History of Dogma
Adolph Harnack, translated by Neil Buchanan
Number of quotes: 43
Book ID: 432 Page: 45
Section: 4A
If again we compare the Church about the middle of the third century with the condition of Christendom 150 or 200 years before…….
We now really find a new commonwealth, politically formed and equipped with fixed forms of all kinds. We recognize in these forms few Jewish, but many Grӕco-Roman features and finally, we perceive also in the doctrine of faith on which this commonwealth is based, the philosophic spirit of the Greeks. We find a church as a political union and worship institute, a formulated faith and a sacred learning; but one thing we no longer find, the old enthusiasm and individualism…
Quote ID: 8722
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 432 Page: 45/46
Section: 1A,2A5,2C
Instead of enthusiastic independent Christians, we find a new literature of revelation, the New Testament, and Christian priests. When did these formations begin? How and by what influence was the living faith transformed into the creed to be believed, the surrender of Christ into a philosophic Christology, the Holy Church into the corpus permixtum, the glowing hope of the Kingdom of heaven into a doctrine of immortality and deification, prophecy into a learned exegesis and theological science, the bearers of the spirit into clerics, the brethren into laity held in tutelage, miracles and healings into nothing, or into priestcraft, fervent prayers into a solemn ritual, renunciation of the world into a jealous dominion over the world, the “spirit” into constraint and law?There can be no doubt about the answer: these formations are as old in their origin as….[John’s note: "as the rejection of Paul’s gospel"] (see PJ Note below)
Quote ID: 8723
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 46
Section: 1A,2A5
The Christian Church and its doctrine were developed within the Roman world and Greek culture in opposition to the Jewish Church.
Quote ID: 8724
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 46/47
Section: 1A
No man can serve two masters; but in setting up a spiritual power in this world one must serve an earthly master, even when he desires to naturalise the spiritual in the world. As a consequence of the complete break with the Jewish Church [PJ: should have said Pauls gospel] there followed not only the strict necessity of quarrying the stones for the building of the Church from the Grӕco-Roman world, but also the idea that Christianity has a more positive relation to that world than to the synagogue.
Quote ID: 8725
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 48/49
Section: 1A
… to the most important premises of the Catholic doctrine of faith belongs an element which we cannot recognize as dominant in the New Testament,{1} viz., the Hellenic spirit.{1} As far backwards as we can trace the history of the propagation of the Church’s doctrine of faith, from the middle of the third century to the end of the first, we nowhere perceive a leap, or the sudden influx of an entirely new element. What we perceive is rather the gradual disappearance of an original element, the Enthusiastic and Apocalyptic, that is, of the sure consciousness of an immediate possession of the Divine Spirit….PJ: YES! It was already there!!
Quote ID: 8726
Time Periods: 13
Book ID: 432 Page: 50
Section: 1A
We nowhere find a yawning gulf in the great development which lies between the first Epistle of Clement and the work of Origen.….
The most decisive division, therefore, falls before the end of the first century….
PJ: YES! It was already there.
Quote ID: 8727
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 432 Page: 57
Section: 1A
…the knowledge of Christ crucified, to which he subordinated all other knowledge as only of preparatory value, had nothing in common with Greek philosophy, while the idea of justification and the doctrine of the Spirit (Rom. VIII.), which together formed the peculiar contents of his Christianity, were irreconcilable with the moralism and the religious ideals of Hellenism.
Quote ID: 8729
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 72
Section: 1A
“The historical Christ” that, to be sure, is not the powerless Christ of contemporary history….
Quote ID: 8730
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 75
Section: 1A
It is therefore the duty of the historian of the first century of the Church, as well as that of those which follow, not to be content with fixing the changes of the Christian religion, but to examine how far the new forms were capable of defending, propagating and impressing the Gospel itself. It would probably have perished if the forms of primitive Christianity had been scrupulously maintained in the Church; but now primitive Christianity has perished in order that the Gospel might be preserved. To study this progress of the development, and fix the significance of the newly received forms for the kernel of the matter, is the last and highest task of the historian who himself lives in his subject.
Quote ID: 8731
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 432 Page: 88
Section: 1A
The establishment of the universal character of the Gospel, that is, of Christianity as a religion of the world, became now, however, a problem, the solution of which, as given by Paul, but few were able to understand or make their own.
Quote ID: 8732
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 89/90
Section: 1A
Marcion was the only Gentile Christian who understood Paul, and even he misunderstood him: the rest never got beyond the appropriation of particular Pauline sayings, and exhibited no comprehension especially of the theology of the Apostle….PJ: YES! It was already bad.
Quote ID: 8733
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 98
Section: 1A
In the manifold gifts of the spirit was given a fluid element indefinable in its range and scope, an element which guaranteed freedom of development, but which also threatened to lead the enthusiastic communities to extravagance.
