19. § 19. Faith and Theology.
§ 19. Faith and Theology.
. The Christian church has not been satisfied with faith, but almost from the beginning has striven after knowledge of religious truth and has bestowed esteem on a special science, theology. Yet it cannot be said that this urge toward science is enclosed in faith as such. For faith is certainty and excludes all doubt; it rests in the word of God and has enough in that. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Jesum, nec inquisitione post evangelium. Cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra credere, Tertullianus, de praescr. haer. 8. Die Frömmigkeit ist ihrer selbst unmittelbar gewiss, Rothe, Theol. Ethik. § 7. The right and the value of theological science has therefore been contested more than once in the Christian church. During the monophysite and monothelete disputes there was already a party of the Gnosimachi, who considered all science unnecessary for Christians. They taught that God demands nothing of the Christian but good works and that it was better, simplici rudique animo institutum suum persequi, quam multam curam in cognoscendis decretis atque sententiis ponere, Johannes Damascenus, de haeresibus, Opera
Omnia, Basileae 1575 p. 585. Toward the end of the Middle Ages the aversion to theology was general. Scholasticism had lost all confidence. In all circles and among all sects [510] there was a strong desire for a more simple, practical Christianity, Harnack, D. G. III2 573. Humanism looked down with contempt on scholasticism, Paulsen, Gesch. des gelehrten
Unterrichts, Leipzig 1885 S. 1 f. And since then the opposition to scholasticism in the Roman church has almost never been silent. Bajus,
Jansenius, Launoy, many theologians in the previous and in this century, e.g. Günther, have brought forward all kinds of serious accusations against scholastic theology, Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit IV2 133 f. Denzinger, Vier
Bücher von der rel. Erk. II 566 f.
The Reformation initially adopted the same standpoint. Luther's judgment on Aristotle, scholasticism, and reason is known. Köstlin, Luthers Theol. I 106 f. Melanchthon wrote in the first edition of his loci: hoc est Christum cognoscere, beneficia ejus cognoscere, non quod isti (scholastici) docent, ejus naturas, modos incarnationis intueri, ed. Augusti 1821 p. 9. Zwingli said that to be a Christian did not consist in schwatzen von Christo, sunder wandeln wie er gewandlet hat, cf. my Ethiek van Zwingli bl. 119 v. Calvin likewise lays strong emphasis on this practical side of faith, Inst. I, 2, 2. I, 5,
9. I, 12, 1. Comm. on Rom. 1:19. But many went further than the Reformers and rejected all theology. Carlstadt condemned, with appeal to Mt. 23:8, all scholarly titles and went to live as a peasant among the peasants, Herzog2
7, 528. The Anabaptists and the Mennonites wanted to know nothing of a scholarly training for the ministry of the word, and granted the right to "admonish" to all believers. Menno Simons passed, concerning the church and its ministers, concerning study and learning, many times a very strict judgment, Alle de Godtgel. Wercken, Amst. 1681 bl. 34 v. 59 v. 260. 270
etc. Only later did the Mennonite teachers receive a scholarly training, Herzog2 9, 575. Sepp, Kerkhist. Studiën, Leiden 1885 bl. 84, 85. And when later in the Protestant churches the scholastic treatment of theology gained ground, reaction came from all sides. Calixtus and Coccejus, Spener and Zinzendorf, Fox and Wesley etc., they all were driven by the desire for more simplicity and truth in the doctrine of faith. To that end one had to go back from doctrine to life, from the confession to Scripture, from theology to religion. Even deism and rationalism were related to this striving [511]; seeking the general and the common that lay at the foundation of all religions and confessions, they appealed from the christliche Religion to the Religion Christi, from the statutory Religion to the Vernunftreligion.
Through the agnostic direction of philosophy, the feeling-theology of Schleiermacher, the historical criticism of Scripture and other influences, this striving has increased still more. The aversion to dogmatics is now general. Many look longingly for a new word, a new dogma, desire a religion without theology, a life without doctrine, and strive for a practical, undogmatic Christianity (Dreyer, Egidy, Drummond, Tolstoï etc.). To a certain extent this striving has found its scholarly defense in the school of Ritschl. It came forward with the demand that theology must be delivered entirely from metaphysics, Ritschl, Theol. u. Metaph. 1881, cf. also his studies on the doctrine of God, Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. 1865, 1868.
Harnack in his Dogmengeschichte, and E. Hatch in his work, The influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the christ. church, London 1890, German translation by E. Preuschen, Griechenthum und Christ. Freiburg 1882, cf. also Kaftan, Die Wahrheit der christl. Religion 1889, applied this principle to the history of the dogmas, and tried to show that theology is a fruit of the ill-timed marriage concluded between original Christianity and Greek
philosophy. The accusations, brought by all these directions against theology, specifically against dogmatics, come down to this, that it falsifies the purity and the simplicity of the Christian religion; changes religion into a doctrine that must be proved and accepted intellectually; kills the religious life, promotes a cold barren orthodoxy and makes the fides implicita necessary; and finally also brings religion as doctrine into conflict with science, and alienates the educated classes from the Christian faith. Cf. e.g.
Kaftan, Glaube und Dogma, 3e Aufl. 1889.
2. No one will deny that there is seriousness and truth in these complaints about theology. It has many times overshot its goal and degenerated into battology. It has all too often forgotten that our knowing on earth is a knowing in part and a [512] seeing in a dark saying. Sometimes it seemed to proceed from the thought that it could answer all possible questions and solve all issues. Modesty, tenderness, simplicity have often been lacking in it. That was the worse, because theology has to do with the deepest problems and comes into contact with the finest stirrings of the human heart. More than any other science the admonition befits it, μη ὑπερφρονειν παρ' ὁ δει φρονειν. Better an honest non liquet than a daring conjecture.
Nescire velle, quae Magister optimus docere non vult, erudita inscitia est.
But thereby theology is nevertheless not condemned in principle. For, if revelation consisted only in communication of life and religion only in moods of the mind, there would be no place for a theology proper. But revelation is a system of words and deeds of God; it contains a world of thoughts; it has its center in the incarnation of the Logos. And religion is not feeling and emotion alone, but it is also faith, a conscious life, a serving of God with heart and head together. And therefore that revelation of God can be thought through, in order that it may the better enter into human
consciousness. Indeed, it cannot be taken amiss of theology in this, if it applies itself to clarity in thinking, distinctness in distinguishing, precision in expression. In all sciences such a praecisitas is striven after and prized; in theology it is equally in its place. The danger that it will thereby degenerate into subtleties and hair-splittings exists in the other sciences, e.g. of law, of letters, equally. But no one will therefore dispute the right of those sciences.
