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 HISTORY

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HISTORY

unfavourable to permit the undertaking of extensive scientific histories. Some masterly special works ap- peared in Germany, monographs of particular dioceses and monasteries, but general church history was not cultivated until Joseph II had executed his reform of theological studies. Even then there appeared only small works, mostly excerpted from the great French ecclesiastical histories, superficial, Josephinis- tic in temper, and hostile to Rome. Among them are Lumper's " Institutiones historise ecclesiasticiE " (Vi- enna, 1790); the "Institutiones historias eccl." of Dannenmeyer (2 vols., Vienna, 1788), relatively the best; the "Synopsis histor. relig. et eccles. christ." of ■ Royko (Prague, 1785); the "Epitome hist, eccl." of Gmeiner (2 vols., Gratz, 1787-1803), and similar works by Wolf, Schmalzfuss, Stoger, Becker, all of them now utterly valueless. The Netherlands also produced only compendia, e. g. those of Mutsaerts (2 vols., Ant^ werp, 1822), Rosweyde (2 vols., Antwerp, 1622), M. Chefneux (" Eccl. Cathol. speculum chronograplii- cum", 3 vols., Liege, 1666-70). Needless to add, in Great Britain and Ireland the sail condition of Catho- lics made scientific work impossilile.

(b) Protestant Church Historians. — It was long after the publication of the "Magdeburg Centuries" (see above) before Protestant scholars again undertook extensive independent work in the province of church history. Their momentous division into Reformed and Lutherans on the one hand, and the domestic feuds among the Lutherans on the other, engrossed the minds of the Protestants. When Protestant scholar- ship again Ijusied itself with ecclesiastico-historical research, the Reformed Cliurches took the lead and retained it into the eighteenth century. This was true not only in the domain of special history, in which they issued important publications (e. g. Bingham's " Antiquitates eccle.siasticic", 1722; the works of Grabe, Beveridge, Blondel, Daille, Saumaise, LTsher, Pearson, Dodwell, etc.), but also in that of general church liistory. Among their writers on this subject we must mention Hottinger, whose " Historia ecclesi- astica Novi Test." (9 vols., Hanover, 1655-67) is filled with bitter hatred against the Catholic Church; Jacques Basnage, the opponent of Bossuet (" Histoire de I'Eglise depuis J^sus-Christ jusqu'a present", Rot- terdam, 1699) ; Samuel Basnage, the opponent of Baronius ("Annales politico-eccles.", 3 vols., Rotter- dam, 1706), and Spanheim (" Introductio ad hist, et antiquit. sacr.", Leyden, 1687; "Historia ecclesias- tica ", ibid., 1701). The Reformed Churches produced moreover a number of manuals of cliurch history, e. g. Turettini, "Hist, eccles. compendium" (Halle, 1750); Venema, "Institut. histor. eccl." (5 vols., Leyden, 1777); Jablonski, "Institut. hist, eccl." (2 vols., Frankfort, 1753). Similar Protestant manuals ap- peared in England, e. g. Milner, " History of the Church of Christ" (4 vols., London, 1794); Murray, "History of Religion" (4 vols., London, 1794), and Priestley, " History of the Christian CImrch ".

During the seventeentli century, the Lutherans produced little of value in the field of church history, other than a much used "t'ompendium histor. eccl." by Seckendorf and Bocklcr (Gotha, 1670-6). But a new era in Lutheran ecclesiastical historiography dates from Arnold's " Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie" (2 vols., Frankfort am M., 1699). This pietist author is friendly to all the sects, but bitterly inimical to the Catholic Church and to orthodox Lutheranism. His standard is neither dogma nor Scripture, but subjective "interior light". Calmer judgnient is found m Eberhard Weissmann's " Intro- ductio in memorabilia ecclesiastica historiae sacrse Novi Test." (2 vols., Tubingen, 1718). Superior to the works of all preceding Lutheran WTiters. Isoth because of their thorouglmess and their dignified dic- tion, are the Latin historical writings of Joh. Lor. Mosheim, particularly his "De rebus christ. ante

