Church historians.
The sketch given below of the evolution of the Christian Church (see
CHURCH) may well be prefaced by a summary of the history of the great
Church historians, concerning whom fuller details are given in separate
articles. Hegesippus wrote in the 2nd century a collection of memoirs
containing accounts of the early days of the church, only fragments of
which are extant. The first real church history was written by Eusebius
of Caesarea in the early part of the 4th century. His work was continued
in the 5th century by Philostorgius, Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret,
and in later centuries by Theodorus Lector, Evagrius, Theophanes and
others. In the 14th century Nicephorus Callisti undertook a complete
church history which covers in its extant form the first six centuries.
In the West Eusebius' _History_ was translated into Latin by Rufinus,
and continued down to the end of the 4th century. Augustine's _City of
God_, published in 426, was an apologetic, not an historical work, but
it had great influence in our field, for in it he undertook to answer
the common heathen accusation that the growing misfortunes of the empire
were due to the prevalence of Christianity and the forsaking of the gods
of Rome. It was to sustain Augustine's thesis that Orosius produced in
417 his _Historiarum libri septem_, which remained the standard
text-book on world history during the middle ages. About the same time
Sulpicius Severus wrote his _Historia Sacra_, covering both biblical and
Christian history. In the 6th century Cassiodorus had a translation made
of the histories of Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret, which were woven
into one continuous narrative and brought down to 518. The work was
known as the _Historia Ecclesiastica Tripartita_, and constituted during
the middle ages the principal text-book of church history in the West.
Before writing his history Eusebius produced a world chronicle which was
based upon a similar work by Julius Africanus and is now extant only in
part. It was continued by Jerome, and became the basis of the model for
many similar works of the 5th and following centuries by Prosper,
Idatius, Marcellinus Comes, Victor Tununensis and others. Local
histories containing more or less ecclesiastical material were written
in the 6th and following centuries by Jordanes (_History of the Goths_),
Gregory of Tours (_History of the Franks_), Isidore of Seville (_History
of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi_), Bede (_Ecclesiastical History of
England_), Paulus Diaconus (_History of the Lombards_), and others. Of
the many historians of the middle ages, besides the authors of
biographies, chronicles, cloister annals, &c, may be mentioned Haymo,
Anastasius, Adam of Bremen, Ordericus Vitalis, Honorius of Autun, Otto
of Freising, Vincent of Beauvais and Antoninus of Florence.
The Protestant reformation resulted in a new development of historical
writing. Polemic interest led a number of Lutheran scholars of the 16th
century to publish the _Magdeburg Centuries_ (1559 ff.), in which they
undertook to show the primitive character of the Protestant faith in
contrast with the alleged corruptions of Roman Catholicism. In this
design they were followed by many other writers. The opposite thesis was
maintained by Baronius (_Annales Ecclesiastici_, 1588 ff.), whose work
was continued by a number of Roman Catholic scholars. Other notable
Roman Catholic historians of the 17th and 18th centuries were Natalis
Alexander, Bossuet, Tillemont, Fleury, Dupin and Ceillier.
Church history began to be written in a genuinely scientific spirit only
in the 18th century under the leadership of Mosheim, who is commonly
called the father of modern church history. With wide learning and keen
critical insight he wrote a number of historical works of which the most
important is his _Institutiones Hist. Eccles._ (1755; best English
trans. by Murdock). He was followed by many disciples, among them
Schroeckh (_Christliche Kirchengeschichte_, 1772 ff. in 45 vols.). Other
notable names of the 18th century are Semler, Spittler, Henke and
Planck.
The new historical spirit of the 19th century did much for church
history. Among the greatest works produced were those of J.C.L. Gieseler
(_Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte_, 1824 ff., best Eng. tr. revised and
edited by H.B. Smith), exceedingly objective in character and still
valuable, particularly on account of its copious citations from the
sources; Neander (_Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Religion und
Kirche_, 1825 ff., Eng. tr. by Torrey), who wrote in a sympathetic
spirit and with special stress upon the religious side of the subject,
and has been followed by many disciples, for instance, Hagenbach, Schaff
and Herzog; and Baur (_Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche_,
1853 ff.), the most brilliant of all, whose many historical works were
dominated by the principles of the Hegelian philosophy and evinced both
the merits and defects of that school. Baur has had tremendous
influence, even though many of his positions have been generally
discredited. The problems particularly of the primitive history were
first brought into clear light by him, and all subsequent work upon the
subject must acknowledge its indebtedness to him.
A new era was opened by the publication in 1857 of the second edition of
Ritschl's _Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche_, in which he broke
away from the Tubingen school and introduced new points of view that
have revolutionized the interpretation of the early church. Of recent
works the most important are the _Kirchengeschichte_ of Carl Müller
(1892 ff.) and that of W. Möller (1889 ff., second edition by von
Schuberth, 1898 ff., greatly enlarged and improved), the translation of
the latter (1892 ff.) being the most useful text-book in English. Of
modern Roman Catholic works may be mentioned those by J.A. Möhler, T.B.
Alzog, F.X. Kraus, Cardinal Joseph von Hergenröther and C.J. von Hefele
(edited by Knöpfler.)
In addition to these general works on church history should be named the
histories of doctrine by Harnack, Loofs, Seeberg and Fisher; and on the
early Church the works on the apostolic age by Weizsäcker (1886, English
translation 1894), McGiffert (1897), and Bartlet (1899); Renan's
_Histoire des origines du christianisme_ (1867 ff., in 7 vols.,
translated in part); Pfleiderer's _Urchristenthum_ (1887); S. Cheetham's
_History of the Christian Church during the first Six Centuries_ (1894);
Wernle's _Anfänge unserer Religion_ (1901; Eng. tr. 1902 ff.); Rainy's
_Ancient Catholic Church_ (1902); Knopf's _Nachapostolisches Zeitalter_
(1905); Duchesne's _Histoire ancienne de l'Église_ (vol. i., 1906).
(A. C. McG.)
History of the Christian Church.
In the following account of the historical evolution of the Church, the
subject will be treated in three sections:--(A) The ancient Church to
the beginning of the pontificate of Gregory the Great (A.D. 590); (B)
The Church in the middle ages; (C) The modern Church.