Theology too has its periods of bloom and decline; but it will not do to condemn it itself for the misuse that has been made of it. Abusus non tollit usum. Next, it has already become apparent to us earlier that the separation between the Christian religion on the one side and metaphysics etc. on the other side is just as little purely conceived as practically feasible. History has already proved this repeatedly and shows it again today. For in order to make such a separation somewhat possible, all the above-mentioned directions are compelled to form for themselves a one-sided and incomplete representation of the gospel of Christ. Almost [513] never do they go back to the whole of Scripture, but always to a part; to the N. Testament alone, or to the gospels, or to the sermon on the mount, or even to one single text.
Francis of Assisi e.g. arranged his whole life according to Mt. 10:9, 10, Reuter, Gesch. der rel. Aufklärung im M. A. II 184, 186. Paul Sabatier,
Leben des h. Fr. v. A. deutsch von M. L. Berlin 1895 S. 53. Tolstoi finds the core of the gospel in Mt. 5:38, 39, Worin besteht mein Glaube, Leipzig,
Duncker 1885 S. 12. Drummond seeks in the love of 1 Cor. 13 the summum bonum. Ritschl changes the dogmata into religious-ethical value-judgments.
Harnack D. G. I2 54 agrees with Ritschl in the conception of the original gospel. And many now ask why the Christian churches nevertheless have not been satisfied with the sermon on the mount. What the essence of Christianity is, in what revelation or the word of God consists, who the
person of Christ is, is not decided by the apostles; each determines it for himself according to his own insights. The consequence of that is that all these directions must set not only the church, the confession, the theology but also the apostles over against Jesus and over against the original gospel.
Harnack e.g. D. G. I 53 f. acknowledges that the apostolic-catholic doctrine too in the N. Test. no longer reproduces the gospel of Jesus purely. The influence of Judaism, Hellenism, and the Greek-Roman philosophy of religion is already noticeable in it. Already the apostles, especially Paul and John, have falsified the gospel. Ernst von Bunsen, Die Reconstruction der kirchl. Autorität, Leipzig Brockhaus 1893 argues that Paul has changed the gospel of Jesus into a speculative theology. And if then a fact such as the resurrection of Christ nevertheless cannot be removed from the original gospel, it is deprived of its religious value, Harnack D. G. I 74. Further, from this view it follows that the history of dogma cannot come into its own. It becomes one great aberration of the human, of the Christian spirit.
The promise of the Spirit, who would lead into all truth, proves to have been vain. Even the possibility of knowing the truth is taken away from the church, because already the apostles have led it onto a wrong track. The doctrine of the logos, of the trinity, of the first and the second Adam, etc., all dogmata that must prove the [514] intermixture of Greek philosophy, is found indeed not verbally but yet materially already in Scripture. In one word, the history of dogmata is, as with Strauss, the history of their criticism. Not the church has overcome the world, but the world has overcome the church. Finally, with this one-sided conception of the original gospel there still threatens the danger that one loses communion with the church of all centuries and thereby with the time in which one lives. That has been the judgment of all sects. Cut off from the churches and despising
theology, they have lost influence on their century and the bond with culture. Congregation and world, church and school, religion and science fall apart dualistically. By contrast, theology has the glorious calling to keep these two in connection with each other; to preserve, on the one hand,
Christian life from all kinds of spiritual diseases of mysticism and separatism, and, on the other hand, to free scientific thinking from error and falsehood through the truth of Christ. The right of theology is grounded in the essence of the Christian religion. Revelation addresses itself to the whole human being, and has the whole world as its object. On every terrain it joins battle against the lie. It offers material for the deepest thinking and plants on scientific terrain the knowledge of God alongside and in organic connection with that of human being and world. On the dogma-historical views of Harnack and Hatch there may be consulted Pfleiderer, Entw. der prot. Theol. S. 369 f. Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr. 1891 bl. 487 v. Van Rhijn,
Theol. Studiën 1891 bl. 365 v., 437 v. Dr. W. Schmidt, Der alte Glaube und die Wahrheit des Christ. Berlin, Wigandt 1894. Henri Bois, Le dogme grec,
Paris, Fischbacher 1892.
3. Although, however, the Christian dogma is not to be explained from Greek philosophy, it nevertheless did not arise without it. In Scripture there is as yet no dogma and no theology in the proper sense. So long as revelation itself was still continuing, it could not become the object of scientific reflection. Inspiration had to be finished before reflection could come to the fore. The usage of Mosaic, Pauline, Biblical theology and dogmatics, etc., therefore deserves no [515] recommendation; the word theology, moreover, does not occur in Scripture either and only gradually acquired its present meaning, Kuyper, Encycl. II 117 v. Theology first arose in the congregation of Christ when childish naïveté was past and thinking
consciousness had awakened. Gradually the need arose to think through the thoughts of revelation, to connect them with the rest of knowledge, and to defend them against all manner of attack. For that one had need of philosophy. Scientific theology arose with its help. But that did not happen accidentally. The church has not been the victim of deception. The church fathers, in the formation and development of the dogmas, made ample use of philosophy. But they did that with full consciousness, with a clear insight into the dangers connected with it, with a clear account of the grounds on which they did it, and with explicit recognition of the word of the apostles as the only rule of faith and life. Therefore they also did not avail themselves of the whole of Greek philosophy; they made a choice; they used only that philosophy which was most suitable to think through and to defend the truth of God; they proceeded eclectically and have not adopted any single philosophical system, whether of Plato or of Aristotle, but with the help of Greek philosophy produced a philosophy of their own, a Christian philosophy. Furthermore, they used that philosophy only as an auxiliary. Just as Hagar was subservient to Sarah, just as the treasures of Egypt were employed by the Israelites for the adornment of the tabernacle, just as the wise men from the East laid down their gifts at the feet of the little child in Bethlehem; so, in the judgment of the church fathers, philosophy was subordinate to theology. From all this it speaks clearly that the use of philosophy in theology rested not on an error, but on a firm and clear conviction. The church fathers knew what they were doing. Thereby it is indeed not excluded that the influence of philosophy on some points was too strong for them. But then, in that connection, a distinction must nevertheless at once be made between the theology of the patres and the dogmas of the church. The church has at all times guarded against the
misuse of philosophy; it has not only rejected Gnosticism but also condemned Origenism. [516] And up to now it has not succeeded in explaining the dogmas materially from philosophy; however often it has also been attempted, in the end the scriptural character of orthodoxy has always nevertheless been vindicated. Cf. Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit IV 143 f. Denzinger, Vier Bücher usw. II 572 f.