Quote ID: 8734
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 99
Section: 1A,2A5
Instead of the frequently very fruitless investigations about “Jewish-Christian”, and “Gentile-Christian”, it should be asked, What Jewish elements have been naturalised in the Christian Church, which were in no way demanded by the contents of the Gospel?PJ: Amen!
Quote ID: 8735
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 113/114
Section: 4A
3. Neither Philo’s philosophy of religion, nor the mode of thought from which it springs, exercised any appreciable influence on the first generation of believers in Christ.….
Philo’s philosophy of religion became operative among Christian teachers from the beginning of the second century{1}….
Quote ID: 8736
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 116/117
Section: 4B
1. After the national religion and the religious sense generally in cultured circles had been all but lost in the age of Cicero and Augustus, there is noticeable in the Grӕco-Roman world from the beginning of the second century a revival of religious feeling…….
These needs rather sought new forms of satisfaction corresponding to the wholly changed conditions of the time, including intercourse, and mixing of the nations…
….
Religion and individual morality became more closely connected.
Quote ID: 8737
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 432 Page: 118
Section: 4B
With all this Polytheism was not suppressed, but only put into a subordinate place. On the contrary, it was as lively and active as ever. For the idea of a numen supremum did not exclude belief in the existence and manifestation of subordinate deities. Apotheosis came into currency. The old state religion first attained its highest and most powerful expression in the worship of the emperor….
Quote ID: 8738
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 432 Page: 122
Section: 2B
Rome represented the union of the greater part of humanity under one head, and also more and more under one law. Its capital was the capital of the world, and also, from the beginning of the third century, of religious syncretism.
Quote ID: 8739
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 432 Page: 127
Section: 1A,2A5
But, besides the Greek, there is no mistaking the special influence of Romish ideas and customs upon the Christian Church. The following points specially claim attention…
Quote ID: 8741
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 127
Section: 2D1
(4) The Episcopal constitution of the Church, including the idea of succession….
Quote ID: 8742
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 432 Page: 127
Section: 1A
Rome a second time, step by step, conquered the world, but this time the Christian world.
Quote ID: 8743
Time Periods: 24
Book ID: 432 Page: 128
Section: 1A,4A
Greek philosophy exercised the greatest influence not only on the Christian mode of thought, but also through that, on the institution of the Church. The Church never indeed became a philosophic school: but yet in her was realised in a peculiar way, that which the Stoics and the Cynics had aimed at. The Stoic (Cynic) Philosopher also belonged to the factors from which the Christian Priests or Bishops were formed.
Quote ID: 8744
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 128
Section: 1A
That the old bearers of the Spirit—Apostles, Prophets, Teachers—have been changed into a class of professional moralists and preachers, who bridle the people by counsel and reproof….
Quote ID: 8745
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 128
Section: 4A
But this Platonic ideal has again obtained its political realization in the Church through the very concrete laws of the Roman Empire….
Quote ID: 8746
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 131
Section: 4B
The history of dogma has to shew how the old eschatological view was gradually repressed and transformed in the Gentile Christian communities…….
Wherein the results of Greek practical philosophy could find a place.
….
The former had nothing but sure hopes and the guarantee of these hopes by the Spirit, by the words of prophecy and by the apocalyptic writings. One does not think, he lives and dreams, in the eschatological mode of thought; and such a life was vigorous and powerful till beyond the middle of the second century.
Quote ID: 8747
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 432 Page: 135/136
Section: 1A,2C
Paulinism is a religious and Christocentric doctrine, more inward and more powerful than any other which has ever appeared in the Church. It stands in the clearest opposition to all merely natural moralism, all righteousness of works, all religious ceremonialism, all Christianity without Christ.
Quote ID: 8748
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 198
Section: 2B1
The Adoptian Christology, that is, the Christology which is most in keeping with the self-witness of Jesus (the Son as the chosen servant of God)....
Quote ID: 8749
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 432 Page: 204
Section: 2B
1. In accordance with the purely spiritual idea of God, it was a fixed principle that only a spiritual worship is well pleasing to Him, and that all ceremonies are abolished….
Quote ID: 8750
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 432 Page: 216
Section: 1A
…the essential premises for the development of Catholicism were already in existence before the middle of the second century….PJ: YES! Already there!
Quote ID: 8751
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 224
Section: 4A
The view of the Old Testament as a document of the deepest wisdom, transmitted to those who knew how to read it as such, unfettered the intellectual interest which would not rest until it had entirely transferred the new religion from the world of feelings, actions and hopes, into the world of Hellenic conceptions, and transformed it into a metaphysic.
Quote ID: 8752
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 225
Section: 4A
But once the intellectual interest was unfettered, and the new religion had approximated to the Hellenic spirit by means of a philosophic view of the Old Testament, how could that spirit be prevented from taking complete and immediate possession of it, and where in the first instance, could the power be found that was able to decide whether this or that opinion was incompatible with Christianity?
