History of Dogma, Volume 1 | Page 6

formally. What this
conception was may still be ascertained from those writings received
by the Church, the Protestant symbols of the 16th century, in which the
larger part of the traditionary dogmas are recognised as the appropriate
expression of the Christian religion, nay, as the Christian religion
itself.[2] Accordingly, it can neither be maintained that the expression
of the Christian faith in the form of dogmas is abolished in the
Protestant Churches--the very acceptance of the Catholic canon as the
revealed record of faith is opposed to that view--nor that its meaning
has remained absolutely unchanged.[3] The history of dogma has
simply to recognise this state of things, and to represent it exactly as it
lies before us in the documents.
But the point to which the historian should advance here still remains
an open question. If we adhere strictly to the definition of the idea of
dogma given above, this much is certain, that dogmas were no longer
set up after the Formula of Concord, or in the case of the Reformed
Church, after the decrees of the Synod of Dort. It cannot, however, be

maintained that they have been set aside in the centuries that have
passed since then; for apart from some Protestant National and
independent Churches, which are too insignificant and whose future is
too uncertain to be taken into account here, the ecclesiastical tradition
of the 16th century, and along with it the tradition of the early Church,
have not been abrogated in authoritative form. Of course, changes of
the greatest importance with regard to doctrine have appeared
everywhere in Protestantism from the 17th century to the present day.
But these changes cannot in any sense be taken into account in a
history of dogma, because they have not as yet attained a form valid for
the Church. However we may judge of these changes, whether we
regard them as corruptions or improvements, or explain the want of
fixity in which the Protestant Churches find themselves, as a situation
that is forced on them, or the situation that is agreeable to them and for
which they are adapted, in no sense is there here a development which
could be described as history of dogma.
These facts would seem to justify those who, like Thomasius and
Schmid, carry the history of dogma in Protestantism to the Formula of
Concord, or, in the case of the Reformed Church, to the decrees of the
Synod of Dort. But it may be objected to this boundary line; (1) That
those symbols have at all times attained only a partial authority in
Protestantism; (2) That as noted above, the dogmas, that is, the
formulated doctrines of faith have different meanings on different
matters in the Protestant and in the Catholic Churches. Accordingly, it
seems advisable within the frame-work of the history of dogma, to
examine Protestantism only so far as this is necessary for obtaining a
knowledge of its deviations from the Catholic dogma materially and
formally, that is, to ascertain the original position of the Reformers
with regard to the doctrine of the Church, a position which is beset with
contradictions. The more accurately we determine the relation of the
Reformers to Catholicism, the more intelligible will be the
developments which Protestantism has passed through in the course of
its history. But these developments themselves (retrocession and
advance) do not belong to the sphere of the history of dogma, because
they stand in no comparable relation to the course of the history of
dogma within the Catholic Church. As history of Protestant doctrines

they form a peculiar independent province of Church history.
As to the division of the history of dogma, it consists of two main parts.
The first has to describe the origin of dogma, that is, of the Apostolic
Catholic system of doctrine based on the foundation of the tradition
authoritatively embodied in the creeds and Holy scripture, and extends
to the beginning of the fourth century. This may be conveniently
divided into two parts, the first of which will treat of the preparation,
the second of the establishment of the ecclesiastical doctrine of faith.
The second main part, which has to portray the development of dogma,
comprehends three stages. In the first stage the doctrine of faith appears
as Theology and Christology. The Eastern Church has never got
beyond this stage, although it has to a large extent enriched dogma
ritually and mystically (see the decrees of the seventh council). We will
have to shew how the doctrines of faith formed in this stage have
remained for all time in the Church dogmas [Greek: kat' exochên]. The
second stage was initiated by Augustine. The doctrine of faith appears
here on the one side completed, and on the other re-expressed by new
dogmas, which treat of the relation of