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INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

HISTORY

OF

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE

BY

GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN

YALE UNIVERSITY

EDINBURGH

T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET

10-21-37

PREFACE

SEVERAL years have elapsed since I engaged to prepare this work. The unexpected delay in its publication is owing chiefly to the pressure of other and more imperative engagements. One reason for it, however, is the fact that, although the subject is one which I had long studied and on which I had given instruction to many successive classes, more time was required for the composition of the book than I had anticipated. This is partly for the reason that it appeared to me, for the present purpose, expedient to abandon for the most part the method which I had always followed in my Lectures of arranging the matter under the heads of General and Special Doctrinal History. On this topic something more is said in the introductory chapter. This change of plan has involved an entire recasting of the materials to be incorporated into this volume.

A number of the ablest of the recent German writers on Dogmengeschichte confine themselves to a description of the rise and establishment of dogmas in the official significance of the term, according to which it denotes simply the accredited tenets of the principal divisions of the Church. The terminus of this branch of study is, therefore, set not later than about the opening of the seventeenth century. In the present work, the history of theological thought is carried forward through the subsequent essays at doctrinal construction down to the present time. In other words, the present work is a history of Doctrine as well as of Dogmas. Those who hold that such a treatise should have a more restricted

aim are at liberty to look on the chapters which cover all the additional ground, as being, to use the lawyers' phrase, obiter dicta. It is, after all, a question of nomenclature. A history of modern doctrinal theology, none will deny, is a legitimate undertaking.

It is hardly necessary to say how much, in common with all students of Doctrinal History, I owe to the old masters in this department, among whom the names of Neander and Baur have so high a place. I wish to add here that not unfrequently I have received aid from the writings of my lamented friend, Dr. Schaff. Möller is one of the more recent authors on the general history of the Church who has been specially serviceable. There are three writers of a late date to whom particular acknowledgments are due. These are Harnack, Loofs, and Thomasius. The vigorous and brilliant Dogmengeschichte of Harnack is — whatever opinion may be held as to its theological tendencies- an indispensable auxiliary in studies of this nature. The numerous references in the following pages will indicate how much I have been stimulated and instructed by it. From the Leitfaden of Loofs, written from the same general point of view as the volumes of Harnack, I have likewise derived important assistance. The Dogmengeschichte of Thomasius, a conservative Lutheran in his creed, is acknowledged by scholars of all shades of belief to be a work of extraordinary merit. It has been read and consulted by me with no little profit. In particular is it of service side by side with the treatises representing more or less decidedly the prevalent Ritschlian school. I may be permitted to add that I deem the Ritschlian tendency to be justified so far as it lays stress on the fact that in the earlier centuries the types of Greek philosophy then current had no inconsiderable influence in the formulating of doctrine. This, to be sure, is not a new discovery, but has been widely recognized by competent historians, like Neander. Yet it may be well that a new emphasis should be attached to it. Moreover,