Adolf Harnack · 1 of 21
Prefatory Material
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
The first chapter in this volume forms the concluding chapter of the First Volume of the German Work. It answers to the Seventh Chapter of the Second Book of the first great division of the subject, which has for its aim to shew the origin of Ecclesiastical Dogma. The First Book treats of the Preparation for Dogma; the Second of the Laying of the Foundation. This Second Book begins with the second volume of the English Translation, and closes with the first chapter of the third volume now published. Thereafter commences the Second Part of the Work, which deals with the Development of Dogma. The numbering of the chapters here begins anew, running on from I. to VI.
The Second Volume of the German Work commences with the Second Part, and tells the story of the Development of Dogma till the time of Augustine. Only a portion of it appears in this volume. The remainder will form the contents of the Fourth Volume. The author has prefixed to the volume two prefaces, one to the first, the other to the third Edition. These are here given.
The Appendix on Manichæism is the last of four which appear at the end of the first volume of the German Edition. The first three of these will be found at the end of the first volume of the English Edition.
A. B. BRUCE.
Glasgow, August, 1897.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION OF VOLUME II. OF THE GERMAN WORK.
THE first half of the second part of the History of Dogma is here given apart and as the second volume, because it is complete in itself, and I shall be prevented from completing the work at once by other tasks.
The account contained in the following pages would have been shorter, if I could have persuaded myself of the correctness of the opinion, that a single, all-determining thought obtained its true development in the History of Dogma from the fourth to the eighth century. This opinion dominates, apart from a few monographs, all writings on the History of Dogma, and gives a uniform impress to the accounts of Protestants and Catholics. I share it within certain limits; but these very limits, which I have endeavoured to define, have not yet received due attention. In the fourth century the formula that was correct, when judged by the conception of of the ancient Church, prevailed; but the Fathers, who finally secured its triumph, did not give it the exposition which it originally demanded. In the fifth century, or the seventh, on the contrary, a formula that, measured by the same standard, was incorrect, prevailed; yet it was associated with an exposition that to some extent compensated for the incorrectness. In both cases, however, the imperfections of the conclusion, which are explained from various circumstances, became of the highest importance. For in them we find the reason why the phantom Christ did not wholly oust the historical; and, in order to overcome them, men turned anew to Philosophy, especially to Aristotle. The orthodox Church owes two things to the incorrect form in which the Trinitarian and Christological Dogma was finally stated: (1) contact with the Gospel, and (2) renewed contact with ancient science, i.e., scholasticism.
The account of these conditions demanded a more minute discussion of the process of the History of Dogma, than is usual in the ordinary text-books. Dogma developed slowly and amid great obstacles. No single step should be overlooked in the description, and, in particular, the period between the fourth and fifth Councils is not less important than any other. Political relationships, at no point decisive by themselves, yet everywhere required, as well as western influences, careful attention. I should have discussed them still more thoroughly, if I had not been restrained by considerations of the extent of the book. I have included the state of affairs and developments in the West, so far as they were related to, and acted upon, those in the East. In the following Book I shall begin with Augustine. The scientific theological expositions of the Fathers have only been brought under review, where they appeared indispensable for the understanding of Dogma. In any case I was not afraid of doing too much here. I am convinced that a shorter description ought not to be offered to students of Theology, unless it were to be a mere guide. The history of Christian Dogma—perhaps the most complicated history of development which we can completely review—presents the investigator with the greatest difficulties; and yet it is, along with the study of the New Testament, and in the present position of Protestantism, the most important discipline for every one who seeks really to study Theology. The theologian who leaves the University without being thoroughly familiar with it, is, in the most critical questions, helplessly at the mercy of the authorities of the day. But the royal way to the understanding of the History of Dogma, opened up by F. Chr. Baur, and pursued by Thomasius, does not lead to the goal; for by it we become acquainted with the historical matter only in the abbreviated form required for the defence of the completed Dogma.
The history of the development of Dogma does not offer the lofty interest, which attaches to that of its genesis. When we return from the most complicated and elaborate doctrinal formulas, from the mysticism of the Cultus and Christian Neoplatonism, from the worship of and ceremonial ritual of the seventh and eighth centuries, back to Origen and the third century, we are astonished to find that all we have mentioned was really in existence at the earlier date. Only it existed. then amid a mass of different material, and its footing was insecure In many respects the whole historical development of Dogma from the fourth century to John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion was simply a vast process of reduction, selection, and definition. In the East we are no longer called upon to deal in any quarter with new and original matter, but always rather with what is traditional, derivative, and, to an increasing extent, superstitious. Yet that to which centuries devoted earnest reflection, holding it to be sacred, will never lose its importance, as long as there still exists among us a remnant of the same conditions which belonged to those times. But who could deny that those conditions—in the Church and in learning —are still powerful among us? Therefore even the religious formulas are still in force which were created in the Byzantine age; nay, they are the dogmas κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν in all Churches, so that the popular idiom is nowise wrong which with the word "dogma" primarily designates the doctrines of the and the divine humanity of Christ. The inquirer who follows the development of these dogmas after the fourth century, and who, owing to the want of originality and freshness in his material, loses pleasure in his work, is ever and again reanimated, when he considers that he has to deal with matters which have gained, and still exercise, an immense power over the feelings and minds of men. And how much it is still possible for us to learn, as free Evangelical Christians, especially after generations of scholars have dedicated to this history the most devoted industry, so that no one can enter into their labours without becoming their disciples!
I know very well that it would be possible to treat the material reviewed in this book more universally than I have done. My chief purpose was to show how matters arose and were in their concrete manifestation. But the task of making dogma really intelligible in all its aspects within the limits of a History of Dogma, is after all as insoluble as any similar problem which isolates a single object from Universal History, and requires its investigation in and by itself. This limitation I need only recall. But something further has to be said. Dogmas, undoubtedly, admit of a process of refinement, which would bring them closer to our understanding and our feeling. But my powers are not equal to this lofty task, and even if I possessed the uncommon qualities of the psychologist and the religious philosopher, I should have hesitated about employing them in this book; for I did not wish to endanger the reliability of what I had to present by reflections, which must always remain more or less subjective. Thus I have limited myself to a few hints; these will only be found where the nature of the material itself induced me to seek for the far remote thought underlying the expression.
I have throughout striven in this volume, to give such an account as would demand to be read connectedly; for a work on the history of dogma, which is used only for reference, has missed its highest aim. I have believed that I could not dispense with the addition of numerous notes, but the text of the book is so written that the reader, if he prefers it, may disregard them.
Marburg, 14 June, 1887.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.
I HAVE subjected this volume to a thorough revision, and have sought to improve and strengthen it in not a few places. May this new edition also promote the study of a historical period whose products are still held by many among us to be incapable of reform.
ADOLF HARNACK.
Berlin, 28 May, 1894.