The Reformation at the beginning adopted a hostile attitude toward scholasticism and philosophy. But it soon receded from that; because it was not a sect or did not wish to be, it could not do without a theology. Luther and Melanchthon therefore already returned to the use of philosophy and acknowledged its usefulness, cf. Ritter, Gesch. der neuern Philos. I 495 f.
Ueberweg, Grundriss der Gesch. der Philos. III 5te Aufl. 1880 S. 17 f. and for the later luth. theologians, Hase, Hutterus Rediv. § 30. Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. § 5. Calvin from the beginning took this lofty standpoint,
Inst. II, 2, 12 sq. and saw in philosophy a praeclarum Dei donum, Opera, ed. Amst. IX B. 50. And thus all Reformed theologians judged, Hyperius, de theologo seu de ratione studii theol. 1556 lib. I. Zanchius, Opera III 223 sq. VIII 653 sq. Alsted, Praecognita theol. p. 174 sq. Voetius, Disp. III 741 sq. 751 sq. Owen, Theologumena p. 509 sq. Moor, Comm. in Marckii
Comp. I 71 sq. Now the question does not run about this, whether theology must make use of a particular philosophical system. Christian theology has never taken over any philosophical system without criticism and certified it as truth. Neither the philosophy of Plato nor that of Aristotle has been held by any theologian to be the true one. That nevertheless preference was given to these two philosophical systems had its cause herein, that these were best suited to develop and defend the truth. There also lay the thought in it, that the Greeks and Romans had received a peculiar calling and gift
for the life of culture. In fact our whole civilization even today is built upon that of Greece and Rome. And Christianity has not destroyed this but Christianized it and thus sanctified it. But yet a particular philosophy is not necessary for theology. What it needs is philosophy in general. i.e. it comes to no scientific theology except through thinking. The proper principium cognoscendi internum of theology is thus not faith as such, but believing thinking, the [517] ratio christiana. Faith is conscious of itself and certain. It rests in revelation. It includes a knowing, but that knowing is wholly and entirely of a practical nature, a γιγνωσκειν in the sense of Holy Scripture.
Theology therefore does not arise from the believers as such; it is no fruit of the church as ecclesia instituta; it does not have its origin in the office, which Christ has bestowed upon his congregation. But the believers have yet another, richer life, than comes to expression in the ecclesia instituta. As Christians they also live in family, state, society and practice science and art. Many more gifts than those works through the office are bestowed upon them, gifts of knowledge and wisdom and prophecy. Among them there are also those, who feel in themselves a strong urge to investigation and knowledge, who have received gifts, to think through the truth of God and to bring it into system. And thus theology arises in the church of Christ; it has as its subject not the instituted church but the church as organism, as the body of Christ; it is a fruit of the thinking of Christendom.
4. Faith and theology are therefore indeed distinct. More or less one was also at all times conscious of that. The sharp antithesis, which Gnosticism made between πιστις and γνωσις, was rejected; and also the relation, assumed between the two by the Alexandrian school, was not in all respects approved and endorsed, cf. above 60. But nevertheless the distinction was expressly maintained and at the same time the intimate connection of both
was held fast and acknowledged. Augustine elevated the saying: per fidem ad intellectum to a principle of theology; he assumed between the two a relation as between conception and birth, work and reward. Fidei fructus est intellectus, tract. 22 in Ev. Joh. n. 2. Intellectus merces est fidei, tract. 29 in Ev. Joh. n. 6. He exhorts to it, ut ea, quae fidei firmitate jam tenes, etiam rationis luce conspicias. God does not despise reason. Absit namque, ut hoc in nobis Deus oderit, in quo nos reliquis animantibus excellentiores creavit,
Ep. 120 ad Consent, n. 2-4. And this was the principle and the fundamental thought of the whole of scholasticism. Faith and theology were distinguished as habitus and actus, as theologia infusa and acquisita. Faith is assent to, theology is knowledge of [518] the revealed truths. Faith does indeed also include some knowledge concerning God and divine matters, but this knowledge concerns more the existentia than the rationes of those truths; the theologian, however, penetrates through to the idea, traces the connection of the truths and, thinking, derives others from them,
Liebermann, Instit. Theol. ed. 8. Moguntiae 1857 cap. 1 § 1. That one was conscious of the distinction between religion and theology is also evident from the doctrine of the fides implicita. If faith according to Rome consisted in assent to revealed truths, sooner or later the question had to arise, which and how many of those truths one at least had to know and accept, in order to become a partaker of salvation. That question could arise with a view to the Heathen, with a view to the believers of the O. T. and also with a view to the ignorant and undeveloped believers in the days of the N. Test. Augustine had already said: turbam non intelligendi vivacitas, sed credendi simplicitas tutissimam facit, c. Epist. fundamenti cap. 4. But Lombardus first clearly brought this question to the fore in his Sententiae lib. III dist. 25. Since then it was treated at length in theology; in the 17th
century it even gave occasion in France to a serious conflict, which was not resolved by Innocentius XI but was nevertheless brought to an end. Usually the doctrine of the fides implicita in Roman theology is presented in this way. The fides carbonaria is expressly rejected; all Roman theologians maintain that to saving faith some, be it also slight, knowledge belongs; wholly implicit therefore faith can and may never be. But that knowledge differs in the different dispensations of grace. In the days of the O. T. from Adam on up to the fall of Jerusalem, when the proper mysteries of Christianity, such as the Trinity and the incarnation, had not yet been promulgated, necessitate medii only these two articles were necessary to believe, that God is and that He is a rewarder, Hebr. 11:6. Thereby it is not said that many believers under the O. T. had no greater and deeper knowledge of the truth; Adam e.g. did also know the Trinity and the incarnation, Gen. 1:26, 2:23, 24, 3:15. But the simple believers could suffice with those two articles. For implicitly they then nevertheless also believed in the proper mysteries of Christianity, the Trinity and the incarnation. [519] In the existence and the unity of God the Trinity lies implicitly, and in that He is remunerator the incarnation lies implicitly enclosed. Now others, such as Wiggers, Daelman etc. did not yet see this latter so clearly, and therefore said that the O. T. believers had to accept four articles, namely besides the two mentioned above also the immortality of the soul and the corruption of sin (infectio animarum), in which then the two chief dogmas of Christianity were implicitly included. The most usual presentation, however, was that the two named articles were sufficient for the O. T. believers. But after the fall of Jerusalem those two principal truths of Christianity have been clearly revealed and made known; and now it is therefore necessitate medii necessary for everyone who wants to be saved,
that he accept these four articles: Deus, isque remunerator, sanctissima trinitas, mediator. Others add still other articles to them, such as Deus
Creator, Dei gratia ad salutem necessaria, immortalitas; and some even call the acceptance of the 12 articles, quoad substantiam, necessary. But the advocates of the four articles nevertheless express the most common opinion. This whole doctrine of the fides implicita is then supported with an appeal to Job 1:14: the oxen, i.e. the developed believers, were ploughing, and the she-asses, i.e. the simple laymen, grazing at their side. This exegesis already occurs in Gregorius M. Moral. lib. II cap. 25 and is then taken over by Lombardus, Thomas, Bellarminus etc. Cf. Lombardus, Sent. III dist. 25.
