INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Philip Schaff was probably the most influential Protestant church historian in America in the 19th century.
Arriving from Europe in 1844 he began his scholarly career in this country at the Theological Seminary of the German Reformed Church in the small town of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.
He was one of two faculty members at the young institution.
Through sermons, lectures, books, pamphlets, articles, and participation in various phases of American church life, Schaff endeavored to help
American Protestants understand and appreciate the historical development of Christianity.
There was virtually no place for church history as a theological discipline in an American seminary curriculum prior to Schaff.
Historical studies were relatively unimportant.
Why?
Americans were not generally disposed to pay much attention to historical perspective in any area of thought.
In theological education, for example, many felt that historical studies added few, if any, significant insights to the biblical and theological disciplines.
Furthermore, in an era largely dominated by the revivalism of the Second Great Awakening thoughtful reflection on the history of the church was often not considered of much worth in the salvation of souls.t
Nevertheless, Schaff relentlessly advanced his contention that the serious study of ecclesiastical history was indispensable for comprehending, appreciating, and cultivating Christian faith.
In the preface to What ts Church History? the entire text of which appears in this volume, he wrote:
How shall we labour with any effect to build up the Church, if we have no thorough knowledge of her history, or fail to apprehend it from the proper point of observation?
History is, and must ever. continue to be, next to God's word, the richest fountain of wisdom, and the surest guide to all successful prac—
tical activity.
To reject her voice is to rob ourselves of our own right to exist, or, at least, to condemn our 'own life; since we owe to her, in fact, whether we choose to do so or not, all that we are and all that we can become.
Later in the same work he warned that:
: the man who undertakes to work for the future without the knowledge of the past and constant regard
WO teh WRGILIL jojumLIvel IMmosig, CCimcehiallye yh Cerstele shal wl Ela. which the lightest wind will be sufficient to blow down again--as many striking examples in our American
Chumchy la tewsernviermcleariiv svOm show Though he must have often felt as though he were a "voice erying in the wilderness," Philip Schaff lived to see his hope realized as church history took its place among the major disciplines of Christian thought.
One of the significant fruits of his labor was the founding of the American Society of Church
History in 1888.
He was its chief architect and its first president.
Philip Schaff was born January 1, 1819 in Chur, a Swiss town in the canton of Graubuendten.
His father, a carpenter by trade, died while Philip was a young child.
Consequently, he was raised by a devoted and influential mother.
His earliest education was provided by the schools in Chur.
During this period the chief pastor of the town recognized Philip's intellectual gifts and arranged for him to enroll in the academy for boys at Kornthal in Wtirtemburg, Germany.
One year later he transferred to the Stuttgart gymnasium where he prepared for entrance into university studies.
In 1837 he matriculated at the University of Tubingen.
He later studied at the universities of Halle and Berlin.
Since the whole of his formal education after leaving Chur took place in Germany he considered it his "second fatherland."
The university years in Tlibingen, Halle, and Berlin brought Schaff into contact with many of the outstanding and controversial theologians, philosophers, and historians of the time.
Among the faculty at Tubingen who impressed him were Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), David Friedrich Strauss
(1808-1874), Isaac August Dorner (1809-1884), and Christian Friedrich Schmid (1794-1852).
At Halle he studied under Julius Miiller (1801-1878) and with Friedrich A. G. Tholuck (1799-1877) in whose home he also lived for a brief time.
In Berlin he sat under the lectures of Johann A. W. Neander (1789-1850), Ernest Wilhelm Hengstenberg (1802-1869), Leopold von Ranke (17951886), August D.
C. Twesten (1789-1876), and Friedrich W. J. von Schelling (1775-1854.)— These men, among the leading minds in Europe, contributed to Schaff's maturity as an extraordinary scholar in his own Pe Following the successful completion of his examinations at Berlin in 1841 Schaff spent a year traveling in the Mediterranean.
He returned to the University of Berlin in 1842 as a Privatdocent.
He offered courses in the Catholic epistles and Om the theology of FE.
DD. E. Schileiermachers "Nearthe 'end of, his second term at Berlin in 1843 Schaff was visited by the Rev.
Theodore L. Hoffeditz and the Rev. Benjamin S. Schneck, representatives of the Synod of the Reformed Church in the United
States of America.
They had come to Europe to offer the professorship of Church History and Biblical Literature in their denomination's seminary at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania to Frederick W. Krummacher, a popular German scholar and preacher.
Krummacher, unable to accept the invitation, recommended Schaff as an outstanding prospect for the position.
Excellent recom-— mendations on Schaff's behalf were also presented by the theological faculties at Halle and Berlin.
Hoffeditz and Schneck were greatly impressed by these recommendations and their ensuing interview with the candidate.
Schaff was likewise ex-
cited by the potential which the vacant post held as described by the Americans.
Before the official invitation could be tendered, however, the Synod had to examine his credentials and the recommendations.
