History of the Christian Church, Volume I: Apostolic Christianity. A.D. 1-100.

(Darren Dugan) #1
and Latin Christianity, with special reference to its bearing on the progress of civilization.^41 Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley (d. 1881) unrolls a picture gallery of great men and events in the Jewish theocracy,
from Abraham to the Christian era, and in the Greek church, from Constantine the Great to Peter
the Great.^42 Frederic W. Farrar (b. 1831) illuminates with classical and rabbinical learning, and
with exuberant rhetoric the Life of Christ, and of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and the Early
Days of Christianity.^43
(d) American works.
American literature is still in its early youth, but rapidly growing in every department of
knowledge. Prescott, Washington Irving, Motley, and Bancroft have cultivated interesting portions
of the history of Spain, Holland, and the United States, and have taken rank among the classical
historians in the English language.
In ecclesiastical history the Americans have naturally so far been mostly in the attitude of
learners and translators, but with every prospect of becoming producers. They have, as already
noticed, furnished the best translations of Mosheim, Neander, and Gieseler.
Henry B. Smith (late Professor in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York, d. 1877) has
prepared the best Chronological Tables of Church History, which present in parallel columns a
synopsis of the external and internal history of Christianity, including that of America, down to
1858, with lists of Councils, Popes, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Moderators of General
Assemblies.^44
W. G. T. Shedd (Professor in the same institution, b. 1820) wrote from the standpoint of
Calvinistic orthodoxy an eminently readable History of Christian Doctrine (N. York, 1863, 2 vols.),
in clear, fresh, and vigorous English, dwelling chiefly on theology, anthropology, and soteriology,
and briefly touching on eschatology, but entirely omitting the doctrine of the Church and the
sacraments, with the connected controversies.
Philip Schaff is the author of a special History of the Apostolic Church, in English and
German (N. York, 1853, etc., and Leipzig, 1854), of a History of the Creeds of Christendom (N.
York, 4th ed., 1884, 3 vols., with documents original and translated), and of a generalHistory of
the Christian Church (N. York and Edinb., 1859–’67, in 3 vols.; also in German, Leipzig, 1867;
rewritten and enlarged, N. Y. and Edinb., 1882–’88; third revision, 1889, 5 vols.; to be continued).

(^41) The History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. Lond. 1840, revised
ed., Lond. and N. York (Middleton), 1866, 3 vols. More important is his History of Latin Christianity to the Pontificate of
Nicholas V. (a.d. 1455), Lond. and N. York, 1854 sqq, in 8 vols. Milman wrote also a History of the Jews, 1829 (revised 1862,
3 vols.), and published an edition of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall with useful annotations. A complete edition of his historical
works appeared, Lond. 1866-’67, in 15 vols. 8vo.
(^42) Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church (delivered in Oxford), Lond. and N. York, 1862. No complete history, but
a series of picturesque descriptions of the most interesting characters and scenes in the Eastern church. Lectures on the History
of the Jewish Church, Lond. and N. York, l862-’76, in 3 vols. An independent and skilful adaptation of the views and results of
Ewald’s Geschichte Israel’s, to which Stanley pays a fine tribute in the Prefaces to the first and third vols. His Historical
Memorials of Canterbury Cathedral (1855, 5th ed. 1869), and of Westminster Abbey (1867, 4th ed. 1874), are important for
English church history. His Lectures on the History of the, Church of Scotland (1872) have delighted the moderate and liberal,
but displeased the orthodox Presbyterians of the land of Knox and Walter Scott.
(^43) Farrar’s Life of Christ appeared first in London, 1874, in 2 vols., and has up to 1879 gone through about thirty editions,
including the American reprints. His Life and ’Work of St. Paul, Lond. and N. York, 1879, in 2 vols.; and The Early Days of
Christianity, London and New York, 1882, 2 vols.; and Lives of the Fathers, Lond. and N. Y. 1889, 2 vols.
(^44) History of the Church of Christ in (16) Chronological Tables. N. York (Charles Scribner), 1860. Weingarten’s Zeittafeln
zur Kirchengeschichte, 3ded., 1888, are less complete, but more convenient in size.
A.D. 1-100.

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