Protestant Cramer, with less elegance but more thoroughness, and with special reference to the
doctrine history of the middle age.
Sebastien le Nain de Tillemont (d. 1698), a French nobleman and priest, without office and
devoted exclusively to study and prayer—a pupil and friend of the Jansenists and in partial sympathy
with Gallicanism—composed a most learned and useful history of the first six centuries (till 513),
in a series of minute biographies, with great skill and conscientiousness, almost entirely in the
words of the original authorities, from which he carefully distinguishes his own additions. It is, as
far as it goes, the most valuable church history produced by Roman Catholic industry and learning.^12
Contemporaneously with Tillemont, the Gallican, L. Ellies Dupin (d. 1719), furnished a
biographical and bibliographical church history down to the seventeenth century.^13 Remi Ceillier
(d. 1761) followed with a similar work, which has the advantage of greater completeness and
accuracy.^14 The French Benedictines of the congregation of St. Maur, in the seventeenth and
eighteenth century, did immense service to historical theology by the best critical editions of the
fathers and extensive archaeological works. We can only mention the names of Mabillon, Massuet,
Montfaucon, D’achery, Ruinart, Martène, Durand. Among the Jesuits,SirmondandPetau occupy
a prominent place.
The Abbé Rohrbacher. (Professor of Church History at Nancy, d. 1856) wrote an extensive
Universal History of the Church, including that of the Old Testament, down to 1848. It is less liberal
than the great Gallican writers of the seventeenth century, but shows familiarity with German
literature.^15
(c) German Catholic historians.
The pioneer of modern German Catholic historians of note is a poet and an ex-Protestant,
Count Leopold Von Stolberg (d. 1819). With the enthusiasm of an honest, noble, and devout, but
credulous convert, he began, in 1806, a very full Geschichte der Religion Jesu Christi, and brought
it down in 15 volumes to the year 430. It was continued by F. Kerz (vols. 16–45, to a.d. 1192) and
J. N. Brischar (vols. 45–53, to a.d. 1245).
Theod. Katerkamp (d. at Münster, 1834) wrote a church history, in the same spirit and
pleasing style, down to a.d. 1153.^16 It remained unfinished, like the work of Locherer(d. 1837),
which extends to 1073.^17
Bishop Hefele’sHistory of the Councils(Conciliengeschichte, 1855–’86; revised edition
and continuation, 1873 sqq.) is a most valuable contribution to the history of doctrine and discipline
down to the Council of Trent.^18(^12) Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles, justifiés par les citations des auteurs originaux.
Paris, 1693-1712, 16 vols. quarto. Reprinted at Venice, 1732 sqq. His Histoire des empereurs, Paris, 1690-1738, in 6 vols., gives
the secular history down to emperor Anastasius.
(^13) Under the title: Nouvelle Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclésastiques, contenant l’Histoire de leur vie, le catalogue, la critique
et la chronologie de leurs ouvrages. Paris and Amsterdam, 1693-1715, 19 vols.; 9th ed., Par., 1698 aqq., with the continuations
of Goujet, Petit-Didier, to the 18th cent., and the critique of R. Simon, 61 vols. The work was condemned by Rome for its free
criticism of the fathers.
(^14) Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésaistiques. Paris, 1729-’63 in 23 vols. 4to. New ed. begun 1858.
(^15) Histoire universelle de l’église catholique. Nancy and Paris, 1842-’49; 3d ed., 1856-’6l, in 29 vols. oct.; 4th ed. by Chantral,
1864 sqq. A German translation by Hülskamp, Rump and others appeared at Münster, 1860 sqq.
(^16) Münster, 1819-’34, 5 vols 8vo.
(^17) Ravensburg, 1824 sqq., 9 vols
(^18) The first two volumes of the first ed. were translated by W. R. Clark and H. N. Oxenham, and published by T. & T. Clark,
Edinburgh, 1871 and 1876.
A.D. 1-100.