These were carried back to America by the Synod's two emissaries along with copies of Schaff's book Die
Stunde wider den Heilegen Geist 2 After careful review of the credentials and the book the Synod unanimously elected Schaff to the faculty of the seminary.
In December, 1843 Schaff accepted the call and made plans to travel to America.
He left Berlin in the spring of 1844 and before leaving Europe he was ordained at Elberfeld on April 12,
1844.
After his ordination he spent several weeks in London and Oxford conversing with English church leaders, especially those associated with the Tractarian Movement.
Following the lengthy trans-Atlantic journey and the trip inland from New York, Schaff arrived at Mercersburg on August 12, 1844.
He was overwhelmed by the warm reception which had been prepared for him.
He expressed his profound joy concerning the opportunity to teach at the Mercersburg seminary.
He believed that the type of German learning which he represented when allied with American practicality and experience would yield great advantage for the church.
Schaff's teaching companion at Mercersburg was John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886), a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Nevin possessed a very high regard for the type of German philosophical, historical, and theological scholarship on which Schaff had been raised..
Nevin proved to be a thoughtful, cooperative, and sympathetic co-worker.
Schaff observed in his journal:
I think I could not have a better colleague than Dr. Nevin.
I feared I might not find any sympathy in him for my views of the Church; but I discovered that he occupies essentially the same ground that I do and
confirms me in my position.
He is filled with the ideas of German theology.> The partnership of Nevin and Schaff at the seminary was productive.
Together they became the progenitors of a distinctive school of American religious thought which has been termed the "Mercersburg Theology. "6
They challenged many of the prevailing theological ideas and practices of American Protestantism during their age.
They despised the revivalistic and sectarian spirit of the time which they believed was rooted in an inadequate Christology and a faulty view of the church, its history, and its sacraments.
The correctives which they proposed included a Christocentric theology based upon the Incarnation as "being necessarily itself the essence of Christianity, the sum and substance of the whole Christian redemption."/
A proper Christology would yield a legitimate ecclesiology, an appropriate interpretation of the sacraments, and a sound liturgy.
Since Nevin and Schaff boldly criticized popular views and customs within the German Reformed Church and in other denominations it is not difficult to understand why they were likewise attacked.
Shortly after Schaff took up residence in Mercersburg the Synod of the German Reformed Church convened in Allentown,
Pennsylvania and formally elected him to membership.
On Octoper 24, 1844 his inaugural address, "The Principle of Protestantism," was delivered to the Synod meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania.
The address included an exposition of continental theological and historical themes unfamiliar and suspect to many of its hearers.
It caused a furor in the denomination.
Many alleged that it was "Romanizing" and "Tractarian" in its approach to theology and church history.
Nevin praised it.
His endorsement, however, did not allay the opposition, for he, too, was believed to be a "romanizer" and anti-revivalist since
the publication of his tract The Anxtous Bench in 1843.2
Charges of heresy were brought against Schaff in 1845 for the views he expressed in his inaugural.
One of his chief opponents and the instigator of the accusations was Joseph F.
Berg, pastor of the Race Street German Reformed congregation in Philadelphia.
Ironically, Berg was the man who had issued the Synod's official invitation to Schaff to become a professor in the seminary at Mercersburg.
Berg was also an advocate of the type of "sectarian revivalism" which Schaff and Nevin abhorred.
A second set of charges was leveled against the church historian in 1846.
In both cases Schaff's views were not found to be departures from true Protestant theology .1°
Schaff's career at Mercersburg was noteworthy.
He became known as an excellent teacher, outstanding church leader, and (OSC OGANS waciecieg Isis) joeIa WEIS igeugellye SigdtliL, — Ine) jowlollalsiase! 2 number of books and articles in addition to those included in this volume.
Among the key books were Amertca:
A Sketch of the Political, Soctal, and Religtous Character of the Untted States, 11 Germany:
Its Untverstttes, Theology, and Religion, 1° The Moral Character of Christ, or, The Perfection of Christ's 13 ana Slavery and The Humanity, A Proof of His Divinity, Bible. 14
His editorship of Der Deutsche Kirechenfreund, a journal he founded in 1848, also furnished Schaff a major medium for circulating his views.
Furthermore, on occasion he used the Mercersburg Review and the denominational publications of the German Reformed Church, as did Nevin, for conveying his ideas.
One of the major themes of Schaff's thought, derived from European sources and developed in his lectures and writings at Mercersburg, was his conviction that the best way of viewing church history was as an organism.
Several important studies have examined this basic theme.1?
The historical development of the church was comparable to the growth of a plant, Schaff
affirmed.
The essential components of the maturing plant are present in its seed.
Its growth and subsequent change are merely the natural extension of the seed's potential.
So it is with the church.
It must be seen as a living organism, each stage of its development connected to a preceding and a succeeding stage.
Schaff strongly disagreed with American Protes-— tants, like Berg, who claimed that Protestantism had no historic relation to medieval Catholicism.
