original and vigorous, but more sober and moderate. It comes down to the sixteenth century, to
which alone five volumes are devoted.
From Fred. Spanheim of Holland (d. 1649) we have a Summa Historia Ecclesiasticae (Lugd.
Bat. 1689), coming down to the sixteenth century. It is based on a thorough and critical knowledge
of the sources, and serves at the same time as a refutation of Baronius.
A new path was broken by Gottfried Arnold (d. 1714), in his, Impartial History of the
Church and Hereticsto a.d. 1688.^24 He is the historian of the pietistic and mystic school. He made
subjective piety the test of the true faith, and the persecuted sects the main channel of true
Christianity; while the reigning church from Constantine down, and indeed not the Catholic church
only, but the orthodox Lutheran with it, he represented as a progressive apostasy, a Babylon full
of corruption and abomination. In this way he boldly and effectually broke down the walls of
ecclesiastical exclusiveness and bigotry; but at the same time, without intending or suspecting it,
he opened the way to a rationalistic and sceptical treatment of history. While, in his zeal for
impartiality and personal piety, he endeavored to do justice to all possible heretics and sectaries,
he did great injustice to the supporters of orthodoxy and ecclesiastical order. Arnold was also the
first to use the German language instead of the Latin in learned history; but his style is tasteless
and insipid.
J. L. von Mosheim (Chancellor of the University at Göttingen, d. 1755), a moderate and
impartial Lutheran, is the father of church historiography as an art, unless we prefer to concede
this merit to Bossuet. In skilful construction, clear, though mechanical and monotonous arrangement,
critical sagacity, pragmatic combination, freedom from passion, almost bordering on cool
indifferentism, and in easy elegance of Latin style, he surpasses all his predecessors. His well-known
Institutiones Historiae Ecclesiasticae antiquae et recentioris(Helmstädt, 1755) follows the centurial
plan of Flacius, but in simpler form, and, as translated and supplemented by Maclaine, and Murdock,
is still used extensively as a text-book in England and America.^25
J. M. Schröckh (d. 1808), a pupil of Mosheim, but already touched with the neological spirit
which Semler (d. 1791) introduced into the historical theology of Germany, wrote with unwearied
industry the largest Protestant church history after the Magdeburg Centuries. He very properly
forsook the centurial plan still followed by Mosheim, and adopted the periodic. His Christian
Church History comprises forty-five volumes, and reaches to the end of the eighteenth century. It
is written in diffuse but clear and easy style, with reliable knowledge of sources, and in a mild and
candid spirit, and is still a rich storehouse of historical matter.^26
The very learned InstitutionesHistoriae Ecclesiasticae V. et N. Testamentiof the Dutch
Reformed divine, H. Venema (d. 1787), contain the history of the Jewish and Christian Church
down to the end of the sixteenth century (Lugd. Bat. 1777–’83, in seven parts).(^24) UnpartheiischeKirchen- und Ketzerhistorie. Frankfurt, 1699 sqq. 4 vol. fol.
(^25) Best edition: Institutes of Ecclesiastical History ancient and modern, byJohn Lawrence von Mosheim. A new and literal
translation from the original Latin, with copious additional Notes, original and selected. By James Murdock, D. D. 1832; 5th
ed., New York. 1854, 3 vols. Murdock was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Andover, Mass. (d. 1856), and translated also
Münscher’s Dogmengeschichte. Mosheim’s special history of the ante-Nicene period (1733) was translated from the Latin by
Vidal (1813), and Murdock (1851), new ed., N. York, 1853, 2 vols.
(^26) Christliche Kirchengeschichte. Leipzig, 1768-1812, 45 vols. 8vo, including 10 vols. of the History after the Reformation
(the last two by Tzschirner). Nobody ever read Schroeckh through (except the author and the proof-reader), and the very name
is rather abschreckend, but he is as valuable for reference as Baronius, and far more impartial.
A.D. 1-100.