Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (1886–90 Harnack), book

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Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (1886-90) is a book by Adolf von Harnack.

Abstract

In this five volume work, Adolf von Harnack undertakes a massive scholarly project, seeking to trace the history of Christian dogma from its origins through the fifth century CE. Unlike Baur before him, who envisioned two competing forms of early Christianity, a Petrine led Jewish Christianity and a Pauline led Gentile Christianity, Harnack argued that the development of dogma occurred through the progressive Hellenization of the gospel, whereby the gospel of Jesus was rapidly transplanted into Greek modes of thought. Accordingly, Harnack assumed Jewish Christianity played little to no influence in this process at all.

With respect to the Incarnation, Harnack argued that early Christians inherently understood this concept through their interactions with the Logos in Greek philosophy. Surprisingly, Harnack does not think that that early Christians adopted a Logos theology in order to reconcile their belief in monotheism with the divine honors they paid to the crucified Christ. Rather, he views the Logos doctrine as "already part of their creed before they gave any consideration to the person of the historical Christ, and vice versa Christ’s right to divine honors was to them a matter of certainty independent of the Logos doctrine"(Volume II, 208).

In the Greek worldview and increasingly the early Christian worldview as well, explained Harnack, God could not be thought of without reason (ἀλόγος); thus, the Logos (λόγος) was always a part of God. Yet for the sake of creation, God projected the Logos from himself. This created an interesting phenomenon. First, there was a transcendent and unchangeable God, but second, there was a Logos or a second God, who unlike the first God, had a finite origin and could thus interact with the material world. At times the Logos entered into the world to interact with humanity and at times the Logos inspired the prophets. Yet the unique and ultimate act of God through the Logos was the manifestation of the Logos in the person Jesus.

Writing at the end of the 19th century, Harnack does not question the implications of the doctrine of the incarnation. Moreover, he does not question Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus. Instead, he simply describes how, for Christian thinkers of the second century onwards, "faith in the incarnate Son of God the creator, leads to the assurance that the maker of all thing will reward piety and righteousness with the bestowal of eternal and immortal life" (Volume II, 224).

~Deborah Forger

Editions

Published in Freiburg i.B.: Mohr, <3 vols.> 1886-90 / 4th ed. 1909-10.

Translations

Contents

Table of Contents (English Trans).

Volume I

  • Chapter I: Prolegomena to the Stuyd of the History of Dogma
    • 1 - The Idea and Task of the History of Dogma
    • 2 - History of the History of Dogma
  • Chapter II
    • 1 - Introductory
      • The Gospel and the OT
      • The Detachment of the Christians from the Jewish Church
      • The Church and the Graeco-Roman World
      • The Greek spirit an element of the Ecclesiastical Doctrine of Faith
      • Elements connecting Primitive Christianity and the growing Catholic Church
      • The Presuppositions of the origin of the Apostolic Catholic Doctrine of Faith
    • 2 - The Gospel of Jesus Christ According to his own Testimony
    • 3 - The Common Preaching
    • 4 - The current Exposition of the OT and the Jewish hopes of the future
    • 5 - The Religious Conceptions and Philosophy of Hellenistic Jews/Their significance for the later formation of the Gospel
    • 6 - The Religious Dispositions of Greeks and Romans
  • Supplementary
  • Book I
    • Chapter I - Historical Survey
    • Chapter II - Element Common to all Christians and the Breach with Judaism
    • Chapter III - Common Faith and the Beginnings of Knowledge in Gentile Christianity as it was Developed and Canonized
    • Chapter IV - The Attempts of the Gnostics to Create an Apostolic Dogmatic, and A Christian Theology; The Acute Secularizing of Christianity
    • Chapter V - The Attempt of Marcion to Set Aside the OT Foundation of Christianity
    • Chapter VI - The Christianity of Jewish Christians, Definition of the Notion of Jewish Christianity
    • Appendices


Volume II

  • Chapter I - Historical Survey
  • Chapter II - The setting up of the Apostolic Standards for Ecclesiastical Christianity
  • Chapter III - The Old Christianity into the New Church
  • Chapter IV - Ecclesiastical Christianity and Philosophy
      • The doctrines of Christianity as the revealed and rational religion
      • The Monotheistic Cosmology
      • Theology
      • Doctrine of the Logos
      • Doctrine of the World and of Man
  • Chapter V - The Beginnings of an Ecclesiastico-theological interpretation and revision of the Rule of Faith in opposition to Gnosticism
  • The Transformation of the Ecclesiastical Tradition into a Philosophy of Religion, or the Origin of the Scientific Theology and Dogmatic of the Church

External links

  • [ Google Books]
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