DOCTRINE, HISTORY OF,
Early Attempts at Doctrine History (§1).
Four Groups of Histories. The Miinscher Group (§ 2).
The Hegelian Group (§3).
Engelhardt and Gieseler (§ 4).
The Confessional Lutheran Group (§ 5).
Nitzsch and Harnack (§ 6).
The Idea and Task of Doctrine History (§ 7).
Method and Scope (§ 8).
The history of Christian doctrines as a department of theological study was inaugurated by S. G. Lange of Jena in his Augfuhrliche Geschichte der Dogmen (Leipsic, 1796), which came down to Irenteus. This was followed by W Miinscher's Handbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte (4 vols., Marburg, 1797-1809), extending to Gregory the Great, and J. C. W Augusti's Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte (Leipsic, 1S05). Of course, much had been written previously regarding the history of particular dogmas and controversies. The present article deals with the rise and development of the history of doctrines and the lessons taught by a century of work in this department respecting its idea, task, method, and scope.
As early as the time of Irenaeus (by way of opposition to Gnostic innovations) stress was laid upon the continuity of the doctrinal teachings of the elders from the apostolic age. Athanasius constantly appealed to the Fathers in support of his
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positions in conflict with Arius and others. Vincent of Lerins (d. 450) declared that " the ancient consensus of opinion of the holy
I. Early fathers ought to be most diligently Attempts at sought out and followed " (Commoni-
Doctrine torium, i. 28). Naturally non-catholic
History, parties also sought and found support for their views in earlier Christian literature. Abelard (d. 1142), in his Sic et non, by arraying authority against authority on all important doctrines demonstrated the necessity of freely applying the mind to the solution of theological problems. The harmonizing of patristic authorities was one of the tasks of scholasticism. The Renaissance brought with it disparagement of authority and recognition of the possibility of progress in the apprehension of truth. The Reformation interrupted for the Evangelicals the continuity of doctrinal tradition. The adoption of the Scriptures as the sole authority gave free course to investigation in the history of doctrine. Melanchthon could say in his Loci (1521): " Immediately after the founding of the Church, Christian doctrine was ruined by the Platonic philosophy." Yet Luther and Melanchthon alike, alarmed by the undesirable consequences of too rigorous an insistence on Scripture authority by Anabaptists, felt it necessary to defend the doctrinal definitions of the first four general councils as authoritative interpretations of Scripture and necessary inferences therefrom. The Magdeburg Centuriators (1559-74) assumed that from the fifth century (in part from the second) there was a progressive obscuration of evangelical truth, not seriously hindered by isolated " witnesses " who appeared from time to time. The stimulus given by the Reformation to historical research and the vast amount of material thus brought to light made possible such works as that of the Jesuit Petavius, De theologicis dogmatibus (Paris, 1644-50), and the Instructiones historico-theologica de doctrina Christiana (Amsterdam, 1645) by the Scotch theologian John Forbes of Corse. Early Lutheran theologians did little more in the history of doctrine than to gather rich patristic materials for polemical purposes on the various loci of their dogmatic systems. Examples of this kind of work are Gerhard's Loci (Jena, 1610-25) and Quenstedt's Theologia Didactico-polemica (Wittenberg, 1685). It was not until Pietism and the Enlightenment (q.v.) had shattered faith in the absolute correctness of Lutheran orthodoxy that " heretical " systems began to be studied on their merits and that doctrine history could become a distinct department of study. Gottfried Arnold's Kirch- und Ketzer-Historie (1st ed., 1699- 1700; most complete ed., 3 vols., Schaffhausen, 1740-42) brought to light and treated sympathetically a vast amount of authentic material regarding dissenting parties from the first century to his own time. His disposition to give to " heretics " their due was to some extent shared by Mosheim and C. W. F. Walch. Walch, Ernesti, Semler, and Planck have been regarded, along with Lange and Mtinscher, as the fathers of doctrine history.
Leaving out of consideration Roman Catholic works, which (with the exception of those of Bach
and Schwane) are based upon the dogmatic assumption of the identity of dogma during all the centuries, four groups of works from Mtinscher to F. Nitzsch (Grundriss der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, vol. i., Berlin, 1870) and Harnack (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3 vols., Freiburg, 1886-90; Eng. transl., 7 vols., Boston, 1895-1900) may be advantageously distinguished. Works
2. Four of the Munscher type which conceive Groups of of the history of doctrines as the Histories, history of the multiform changes which The Mun- Christianity (as doctrine or dogma)
scher has undergone up to the present Group. time constitute the first group. Munscher, though learned and accurate, failed completely to understand the reasons and significance of changes and had no proper appreciation of times and persons. The same may be said of Lentz and Bertholdt. This method may be designated the rationahstic-pragmatic. The supernaturalistic modification of this method (Mtinter, Augusti) avoided the offensive extravagances of pragmatism and recognized as legitimate for their time a mass of opinions no longer acceptable, but made little advance in method. Under the influence of the romanticism and religious earnestness of the awakening (Schleiermacher) the vision for the abiding and common in all the diversified forms of doctrine was sharpened (Neander and his school). Deep appreciation of all Christian character as the embodiment of the new life introduced by Christ is what gives coherence to Neander's work. This is true in a measure of Hagenbach, and in a larger measure of Baumgarten-Crusius, whom Hase called the " historian of the religious spirit." These historians agree in distinguishing between "general" and "special" history of doctrines, in discarding the distinction between " dogmas " (authoritatively formulated doctrines) and opinions on doctrine set forth by any one whomsoever in any way whatever (their aim having been in many cases to discredit dogma by demonstrating its instabihty), and in ignoring Roman Catholic doctrinal development since 1517. Niedner's work is peculiar in its combination of the history of philosophy and that of theology, and in its discrimination between the doctrines of the schools and those of the Churches, yet it undeniably belongs to this group.
The second group, introduced by Baur's monograph on the doctrine of the Atonemenit (1838), is characterized by the dominance of the Hegelian philosophy. Baur, like his predeces-
3. The sors, was concerned about the whole Hegelian mass of changes in doctrinal teaching
Group. that have occurred from the apostolic time to the present. He saw in the manifold changes the logical development according to inner laws of a substantially unchanged whole. Every doctrine is to him a developnaent of the Christian idea, inevitable in its time. The history of dogmas has to do as well with the multiplicity of dogmas as with the unity of the dogma. He followed his predecessors m distinguishing between a general and a special history of doctrines, and in taking httle account of
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