RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church History
The unwritten sources are works of Christian art, such as churches, chapels, pictures, sculptures, crosses, crucifixes, relics, and other monuments which symbolize and embody Christian ideas. The Roman catacombs, with their vast extent, their solemn darkness, their labyrinthine mystery, their rude epitaphs and sculptures, 2. Un- their symbols of faith, and their relics
written of martyrdom, give a lifelike idea of
Sources, the Church in the period of persecution, its trials and sufferings, its faith and hope, its simple worship and devoted piety. "He who is thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catacombs will be nearer to the thoughts of the early Church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatises of Tertullian or Origen." The basilicas are characteristic of the Nicene period; the Byzantine churches, of the Byzantine age and the Eastern and Russian Church; the Gothic cathedrals, of the palmy days of medieval Catholicism; the Renaissance style, of the revival of letters. Even now, most churches and sects can be best appreciated in the localities, and in view of the monuments and the people, where they originated, or have their center of life and action.
IV. Duty of the Historian: The historian must master the sources in the original languages in which they were written (Greek, Latin, 1. Investi- Syriac, Coptic, and the modern langation. gaages of Europe); separating the genuine from the spurious, the original from corruptions and interpolations, sifting the truth from falsehood, the facts from fiction arid partizan judgment, comparing the accounts of all actors, friend and foe, narrator, eulogist, advocate, and antagonist, whether orthodox or heretic, whether Christian, Jew, or Gentile, aiming in all this laborious investigation at " the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
He must, then, reproduce the clearly ascertained facts and results of his investigation in a faithful and lifelike narrative, so as to present tlie objective course of history itself, as it were, in a photograph, or rather in an artistic painting; for a photograph gives a dull view of the momentary look of a person, while the portrait of the artist combines the changing moods and various aspects of his subject into a living whole. The genuine writer of history differs as much from
2. Pres. the dry chronicler of isolated facts
entation and dates as from the novelist. He of Results, must represent both thoughts and facts. He must particularize and generalize, descend into minute details and take a comprehensive bird's-eye view of whole ages and periods. H^ must have a judicial mind, which deals impartially with all persons and events coming before his tribunal. He must be free from partizan and sectarian bias, and aim at justice and truth. It is the exclusive privilege of the divine mmd to view all thir.gs sub specie aeternitatis, and to see the end from the beginning. Man can know things only consecutively and in fragments. But history is its own best interpreter; and the farther It advances the more one is able to understand III.— 7
and appreciate the past. Historians differ in gifts and vocation. Some are miners, who bring out the raw material from the sources (Flacius, Baronius, Tillemont, Gieseler, Denifle, Hamack! Pastor); others are manufacturers, who work up the material for the use of scholars (Bossuet, Mosheim. Gibbon, DoUiiiger, Milman, Neander). Some are wholesale merchants, some retailers. Some are bold critics, who open new avenues of thought (Ewald, Baur, Renan); others popularize the results of laborious researches for the general benefit (Hagenbach, Merle, Hase, Pressense, Fisher).
V. Periods and Epochs: These represent the different stages in the religious development of the race. They must not be made arbitrarily, according to a mechanical scheme (such as the centurial division, introduced by Flacius in the "Magdeburg Centuries," and followed by Mosheim), but taken from the actual stops or starting-points (which is the real meaning of "epoch," from Gk. epecho, " to stop," " to pause ") and circuits (Gk. peridoi) of the history itself. The follow^ng are the natural divisions:
1. Sacred, or Bitolical History: The history of divine revelation, from the creation to the close of the apostolic age, running parallel with the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. Here distinction must be made between the dispensation of the Law and the dispensation of the Gospel, or the history of the Old Covenant religion and that of the New Covenant religion.
2. Christian History or Ecclesiastical History proper, from the beginning of the apostolic age to modern times. Subdivisions:
(a) History of Ancient Christianity, embracing the first six centuries to Gregory I. (590): Greco-Latin, Patristic, Catholic, the common stock from which the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches have sprung. Subdivisions: (1) The life of Christ and the apostoUc age. (2) The age of persecution, to Constantino the Great and the Council of Nicasa (325). (3) The age of the union of Church and State, of the formulation of Christian doctrine, and ecumenical councils (to 590). Some historians carry ancient Christianity down to Charlemagne (800) and the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire and the temporal power of the papacy. In this case there is a fourth subdi\dsion, from Gregory I. to Charlemagne (590 to 800). But Charlemagne belongs to the Middle Ages and the Germanic phase of Christianity.
(b) History of Medieval Christianity, from the close of the sixth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, or from Gregory the Great (590), the first medieval pope, to Luther (1517). The Greek and Roman churches, divided since the controversy of Photius and Pope Nicholas I., pursue their independent course. The papacy receives its full development, the Holy Roman Empire is the dominant power, religious thought gradually moves toward the Reformation, and Western Europe comes more and more into prominence. Subdivisions: (1) The missionary period, Gregory I. to Gregory VII. (590-1050); the Church spreads among the Celtic, Slavonic, and Teutonic races of Northern and Western Europe, Mohammedanism
Church History