Quote ID: 8753
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 226/227/228
Section: 4A
…the Gnostic systems represent the acute secularizing or hellenising of Christianity, with the rejection of the Old Testament,{2} while the Catholic system, on the other hand, represents a gradual process of the same kind with the conservation of the Old Testament.….
They are therefore those Christians who, in a swift advance, attempted to capture Christianity for Hellenic culture and Hellenic culture for Christianity, and who gave up the Old Testament in order to facilitate the conclusion of the covenant between the two powers, and make it possible to assert the absoluteness of Christianity.
Quote ID: 8754
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 229
Section: 4A
But that is only in keeping with the stage which the religious development had reached among the Greeks and Romans of that time.{2} The cultured, and these primarily come into consideration here, no longer had a religion in the sense of a national religion, but a philosophy of religion. They were, however, in search of a religion….….
{2} The age of the Antonines was the flourishing period of Gnosticism. Marquardt (Rӧmische Staatsverwaltung. Vol. 3, p. 81) says of this age: “With the Antonines begins the last period of the Roman religious development, in which two new elements enter into it. These are the Syrian and Persian deities, whose worship at this time was prevalent not only in the city of Rome, but in the whole empire, and, at the same time, Christianity, which entered into conflict with all ancient traditions, and in this conflict exercised a certain influence even on the Oriental forms of worship.
Quote ID: 8755
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 284
Section: 2D3B
Marcion was the first, and for a long time the only Gentile Christian who took his stand on Paul.….
But his attempt to resuscitate Paulinism is the first great proof that the conditions under which this Christianity originated do not repeat themselves, and that therefore Paulinism itself must receive a new construction if one desires to make it the basis of a Church.
….
Finally, his attempt affirms the experience that a religious community can only be founded by a religious spirit who expects nothing from the world.
Quote ID: 8756
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 292/293
Section: 2B
Speculations that take no account of history may make out that Catholicism became more and more Jewish Christian. But historical observation, which recons only with concrete quantities, can discover in Catholicism, besides Christianity, no element which it would have to describe as Jewish Christian. It observes only a progressive hellenising, and in consequence of this, a progressive spiritual legislation which utilizes the Old Testament….
Quote ID: 8757
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 432 Page: 296/297
Section: 4A
Justin vouches for the existence of Jewish Christians, and distinguishes between those who would force the law even on Gentile-Christians, and would have no fellowship with such as did not observe it, and those who considered that the law was binding only on people of Jewish birth, and did not shrink from fellowship with Gentile Christians who were living without the law.….
The very fact that Justin has devoted to the whole question only one chapter of a work containing 142, and the magmanimous way in which he speaks, shew that the phenomena in question have no longer any importance for the main body of Christendom.
Quote ID: 8758
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 298
Section: 4B
The fact that, even then, there were Jewish Christians here and there who sought to spread the [Greek] among Gentile Christians, has been attested by Justin and also by other contemporary writers.{1} But there is no evidence of this propaganda having acquired any great importance. Celsus also knows Christians who desire to live as Jews according to the Mosaic law (V. 61), but he mentions them only once….
Quote ID: 8759
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 328
Section: 2B1
Paul was the first who limited the idea of pre-existence by referring it solely to the spiritual part of Jesus Christ, but at the same time gave life to it by making the pre-existing Christ (the spirit) a being who, even during his pre-existence, stands independently side by side with God.
Quote ID: 8760
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 432 Page: 333
Section: 2D3B
…the utterances of persons inspired by the Spirit. The latter manifestations, however, ceased in the course of the second century and to some extent as early as its first half.
Quote ID: 8761
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 334
Section: 2A4
Ritualism did not begin to be a power in the Church till the end of the second century; though it had been cultivated by the “Gnostics” long before, and traces of it are found at an earlier period in some of the older Fathers, such as Ignatius.
Quote ID: 8762
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 432 Page: 335
Section: 2B
The number of sacred ceremonies already considerable in the second century (how did they arise?), was still further increased in the third….
Quote ID: 8763
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 432 Page: 356
Section: 3A2A
But from the beginning of the fifth century, ecclesiastical fanaticism ceased to tolerate heathenism. The murder of Hypatia put an end to philosophy in Alexandria.
Quote ID: 8764
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 432 Page: 359
Section: 4A
It must no doubt be admitted that Christianity itself was already profoundly affected by the influence of Hellenism when it began to outline a theology; but this influence must be traced back less to philosophy than to the collective culture, and to all the conditions under which the spiritual life was enacted.
Quote ID: 8765
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 432 Page: 361/362
Section: 4A
The question why Neoplatonism was defeated in the conflict with Christianity, has not as yet been satisfactorily answered by historians. Usually the question is wrongly stated. The point here is not about a Christianity arbitrarily fashioned, but only about Catholic Christianity and Catholic theology. This conquered Neoplatonism after it had assimilated nearly everything it possessed. Further, we must note the place where the victory was gained. The battle-field was the empire of Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian.
Quote ID: 8766
Time Periods: 34
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