Thomas, S. Theol. II 2 qu. 2 art. 5-8. Bellarminus, de Justific. I cap. 7.
Billuart, Summa S. Thomae sive Cursus Theol. VII p. 46 sq. Daelman, Theol. seu Observ. theol. in Summam D. Thomae IV p. 44 sq. Dens,
Theologia in usum semin. II 278 sq. M. Becanus, Theol. Scholastica, Tom.
II Pars II tract. 1 p. 22 sq. Jansen, Praelect. Theol. I 699 sq. Albr. Ritschl, Fides implicita, Bonn 1890. The question itself, which underlies this doctrine of the fides implicita, is serious and important enough; it concerns nothing less than the essence of Christianity itself, the significance of Israel, the possibility of progression of revelation with the absolute character of the truth. But the intellectualistic conception of faith led to solving this question purely quantitatively; the acceptance of four articles of faith [520] makes the Christian; in practice the legend of the fides carbonaria proved to contain but all too much truth. In any case, however, the doctrine of the fides implicita clearly proves that the Roman theologians make a distinction between faith and theology in content and extent.
5. The Reformation, too, remained conscious of this difference. Lutheran and Reformed theologians adopted the distinction of habitus and actus of
theology, of theologia infusa and acquisita. The former is the portion of all believers; in principle they know totam theologiam, they have the true and pure knowledge of God. But as acquisita it is only the portion of those who practice the knowledge of God scientifically. For then it is a notitia conclusionum ex principiis theologicis per discursum theologicum collectarum, et certo ordine dispositarum, atque animo impressarum diuturno labore ac exercitio, Alsted, Methodus sacrosanctae theologiae
1623 p. 117, 126, 175. Owen, Theologoumena p. 465 sq. Calovius, Isagoge ad S. Theol. p. 17, 18. To be sure, religio and theologia were repeatedly interchanged with one another, cf. e.g. Cloppenburg, Op. I 699. Mastricht,
Theor.-pract. Theol. I cap. 2 § 3, which could occur all the more easily because theology and dogmatics were approximately the same. But even in the heyday of orthodoxy the distinction between faith and theology did not entirely perish, as is proved by the doctrine of the articuli fundamentales et non fundamentales. The Reformation decisively rejected the Roman doctrine of the fides implicita, Calv., Inst. III. 2 § 2-6. Chamier, Panstr.
Cath. T. III lib. 12 cap. 5. Polanus, Synt. Theol. p. 592. Maresius, Synt.
Theol. loc. 11 § 29, etc. Cf. Ritschl, Fides implicita S. 56 f. It had to do this, because it did not let saving faith consist in holding for true some incomprehended articles, but in a personal trust in the grace of God in Christ. But in place of that there soon came the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental articles. Calvin already said that one ought not to separate from the church over less essential points, Instit. IV, 1
§ 12, 13. IV, 2 § 1. Non enim unius sunt formae omnia verae doctrinae capita. Sunt quaedam ita necessaria cognitu, ut fixa esse et indubitata omnibus oporteat ceu propria religionis placita, qualia sunt: unum esse
Deum, [521] Christum Deum esse ac Dei filium, in Dei misericordia
salutem nobis consistere et similia. Sunt alia, quae inter ecclesias controversa, fidei tamen unitatem non dirimant, IV cap. 1 § 12. The juxtaposition used in the description of faith, of a certain knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed in his word, and of a trust that all my sins are forgiven me for Christ's sake, could give occasion to seek the center of gravity either in the fides generalis or in the fides specialis.
The great number of churches that successively proceeded from the Reformation and differed from one another in various articles promoted the distinction between essential and incidental elements in revelation. The gradually arising syncretism and indifferentism, which went back from the particular to the common, made indication necessary of what belonged to the foundations of the Christian religion. Thus arose the doctrine of the articuli fundamentales. Nic. Hunnius seems to have used the expression first in his Διασκεψις de fundamentali dissensu doctrinae Lutheranae et
Calvinianae 1626. Quenstedt spoke of articuli primarii et secundarii. Others followed, both in the Lutheran and in the Reformed churches, cf. Voetius,
Disp. Sel. II 511-538. H. Alting, Theol. probl. nova I 9. Spanheim fil., Opera III col. 1289 sq. Heidegger, Theol. I § 51 sq. Turret. Theol. El. I qu.
14. Moor, Comm. in Marckii Comp. I 481 sq. Witsius, Exercit. in Symb. II § 2. Bretschneider, System. Entw. aller in der Dogm. vork. Begriffe, 4te
Aufl. 1841 S. 103 f. Tholuck, Der Geist der luth. Theologen Wittenbergs 1852 S. 252 f. Orthodoxy was of course not inclined to limit the articuli fundamentales to a small number; but nevertheless the striving is noticeable to conceive these articles centrally and to group them around the person of Christ. The Roman Catholics, however, rejected this distinction, even though it apparently still had so much resemblance to the fides implicita.
They brought the Reformed and Lutheran divines into no small
embarrassment. They asked where God in his word had made a distinction between essential and incidental truths; where one derived the right to separate in divine revelation the fundamental from the non-fundamental; which truths then had to be reckoned among the fundamental; who [522] had to determine that; and how, on such a standpoint, rationalism and indifferentism were to be avoided? Faith, after all, as they asserted, has not only as object the divina misericordia, Conc. Trid. sess. VI can. 12, but omnia quae Deus revelavit, Bellarminus, de Justif. I c. 8. According to the Jesuits at the religious colloquy at Regensburg 1601 it was also an articulus fidei, quod canis Tobiae caudam moverit. Cf. Denzinger, Vier Bücher usw.
