History of Dogma, Volume 1 | Page 5

of the Old Testament and the god of the Jews
(2) The God of the Gospel
(3) The relation of the two Gods according to Marcion. The Gnostic
woof in Marcion's Christianity
(4) The Christology
(5) Eschatology and Ethics
(6) Criticism of the Christian tradition, the Marcionite Church
Remarks
CHAPTER VI.
--THE CHRISTIANITY OF JEWISH CHRISTIANS, DEFINITION
OF THE NOTION JEWISH CHRISTIANITY
(1) General conditions for the development of Jewish Christianity
(2) Jewish Christianity and the Catholic Church, insignificance of
Jewish Christianity, "Judaising" in Catholicism

Alleged documents of Jewish Christianity (Apocalypse of John, Acts of
the Apostles, Epistle to the Hebrews, Hegesippus)
History of Jewish Christianity
The witness of Justin
The witness of Celsus
The witness of Irenæus and Origen
The witness of Eusebius and Jerome
The Gnostic Jewish Christianity
The Elkesaites and Ebionites of Epiphanius
Estimate of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, their
want of significance for the question as to the genesis of Catholicism
and its doctrine
APPENDICES.
I. On the different notions of Pre-existence.
II. On Liturgies and the genesis of Dogma.
III. On Neoplatonism Literature

I
PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE OF THE HISTORY OF
DOGMA.
II
THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.

CHAPTER I
PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE OF THE HISTORY OF
DOGMA.
§ 1. The Idea and Task of the History of Dogma.
1. The History of Dogma is a discipline of general Church History,
which has for its object the dogmas of the Church. These dogmas are
the doctrines of the Christian faith logically formulated and expressed
for scientific and apologetic purposes, the contents of which are a
knowledge of God, of the world, and of the provisions made by God
for man's salvation. The Christian Churches teach them as the truths
revealed in Holy Scripture, the acknowledgment of which is the
condition of the salvation which religion promises. But as the adherents
of the Christian religion had not these dogmas from the beginning, so
far, at least, as they form a connected system, the business of the
history of dogma is, in the first place, to ascertain the origin of Dogmas
(of Dogma), and then secondly, to describe their development (their
variations).
2. We cannot draw any hard and fast line between the time of the origin
and that of the development of dogma; they rather shade off into one
another. But we shall have to look for the final point of division at the
time when an article of faith logically formulated and scientifically
expressed, was first raised to the articulus constitutivus ecclesiæ, and as
such was universally enforced by the Church. Now that first happened
when the doctrine of Christ, as the pre-existent and personal Logos of
God, had obtained acceptance everywhere in the confederated
Churches as the revealed and fundamental doctrine of faith, that is,
about the end of the third century or the beginning of the fourth. We
must therefore, in our account, take this as the final point of division.[1]
As to the development of dogma, it seems to have closed in the Eastern
Church with the seventh Oecumenical Council (787). After that time no
further dogmas were set up in the East as revealed truths. As to the
Western Catholic, that is, the Romish Church, a new dogma was
promulgated as late as the year 1870, which claims to be, and in point

of form really is, equal in dignity to the old dogmas. Here, therefore,
the History of Dogma must extend to the present time. Finally, as
regards the Protestant Churches, they are a subject of special difficulty
in the sphere of the history of dogma; for at the present moment there is
no agreement within these Churches as to whether, and in what sense,
dogmas (as the word was used in the ancient Church) are valid. But
even if we leave the present out of account and fix our attention on the
Protestant Churches of the 16th century, the decision is difficult. For,
on the one hand, the Protestant faith, the Lutheran as well as the
Reformed (and that of Luther no less), presents itself as a doctrine of
faith which, resting on the Catholic canon of scripture, is, in point of
form, quite analogous to the Catholic doctrine of faith, has a series of
dogmas in common with it, and only differs in a few. On the other hand,
Protestantism has taken its stand in principle on the Gospel exclusively,
and declared its readiness at all times to test all doctrines afresh by a
true understanding of the Gospel. The Reformers, however, in addition
to this, began to unfold a conception of Christianity which might be
described, in contrast with the Catholic type of religion, as a new
conception, and which indeed draws support from the old dogmas, but
changes their original significance materially and