RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Knollys
Knowledge, Theological
In 1530 Knopkenand Johann Briessmann (q. v.), who had been called from Konigsberg three years previously, prepared a church order for Riga, basing it primarily on the Konigsberg articles of 1525 and closely following Luther's Formula missce. After the separation of the community from Roman Catholic control, the council took charge of the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, electing and calling pastors in cooperation with the gilds, and providing for the maintenance of the clergy, the churches, and the schools. Two members of the council, with the mayor as a "superintendent," formed a sort of consistory for the administration of external affairs after 1532, but the internal control remained in the hands of the chief clergy. The congregations were represented by their elders in the election of pastors and in the administration of the funds for the church and the poor. By the time of Knopken's death, the Reformation had been carried through in Riga, and in 1554 Evangelical preaching was officially proclaimed free from restrictions in all Livonia.
(F. HoRSCHELMAJNTNt-)
Bibliography: F. Horschelmann, Andreas Knopken, der Reformator Rigas, Leipsic, 1896; T. Schiemann, Die Reformation Alt-Livlands, Hamburg, 1885.
KNOWLEDGE, THEOLOGICAL, PRINCIPLE OF.
Christ the Source of Theological Knowledge (§ 1). Knowledge a Progression (§2). The Biblical Christ (§ 3). Summary (§ 4).
In the early Protestant theology the entire
Scripture was the basis of theological knowledge;
in modern theology the historic Christ
i. Christ is regarded as the only source of the Source knowledge of God and things divine.
of Theo- It is admitted that God makes himself logical known by inner workings in the spirit, Knowledge, but it is claimed that real, that is, clear, certain, and general knowledge flows only from that medium through which the subjective experiences of Christians are conveyed, from the Christ of tradition. Nature and extra- Christian history are considered as sources which, without Christ, are ambiguous and enigmatical. Even the practical reason can give only a religion of morality, and not a sin-forgiving grace.
If it be asked what is there in Christ that gives knowledge of God and things divine, the answer must be, his faith in them and his communion with God, his self-consciousness and his moral character as it influences the world. The primitive Christian tradition concerning the words of Jesus and His deeds, by which His inmost being is made known, is dominated by faith in the infinite value of his death, in his resurrection and exaltation to lordship over the world, and in his return to earth. Moreover, inasmuch as the inner life of Jesus, his spirit, i.e., his faith and moral character, became to a certain extent the common spirit of the congregation of his disciples during their intercourse with him, the primitive Christian knowledge of God himself, of divine things, and of moral relationship must to some extent be regarded, in general, as the influence of the earthly Christ. The Holy Spirit, who spoke and speaks out of the oral and written
preaching of the primitive Christians, can not be regarded as a new and second principle of the knowledge of God. For if we, like them, by no means conceive our religious and moral knowledge as a mere after-effect of the earthly Christ, we nevertheless do regard it as an effect of Christ himself — of the exalted Christ. "The historic Christ, the only principle of divine knowledge," means for us also the Christ who manifests himself from heaven as the risen one, thus converting a Saul, and now delaying his return. The Lutheran view, that inspirations are bound to external media, from which the real knowledge flows, is true also of primitive Christianity: the matters of common knowledge proceed from the pneumatic manifestations of the exalted Christ and from the tradition of the pneumatic life of the earthly Christ. We may abide by the interpretation of John xvi. 12-15, which declares that the Spirit only glorifies the sole exegete of God (John i. 18) by teaching how he may be more and more perfectly known.
But did the human race have a finished knowledge of its Redeemer by the time the apostles died? There was no want of great men after 2. Knowl- this, who were able, under the influence edge a of new historic manifestations, to Progression, discover here and there some unhewn stones in the Evangelical tradition; Athanasius, Augustine, Luther may be named. Though they have not in the least surpassed the apostolic knowledge of Christ, they none the less have deepened the understanding of the apostles and their knowledge of him. The effects of the impersonal spirit of Jesus, of the spirit, originating from him, in the first primitive Christian Church as a whole, and of the spiritual factors at work in several individual cases in the days of primitive Christianity, unfold themselves in the whole history of the Church. The progress of secular science does not embarrass Jesus himself, who wished to be neither a naturalist nor a historian. We ought to permit ourselves no doubt concerning the fact, that it is not simply from a development within the Church that we have learned to separate the temporary husks from the divine, infallible spirit of Christ. If we believe that the living Christ dominates the whole history of thought, we can say that he interprets himself, the earthly Jesus, by means also of events and advances in knowledge that take place out of the sphere of church history; he spoke not only through the destruction of Jerusalem, but also through the destruction of the ancient conception of the world. The field in which Jesus sowed his word was time, his time, the future times. His spirit was not of time but of eternity; his word a germ which makes its full content and its peculiar character known only in the course of the historical development. Christ in the inmost content of his spiritual being was more than he could manifest (Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube, § 93, 2). It is only in the entire course of the historical development of the Church that he can be understood in his entirety.
That the apostolic beginning of the process, which bore its fruit in the establishment of the Church and in the New Testament, has for this
Knowledge, Theological Knox