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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
One of the less encouraging consequences deriving from the revival of traditional modes of theology and church life has been the shadow which has fallen over the great historian-theologians of the nineteenth century. It is said that we have superseded the work of these men. This is no doubt true, but it is not at all clear in what sense we have superseded them, or what the world “supersede” might mean in this judgement. To be sure, the student who turns to these nineteenth century figures today finds that their historical judgements are frequently unreliable by current standards (but less so than we might wish!), and that their biases sometimes narrow their historical vision to an almost intolerable extent. But he also finds in their work a seriousness and an earnestness which did not flinch from the great problems which arise when the Christian faith is subjected to historical science. The student finds that most of the issues which they raised are still relevant, mostly still unsolved.
1 The term “early Christianity” is used according to Ritschl's periodization, covering the period from the origins of Christianity to that point in the second half of the third century which is marked by the appearance of the Apostolic Constitutions.
2 Therefore, I shall not deal with the first edition of Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1850), because it represents a position which Ritschl quickly repudiated. I shall discuss only the revised, second edition, which appeared in 1857.
3 Tuebingen: Fues, L. Fr., 1863, 1st edition. All references here are to the English translation by Menzies, Allen, The Church History of the First Three Centuries (London and Edinburgh: Willams and Norgate, 1878, 2 vols.)Google Scholar
4 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 5–17.
5 Ibid., pp. 29–30.
6 Ibid., pp. 38–9.
7 Ibid., p. 39.
8 Ibid., pp. 180–3.
9 Ibid., p. 184.
10 Ibid., pp. 254–55.
11 Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 5–8.
12 Ibid., pp. 13–15.
13 Ibid., pp. 40–41.
14 Ibid., p. 56.
15 This discussion is based on the second, revised edition of Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1857). Hereafter cited as Entstehung.Google Scholar
16 Entstehung, pp. 13–14.
17 Ibid., p. 16.
18 Ibid., pp. 22–23.
19 Ibid., p. 17.
20 Ibid., pp. 18–20.
21 Ibid., p. 23.
22 This opinion represents a sharp departure from the first edition of Entstehung, where Ritschl had followed Baur, interpreting Catholicism as a product of Judaistic factors in their antithesis to the Gentile influences.
23 Ibid., p. 27.
24 Ibid., pp. 31–41, passim.
25 Ibid., pp. 45–46.
26 Ibid., p. 47.
27 Ibid., p. 46.
28 Ibid., pp. 47–48.
29 Ibid., pp. 154–55, 248.
30 Ibid., p. 116.
31 Ibid., pp. 250–52.
32 Ibid., pp. 257, 281–82.
33 Ibid., pp. 274–98.
34 Ibid., pp. 271–72.
35 Ibid., pp. 280–84.
36 Ibid., pp. 310–11.
37 Ibid., p. 332.
38 Ibid., p. 333.
39 Ibid., p. 555.
40 Ibid., p. 399.
41 Ibid., p. 516.
42 Ibid., pp. 519–21.
43 Ibid., pp. 555ff.
44 Ibid., pp. 565ff.
45 Baur, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 29–30.
46 Ritschl, op. cit., pp. 30–47.
47 Baur, op. cit., preface.
48 Baur, , Die Epochen der Kirchlichen Gesehichtschreibung (Tuebingen: L. Fr. Fues, 1852), p. 249.Google Scholar Hereafter cited as Epochen. Note that Baur's assessment of the Catholic episcopate suggests that it represents a natural stage of the development of the Church's understanding of itself, i.e., of its Idee. Cf. notes 13, 14.
49 Ibid., pp. 248–49.
50 Ibid., p. 251.
51 Ibid., p. 253.
52 So, for example, he can almost ignore Gnosticism in his study of early Christianity, presumably because he thinks that it does not touch on what he considers to be central in Christianity. He devotes about twenty pages to it in Entstehung.
53 Ritschl, , Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versoehnung (vol. 1, Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1870), p. 1. Hereafter cited as R.u.V. I.Google Scholar
54 Entstehung, p. 4.
55 R.u.V. I, pp. 14ff.
56 Baur, Lehrbuch der christlichen Dog mengesehichte (Tuebingen: L. Fr. Fues, 1858), pp. 11ff.
57 R.u.V. I, introduction, passim.
58 E.g., Entstehung, pp. 3f.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid., p. 583.
61 Baur, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 18–19, 355ff.
62 For a fuller elucidation of this central theological notion in Ritschl's, thought, see my “Albrecht Ritschl and His Current Crities,” The Lutheran Quarterly, XIII (1961), 2, 103–12.Google Scholar