II 277 f. Heinrich, Dogm. II 658 f. Jansen, Prael. Theol. I 449 sq.
Lamennais, Essai sur l'indifférence I ch. 6, 7, etc. Over against all these objections the Protestant theologians did indeed appeal to Scripture, Mt.
16:16; 1 Cor. 2:2, 3:11 v.; Ef. 2:20; Gal. 6:14; 1 Petr. 2:6, etc. and did indeed make all kinds of distinctions, Spanheim. t. a. p. col. 1308 sq. But they did not conceal the difficulties from themselves; they were afraid of erring in excessu and in defectu; and they ended with the declaration that they could not determine the minimum of knowledge with which a sincere faith had to be accompanied, Voetius, Disp. II 537, 781. Spanheim t. a. p. col. 1291. Witsius, Exerc. in Symb. II § 2 and 15. Hoornbeek, Conf. Socin.
I p. 209. Orthodoxy issued in rationalism on the one side and pietism on the other. Doctrine and life fell farther and farther apart. Head and heart contended for precedence. Theology and religion came to stand over against one another. We have not yet got beyond the antithesis. For years there has been the cry: religion is not doctrine but life; it does not matter what you believe, but only how you live. Gradually, however, the eyes are also opening to the one-sidedness of this direction and the value of religious
representations for religious life is being better recognized, cf. e.g. Dr.
Bruining in various writings, Gids Juni 1884. Moderne mystiek 1885. Het bestaan van God 1892. Theol. Tijdschr. Nov. 1894.
6. In the investigation into the relation of faith and theology, the question must be posed purely. It does not read: which truths someone must at least know and hold for true, in order to be saved. Let that question be left to Rome; and let Roman theology determine whether for that purpose two or four or more articles are needed. Protestant theology has, in the doctrine of the articuli fundamentales, indeed incurred the appearance [523] as though it wished to follow such a path. But it has ended with the acknowledgment that it did not know the greatness of God's mercy and therefore could not determine the measure of knowledge that is necessarily proper to a sincere faith. And moreover, between the doctrine of the fides implicita and that of the articuli fundamentales, with all apparent agreement, there is an important difference. In Rome that doctrine was developed with a view to the simple laypeople, the asinae of Job 1:14. But in the theology of the Reformation it had its origin in the fact that different churches appeared alongside one another with a confession differing among themselves on many points; it was thus actually an investigation into the essence of Christianity. In Rome faith is assent to all kinds of revealed truths, which can be added up article by article and in the course of time have increased in number. But the Reformation conceived faith as fides specialis, with a particular central object, the grace of God in Christ; here a summation of articles, whose knowledge and assent are necessary for salvation, was no longer possible. Faith is a personal relation of the human being to Christ; it is organic and has laid aside addition, quantity. Rome therefore had to determine a minimum, without which there can be no question of salvation;
with the Reformation faith is a trust in the grace of God and thus is no longer susceptible to any calculation. Every believer, both in the O. and in the N. Test., possesses in germ that same knowledge which in theology is developed more deeply and more broadly. From this standpoint the relation of faith and theology is also to be set in a clearer light.
First of all there is between the two a strong agreement. They have the principle: the word of God, the object: the knowledge of God, the goal: the honor of God in common with one another. Theology also, as a science, stands on the foundation of faith. The place which in the other sciences belongs to observation is here taken by faith. Faith provides theology with the material for thinking. In mundane science it is called: sensus praecedit intellectum, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu; in theology the motto is: fides praecedit intellectum, nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in fide, Rothe, Theol. Ethik § 267 II S. 180 [524] note. Leibniz therefore compared la foi with l'expérience, Discours sur la conformité de la foi avec la raison, ch. 1. Begriffe ohne Anschauungen sind leer, said
Kant; and thus theology also has no content except from and through faith.
As soon as it lets go of faith, it itself as theology ceases to exist. And also by thinking it never rises above this standpoint of faith. In all manner of ways this has indeed been attempted, but it has proved vain. Faith is the beginning and also the end of theology; it never brings it to a knowing in the proper sense, i.e. to a knowing on the ground of one's own observation and insight. Thereby theology is not deprived of its freedom. Faith simply posits and maintains that relation which in this domain ought to exist between subject and object. It does not place the theologian outside and over against and above, but under and in the truth which he has to investigate. It does nothing else than bind theology to its own object, in no
other way than every other science is bound and remains bound to observation and through it stands in relation with its object. Theology is as free and as dependent as every other science. It is free from all bonds that conflict with its nature; but it is wholly and entirely determined by the object which it seeks to know, and this it has in common with all sciences.
The more strictly it binds itself to its object, the less danger it runs of degenerating into dry scholasticism and idle rhetoric. Through faith theology remains a science of religion, a Theologie der Thatsachen, which thinks not about concepts but about things and does not lose itself in empty abstractions but stands with both feet in that world of realities which Scripture reveals to us, Vilmar, Die Theologie der Thatsachen wider die
Theologie der Rhetorik, 4e Aufl. 1876.
But on the other side there is a considerable difference between faith and theology. In earlier times both could easily be interchanged with one another, because theology and dogmatics were fairly well identical concepts with ethics. But theology has now become the name for an entire cycle of disciplines. The distinction therefore now at once strikes everyone's eye.
Theology nowadays comprises a multitude of sciences, which the simple believer does not even know by name [525]. But even if theology is taken in the old sense, the distinction nevertheless remains great. In every domain there is a difference between ordinary, everyday, empirical knowing, and proper, higher, scientific knowing. Every human being has some empirical knowledge of sun, moon, stars, etc., but this knowledge differs as widely as heaven and earth from the scientific knowledge of the astronomer. The former knows only the facta, the latter the rationes. The man of science does not despise ordinary, empirical knowing; he does not overthrow natural certainty; but he nevertheless has the calling to elucidate that
ordinary knowing, to expand it, and, if necessary, also to purify and improve it. It is no different in theology. Faith remains with the facts, theology seeks to penetrate to the idea. Faith has enough with the that, theology asks after the why and the how. Faith is always personal, it always places the object in relation to the human being himself, it has a direct interest in the religious content of the dogmata; theology in a certain sense makes the object gegenständlich, it attempts to view the truth as it objectively exists in itself, it traces its unity and its inner connection, and seeks to arrive at a system. Faith is directed to the central object, theology extends the investigation to the whole circumference of the circle. But however different, they cannot do without one another. Faith preserves theology from secularization, theology preserves faith from separatism.
