THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ception of the subject in the minds of seventeenthcentury Lutheran theologians, who regarded the discipline as embracing the collection
5. Concep- of patristic testimony for individual tions of Pa- doctrines. The Roman Catholics re-
tristics and garded it as " the discipline which
Patrology. searches out from the writings of the Fathers what pertains to faith, morals, and discipline, and reduces it to order." Nirschl defined it as " the systematic exposition of the teaching on faith and morals of the Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers." It has been shown also that the interest in the subject was not purely historical; there was a polemic element in it. " Patrology " came to be applied to the historical side of the discipline, " Patristics " to the systematic treatment, though this distinction is not always maintained. Yet in using these names Lutheran orthodoxy borrowed from Roman Catholicism, employing the word which the Roman Catholics applied in honor of the ecclesiastical teachers of early times (pater, "father"). Indeed from the fourth century the term " the Fathers " has represented a certain body of men, especially of bishops, who had borne testimony in the Church. Not all " ecclesiastical writers " were counted in with the " Fathers " as used in its dogmatic sense, since not all of them were regarded as orthodox. There arose then a distinction between " Fathers " and " writers." To the term " Church Fathers " four marks were attached; a sufficient antiquity, orthodoxy in doctrine, sanctity of life, and the approbation of the Church. Later in the history of the Church there were singled out the " doctors of the Church," who were distinguished, in addition to the four marks just named, by a singular erudition; this title was given in eminence to Gregory the Great, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, and later symbolism saw in these four names four ecclesiastical grades — bishop, archbishop, cardinal, and pope. The title of " doctor " was later applied also to Hilary of Poitiers, Peter Chrysologus, Leo the Great, and Isidor of Seville in the West; to Athanasius, Basil the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and John of Damascus in the East. But in the liturgical books of the East itself only three names stand out with distinction — Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom. The West awards the title doctor also to Bede, Peter Damian, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, St. Francis of Sales, and Liguori.
Such a conception as the foregoing involves implies a narrowing of the field of this discipline as merely dogmatic from which historical science strives to free itself. So Friedrich Nitzsch declared that from the historical-literary standpoint the meaning of a writer does not depend upon its origin from a Church Father, and that consequently patristics must be freed from a mechanical 6. Scope of method which took account first of all
the Uepart- of narrow chronological and biograph-
ment. ical matters. Such a point of view
had already been hinted at by Pes-
talozzi. The first idea of Nitzsch implied a return
to the principle announced in his preface to the
edition of Jerome's De viris illustribus (Leipsic,
1860). This writer put the Apostolic Fathers on the same footing as New-Testament writers, Philo figured with Hermas, Bardesanes with Musanus the opponent of heretics. The influence of something like this was felt by Bardenhewer, who called his work Geschichte der altkirchlichen (not altchristtichen) Litteratur, which expressed his idea of what patrology ought to be. From the historical-literary point of view, a Gnostic who commented on the Fourth Gospel has a claim to be represented as good as that of a teacher of the Church, the claim of an Arius equals in force that of an Athanasius. History of literature is not dogmatics and does not contain the prolegomena to it; it has its own principles. On such a basis the entrance of the New-Testament writers into the scheme follows at once, and is not the result of rationalistic handling of Scripture. Jerome did not hesitate to include them; and it is arbitrary to exclude any group of writings upon ecclesiastical grounds. If all New-Testament writings are " apostolic," there is all the more reason to head a history of early Christian literature with a section on apostolic writings. From a methodological standpoint the relations of the discipline of New-Testament introduction to the history of early Christian literature are matters of no consequence. This is not a mere strife about words, for the discipline is something more than the arrangement of names and writings according to chronological and biographical details. True, the followers of Jerome in the Middle Ages became known as Nomehclators; and the method here indicated has 7. Method- stuck in the later treatment. Franz ology. Overbeck has expressed the opinion (Historische Zeitschrift, xlviii., 417^72) that the history of early Christian literature will not have reached its rights until it brings into view the historical connections. This writer distinguishes between a primitive Christian literature arising before contact of Christianity with the world about it and the literature which sprang into existence after such contact and in view of it. The disposition to exclude, along with the New-Testament writings, those of the Apostolic Fathers as pupils of the apostles is dogmatic, not literary-historical. It is now recognized that the related has been separated, the unrelated has been brought together. But the varieties of primitive literature — Gospels, Acts of the apostles, epistles, doctrinal writings, apocalypses, and the like, began with new accessions of material to form into groups, and the New Testament, the apocryphal writings, the productions of the Apostolic Fathers, found appropriate distribution. Gnostic writings separated themselves from these, but influenced the growing patristic literature. The apologetic writings of the second century formed the groundwork of those of succeeding centuries. The individualities of eastern and western compositions came to recognition. The first result of this was the exposition of Harnack in his Geschichte der altchristliclwn Litteratur (utsup.), and he has been followed by Haussleiter and Ehrhard. That so far the efforts have been applied mainly to the first three centuries is due to the preeminent interest that period possesses. But M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur des 4-