomplish this is the
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work of historical and textual rrilk'ism. Introduction to the books of the Old and Xew Tests. {ls(ii/o;/ics),oT, more exactly, the I/iflori/ of the Cdiion and of liiblkal IJtenitiire. presents the collective material to view, and is followed by p/illulor/ical and theolofjkal exposition. The scientific conception of this exjiository work is Iler- meiieuties, or the art of interpretation. Tlie history of the Word of God, the Divine Revelation, and the pres- entation of its contents which have attained to their development are siven in Sacred History (and Arclue- olouy) and in Biblical Dogmatics and Ethics— usually termed, in Germany, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Tests.: the latter being the final and gradually de- veloping phase of the Divine Revelation, whose central point is the establishing of the kingdom of divine grace through Jesus Christ. This science is theologico-his- torieal. and tlierefore deals largely with details, e.g. the particular doctrinal contents of separate Old-Test, books, etc.