Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/776

Rh 762 CHURCH HISTORY an author or the actions of any historical character, not from statements of his own, but from the testimony of some one elsa about him. Thus a letter of Constantine would be a direct document in reference to some purpose or performance of his own, while it might be an indirect document in re ference to the history or opinions of Athanasius or Arius. In collecting and sifting these sources so as to place all and only the right materials available before the church historian, recourse must be had to the sciences of antiqui ties, bibliography, and diplomatics. Antiquities, in its various divisions of numismatics, ecclesiology, heraldry, &amp;lt;fec., marshals all the relevant monumental testimony and discriminates the spurious from the genuine ; biblio graphy, taken in its widest sense, as the science which enumerates, classifies, and values all that has been written upon the various heads of human knowledge, states what documentary material is likely to be available at the dif ferent stages of inquiry, and where it is to be found ; while diplomatics, or the science of documents, defines the genu ineness, completeness, and general trustworthiness of the material so indicated. Besides these more immediate sources there are collateral sources on which church history must draw in fulfilling its task. These are mainly ecclesiastical philology, the general history of Christendom, with ecclesiastical geography, sta tistics, and chronology. Ecclesiastical philology points to acquaintance with those languages, more particularly Greek and Latin, in which the chief part of the historical materials is expressed, whether as original or translation. The necessity of this is obvious. Besides this, some know ledge of the general history of Christendom is indispen sable to an understanding of the history of the church, just as the special history of the church is essential to a comprehension of general history. The events of the church and of the world are so inextricably bound up to gether that the one are intelligible only in the light of the other. Hence the history of policy, law, philosophy, litera ture, and art must be laid under contribution in construct ing a full history of the church. Clear treatment further requires acquaintance with ecclesiastical geography and statistics, the distribution of the world into Christian and non-Christian sections, divisions by patriarchates, dioceses, parishes, &c., and the physical characteristics and social habits of different localities. And along with this, eccle siastical chronology, the correct arrangement of persons and events, both in their contemporaneous appearance and in their succession to others, is requisite to complete the list of auxiliaries to church history. 3. After the Sources, the METHOD of dealing with them, so as to produce history, falls to be considered. Method here comprises two main divisions, (1) Criticism and (2) Construction. In the criticism of the materials two quali ties have to be called into exercise, the judicial faculty and historic insight. The judicial faculty has to determine two questions, first, How far are the sources to be relied on 1 and second, If to be relied on, what do they really say ? The question how far the sources are to be relied on depends on both the ability and the willingness of the writer to tell the truth. As to his ability, we must con sider how far he was in a position to be aware of the facts, and to what extent his judgment and penetration are to be trusted in matters of fact. He may have been credulous, or an incompetent or careless observer, or he may have been so greatly biassed by party feeling or personal ani mosity as to be incapable of forming an impartial opinion. Then, besides the writer s ability to tell the truth, there must be considered further his willingness to tell it. A writer may be perfectly able to tell the truth, if he liked. But he may not like. He may have reasons or motives of his own for withholding the truth, or even for substituting untruth. In using his sources the historian must be able to judge exactly how far they are in these respects to be relied on. Then supposing he has decided that they may be relied on in a given degree, he must next be able to take from them precisely the testimony as to past fact which they convey, neither more nor less. That is to say, he must be impartial, capable of holding the scales of fairness evenly, of controlling his mind so as to prevent any preferences of his own from weakening or distorting the statement of fact derivable from his authorities, in favour of his own opinions. The historic insight, which, in addition to the judicial faculty, is essential to the thorough criticism of the materials, is the power of fully compre hending the significance and connection of the facts yielded by the sources, by realizing the point of view of the actors or writers to whom the facts dealt with are due, and deter mining their import as related to a general philosophy of history, and embraces three forms of insight, which may be called philosophic, psychologic, and Christian. Philo sophic insight implies, first of all, ability to enter into the various forms of speculative thought, metaphysical, ethical, or whatever else, that have appeared within the church s history, and have in greater or less degree influenced its movements. It implies further an ability to see the whole recorded facts and their connection under the light of the philosophy of history ; but as this obviously cannot take place until the facts in themselves have been completely understood, this aspect of philosophic insight will come into play only when the others have discharged their func tion. By psychologic insight is meant knowledge of human nature affected by scientific observation of mind and its operations. The facts of history are created by individuals, and each of them may be interpreted as an exhibition of the will and intellect, of the general subjective state of some one man or body of men. This subjective state, again, may be accounted for, in part at least, by the action of certain preceding facts upon the mind of the man or men in question, which facts again are to be explained as a manifestation of the mind of some preceding man or men, and so on. In short, history is the product of human nature, affected by and dealing with certain external data, natural or supernatural, furnished by God ; so that, to understand it, there is needed the ability to place before the imagination what human nature is at any point in or between the moral extremes of goodness and wickedness, and the intellectual extremes of wisdom and folly. By Christian insight is meant special capacity for sympathizing with the spirit and ideas of Christianity. What we have in the history of the church is centrally the mind and motive of Christ organizing itself in a living institution that it may enter into conflict with the evil of the world, and by persuasion subdue it to willing submission. To comprehend the development of facts produced during the activity of such an institution, there would seem to be requisite at the very outset an understanding of the thought and feeling that constitute its inner life ; that is to say, there must be an intelligent sympathy with the spirit of the New Testament, which, as the primitive record of tho action of Christ s spirit and career, is, were it on no other ground, the authoritative exposition and medium of the mind of Christ. And not only must there be this acquaint ance with the ideas and spiritual impulses of the New Testament, but there would appear to be also necessary some experience of their power. If Christianity be not merely a series of intellectual propositions, but a spiritual force penetrating to the motives of the soul, it can scarcely be adequately comprehended by any one who has not known what it is to yield in his innermost being to Christian in fluences. For while many of the greatest occurrences in fie history of the church have sprung from the spirit of