Footnote 34:[ (return) ]
Meier's Lehrbuch is formally and materially a very important piece of work, the value of which has not been sufficiently recognised, because the author followed neither the track of Neander nor of Baur. Besides the excellences noted in the text, may be further mentioned, that almost everywhere Meier has distinguished correctly between the history of dogma and the history of theology, and has given an account only of the former.
Footnote 35:[ (return) ]
Biedermann (Christl Dogmatik 2 Edit 1 vol. p. 332 f) says, "The history of the development of the Dogma of the Person of Christ will bring before us step by step the ascent of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to its metaphysical basis in the nature of his person." This was the quite normal and necessary way of actual faith and is not to be reckoned as a confused mixture of heterogeneous philosophical opinions. The only thing taken from the ideas of contemporary philosophy was the special material of consciousness in which the doctrine of Christ's Divinity was at any time expressed. The process of this doctrinal development was an inward necessary one.
Footnote 36:[ (return) ]
Baur, Lehrbuch der Christl D.G. 1847 3rd Edit. 1867, also Vorles uber die Christl D.G. edited by F. Baur 1865-68. Further the Monographs, "Ueber die Christl Lehre v.d. Versohnung in ihrergesch Entw. 1838." Ueber die Christl Lehre v.d. Dreieinigkeit u.d. Menschwerdung, 1841, etc. D.F. Strauss preceded him with his work Die Christl Glaubenslehre in ihrer gesch Entw 2 vols 1840-41. From the stand-point of the Hegelian right we have Marheineke Christl D.G. edited by Matthias and Vatke 1849. From the same stand-point though at the same time influenced by Schleiermacher Dorner wrote "The History of the Person of Christ."
Footnote 37:[ (return) ]
See p. 63: "As Christianity appeared in contrast with Judaism and Heathenism, and could only represent a new and peculiar form of the religious consciousness in distinction from both reducing the contrasts of both to a unity in itself, so also the first difference of tendencies developing themselves within Christianity, must be determined by the relation in which it stood to Judaism on the one hand, and to Heathenism on the other." Compare also the very characteristic introduction to the first volume of the Vorlesungen.
Footnote 38:[ (return) ]
Hagenbach's Manual of the history of dogma might be put alongside of Neander's work. It agrees with it both in plan and spirit. But the material of the history of dogma which it offers in superabundance, seems far less connectedly worked out than by Neander. In Shedd's history of Christian doctrine the Americans possess a presentation of the history of dogma worth noting 2 vols 3 Edit 1883. The work of Fr. Bonifas Hist des Dogmes 2 vols 1886 appeared after the death of the author and is not important.
Footnote 39:[ (return) ]
No doubt Kliefoth also maintains for each period a stage of the disintegration of dogma but this is not to be understood in the ordinary sense of the word. Besides there are ideas in this introduction which hardly obtain the approval of their author to-day.
Footnote 40:[ (return) ]
Thomasius' Die Christl. Dogmengesch. als Entwickel. Gesch. des Kirchl. Lehrbegriffs. 2 vols. 1874-76. 2nd Edit intelligently and carefully edited by Bonwetsch. and Seeberg, 1887. (Seeberg has produced almost a new work in vol. II). From the same stand-point is the manual of the history of dogma by H. Schmid, 1859, (in 4th Ed. revised and transformed into an excellent collection of passages from the sources by Hauck, 1887), as well as the Luther. Dogmatik (Vol. II 1864: Der Kirchenglaube) of Kahnis, which, however, subjects particular dogmas to a freer criticism.
Footnote 41:[ (return) ]
See Vol. 1. p. 14.
Footnote 42:[ (return) ]
See Vol. 1. p. 11. "The first period treats of the development of the great main dogmas which were to become the basis of the further development (the Patristic age). The problem of the second period was, partly to work up this material theologically, and partly to develop it. But this development, under the influence of the Hierarchy, fell into false paths, and became partly, at least, corrupt (the age of Scholasticism), and therefore a reformation was necessary. It was reserved for this third period to carry back the doctrinal formation which had become abnormal, to the old sound paths, and on the other hand, in virtue of the regeneration of the Church which followed, to deepen it and fashion it according to that form which it got in the doctrinal systems of the Evangelic Church, while the remaining part fixed its own doctrine in the decrees of Trent (period of the Reformation)." This view of history, which, from the Christian stand-point, will allow absolutely nothing to be said against the doctrinal formation of the early Church, is a retrogression from the view of Luther and the writers of the "Centuries," for these were well aware that the corruption did not first begin in the middle ages.
Footnote 43:[ (return) ]
This fulfils a requirement urged by Weizsäcker (Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol 1866 p. 170 ff.)