Therefore church and school (seminary, theol. faculty) are indeed two, but nevertheless ought to stand in close connection. Nor is anything thereby detracted from the freedom and independence of theology. Every faculty practises science not only for its own sake, but also trains men for various positions in society. Every science in fact has to reckon with the demands of life. And thus theology too stands not high above, but in the midst of real life, in the life of the congregation. The disproportion which now almost everywhere exists between church and theology is a disaster for both.
7. If theology thus has its principium internum not in faith as such but in believing thought, the task of reason in theological science must be defined more precisely. In that case, first of all, in principle that conception must be rejected which sees in faith and reason two independent powers that struggle with one another to the death. In that way one creates an antithesis which does not belong on Christian ground. Faith is then always supra or even contra rationem. On the one side rationalism threatens and on the other
side supranaturalism. Faith, the fides qua creditur, is not an organ or faculty alongside and above reason, but a disposition, a habit of reason itself.
Reason, or if one prefers, thought, is certainly no source of theology, no principium quo seu per quod aut ex quo seu cur credamus, Voetius, Disp. I p. 3; reason is a source for no science at all or at most only for the formal sciences, logika and mathesis. But reason is nevertheless subjectum fidei recipiens, fidei capax; faith is an act of consciousness, of human consciousness; an animal is not capable of believing. And furthermore faith is no compulsion, but a free act of man. The Christian does not believe by command, out of fear, by violence. Believing has become the natural habitus of his understanding. Naturally not in that sense as if there were not time and again much in his soul that resists that believing. But yet indeed so, that he, although often doing what he does not will, nevertheless has a delight in the law of God according to the inner man. Believing is the natural breath of the child of God. His submission to the word of God is not slavery but freedom. Faith is in this sense no sacrificium intellectus but sanitas mentis. Faith therefore does not release the Christian from investigation and reflection; rather it incites him thereto. Nature is not destroyed by regeneration but restored.
Therefore, beforehand the believer who wishes to devote himself to theology has to prepare his thinking for the task that awaits him. There is no entrance into the temple of theology except through the facultas artium. A philosophical, historical, and linguistic propaedeutic is indispensable for the practitioner of theological science. Philosophy, said Clemens Alexandrinus, προκατασκευαζει την ὁδον τῃ βασιλικωτατῃ διδασκαλιᾳ. Emperor Julian knew what he was doing when he took pagan science away from the Christians; he feared being defeated with his own weapons [527]. This
thinking, thus prepared and exercised, then has in theology in the main a threefold task. First of all it renders its service in the discovery of the material. Scripture is the principle of theology. But that Scripture is no lawbook; it is an organic whole. The material for theology, specifically for dogmatics, lies scattered throughout the whole of Scripture. As gold from the mine, so the truth of faith must be dug out of Scripture with the exertion of all spiritual power. With a few loca probantia nothing is accomplished.
Not on a few loose texts but on Scripture in its entirety must the dogma be built; it must arise organically from the principia, which are present for it everywhere in Scripture. The doctrine of God, of man, of sin, of Christ, etc. is, after all, not to be found only in a few statements, but is spread through the whole of Scripture and is contained not only in some proof-texts but also in all kinds of images and parables, ceremonies and histories. No part of Scripture may be neglected. The whole Scripture proves the whole system, Hofmann, Der Schriftbeweis, 2e Aufl. I S. 1-32. Also in theology separatism must be avoided. It is a characteristic of many sects that they proceed from a small portion of Scripture and otherwise neglect it entirely.
The worst and most widespread is the rejection or neglect of the Old Testament. Marcionitism has repeatedly returned in the Christian church and also plays a great role in more recent theology, cf. Diestel, Gesch. des
Alten Test. in der christl. Kirche, Jena 1869. H. Schmidt, Der Marcionitismus in der neueren Theologie, Neue Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol.
1893, and later in the doctrine of the covenants. All this arbitrary use of Holy Scripture leads to one-sidedness and error in theology and to sickness in religious life. The full rich image of the truth then does not come to light.
The person and the work of the Father or of the Son or of the Holy Spirit are misunderstood. Christ is done injustice in his prophetic, or in his
priestly, or in his kingly office. The Christian religion forfeits its catholic character. Head, heart, and hand of the Christian are not harmoniously formed and guided by the truth. Only the full, whole Scripture preserves from all these one-sidednesses. But therefore thinking also has, in this investigation of the theological material, an important task.
Next, the theologian also has to work over this material thus obtained by thinking. The dogmata do not stand totidem verbis, κατα ρητον but κατα διανοιαν in Scripture; they are conclusiones fidei. The doctrine of the Trinity, of the two natures of Christ, of satisfaction, of the sacraments, etc. is not based on one single statement of Scripture, but is built up from many data that lie scattered throughout the whole of Scripture. Dogmata are the brief summary in our language of all that Scripture teaches about the respective subjects. The Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians have therefore, over against all kinds of directions that wanted to remain standing with the literal expressions of Scripture, defended the right of dogmatic terminology. They did that, not because they wanted to be less, but because they wanted to be more and better scriptural than these. Then precisely, in their thought, Scripture came to its full honor, when not one single text was literally cited but when the whole truth, contained in many texts, was summarized and set forth in the dogma. Theology is therefore not only a noëtic, but also a dianoëtic, not an apprehensive but a discursive science. It reflects, compares, judges, summarizes, derives other truths from those obtained, etc. Jesus and the apostles also did so, Mt. 22:32, 44 v.; Joh. 10:34 v.; Hd. 15:9 v., 18:28; 1 Cor. 15, etc.; and church fathers, scholastics,
Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians have followed that example.
God has not called us to repeat literally but to think through what He in his revelation has thought out for us. And finally thinking in theology still has
the task of summarizing all truth into one system. A system is the highest thing that can be desired in science. Theology too does not rest until it has discovered the unity that lies hidden in revelation. It may not impose that system from without, and press the truth into a philosophical system that is foreign to its essence. But it nevertheless seeks as long as, until in human consciousness the system is reflected that is present in the object itself. In all this theology proceeds just like other sciences. It works in the same way.
Like these it is bound to its object. In thinking it is subject [529] to the laws that apply for that thinking; it too cannot sin against logic with impunity,
Alsted, Praecognita 186. The highest for it too is the unity of truth, the system of the knowledge of God. However much theology may differ from the other sciences, in principle, object, and goal; formally it agrees with them and may rightly lay claim to the name of science. And because revelation does not conflict with human reason per se, but only per accidens corruptionis et pravae dispositionis, therefore theology can even in a certain sense be called naturalis and rationalis, Voetius, Disp. I 3. The Christian religion is a λογικη λατρεια, Rom. 12:1. The literature on the use of reason and of philosophy in theology is astonishingly rich. See for the church fathers Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit IV 143 f. Denzinger, Vier Bücher usw.