The church of the 19th century was organically related to every epoch which preceded at back to its origin in Christ Himself,
No era of the life of the church could be ignored as unrelated to the whole scope of its life.
Furthermore, Schaff held, God was at work in the total history of the church and world.
History was not a collection of random events, but the unfolding of an "eternal, unchangeable plan of infinite wisdom" which tended toward a definite end.
He wrote:
"The recognition of God in history is the micsbepolnerpLe OL alll tsound philosophy of history.
79.
8He who denies the hand of Providence in the affairs of the world and the church is intellectually or spiritually plina."16
No era was devoid of God's presence and activity.
All were connected and, therefore, the proper task of the church historian was to discern'the evolution of God's plan of redemption.
In 1863 Schaff moved from Mercersburg to New York City to become Secretary of the New York Sabbath Association, a post he held until 1870.
Concerning the move George W. Richards wrote:
The distractions of the Civil War, the location of Mercersburg in the war zone tranversed by both armies, the lack of theological students, and the widening of Dr. Schaff's field of service from denominational to national and international scope, justified his removal from Mercersburg to the American metropolis, which furnished room and resources for the development of his cosmopolitan mind and projects.
Henceforth he belonged not to a denomination, though formally he joined the Presbyterian Church, but to American Protestantism.
In 1870 Schaff was elected Professor of Theological Encyclopedia and Christian Symbolics at Union Theological Seminary, New York.
He occupied that position until the time of his death in 1893.
Philip Schaff was an extraordinary man.
We have not mentioned his wide travel in Europe and America, his concern for social reform, the ecumenical dimensions of his thought, his concern for biblical translation, or his deep love for America. 18
All of these aspects of his life and thought are also reflected in his writings.
We have included in this volume a selection of materials from the Mercersburg period of his career with the exception of the first piece, his "Farewell
Address" to the German Reformed Church which met in Lancaster in 1892.
It presents in his own words the affection he held for the church initially responsible for his American sojourn.
Their insight brought to this country the scholar who helped to establish church history as a respected and vital discipline of theological study.
NOTES
TO THE INTRODUCTION
_ 1.
See Henry Warner Bowden, Church History tn the Age of Setence (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1971), pp. 36-h2.
For more detail on the views of these men see Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century:
Volwme I, 1799-1870 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1972), James H.
Nichols, Romanticism in American Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 64-72, Luther J. Binkley, The Mercersburg Theology (Manheim, PA: Sentinel Printing House,
1953), pp. 23-38, and Klaus Penzel, "Church History and the Ecumenical Quest:
A Study of the German Background and Thought of Philip Schaff" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1962).
(Halle:
Johann Friedrick Lippert, 1841).
See Nichols, Romanttetsm tn Amertcan Theology, pp. TT83.
Quoted in George W. Richards, History of the Theologtcal Seminary of the Reformed Church tn the United States,
18251934, Evangeltcal and Reformed, 1934-1952 (Lancaster:
Rudisill and Company, 1952), p. 559.
See James H. Nichols, ed., The Mercersburg Theology New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).
John Williamson Nevin, "Letter to Dr. Henry Harbaugh," in Catholic and Reformed:
Selected Theologtcal Writings of John Wtlltamson Nevin, ed. by Charles Yrigoyen, Jr. and George H. Bricker (Pittsburgh: The Pickwick Press, 1978), p. 408.
Philip Schaff, The Princtple of Protestantism, ed. by Bard Thompson and George H. Bricker (Philadelphia:
United Church Press, 1964).
John Williamson Nevin, The Anxtous Beneh in Catholte and Reformed:
Selected Theological Writings of John Willtamson Nevin, pp. 9-126.
10.
An interesting account of Schaff's alleged heresy is found in George H. Shriver, American Reltgtous Heretics
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), chapter 1.
LO 11.
(New York: Scribner, 1855).
12.
(Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston, 1857).
13.
(Chambersburg: Kieffer, 1861).
14.
(Chambersburg: Kieffer, 1861).
15.
EH. g., John Charles Meyer, "Philip Schatf's Concept of Organic Historiography as Related to the Development of Doctrine:
A Catholic Appraisal"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1968), George H.
Shriver, "Philip Schaff's Concept of Organic Historiography Interpreted in Relation to the Realization of an 'Evangelical Catholicism' within the Christian Community" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1960), and Theodore L. Trost,
"Philip Schaff's Concept of the Church, with Special Reference to His Role in The Mercersburg Movement, 1844-1864"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New College, Edinburgh, LO5o NR 16.
Quoted in Bowden, Church History in the Age of SCLENCE, P. FE.
17.
Htstory of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Chureh tn the Untted States, 1825-1934, Evangelical and Reformed, 1934-1952, p. 562.
18.
A complete biographical account of Schaff's life is found in David S. Schaff, The Life of Philtp Schaff (New York:
Scribner, 1397).