Constantinum Magnum " (Helmstadt, 1753), and " In- stitutiones histor. eccles. antiquioris et recentioris" (ibid., 1755). They betray, however, a tendency towards a rationalistic concept of the Church, which appears throughout as an institution of secular origin. His " Institutiones " were translated into German and continued by two of his pupils, J. von Einem and Rud. Schlegel (Leipzig, 1769 — ; Heilbronn, 1770 — ). Fur- ther progress was made in the works of Pf aft', chancellor of Tubingen ("Institutiones histor. eccl.", Tubingen, 1721), of Baumgarten (" Auszug der Kirchenge- schichte", 3 vols., Halle, 1743 — ), Pertsch ("Versuch einer Kirchengeschichte ", 5 vols, Leipzig, 1736 — ), Cotta (" Versuch einer ausfiihrlichen Ivirchenhistorie des neuen Testamentes", 3 vols., Tubingen, 1768-73). Special works, excellent for their time, were •m'itten by the two Walehs — Joh. Georg Walch issuing "Eine Geschichte der Religionsstreitigkeiten innerhalb und ausserhalb der evangelisch-lutlierischen Kirche" in two parts, each comprising five volumes (Jena, 1733- 9), while his son Christian Wilhelm published a lengthy "Ketzergeschichte", whose eleventh volume reaches to the Iconoclasts (Leipzig, 1762-85). The latter also wrote a " Religionsgeschichte der neuesten Zeit ", beginning with Clement XIV (to which Planck added three volumes) also a " Historic der Kirchenver- sammlungen" (Leipzig, 1759), and a "Historic der rom. Piipste" (Gottingen, 1758). The most impor- tant Lutheran work on general church history is that of J. Mathias Schrockh, a pupil of Mosheim and a pro- fessor at Wittenljerg: "Christliche Kirchengeschichte bis zur Reformation " in thirty-five volumes (Leipzig, 1768-1803), continued as " Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation" in eight volumes (Leipzig, 1803-8), to which Tzschirmer added two others (1810-12). The whole work, scholarly but too dift'use and laying excessive emphasis on the biographical element, in- cludes forty-five volumes and closes with the beginning of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile the shallow rationalism of the eighteenth century had spread widely, and soon affected many works on church his- tory. The works of Joh. Salomon Semler, an unbe- lieving hypercritic, in this respect hokl an undesirable pre-eminence, his " Historia; eccles. selecta capita" (3 vols., Halle, 1767 — ), " Versuch eines fruchtbaren Aus- zuges der Kirchengeschichte" (3 parts, ibid., 1778), and " Versuch christ licherJahrbiicher" (2 parts, Halle, 1782). Most of his contemporaries were more or less openly rationalistic, and church history became a chronicle of scandals (Scandalchronik). Everywhere the writers saw only superstition, fanaticism, and human pa.ssion, while the greatest and holiest charac- ters of ecclesiastical liistory were shamefully carica- tured. This spirit is particularly characteristic of Spittler, " Grundriss der Gesch. der christl. ICirche " and Henke " Allgem. Geschichte der chr. K. "

(3) The Nineteenth Century. — Ecclesiastico-his- torical studies have fared better in the nineteenth century. The horrors of the French Revolution led to a vigorous reaction and g:ive birth to a more ideal spirit in literature. Patriotism and religious zeal revived and exerted a fa\-ourable influence on all intellectual life. Romanticism led to a juster appre- ciation of the Catholic medieval world, while in all departments of learning there appeared an earnest desire to be objective in judgment. Finally, the sources of ecclesiastical history were studied and used in a new spirit, the outgrowth of an ever more definite and penetrating historical criticism. The general re- sult was favourable to the science of history.

(a) Catholic Ecclesiastical Historians. — It was in Catholic Germany that these changes were first noticeable, more particularly in the work of the famous convert. Count Leopold von Stolberg (q. v.). His " Ge- schichte der Religion Jesu Christi" was issued in fifteen volumes, the first four of which contain the history of the Old Testament and reach to 430. Similarly, the