II 574 f., and further Voetius, Disp. Sel. I p. 1-11. Turretinus, Theol. El. loc.
1 qu. 8-13. Witsius, Misc. Sacra II 584 sq. and further literature in M.
Vitringa's edition of C. Vitringa, Doctrina christ. relig. I p. 32-34.
8. But even if knowledge in theology is attainable, it does not bring it to understanding.
Between knowing, being acquainted with, and understanding there is a great distinction. These words are indeed often used interchangeably; but there is nevertheless a clearly demonstrable difference. Knowing concerns existence, the that; being acquainted with the
quality, the what; understanding the inner possibility, the how of a thing. We understand very little, actually only that which is wholly in our power, which we can make and break. I understand a machine, when I see how it is put together and how it works, when nothing wondrous remains in it.
Understanding excludes wonder and admiration. I understand or think I understand what, as people say, speaks for itself and is perfectly natural.
Often understanding ceases, in proportion as one investigates more deeply.
What spoke for itself turns out to be wholly unusual and wondrous. The further a science penetrates into its object, to that extent it approaches the mystery. Even if it encountered no other on its path, it would nevertheless in the end always run up against the mystery of being. Where, however, understanding ceases, there nevertheless still remains room for being acquainted with and admiring. So it is also in theology. In revelation the μυστηριον εὐσεβειας [530] has been disclosed to us, the mystery of God's grace. We see it, it confronts us as a reality in history and in one's own life; but we do not fathom it. In this sense Christian theology has always to do with mysteries, which it can indeed know and admire but cannot understand and fathom.
Often, however, the mystery in Christian theology has been understood in a wholly different sense. The word μυστηριον, from μυστης, μυω, to close, to shut, of eyes, lips, wounds; is in ordinary Greek the name for the religious-political secret doctrine which in some societies of Eleusis,
Samothrace etc. was communicated only to the initiated and was kept hidden from all others, Foucart, des associations religieuses chez les Grecs,
Paris 1873. Edwin Hatch, Griechentum u. Christenthum, deutsch v.
Preuschen 1892 S. 210 f. Gustav Anrich, Das antike Mysteriënwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christ. Göttingen 1894. In the N. Test. the word
always has religious significance and denotes a matter of the kingdom of God, which either on account of the obscure, enigmatic form in which it is presented, Mt. 13:11; Mk. 4:11; Luk. 8:10; Op. 1:20, 17:5, 7, or also on account of its content is hidden. Especially it is so called of the universal decree of counsel of God concerning redemption in Christ, also encompassing the Gentiles, Rom. 16:25; Ef. 1:9, 3:3, 6:19; Col. 1:26, 27,
2:2, 4:3, as well as the manner in which this is carried out, Rom. 11:25; 1 Cor. 15:51; 2 Thess. 2 vs. 7; Op. 10:7. But this mysterium is then so called, not because it is still hidden now, but because it was formerly unknown.
Now it has precisely been made manifest through the gospel of Christ; it is proclaimed by the apostles as οἰκονομοι μυστηριων θεου, Rom. 16:25, 26;
Col. 1:26; 1 Cor. 2:14; Mt. 13:11; 1 Cor. 4:1; and it also henceforth comes more and more to light in history, 1 Cor. 15:51, 52; 2 Thess. 2:7. The N. T. μυστηριον thus does not denote a truth of faith that is not understood and incomprehensible to the thinking intellect, but a matter that was first hidden with God, then has been made known in the gospel and now is understood by believers, Cremer, Wörterbuch der neutest. Gräcität s. v. But ecclesiastical usage soon understood by it a matter that was incomprehensible and also far surpassed the understanding of the believer
[531], such as the incarnation, the unio mystica, the sacraments etc., and later all articuli puri, which could not be proved by reason, Suicerus, Thes.
Eccles. s. v. Even thus there still remained a great difference between pagan and Christian usage. For there it denoted a secret doctrine that had to be kept hidden from the uninitiated; but in the Christian church there has never existed a proper disciplina arcana, even though a certain order was observed in the communication of the truth. Zezschwitz, art. Arkandisciplin in Herzog2. Hatch, Griechenthum u. Christ. 217 f. Kattenbusch, Vergleichende
Konfessionskunde I 393 f. Suicerus, Thes. Eccl. s. v. δογμα. But nevertheless the dogmata were uncomprehended and incomprehensible truths of faith, indeed not contra but yet highly supra rationem, Thomas, S.
Theol. I qu. 32. art. I S. c. Gent. I c. 3 IV c. 1. Bellarminus, de Christo I 3. II 6. Heinrich II 772 f. Denzinger, Vier Bücher v. d. rel. Erk. II 80-150.
Kleutgen, Theol. der Vorzeit V 164 f. In the condemnation of Erigena, Raimundus Lullus, Hermes, Günther, Frohschammer Rome expressed its disapproval of every attempt to prove the mysteries of faith from reason.
And the Conc. Vatic. declared: divina mysteria suapte natura intellectum creatum sic excedunt, ut etiam revelatione tradita et fide suscepta, ipsius tamen fidei velamine contecta et quadam quasi caligine obvoluta maneant, quamdiu in hac mortali vita peregrinamur a Domino; per fidem enim ambulamus, et non per speciem, sess. 3 cap. 4. The Reformation did indeed acknowledge the supranatural character of revelation but nevertheless in fact introduced a great change. With Rome the mysteries are in the first place incomprehensible for the reason that they belong to another, higher, supernatural order, which far surpasses the understanding of man as such. It must therefore place all emphasis on the incomprehensibility of the mysteries and protect and maintain these. The incomprehensible seems in itself to be a proof of the truth. Credibile est, quia ineptum est.... Certum, quia impossibile, Tertull. de carne Chr. 5. But the Reformation replaced this opposition of natural and supernatural order with that of sin and grace. It sought the essence of the mystery not in the fact that it was incomprehensible to man in itself, but to the understanding of the psychical man, [532] Calv. Inst. II, 2, 20. Voetius, Disp. I 3. Without doubt this view is much more in agreement with N. Testament usage. Nowhere does the abstract-supernatural and the scientifically-incomprehensible of the mystery
stand in the foreground there. But while it is a foolishness in the eyes of the natural man, however wise he may be; it is revealed to believers, who see in it divine wisdom and grace, Mt. 11:25, 13:11, 16:17; Rom. 11:33; 1 Cor.
1:30. Naturally Scripture does not thereby intend to make known that the believer understands and comprehends those mysteries in a scientific sense.
For we walk by faith, know in part and see through a mirror in a dark saying, Rom. 11:34; 1 Cor. 13:12; 2 Cor. 5:7. But the believer nevertheless knows those mysteries; they are no longer foolishness and offence to him; he admires God's wisdom and love in them. Therefore it does not occur to him that they go beyond his reason, that they are supra rationem; he does not feel them as a burdensome load but as a liberation for his thinking. His faith passes over into admiration, his knowledge ends in adoration, and his confession issues in a song of praise and thanksgiving. Of that nature is also the knowledge of God which is aimed at in theology. It is not knowing alone and much less a comprehending; but it is better and more glorious, it is a knowledge which is life, eternal life, Joh. 17:3. Cf. concerning the μυστηρια, besides the literature already mentioned, also Bretschneider,
Syst. Entw. aller in der Dogm. vork. Begriffe I 168. J. Boeles, de mysteriis in relig. christ. 1843. Scholten, L. H. K. I 223. Oosterzee, Dogm. I 168.
Philippi Comm. op Rom. 11:25. Gretillat, Exposé de théol. syst. I 182 s. II 183.
PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITOR'S
REMARKS.
E very effort has been made to provide in this file a faithful reproduction of the original version. In the original, æ is rendered almost everywhere as ae, and œ everywhere as oe. This spelling has been maintained here.
Inconsistent spelling such as deïsme/deisme etc. has been retained.
Here and there, however, spacing or punctuation has been silently corrected. Nouns in German have, where necessary, been silently provided with a capital letter.
Overly obvious printing and spelling errors in the original have been corrected as follows.
Corrections.
Pag. 5: the word "worden" inserted (It must therefore be distinguished between).
Pag. 7: "phychological" replaced by "psychological" (as a historical and psychological phenomenon).
Pag. 31: replace "geplitst" with "gesplitst" (has branched and split).
Pag. 32: "πιστεας" replaced by "πιστεως" (Ἐκδοσις ἀκριβης της ὀρθοδοξου πιστεως).
Pag. 35: "Chtistus" replaced by "Christus" (the person and the work of Christ).
Pag. 54: "Jahrb." replaced by "Jahrh." (Gesch. der 3 ersten Jahrh.).
Footnote 1: "El." replaced by "Ed." (Ed. du Pin, Nouvelle Bibliothèque).
Pag. 75: replace "den den" with "den" (who make man attain this goal).
Pag. 78: Replace "Erankrijk" with "Frankrijk" (Fridolinus and Columbanus † 615 and others worked in Frankrijk and Italy).
Pag. 81: "nn" replaced by "nu" (In addition, now in the second place).
Pag. 83: "thologie" replaced by "theology" (to theology an honorary place assured).
Pag. 92: "6e" replaced by "de" (But with that the struggle was not over).
Pag. 96: replace "objects" with "objets" (les premiers objets des connaissances morales).
Pag. 102: "objective" replaced by "objective" (concerning all objective truth).
Pag. 103: "Vernumft" replaced by "Vernunft" (innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft).
Pag. 122: "Sanmur" replaced by "Saumur" (In France the academy of Saumur was).
Pag. 127: "anjourdhui" replaced by "aujourd'hui" (qui règne aujourd'hui parmi les Chrétiens).
Pag. 132: "eightteenth" replace with "eighteenth" (the evangelical reaction of the eighteenth century).
Pag. 133: "Archbishop" replace with "Archbishop" (he was the Archbishop of the Slums).
Pag. 138: "Systematie" replaced by "Systematic" (Systematic Theology London).
Pag. 153: "Stof" replaced by "Stoff" (L. Büchner, Kraft und Stoff).
Pag. 158: "auschaulichen" replaced by "anschaulichen" (wurzelt auf der anschaulichen Welt).
Pag. 162: "Vorstelling" replaced by "Vorstellung" (φαντασια, φαντασμα, species sensibilis, perception, Vorstellung).
Pag. 167: "and" replaced by "und" (Nominalismus und Realismus in der neuesten deutschen Philosophie).
Pag. 208: "contract" replaced by "contrat" (the adherents of the contrat social).
Pag. 221: "veroordeelf" replaced by "veroordeelt" (and thus condemns both traditionalism).
Pag. 240: "unconsciously" replaced by "unbewusst" (Das unbewusst Weissagende).
Pag. 259: " ֹאותֹות" replaced by "אֹות" (Above all they are also called אֹות Ex.
3:12).
Pag. 278: "uniomis" replaced by "unionis" (not reconciliationis but unionis).
Pag. 278: "tegenver" replaced by "tegenover" (Revelation does not stand opposite nature).
Pag. 309: "sec." replaced by "saec." (patres apostolici et apologetae sec. saec. Lips. 1872).
Pag. 313: "39" replaced by "3o" (3o liber aliquis).
Pag. 313: "El." replaced by "Ed." (Ed. du Pin, Dissert. préliminaire).
Pag. 325: replace "zijn" with "zij" (zij assume it).
Pag. 328: "reede" replaced by "reeds" (the men of Hezekiah already laid out a second collection).
Pag. 333: "bij" replaced by "by" (The modes of quotation used by the evangelical writers).
Pag. 343: "4te" replaced by "4th" (4th ed. London 1854).
Pag. 343: "heroen" replaced by "heroën" (has therefore pointed to the heroën or genii).
Pag. 389: "comtemplatie" replaced by "contemplation" (that of contemplation and visio Dei).
Pag. 400: "continna" replaced by "continua" (a Sp. So. dictatas et continua successione).
Pag. 404: "Oevres" replaced by "Oeuvres" (Oeuvres Choisies de Joseph de Maistre).
Pag. 409: "andieritis" replaced by "audieritis" (quidquid inde audieritis, hoc vobis bene sapiat).
Pag. 426: replace "praepatorii" with "praeparatorii" (the human being has prepared himself through the actus praeparatorii).
Pag. 432: "toepepast" replaced by "toegepast" (applied to dogmatics).
Pag. 444: "chritienne" replaced by "chrétienne" (De la certitude chrétienne).
Pag. 491: "van" replaced by "von" (Die Lehre der altprot. Dogm. von dem test. Sp. S.).
Pag.
510:
"iucarnationis" replaced by "incarnationis"
(modos incarnationis intueri).